Computer apps and ancient Judaism (etc.)

COMPUTER APPS AND ANCIENT JUDAISM (ETC.):

Computer apps are bringing religion into the 21st century
By ANNYSA JOHNSON
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[...]

For the uninitiated, apps are programs that users download free or for a fee to their iPhones, Androids, BlackBerry phones and other hand-held devices.

Apple dominates the industry with more than 225,000 apps at its online App Store, followed by the Google-based Android Marketplace with more than 30,000, though other smaller competitors abound.

“I tell people I’m compensating for my 17th-century looks,” said Rabbi Benzion Twerski of the Orthodox Congregation Beth Jehudah on Milwaukee’s north side, who sports both an iPhone and iPad.

Twerski has apps that let him read the Torah, the Talmud and the Siddur, the book of daily prayers; recite the appropriate blessings for meals; and vet the thousands of ingredients in his work inspecting kosher food factories.

Donald Rappe, an associate professor in the Department of Theology at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, uses apps to help him translate ancient biblical texts, bone up on his Hebrew and pull down scholarly lectures by colleagues in his field.

And Muslim physician Mushir Hassan has one of the Qur’an and another that tells him when it’s time to pray, wherever he is in the world.

[...]

On my iPod Touch I have the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, the Greek New Testament, the Latin Vulgate, the Arabic Qur'an, the Liddell and Scott Greek Lexicon, the Lewis and Short Latin Lexicon, a Qur'anic Arabic vocabulary drill, and English translations of the complete works of Philo and Josephus and the Vulgate. Some of the editions are old, but all are still useful on the run.