Blue Letter Bible

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About Blue Letter Bible

Powerful Bible study tools linked to every verse in an easy-to-use, personalized Bible reader!

Dig deep into God’s Word with over 30 Bible versions, audio Bibles, text and audio commentaries, Hebrew / Greek lexicon, concordances, dictionaries, advanced word searches, and more. Customize your reading experience with rich color themes, fonts, auto scrolling, and parallel version views. Personalize your study with highlighting, underlining, and note taking options – all with Cloud back up. 

 Join our 7.5 million+ annual website users and 1 million+ app users who choose to dig deeper into God’s Word with Blue Letter Bible! 

POWERFUL FREE BIBLE STUDY TOOLS 

• Study the Hebrew & Greek with our original language lexicon 

• Perform advanced word study searches using the many available dictionaries and encyclopedias 

• Use the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge for an in-depth study

• Read from the many available text commentaries 

• Listen to the Bible and audio commentaries 

CUSTOMIZED BIBLE READER 

• Christian Standard Bible (CSB) comes free & installed as part of the core Bibles!

• English Standard Version (ESV) is a free download

• Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) is a free download

• NASB and NASB2020 are free to download

• Choose from over 30 Bible translations available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, German, Russian, French, Hebrew, and Greek 

• Choose from various color themes, adjustable fonts and sizes with an automatic option

• Read different Bible versions side-by-side 

• Read the Bible with the variable speed auto-scroll feature 

PERSONALIZED BIBLE STUDY 

• Share verse passages to iMessage, Email, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and more 

• Bookmark your favorite chapters with visual indicators in the app and organize them in custom folders 

• Highlight and underline your favorite verses in customizable colors 

• Backup, restore, and share your preferences locally from iCloud

QUESTIONS? 

Questions or issues with the BLB app after updating? We’re here to serve! First, visit our FAQs by clicking on the link to our support site to see if your question can be answered there. If not, please leave your feedback on the support page and a member of our staff will get back to you  as soon as possible.

For those leaving iTunes Customer Reviews, please know that we have no way of contacting you unless you leave your feedback on the support page.

Please review and rate the Blue Letter Bible app!

Ratings and feedback will help us to improve the Blue Letter Bible app.

Version

App Information

When seminary meets your smartphone

Every Bible app claims to be the "ultimate study tool." Most are lying. Blue Letter Bible? It actually delivers on that promise. Sort of. After spending a month diving deep into this app's Greek lexicons and cross-references, I've discovered something fascinating: this is what happens when Bible scholars try to design an app. The result? Brilliant and frustrating in equal measure.

Six weeks of Hebrew homework and app crashes

Downloaded Blue Letter Bible after my pastor kept referencing Strong's numbers during sermons. First launch took forever - the app needed to "initialize resources" for 3 minutes. Not a great start.

Day one exploration revealed the treasure trove. Tap any verse and boom - instant access to the Greek or Hebrew. Not just definitions either. Full grammatical breakdowns, pronunciation guides (yes, it speaks Hebrew to you), and every single instance of that word throughout Scripture. Mind. Blown.

But then day three happened. Mid-study in Romans, the app froze. Not a slow freeze - complete lockup. Force quit, restart, same passage, freeze again. This pattern would haunt my entire testing period.

Week two brought discovery of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Ever wanted cross-references for literally every phrase? This thing delivers 500,000+ connections between verses. Studying John 3:16? Here's 47 related verses, organized by phrase. It's insane. In the best way.

The commentaries surprised me. Chuck Smith, Matthew Henry, David Guzik - all free. No subscription nag screens. Compare that to Logos wanting $599 for their commentary bundle. Sure, Logos has newer scholarship, but for most people? BLB's collection is solid gold.

By week three, I'd established a rhythm. Morning devotions using the parallel Bible feature (KJV on top, ESV below). The auto-scroll actually works smoothly - rare for Bible apps. Set speed, hands-free reading while making breakfast. Perfect.

Then came the Android tablet test. Installed on my Samsung Tab. Different interface layout. Where iOS has the tools at the bottom, Android puts them... somewhere? Took 20 minutes to find the highlighting menu. And the Android version lacks RGB color selection for highlights. Seriously? It's 2024 and we're still doing platform favoritism?

