Scrollwork Help

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Search and Advanced search

Find a verse by its words, a topic, a name, a Strong's number or its meaning, and narrow the results with every filter of Advanced search.

Search is on the Bookshelf, in the Study Reader, on the Lineage of Jesus Christ, The Story in Gold and Biblical Art, and on the Cross-references chart, the people network and the Bible Library.

  • Press Search, or ⌘+K (Ctrl+K on Windows), or / anywhere outside a text box.
  • Type, and the quick list fills as you go: Verses, People, Places, Events, Books and Topics.
  • A reference goes straight there: Gen 7:11.
  • At the foot, Advanced search opens the full results with every filter (⌘+Enter, or Ctrl+Enter).

By words

Words are found in every verse that has them all.

You type It finds
faith hope verses with both words
faith OR hope verses with either
faith NOT works, or faith -works verses with faith and without works
"living water" the words together, as a phrase
believ* any ending: believe, believed, believeth
wom?n one letter in that place: woman, women

By the original word

Type a Strong's number, G26 or H430, or a Hebrew or Greek word, and Search finds every verse where it stands. It suggests Search the Hebrew word or Search the Greek word when it sees one.

By topic

Topics come from Nave's Topical Bible and OpenBible.info, so forgiveness finds the verses on forgiveness, not only those with the word.

By name

People, places, events and books are found by name and open on the scrolls.

By meaning

Search by meaning finds passages related in meaning to a question, even when they share none of its words: how do I find peace when I am anxious?

What leaves your device

Searching by words, topics, names and Strong's numbers happens on your device. The first time you search, your browser downloads what it needs, chosen by translation alone and never by what you type. After that, nothing you search for is sent anywhere.

Search by meaning is the one exception, and it happens only when you ask for it. Your question alone, and nothing else, goes to Scrollwork and on to the AI service Scrollwork uses, which turns it into numbers and keeps nothing; neither does Scrollwork. Your own device then finds the nearest verses. The button says so before you press it.

A question is asked when you press Search by meaning, or the row Find passages related in meaning to in the quick list. In Advanced search, pressing Enter on something that reads as a question (four words or more, or ending in a question mark) asks it too.

Each reader can ask up to 100 questions by meaning a day. When that or the day's limit for everyone is reached, or the service cannot be reached, Search says so and shows matches by words and topics instead.

The privacy page sets this out in full.

Advanced search shows every result, and the filters to narrow them:

  • Translation: which translation's words are searched and shown.
  • Testament: Old or New.
  • Kind of writing: Law, History, Wisdom and Poetry, Prophets, Gospels, Acts, Letters, Revelation.
  • Book: one book, or a range from one reference to another.
  • When it happened: a span of years, or an era.
  • Who speaks: The words of Jesus.
  • Persons named, Places named and Event.
  • Beside the verse: verses with art, with a Matthew Henry comment, with a find from archaeology, or on the lineage.
  • My study: your notes, highlights or bookmarks, read from this browser and never sent.
  • Part of speech.

Sort puts results in Bible order or in the order the events happened. Charts draws the results. Copy all copies every result with its reference and translation; Share link copies an address that opens the same search; Clear all filters starts again. Open a result and it opens in the reader, the matching words marked.