Recently in Free Stuff Category

To celebrate the November-December issue of Bible Study Magazine, featuring John MacAthur, we have partnered with Thomas Nelson to give away a free download of MacArthur Bible Studies: Romans. Visit our John MacArthur on Bible Study page for all the details on how you can get your free download.

Along with giving away the free download, we're excited to announce a new John MacArthur pre-order opportunity. The John MacArthur Essential Bible Study Library assembles MacArthur’s best-selling Bible study books into a singular collection, with two dozen resources, including Bible studies, study Bibles, and more. Place your pre-order today!

If you're looking for even more John MacArthur material, be sure to visit our John MacArthur resource page.

Learn how to get your free download of MacArthur Bible Studies: Romans now!

Later today we will award our first SeminaryScholarship.com scholarship. The scholarship includes $1,000.00 towards tuition, plus a copy of Logos Scholar's Library which contains more than 330 titles, which in print would cost over $6,100.00.

Next Scholarship--January 10, 2010

While we'll announce the scholarship winner next week, we wanted to let you know that we'll be awarding another SeminaryScholarship.com scholarship on January 10, 2010. So, if you didn't get around to applying for our last scholarship, you can apply now. For those who applied for our last scholarship, we encourage and invite you to apply again.

Not in Seminary?

Help the seminarians around you by letting them know about this scholarship opportunity. Post a link on Facebook, tweet about it, or just send the link (http://www.seminaryscholarship.com/) in email to someone you know in seminary.

As a former seminarian, I can say with great confidence that I always appreciated the person who told me about opportunities to get money to help pay for my education. If you know a seminarian, today is your day to be that person! Today is Help-a-Seminarian Day.

In just 13 days, Logos will award its first Seminary Scholarship, which includes $1,000.00 towards tuition and a copy of Scholar's Library.

Help the seminarians around you by letting them know about this scholarship opportunity. Applying is easy and only takes less than 15 minutes.

How can you help a seminarian? Spread the word!

Facebook: Login to your Facebook account and post the link http://www.SeminaryScholarship.com on your wall. Be sure to include a line that lets your friends know what the link is all about. Something like, "If you are in seminary, here is a scholarship that might help you out." You can also just click here to share on Facebook.

Twitter: Post a tweet with a link to http://www.SeminaryScholarship.com. Not sure what to tweet? You can just click here and tweet this.

Blog: If you have a blog, you can help out seminarians two ways. First, you can write a post on your blog letting seminarians know about the scholarship. Second, you can add one of our new Seminary Scholarship web banners to your site.

Not sure what to write? Try this:

Need Money for Seminary?

Searching for a seminary scholarship is tough. Everywhere you turn there are requirements. Degree track, financial need, denominations, demographics —what seminarian has time for all that!?!

Now there is a scholarship that is open to everyone and doesn’t take a week’s worth of late nights to apply for. At www.SeminaryScholarship.com all you have to do is watch a demonstration of Logos Bible Software and fill out a brief application. Once your application is submitted you will be entered to win a $1,000.00 scholarship AND a digital theological library that, in print, would cost over $6,100.00!

www.SeminaryScholarship.com

Today marks the halfway point for our Great Bible Giveaway. To date we've seen more than 40,000 visitors to the giveaway site, received more than 7,000 official entries, and given away 36 ultra-premium Bibles worth nearly $6,000.00. All that, and we've still got three more months to go! If you haven't won yet, stick with it. October could be your month!

This October, Bible.Logos.com is giving away another 12 exquisitely crafted premium Bibles. Visit the Great Bible Giveaway for details on how to enter, as well as the full contest rules and prize list.

This month we will be giving away:

1. ESV Study Bible, Black Calfskin (Retail $239.99) from Crossway
2. KJV Concord Wide Margin Reference, Black Goatskin (Retail $229.99) from Cambridge Bibles
3. NASB In Touch Ministries Wide Margin Edition, Burgundy Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
4. NASB Large Print Ultrathin Reference, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
5. NASB Side Column Reference Wide Margin Special Limited Edition, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
6. NASB Wide Margin Reference, Black Goatskin (Retail $229.99) from Cambridge Bibles
7. NIV Thinline, Ebony Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $49.99) from Zondervan
8. NIV Study Bible, Black Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $124.99) from Zondervan
9. NKJV UltraSlim Bible Signature Series, Tan Calfskin (Retail $129.99) from Thomas Nelson
10. NLTSB Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail Unavailable) from Tyndale
11. NLTSB Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail Unavailable) from Tyndale
12. TNIV, Black Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $99.99) from Zondervan

To read how the Great Bible Giveaway got started, check out our original Bible Giveaway post.

Twelve more people have now received a top-of-the-line premium leather Bible from the Great Bible Giveaway.

Will you be next? You still have 6 more days to enter for your chance to be one of our September winners! Visit the Great Bible Giveaway for full details and to enter today.

Congratulations to our August winners:

J. Genota - ESV Study Bible, Black Calfskin (Retail $239.99) from Crossway

Q. Marlow - ESV Wide Margin Reference, Black Goatskin ($229.99) from Cambridge Bibles

S. Padilla - KJV Cambridge Premier Concord Reference, Black Goatskin (Retail $199.99) from Cambridge Bibles

D. Wellcome - NASB In Touch Ministries Wide Margin Edition, Burgundy Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation

D. Muntean - NASB Large Print Ultrathin Reference, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation

J. Mayden - NASB Side Column Reference Wide Margin Special Limited Edition, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation

T. Joy - NIV Archaeological Study Bible, Venetian Brown Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $109.99) From Zondervan

M. Jaggers - NIV Thinline, Ebony Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $49.99) from Zondervan

B. Holt - NKJV UltraSlim Bible Signature Series, Tan Calfskin (Retail $129.99) from Thomas Nelson

A. Hobbs - NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale

A. Doyles - NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale

N. Creitz - TNIV, Black Renaissance Fine Leather ($99.99) from Zondervan

Want to see how this all started? View our original Great Bible Giveaway blog post.

While I try to keep God’s Word in my heart and mind on a regular basis, I must say that among email, work projects, family, Facebook, Twitter . . . my heart and mind tend to stray a little. That’s why I’m excited about the new project we’re launching today.

Today we are announcing the launch of 7 new Twitter accounts that are designed to help you take a moment in your day and meditate on God’s word.

We set the accounts up about a couple week ago to run them through some testing, and I’ve been following them in my personal twitter account. It has been really encouraging to glance over at my feed throughout the day and see a simple reminder of who God is and who I am in Christ.

We hope that these accounts will be a blessing to all you Twitter users and that, amongst the endless chatter of Twitter, you will stop for a moment focus your heart and mind on God’s Word.

Here are the accounts you can follow:

When people ask me what I do for work, I half-jokingly tell them that I Twitter for a living. At any given time I can have up to 4 different Twitter clients up on my screen. I monitor a lot of different conversations and do my best to keep tabs on the vast number of discussion taking place. This can be a little crazy since @Logos has almost 5,000 followers and we follow all of them (spammers and SEO experts excluded, of course).

While there is a lot of information being thrown at me, there was one tweet that caught my eye the other day. @pastorjamie tweeted this:

I immediately stopped and thought, "Wow, what a great use of Twitter." Here we have a pastor using Twitter to not simply share that he's having a cup of coffee, or that he's washing the dog. Rather, he is using Twitter to lead his church, or at least those following him on Twitter, to engage in the study of God's Word. I was also pretty happy that he used our tool, Ref.ly, to do it.

The advancement of technology, especially in the social sphere, is nothing short of amazing. The challenge is how we can harness this technology for the kingdom and glory of God. At Logos, we are trying to do our part with projects such as Ref.ly (for Twitter and Facebook), RefTagger (for blogs and websites), and Bible.Logos.com. We hope that these tools serve you well and help you engage in a meaningful way.

So, how about you? Are you using Ref.ly or RefTagger? Drop a comment below with a link. Also, what are your thoughts on social media? What ideas do you have for engaging people in a meaningful way?

The second month of our Great Bible Giveaway is over, and 12 ultra premium Bibles are on their way to the winners! If you didn't win last month, don’t worry—we have 48 more Bibles to give away between now and the end of December.

This September, Bible.Logos.com is giving away another 12 exquisitely crafted premium Bibles. Visit the Great Bible Giveaway page for details on how to enter, as well as the full contest rules and prize list.

This month we will be giving away:

1. ESV Calfskin Study Bible (retail: $239.99) from Crossway
2. KJV Concord Cambridge Calfskin (retail: $199.99) from Cambridge
3. NASB In Touch Ministries Wide Margin Edition, Burgundy Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
4. NASB Large Print Ultrathin Reference, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
5. NASB Side Column Reference Wide Margin Limited Edition, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
6. NIV Fine Leather Archaeological (retail: $104.99) from Zondervan
7. NIV New Women’s Devotional Renaissance Fine Leather (retail: $59.99) from Zondervan
8. NKJV Wide Margin Reference Goatskin (retail $229.99) from Cambridge
9. NKJV UltraSlim Bible Signature Series, Black Calfskin (Retail $129.99) from Thomas Nelson
10. NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale
11. NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale
12. TNIV Reference Bible, Black Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $99.99) from Zondervan

To read how the Great Bible Giveaway got started, check out our original Bible Giveaway post.

In the September–October issue of Bible Study Magazine, Chaplain (Major) Jeff Struecker shares how his study of the Bible not only helped him during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu (featured in the book and movie Black Hawk Down), but how Scripture influences every aspect of his life as a soldier. Read the article now.

Major Struecker speaks from experience, including combat in Operation Just Cause in Panama, Operation Iris Gold in Kuwait, Operation Gothic Serpent in Mogadishu, Somalia, and multiple tours in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. His awards for actions in these imminent danger zones include the Southwest Asia Service Medal (1 Service Star), Kuwaiti Liberation Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (2nd award), National Defense Service Medal and the Bronze Star Medal (with “V” Device for valor, 3rd award). He has received other medals as recognition for his service in the United States Army. In addition to these awards and others, Struecker took first place in the David L. Grange Best Ranger competition in 1996.

