Archive - October, 2005

ETS/SBL Sessions Relating to Logos, Part 1

  |  Mon, October 17, 2005   |  Misc   2

One of the most exciting events we attend every year is the national meeting of Evangelical Theological Society and Society of Biblical Literature held in mid-November, this year in greater Philadelphia, PA.

We’ll have a booth at each meeting where you can meet a number of Logos staff. It’s an exciting time for us to meet and hear from the academic crowd and show off new products and features that are in the works or recently shipped.

Beyond just stopping by the booth, this year you can also attend half a dozen or more sessions that relate to Logos Bible Software! Some of the sessions are presented by Logos staff, but most are presented by scholars who are using our software or developing new databases for Logos.

I’ll start with ETS, since it’s held first, then follow up with a post or two on SBL sessions (found here and here).

At ETS, you’ll want to hit the Thursday afternoon session on Bible software, moderated by Dr. Coakley, Moody Graduate School. At that session, the emphasis is on using software tools such as Logos to teach syntax and discourse-level analysis. The new tools and databases we’re producing open up new approaches to teaching (and learning!) the biblical languages. The focus can now move beyond the word level to consider textual units as a whole. Just as morphologically-tagged texts were an essential tool for yesterday’s seminarian, syntactically-tagged texts are the indispensible tool for the next generation of students.

At this session, you’ll hear from three Moody profs and our own Rick Brannan and Eli Evans. Details follow…

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Thankful for This Job

  |  Fri, October 14, 2005   |  Misc   Comments Off

There are lots of reasons I love my job. I like the technology, the business, and the people. But most of all, I appreciate the incredible privilege it is to be developing tools that help people study the Bible.

Recently I came in to work to find this email from a Bible college president sitting in my inbox:

I’m sitting here, w/ a notebook computer, in a “not yet open Starbucks,” in <city name> (giving a series of lectures at <seminary name>) using Logos / Libronix in my devotions and am still amazed. I cannot believe the ease w/ which I can do word studies, check commentaries, compare versions, and get lost in Logos trails… it is truly amazing what you have done. Thanks again. This tool is a huge blessing to me. Appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.

I believe that I could work unto the Lord in many different occupations; I know people who do in a variety of jobs. But I know that it is a rare and unusual job where you provide tools that so directly support people’s Bible study and teaching, and where you can get such direct encouragement and feedback. I am thankful for this job, and for the many users who have taken the time to encourage, challenge, and pray for us.

Greek Syntax and Logos Bible Software

  |  Thu, October 13, 2005   |  Products   2

A few weeks back, Bob had a teaser post about work being done at Logos with Greek syntax.

Over the next few weeks, I hope for my Logos blogging to consist of more information regarding exactly what we’re doing in the area of tools to assist with Greek syntax.

It is all (at least to me) very cool. However, there’s a lot to it, and it doesn’t lend itself to a short explanation.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Keep posted, I’ll try to have an entry or two per week talking about these things to bring y’all up to speed.

Oh, yeah, one more thing: We don’t just have one data source for information regarding Greek syntax … we have two. They’re both different in philosophy and (I think) complementary. And we have a third source that presents the Greek New Testament as Clausal Outlines, which should be a great help in tracking themes and other stuff helpful in both exegetical and homiletical usage of the Greek New Testament.

So stay tuned.

Nobel Prize in Economics and Game Theory (at Logos!)

  |  Wed, October 12, 2005   |  Misc   3

It all started innocently enough. I went for a cup of coffee on Monday afternoon at the Starbucks up the street. When I was there, they gave me a coupon for a free Pumpkin Spice Latte.

I like my coffee straight. No cream, no sugar, and certainly no “pumpkin spice”.

So, on my way back to the office, coffee in one hand and coupon in the other, I started thinking. Earlier that day, the Nobel Prize in Economics was announced. It went to some guys (Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann) who did foundational work in Game Theory. (yes, I can be a bit of an econ geek … )

I had the brainstorm of giving away the coupon via Logos company email, but experimenting a little with game theory in the process. Read on if you’re interested …

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Street Signs

  |  Tue, October 11, 2005   |  Misc   1

LogosHighwayBanner.jpgGetting ready for AAR/SBL this year got me thinking about our booth in previous years.
ParkingForHebrewScholars.jpg

One of my favorite booth themes was our 2003 display with the road sign theme. We did a big banner with a highway overpass and freeway graphics and then made up custom street and parking signs to decorate the booth.

We got a lot of great feedback from people walking by the booth, and lots of people wanted to buy our “Parking for Hebrew Scholars Only” sign. But we kept it, and it now decorates the wall above our Hebrew scholar’s desk. The street signs are in our lunchroom.

(We ordered our signs from Cute Signs, where you can get your own custom parking sign for under $20.)

Broadus on Sin

  |  Mon, October 10, 2005   |  Products   1

John A. Broadus

These posts are supposed to be Logos-related so I might be stretching it a bit with this one…

I recently bought a book by D. A. Carson called Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church that I hoped would be an intelligent critique of the emerging church “not-a-movement.” I’m still not sure whether it is intelligent or anything else because my wife started reading it before I got a chance to pick it up.

