Archive - September, 2012

Logos 4: Collins Thesaurus of the Bible

  |  Mon, September 10, 2012   |  Training   1

Today’s post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris, who has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos seminars, provides many training materials.

I’m often asked if I still learn anything new about Logos. The answer is a resounding yes! The features and resources available in Logos make up a vast goldmine waiting to be explored. I recently noticed a topical Bible, currently available in most Logos base packages, that pulls together in one place numerous verses about a subject. Collins Thesaurus of the Bible organizes thousands of verses around nearly one thousand topics.

I encourage you to open this resource, display its table of contents, and explore its arrangement and riches. This is one of the most thorough yet user-friendly reference books I’ve ever encountered. If you enjoy doing topical and/or cross-reference work, you’ll benefit from this book. After familiarizing yourself with it, try this organizational tip for easy access:

  • Open the Library.
  • Click Prioritize. (1)
  • Enter this text in the Library’s Find box: title:collin’s. (2)
  • Drag Collins Thesaurus of the Bible from the left side of the library to the Prefer these resources list on the left. (3)
  • Make sure the Thesaurus is in the top five of your prioritized topical books.

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  • Navigate in a Bible to a passage like Ephesians 2:20–21. (4)
  • Right click on a word—temple, dwelling, etc. (5)
  • Select from the right menu Selection “your word” | Collins Thesaurus of the Bible. (6)
  • Notice that the resource jumps to an article about your subject even though it may not be the exact word.

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Please note that if you try to right-click the plural form of a word such as apostles or prophets in Ephesians 2:20 the thesaurus may not show up on the right menu. If this occurs try this:

  • Manually select the singular form of the word, leaving off the “s” (in other words manually highlight apostle rather than right clicking on apostles). (7)
  • Right-click on the selected singular form of the word. (7)
  • Select from the right menu: Selection “your singular form of the word” | Collins Thesaurus of the Bible. (8)

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Now enjoy the extensive cross-references, along with the actual verse texts, found in this book!

3 Reasons Logos Resources Are So Valuable

  |  Fri, September 7, 2012   |  Company, Products   0

I talked to someone recently who pointed out that some Logos resources are public domain. His question to me was, “Why should I pay for books I could possibly find for free?”

This was a great question, and I was able to quickly rattle off three features that make Logos books invaluable.

1. Networked Resources

Every book in a normal library (whether physical or electronic) operates independently; the value of each book is primarily the information it carries. Your Logos resources, however, are linked together, building a vast network of information. When Logos creates an electronic book, we tag the contents by word, phrase, topic, and reference, making the whole of your library exponentially more valuable than the sum of its parts.

Logos senior vice president Dale Pritchett communicated this multiplying value in a fantastic 2010 blog post entitled “The ‘Network Effect.’”

Not only do Logos books create an extensive network of information—they make up a growing ecosystem of platforms tying Bible study together. You can use your Logos library for study, discuss rich passages with your Faithlife Community, or easily share quotes and passages with your congregation via Proclaim.

What makes networked resources so amazing is that they’re completely searchable—in seconds! Imagine opening the 86-volume Baker Academic Biblical Studies Bundle and pulling up every one of the collection’s references to John 17 in moments. Now imagine that with thousands of resources.

2. Multiple Platforms Mean Constant Accessibility

Not only can you access your books from your PC or MacBook—you can access them with the iPhone or Android apps.

That’s not all! You can also read your books on any browser through Biblia.com or while connected with your friends and church on the Faithlife Community apps.*

3. Your Resources Are Updated for Free

We shared some updates to the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary in a blog post back in May. These included fixes to typos, bibliographic milestones, links to nearly 40,000 bibliographic citations, and thousands of references to new data types. All these updates happened behind the scenes without you having to lift a finger.

A customer recently commented in the forums how pleased he was to find his Oxford Bible Commentary updated—this is a product we haven’t sold in many years.

These are just a couple of reasons why Logos books are the most valuable electronic resources available. If you’re looking to start your own Logos library, make sure to check out our base packages. You’ll get tons of resources at pennies on the dollar, as well as fantastic features for Bible study!

 

*If you haven’t downloaded the Faithlife Study Bible, it’s free through March 2014 with the coupon code FREE. Once you have the study Bible, you’ll be guided to the Faithlife Community iPhone and Android apps.

Advance Notice on Discontinued Platform Support

  |  Fri, September 7, 2012   |  Company   14

On October 26, 2012, Logos will drop support for Windows XP and OS X 10.5 “Leopard.”

Windows XP

Your existing Logos 4 installs will continue to run, but future releases of Logos Bible Software will require Windows Vista SP2 or newer.

This will not disable any XP systems, but future book releases may use new features or data types only available in newer versions of Logos, and therefore, may not be usable on Windows XP systems.

Logos 4 depends on a number of Microsoft platform components, including the .NET framework. With the October 26, 2012, release of Windows 8, Microsoft is upgrading the .NET 4 platform to .NET 4.5, which is an “in-place” install replacing .NET 4 (which we’re planning to move to for many reasons, including performance and bug fixes).

