Approximately one third of the Hebrew Bible is poetry and needs to be interpreted with a sensitivity to the devices used by Hebrew poets. However, most books covering the grammar and syntax of the Hebrew language are devoted almost entirely to prose, and leave investigations of poetry to more specialized books.
Those using Logos Bible Software to study the Hebrew Bible have a great selection of these prose grammars available to them, from Waltke and O’Connor’s An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax and the classic Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley Hebrew Grammar to Joüon-Muraoka’s A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew and Christo van der Merwe’s A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar. But until now, there have been few works made available for studying Hebrew poetry. Happily, the news isn’t all grim: a number of collections are now listed on the pre-publication page that can round out your Hebrew library nicely.
The Hebrew Studies Collection, consisting of seven volumes from the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, includes no less than four books on Hebrew poetry: Traditional Techniques in Classical Hebrew Verse, Classical Hebrew Poetry, A Guide to its Techniques, Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry, and Structural Analysis of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry. Parallelism, word pairs, figurative language, metre and a host of other rhetorical and structural devices are explored in this collection, making it an excellent first stop for exploring Hebrew poetics.
Word Order Variation in Biblical Hebrew Poetry, by Nicholas Lunn. Changing the expected word order is one method the biblical authors use to highlight or emphasize certain aspects of their sentences. Word order has oft been studied for Hebrew prose, but this book explores how those dynamics play out in the poetic genre.
The BHS Helps Collection features Luis Alonso Schokel’s A Manual of Hebrew Poetics. The manual is not primarily a reference book but rather a volume of initiation into the practice of analysis. Among the poetic techniques discussed are sound and sonority, rhythm, imagery, figures of speech, dialogue and monologue, development and composition.
Biblical Languages: Reference Grammars and Introductions (19 vols.) includes George Buchanan Gray’s classic The Forms of Hebrew Poetry, which includes extensive discussions of parallelism, rhythm, and alphabetic acrostics. Also included is Wickes’ Two Treatises on the Accentuation of the Old Testament, a study in the cantillation system of the Hebrew Bible.
I encourage those interested in studying the other third of the Hebrew Bible to take a look at some of these collections.
The Other Third of the Hebrew Bible
Free Logos 4! T-shirt
We’re giving away free Logos t-shirts and making it as easy as possible to get ‘em! Just spend $50 or more on Logos March Madness deals, or subscribe to Bible Study Magazine. No limit, while supplies last, no rain-checks, just cover S&H. Get your free Logos 4! T-shirt in either blue or green—or both—today!
Starting today, as the Logos March Madness Final 4 round starts, every $50 spent on Logos March Madness titles, and every subscription to Bible Study Magazine (with auto-renew selected) will qualify for a free tee. There is no limit on how many free t-shirts you may get—so don’t hold back. Get one for yourself, your spouse, your children, your staff, your friends!
There are two ways to get this special offer:
Logos March Madness purchases over $50:With limited time left in Logos March Madness competition, all new orders over $50 qualify—until March Madness ends. Every $50 increment gives you a coupon code for a free t-shirt. That is, $50 orders get one free tee, $150 purchases get you three coupon codes for three free tees and so on. Simple enough, right? Check out our Current Coupon Codes list now and place your order!
Simply forward the order confirmation receipt we send to your inbox
to shirt@logos.com with "Free T-shirt" in the subject line. Once we receive your proof of purchase and verify your order, we’ll respond with single-use coupon codes that you can use to order your free Logos 4! t-shirt.
Subscribe to Bible Study Magazine:
Every order of Bible Study Magazine (with Auto-Renew selected) from now until the end of April will get you a free Logos 4! T-shirt. If you already subscribe you can also give a gift subscription of Bible Study Magazine, then get the free t-shirt for yourself. While placing your order, just change the shipping information to the recipient’s name and address. After your order is completed, simply forward the order confirmation receipt
to shirt@logos.com with "Free T-shirt" in the subject line. Once we receive your proof of purchase and verify the order, we’ll respond with a coupon code that you can use to order your free Logos 4! T-shirt.
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Take advantage of all the current Logos March Madness coupon codes or subscribe to Bible Study Magazine now and be sure to email us your order confirmation!
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Logos 4: Look Up Multiple Cross References at Once
Today’s post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos training seminars.
Perhaps you enjoy studying the Bible through a series of cross references. If so, you’re familiar with the cross references placed inline the biblical text. In Logos 4, cross references are hyperlinked which means resting the mouse pointer on a link reveals a popup of the biblical passage from your Preferred Bible.
You can also look up numerous cross references at one time. Here’s how:
- Open a Bible
- Open Power Lookup from the Tools menu
- In the Bible, select (highlight) text containing the cross references you want to look up
The Power Lookup displays only the selected cross references!
More Titles on Sale with Logos March Madness
The Logos March Madness Sweet 16 round is complete and we now have 56 titles on sale from 25-35% off their retail price. That also means that there are now only 8 titles remaining in the race for a 75% off coupon code. Your votes determine which titles will win, so head over and vote. The Elite 8 round will be open for voting through March 29th. The titles that don’t advance out of this round will be receive a 40% off coupon code and the remaining 4 titles will battle it out to see who will be in the championship round.
Here’s a list of the current Logos March Madness titles on sale with the corresponding coupon code.
| Use code LMMR3 to save 35% on these titles | Retail | 35% off |
| The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology | $31.20 | |
| The Doctrine of the Atonement, As Taught by the Apostles | $28.44 | |
| The Treasury of David, Charles Spurgeon (6 Vols.) | $38.97 | |
| Encountering the Book of Romans, Douglas Moo | $16.24 | |
| He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. | $16.24 | |
| A Quest for Godliness, J. I. Packer | $9.72 | |
| Old Testament Survey, William Sanford LaSor, David Allan Hubbard, Frederic William Bush | $32.50 | |
| 1-3 John: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, John MacArthur | $17.54 |
Note: Please follow these instructions when purchasing titles using multiple coupon codes.
