Logos 7 academic basic

Logos Bible Software logoIn addition to Logos 7 basic, Logos 7 academic basic is available for free. Resources included in the package are sufficient to get one’s feet wet with the principles of how research in and with biblical languages work in Logos—namely:

Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon
Lexham Bible Dictionary
Septuagint (Lexham English and Swete Greek editions)
Lexham Hebrew Bible
Greek New Testament (SBL)
Lexham Textual Notes
Abbot-Smith Greek Lexicon

For additional information about Logos 7 academic basic, see the LogosTalk blog. To download the package, see the Logos website. For other discussion, see also Logos 7 Basic for free and Trial versions of Biblical Studies software.

Reviving closed tabs in Logos

As of v. 7.8, Logos Bible Software supports reopening closed tabs both via panel menus and keyboard shortcuts (PC: Ctrl + Shift + T, Mac: Cmd + Shift + T). Conveniently at least for PC users—and I suspect also for Mac (?), the keyboard shortcut is the same one that will revive tabs in major browsers like Google Chrome.

For additional details and a walk through of how to access this feature through the panel menu see the LogosTalk blog.

Logos web app

Last month, Faithlife released a substantial web app for free to all Logos 7 users at https://app.logos.com/. But, users are advised that

at this point notes and highlights from the web app will not show up in the desktop app and vice versa. We’re working on creating this cross-platform syncing, but meanwhile you’re data, notes, and highlights are completely safe. Just keep in mind that as we make the transition to a new note system, you won’t be able to access your notes across all platforms.

For more about the new web app, see the original post on the LogosTalk blog.

Logos 7 Basic for free

Choosing a platform for Biblical Studies software can be tricky, inasmuch as trying things out for yourself is probably the best mechanism for finding what will work for you. But, obviously, you want to do that trying out before you commit to one of the options. This process is now a bit simpler with Logos 7 Basic, which is available for free.

HT: Tyler Smith. For available trial versions of other Biblical Studies software, including Logos, see Trial versions of Biblical Studies software.

(Re)amplifying the Amplified Bible

Amplified Bible imageAt LogosTalk, Mark Ward has a helpful discussion of “how to use—and not to use—the Amplified Bible” for English-only Bible readers.  Mark comments, in part:

The Amplified, when used according to its stated design, invites readers to deny this interpretive truism. It makes them think, “Ah, now I know what the Greek word here really means”—and then to Choose Their Own Adventure, picking the meaning they like most.

On the other hand, Mark suggests a more helpful approach to the Amplified Bible would be to understand it as

essentially … is a study Bible with very brief notes that are brought from the margins of the page into the text.

The “Choose Your Own Adventure” comparison seems especially appropriate to the way I’ve often heard the Amplified Bible used also, and Mark’s suggested alternative approach is particularly salutary too. For the balance of Mark’s lively discussion, see the LogosTalk blog.

Qumran Cave 12: Update 2

James VanderKam, via University of Notre Dame

In a short interview published by the University of Notre Dame, James VanderKam urges caution about labeling the recent Dead Sea find as “Cave 12.” Comparisons have previously been drawn between the new find and Cave 8, which comes inside the numbering but contained no scrolls.

VanderKam comments,

In 1952, after the earliest scrolls finds, archaeologists made a survey of hundreds of caves and openings in the general vicinity of Khirbet Qumran…. Some 230 of them contained nothing of interest, but 26 housed pottery like that found in the first scrolls cave…. [G]iven the fact that other caves in the district, besides the 11 that held the Dead Sea Scrolls, contained pottery of the same sort as Qumran Cave 1, it seems a bit premature to call [the new find] Qumran Cave 12.

Whether the new find should indeed come inside the numbering of the scrolls caves would apparently depend on how things settle out regarding: (a) material apparently blank on visual inspection but needing to be subjected to multispectral analysis, (b) any contents that can be linked chemically or otherwise to other finds in other caves where texts have been recovered, or (c) other texts previously thought to have come from other caves but that might be demonstrated to have come from the new find.

Incidentally, the point about the comparison with Cave 8 (e.g., Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is the absence of scroll-type texts in what was recovered from that cave. Although not scroll-type texts, five fragmentary texts were recovered from Cave 8 (cf. The Dead Sea Scrolls). On this basis, all caves in the customary 11-fold accounting would share in common the fact that texts were (identified as) recovered from them—something that it can’t yet be said for the new find—rather than simply that texts had likely been stored there at some point.

(N.B.: My earliest post on the new cave find initially commented imprecisely that “no texts were found in [Cave 8].” I’ve now corrected this statement to reflect more properly that “no scroll-type texts were found in [Cave 8].”)

HT: Jim Davila. For the full text of piece containing VanderKam’s reflections, see the Notre Dame website. For previous discussion and further links about the new Qumran find, see Qumran Cave 12Qumran Cave 12: Update, and LogosTalk.