BibleWorks 10 Review — the best gets even better!

by Dan Phillips

The best serious Bible Study software in the world keeps getting better and better.

The way to approach this is to begin with the oft-asked question, "Which is better: Logos or BibleWorks?" Rather than say that it's like comparing apples and oranges, I'd say it's like comparing apples and artichokes, or baked potatoes. They aren't two of the same thing, they're two different things. There is some overlap, obviously,  but the two different softwares have two different foci.

Logos 6 (which I plan to review later) is like having an incredibly powerful, fast, extensive library crammed into your device. It is the best I know of, at what it does, and I need what it does. BibleWorks 10 is like having the world's best infinitely-expandable polyglot study Bible, with margins that indefinitely extend to allow endless note-taking and note-making. It's the  best I know of at what it does, and I need what it does! I wouldn't want to do without either.

Most serious Bible students get a Bible with margin room enough to make notes, or (in my case) even insert Hebrew and Greek. But then when one wears out, you get another and start all over again. And there's never enough room; no one can write small enough to include everything.

BibleWorks solves that problem. Its fully-formatted Notes feature allows instant recording of thoughts, links, documentation, graphics, tables — anything. (See more, on an earlier version, here.) This has been a steady feature since its (as I recall) wobbly introduction in version 6. Now it is long-since robust and stable — and in version 10, expanded.

The first expansion is an additional frame, so that now the Search and Browse frames work with (not one, but) two analysis frames:

Click to enlarge

If you prefer, you can collapse the third analysis frame so as only to have one; but I always use the two, even on my 15" laptop. Depending on what modules you've gotten, you can use the two frames for notes and textual commentaries, cross-references, E-Pub books, other translations, editor, or a dozen other features. You can drag and drop the tabs to customize as needed.

On the subject of customization — though this is not a new feature — BibleWorks allows you to make and name your own configurations.

For instance, I have a Daily Bible Reading configuration that keeps track of where I am each day. It's like being able to leave as many ribbons as you need as place-keepers:

Click to embiggen

You can rename, add or delete the tabs. In my labeling, the OT tab has the Hebrew text for my OT read-through, the NT my Greek tab, and the EV my English Bible read-through tab. ("Bobby" is a random name for a tab I use for side-searches.)

Then I have a general configuration that I employ for all other uses.

Another new addition in version 10 is the User Lexicon. It is exactly what you might think it is from the name: a fully-formatted lexicon feature that the user can create. Note, for instance here, in Proverbs 4:8, when I mouse-over the word  סַלְסְלֶ֥הָ, this appears in the user lexicon:

Too small? Click!

That is the note I created, obviously culled from different sources. Now note: that will display any time I mouse over that lemma in any verse. It is not tied to the verse, it is tied to the word. The value of this is obvious. It works on any language, whether Hebrew, Greek or English. So you can make use of it whatever your level is.

I always translate what I expound, and I try to come up with consistent renderings. It can be hard to remember how I've translated a word last year, or three years ago. But with this tool, I can keep a record that pops up on every occurrence of the word in every book. And as with all the user-created notes, you can fill it as full as you like, from lexicons, journal articles, commentaries, sermons or personal studies.

Now from the heavy to the to the light relief, you can also customize the colors. If you like, you can even do this:

Click for great pinkness

But then, why would you? One of the other beta-testers made that little honey up and called it JapaneseKitten.

Yep. There's a back-story there, I'll bet... and I don't want to know it.

Here are some of the other new features:

• Danker’s Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the NT. This is actually a very cool new independent lexicon from F. W. Danker, which provides "extended definitions or explanations in idiomatic English for all Greek terms." 
• EPUB reader & library manager. You can add electronic books to your BW10 using this tool.
• High-resolution tagged images of the Leningrad Codex
• Two new NT manuscript transcriptions
• Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 28th Edition
• New English Translation of the Septuagint
• Over 1,200 high resolution photos of the Holy Land
• Complete audio Greek NT, which will read the Greek aloud either from the Byzantine or the Nestle-Aland, 27th edition.
• Dynamically adjustable program text size, which is useful if you are projecting or using a large screen to demonstrate.
• Now in both Mac and PC versions.

BibleWorks itself has a fuller and illustrated listing of new features in BibleWorks 10. (A full list of features, old and new, can be found here.) Also, you can watch BW's own videos demonstrating the new features.