Week four introduced me to the BLB Institute - free Bible courses. Actual seminary-level content. Completed their "Introduction to Hermeneutics" module. Surprisingly thorough. Video quality looks like 2010 YouTube, but the content? Rock solid.

The search function deserves special mention. Not because it's good - because it's bizarre. Search "love" and get results instantly. Search "God's love" with the apostrophe and watch it choke. Remove punctuation and it works again. Who coded this thing?

Week five's discovery: no sync between devices. Highlighted 50 verses on iPhone. Open iPad version - nothing. Their "backup" system requires manual export/import through iCloud. It's like they stopped developing in 2015.

Final week, decided to stress test with a Bible study group. Five people, all using BLB, different devices. Two iPhones worked flawlessly. Android user experienced three crashes. iPad user couldn't get audio Bibles to load. My iPhone 14 Pro? Smooth sailing except when accessing the Septuagint - instant crash every time.

Feature breakdown that matters

Here's what actually works brilliantly: The interlinear Bible is unmatched in free apps. Click any word, see the original language, morphology, and every translation choice. The lexicons aren't dumbed down either - full BDAG-level entries.

Cross-references through TSK (Treasury of Scripture Knowledge) put every other app to shame. YouVersion gives you maybe 5 related verses. BLB gives you 50+, organized by relevance.

Audio Bible works offline once downloaded. Multiple narrators available. Alexander Scourby's KJV narration is particularly good.

Note-taking uses actual folders and notebooks. Not tags, not categories - folders. Old school but functional.

The competition nobody talks about

What the forums are saying

Reddit's r/Christianity has a love-hate relationship with BLB. Found a thread with 300+ comments. Power users defend it religiously (pun intended). One user posted: "It's ugly but unbeatable for word studies." Another: "Crashes constantly but I can't quit it."

The iOS reviews tell a story. The 5-stars (166,927 of them) praise the depth. The 1-stars (1,005) all mention the same thing: crashes and freezing. One reviewer spent an hour trying to find a feature that doesn't exist.

MacRumors forum members discovered the app hasn't been optimized for newer iOS versions. Running on iOS 17? Expect issues. Still on iOS 15? Smooth sailing.

Seminary student Facebook groups recommend it universally - with warnings. "Download it but keep YouVersion as backup" appears in every thread.

Found a brutal review from ChristianBytes.com: "The Android version is the neglected stepchild." They're not wrong.

The pros and cons

External validation from trusted sources

Rachel Wojo notes that "Blue Letter Bible has an excellent concordance and commentary system within the app." Best Features of the Top Bible Apps - Rachel Wojo She ranks it among the top 5 Bible apps, particularly praising the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge feature.

Lee Ann Marino calls Blue Letter Bible "probably my favorite app on this list" and highlights it as "More than just a search for different Bible translations, Blue Letter Bible is a fabulous site for a complete and thorough manner of Bible study." The Best Bible Apps For Serious Bible Students | Lee Ann Marino

A recent 2024 review states that "Blue Letter Bible definitely leans more academic" compared to YouVersion, positioning it as the serious student's choice. The 3 best Bible Reading Apps in 2024

Jean Wilund emphasizes that "Logos caters to the serious Bible student" but notes the free resources on Blue Letter Bible are substantial for most users. My Top Five Favorite Bible Study Apps - Jean Wilund, Christian Writer/Speaker/Bible Teacher

Bottom line verdict

Blue Letter Bible is that brilliant professor who can't figure out PowerPoint. The knowledge is incredible, the delivery is painful. If you're serious about Bible study and have patience for quirks, this app is irreplaceable. The free resources genuinely rival apps costing hundreds.

But here's the thing - you need a backup app. When BLB crashes during Sunday service (not if, when), you'll need YouVersion ready. Think of BLB as your study app and something else as your reading app.

For pastors and seminary students, it's mandatory. For casual readers, it's overkill. For everyone in between, it depends on your patience threshold. Can you handle weekly crashes for access to scholarly tools? Then download it now. Need reliability? Look elsewhere.

Still using it daily despite the frustrations. When it works, nothing touches it. When it crashes, nothing frustrates more. That's Blue Letter Bible in a nutshell - brilliant dysfunction.