But one paragraph she read aloud came to mind today…

Some leader, perhaps Mike Yaconelli, was quoted as saying that we don’t need to talk about sin anymore. People these days know all about their sin …it’s the message of grace that they need to hear.

Personally, I’m not ready to stop hearing about my sin because I don’t think I take it seriously enough. It doesn’t grieve me the way it ought, and I don’t hate it as passionately as I ought. All in all, I think our age takes sin very lightly compared with at least some ages past.

In fact, downplaying sin in preaching and hymnody is certainly not unique to any one movement or denomination; I would say it’s become a defining characteristic of whole swaths of Christendom. The point of this post is not to offer a critique of the emerging church movement but rather a counterpoint to our collective and individual willingness to get chummy with sin.
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IVP’s Ancient Christian Commentary in LDLS Format

  |  Fri, October 7, 2005   |  Products   Comments Off

The Ancient Christian Commentary Series (ACCS) from InterVarsity Press is one of my favorite in-process commentary series.

The first installment of the electronic edition of the ACCS, known as Volume 1, is now available. Twelve volumes of patristic power, arranged like a commentary, at your fingertips. I’m pretty stoked about this one, it is like having a selected reference index to the church fathers.

These volumes have excerpts from fathers cited in the Schaff edition (which Logos also has available in its entirety), but they are by no means limited to that well of wisdom and insight. Other lesser-known fathers are quoted too. Many of the quoted materials are provided in new translations.

If you’re interested in looking into how the early church interpreted and applied Scripture, then you should consider how this set might help you in your study. More information is availble on the series at the ACCS web site.

Greek Pseudepigrapha is Closing In!

  |  Thu, October 6, 2005   |  Products   Comments Off

Greek OT PseudepigraphaI’m sure many readers of the Logos Bible Software Blog already know this, but Logos has been planning an edition of the Greek Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

It has been listed on our Pre-Publication page for awhile. But the confirmed pre-orders don’t quite cover our costs yet. They’re so very close (check out the thermometer on the prepub page) but not over the line.

We generally like to make sure our estimated costs are covered before something moves from “Gathering Interest” status to “Under Development” status.

If you aren’t familiar with this material but have some familiarity with Greek and using Greek-English lexicons, then you might want to check this out. One primary benefit of having things like the Greek Pseudepigrapha available in your library is the ability to look up secondary citations in the primary language. Of course the pseudepigrapha are not useful for establishment of doctrine; but they are helpful for comparative word studies, studies of grammatical phenomena, and for understanding more about the religious culture of the day.

So, if you haven’t given this one a look-see yet, maybe you should. While the pre-pub price is still relatively low. Here are some pages with more information:

Update (2005-10-21): It has come to my attention that the Greek Pseudepigrapha pre-pub has “crossed the line” and is now “Under Development”. Thanks to all who have pre-ordered; we’ll do our best to get the work done and the resource to you as quickly as we can!

The Lost Photo Shoot

  |  Wed, October 5, 2005   |  Misc   2

The attentive reader of Bob’s Sept. 27 post will recall that he mentioned using the ECF volumes for a recent photo shoot.

We were shooting Bob for the Red Herring article and trying to come up with some creative images. The reporter said the more interesting the image, the more likely it would be used in the story.

As with many projects at Logos, this was a no-budget affair. Sean, the graphic designer and all-around art guy, brought in his digital SLR camera and we grabbed some lights from next door…

After getting out the ladder so Bob could climb up and stand atop the 15-foot wall, we abandoned the idea as impractical (not because it was dangerous but because the angles were all wrong). We considered going next door to the dusty, gutted-out building that is being prepared for us to inhabit soon, but that idea was discarded as being an irrelevant backdrop.

We like the aluminum sign that hangs in the reception area, and somebody suggested using some books as a prop. Next thing you know, we’re trotting back to one of the bookshelves to retrieve the Early Church Fathers volumes. Where else can you find a stack of uniformly bound books that reaches more than waist high?

Here are some shots of the shoot in progress…
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Speaking of the Early Church Fathers …

  |  Tue, October 4, 2005   |  Misc   2

Reading Bob’s post and seeing the picture of Eli holding 37 volumes of the Church Fathers’ writings brings back memories.

I remember when we did the ECF project. That was Eli’s baby, and what an incredible job he did in pullling that thing together. I can recall helping his team out by proofing through Greek in footnotes to make sure it was actually correct. I think I may have even keyed some of the footnotes.

But what I remember most is the topical index.
Huh? You didn’t know that the 37-volume Logos Bible Software edition of the Early Church Fathers has a topic index? Well, it does. And that particular topic index doesn’t exist anywhere else.

This article looks back on how all that happened. Ahhhhhh … nostalgia!

It must’ve been 1996, but it sure doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. Eli and I were just figuring out what it meant to make electronic books, and were “kicking the tires” both with LLS resources and with our still-developing programming skills.
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