AT LAST. I CAN FIND MY BIBLE MAPS within a few seconds.
We just launched a new website for The Casual English Bible® and one of my favorite things about this site is that I can find any Casual English Bible® map by typing a few keystrokes.
Go to the site’s Map page and start typing into the search box.
- Z-O-R-A-H will get you the Casual English Bible’s one-of-a-kind 3D maps about Samson’s hometown.
- J-E-Z-R-E-E-L will get you maps of the Jezreel Valley, including one that is perhaps the best map we’ve ever created.
Free Good Friday map
In fact, go to the website’s Store and click the high resolution PDF map called Good Friday Map of Crucifixion Sites.
Add it to your cart. Ignore the $40 price tag. You get it for free this week to help you better understand the movements of Jesus on Thursday and Friday.(But please don’t post it or publish it with permission. It’s copyrighted and folks need a license to do publish it even in social media. The modest licensing fees help keep the website free.)
Type this code in the coupon box: It is finished
This gift offer of a Good Friday map will expire on Saturday, April 16, 2022.
Sorting through 500 maps
We have over 500 maps so far. Until now, it has been hard for me to find my own maps. I had to remember which Bible chapters I linked them to. Now all I do is go to the Maps page and type in the name of a place, person, or topic.
What a time-saver.
Even easier to read
We’ve also made the website format more intuitive and easier to read. The earlier website wasn’t built for maps, videos, photos, and extensive footnotes. We started adding those extras as we got deeper into the work of paraphrasing. We figured the Bible paraphrase wasn’t enough for Bible newcomers. They need to see the lay of the land and read Bible background notes to help fill in details from history.
This is a Bible especially for Bible newcomers. “Folks who don’t read the Bible need a Bible they can read” isn’t just a cute tag line. It guides the translation away from churchy and scholarly words that are familiar and endearing to longtime Christians but that make no sense to Bible newcomers.
How we’re funding the site
Publishers didn’t warm up to the idea of a Bible like this. But it’s something I felt I needed to do, with or without their blessing. I’ve learned to trust that feeling. Even when it doesn’t make sense. And this does not make sense. I’ll grant you that.
We’ve hired people now to help us create and maintain the website. And we’re about to hire an editor to help us proof and edit this first-draft beta project, and take it to the next level. We expect to produce paperback versions of the Casual English Bible® New Testament. A text-only edition. And, hopefully, another edition with maps.
This has been a project that until a few months ago I funded entirely by myself, with God’s help and my wife’s approval.
But a big thank you to the donors who have started helping me in recent months.
Help, if you can
We’ve set up a way for others to support the work with monthly or one-time gifts. I hope you’ll consider helping through the Patreon or Donorbox options you’ll see on the site.
We’re also experimenting with allowing ads on the site, and trying not to make them too intrusive. We’re more aggressively marketing the Bible maps and Bible study leaders guides, as well.
I’m not a good marketing guy or salesperson. I’m terrible at that stuff. I couldn’t sell a snowball in a desert to a white man with a sunburn.
I’m happiest working alone on my writing, and on the Bible paraphrase, and the related projects of Bible maps, leader’s guides, and videos. Marketing is a huge distraction for me.
But whatta ya’ gonna do?
The web developer wants paid, and he’s bigger than me. The editor is a writer, and nobody should mess with a writer. The pen is mightier than the sword. You can wash away the blood, but ink will stain you to the bone.
So, we do best we can.
All of this is helping keep the website freely available and constantly expanding with new maps and newly paraphrased Bible chapters.
Visit the new website
We finished the first pass at the entire New Testament and some of the most popular books in the Old Testament. Thirty-eight done. Twenty-seven to go. Working on Isaiah now. So pray for me. The writer was such a poet. And I don’t think many know it.
Take a look for yourself at the new website. See what you think. And let me know, for better or worse.
Peace to you.
Casual English Bible
Steve’s Bible-background YouTube Channel
More feature articles
Bible Gateway
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