First, add all the titles you want to purchase to your cart:
Second, type in ALL the coupon codes you want to use, separating each of them with a comma:
Click “Update Cart”:
Check to make sure that all your titles received their discount:
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Digging into the Church Fathers
The collection of writings known as the Early Church Fathers (37 vols) is included in Scholar’s Silver, Gold and Platinum collections, and also in Portfolio (LE editions).
That is a large collection. It’s great, and it is very handy to have indexed by reference and topic. I’ve personally benefited from it many times over the years. But it is tough to dig into and understand as a whole, particularly if you’re not familiar with the major writers. What to do?
One place to start out is H.B. Swete’s Patristic Study (sold separately; not included in base collections). This is a small book, but it gives an overview of people and themes in the first five centuries of the church. The product page gives a good description:
Patristic Study focuses almost exclusively on the Fathers of the first five Centuries. After reviewing these writers, Dr. Swete proceeds in the closing chapters to suggest methods of employing the work of the Fathers for the particular purposes of those in different lines of religious and theological study.
Swete’s book is handy to use as an less technical introduction to the writings of the Church Fathers found in the much larger Early Church Fathers (37 vols) collection.
What about other titles in this area? Logos has several available:
- Getting to Know the Church Fathers; An Evangelical Introduction is a title on prepub (at the time this blog post was written). It distills information about the person instead of only the writings the person is responsible for. So figures in the early church like Augustine, Ignatius, Origen, Perpetua and Tertullian (and more) are described in ways that make their writings more accessible.
- The Apostolic Fathers Greek-English Interlinear is also presently gathering interest as a prepub. Lexicons like BDAG, TDNT and TLNT (as well as several commentaries) cite the writings of the Apostolic Fathers all the time. If you don’t remember as much of your Greek as you’d like, or if you haven’t had a chance to take Greek yet, sometimes an interlinear can be helpful in tracking down these cross-references and examining word usages in context.
- The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers is a handy work that provides cross references between New Testament passages and writings of the Apostolic Fathers. This can be very handy.
- Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels by Thomas Aquinas is presently a community pricing title. This is less of Aquinas and more of a compilation of sentences/notes from the church fathers that end up functioning as a commentary — by the church fathers — on the Gospels. Fun stuff, might be worth checking out.
I’d better stop now — but can you tell I’m excited about this stuff? Logos has a goodly amount of titles available in this area (even a chunk of volumes from Patrologia Graeca on prepub!) so I’ll have to blog again about this in the future to point out some more stuff that you might be interested in.
Introducing the Lexham English Bible
The Lexham English Bible (LEB) is a new translation of the Bible into English, and one of the newest additions to a suite of resources from Logos which connect the original language texts to formal translations. New translations of the Bible into English appear every few years. So what’s so special about the LEB?
Your Second Bible
The LEB complements your primary translation. Its transparent design and literal rendering helps you see the text of God’s Word from another angle. Whether you use the ESV, NIV, KJV, or another popular English translation, the entire translation process helps you identify difficult texts, idiomatic phrases, grammatical issues, and more. The result? A better understanding of the Bible in English—whatever translation you use.
In Logos Bible Software, interlinears reveal the path from the original language texts to formal translation. This type of information, used in concert with your primary translation, helps you dig deeper into the text of the original languages. The entire translation process is visible and transparent—you can see the entire process.
Logos iPhone Bible App Version 1.3 Released
Yesterday we blogged about how you can share Bible verses with your friends and family using our free Bible app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Today we wanted to let you know that we’ve released an update to our Bible app and it is ready for you to download today. The update, version 1.3, includes some really cool features like:
- Orientation lock
- Devotionals on the home page
- The ability to delete reading plans
- In-book information
- Improved connectivity with Twitter and Facebook
- and more…
Here’s a brief video overview of some of the new features and functions. (Note: Some of the new features, like devotionals, require you to sign in with a logos.com account to access them. If you don’t have a free Logos.com account, you can get one here.)
Using Your iPhone or iPod Touch to Share the Bible
One of the great features in the Logos iPhone Bible app is the ability to share Bible verses with your friends, family, and followers on Facebook, Twitter, and by email. Not only does the Logos iPhone Bible app make this easy to do, it does so in a way that is easy for your friends and family to engage with God’s Word. More than just sending a scripture reference, the iPhone app uses http://ref.ly to convert the verses into clickable links. The advantage is that you offer people an easy way to get right to the verse you want to share.
We’ve included a tutorial video below to show how the share functionality works for the iPhone and iPod Touch. If you use our iPhone app, watch the video and start sharing God’s Word! If you haven’t grabbed the free Bible app yet, then go download it today and start sharing.
Coupon Code for 25% Off 32 Titles
The first round of Logos March Madness is over and you can now buy these 32 great titles for 25% off using the coupon code LMMR1.
Want to save more?
Voting for Round 2 of Logos March Madness is now open. The 16 titles not advancing out of Round 2 will receive a coupon code for 30% off. Head over to www.logosmarchmadness.com and vote for your favorite titles. Remember, the further a title advances, the bigger the discount it will receive!
Logos 4: Open Logos the Way You Close It
Today’s post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos training seminars.
Do you ever have to close Logos before you’ve completed your study? Perhaps it’s time for dinner or you’re making the final descent into an airport. No worries. You can set Logos to automatically open the way you close it. Here’s how:
- Click Customize in the lower left hand corner of the Home page
- Uncheck the box Show home page at startup
Now when you’re ready to close Logos, just close the program with all the resources and panels still open. When you restart Logos you’ll automatically return to this layout!