Do you know someone serving in the military? Please send them a link to the article. We hope that it will be an encouragement to all soldiers seeking to grow in faith during military service. We are currently offering this feature article, “Drawing on Scripture Under Gunfire,” as a free download at http://www.biblestudymagazine.com/chaplain/.

Anyone who has heard John Piper preach or read one of his MANY books knows that he is a man passionate about God's Word. That's why we are excited to have him as the cover story for our September-October issue of Bible Study Magazine.

While the magazine is still at the printer and won't officially ship for a couple weeks, we decided to go ahead and let you check out the article. Visit the John Piper page on BibleStudyMagazine.com and read the article in its entirety. It is a great article with lots of insight and advice from Piper's personal time spent in God's Word, so be sure to tell your friends and spread the word. But that's not all...

Get a FREE copy of Finally Alive

In conjunction with the John Piper issue of Bible Study Magazine we wanted to announce the release of Finally Alive for Logos Bible Software. For one month only (August 14-September 14) we will be giving away Finally Alive for FREE! For full details on how to get your copy, visit the John Piper page and, remember, spread the word.

The first month of our Great Bible Giveaway is over, and 12 ultra premium Bibles are on their way to the winners! If you didn't win last month, don’t worry—we have 60 more beautiful Bibles to give away between now and the end of December.

This August, Bible.Logos.com is giving away another 12 exquisitely crafted premium Bibles. Included in this month’s giveaway is a limited edition KJV from Cambridge Press that is bound in Moroccan goatskin leather and comes with a cherry wood display case. No longer in production, this Bible is sure to be a treasure to one of this month’s winners. Will it be you?

Visit the Great Bible Giveaway page for details on how to enter, as well as the full contest rules and prize list.

This month we will be giving away:

1. ESV Calfskin Study Bible (retail: $239.99) from Crossway
2. ESV Wide Margin Goatskin (retail: $229.99) from Cambridge
3. KJV Concord Cambridge Calfskin (retail: $199.99) from Cambridge
4. NASB In Touch Ministries Wide Margin Edition, Burgundy Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
5. NASB Large Print Ultrathin Reference, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
6. NASB Side Column Reference Wide Margin Limited Edition, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
7. NIV Fine Leather Archaeological (retail: $104.99) from Zondervan
8. NIV Fine Leather Thinline (retail: $49.99) from Zondervan
9. NKJV UltraSlim Bible Signature Series, Black Calfskin (Retail $129.99) from Thomas Nelson
10. NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale
11. NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale
12. TNIV Reference Bible, Black Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $99.99) from Zondervan

To read how the Great Bible Giveaway got started, check out our original Bible Giveaway post

The post from two weeks ago about the 2 New Free Greek Vocabulary Lists led to some new Hebrew vocabulary lists surfacing. I guess the OT guys didn’t want to be outdone by the NT guys. :) We now have the lists from Zondervan’s Basics of Biblical Hebrew by Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt and Baker’s Introducing Biblical Hebrew by Allen P. Ross.

This brings our total number of vocabulary lists up to 26: 14 Greek, 9 Hebrew, 2 Aramaic, and 1 Akkadian. Visit our Vocabulary Lists page to download these new lists.

Once you’ve downloaded them, you can access your new lists in Logos by going to File > Open, selecting “Vocabulary List” from the Types column, and then selecting the list of your choice from the Documents column. For additional help using them, see the previous post.

Have a vocabulary list from a Hebrew or Greek grammar that you’d like to see us make available? Send an email to suggest@logos.com, and let us know.

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If you don’t subscribe to Bible Study Magazine—or have just started—be sure to check out all of the free articles that are available at BibleStudyMagazine.com. Every month at least one new article gets posted on the Preview page.

The latest article, “Bible Study at Bat,” looks at the role of chaplains and Bible study in Major and Minor League Baseball. Past articles include

• “Does the Author of Ecclesiastes Need Prozac?”
• “Facing Today with the Book of Hebrews”
• “Choosing a Bible Translation”
• “Bible Study and Rock Music”
• “Bible Study in Hollywood”
• “NLT Study Bible”

We’ve also just launched a new Word Studies page, which features word study articles on πρωτότοκος (prototokos), נפשׁ (nephesh), and δύναμις (dunamis). If you don’t read Greek and Hebrew, don’t worry; the articles are useful for English-only Bible students as well.

• “Figuring Out the Firstborn in Colossians 1:18”
• “Soul Searching in Deuteronomy 6:5”
• “Discovering the Power of Luke’s Gospel”

Head on over to the Preview page and the Word Studies page to view the new articles.

If you’re learning a new language, mastering the most commonly used words is an essential task. Did you know that Logos makes available 24 different vocabulary lists taken from the most popular grammars to help you? We currently have 14 different Greek vocabulary lists, 7 Hebrew, 2 Aramaic, and 1 Akkadian. The best part is that all of these lists are free. Just download them and save them to C:\. . .\My Documents\Libronix DLS\VocabularyLists.

The two latest additions are the lists from Learn to Read New Testament Greek by David Alan Black and Essentials of New Testament Greek by Ray Summers. Visit our Vocabulary Lists page to download these new lists—and any of the others you’d like. You don’t have to own the corresponding resources to make use of the vocabulary lists.

Once you’ve downloaded them, you can access your new lists in Logos by going to File > Open, selecting “Vocabulary List” from the Types column, and then selecting the list of your choice from the Documents column.

With your list opened, you have the ability to add to it, edit it, and print out vocabulary cards that you can carry with you and review between classes or when you’re away from your computer.

If you’re not a fan of print vocabulary cards, you can work through the lists right in Logos. Just grab another Window and cover up the right column. Move it down after you guess the meaning for each Greek word.

Visit our Vocabulary Lists page to download the available lists.

We’re about to give away 72 ultra-premium versions of the most amazingly bound Bibles ever printed. From the finest you can imagine top-end offerings in leather and calfskin—to the limited production run—“only a handful in existence” type heirloom quality of ultra-premium goatskin in a custom-carved Rosewood box imported from England!

Wow, was that breathless or what? …but seriously, if you are used to the feel of the paperback Bible you got from church the first day you visited youth-group as a teenager, you won’t believe how different these bindings can be.

We know “…the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” and we love it no matter what it is printed on and no matter what it is bound with. In fact, some of the most “heirloom quality” Bibles in the world are the most plainly bound, simple, worn and weathered Bibles. What makes many Bibles “heirloom quality” is the deep personal connection to God’s Word that they represent for those privileged to steward them.

So why are we giving away such high-end Bibles? Well, it all started when I received an ESV Study Bible in Premium Calfskin. I literally had no idea that leather could feel so supple, so smooth and so cottony-soft. I found myself wondering if it was fair to say that my new Bible could actually be creamy, velvety, and like butter all at the same time. When it came time to launch Bible.Logos.com I wanted to do something spectacular. I wanted to highlight the brand-new ultra-premium access to the Bible that Bible.Logos.com provides, with some ultra-premium print Bibles that people would be more familiar with.

Over the next 6 months Logos is giving away 72 premium print Bibles on Bible.Logos.com—worth over $11,500.00!

Every month from July thru December, we will give away 12 premium Bibles featuring the most popular translations from Bible.Logos.com, including ESV, KJV, NIV, NASB, NLT, and NKJV. These Bibles are the top-of-the-line versions and feature the highest quality leather and binding—some are valued at over $400.

This month we will be giving away these 12 Bibles:

1. ESV Study Bible, Black Calfskin (Retail $239.99) from Crossway
2. KJV Concord Wide Margin Reference, Black Goatskin (Retail $229.99) from Cambridge Bibles
3. NASB In Touch Ministries Wide Margin Edition, Burgundy Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
4. NASB Large Print Ultrathin Reference, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
5. NASB Side Column Reference Wide Margin Limited Edition, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
6. NIV New Women’s Devotional, Espresso Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $59.99) from Zondervan
7. NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale
8. NIV Study Bible, Black Goatskin (Retail $229.99) from Cambridge Bibles
9. NIV Study Bible, Black Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $124.99) from Zondervan
10. NKJV UltraSlim Bible Signature Series, Black Calfskin (Retail $129.99) from Thomas Nelson
11. NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale
12. TNIV Reference Bible, Black Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $99.99) from Zondervan

For details on how to enter, as well as the full contest rules and prize list, visit The Great Bible Giveaway page.

By default RefTagger will tag only the bare Bible references on your site. If a Bible reference is already linked to Bible.Logos.com or another online Bible site, RefTagger will ignore it. So you won’t get the cool tooltips to show up on references you’ve already linked manually.

We’ve received some feedback from people who want to be able to link Bible references to Bible.Logos.com and have RefTagger add the tooltips, so we’ve decided to add support for it. It also works with Ref.ly links, which is perfect if you syndicate your Twitter feed to your blog.

Here are a couple of examples:

• Ro 8:28 (linked to http://bible.logos.com/passage/Ro8.28)
• Jn 3:16 (linked to http://ref.ly/Jn3.16)

All you need to do to enable this new functionality is add one additional line of code to the RefTagger script code in the footer of your site. Simply add

Logos.ReferenceTagging.lbsConvertHyperlinks = true;

to the RefTagger JavaScript code anywhere before the line

Logos.ReferenceTagging.tag();

This will tell RefTagger to add tooltips to all of the Bible references that are hard linked to Bible.Logos.com or Ref.ly.

Why would you want to do this? Well, since RefTagger uses JavaScript, Bible references in your site’s feed don’t get linked because the JavaScript code runs only on your site, not in your readers’ feed reader (e.g., Google Reader or Bloglines). If you want your Bible references to be linked in your feed, you’ll have to link them manually (or use this hack to save a little time). Before, you had to choose between linking your Bible references to Bible.Logos.com or using RefTagger. Now you can do both and enjoy the best of both worlds.

