Accessing Classic Scriptures?

Is there any way to access the classic site for the scriptures? I miss the search feature of the old, because the new one does not do as good a job. The searches are limited, whereas in the past, I could search any phrase with success. I also hate that I can't read or copy scripture verses without the footnotes. There's no hide footnotes features. My study of the scriptures has become tedious and hard with the new format! And the work I do is extremely hindered because of the lack of the hide footnotes feature. PLEASE HELP!!

This is only a solution to one of your difficulties, but when you're viewing a chapter, in the top right there's an "Aa" icon. When you click that, you can choose to hide the footnotes.

Donna.Johnson wrote:Is there any way to access the classic site for the scriptures? I miss the search feature of the old, because the new one does not do as good a job. The searches are limited, whereas in the past, I could search any phrase with success.

I recommend that you provide Feedback about the missing search feature and any other concerns you have. On the left panel of the online Gospel Library, scroll to the bottom. You'll see a Feedback link. Click on it to submit your feedback.

I just stumbled across this forum, and just want to provide a second voice that the classic scriptures site had much better search capabilities. I would use Boolean and wildcard searches all the time, but am no longer able to do so. I also appreciated that it would return 50 results, rather than 10, at a time, and that it would return all the instances of a search, rather than just a chapter that you had to click on. Copying and pasting was also much more facilitated on the classic site. I had been working for ten years on a compilation of searches using the classic site, with over 15,000 entries, but had to abandon the project when the site was discontinued. (http://scripturalphraseguide.blogspot.c ... jacob.html)

I did try to go through feedback last June/July, but it seemed like I was only communicating with earnest Church service missionaries who weren't empowered to do very much, nor were particularly tech-savvy. All they could tell me was "We will not be returning to the old experience but are continuing to improve the site. Please provide specific details on what is not working well for you so that our product team knows what to improve." I also got responses giving detailed instructions on how to perform basic searches on the new site and advice to try archive.org, which only preserves the front page of the site and one click deep, but not the search capabilities, at least as far as I've been aware.

I recently ran across a reference to an app called SiteSucker which apparently might even be able to retrieve websites from archive.org, which surprises me that that might be possible. I'm inclined to give it a try, even though it costs about $5.

Anyway, that's my experience. I can do other things, but searching the scriptures is much more limited with the new site.

ryanreeder wrote:I just stumbled across this forum, and just want to provide a second voice that the classic scriptures site had much better search capabilities. I would use Boolean and wildcard searches all the time, but am no longer able to do so. I also appreciated that it would return 50 results, rather than 10, at a time, and that it would return all the instances of a search, rather than just a chapter that you had to click on. Copying and pasting was also much more facilitated on the classic site. I had been working for ten years on a compilation of searches using the classic site, with over 15,000 entries, but had to abandon the project when the site was discontinued. (http://scripturalphraseguide.blogspot.c ... jacob.html)

I did try to go through feedback last June/July, but it seemed like I was only communicating with earnest Church service missionaries who weren't empowered to do very much, nor were particularly tech-savvy. All they could tell me was "We will not be returning to the old experience but are continuing to improve the site. Please provide specific details on what is not working well for you so that our product team knows what to improve." I also got responses giving detailed instructions on how to perform basic searches on the new site and advice to try archive.org, which only preserves the front page of the site and one click deep, but not the search capabilities, at least as far as I've been aware.

I recently ran across a reference to an app called SiteSucker which apparently might even be able to retrieve websites from archive.org, which surprises me that that might be possible. I'm inclined to give it a try, even though it costs about $5.

Anyway, that's my experience. I can do other things, but searching the scriptures is much more limited with the new site.

The old scriptures might still be available if you have the URL somewhere. I'd have to go hunting to see if I can find it. However, the last I tried using the old site (which was sometime less than a year ago), highlighting wasn't working that well, so it might not meet your needs. Sometimes I'm grateful we have printed scriptures and Come, Follow Me manuals because things just aren't working properly on the church website.

You might try Feedback again. I've noticed a little better responses from them in the last several months. I think they changed some technology and process behind the feedback mechanism, although maybe it was in place back in your July/August timeframe. Sometimes you have to be persistent with them in getting beyond the basics. I have on rare occasions had some interaction with people who work at the church outside of the feedback mechanism...either by phone or email. One person mentioned to me that the person dealing with me on Feedback was likely his boss, so what I learned is that the ownership if the issues may change and you could be in contact with an anonymous technical church employee versus a service missionary; you don't really know. It may depend on the type of issue and whether it's of current interest. Most of us here have very little idea of what goes on in IT at church headquarters. Sometimes as church members, we feel like everything should be more transparent, but consider it to be just like most other companies/businesses you deal with for support: you generally know very little about the inner workings and decisions.

I would also file a complaint about the classic.scriptures disappearing. As much as I try to use the new site, I continually find that the search function is far far inferior. I am unable to find the scriptures that I am looking for that I could easily find with classic.

I am very disappointed that classic has disappeared. If anyone knows how to access it please let me know.

vancebowler wrote:I would also file a complaint about the classic.scriptures disappearing. As much as I try to use the new site, I continually find that the search function is far far inferior. I am unable to find the scriptures that I am looking for that I could easily find with classic.

I am very disappointed that classic has disappeared. If anyone knows how to access it please let me know.

If I need to search the scriptures, or anything on the church website, I use Google with "site:ChurchOfJesusChrist.org" added to the query. It finds stuff much better than any search on the church website.

I would also like to see either the return of the classic scriptures site or else a "text only" version of the online scriptures. I have found that I prefer using "primitive" text-only web browsers (such as Lynx) as they are faster to load and far less likely to lead to me being distracted by bells and whistles and social media, but these browsers do not play nice with how the church website currently stands.

There's also an advantage from an accessibility point of view - a text-only web browser can be connected to a user's screenreader of choice, which can only be beneficial to blind and hard-of-seeing users.

This new site is terrible.
Starting about month ago, Chrome would just time out simply navigating the Scripture site. I switched to Firefox, which worked for a little while and started doing the same thing. Another switch to Edge was also fine for a bit, and it still navigates well (doesn't time out), but yesterday it started blinking to a blank window (heading still there, and the new logo in the middle of the screen) whenever I try to mark and copy text.
I think the timeout issue was related to the security routines running on the site, (I could sometimes get it to work using a different user on my computer), but no idea about this latest problem which shows up on multiple computers and multiple users, whether logged in or not.
I'm a Sunday School teacher. This is a disaster.
Completely useless.

I sent the following to the churchofjesuschrist.org feedback form:

There are JavaScript errors in the gospel library in a PC Google Chrome Browser. I tried to highlight scripture and the text just disappeared. I tried to hide the footnotes and the dialog did not show up. Please fix the scriptures!

I have seen maybe 3 generations of the scriptures on lds.org and churchofjesuschrist.org.
1. http://classic.churchofjesuschrist.org/Scriptures this redirects to https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures
2. The lds.org site one with the scriptures that also redirects
3. The current https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... s?lang=eng

It does seem to have more issues when I am logged in with my church account. It takes forever to load and I seem to have odd behavior. I tried opening an incognito tab in Chrome and I have not seen the issue. Perhaps there is an extension I have installed that conflicts with the logged in gospel library site in Google Chrome.

I'm trying to access the non-classic scriptures and have started having occasional problems highlighting scriptures. I do the highlight and the page blanks as richalger indicated. It doesn't happen all the time. I haven't looked for JavaScript errors, but something is certainly not working properly.