Team

Why do I work on MyBibie?

here are several reasons. I’ve tried to look into myself and formulate them, and it appears that the most important are the following:

• By God’s grace I care when I get to know about a need of my brothers and sisters in Christ regarding studying and using the Word of God, and I realize that the Lord gives me a possibility to help them with that, and help myself by the way, too.
• I am very glad that there is a Christian application made as for the Lord, a high quality one, and I have participated in that.

How Did It Start?

I like to read the Bible in an electronic form, so that it is always at hand, especially on my way to work and back.

My first electronic Bible was PalmBible+. I liked it so much that I kept fixing my old Palm T2 just to have PalmBible+ running – until the device has died completely.

Then, back in 2011, there were several weeks of searching for another electronic Bible. I’ve borrowed an Android smartphone from my acquaintance, saw a great number of Bibles at Google Play, and decided right then that I am getting an Android device, too - no doubt that I would find a convenient Bible in all these heaps of applications. Or so I thought. I did not even consider buying an iOS device then, as iPhones then were sold in Ukraine only unofficially, and somehow they did not attract me at all, although I could not tell why that is.

Then there were several weeks of searching and trying of different Bible applications, with a frustration at the end. Not a single one of those applications was convenient for me to use!

Then suddenly it dawned upon me: Android applications are written in Java, and I do know Java, use it at work… So why don’t I try to throw together a small Bible application for myself, a simple one but with minimal convenience features which I need and have not found anywhere? And I have some Bible texts to use, from my days of chatting with other PalmBible+ users…

It was in May 2011, and there are many holidays in Ukraine in May… I’ve told my wife that I fall out of life for a few days, will be making an electronic Bible for myself… I had a goal of making something similar to PalmBible+ on Android.

In the fall of 2011 there already was something that could be shared with others. I did not even think of Google Play then, as I could not officially explain where did I get Bible translation texts from. So I’ve put MyBible to a small web site. Some time later, one believer from Germany, Volker, has found MyBible there and asked me to make a German Bible translation module for it. And I’ve told him then: “why don’t you make it yourself - study the module format and go ahead”. And he did. And then he’s told me: you know, there is this site with many Bible translation texts from the public domain, shall we make a converter to MyBible format for them?

But making modules is a separate big work. The Lord took that into account: Vladimir Yakovlev from Monchegorsk, Murmansk area (Russia), wrote to me. And that was a miracle, because Vladimir readily took upon himself making modules for MyBible, on the same basis as I develop MyBible application, that is free of charge, for the glory of God.

And recently Oleg Safonov from Moscow has joined us. Oleg has brought fresh sound ideas and quickly became the master consultant, the main requester of the new functionality, a thorough and constructive tester. Also, dictionaries support in MyBible became possible thanks to Oleg’s knowledge and work to make word forms dictionaries, which are decisively important for that.

And so you have MyBible, being updated several times a year, and constantly maintained/cleaned modules, almost a thousand of them, in over a hundred of world’s languages.

Who am I?

I am 43, a programmer from Kharkov, Ukraine (but MyBible is my personal project, not related to my work). I am happily married for 19 years, our daughter is 17, our son is 15. We attend a non-denominational Christian church in Kharkov, Ukraine. My wife brought me to Christ - I wasn't a believer when we've got married (she was). I was in doubt about God and His Word until my pastor pointer me to materials on the Bible veracity and matching the observational science. So now I am a firm believer that the Bible is the true God's Word from the very first verse, the entire universe is created by God, as he told in Genesis, the Earth is young, and the Christ's second coming is rapidly approaching (could be even today!).

Denys Dolganenko
May 2015 – four years since MyBible was born

Specialist on modules, author of new concepts, critic, tester

Moscow, Russia

oleg@mybible.zone (English, Russian, simple Spanish)

Spring 1984, Moscow Physics and Mathematics School

Recently, in February 1984, Andropov, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, was buried. But the opression and "forcing the order" has continued during the Chernenko time. Even being boys, we have felt it. Our school was not an ordinary one. The KGB visited us often and they were looking for smart kids for their high school. Therefore, an ideological control over the minds in a state school was visible. Suddenly, a new principal was assigned to our school. He was a very young, strong, and active communist. They began to change teachers - our teachers from old Moscow liberal intelligentsia have left and "ideologically correct" teachers have came. My classmate Fedor Trubetskoy was kicked out of the school, for he was of a prince ancestry. He had a bunch of bonds abroad and usially was hanging around the French embassy to watch movies.

