@Joschua, this is well thought out, I wish you luck. I am going to offer a different perspective not to change your mind but to add more food for thoughts.
While loading the text of the Bible seems like a great and useful idea, I found the time it took, and the benefits I gain almost always had some sort of limitation, which had diminishing returns.
I took the approach of a separate tool that handles Biblical texts much more effectively than anything I was able to develop. I am a Mac user and use Accordance Bible Software, .and I have the Starter collection with a few additional add ons. Also, I have used it for years. When it comes to searching and accessing verses, different text, original language texts, and amplification, and cross-referencing, it exceeded anything I was able to develop on my own. I am not promoting Accordance; I am sure other tools work as well. I am suggesting using the best tool for the job may have advantages.
Having a tool that handled the text and searching and referencing verses improved my use of that text in my studies. For easy access to verses text, I cobbled together an Apple Script with Textexpander that allows me to type a verse reference, then copy it to the clipboard, enter the TE abbreviation. It pastes the text into whatever document or note I am working in. It has become mind-muscle-memory for me and works well.
Wherever I use a verse reference in my notes, the text is included. I don’t worry as much about backlinks and find full-text search works well for finding other notes referencing books, verses, keywords, phrases, etc. Always including the verse text makes each note self-contained and is one way I try and future proof my bible notes. I want my notes to be autonomous, self-contained, and not dependent on the software I may be using.
I spent lots of time loading Bible texts and trying to make a handy system for referencing verses. Eventually, I spent more time doing that then actually studying, learning, and using the text of the Bible in my workflows.
Your mileage may vary. I hope my experience in some way contributes to your efforts and goals.
I am not an Apple script expert. I offer the following as is in case someone wants to use it and add more magic to it. I am not sure where I found the basis for this script; it was so long ago. It may have been somewhere in Accordance forums. I am sure something similar can be done on the Windows side of things.
global theResult
global moduleName
global input
global citationFormat
set inputFromUser to the clipboard
set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
set input to text item 1 of inputFromUser
set moduleName to "NASB"
set citationFormat to "true"
if (count inputFromUser's text items) = 3 then
set moduleName to text item 2 of inputFromUser
set citationFormat to "false"
end if
if (count inputFromUser's text items) = 2 then
set moduleName to text item 2 of inputFromUser
if moduleName is "" then
set citationFormat to "false"
end if
end if
if (moduleName is "n") then
set moduleName to "NIV"
else
if (moduleName is "k") then
set moduleName to "KJV"
else
if (moduleName is "") then
set moduleName to "NASB"
end if
end if
end if
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
if citationFormat = "true" then
tell application "Accordance" to set theResult to («event AccdTxRf» {moduleName, input, citationFormat}) & " "
-- & moduleName & ")"
--& --"
--
--(" & input & ", " & moduleName & ")"
else
tell application "Accordance" to set theResult to («event AccdTxRf» {moduleName, input, citationFormat}) ----& "]
-- -" & moduleName & " "
set theResult to input & " (" & moduleName & ") " & theResult
end if
return theResult
Please let us know how you finally decide to succeed.