Logos 6 Review: Dr. Mark Futato

Today’s guest post is from Dr. Mark Futato. Dr. Futato currently serves as the Robert L. Maclellian Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He is an avid Logos user and creatively integrates the software into core courses on Hebrew and Old Testament books.

With the release of Logos 6, students of the Hebrew Bible have a wonderful tool at their fingertips, regardless of the level at which they are engaged in the study of the text. In addition to all of the strengths of previous versions of Logos, Logos 6 has new or enhanced features that students of the Hebrew Bible will appreciate.

For those just learning Hebrew, there are nice tools like the Hebrew Alphabet Tutor, which facilitates mastering the signs and sounds of the Hebrew alphabet, and the Morphology Charts, which help students not only understand forms, but also quickly find all of the places where given forms are found in the Hebrew text. Then there is the Text Converter, which allows one to easily embed transliterated text into a document in compliance with any of a number of different style sheets. The Factbook is a great tool for quickly gathering a lot of data for various kinds of topical studies.

On a somewhat more advanced level are the Bible Sense Lexicon and Clause Search tools. The strengths of the Bible Sense Lexicon are too many to enumerate here, but two call for comment.

One, since words do not “mean” in isolation but in collocation with other words, the Bible Sense Lexicon is an excellent tool for students as it allows them to quickly find word collocations—for example, a particular verb when used with a particular subject or object. It is now easy for students to find all the places where the Hebrew verb for “create” with “God” as the subject is used with a variety of objects to easily ascertain that “create” does not in and of itself mean “create out of nothing.”

Two, related to this is the ability to find with one search all the places where “God” is the subject of the verb “create,” whether that subject is ʾĕlōhîm, yhwh, or a pronoun that refers to the God of Israel.

The Clause Search tool can produce similar results, only with a higher level of sophistication. It is now easy for students to find all the places where the Hebrew verb for “lift” is used with “soul” as the direct object to easily ascertain that this expression in Psalm 24:4 means “to trust.”

Ample templates are provided, so students can do searches with just a few clicks. In addition, the templates are only a starting point. Once students understand the logic of the templates, they can then mix and match elements from the templates to create their own searches. Given the syntactically tagged database that underlies clause searching, the only limit on syntactical searches is the imagination of the student.

There are also numerous new resources available in Logos 6. One of my favorites is Biblia Hebraica Quinta for Deuteronomy, Ruth, Song of Songs, Qohelet, Lamentations, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Along with the Hebrew text comes the critical apparatus with hyperlinks for all of the sigla, which allow students to easily understand the apparatus. Other fine tools are the Proverbs Explorer and Psalms Explorer, which are no doubt the first of tools on all of the books of the Hebrew Bible. The Psalms Explorer allows quick access to analyzing Psalms in terms of genre, attribution, or key theological themes.

More could be said, but I hope I have said enough to whet your appetite for studying the Hebrew Bible with Logos 6. For me, “efficient” and “pleasurable” are adjectives that describe the study of the Hebrew Bible with Logos 6.

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Study with the same tools Dr. Futato applauds: get Logos 6 today!