Our teacher of literature became sick (we didn't like him and gave him a nickname "Kaka", for his name was Konstantin Konstantinovich). For a replacement, we've got some postgraduate student. The postgraduate had a quiet voice but has nevertheless fascinated us when he announced that we may read about Sholokhov ourselves in a textbook and instead we will talk about more important things. The topic of a lesson: Is there life after death?

He has conducted a couple of lessons, telling us about clinical death survivors testimonies; about remains of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat noticed during the war by Soviet pilots on the territory of Turkey; many other amusing things, and he has quoted the Bible a lot. For us, very young Comsomol members and "future builders of communism", all of this was very strange. We knew for sure that there is no God, that ruling classes used to use religion to justify exploitation of man by another man.

By some reason this teacher has disappeared then and we didn't see him anymore in the school. But the things he has shared stayed deeply in us. A few people in our class really wanted to find and read the Bible in original.

But where to find the Bible in Moscow in 1984?

Of course in the church! We just needed to find a functioning (not a museum) Orthodox church and buy the Bible there. It looked so simple. We found Orthodox churches on a tourist map, but more often they were closed or turned into a useful structure for the Soviet people, such as warehouses or power stations for nearby factories and research institutes. Even if there were crosses on a building, it did not mean that it was actually a functioning temple.

Then someone remembered seeing a functioning temple at the beginning of Comsomol Avenue. Next Saturday a group of guys went there. And a temple minister has caused a confusion.

«The Bible? No, we do not have Bibles for sale. You should better buy "The Law of God." Where to buy the Bible? I do not know. Try to look at the Patriarchal Epiphany Cathedral at Bauman avenue. But if you do not find it over there, you will not find the Bible anywhere in Moscow.»

Well, we went to Bauman. There was a big beautiful blue church in the style of empire. It was the church where Pushkin was baptized. And in 1984 it was the main Orthodox church in the USSR, the Patriarchal Cathedral. It was the residence of the Patriarch Pimen.

«The Bible? No, we do not sell Bibles. What do you need it for? To read? Young people, you are not ready to read the Bible. You need to read the "Law of God" first, then - the Holy Fathers, and only then... The Bible is not for you, this is hard food».

So I had to say goodbye for a while to a dream of reading the Bible. I had to only get acquainted with biblical stories from other sources. We used to listen (and tried to translate in order to understand the meaning) the rock opera "Jesus Christ - Superstar". I have read the novel "The Master and Margarita" during a single day for which I was given it; the plot of the story with Jesus seemed clear, and that was enough for me then.

June 1990, Leningrad

At that time I was a young lieutenant of the Soviet Navy. I was preparing to depart for a new duty in Moscow - in the headquarters of the Navy. And yet during my very first vacation I was in Saint Petersburg, at Nevsky Prospekt - I went on a date to the square in front of the Kazan Cathedral, long before the assigned time, waking among the fountains and people... I had to kill time somehow, so I went to the Leningrad House of Books.

And the house was selling Bibles. So you could just simply and quietly take and buy a copy of the Bible?! Of course I could not resist and bought one.

My girlfriend was already a born again Christian and attended one of newly formed churches in Leningrad. But this all was strange to me. In my heart, I always remained a liberal and a supporter of freedom of religion.

Now, however, I had a copy of the Bible and I could very easily try to understand it. At first, reading of the Bible has disappointed me. The book seemed to be too simple, almost primitive. My understanding that the Bible has to be something of a complicated philosophical treatise was not confirmed.

Besides, it was a very long book. One day in 1996, being in a hospital and having a lot of free time, I decided to read the Bible from the beginning to the end. Unfortunately I didn't succeed to read it quickly. A great number of names and places required having a biblical vocabulary to not be lost in all that.

So I have then postponed reading of that book until a better time. I remained a convinced atheist, having a believing wife and children who visited a Sunday school. I quickly stopped our disputes on religious themes, since I realized that otherwise we risk to ruin our family relationships.

November 2013, Israel

Me, my wife, and our son had a tourist visit of Israel: Galilee, Capernaum, Tiberias Sea, Nazareth, Jordan, Jerusalem...

I'm over 45 years old, everything in my life has happened - a family, a career... But I felt a disappointment and emptiness in my heart. A half of my life is over, and where am I? What will be left after my death? Who needed all this? What is a point of all my efforts, of my very existence?

