Logos Bible Software, Part 2

Second search

I clicked on the Greek word for “repent” in Word for Word, and I was presented with an interlinear presentation of Acts 2:38, including the English, Greek, Greek lemma (root), English transliterations for both (thanks), the morphology (that is, the declensions), and dictionary links. Nice.

I click a second time on the Greek word for repent in Word for Word, and the screen transforms to show me how “repent” is used throughout the New Testament and Septuagint. Most are grammatically technical, but at the bottom are the links to where “repent” is used in both testaments.

I click on New Testament, and I receive a long list of verses, in Greek, where “repent” is used. Cool, but I’m an amateur and would really like to see the English translations. I mean, if Logos will pronounce the word for me, it should do this for me.

I click on the verse reference, and I’m provided the context — the surrounding text, in Greek. Then I find a link saying “add version,” and I add the ESV. Now the verses are in parallel columns, Greek and ESV. Most excellent!

Commentaries

So I begin to wonder what the commentaries say about the meaning of “repent” in Acts 2:38.  I go to the search box at the top, re-enter Acts 2:38, and am again presented with 1,110 results — too many to use.

Ahh, but the next icon over searches by resource type, and the first window is Commentaries. So I hit this button, and up pops a list of 19 commentaries that reference Acts 2:38 (BibleWorks only has Matthew Henry’s and the NET Bible public domain commentaries). Many of these, however, are one-volume commentaries that offer very little depth. But there are a handful that are very useful.

Now, here’s my first real annoyance. I’d like to know the copyright on the commentary, that is, how old is this? Maybe I’m just curious, but I’d like to know if this is a 19th Century public domain book or something more recent. Hovering the cursor over the book icon gives the name and publisher, but little more.

Next, after I found a passage in the commentary I’d like to copy the passage for use in the blog. How do I cite the book? I can’t find a way to copy from the bubble that pops up on hover. Looks cool but not good for a blogger.

Now, the best way to handle this is the way WestLaw does it for lawyers. If you copy text out of a WestLaw resource and then paste it, the copied text will be followed by the citation — done automatically for you! Oh for automatic citations! (Logos actually does this for Bible passages, but not commentaries. Maybe I can find a setting somewhere … )

Neither BibleWorks nor Logos offer automatic citations, but BibleWorks makes the title page available, with copyright and the other things you need to do a proper citation or just to know something more about what you’re reading.

[I’ve since learned that some Logos windows will, when copied from, provide an automatic citation — just like WestLaw. Truly a blessing!]

Cross references

Beneath the commentaries are the cross-references, provided from The Treasury of Bible Knowledge. Five references are given in full text, and then 18 are given solely by verse reference.

Here, BibleWorks is clearly superior, as you are allowed to use cross-references from each translation in the set, plus The Treasury of Bible Knowledge, plus a compiled list that offers all cross-references from all purchased resources — all in full text. And I use the compiled list all the time. In fact, I have BibleWorks set up to produce the compiled cross-references list every time I look up a verse — and they all come up in full text.

Parallel passages

Logos has a section providing parallel passages. BibleWorks does not provide parallel passages as such. If they’re not in the cross-references, you’re out of luck.

Both are weak in failing to produce Old Testament parallels, because both rely on cross-references that fail in this regard. Apparently the editors who compile cross-references aren’t big on the Old Testament. Indeed, some translations have cross-references that don’t even give you the place a quoted passage is from.

Literary typing

The next section advises that, according to Mackie Literary Typing of the New Testament, this is a narrative. This seems pretty elementary, unless a similar resource is provided in the prophets, where it could be trickier to know.

And …

I’m next provided with clip art, a hymn selection, a suggested lesson outline and handout, and all sorts of other things that would be more suitable to others — but which might be extremely useful to some.

Advanced searching

My biggest complaint with BibleWorks is the DOS-style search feature. If I want to find every instance of “be baptized” in the Bible, the BibleWorks search command is

.’be baptized

In Logos, it’s —

“be baptized”

— of course.

Unlike BibleWorks, you use “and” for and and “or” for or. I like it.

I can search for the phrase in the entire library (zillions of hits) or just the Bible. A Bible search produces a colorful chart comparing ESV, NIV, KJV, NASB, and NRSV.

However, it seems to assume that by “be” I mean “be*” and so I get a hit for Matt 3:6, which has “being baptized” solely in the NASB. (I hate it when programmers try to tell me what I really mean when what I really mean is what I typed!)

[There’s a setting to turn off the approximation default.]

I click on Morph (which I take to refer to a morphological search) and enter “bapti*” to search the Greek text, and up pops a list of verses, in English and Greek with Greek words beginning with “bapti.” Excellent. I typed in English and it transliterated back into Greek for me!

I could have also searched “lemma:baptizo” — and Logos helpfully would give me a list of Greek words beginning with the letters I type, so I don’t have to worry too much with the spelling. Excellent. I’m still mastering English spelling; why not let the computer help me with Greek?

(BibleWorks does this, too, but oddly won’t let you click on the word to avoid having to type it. So even after you’ve found it, you have to type it out — even in Greek.)

I can also search based on verb tenses and such (as is true in BibleWorks). And I love how the verses pop up in Greek and English parallel.

Early Church Fathers

One of the features of BibleWorks I adore is that every search automatically includes the Early Church Fathers (ECFs). Thus, if I pull up Acts 2:38, a window will come up automatically linking to every reference to the verse in the ECFs. This can be extremely helpful in doctrinal studies. So I wondered if I could do the same in Logos.

I typed “Tertullian” in the search box and received 1,310 hits! There is truly an astonishing array of resources — histories, theologies, and such that speak of Tertullian. It’s quite an impressive collection. But nothing by Tertullian himself.

So I checked the cost of an upgrade. The ECFs would cost an additional $250 (and are included in some of the more expensive packages). The version you’d buy would be a superior translation to the one that comes with BibleWorks. But the ECFs are included in the BibleWorks base package.