Seminary is expensive. As a seminarian myself, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on tuition, books, and the many other expenses of seminary. During my journey I’ve always been on the lookout for scholarships and creative ways to finance my studies. That is why I am so excited to announce Logos’ latest project, SeminaryScholarship.com.

If you’re a seminarian and are looking for a seminary scholarship, then this announcement will come as good news. In November, just in time for the start of the Fall term, Logos will award its first $1,000.00 seminary scholarship. In addition to the tuition award, the scholarship will include a copy of the Scholar’s Library. The scholarship is open to all seminary students and the application process should take you less than 15 minutes.

If you’re a seminarian, head over to SeminaryScholarship.com and apply today. If you’re not a seminarian but know someone who is, please share the site with them. I’ve included some banner ads below that you can paste onto your website or blog to help spread the word.

 

 

 

For years we’ve had several quality Catholic products available, like the popular Collegeville Catholic Reference Library. You’ve asked for even more, and we’ve listened. If you follow our Pre-Pub (RSS) and Community Pricing (RSS) pages, you’ve probably noticed the many new Catholic collections now available for pre-order:

• The Catholic Encyclopedia (17 Vols.)
• Catena Aurea, by Thomas Aquinas (8 Vols.)
• Catholic Spirituality Collection (12 Vols.)
• Catholic Theology and Dogma Collection (8 Vols.)
• Collected Works of John Henry Newman (31 Vols.)
• Dogmatic Theology, by Joseph Pohle (12 Vols.)
• Douay-Rheims Bible
• G. K. Chesterton Collection (15 Vols.)
• Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler (12 Vols.)
• The Major Works of Anselm of Canterbury (4 Vols.)
• Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, Part 1 (Vols. 1–18)
• PBI New Testament Studies Collection (11 Vols.)
• Summa Contra Gentiles, by Thomas Aquinas (4 Vols.)
• Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, English and Latin Bundle (30 Vols.)
• Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, English Only (22 Vols.)

If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to check them out and place your pre-orders for the ones that interest you.

Catholic Product Guide

With the addition of all of these new titles, we decided it was time to build a Catholic Product Guide, which contains an exhaustive list of all of the Catholic titles we currently have for sale or pre-order. We’ll keep it up to date as we make more Catholic resources available, so be sure to bookmark it and check back regularly. You’ll find it at www.logos.com/catholic.

As always, we invite your suggestions for additional titles you’d like to see. Just email them to suggest@logos.com, and we’ll see about putting them on Pre-Pub or Community Pricing.

Free Catholic Lectionary

To kick off all of these new Catholic offerings, we’ve partnered with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to give away a new Catholic lectionary to everyone who has our Lectionary Viewer Addin, which is included in all of our Windows base packages except for the Original Languages Library. To get the new Catholic lectionary, simply run Libronix Update from the Tools menu in Libronix or run the 3.0f Auto-Update Script. You’ll find additional details and help on our Lectionaries page and in a prior blog post.

5 Free Copies of the Collegeville Catholic Reference Library, Version 2

If you appreciate these new offerings and want to see more, it’s largely up to you to make it happen! We need the help of all of our Catholic users to reach a broader audience so we can produce even more quality Catholic titles. As a thanks for helping us spread the word, we’ll be giving away 5 free copies of the Collegeville Catholic Reference Library, Version 2.

Here’s what you need to do to enter. You only need to do one, but you can do them all if you want to increase your chances of winning.

On Your Blog

1. Write about our new Catholic titles, the free Catholic lectionary, etc. on your blog and link to both the Catholic Product Guide and this blog post.
2. We’ll search for links to both and enter you in the drawing, but if you want to be sure that we don’t miss yours, provide a link to your post in the comments below or in an email to blog@logos.com with the subject “Logos Bible Software for Catholics.”

On Facebook, Twitter, etc.

1. Share the news about our new Catholic titles, the free Catholic lectionary, etc. on your favorite social networking site and link to both the Catholic Product Guide and this blog post (might be difficult to get both links in on Twitter, but we think you can do it!).
2. We’ll search for links to both and enter you in the drawing, but if you want to be sure that we don’t miss yours, provide a link to your post in the comments below or in an email to blog@logos.com with the subject “Logos Bible Software for Catholics.”

Via Email

• Send an email about our new Catholic titles, the free lectionary, etc. with the subject “Logos Bible Software for Catholics” to 5 people you know who you think would be interested and carbon copy blog@logos.com on the email.

At the end of June, we’ll pick out the five winners and send out the free copies of Collegeville Catholic Reference Library, Version 2.

The fourth issue of Bible Study Magazine is hot off the press and should be in your mailbox very shortly, if it hasn’t arrived already.

In the meantime, enjoy this preview of the May–June issue, which features a cover story about author and speaker Randy Alcorn.

By the way, don’t forget about this issue’s special promotion. We’ve partnered with Eternal Perspective Ministries to give away 40 signed copies of Randy Alcorn’s excellent book Heaven, and we’re also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and a copy of Bible Study Library. Visit www.biblestudymagazine.com/alcorn/ for all of the details.

If you’re considering subscribing, you have until June 5th to get the current issue.

In an effort to increase subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine, we were planning on giving away a free download of Money Matters by Larry Burkett as an incentive to everyone that subscribed to the magazine in the month of May. Right now the magazine is on sale for only $14.95 for a full year, and Money Matters is a $20 book, so it was a pretty good deal.

After thinking more about the tough economic times we are in, and how much this book could be of use to so many people, we just decided to give it away for free to anyone that wants it—with no strings attached.

All promotions, marketing and freebies aside, we really encourage you to subscribe to Bible Study Magazine. It has something for all levels of Bible study, and is not only receiving rave reviews from the Christian audience, but the secular as well. In fact it was just recognized as one of the top ten of all magazines launched in 2008 by Library Journal!

Check out what Library Journal says in Best of 2008: Magazines.

"The best new magazines of 2008 have in common the potential to create a devoted readership able to sustain circulation... Each succeeds in presenting distinctive and visually appealing content, in some cases with remarkably creative design. These mags demonstrate that the art of graphic design is thriving. The Best Magazines of 2008 represent a range of target audiences, from general to special interest...

...Bible Study Magazine is a serious, clearly written popular mag that uses biblical scholarship to illuminate but not refute the principal beliefs of evangelical Protestantism. Content includes interviews with well-known evangelical ministers and reports of research by religious studies professors, historians, and archaeologists. ...this colorful popular pub is to Bible studies what Scientific American is to science or Psychology Today is to psychology. A thoughtful bridge between the work of scholars and laypersons looking for a deeper understanding of biblical texts."

We would be thrilled if you would subscribe to Bible Study Magazine for just $14.95 for the entire year, but you don’t have to. No strings attached, if you want Money Matters, go ahead and take it free of charge, just follow the simple steps listed below:

Step 1 Add Money Matters to your cart.

Step 2 Enter coupon code: BIBLESTUDYMAGAZINE at checkout.

Step 3 If you’d like, click "Add to Cart" to subscribe to Bible Study Magazine.

Step 4 Proceed through checkout, and notice that whether you added Bible Study Magazine to your order or not, you will still be required to enter a valid credit card. The system will be unable to process the order for your free book without a valid credit card being entered, even though your total may be $0.00 and you won't be charged at all.

Step 5 Tell your friends, and link to this post from your blog so others can take advantage of this free gift too!

UPDATE: This promotion ended May 31st, 2009

The May–June issue of Bible Study Magazine features a cover story about Randy Alcorn and how Bible study influences his everyday life as an author, speaker, and husband, so we’ve teamed up with Eternal Perspective Ministries to give away 40 signed copies of his excellent book Heaven.

We’re also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and a copy of Bible Study Library.

There are four different ways to enter the giveaway, and you can increase your chance of winning by doing all of them.

Complete any or all of the following by May 31, 2009 to enter:

1. Simply fill out the entry form and click “Submit.”
2. Post a link in any of your social spheres (blog, forum, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) to www.biblestudymagazine.com/alcorn letting people know about the giveaway. In June, we'll search through all the backlinks to the site and select winners at random.
3. Since Bible Study Magazine is published by Logos Bible Software, if you mention the giveaway and post a link to www.logos.com, we'll search through those backlinks as well and select winners at random.
4. Subscribe to Bible Study Magazine between now and May 31, 2009, and we’ll give you two more entries.

Head over to the giveaway page at BibleStudyMagazine.com for all of the details.

Last night we released the next minor update to our Libronix Digital Library System for Windows. If you are planning to install Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 (or if you already have), it is vital that you update to Libronix 3.0f to avoid some minor incompatibility problems. Best of all, the update is completely free.

In addition to the IE8 compatibility fixes, 3.0f includes several bug fixes and improvements, as well as updates to a number of resources and lectionaries. For a complete list of all of the bug fixes and changes, see the new support article.

To update, simply open Libronix and go to Tools > Libronix Update. After it looks for available updates, click “Update,” close Libronix, and then wait for the updates to download and install. When installation is complete, click “Close” and then restart Libronix.

If you have biblical content on your website or blog, you’ll definitely want to consider adding the new Bible Search Bar to your sidebar. RefTagger allows your readers to have instant access to the Bible passages that you cite in your post, but what if they want to look up a verse that you don’t mention or launch a search for a word or phrase that you discuss? They could manually navigate to Bible.Logos.com, but the Bible Search Bar makes it even easier for your readers to find what they’re looking for.

The Bible Search Bar comes in two sizes, the one you see pictured to the right, which is also in the sidebar of the Logos blog, and a smaller one with horizontal orientation.

It’s very easy to add to your site. Just grab the code that we provide and paste it into your sidebar, or wherever you’d like the Bible Search Bar to appear. If you have trouble getting the styles to show up properly, you may need to add the styles to your sites style sheet or paste the style sheet link in the head section of your template.

Head on over to the new Bible Search Bar page at Bible.Logos.com to see the two options, grab the code, and get it set up on your site.

