OpenWordBase:About
From OpenWordBase
Establishing the Bible as a primary Textbook for the foundation of facts on all subject matter.
This book of the law ... thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. - Joshua 1:8
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About this Project
The Open Word Base (OWB) Project is an effort of Life in the Bible Institute and has as its purpose a collaboration, in a similar vain as those Open Source programs that are being developed around the world today, to develop a large, ever-growing and inexhaustible resource that can be used by parents, teachers, groups, and individuals who might find it difficult to find time to extract useful knowledge, for simple or complex daily use, primarily for learning, from the Bible. The premise of OWB is found in the Bible in 2 Timothy 3:16. If it seems that the Bible does not go into much detail on subjects, it is because we have not taken the time to study, meditate, and draw upon the verses provided and do not understand all the rich treasure that is to be found within its pages. Therefore, it is the task set before this OWB project, and all those scholars that participate, to draw the water from the well, so to speak, so that others who use this mighty resource might come to know and appreciate what an enormous resource of knowledge the Bible holds. It is our hope that this resource will come to be used as a curriculum by which people will teach their own or others' children as well as young adults for the advancement of education.
The very idea of creating such a tool as the OWB is grandiose, to say the least. The task is enormous, in that, its resource (the Bible) is even larger than life itself and virtually endless in knowledge and facts, most of which are hidden and must be dug out like gold. The only people who will find gold, buried in the hills, are those who have a desire and really want to have the gold. It is the same way with the knowledge of the Bible. Mining companies find that the more people there are who dig the faster they get at and can benefit from the gold. This is exactly how it is with this project. We need people to help us dig for that precious treasure that lies within.
Who and What Does this Project Need?
We are looking for contributors to the Open Word Base who might be knowledgeable, or who are willing to study to learn and then write, on one or more subjects, to enter vital information into the Open Word Base database. The ideal persons would be those persons who are subject experts or knowledgeable in a subject area or field.
Contributing will entail searching for verses from the Bible that speak to a particular subject or subjects and entering facts that can be gleaned from the verse or verses as they pertain to the subject or subjects. The process of actually entering facts and information has been made simple for contributors by the online OWB tool.
Each verse entered is to be treated as a single subject. Therefore, if you have a verse that addresses several subjects, you should enter the verse again as a separate entry for the next subject. Someone else might discover and write another subject on the same verse. The following might be an example:
FIRST ENTRY
Subject History
Verse Genesis 12:10
Facts (“And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.”)
This is the first famine on record, and it prevailed in the most fertile land then under the sun. It occurred in Canaan. Egypt was generally so productive as to be the granary of the neighboring countries. As Kenaan was the brother of Mizraim, the contact between the two countries in which they dwelt was natural and frequent.
SECOND ENTRY
Subject Meteorology
Verse Genesis 12:10
Facts (“And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.”)
This land is watered by periodical rains. A season of drought arrests the progress of vegetation, and brings on a famine. But in Egypt, the fertility of the loamy soil depends not on local showers, but on the annual rise of the Nile, which is fed by the rains of a far-distant mountain range. Hence, when the land of Canaan (Kenaan) was wasted by drought and consequent famine, Dry seasons and dearth of provisions seem to have been of frequent occurrence in the land of Kenaan (note Gen 26:1 and 41:56-57). Even Egypt itself was not exempt from such calamitous visitations.
In the examples above there are two more possible subjects that could be called into the verse and discussed factually: Topography and Geography.
If you feel that you could contribute entries to this OWB project, we encourage you to read the How to Participate page.
Who Can Benefit From The Open Word Base?
The Open Word Base tool is equipped with a search tool that allows a person to search in the three areas: subject, verse, or fact. This makes it possible for use by just about anyone, however, the target in mind at the outset of developing this tool was educators. By this it is meant people such as parents who teach their children at home, teachers who teach students at any grade level whatsoever, and people who have the yearning desire to take advantage of learning from the knowledge of the Bible. However, this said, it is important to point out that this tool should be able to demonstrate to a doubting world that the Bible holds absolute knowledge. They could, for example, simply look at the things that were said to Job, in the verses of the Book of Job, and see that no man could have known about these things 6000 years ago when they were authored; when the book of Job was written. The reason? The Bible speaks about inventions and science, 3400+ years ago, that were not discovered by man or science until the turn of the twentieth century. I would challenge anyone who does not believe that the Bible is absolute knowledge, or that it is just stories, fantasy, or fables, to stay with the development and findings of the OWB project and discover how mistaken they are in these suppositions.
