Archive - July, 2007

Froot Loops & Free Bibles

  |  Wed, July 11, 2007   |  Misc   12

We try to keep Logos Bible Software as inexpensive as possible considering all the value in the bundles, but that’s not enough for some people. For them the only right price is free.Some years back, a customer called one of our international distributors to report an epiphany in which God told him this distributor would send a free copy of the software. To which the quick-thinking distributor responded, “Fine, I’ll send it as soon as God tells me your address”.

But we’ve never experienced anything quite like what happened this past weekend. Here’s how the AP reports it:

A Bible software business was vandalized with pornography and devil-worship symbols, and a man has been arrested and taken to a hospital for evaluation, police said.

Satanic and Nazi symbols, pornography and other graffiti marred the Logos Research Systems Inc. main building and shipping department, located in separate downtown buildings last weekend, executive assistant Brenna Sebens said.

Regular light bulbs were replaced with red ones in a bathroom and there were disturbing paintings, satanic symbols and crude writing on the walls, she said.

…Police said officers were dispatched following a report of a man throwing Froot Loops cereal and pieces of paper out of an apartment window in the shipping department building Saturday morning.

According to the police report (and some of the graffiti), the man arrested believed very strongly that information should be free. The Bellingham Herald reported that he “told officers he felt the company was charging him money for Bibles when he could get them for free…”

Perhaps someone should have told him Logos doesn’t run on Linux anyway. (Just a joke!)

Some photos:

I’d like to say we were completelyshocked by this vandalism, but it’s not the first time we’ve experienced graffiti directed at the company or disturbed people walking into the office. But in the big picture, these are small frustrations. I think the email Bob Pritchett sent to the office after discovering the vandalism models what, ultimately, must be our reaction to such events:

I was pretty angry at first, but I think that’s the wrong reaction.

When a drunk driver drove through our church window, my pastor confessed to being pretty upset. But he soon realized that the (chronic) drunk driver, responsible as he remains for his actions, was in worse shape than our broken entryway. After putting up plywood he spray-painted it with large letters: “We forgive you.”

I want to exercise as much wisdom and grace.

Pray for us, that we would have the mind of Christ in all things.

Step Right This Way for the World’s Best Book Bargains

  |  Tue, July 10, 2007   |  Products   1

by Zack Rock

Dear readers, I set before you a challenge. I challenge you to visit your local massive retail establishment, peruse their value bin, and find something there that is – gasp! – actually valuable. I’m not talking about tainted boxes of cereal, misshapen candles that reek of patchouli, oversized wall clocks emblazoned with David Hasselhoff’s image, or any other mainstays of the discount bin. I want you to find something that will benefit you year after year – something that, dare I say, will change your life.

Now, unless you regularly experience religious epiphanies at the sight of Hasselhoff’s partially-obstructed face, I contend that you will find exactly nothing that could even come close to being described as “valuable.” Personally, I’ve only ever found one bargain item that was worth the three hard-earned Canadian dollars spent on it: Tom Hanks’ made-for-TV masterpiece Mazes and Monsters, a cautionary tale depicting the effects role-playing games have on young minds (which includes both schizophrenia and the wearing of outrageous hats). To this day, it remains the crown jewel of my VHS cassette collection.

Were you aware, then, that every day your favorite Bible-related software publisher offers bargain bin discounts on resources that you’d actually want? That’s right, folks, bona fide Bible reference books at low, low prices. How low, you ask? You tell us.

With the Community Pricing Program, you set the prices for every product on the page! If enough customers commit to purchase the product at or below the price you choose, the product gets sent into production, and, alakazam, you’ve got yourself another great resource in your Libronix library…usually for just a few dollars. For more information about how Community Pricing works, take a gander at the About Community Pricing page.

We just added two terrific titles to Community Pricing – Ellicott’s The Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul and H.B. Swete’s Patristic Study.And recent additionsAn Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament by S.R. Driver andthe classic Studies in the New Testament by A. T. Robertson have shot past 60% in record time.

Also notable is Deissmann’s Bible Studies, which has gathered more than 60% of bids needed to put it into production.

Things are a-hoppin’ on Community Pricing, so stop on by and find yourself a real deal!

