Logos 4: All the Questions in the Bible

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Logos 4: Introduction to Bible Study with Logos Bible Software

Morris Proctor | Mon, May 21, 2012 | Products, Training 0

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

Surrounded by eager observers at a local church, a Logos representative gave a detailed and exciting demonstration of Logos Bible Software. He thoroughly explained the Home Page, the Passage Guide, the Exegetical Guide, Bible Word Study, searching, and more. Following the presentation, an attendee remarked—

This program looks powerful and wonderful! I do have one question, though—What is a commentary?

This event illustrates an important point. Sometimes within Christian circles we may innocently assume everyone is operating from the same knowledge base. Surely everyone is familiar with Christian vocabulary and resources. We all know what redemption means. We all know where the Bible came from. We all know what commentaries, study Bibles, and lexicons are.

Of course, when we stop and think about it, we know this isn’t true. We have to start at the beginning, then learn and grow in any field of study—including our Christian disciplines.

With this in mind, we created the training video Introduction to Bible Study with Logos Bible Software. In this instruction, I assume no prior knowledge of either Logos or the Bible itself.

In understandable terms, I explain what the Bible is, where it came from, and what distinguishes the various available Bibles. I then briefly describe numerous Bible study resources: commentaries, Bible dictionaries, topical Bibles, and more.

In addition, I introduce you to various ways of approaching Bible study, including:

Book Study
Passage Study
Word Study
Topic Study
Devotional Study

Then, at the heart of the training, I show you how to incorporate many Logos features into the five methods of Bible study listed above. In other words, with this training you’ll not only learn what a book study is—you’ll learn how to use Logos to accomplish it. This instruction not only introduces you to Bible study, it gets you going with Logos.

After completing this training, you’ll no longer just open Logos and randomly click around the software. You’ll proactively and systematically move through the software to facilitate different types of Bible study.

So if you’re new to either Logos or Bible study itself (or even both), this product was created with you in mind.

Even if you’re beyond the introduction stage, perhaps you know someone who can benefit from this training. This is an excellent way to get people started in their study of Scripture.

Introduction to Bible Study with Logos Bible Software is now available to pre-order at Logos.com. For more information, please click here.

What is one area of your Bible study that you would like to improve in? Leave a comment and let us know!

Logos 4: Locate Greek Words in an English Bible

Morris Proctor | Mon, May 14, 2012 | Training 1

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

One of the many powerful aspects of Logos is its ability to take us English students back to the original languages of the Bible, even though we may not be language scholars. Logos accomplishes this through the reverse interlinear option. Many of the questions I receive are related to the reverse interlinear, such as this one a Logos user recently sent:

How do I search for 2 Greek words within proximity of each other? For example:
grace WITHIN 5 words righteousness (grace and righteousness in original languages)

I answered a similar question a few months ago in a blog, but since this is a common question I’ll address it again from a slightly different angle.

Open an English Bible (containing the reverse interlinear) to a passage, such as Colossians 1:2, containing the first word you want to locate. (1)
Right click on a word such as grace . (2)
Select Lemma | Search this resource. (3)(4)
Take the Bible to a passage, such as Matthew 3:15, containing your second word.
Right click on your word such as righteousness.
Select Lemma | Search this resource.
Notice you now have two search panels open.
Add this text to the search query in the first search panel: WITHIN 5 words.
Copy and paste the search query text from the second search panel to the first.
Make sure the query looks like this:
Use the drop down lists to adjust the search ranges.
Press the Enter key to initiate the search.

Logos now locates all the occurrences of these two Greek words within five words of each other—in your English Bible!

Please note these very important observations:

If the search type is set to Bible then both terms have to be in the same verse!

If the search type is set to Basic then both terms have to be in the same chapter!

If you enjoyed this tip about using English Bibles to accomplish original language work, then you’ll benefit from Camp Logos Live 2 DVD training which highlights numerous ways for English students to dig into Hebrew and Greek using Logos.

How has digging into the Hebrew and Greek helped your study of the Bible? Leave a comment and let us know!

Logos 4: “Advantage Logos”

Morris Proctor | Mon, May 7, 2012 | Training 1

I am often asked at Camp Logos something like this:

What’s the difference between a Logos book and an Amazon Kindle book? Why should I buy a book in the Logos format as opposed to another electronic format?