.NET 4.5 will run on Windows Vista SP2 and later versions of Windows, but specifically NOT Windows XP.

Very few Logos users remain on XP, and continuing to support XP in new releases takes development and testing resources, and makes it more difficult to use other capabilities only offered on newer versions of Windows.

OS X 10.5 “Leopard”

Your existing install will continue to run, but future releases of Logos Bible Software will require newer versions of OS X.

This will not disable your system, but future releases may use new features or data types only available in newer versions of Logos, and thus will not be usable on OS X 10.5.

We have even fewer users on OS X 10.5 than on XP. And coincidentally OS X 10.5 “Leopard” was released on October 26, 2007, meaning that it will be five years since its release and it is now three major releases out of date. Dropping 10.5 support in future releases will free up development and testing resources and allow us to do more.

Give Us Your Feedback

We’ve learned that nobody likes to get “discontinuation” news at the last minute. So this is our first advance notice, your chance to speak up if there’s a really compelling reason we should not drop either platform on October 26, 2012.

Jump over to the forums to give us your feedback:

Receive Chapters of Reformed Dogmatics Before It’s Released!

  |  Thu, September 6, 2012   |  Products   1

It’s been nearly 18 months since we announced our translation project for Geerhardus Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics. The project is currently under development, and we’re excited about its progress. So excited, in fact, that we’re going to release the first two chapters early! Anyone who pre-orders Reformed Dogmatics by September 12, 2012, will have the first two chapters unlocked on September 13.

Geerhardus Vos taught at both Calvin Theological Seminary and Princeton Theology Seminary alongside such luminaries as J. Gresham Machen and B. B. Warfield. He was an outspoken proponent of Reformed biblical theology. Cornelius Van Til wrote that “Vos was the greatest pedagogue I ever sat under,” and John Murray said Vos was “the most penetrating exegete it has been my privilege to know.” This project is the first and only English translation of Vos’ Gereformeerde Dogmatiek.

We assembled a team of translators from North America and the Netherlands. The translation leader, Richard B. Gaffin, is an acclaimed Vos scholar who’s published numerous articles on Vos and who edited Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos. Gaffin has taught at Philadelphia’s Westminster Theological Seminary since 1965.

Everyone who’s pre-ordered by September 12 will get these two chapters:

  • The Knowability of God
  • Names, Being, and Attributes of God

Written in a catechetical format, Reformed Dogmatics expresses rich Reformed theology in a thoughtful question-and-answer dialogue.

On what ground do others deny God’s knowability?

On the ground that God is All-Being. They have a pantheistic view of God. Now, knowing presumes that the object known is not all there is, since it always remains distinct from the subject doing the knowing. Making God the object of knowledge, one reasons, is equivalent to saying that He is not all there is, that He is limited.

What response is to be made against this view?

a) The objection that this view presents stems entirely from a philosophical view of God, as if He were All-Being. This view is wrong. God is certainly infinite, but God is not the All. There are things that exist, whose existence is not identical with God.

b) It is certainly true that we cannot make a visible representation of God because He is a purely spiritual being. But we also cannot do that of our own soul. Yet we believe that we know it.

If you haven’t pre-ordered Reformed Dogmatics yet, what are you waiting for? Order it by next Wednesday, September 12, and add the first two chapters to your Bible study library on September 13!

Back to School Sale: Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics

  |  Wed, September 5, 2012   |  Company, Products   0

Today’s post on Karl Barth is from Matthew Wilcoxen. Matt is a PhD student at Charles Sturt University, focusing on Barth and the concept of time. He is a graduate of Biola University and Talbot School of Theology.

The term classic is applied to a work with lasting influence—a singular exemplar of a new mode of thought, one that leads to widespread imitation and sharp critique. A classic of Christian theology must also, of course, be an attempt to say afresh the message of the Bible. As the dust settles on the life of Karl Barth, it becomes increasingly clear that his magnum opus, the Church Dogmatics, deserves a place on this top shelf of Christian intellectual history, where it sits rightfully alongside the works of Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin.

Karl Barth the Professor

The son of a Reformed minister, Barth (1886–1968) was himself stimulated to study theology through a confirmation class he took as an adolescent. He went on to study at Bern, Berlin, Tübingen, and then Marburg, receiving a thorough initiation into the liberal Protestant theology regnant on the continent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During WWI, Barth was busy studying the Epistle to the Romans. This would lead to multiple editions of a landmark commentary. In the words of one contemporary, the important second edition published in 1922 was a “bomb that fell on the playground of the theologians.” This book was so revolutionary that it catapulted Barth to the top rungs of the German academy, landing him a professorship in Göttingen. From here he would go on to teach at Münster, Bonn, and—after being expelled from Germany by the Nazis—Basel, where he would spend the rest of his career and write the bulk of the nearly-9,000-page Church Dogmatics.