The March-April issue of Bible Study Magazine has a cover story about Mark Driscoll, and we're giving away 20 copies of his Vintage Church, which he coauthored with Western Seminary's Gerry Breshears.

We're also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and one copy of Bible Study Library.

There are four different ways to enter the giveaway, and you can increase your chance of winning by doing all of them.

Complete any or all of the following by March 31, 2009 to enter:

1. Simply fill out the entry form and click "Submit."
2. Post a link in any of your social spheres (blog, forum, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) to www.biblestudymagazine.com/driscoll letting people know about the giveaway. In April, we'll search through all the backlinks to the site and select winners at random.
3. Since Bible Study Magazine is published by Logos Bible Software, if you mention the giveaway and post a link to www.logos.com, we'll search through those backlinks as well and select winners at random.
4. Subscribe to Bible Study Magazine between now and March 31, 2009, and we'll give you two more entries.

Head over to the giveaway page at BibleStudyMagazine.com for all of the details.

The January-February issue of Bible Study Magazine had a very helpful article by Dr. Michael Heiser on the Ten Commandments (pages 21-23). In it he discusses the various ways different religious groups have divided the commandments. While everyone agrees that there were only 10, there is disagreement surrounding which verses go together and whether some portions constitute one commandment or two separate commandments. A helpful chart lays out these differences that exist among Judaism, most of Protestantism and the Orthodox church, and Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism.

If you haven't yet subscribed to Bible Study Magazine, it's not too late to get a copy of the January-February issue—but the deadline is today (Thursday, February 5). So you need to subscribe very soon! All orders placed tomorrow will start with the March-April issue.

Want a sneak peek of what's inside? The full text and the chart of Mike's article, "Counting the Ten Commandments," is now available at BibleStudyMagazine.com.

Interested in doing more reading and studying on the Ten Commandments? Here are a few books that you might find helpful:

• Written in Stone: The Ten Commandments and Today's Moral Crisis by Philip Graham Ryken
• The Law and the Saint by Arthur Walkington Pink
• Living a Full Life: A Pictorial Interpretation of the Ten Commandments by Dirk Van der Merwe and Friedel Eloff

Last week I read some advice that a seminary student was giving to potential Logos users. It went something like this: when trying to decide whether to invest in Logos, calculate the print value of the books that you think you'd actually use and, if that amount exceeds the cost of the package from Logos, buy it. But in your calculations make sure to exclude any books that are available for free elsewhere (e.g., from Google Books or Amazon's Online Reader).

I think the first part of the advice is generally* sound, but the second part has problems. While it's often a good idea not to spend money for something you can get for free, this is not always the case. The advice above leaves out two important factors: quality and convenience.

Quality

First, the advice above is not really comparing apples with apples. The quality of Logos digital books exceeds the quality of books available at Amazon's Online Reader, Google Books, and other places on the internet.

So it may very well be worth paying money for books that are available for free online, if you want the ability to perform incredibly powerful searches, copy and paste text into papers or sermons with automatic citations, get instant access to Bible passages with a hover or a click, jump to cited books and articles, and all the other things that make Logos digital books so valuable.

So the advice would have been better if it had said, "Exclude any books that are of equal quality and available for free elsewhere." But that still doesn't quite do.

Convenience

Second, even if we were comparing apples with apples, that is, books of equal quality—or let's assume you are the rare person who doesn't need any of the benefits I mentioned above—there is value in the convenience of an integrated digital library. When your digital library is spread across multiple platforms and websites (e.g., Google Books, PDFs and Word docs on your computer, Amazon, and other places), it takes time (1) to remember where you have access to x, y, and z books and then (2) to perform multiple searches on multiple websites and desktop applications. That extra time spent can be quantified in terms of value, so it may be worth the money for the added convenience and time-saving benefit.

Let's say you use iTunes for your music library. Numerous legal sources allow you to listen to music for free online, but you have to be connected to the internet and go to the website to listen to it. You can't download it and integrate it into your digital music library in iTunes—or listen to it on your iPod. Perhaps for many songs that would be fine, but the benefit of convenience may make it worth it to purchase some music that is available for free elsewhere.

So I think we could further improve the advice by saying, "Exclude any books that are of equal quality and available for free elsewhere in a medium that offers equal convenience."

Everyone has different needs and different financial abilities, and there are definitely times when it is financially wise to be content to use good secondary tools like Google Books and Amazon's Online Reader. But if quality and convenience are important to you, it may very well be worth paying for something you can get for free elsewhere.

---

* However, I think you could make a case for why it might be wise to buy Logos even if the digital cost exceeded the print cost, but that is perhaps for another day and another blog post.

Do you read Russian, want to learn to read Russian, know someone who reads Russian, or just like free books (even if you can't read them :))?

Then head on over to Logos.com and check out the free Русский Синодальный Перевод (that's Russian Synodal Translation for you English-only readers), which just went up on Friday.

The RST was translated in 1876 and revised in 1956. Our edition has the Strong's numbering system integrated for the entire Bible. That means you can simply hover over a word and see the Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic word in a pop-up window (if you have a dictionary with Strong's tagging like the Dictionaries of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains, which are included in all of our base packages, except for Christian Home).

Those of you who have purchased from us before know the ropes. But if this is your first time, or if you just need a little refresher, then keep reading. Otherwise, just go download it and spread the word!

To purchase a book (or get a free book) from Logos.com, you'll need three things:

1. a copy of the Libronix Digital Library System installed on your PC or Mac
2. a Logos.com account with a credit card on file
3. a Libronix Customer ID that is connected to your Logos.com account

Here are the steps you need to follow to get all set up:

Step 1: Download and install Libronix for Windows. (Mac users can purchase the Mac version of the engine, or buy a Mac base package.) If you already have Libronix up and running on your computer, jump to the third step.

Step 2: Activate Libronix. When you do, you'll create a Libronix Customer ID (usually your email address, if you enter it). You can find your Libronix Customer ID by going to Help > About Libronix DLS.

Step 3: Create a Logos.com account. If you already have one, just log in.

Step 4: Make sure that your Libronix Customer ID is associated with your Logos.com account. Go to My Account, enter your Libronix Customer ID from Step 2, and click "Confirm." If it's already there, no need to do anything.

Step 5: "Buy" the Russian Synodal Translation. Go to the page and click "Add to Cart," or just add it straight to your cart from here. Proceed through the checkout process and then click "Submit Order." If you don't have a credit card on file, you'll need to enter your credit card information. Don't worry. You won't be charged. It's an unfortunate inconvenience in our current checkout system, and we hope to change it at some point.

Step 6: Unlock and download your new book. If you're on a Windows machine, just click the orange "Unlock & Download" button. If you're on a Mac, just synchronize your licenses (Tools > Library Management > Synchronize Licenses) and manually put the book file in your resources folder (Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Libronix DLS/Resources on the startup volume).

Step 7: Start using your new book! Open Libronix, open My Library, then type RST to find it. Since the title is in a different script, you'll find it all the way at the bottom. Double-click it to open it.

Enjoy!

Have any Russian-speaking friends? Let them know how they can get a Russian Bible for free!

Thanks to our friends at Northwestern Publishing House, we now have two more free Lutheran lectionaries available for everyone who owns one of our Windows base packages (excluding the Original Languages Library) or has purchased our Lectionary Viewer Addin.

• Christian Worship One Year Lectionary
• Christian Worship Three Year Lectionary (with Supplemental Lectionary)

To get them, just visit our Lutheran Lectionaries page and follow the instructions, or simply run Libronix Update (under the tools menu) from within the program. The lectionaries will appear under the "Recommended" section of the Libronix Update window that pops up. Be sure to check the appropriate boxes, and then click "Update."

Once everything is installed, you'll find these lectionaries in Libronix by going to Tools > Bible Data > Lectionary Viewer. Click on "Properties" to select which lectionary to display.

You can also easily integrate your new lectionaries into the Logos Bible Software home page by clicking "Customize View" and then checking the boxes next to "Lectionary" and any of the available lectionaries that you'd like to have appear.

Be sure to also check out the more than 100 other titles available from Northwestern Publishing House, like The People's Bible Commentary, Sermon Studies, Lutheran Confessions: Concordia Triglotta, the Franzmann Bible History Commentary, and the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly. They are all now available as individual downloads or at a huge savings in one big bundle.

For more great Lutheran resources, see our Lutheran Product Guide.

After our annual Christmas party this year, David Mitchell, one of our developers, slipped on some ice and broke his arm. He found out that he would have to have it in a sling for several weeks and wouldn't be able to use it. Not wanting to try to write code with one arm and a standard keyboard, which would have been extremely inefficient, David did some research and found the Frog Pad.

Bob happily purchased the one-handed Frog Pad for David so he could continue coding at a much more reasonable speed. Though there's a bit of a learning curve, after a bit of practice David got up to about 22 words per minute—not quite the advertised 40, but still far better than typing with one hand on a normal keyboard.

Here's a little video that we put together a few weeks ago so you could see the one-armed coder at work. 

Thankfully David's arm is now well enough to resume two-handed typing, so he's made his way back to his normal keyboard. But the Frog Pad served him very well while his arm healed.

Recently we've blogged about the many ways to read the Bible in a year using tools from Logos Bible Software. Within the application, one can make custom reading plans, or you can join an online community of people reading through the same plan using either Global Bible Reader or Bible.Logos.com.

But all of these solutions currently support a 66 book canon only. If you also want to read the Apocrypha, or Deuterocanonical books, either because your faith tradition includes such books or just to learn more about the Jewish writings that appeared during the time 'between the testaments' and were read by the early Church, some additional help is needed.

So I've made a little Libronix digital book that contains a list of daily readings to cover the Apocrypha in one year. It functions just like other daily devotionals, with a link at the top to jump directly to the current day's reading. It can also be loaded into your Libronix Home Page in the devotionals section.