Guest blogger Zack Rock craftsprepubpages and wears outrageous hats. In his spare time he draws illustrations.

A Review with Meat

  |  Mon, July 9, 2007   |  Misc   Comments Off

Rubén Gómez at Bible Software Review recently posted a review of Logos Bible Software 3 to his site and graciously permitted us to reprint the review.

Logos has been dissected many times in various magazines, journals, and websites but I must say this is one of the meatiest, most detailed reviews to date.

Even if you already own Logos, you’re bound to learn something from Rubén’sanalysis and accompanying screenshots.

Check it out!

For the love of an old book

  |  Thu, July 5, 2007   |  Products   8

You might think that we “book digitizers” have little appreciation for the aesthetics of an old book but quite the opposite is true.

Fact is, most of us will disappear for hourswhen given the chance to wander a good, used bookstore.

One of the things I love about old books is leafing through the pages in the back to see the advertisements inserted by the publisher. For example, Lange’s “Lost Volume” of commentary on the Apocrypha (published 1880)contains a list of “Popular and Standard” books published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1879.

Some of the titles and authors that I recognized:

I findthese advertisement pagestoprovide a fascinating, if unscientific, glimpse into themilieu in which the author was writing—what other books and authors were on the scene at the same time.

We don’t include these pages in Logos electronic editions simply because we never have. But I’d be interested in hearing from you…do you find value in things like the publisher’s advertisements from public domain books? Do you think it would be odd or out of place to include these “historical artifacts” in an electronic edition?

I don’t know that we would start including them, I’m just interested in hearing your thoughts!

Lexham Syntactic Greek New Testament Updated and Expanded

  |  Tue, July 3, 2007   |  Misc   1

The Lexham Syntactic Greek New Testament (henceforth Lexham SGNT) is an ongoing project here at Logos. When v3.0 was released, a preliminary version of the Lexham SGNT, covering Hebrews through Jude, was included in the various Scholar’s Library packages and the Original Languages Library package. (see more on packages here).
Dr. Al Lukaszewski has been steadily working through the Greek New Testament since that time. The latest beta release (v 3.0e) includes a significantly expanded version of the Lexham SGNT. If you already have access to the Lexham SGNT, the 3.0e beta will update your version. The new version includes data for Revelation, Romans and First Corinthians. Of course, it is a beta release so you should be sure to read all of the warnings and whatnot before you decide to install the beta version.
For an example of the sort of information that the Lexham SGNT provides, check out this previous blog entry which includes a video discussing “Syntactic Force Annotations”.

Yee-Haw! The Logos Chili Cook-Off 2007

  |  Mon, July 2, 2007   |  Misc   1

This past Friday was the seventh annual Logos Chili Cook-Off. Guest blogger Mark Van Dyke manned the camera, took some pictures, and files this report. Thanks, Mark!

On Friday, June 29 twelve Logos employees entered their time-honored (or recently ‘Googled’) chili recipes in a battle royale of meat, beans and tomato sauce.

Even before the clock hit high noon, this competition was unlike any other in Logos history. You see, when National Sales Representative Ed Hale heard about the contest he knew he had to enter. There was just one small problem – he lives in Escondido, CA and the competition was taking place at Logos headquarters in Bellingham, Washington. In order for Ed enter the competition he needed to figure out a way to get his chili to the Pacific Northwest.

The story could only end one of two ways: either this would turn into a messy disaster at the post-office or Ed’s chili would win and he would enter cook-off immortality. The result? Ed won the chili cook-off, got the girl and is selling his story to 20th Century Fox for millions.

And that was just in the “Mild Chili” category. This year’s competition required contestants to declare their chili as being “mild” or “real”. The “Real Chili” gold medal went to Scott Sanders of Logos’ Electronic Text Development department. This was a great send off for Scott as it was his last day working at Logos. Scott will be taking his ‘Roasted Robot Chili’ on the road as he bikes around the northwest for the next couple weeks. All this made for an memorable event and a great time for all involved.

Check out the chili-rific pictures below!


The contestants make their final preparations before the competition begins


Unofficial winner of the “best chili name” category.


While techies around the country lined up for their iPhone our sole attention was on chili.


Let the eating begin!


Scott Sanders’ winning entry: “Roasted Robot Chili”

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