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics

The Church Dogmatics unfolds the same insight as the commentary on Romans—that revelation, the sovereign act of God, occurs outside of and in spite of all human possibilities. Through the study of, in particular, Luther, Reformed Christology, and Anselm’s Proslogion, Barth found the tools at his disposal to build a theological system on the objective reality of God in the incarnate Christ. Thus “in Christ”—applied to both God and human beings—is the method and the content of the 13 part-volumes of the Church Dogmatics. So not only due to his contemporary influence, but because Barth refuses to take as given anything other than Immanuel, “God for us,” Barth’s theology is continually solidifying its status as a classic.

This method of building a theological system engages Barth in lengthy scriptural exegesis, engagement with all strands of Western Christian theology, and critical interactions with modern philosophy. And since Barth sees true human existence in Jesus Christ, ethics is never treated as ancillary to theological reflection; in the Church Dogmatics, themes like prayer, sanctification, and other issues central to Christian discipleship figure quite prominently. There is something here for everyone—the student, the preacher, or even the accomplished scholar.

* * *

As part of our Back to School Sale, you can pick up a copy of Barth’s classic Church Dogmatics for just $379.95 (with coupon code B2SBarth). Check out Barth and all the other amazing deals we have on sale for our Back to School Sale.

Win an iPad and a Base Package from the Glorious Ruin Tour!

  |  Tue, September 4, 2012   |  Company, Products   77

The Glorious Ruin Tour, featuring Tullian Tchividjian, kicks off September 20 in Fort Worth, Texas. Glorious Ruin, Tchividjian’s latest book, looks into the gloriously counterintuitive truth of a God who suffers with you and for you.

Glorious Ruin is now available for pre-order on Vyrso.com.

“Why then do we suffer? Why does God allow so much of it? What, if anything, are we supposed to learn through it? And, most importantly, when will it end? Nothing forces us to confront the deeper questions of life quite like suffering. Nothing makes us face the gnawing emptiness inside more nakedly. Nothing confirms our suspicion more powerfully that this is not how things are supposed to be.” —Tullian Tchividjian

Thanks to Logos’ ecosystem of related resources, Glorious Ruin will connect to relevant titles in your digital library, deepening its themes and references. You’ll read it on the go with the Logos, Vyrso, or Faithlife mobile app. And as always, you’ll be able to read on the web with Biblia.com.

To pre-order Glorious Ruin, visit Vyrso.com today!

To mark Glorious Ruin’s launch, Logos has teamed up with David C. Cook to bring you an awesome chance to win a copy. If chosen, you’ll also win a brand-new third-generation iPad equipped with a Logos Silver Library! This giveaway will run through the last date of the 2012 leg of the Glorious Ruin Tour, November 8. The winner will be announced Monday, November 12.

 


By entering the contest you are opting in to receive emails from Logos and Logos partners.

Logos 4: Power Reading

  |  Mon, September 3, 2012   |  Training   5

Today’s post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris, who has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos seminars, provides many training materials.

Years ago, my mentor, Rob Morgan, taught me that the first step in Bible study is to read the text. The second step is to read it again. The third step is to read it some more. It’s amazing how much we can learn from a passage if we repeatedly and carefully read it. Sometimes, though, during our initial reading we need some clarification about a word or some background information about a person or place. We’re not quite ready for in-depth study with study guides, lexicons, commentaries, and dictionaries, but some quick help sure would be nice. During these times, we need to practice power reading with the Information panel:

  • Open an English-language Bible containing the reverse interlinear feature, such as the ESV, NASB, KJV, NKJV, or NRSV. (1)
  • Choose the Tools menu. (2)
  • Drag the Information tool to the right-hand side of the screen so that it opens in its own large tile. (3)
  • Navigate to a passage of Scripture. (4)
  • Rest the cursor on a word in the Bible. (5)
  • Notice instant information appearing in the Information panel. (6)
  • Move the cursor to another word and watch the data change.

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If the information is changing too quickly for you:

  • Click the Settings link on the Information panel. (7)
  • Select Update information on: click. (8)

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Now you’ll have to click a word in the Bible to get the information to change. In addition, in the Settings menu, you can adjust the resources that are used in the Information panel.

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Try using this feature when you’re just reading a “normal” book. Having an instant dictionary close at hand can be beneficial!

Free Book of the Month: Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts

  |  Sat, September 1, 2012   |  Products   0

“Blest are the humble souls that see their emptiness and poverty; Treasures of grace to them are giv’n, and crowns of joy laid up in heav’n.”—Isaac Watts

The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts is September’s Free Book of the Month!

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) was an English hymnist and theologian. Recognized as the “Father of English Hymnody,” he wrote over 500 hymns, including “Joy to the World” and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

As a young boy, Watts began to write poems and hymns to delight his mother. He received an excellent education as a child and then studied at the nonconformist academy at Stoke Newington. After completing his education, Watts began to write hymns. The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts puts all his beloved hymns at your fingertips.

You can get Watts’ book free through the end of September, and when you visit the Free Book of the Month page, you can enter to win the 14-volume Works of Isaac Watts collection.

Visit the Free Book of the Month page now to download your free book and enter the giveaway!

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