In addition, I guested on a Theotek podcast, battling some bad sound quality and enthusing about the features I like best (starting at about 6:50.

As I've said, I say now: every Bible-teaching, Bible-preaching pastor should have BibleWorks. The same applies to professors and teachers of all levels, seminary students, and serious Bible teachers or students of the Word would benefit greatly from it. Practicing what I preach, I have personally given (or gotten a church to give) copies to pastors. If you are a pastor, get it. If your pastor doesn't have it, get the church to budget it and give it to him. It will reward both him and your church.

Upgrades are discounted, of course. But even if you are purchasing it for the first time, the full price of $389 purchases a stunning array of resources for serious interaction with the text. It is tremendous "bang" for your buck. Plus support is great, and a community of brainiac users is always ready to help.

I enthusiastically recommend it.

[BibleWorks let me be a beta tester and has provided a review copy, with no pressure to produce a positive review. My enthusiasm is all genuine, and all mine. Regular readers already knew that!]

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Logos 5 has launched

by Dan Phillips

I was provided a sneak-review copy of Logos 5 last week, and I've been test-driving it. Logos has been an acquired taste for me and especially now, as a fulltime pastor, I have really come to appreciate it. Reading and studying in Logos is a terrific experience; they have really designed a smart, extremely-powerful, streamlined piece of software.

I plan to share my own impressions later, but for now, here are some of the innovations in Logos 5. (I think their servers are groaning a bit right now.)

Here is a link that starts you through a series of vids on specific features of Logos 5. Let's single out a few.

Here's an overview of new features:

It comes with a nifty memorization tool:

The exegetical guide has been enhanced:

One of the pretty amazing new tools is the Timeline. Check it:

Major omissions, however, include birth of Phil Johnson and Frank Turk, and the start of Pyromaniacs. But that's what upgrades are for.

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Briefly: ask Michael Holmes about his new SBL Greek NT

by Dan Phillips

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about a new Greek New Testament from Dr. Michael W. Holmes, sponsored by the SBL, and available on Logos and BibleWorks (and otherwise).

Now Logos has created an opportunity to ask Dr. Holmes questions about his new edition. You can post them on this Facebook page. Dr. Holmes will monitor the thread, and post his answers next Tuesday, November 16, at 10am PT. You might want to question him about his philosophy and approach, expectations for the text's use, or specific readings you find interesting.

Now... you know that!

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Logos: two neat things — one new (new Greek NT!), one not

by Dan Phillips

While we're all waiting and hoping to hear from Phil... you get to hear from me, about Logos.

First: you all know how much I love me some BibleWorks 8. Mine is a love that cannot be denied.

However, I've been looking  for an opportunity to share one feature Logos has over BW8:
Layout of the Biblical texts.

That is, in BW8, the font is simply there. It's beautiful, it's clear, it's all the wonderful things that BW is — but it's all block-set. No paragraphs, and no broken margins for poetry. So recently when I wanted to do a read-through of the ESV of Amos, I simply used my Logos.

That would be a nice BW upgrade for BW9.

Second: Logos has just released a new critical edition of the Greek New Testament, for free. The edition was done by Michael W. Holmes and sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature.

I just read about it at the BibleWorks forums, and added it to my Logos yesterday, with no time for more than a hasty glance. You can read more about it here and here.

Logos is providing it to users free here. (You can also get a hard-copy next month.)

Holmes has taught in evangelical institutions, as you'll see in his bio. This may jar your impression of the SBL, as it does mine. However, lately, the SBL has apparently been letting (gasp!) evangelicals move up the bus a bit — a fact which has caused some panic and hysteria.

Good times.

UPDATE: now the multitalented Mike Hanel has made the SBLGNT available for BibleWorks 8 as well.
UPDATE II: and, thanks to Jim Darlack, the apparatus as well.

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BibleWorks followup: resources

by Dan Phillips

I mentioned in my love note for BibleWorks 8 Tuesday that

[n]obody should think, "Yeah, sure, but you have to be a total brainiac to use it." Not at all. I'm pretty much a BW8 idiot, compared to the guys who post at the forum. I would really profit from a seminar; I'm only using [BibleWorks] for maybe 5-10% of what it can do — but that 5-10% is what I care most about right now.

