29 March, 2024

A Bible Study Program for Everyone

Features

by | 21 October, 2012 | 1 comment

By Carmen Trenton

No longer is Bible software reserved for scholars and geeks””even for original language study. Logos 4 has so advanced the art and ease of electronic Bible study that pastors, teachers, professionals, and laypersons alike can now jump aboard.

At the Seminary of Lincoln (Illinois) Christian University, our MDiv students have long used Logos to empower exegesis. But for the past eight years, we have taught non-MDiv students to responsibly interpret Scripture using Logos. Here”s how Logos makes a difference.

 

Basics

What is Logos? Logos 4 is the latest version of Logos Bible Software. It is a massive digital library with technology that organizes, stores, searches, and presents your information. Run it on a PC or a Mac. Access most of your books and a subset of tools on your mobile devices: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and about any smart phone that can access the Internet. Logos 4 keeps all your devices in sync.

Who is Logos for? Anyone who wants to study the Bible. It is easy enough for a grade-schooler, but sophisticated enough for a postdoctoral student in original languages.

How easy is it? How extensive? The home page will help you stay on track with prayer lists, daily devotions, and reading plans. For study, simply enter a Bible passage reference and click GO. Hours of research appear in seconds, neatly arranged””all open to the right spot. Study your top five Bibles and favorite commentary. Scroll one and they all scroll together. See instant information on any word. View your passage in several versions. Click your way through the three Logos guides.

 

Guides

Passage Guide“”Get the big-picture view of each passage. Look at commentaries, Bible cross-references, and similar passages. Find apt illustrations and explore topics from your Bible dictionaries. Use or edit the prepared handout. Click the online links to listen to related sermons or find free or fee PowerPoint files and professional media. Discover related music from your library. Even check out biblical people, places, and things.

Exegetical Guide“”Turn to original language work; note where scholars find variations in early biblical manuscripts. Study textual diagrams to determine sentence structure, clauses, and phrases in the Greek or Hebrew text. For each word in your passage, see original language data: root word, morphological data, and links to Greek and Hebrew lexicons.

Bible Word Study (guide)“”Drill down on a single word. See its dictionary definitions. View the “Translation Ring” to see how your Greek or Hebrew word is translated into English in a selected Bible version (see example from the English Standard Version). For an English word, see the Greek or Hebrew root words from which it is translated.

 

Features

Biblical people, places, and things“”Explore the three Logos-commissioned biblical databases for charts, graphics, and illustrations related to your passage. With “Biblical People,” trace relationships for biblical persons and groups. See David”s family tree, Jesus” two lineages, or who was with Peter when he was sprung from prison.

“Biblical Places” uses nearly 60 new interactive maps that bring biblical history to life. Compare Paul”s missionary journeys, see Jesus” Palestine ministry, and follow the route of the exodus. Zoom in and out. Through built-in global coordinates, find the distance between any two points (Rome to Jerusalem, 1,440 miles!). Click on Jerusalem and then the Google link to see how it looks today.

In “Biblical Things,” look for more than 1,000 Bible artifacts. See a depiction of the golden lampstand, the high priest”s garments, and an “infographic” of Herod”s temple.

Reverse Interlinears“”Logos has embedded original language data into many popular English Bibles. View it or hide it. This “reverse interlinear” places the English biblical running text on top with original language data underneath (see “For God so loved the world” example).

Here you see the ESV English text, associated Greek words, morphology, Strong”s number, and Louw-Nida number. Now, perform original-language-based look-ups and searches right from your English Bible””even with the embedded data hidden. For example, right-click loved in the ESV and search on either love or the Greek word ἀγαπάω! Do this without knowing Greek!

Faithlife Bible and Social Network“”Logos”s new Faithlife Study Bible is the largest and most up-to-date study Bible. Download it for free to your Logos library. Set up groups on the Faithlife social network with special privacy sharing (permissions). Share notes, prayer requests, or small group discussion questions. Have an interactive Bible study. It is private and built around the Word.

 

How Flexible Is Logos?

You can customize the three guides, build your own collections, and prioritize resources to consult. Purchase your Logos-based resources from Logos or scores of other publishers. New resources integrate right into your Logos library.

You control your workspace. Drag and drop windows. Resize them. Save and reuse screen layouts. Click a preconfigured layout pattern to instantly organize a cluttered screen. Drag items from your workspace and desktop to the shortcut bar or favorites panel for easy retrieval.

Logos allows you to be flexible””work where you want. It keeps all your devices in sync. If you get a new computer or your computer crashes, no problem. Just download Logos and your books and data follow.

Notes and highlights“”Create notes and folders, identified by colored textual markers. Make “clippings,” like old-fashioned note-taking cards. Logos automatically records your selected text, the date, and a hot link to your resource. It even creates a bibliographic citation in your chosen style (Turabian, APA, etc.).

Highlight your text using an array of built-in styles, or easily create your own. If you need to find something you have highlighted, you can limit your search to specific highlighting styles.

Search“”Search your entire library with Google-like speed. Logos initially takes several hours to index every word in your library. Add new resources later and continue to work as Logos reindexes in the background.

Create collections of theological resources, grammars, devotional works, etc., to target your searches. Search on a single word, multiple words, a phrase, or complex combinations. Narrow your search to a particular book or passage, to Jesus” words only, heading words in the text, or to text you have highlighted in a particular style.

Perform Greek and Hebrew morphological searches with the handy check grid. For example, search for all imperatives in the book of Ephesians. You will quickly discover that nearly all hits are in the last half of the book””illustrating Paul”s habit of giving principles first (indicatives) followed by exhortations (imperatives).