This reading plan covers the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican deuterocanonical materials. The 'additions' to Esther and Daniel are interspersed within and around the protocanonical portions of those books, and Ezra, Nehemiah and the last chapters of 2 Chronicles are included just before the Esdras writings to provide important context for comparison. So if using this in conjunction with one of the other Bible reading plans, you might end up reading some of the books of the Bible twice, but we think this is a high class problem.

Because of some (temporary) limitations to how the Bible data type functions, this first release of the Apocrypha Reading Plan is hard-coded to the NRSV, so we've made it free to any customer that already has the NRSV in their Libronix Digital Library. The NRSV is included in all of our base packages, and is also available à la carte.

Updated Instructions:

1. Determine the folder that contains your Libronix digital books. The default folder is C:\Program Files\Libronix DLS\Resources. If you have changed the default folder, you can see the folders your system monitors for new books by opening Libronix DLS and clicking Tools | Options | General | Resource Paths.


2. Save, do not run or open the following link to the folder that contains your Libronix digital books. Save this file to your resource path.


3. Open Libronix DLS (don't try to click on the newly downloaded file). You may see a message in the lower right-hand corner that says "Discovering Resources" - wait a few seconds for this message to go away.


4. Open My Library and type 'NRSV Apocrypha Reading Plan'. If you already own the NRSV, this will appear unlocked, otherwise it will be locked. If Libronix DLS was open when you downloaded the file, you may need to press the F5 key to refresh your My Library view, or close and re-open Libronix DLS.


5. Enjoy!

Bible Study Magazine has partnered with Kutless to offer a free download of Complete off their new album, To Know That You're Alive.

Not only is Bible Study Magazine giving away the free MP3, but they are also giving away some great freebies:

• Four subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine
• A complete Bible Study Library from Logos Bible Software
• Four Kutless Fur Lined Hoodies
• Four Kutless "I Do Not Belong" Shirts
• Four Kutless Women's Orange Flower Tees
• Four Kutless Coffee Mugs
• Four Kutless CDs - To Know That You're Alive
• Four Kutless CDs - Strong Tower

Want to enter the giveaway? There are four ways to enter! Between now and January 31st, 2009:

1. Simply post a link in any of your social spheres (blog, forum, facebook, myspace, twitter, etc.) to biblestudymagazine.com/kutless letting people know about the free MP3 giveaway. In February, we'll search through all the backlinks to the site and select winners at random.
2. Post a link to http://www.logos.com. We'll search through the backlinks and select winners at random.
3. Don't have an online outlet for posting a link? Good news! Everyone who signs up to get the free Kutless song is automatically entered into the drawing!
4. Want to get TWO MORE ENTRIES? Subscribe to Bible Study Magazine between now and January 31st and we'll give you two more entries.

Not sure how to make sure links work in your posts? Try something like this:

A free Kutless MP3 is being given away at Bible Study Magazine. They are also giving away cool Kutless gear and Logos Bible Software. Go check it out!

Copy & paste this code to your website:
A <a href="http://www.biblestudymagazine.com/kutless/">free Kutless MP3</a> is being given away at <a href="http://www.biblestudymagazine.com/">Bible Study Magazine</a>. They are also giving away cool Kutless gear and <a href="http://www.logos.com/">Logos Bible Software</a>. Go check it out!

The giveaway coincides with the release of the January/February edition of Bible Study Magazine, which includes an interview with Kutless called "Rock Music and Bible Study." Other great articles in this issue include "Kay Arthur on Inductive Bible Study," "Counting the Ten Commandments," "Facing Today with the Book of Hebrews," and much more! If you haven't done so already, subscribe today.

While I don't typically write out a list of new years resolutions, I do usually take some time around the new year to think about things I would put on a list if I were to write one. On my mental list I usually include things like:

• Be a better husband and father
• Sleep less (I love sleep)
• Increase financial giving
• Go to the gym
• Pray more
• And, of course, read the Bible in a year

I'll admit, many new years have come and gone with that last item going undone. Like many of you, I start off the new year strong. I have my Bible reading plan all laid out and ready to go. Then, somewhere in the year, something goes wrong and my plan falls to the side.

This year, I'm going to try something new and use Global Bible Reader. This free download from Logos is a powerful desktop application that provides community and accountability in a Bible reading plan.

Once you install Global Bible Reader you sign in with your Logos.com user account and choose from one of the six reading plans. After you chose a plan (or multiple plans) Global Bible Reader will download six days worth of reading (so you can even read when you're not online). After you finish the reading for a day, click the Done Reading button and Global Bible Reader will mark the day as completed. In order to make sure you don't fall behind, you can set up Global Bible Reader to give you a daily reminder to read the day's text.

More than just reading yourself, Global Bible Reader plugs you into a community of people who are on the same reading plan as you. A globe in the application spins around showing you where all the other readers are located around the world. Not only that, Global Bible Reader allows you to post comments. You can use this feature to leave comments about the day's readings or to encourage your fellow readers. Also, since your Global Bible Reader is linked in to your Logos.com user account, you can update your profile picture and location and they will be imported into Global Bible Reader.

One of the only limitations to Global Bible reader, until now, was that it was tied to the computer where you install it. That problem was remedied today as we have now integrated Global Bible Reader into Bible.Logos.com! That means you can now keep up to date with your reading even when you are away from your main computer. Simply go to Bible.Logos.com, sign in, and click the Reading Plan. You'll see links to the day's readings and a button to click once you're done reading. Since Global Bible Reader and Bible.Logos.com are connected, clicking Done Reading in either location will mark the section read in the other.

Join me this year and read through the Bible with Global Bible Reader and Bible.Logos.com. Having a community and accountability might be just the thing I (we) need to stick with it this year!

If you got a copy of the first issue of Bible Study Magazine (November-December 2008), you probably saw the super cool canon chart put together by our own Vincent Setterholm (pages 47-48). It nicely compares the Protestant, Ethiopian, Syriac, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Hebrew, and Samaritan canons and provides lots of helpful explanatory material.

More cool charts and graphs like this are coming in future issues. The January-February issue has a chart from Mike Heiser on the Ten Commandments. To be sure that you don't miss out on great content like this in the future, be sure to subscribe.

For those of you who missed the canon chart, we've made a really cool version of it available on BibleStudyMagazine.com. Check it out, and drop a mention of it on your blog if you find it helpful. Just paste the code from the code box at the bottom of the page into your blog editor.

If you prefer to have this chart in print, you can still pick up a copy of the first issue for only $2.95—or even better, get it for free! All you need to do is write a brief review of Bible Study Magazine on your blog or website or in print. Find out all the details in our previous blog post.

By the way, if you're looking for a good book on the canon, check out F. F. Bruce's The Canon of Scripture.

Oftentimes we'll get a newly licensed book that would be a perfect fit in a collection that's already up on Pre-Pub. What we end up doing most of the time is sneaking that book into a collection and giving you more content at no additional charge. Every once in a while we'll say something about it, but usually we do it without even telling you.

We usually have to raise the price after we add the new volume to cover the additional costs, but the good news is that those of you who already placed your pre-order are locked in at the lowest possible price.

We've done this several times recently, so I thought I'd call attention to them.

1. Holman Reference Collection (13 Vols.), which contains the award-winning Apologetics Study Bible, added two new books: 131 Christians Everyone Should Know and Harmony of the Gospels.
2. Studies in New Testament Greek and JSNTS Collection (17 Vols.) picked up Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics.
3. The Moody Counseling Collection (11 Vols.) now has A Gift from God: Foundational Principles of Biblical Parenting.
4. Face2face Collection (7 Vols.) got Elisha: Encountering the Messenger of Salvation.

What's the moral of the story? We do our best to reward those of you who faithfully order Pre-Pubs—and do so early.

If you don't want to miss out on little bonuses like these, make sure you're subscribed to our Pre-Pub RSS feed. This is just one of the several reasons it's a good idea to pre-order early.

Update: Two more collections just got new books!

1. A. T. Robertson Collection (15 Vols.) added Preaching and Scholarship, the inaugural lecture given at Southern Baptist Seminary in 1890.
2. Kress Biblical Studies Collection (8 Vols.) picked up Richard L. Mayhue's The Biblical Pattern for Divine Healing and Snatched Before the Storm: A Case for Pretribulationism.

bbPress is free forum software from the makers of WordPress. Though it's not as popular as some of the other options, it's looks to be a nice, simple alternative to more complicated platforms. It also has the advantage of integrating nicely with WordPress.

The latest version of bbPress, 0.9.0.2, does not allow you to edit your theme from the admin panel, and no one has developed a RefTagger plugin yet either. So to add RefTagger, you'll need to do it the old fashion way—via FTP access to your site's files.

Here's how to get it set up:

1. Navigate to your bbPress folder.
2. Open the bb-templates folder, and then open your theme's folder. The default theme is kakumei.
3. Locate footer.php and save a local copy (and a backup copy too).
4. Open the file in Dreamweaver, WordPad or your favorite code editor.
5. Scroll to the bottom and paste the customizable RefTagger code right before the </body> tag.
6. Save the file and upload it back to your server.

You're all set. RefTagger is now transforming your bbPress site.

If you're using RefTagger on your bbPress site, send us an email and let us know!

So, you haven't checked out Bible Study Magazine yet? Well, here's your chance. For a limited time, we are giving away a free review copy of Bible Study Magazine.

In order to receive your copy, all you have to do is agree to write a review of the magazine anywhere you can, in a church bulletin, ministry newsletter, blog, website, forum, or any other place that you have the opportunity to communicate with people.

So, if you'd like a free review copy, send an email to rburns@logos.com with Bible Study Magazine Review Copy Request as the subject. Also, be sure to include your mailing address so I know where to send it!

Review FAQs:

Do I have to be a blogger or journalist to get a review copy?
No. If you have any outlet for sharing a review, then we'll send you a copy. So, if you have a newsletter, church bulletin, email list, blog, website, skywriting service, or any other way to communicate with people, then you qualify.