Wellsir, Jim Barr of BibleWorks kindly emailed me, pointing out that a seminar he just recently gave at Luther Seminary is available online.

The seminar is about two hours long, and starts from the very basic basics, and goes on to demonstrate more advanced uses and complex searches, and the use of various tools, such as maps. If you're already a BW8 user, Jim's seminar will be helpful. But if you're considering buying and would like to see a demo — there y'go!

You can also find some user-created files and resources at the BibleWorks Blog, "run by Michael Hanel, a Ph.D. student in the Classics Department at the University of Cincinnati, and Jim Darlack, a librarian at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary." (Those guys are the brainiacs.)

Here I'll just pause and marvel at three things:

1. If you have any sense of history, isn't it simply amazing how many really powerful resources we have readily available to us today?
2. With that same sense, look back and marvel at the achievements of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Owen, Edwards, Spurgeon — who had few or none of those resources.
3. Finally and shamefacedly, I think how relatively little we (by which I mean I) have to show for the possession of all these fine, gleaming tools.

Want an interesting imagination-exercise? What would a Spurgeon or an Alford or an Edwards or a Westcott or a Calvin have done with the resources we have?

It is true that "If the axe is dull and he does not sharpen its edge, then he must exert more strength" (Ecclesiastes 10:10a). However, it's a poor craftsman who blames his tool... perhaps even a poorer one who expects the tool to do the work and show the skill and heart for him. The giants of yesterday, looming over our paltry accomplishments, bear eloquent witness: a heart that is ablaze with passionate, all-encompassing love for God will scoff at the paucity of tools, and forge ahead regardless.

Single-minded love and consecrated devotion matter far more than the fineness of one's tools.

But why pose an either/or? Why not put first things first, then bring in the second things in their service? Why not both?

God grant that it be so with us.

(By which I mean me.)

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Another Bible-shilling post

by Frank Turk

Since Phil and Dan spent the first couple of days this week making you drool over software you can't possibly afford, I thought I'd show you what a luddite I am when it comes to Bible Study, and some on-the-cheap tricks for the rest of us who don't get free software because we're famous bloggers, and also don't have the budget of a small lawn-scaping business to fund our theology jones.



So first off: get over yourself when it comes to the physical bound book which we call the Bible. It's nearly impossible today to buy a Bible with a decent cover and real quality binding for less than $150.00 -- and when I say that, I know someone is going to come across with their anecdote about the $7 gift-and-award Bible Pastor Hallibut gave him at High School Graduation and how that cardboard-covered newsprint Bible has served him well lo these 40-aught years. I'm very proud of you. The rest of us will be using our Bibles daily and will destroy those leather-like Bibles which are everywhere in three years, and all the notes we have taken from the edifying sermons we have listened to will be lost forever when the folio from Micah 2 to Luke 18 falls out because the cheap glue holding the book together has finally dried up and turned to dust.

So get over the fact that the Bible has to be "bound", and get involved in the best invention since before Kindle: the loose-leaf Bible -- specifically, the ESV Loose-Leaf Bible. You can buy it in its own binder, but let me suggest to you that this completely fails to develop the genius of this product, and costs almost double what the plain pages will cost by themselves.

See: taking a loose-leaf Bible and putting it in one binder is simply thinking of the Bible as one discrete unit, and it's nothing of the sort. It's the ultimate study Bible just waiting to be born, and you just don't know it yet.

Imagine, if you will, the ability to actual capture all the notes you will ever take on every passage of Scripture in your Bible, and never losing those notes. I'm going to show you how to do that in just a second. But first you have to find this stuff:

Some Report Binders with the big sliding clips

Pre-drilled blank copy paper (at least 2 reams, but you may choose more if you're a real note-taker)

Sticky Tabs

I can smell the logs suddenly burning in your brain as I type -- some of you have already lost it because this is such a great idea. So OK: you went to the local Office Supply Outpost (that was easy!) and you got this stuff, and your ESV loose-leaf arrived in its box still wrapped in its plastic. You almost hate to unwrap the sheets because your child with the busy fingers will undoubtedly make a very complicated game of 52-card pick-up of this 1100+ pages if you leave it unattended for 4 minutes, but you must unwrap the Bible pages.