I looked with jealousy at all kinds of believers from different nations gathered in Israel. They sang hymns, prayed, worshiped in spirit... I was not a part of this - I was on another side. When we came to the "Protestant" Golgotha and took a bread and wine for Holy Communion, I was the only one who could not partake. It was just sad in some way.

I began to read the Bible again there, in Israel. Starting from Genesis. On a smartphone. Fortunately, I have learned that there are so-called Bible reading plans, designed to help a reader follow the entire Bible in a certain period, e.g. in a year, without heroic efforts - slowly and quietly.

Fortunately, an application I have downloaded was supporting reading plans. So thanks to this I have accomplished my long-held dream of reading the Bible completely. And then I have finally repented and was baptized.

Why MyBible?

No, it wasn't MyBible, it was another application. I have finished reading the Synodal Bible (the main Bible translation in Russian, just like KJV in English) and began to look for a modern translation. And I quickly realized that this is a problem. Most Bible application supported a very limited set of translations into Russian. In addition, I noticed that the developers of such applications have started to move away from an idea of studying the Bible in depth to a direction of popular things like social networking and bright online services. And this was not what I needed.

And then, looking for options, I came across MyBible. And I have immediately realized that I found a treasure. A huge number of translations in different languages, with an ability to use them offline, a search, a comparison of different translations, cross references, a possibility to tune styles, fonts, etc... At that time MyBible was already supporting reading plans. And soon I have discovered helpfulness of using commentaries and Strong's lexicons. Wow!

But when it turned out that the developer promptly responds to error messages and sends back builds with corrections. Appetite comes with eating, so I began to send more and more requests to Denys, asking to tweak things for my convenience. And I have started to be more and more involved into the project, first as a tester of a new functionality, then I have mastered how to make new modules (and made a couple for myself), then - more...

Why am I doing this?

To be honest, because I just love it. And I see that as a result, a tool that I use myself almost every day is getting better, more powerful, and more convenient.

I would love to eventually see MyBible being in all respects no less convenient than a common printed Bible. It is already the case now in many aspects, but not in all. A printed edition is still more convenient when it comes to formatting of the text, taking into account paragraphs, working with notes, critical apparatus, presence of maps and illustrations. But I think that all this is only a matter of time. And I'll be glad to take part in further development of this project.

Oh, and a separate word about the team members. Denys and Volodya greatly impress me with their hard work, professionalism, and talent. Being a member of such a team is an honor for me.

Oleg Safonov
December 2016

It takes a dedicated person to create a MyBible user interface localization into a particular language. Here are the qualities expected in a potential partner when asked for a new localization:

1. A desire to have a MyBible localization for himself first of all - for own daily use.
2. Knowing of the MyBible functionality in depth, familiarity with all the MyBible usage tips and with the Bible search possibilities.
3. Good knowledge of English, Ukrainian or Russian - the three languages in which new and updated user interface texts are being created. A target localization language shall be native for the helper.
4. A prayerful considering and promising of at least a couple of years of faithful maintaining of the MyBible localization, to support releasing of new MyBible versions.

Existing MyBible localizations are maintained by:

• Anthony Aquino (Brazilia) - Portuguese
• David Delma (Burkina Faso) - French, Mossi
• David Perales (Spain) - Spanish
• Denys Dolganenko (Ukraine) - Ukrainian, English, Russian
• Emmanuel Sotikon (Benin) - French
• Eutychus Chow (Hong Kong) - Chinese
• Helmuts Vucens (Latvia) - Latvian
• Hrach Mkrtchyan (Armenia) - Armenian
• Igor Lerinc (Serbia) - Serbian
• Libor Diviš (Czech Republic) - Czech
• Łukasz Kałużny (Poland) - Polish
• Mio Rechesan (Romania) - Romanian
• Stanislav Gajdoš (Slovakia) - Slovak
• Tharwat Stefanos (Egypt) - Arabic
• Volker Burggräf (Germany) - German
• Zsolt Vajda (Hungary) - Hungarian

Creators of modules their languages

It is precious to us when someone engages into creation of clean modules in their own languages.

• Libor Diviš (Czech Republic) - Czech, Slovak
• Mio Rechesan (Romania) - Romanian
• Po Kin Chow (Hong Kong) - Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified
• Pekka Haverinen (Finland) - Finnish, Swedish

Proofreading

• Vasily Shpak (Ukraine) - Ukrainian Bible by Kulish
• Andrey Besiayev (Russia) - ancient Greek and Church Slavonic modules.

Hosting of modules

• Miodrag Rechesan
• Some paid hosting services