How long does my review have to be?
Length is up to you. Obviously, if you're putting something in a church bulletin, then you're not going to have room for a full-out review. In that case, an adequate review might sound something like, "There is a great new magazine you should check out. Bible Study Magazine is an excellent resource to aid in your Bible study. More info can be found at www.BibleStudyMagazine.com." If you're a blogger, you have more room to review, so feel free to make your review as long as it needs to be.

Do I have to send you a copy of my review?
Short answer, no. However, we would love to see what you thought of the magazine. If you post your review online, drop me an email or post a comment with a link below so we can check it out. If your review appears in print, you're free to mail a copy to us. Skywriters, please send pictures!

Logos Bible Software
1313 Commercial St.
Bellingham WA 98225-4307
USA.

*Due to international shipping cost, we have to limit our reviewers to only those in the US. Sincere apologies to our international blog readers.

Joomla! is one of the the most popular Content Management System software. It’s a great choice for church and ministry websites, and I’ve seen many build some sharp sites with it.

Setting up RefTagger on a Joomla! site is quite easy.

There are the simple steps to getting it up and running in no time:

1. Log in to your admin panel (http://yoursite.com/administrator/).
2. Hover over the “Extensions” tab and click “Template Manager.”
3. Click on the name of the template that you are using. The default with Joomla! 1.5.2 is “rhuk_milkyway.”
4. Click the “Edit HTML” button at the top right.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the code and paste in the customizable RefTagger code from the RefTagger page right before the </body> tag.

That’s it! RefTagger is now working on your entire Joomla! site!

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. Pastors, since you are such an important part of our user base, we want to show our appreciation by giving you something for free and offering you discounted pricing on many of our best collections.

For the rest of the month, you can download the Sermon File Addin at no charge. No coupon codes necessary. Just visit the product page and place your order for the downloadable version.

We invite you to download it and give it a try—and spread the word to other pastors. Check out the video below to learn more about this powerful tool.

After you download it, be sure to watch the five tutorial videos at the bottom of the product page.

If you already have the Sermon File Addin, we want to show our appreciation to you as well! We're offering discounted pricing on these 16 collections. Just use coupon code PAM2008 to see the special savings in your shopping cart.

• Classical Pastoral Care (4 Vols.)
• Preaching & Leadership Collection (18 Vols.)
• The Complete Library of Christian Worship (8 Vols.)
• Pastoral Ministry Collection (13 Vols.)
• Broadman & Holman Preaching Resources Collection (18 Vols.)
• Church Origins Collection (10 Vols.)
• D. A. Carson Collection (5 Vols.)
• An Exposition on Prayer in the Bible (5 Vols.)
• Nelson 325 Book Unlock (325 Vols.)
• Biblical Counseling Collection (30 Vols.)
• R. Kent Hughes' Preaching the Word Collection (19 Vols.)
• R. Kent Hughes' Preaching the Word Upgrade (12 Vols.)
• The Pulpit Commentary (77 Vols.)
• Selected Works of Martyn Lloyd-Jones (10 Vols.)
• The New International Greek Testament Commentary (12 Vols.)
• John Hunt Desk Reference Collection (4 Vols.)

If you're not a pastor, why not show your pastor how much you appreciate him by buying him one of our base packages. Save 25% off with coupon code BLESSING. And then tell your pastor how he can get the Sermon File Addin for free by sending this post to him.

Update: The Sermon File Addin offer has expired.

Over the last few weeks our web team has been working hard on even more cool enhancements to RefTagger, so we have several updates to share with you.

1. RefTagger Now Links to Bible.Logos.com

As of Monday, RefTagger is now directing all links to our new online Bible site, Bible.Logos.com. This allows us to bring you a more tightly integrated experience and to continue to improve RefTagger by adding more functionality. We also think Bible.Logos.com is a pretty cool place to read and search the Bible online. :)

2. Several New Bible Versions

Not too long ago we added support for the NIV, TNIV, and NIrV. On Monday—after numerous requests—we were finally able to add the NASB as well. If one of these is your default version, you'll now see the appropriate text in the tooltip windows. If we still don't have your favorite version, please let us know.

3. User Control Panel

As a webmaster you get to decide which Bible version RefTagger will display on your site. But what if your readers prefer a different version? To solve this problem, we've created the RefTagger control panel. Adding the small control panel somewhere on your site allows your readers to set their preferences, like which version they want to see and whether or not to display the icons linking to Libronix.

You should be able to get the control panel from the RefTagger page very soon—perhaps later today or Monday. I'll update this post as soon as it is available.

4. Multiple Version Citation Support

Until now RefTagger allowed you to specify a single version to use for all Bible references on your site, but what if you want to cite a version different from your default for comparative purposes? You're readers could click the link to Bible.Logos.com and then switch versions to compare, but we can do better than that—and we have. Now RefTagger will recognize when you cite a version other than your default and display the appropriate version when you use one of the following three formats:

• John 3:16 NLT
• John 3:16, NLT
• John 3:16 (NLT)

5. Easier Plugin Upgrades for WordPress Users

Our RefTagger WordPress plugin is now proudly hosted at the official WordPress Plugin Directory. This is good news for users of WordPress.org (i.e., the self-hosted version). No more having to manually check for updates. WordPress's built-in plugin update notification system will inform you when new versions are available, and one-click automatic updating allows you to get the latest version with ease.

This is also potentially great news for users of WordPress.com (i.e., the version they host), who, unfortunately, can't use RefTagger right now. We've been in talks with the folks at WordPress.com about getting built-in RefTagger support for WordPress.com. If our WordPress.org plugin is popular enough, they said they will likely make it available on WordPress.com as well!

So if you're a user of the self-hosted version of WordPress, please download and install the plugin and give it a good rating. WordPress.com users need your help!

Spreading Across the Web

We're thrilled to see the response to RefTagger. Dozens of new sites are adding it every day. It's now on more than 2,600 sites! RefTagger keeps getting better and better because of the helpful feedback you send. If you find a bug or have a cool idea for a new feature, please let us know.

October 5, 2008 marked 305 years since the birth of Jonathan Edwards, who has been widely known as America's greatest theologian. Most people's birthdays don't get remembered by very many people after they die, but Jonathan Edwards is a notable exception.

John Piper on Jonathan Edwards

As I mentioned in Friday's post on Learning from Your Heroes' Heroes, John Piper is well known for his immense appreciation for Edwards. He's written or edited two books about Edwards, both of which are available in Libronix:

• God's Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards
• A God Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards

I'd strongly encourage you to listen to or read Piper's biographical sketch on Edwards, "The Pastor as Theologian," which was given at the first Desiring God Pastors Conference in 1988. Powerful and motivating.

As you might expect, Piper wrote a blog post about Jonathan Edwards' Birthday, where he had this to say about him:

I suppose, after the Bible, no theologian has a greater ongoing effect on me as Jonathan Edwards. There are few in the world who combine the sharpness of mind, the scope of thought, the allegiance to Scripture, the depth of insight, the intensity of affections, the height of imagination, and the power of expression that he brings to all his work. I thank God for him today.

Coming Soon to Libronix!

Soon you'll be able to have the standard 2-volume set fully searchable and tagged in your Libronix library. We announced Edwards' works on Pre-Pub at the end of March. I just heard from our Electronic Text Development department that we're not too far away from being ready to ship! If you haven't placed your pre-order yet, don't miss out on your chance to get our best price on the works of this eminently influential theologian. Place your pre-order now.

A Birthday Special

What would a birthday be without a birthday present? To celebrate Edwards' 305th birthday and the soon arrival of his works in Libronix format, we have two specials for you, our blog readers:

1. Get a taste of Edwards now by downloading A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections for free! Use coupon code EDWARDS during checkout to get this Edwards classic for no charge.
2. Save 40% on the two Piper books on Edwards mentioned above by using coupon code PIPER-EDWARDS.

Both specials are good for one week, so take advantage now and spread the word!

Update: This offer has expired.

Over the weekend I got an email from a forum moderator in Australia who convinced the admins to add RefTagger to their site. He requested that we provide some instructions specific to phpBB, which is popular free forum software.

So for all you phpBB forum users out there, here's how to add RefTagger. (You need to be an admin to do this, so if you're not, just pass these instructions on to the guys who control the site.)

1. Log in and navigate to your admin panel (http://yoursite.com/adm/).
2. Click on the "Styles" tab at the top, and then click on "Templates" in the left sidebar.
3. Find your template, and click "Edit."
4. Click the drop-down and select "overall_footer.html" under the "overall" section.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the code and paste the customizable RefTagger code from the RefTagger page right before the </body> tag.
6. Click "Submit."

You're done. With just a few minutes of work, RefTagger is now doing its thing on your entire site! It doesn't matter if your site is new or 10 years old or whether you have hundreds or millions of Bible references. You'll see the results instantly on any page you navigate to on your site.

If you frequent a forum that has lots of Bible references, why not contact the admins and ask them to add RefTagger? We're happy to provide instructions for other platforms as well. Just let us know: reftagger@logos.com.

We launched RefTagger at the end of February, and in the six months since it has spread to more than 1,000 websites. Read the press release that went out yesterday: "1,000+ Christian Webmasters Install RefTagger."

You'll now find RefTagger powering the sites of major ministries like Grace to You and Desiring God Ministries and a host of church websites like Compass Bible Church and Park Street Church. You'll also find it on wiki sites like Theopedia and on the blogs of prominent bloggers like Doug Wilson and Ray Comfort.

No matter what kind of site you run or how much traffic you get, if your site has Bible references and you want a simple, free, time-saving solution for providing instant access to the text of Scripture, RefTagger is for you.

For most sites it can be set up in less than 5 minutes. All properly formatted Bible references—past and future—are instantly transformed. You don't have to do a thing after the initial setup. We even provide step-by-step tutorials for a number of common platforms.

Isn't time to add it to your site?

Thanks to the initiative of our friends at Concordia Publishing House, we are pleased to make available to you two Lutheran lectionaries:

• Lutheran Service Book: One-Year Lectionary
• Lutheran Service Book: Three-Year Lectionary

And they are absolutely free!