Search using Greek and Hebrew words right from your English Bibles (those with reverse interlinears). Type a Greek or Hebrew word transliterated (spelled phonetically with the English alphabet) into the search panel and Logos will present Greek or Hebrew words from which to choose.

Use visual filters to keep your search results visible in the text. For example, search the ESV for the Greek verb ἀγαπάω (love). Select yellow highlighting for the hits. Similarly, search for the Greek verb φιλέω, also often translated “love.” Select green highlighting. Now easily see when Jesus and Peter use different Greek words for “love” in John 21:15-17. Better yet, create your own new highlighting style to automatically show the search hits with the Greek words as a superscript (see image at right).

Move beyond just studying words to looking at relationships between words””syntax. Use Logos”s multiple databases for syntax searching. Find when a word is used as the subject of a given verb, or the object of a preposition, etc. Find Jesus” great “I am” statements (such as, “I am the bread of life”). A standard search on “I am” finds many false hits, such as “I am going to. . . .”

Search on whole categories of words using Logos-supplied Louw-Nida numbers. Discover that festivals occur most often in the Gospel of John, attitudes and emotions are more prevalent in Luke, and supernatural beings and powers are referenced most frequently in Acts.

Copy, print, export“”Almost anything in Logos 4 can be printed, copied and pasted, or sent to Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. Copy Bible verses in user-definable formats. Export charts to Excel. Create a collection of works and print only the bibliographical data, in your chosen style.

 

Library Size and Cost

Logos currently has more than 27,000 resources, adding about 4,000 per year. It partners with 150 publishers to provide digital resources that are used in some 30 languages in more than 210 countries. Resources range from devotional readings to highly esoteric scholarly works.

Logos licenses libraries in base packages that range from 80 Bibles and reference books (list price $149.95; print value $1,300) to 1,600 resources (list price $4,290; print value almost $30,000). The Logos technology (engine) is free for download. Pastors and others who need original language access usually start with Scholar”s Library (standard), which has more than 475 books (list price $629.95; print value almost $8,000).

Compare resources in the various packages at www.logos.com/comparison. See current base packages prices at www.logos.com/basepackages. View videos by platform at www.logos.com/videos. Once a base package is purchased, a user can purchase individual resources or sets of resources from the Logos website.

Discounts and freebies“”Logos gives discounts from time to time. (Readers, get a 15 percent discount on a package now. Go to www.logos.com/basepackages, select your package, click buy, and enter coupon code “ChristianStandard” there. Or call 1-800-875-6467, ask for sales, and relay the code when ordering.) Students enrolled in a college or seminary class get 30 to 50 percent discounts””the latter when Logos is required for all students in the class. Logos also has payment plans.

Logos is making the entire Perseus collection available to Logos 4 users for free. It has more than 1,500 resources””a massive download. Since it is primarily on Greek and Latin classics (like Aristotle and Plato), think before you download it. For more information, type “Perseus” in the search box at www.logos.com.

How many devices can I use? Logos licenses the library packages to you, the user, not to the device. So, run it on as many devices as you like, as long as it is strictly for your own personal use. As Logos says, “the license goes with the user.” You can download the engine itself for free onto your PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android. You can also access Logos on the Web (at http://biblia.com) from almost any smart phone. Most of your licensed resources are accessible from your mobile devices.

 

Training and Support

The home page help button has links to explanatory material, online videos, user forums, and the Logos wiki. Forums are communities of Logos users (tens of thousands) who daily post comments, questions, and answers””grouped by platform. These are searchable. The Logos wiki gives structured information from the user community about Logos functions. Think of it as an online user manual. Look here for valuable instructions and hints.

At the Logos website (www.logos.com), under the Support tab, there are links to videos, articles, blogs, formal training, and the Logos forums.

 

My First Choice

Logos 4″s many significant features and exclusives make it my first choice in Bible software. Its depth empowers the original language scholar, while its simplicity enables the novice. Its breadth of library resources and supported platforms and devices assures every user a fit. Logos”s guides and tools do research for you in a fraction of the time. The many reverse interlinears afford easy original language access, even for those who have never studied Greek or Hebrew. Its four syntax databases bring your research to a higher level. Finally, it protects your investment””constantly backing up and synchronizing your data. Should you need help, Logos and the user communities are there for you. Logos Bible Software truly advances the art and ease of Bible study.

Carmen Trenton is transitioning from teacher to student to complete her master”s degree in counseling at the Seminary of Lincoln (Illinois) Christian University. She taught for the past eight years as an adjunct professor at the seminary and lives with her husband in Bloomington, Illinois. 

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Standard Publishing Resources on Logos

Standard Publishing is proud of our partnership with Logos Bible Study Software. Here are just some of our publications available through Logos:

 

Classic Standard Publishing titles on Logos

The Fourfold Gospel (McGarvey and Pendleton, 1914)

Acts of the Apostles (McGarvey, 1892)

 

Popular Standard Publishing titles on Logos

Standard Lesson Commentary (2002/03″“2012/13 editions)

Standard Reference Library (2007″“08)””Volumes 1″“5.

 

Coming soon from Standard Publishing on Logos

Discovering God”s Story (Eichenberger, 2010)””Available after September 10, 2012

Training for Service (Eichenberger, 2011)””Coming soon, available for preorder now.

1 Comment

  1. Timothy T.Pungsar

    Thank you for this topic. . . . We are abundantly blessed through Christian Standard eNewsletters. May God bless you. Timothy T. Pungsar

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