Review of Book of Mormon Central, “ScripturePlus” (https://www.scriptureplus.org/); The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Gospel Library” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/pages/mobileapps/gospellibrary); and Living Tree Software, “ScriptureNotes” (https://scripturenotes.com/).

 

Abstract: ScriptureNotes is a valuable tool for serious, in-depth scripture study, and it definitely has the best search functionality. ScripturePlus, in its current state, is good for daily reading of the Book of Mormon, thanks to its helpful linked resources. But if you often mark or underline as you read, you’ll need to use Gospel Library, which is also the only app that includes the Church’s vast resources beyond the scriptures.

With today’s technology, many resources are available for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to follow Nephi’s admonition to “feast upon the words of Christ” (2 Nephi 32:3). This review explores three made specifically for Latter-day Saints. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I found each of them to be very useful in different aspects of my gospel study.

ScripturePlus

ScripturePlus from Book of Mormon Central is a free app available for Android and iOS. I’m reviewing the Android version. It contains all the Standard Works in English and Spanish. Each book has at least two versions — a licensed copy of the 2013 edition from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Book of Mormon Central edition. For all but the Book of Mormon, these appear to be the same at this time, though the greater differences between Book of Mormon versions hint at more coming in the future.

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The Book of Mormon is available in four versions in English: the 1830 Palmyra Edition, Royal Skousen’s “The Earliest Text,” 2013 LDS Scriptures, and the Book of Mormon Central Edition (the latter two are also available in Spanish). The Book of Mormon Central version is particularly interesting, having been reformatted into paragraphs and with a red lettering option for “Names for Deity” and “Words Spoken by Deity.” All versions with paragraph formatting also still have verse numbers embedded for reference.

But the attractive feature of the app is the context-sensitive help that shows up in the bottom as you work your way through the verses of scripture. This help includes pictures, videos, and commentary in the form of “KnoWhys” and short selections from the writings of John Welch and Brant Gardner as well as quotes from Church leaders. At this time, it appears that the Book of Mormon has many resources linked to it, but the other books of scripture only have small amounts, if any. There [Page 233]is a basic search function, which brings up results not just from the scriptures but also the other resources.

The biggest drawbacks right now are that you can’t make your own notes, and you can’t do any highlighting. However, I have been told that these are features the authors plan to add in the future. There are also currently no footnotes or chapter headings, even in the 2013 version.

A tutorial is available the first time you open the app as well as a User Guide in the Help menu. A YouTube video introduces the app and also shows some of the features planned to be added.1 At the 2019 FairMormon Conference,