If you have one of our base packages that includes the Lectionary Viewer Addin (i.e., any Logos Bible Software 3 base package except for the Original Languages Library), then all you need to do is click the Download button on the Lutheran Lectionaries page or run Libronix Update from the Tools menu in Libronix.

If you have a base package that doesn't include the Lectionary Viewer Addin, you have two options. You can purchase the Lectionary Viewer Addin for $19.95, or you can upgrade your base package to one of the latest and greatest. Visit our upgrade page to see your options.

If you have an older base package, upgrading is definitely the way to go. There are lots of resources and tools that you're missing out on. See the 100 New Features in Logos Bible Software 3 and the Top 20 New Features.

Here's an example of why upgrading is by far the better value. If you upgrade from Bible Study Library (QB) to Bible Study Library (ND), it will cost you only $39.90 (twice the price of the Lectionary Viewer Addin), but you will get—in addition to the Lectionary Viewer Addin—19 new resources, 2 new addins, and 3 new parallel passages! All of that for only $19.95 more!

If you already have the Lectionary Viewer Addin, visit the Lutheran Lectionaries page to get your new lectionaries. If you don't, go check out your upgrade options.

Related Products:

• The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday's Texts (3 Vols.)
• Lectionary Reflections: Year C
• Preaching from the Lectionary: An Exegetical Commentary

Related Article:

• Creating Your Own Lectionary

MediaWiki is the open source wiki software behind Wikipedia and the lesser known Theopedia, which is now powered by RefTagger. (See an example at http://www.theopedia.com/God.)

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded and installed MediaWiki so I could test it out with RefTagger. It worked very nicely.

Here's one method for setting it up via FTP access to your site's files:

1. Use an FTP program like FileZilla to navigate to the folder where you installed MediaWiki.
2. Open the "skins" folder.
3. Locate the file for the skin you are using. The file for the default skin is MonoBook.php. Save a local copy, and a backup copy too.
4. Open the file in Dreamweaver, WordPad, or your favorite code editor.
5. Find the </body> tag and paste the customizable RefTagger code from the RefTagger page right above it.
6. Save the file and upload it back to your server.

You're done. RefTagger is now transforming your MediaWiki site.

For help with other sites, see the tutorials section on the RefTagger page.

We offer several free tools and applications in addition to our Libronix engine and decided that it was time to put them all together in one easy-to-access place.

If you’re relatively new to Logos, you may not know about things like NoteScraps, Shibboleth, Global Bible Reader, RefTagger, our Bible Widget, or the What the Bible Says About website.

Head over to http://www.logos.com/downloads and check them out.

Awhile back I blogged my excitement over the Studies in New Testament Greek Collection being offered as a prepublication special. It is chock full of books that can help exegetes and Bible students benefit from advances in modern linguistics. But as I looked at the collection, there was one volume I was sad to see missing. So we did some digging and found that we had a license from the publisher for the title, but it hadn’t made it into the collection because the publisher wasn’t able to provide us with a physical copy of the book. Well, that’s no problem, since I have a copy. So I brought my book in and we got permission from the Powers That Be to add this valuable book into the collection at no additional cost to you!

The book in question is Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research, edited by Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson. Half the book is dedicated to 5 essays on verbal aspect. One of the great debates in the study of biblical Greek has to do with whether or not verbal ‘tenses’, such as aorist and imperfect, actually communicate a temporal reference (indicating that the action of the verb taking place in the past, present or future) or whether they might not communicate something else entirely (aspect). Or do tenses sometimes convey time, sometimes aspect and/or sometimes both? In New Testament studies, the two most prominent voices in the early verbal aspect debate were Stanley Porter (also the author of Idioms of the Greek New Testament and the soon-to-be-released Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period) and Buist Fanning. In this volume, there are essays from both Porter and Fanning introducing their approaches to verbal aspect and commenting on each other’s theories as well. These excellent essays are preceded by an introduction to the debate by D. A. Carson (author of Exegetical Fallacies), and followed by two more independent reviews of Porter and Fanning, one by Daryl D. Schmidt (author of Hellenistic Greek Grammar and Noam Chomsky) and the other by Moises Silva (author of the Philippians volume of the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament).

After the section on verbal aspect, the other half of the book is a potpourri of articles on other applications of modern linguistics to the Greek Bible, including essays from Jeffrey T. Reed (who wrote A Discourse Analysis of Philippians: Method and Rhetoric in the Debate over Literary Integrity, and co-edited Discourse Analysis and the New Testament: Approaches and Results, both books that are also in this incredible collection), Paul Danove (who wrote Linguistics and Exegesis in the Gospel of Mark: Applications of a Case Frame Analysis and Lexicon, which is also in the SGNT collection), Michael W. Palmer (author of Levels of Constituent Structure in New Testament Greek), and Mark S. Krause (co-author of the College Press NIV Commentary on John).

Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics is a great addition to this already brilliant collection of books. We’ve sweetened the deal, so if you were sitting on the fence before, it’s time to order so we can get this collection into production ASAP!

Logos Bible Software is an incredibly powerful tool. I've been using it almost daily for the last three-and-a-half years and would consider myself a fairly advanced user, but I still regularly discover new things that Logos can do.

While Logos is very easy to use and anyone can get benefit from it without training, really taking full advantage of what Logos has to offer takes time and effort. And that can be a daunting task for the average person.

It's our desire that every Logos user would be able to make full use of what Logos can do to help them study the Bible more efficiently and profitably. We have an entire section of our website dedicated to training. It provides you with scores of free training articles and videos. We also frequently share helpful tips on the blog. But all that information can be a bit overwhelming for the new user. Where do you start?

To help users manage all of that information more easily, we've created a free online course called Learn Logos Bible Software. It was designed for Bible colleges and seminaries to offer to their students as a one credit course. But since most of our users aren't in Bible college or seminary and might never have the chance to take this course, we decided to share it publicly with anyone who would like to use it.

The course is comprised of 16 lessons that walk you through our most important training material, which is grouped together in helpful categories.

• Lesson 1: Installation and Introduction
• Lesson 2: Overview of the Home Page
• Lesson 3: Organizing Your Workspace
• Lesson 4: Working with a Reverse Interlinear
• Lesson 5: Special Tools, Part 1
• Lesson 6: Special Tools, Part 2
• Lesson 7: Special Documents
• Lesson 8: Unique Search Tools
• Lesson 9: Researching, Part 1
• Lesson 10: Researching, Part 2
• Lesson 11: Original Language Researching, Part 1
• Lesson 12: Original Language Researching, Part 2
• Lesson 13: Specialized Searches
• Lesson 14: Miscellaneous
• Lesson 15: Personalize Your Software
• Lesson 16: Sermon File

Most lessons include videos to watch, questions to answer, exercises to do, and articles and blog posts to read.

We hope you enjoy it and find it helpful!

One of the benefits of reading books in Libronix is the ease with which you can "look up" Scripture references. Oftentimes in print books they get ignored. It's simply too much work to flip manually to every passage. But what about Scripture references on the web? There are tens of thousands of Christian blogs and websites with millions—or perhaps even billions—of Scripture references. But we usually face the same problem with Scripture references on the web as we do with print books. They're just too time consuming to look up. What if you could provide your readers with some of the same conveniences of Libronix on your website? With RefTagger now you can—and without all the time and hard work it takes to create the links manually!

If you have a website or blog, you will definitely want to check it out. It's a very customizable, free tool that turns all of your Scripture references into hyperlinks to an online Bible. You can even have RefTagger add an icon that is hyperlinked to the passage in Libronix. This gives your readers the opportunity to easily look up the Bible passages that you discuss.

To add RefTagger to your site, all you need to do is paste a few lines of JavaScript code to your template file(s). RefTagger will instantly be applied to all of your site's content, adding new life to your old blog posts and web pages. When you write a new blog post or upload your latest sermon, it will also instantly have all the added functionality.

If you are a blogger and use WordPress with your own domain name (i.e., not WordPress.com), you can download and install our WordPress plugin and add RefTagger without even having to edit any of your files!

All the details are at the RefTagger page. Head on over to get the code or the plugin and start using it on your site. Once you have it set up, please be sure to let us know by sending an email to reftagger@logos.com. We will put some of the coolest examples on display at the RefTagger page.

If you want to see RefTagger in action, it's running right here on the Logos blog. Check out these sample posts:

• Who Cares About Participles? I Do!
• Why Use the Septuagint?
• Thanksgiving in the Bible Word Study Report

If you like the Libronix startup sound, you'll love the free Libronix ringtone. Now you can be reminded of your favorite Bible software every time your phone rings. You could even set it up as your alarm sound and wake up to it in the morning!

Imagine how cool it would be to meet another Libronix user in a crowd because one of you had the Libronix ringtone on your phone. Now when you're at the grocery store, the mall, the airport, or a conference, you'll have an instant connection with other users.

Here's what others are saying:

"My Bible-Software-Geek status has just improved by leaps and bounds." —Jacob Hantla

To get the free Libronix ringtone, text the number 349388 to 69937 (MYXER) or visit Myxer and follow the simple instructions. It will work on most phones, but there are a handful of phones whose carriers have disabled this service.

Enjoy!

A few years ago Bob came up with the idea to create a small utility to facilitate typing in ancient scripts, and the first version of Shibboleth was born.

We have been using this tool internally for a couple of years, but have recently updated it to take advantage of some of the new technologies made available with Microsoft's .NET Framework 3.0.

We've found Shibboleth to be such a handy tool that we wanted to share it with you. Best of all, we've decided to make it free for personal use!

Here are three reasons you might want to use Shibboleth.

