Open Scroll was built for readers in prisons and jails who have a tablet but no internet, no study books and no library.
Ministries, chaplains and facilities can use it free, beside the work they already do.
A free, word-by-word Bible study program.
Open Scroll puts every word of Scripture on a card in the language it was first written in, Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, and explains it in plain English. No study books needed. No teacher needed. Just the tablet already in the cell.
Free. Nothing to sign up for. Nothing to buy.
Hebrew Word By Word
Three steps, the same on every one of the 1,189 pages.
The English verse sits at the top, in a blue box, in the words of the American Standard Version, with its printed punctuation. The English is always the starting place.
Swipe through the cards. Each shows the word as written, a plain say line, its pieces, and what the dictionaries say it can mean.
Light up every use of a word with Match. Open a related verse and come back with the Back bar. Check the map for the chapter.
God has a personal name in the Hebrew Bible, written with four letters. Most English Bibles print LORD in its place, about 6,800 times. The American Standard Version, the English on Open Scroll’s pages, prints Jehovah: the four letters read with the vowel marks of Adonai, a Hebrew word for Lord.
And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
Exodus 3:15, American Standard Version
On Open Scroll, the cards for the Name show the four Hebrew letters, YHWH in English letters, and the names of the letters. When the Name is shown where it stands, a reader can see who is named in each verse, and the words read the way they were first written.
The cards also show God’s titles as the Hebrew writes them: El, Elohim, Adonai, El Shaddai and more.
A study library for a reader who has no library.
The original word as written, a say line in plain English letters, its smaller pieces, and dictionary meanings that go deep, not just one word.
Tap a card and every use of that word in the chapter turns green, along with the verse buttons that hold it. Patterns show at a glance.
Under every verse, a list of linked passages from CrossReferences.org. Open one, read it in its setting, and tap Back to return.
Plates from Hurlbut’s 1910 and MacCoun’s 1912 Bible atlases beside modern Biblica maps. Lands, cities, roads and borders, with a map link on the chapters that need one.
Eight English Bibles, among them Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Messianic editions and the Greek Old Testament in English, plus 1 Enoch and Jubilees. Read a book straight through, or compare how translations handle the same verse.
Short pages on the books of the Bible, God’s Name, the Hebrew calendar, dates, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and highlights of the Bible story in 109 pictures.
Made to pass a facility’s review and to work on the tablets incarcerated men and women already have.
Named sources, nothing invented. Facts, not opinions.
The full list is on the page Bible Sources, Credits & Licenses, inside the program.
Open Scroll sits beside the Bible studies you already use. It does not replace them.
No cost, no sign-up, no ads and nothing to buy. Recommend it and link to it as freely as you like.
No messaging, no accounts and no social features. Plain pages that show Scripture and study helps, and nothing else.
It shows the words and what the dictionaries say. It teaches no church’s doctrine, so it fits beside any program.
To load Open Scroll onto a tablet platform or your own site, write to us first.
Write to inquiry@openscrollproject.orgBegin with the English verse. Look beneath it. See each word in the language it was first written in.
Sample the program