Great questions. Various differences elevate Logos books above other formats, but perhaps none more so than the level of tagging in our Logos books.

Rather than explain what I mean, I’ll offer a specific example:

Open a Bible to Luke 9:61.
Open the resource Moral Foundations of Life by Oswald Chambers.
Right click on any word in Luke 9:61. (1)
From the right click menu select Reference Luke 9:61 | Search all open resources. (2)(3)
In the Search panel click By Title to arrange the search hits according to the title of the book. (4)
Click the triangle icon to the left of Moral Foundations of Life to expand the search hits. (5)
Notice in the search hits of the resource, the characters Luke 9:61 do not exist, but the words Lord, I will follow Thee do. (6)
Click a search hit to open Moral Foundations of Life to that location. (7)
In the resource rest your cursor on the words Lord, I will follow Thee to see a preview of Luke 9:61 from your Preferred Bible.

Here’s the point I’m making with this example:

When we search our Logos books for Luke 9:61 the system will find Luke 9:61 or Lk 9:61 or verse 61 or Lord, I will follow Thee. Why? Because somehow the Logos book developers have tagged all of those as references to Luke 9:61!

So remember, when you’re reading Logos books, you’re reading multiple levels of tagging that are also networked with the rest of your Logos library!

What is your favorite feature of Logos books? Leave a comment and let us know!

Logos 4: Identify English Words Added By Bible Translators

Morris Proctor | Mon, April 30, 2012 | Training 1

A Logos user recently emailed me the following question:

From Logos Bible Software, how can one know which parts of the English Bible are not from the original language, but were added in by translators?

If you’re new to the Bible please don’t be concerned about this question. The Old Testament was originally written (primarily) in Hebrew while the New Testament was recorded in Greek. Our English Bibles are translations of these Hebrew and Greek texts.

Sometimes Bible translators, for various reasons, will both insert extra English words and not translate all Hebrew and Greek words. The Logos reverse interlinear feature, found in numerous English Bibles, clearly identifies these instances.

Open an English Bible containing the reverse interlinear information such as the ESV.
Click Display | Inline on the Bible’s toolbar. (1)
Navigate to a passage such as Matthew 6:1 . (2)

The English words, such as other in verse 1, with a dot / bullet underneath them have been added by the translators. The Hebrew / Greek words, such as the one to the right of beware in verse 1, with a dot / bullet above them on the English line have NOT been translated in this specific English Bible.

As you can see, the reverse interlinear is trying to account for every word, both in the original text and the English Bible.

Other English Bibles containing this reverse interlinear option include: NASB, KJV, NKJV, LEB, NRSV, NIV (NT only) and NLT (NT only).

For more detailed information about the reverse interlinear option, please see Camp Logos Live, our two-day seminar that we brought to DVD-ROM.

For more information about the basics of Bible study, like the Logos user’s question above, please see our newest video training project, Introduction to Bible Study with Logos Bible Software.

How do you use the reverse interlinear to study the Bible? Leave a comment and let us know!

Logos 4: All the Questions in the Bible

Morris Proctor | Mon, April 23, 2012 | Training 2

Over the past few months several Logos users have emailed asking if it’s possible to search for questions in the Bible. In other words, can we search for punctuation marks? Currently we cannot. If, however, you want to see a list of questions in the Bible, the heavy lifting has been already done for you with the book All the Questions in the Bible(which is contained in most Logos base collections). The compiler of the resource lists all of the questions in the King James Version book by book.

Open the Library.
Type in the Library’s Find box author:hancock.
Click the book All the Questions in the Bible to open it.
Choose the resource’s panel menu and select Show table of contents.
Click a book of the Bible in the contents pane to jump to that location in the resource and to see a list all the questions in that specific book!

As you can see, All the Questions in the Bible, is really a lot of verse lists based on the KJV that have been compiled into one resource!

If you want, you can use this book to make your own Passage Lists based on any version of the Bible you like:

Choose File | Passage List.
Name the list something like Questions in James.
Open All the Questions in the Bible to the section All the Questions in James.
Select all of the text in the James section in the resource.
Choose the Add drop down list on the Passage List.
Select Add Passages from selected text.
Select the Bible(s) in the Passage List from which you wish to display the verses.