1. Shibboleth makes typing in a script you don't know well very easy. It's perfect for those who are still learning to type in Greek and Hebrew; it's also great for those who can skillfully type in the biblical languages, but occasionally need to type in a non-biblical ancient script like Ugaritic or Coptic.
2. Shibboleth makes typing obscure characters easy. Even if you're proficient at typing in Greek and Hebrew, you probably don't have characters like the Greek digamma (ϝ) or the Hebrew inverted nun (׆) memorized. With Shibboleth that's no longer a problem. No more hunting for all those keyboard layouts in PDF files somewhere. Shibboleth provides a single location to look up all those obscure ancient script characters!
3. Shibboleth is also an ideal tool for learning to type proficiently in an ancient script. By practicing for a while in Shibboleth, Greek and Hebrew students will become skilled at typing in no time. The transition from using Shibboleth to typing directly in Greek or Hebrew in other Windows applications like Word is easy since Shibboleth uses the same keyboard layouts as our free Windows keyboards. So once you have a feel for where all the characters are in Shibboleth, making the switch is seamless.

Shibboleth works with both Vista and XP. However, if you're running XP, you'll need to download the free .NET Framework 3.0 from Microsoft if you don't already have it. (We provide the link for you on the Shibboleth page.)

A note about browsers: Shibboleth is a ClickOnce application. You will probably want to use Internet Explorer 7 to install it. To install Shibboleth from Firefox, you will need to use the FFClickOnce add-on or the IE Tab add-on.

Visit http://www.logos.com/shibboleth to find out more and install the application. Enjoy!

OpenBible.info just launched a new topical Bible service that is steeped in crowdsourcing-mashup-web-2.0 goodness. Since I just blogged about the "old school" What the Bible Says About... service from Logos I thought I'd give this upstart service a mini-review.

You can try it out: OpenBible.info Topical Bible 

Here's how it works: The developers compiled a topic list using Yahoo! Related Suggestions, then searched Yahoo! for the most relevant web pages about each topic, then pulled any Bible references from those pages. So what you end up with is a list of Bible verses that are most closely associated with a particular topic across the web.

The label next to the "find" box says, "What does the Bible say about..." But I think it's a stretch to say this service helps you find out what the Bible says about a topic. It would be more accurate to say you're finding out what people say the Bible says about a topic. Or maybe what people say about the Bible when speaking about a topic. And by people I mean "the people." The OpenBible.info project is truly trusting in the wisdom of crowds.

Admittedly, any topical index to the Bible involves editorial decisions and inferences. Orville James Nave (1841-1917), who spent 14 years working on his project to "...note and classify everything found in the Scriptures", certainly did not work in a vacuum. (The New Nave's Topical Bible used at What the Bible Says About and available inside Logos Bible Software is a revision of Orville Nave's classic work.) But he was methodical, thorough and consistent in his appproach to the task.

Don't get me wrong, though, I do think there's value to a service like the OpenBible Topical Bible.

What I like about it:

1. It offers current topics. If you want to find out what people say the Bible says about Harry Potter...you can.
2. It offers a constantly-growing list of topics. If you enter a topic that's new to the database, the topic is added and you'll get some initial results after a few moments of waiting for the server to do its work. I entered "Iraq War", which was brand new to the database.
3. It offers a constantly-improving data set. The Helpful/Not Helpful buttons by each Bible verse or passage allow me to help fine tune the results, while the Suggest a Verse box lets me associate a verse to my topic.

Suggestions:

1. Allow the user to associate a new topic with an existing topic. I found later that "War" (of course) and "The War in Iraq" are both existing topics. Before adding "Iraq War" as a new entity, the service could ask, "Did you really mean 'The War in Iraq'?" and learn from my response. In this way, I would be training the database to understand that the two terms mean the same thing.
2. I don't know what method the Topical Bible service uses to identify Bible verses on web pages, but it seems to me such an undertaking is fraught with perils. Sean Boisen has raised some good questions about this in the context of counting Scripture references in blog posts. Since the web is full of unruly data (unlike the carefully tagged books we work on here at Logos) the only solutions seem to be a) push people to adopt something like Bible reference microformat standards or b) develop ever-smarter verse extraction routines.

All in all this is a pretty cool service and I'm sure we'll see more like it in the days to come. 

Did you know about the free service offered by Logos that lets Internet users find out what the Bible says about a topic? And did you know you could host this free topical lookup on your own site?

The URL is http://wbsa.logos.com and here's what it looks like:

Enter topic, click "Search!" When you click through on a result, you'll see a list of Bible verses linked to Bible Gateway so you can read verses in the Bible version of your choice. I searched on riches, which also wildcard-matches ostriches.

Who knew the Bible had so much to say about ostriches? Even a quick survey of these 12 verses shows some difference of opinion among translators as to whether the animal named is an owl or an ostrich. And there's a strong association between jackals and ostriches/owls as inhabitants of desolate places.

I hinted at the beginning of the post that you could put this lookup on your own site, and you can! Just paste this code into your site:

<iframe frameborder=0 src="http://wbsa.logos.com/module.htm" width=540 height=138></iframe>

The result looks something like this:

If you are teaching yourself Greek or Hebrew or simply trying to keep your skills sharp, you may want to check out these free vocabulary lists that can be downloaded and opened within Logos Bible Software 3:

Vocabulary Lists for Popular Grammars

We've built vocab lists built around 11 Greek grammars, 6 Hebrew grammars and 2 Aramaic grammars. Some of these grammars are available for Logos Bible Software; some aren't.

I was particularly excited to see a vocabulary list for Athenaze, the grammar I used when learning classical Greek at Hope College.

As you can see, the vocabulary words are given in the same order as they appear in the grammar, following the lessons or chapters and part-of-speech divisions. You can edit the glosses and words provided, delete an entry in the list (words you already know, perhaps?), and re-sort the entries.

Tip: To manually move a vocab word up or down the list, click and drag it. To delete a word, click it once and hit the Delete key.

Another cool thing is that you can print these vocab lists to make flash cards! So whether you're starting out on the adventure of learning a biblical language—or want to make sure your skills don't rust over the summer—take advantage of this freebie and give your studies a boost!

See also:

How-To: Make a Vocabulary Guide with Word Frequencies

How come I don't have the Vocabulary Lists feature? Vocabulary Lists are part of the Original Languages Addin, included in the following Logos 3 collections: Original Languages Library, Scholar's Library, Scholar's Library: Silver, and Scholar's Library: Gold. If you own the Original Languages Addin as part of an older collection but have not updated to Libronix DLS v3.0 or greater, you can get Vocabulary Lists for free: open Libronix DLS and click Tools | Libronix Update. If you own a collection like Bible Study Library or don't own a base collection, you can get the Original Languages Addin by upgrading to a Logos 3 collection that includes the addin or purchasing it individually.

Mac users can download the new and improved Bible Widget from www.LogosBibleWidget.com or Apple.com.

The biggest update is that the new widget adds the ESV Bible so you can instantly navigate to a verse in either the English Standard Version or King James Version Bible.

Logos Bible Widget version 2 is also much more streamlined, in response to requests from users who found the original widget to be a desktop space hog. It's also very good-looking, if I may say so (kudos to Sean Fields, Logos design director)... 

Using the widget is simple: Type a Bible reference to jump to that verse. Click the forward or back arrow to jump to the next/previous verse; click the double arrows to jump to verse 1 of the next/previous chapter. You can copy/paste text from the verse window into another application.

To switch Bible versions, just flip the widget over.

 

Related posts:

• ESV Bible Blog: Logos Mac BibleWidget Now Has the ESV
• Bible Software Review: Streamlined Bible Widget

Want more power?

Stuff like stacked window tabs, fuzzy searching, and quick navigation?

Of course you do.

Then you need Power Tools. If you don't have 'em, you should check out the Power Tools Addin.

I hope everyone took advantage of National Clean Off Your Desk Day last month...I did not.

But the last few times I cleaned my computer desk at home (which happens precisely as often as we're expecting overnight guests, since the computer is in the guest room) I noticed a particular kind of detritus that accumulated around and under my monitor and keyboard. I'm not talking about dust (which was also plentiful) but note scraps.

That's right, little bits of paper with important stuff written on them. Like the username and password for the website I built for my brother-in-law last year. Or the name of a book I heard about on NPR during my drive home one day, scribbled on the corner of a napkin, and deposited near the computer "for later". Or library card numbers (which the library website unhelpfully refuses to store on my behalf, forcing me to re-enter them every time my kids' Sesame Street videos need to be renewed).

So when I heard about a simple note-taking application being cooked up by Bob Pritchett, members of the Logos development team, and our graphic artist...I got pretty excited about its potential to help me get (at least slightly) more organized.

NoteScraps: Simple. Elegant. Cheap.

This new application is called NoteScraps and it's the ideal place to store bits and scraps of information. The stuff you might write on a post-it note and stick to your monitor...or keyboard...or litter around your desk. The notes that you might not need right now but are pretty sure you'll need later...long after you forgot where you put them.

There are other note-taking programs out there but NoteScraps is cool because of its simplicity. It sets out to do one thing only and do it well.

• Taking notes is quick and easy: my phone rings, a quick keystroke opens a new note, and I can start typing as my caller talks.
• Finding notes is instantaneous: another keystroke (or click in my system tray) brings me to the find box, I start typing a word, and the app brings forward notes that contain the word.
• Using the app is fun: the design is thoughtful and balanced, and there's just enough eye candy to enhance the experience by shuffling my notes on the screen as I interact with them.

NoteScraps is designed for Windows Vista but we also offer a version for Windows XP. Be sure to check out the demo video and download your own copy—the trial version is free!

Appendix: What Does NoteScraps Have to Do With Logos Bible Software?

In the words of Bob Pritchett, "Nothing specific -- but we've all got little notes to manage." And as he elaborated in our beta newsgroup, "NoteScraps has also served an important role in helping us explore and master the next generation technologies. Before we try to use .NET 3 and WPF in Logos Bible Software we want to play with them in a smaller sandbox."

We just posted 35 new training videos to the Training area of Logos.com.

The videos show how to most effectively use Logos Bible Software for biblical language study. And, yes, we have videos for both Greek and Hebrew.

In the coming months we will be producing a lot more web-based video tutorials and have some refinements in mind for presenting them…but I thought you'd want to know about the first batch to come out of the oven.