After the wrapper is gone, take the Bible and divide it up into sections. The real hard-core disciples here will make 66 books of the pile of paper -- maybe more if they go really hard-core into dividing up the book of Psalms. But divide the Bible up into the right number of sections to (A) match the number of report covers you bought, and (B) the right number of logical portable units for you. Mine is divided into 6 sections, but you might decide to give yourself more bound units so you can add more blank paper.

Here's where the busy-fingered child comes in: before you bind up the pages, you have to interleave blank pages for each printed page. Maybe you want two blank pages for each printed page -- which I think makes serious sense. One blank page per printed page means you only have one blank side for each printed side, and that's not even hardly enough for most of the NT, let alone Ezekiel or Daniel. But this prep work makes the final product entirely brilliant. You're going to interleave the blank pages to the printed pages, and make sure you keep the edges with the holes aligned.

When you're done about three days later, get out your report binders and -- get this now -- insert the printed-and-plain interleaved pages into the covers and clip the binding shut. If you have put multiple books of the Bible together, use the sticky tabs to mark the book separations so you have quick access, and that's really about it.

Now what you have is the ultimate note-taker's Bible in portable volumes. I will admit that it is cumbersome, but it is also indispensable for keeping your notes from Sunday School or "big church" all in one place for future reference. And if you're clever, it all comes together for less than $100.

Now, here's the test of fire: I am sure that Dan and Phil will both tell you that this solution is not as sweet as their solution for iBible library software for a multitude of reasons. I have one reason only for suggesting this solution: you can take my solution with you to the Pulpit.

See: neither Dan nor Phil would ever preach from the pulpit using a digital library on their laptop -- because let's face it: it would look like they are phoning it in. It would look unseemly to have your laptop open at the pulpit and to preach from something other than pages -- either printed or hand-written.

But if you stride up to the pulpit with your hand-written notes in your simply-bound report binder Bible, you have instant credibility. And you can keep all your notes right there in that Bible forever -- you can even add new pages after a couple of decades.

No controversy there, right? How will your Wednesday ever be the same? Enjoy & discuss!

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Why I love BibleWorks 8

by Dan Phillips

M'man Phil Johnson's paean of praise to Logos 4 yesterday has moved me... to write about BibleWorks 8.

To clarify what is probably already clear, I'm neither arguing with nor disputing Phil. Particularly on the subject of e-Sword, which is an absolutely amazing program, considering that it's freeware. For many believers, that program is all they'll ever need.

My backstory is not as technical as Phil's. It's about how I've used hard-copy Bibles. Since I was a new believer, I always wanted Bibles with margins roomy enough to allow my notes. The first was a wide-margin KJV from Oxford. Later, I got a  wide-margin Greek New Testament which I had re-bound in leather.

However, the two I used most extensively were that Greek NT, and my NAS Ryrie Study Bible. I made marginal notes of varying kinds, but perhaps most were entering in some or all of the Hebrew or Greek text into the margin.

Or course, the troubles were several:

1. There was only so much room
2. I could only write (and read) so small; and
3. Every time I got a new Bible, I had to start over

At the same time, I used various Bible programs. I tried GRAMCORD in DOS, decades ago. Then I went to  the GUI program Bible Windows (now called Bibloi; haven't used it for years).

I started BibleWorks something like version 4, and have stayed with it. Let me tell you why I love BibleWorks today:

1. Economical. The amount of material you get for the one price is simple amazing. Check it out. Plus, there have been additional free updates. All of this is for the basic full-version price of $349. For most, that package would be sufficient, but there are a score of additional modules available.
2. Fast. What BW does, it does well-nigh instantaneously. I just upgraded my pc significantly. Additional RAM, CPU power, and a dedicated video card all have made my Logos a good bit spiffier. But BibleWorks? It was already really fast. It starts up faster... and that's about it. To be much faster, it would have to do the searches before I knew I wanted them. My point is that BW8 runs great on top-line pc's, but also runs great on aged pc's. You don't need to get the latest and greatest hardware to make BW8 hop and pop. It pretty much floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. Seriously: enter a word, and bang! there's every occurrence. Click on one. Push a button. Bang! You see that verse in every version you want. Go to the Hebrew. Mouse-over a word, bam! Up pops a window with full parsing and basic definition. Right click a word. Select search on lemma. Bang! there's every use of that word in the Hebrew text. I could go on and on, but it's amazingly powerful and fast.
3. Notes. This is probably the single aspect that most has my heart. You know how you'll hear something great in a sermon, or read it in a book (or on a blog), or hear it in a conversation — something that sheds significant light on a verse or passage? Then two days later, it's gone? Doesn't have to be. BibleWorks makes it possible to make extended notes, in any font, with any hyperlinking, on any verse. With graphics. Move to another verse, and your notes are instantly saved. Go back to that verse — even just point your mouse at it — and your notes instantly display. I now have countless, countless notes on hundreds of verses, from my own observations, sermons, books, hymns, web sites, conversations, studies — all permanently stored in conjunction with my BW8. Get a laptop? New pc? No problem: just copy your Notes folder to a flash drive, then copy from there to your new device, and you can take up where you left off.

4. No, really, notes! I love that feature so much, it deserves a second entry. My notes contain excerpts from Bible journals, anecdotes, textbooks, grammars, pictures, maps, and personal reflections that would otherwise have been lost. Now they're just there, in a flash. I use this in conjunction with Logos, copying what I find (with a great expenditure of time) there into the BW8 notes, for lightning-fast access when I need it. This feature alone sells me.
5. Editor. In addition to the verse-by-verse notes, there's a fully-functional editor. So if you're doing a word-study, or a book-study, you can drag the Hebrew or Greek (or English or Spanish or whatever) into the Editor to build your document.
6. Dedicated, responsive support. The BibleWorks forum is constantly monitored by the geniuses who create and maintain BW. When a problem crops up, they're on it like an Emergent on a frappé, and the next day's update will fix it. Bug fixes don't wait for months, they're sent out as they occur. Plus, email tech support is also always thoroughly and courteously responsive.
7. This! Seriously! How could I not?

Nobody should think, "Yeah, sure, but you have to be a total brainiac to use it." Not at all. I'm pretty much a BW8 idiot, compared to the guys who post at the forum. I would really profit from a seminar; I'm only using it for maybe 5-10% of what it can do — but that 5-10% is what I care most about right now.

(click to embiggen)

Unlike Phil, I don't have an iPad. I do have an iPhone, and on it, I never use Logos. It's simply too slow and unwieldy. Instead, I use Olive Tree's iPhone software. It's fast, powerful, intuitive, very nicely done.

So what about Logos? Simply and briefly, I love BibleWorks, but I deeply respect and use Logos. Any time you discuss it, the elephant in the room is always how expensive their material is (as I experienced here, for instance). But they are always having sales, plus there is community pricing and pre-publication pricing.

The aim of the two programs is different. BibleWorks is all about the text of Scripture, while Logos is a broader research tool. BibleWorks is like having a roomy desk with Biblical texts and exegetical tools right at hand. Logos is like having a fully-stocked library. Ideally, one should have both.

I do use Logos continually, and will enjoy it all the more now with the faster computer. But BibleWorks will remain my mainstay.

I think every pastor should have BibleWorks. If yours doesn't, it would make a terrific Christmas gift. I used part of a bonus once to give BW to a pastor I thought very well of, who was struggling by with GRAMCORD. He was bowled over. Is $349 too much for your wallet? Talk to the deacons or someone, and start a whisper-campaign to get the dough together, and do your whole church a favor by giving the pastor BibleWorks.

In sum: I respect, recommend, am grateful for and use Logos, and don't have a word of argument with anyone who loves and praises it.

But I love BibleWorks.

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Bible Study in the Cloud

The (very long) account of how I came to love Logos 4
by Phil Johnson



've been using Logos Bible Software for years—since the Windows 3.1 version in about 1993 or '94. It wasn't always my favorite Bible-study software (and even now I sometimes use as many as six Bible programs simultaneously when studying) but I never abandoned Logos because of the rich store of resources that were exclusive to Logos. (That includes, of course, the MacArthur Study Bible notes).

People sometimes ask how I do systematic study. I generally use Logos first, throughout the week, mainly for reading and research. At the end of the week, when I'm in the hands-on process of writing notes for a sermon, I use e-Sword. E-Sword is perfect if I just need to cut and paste Bible verses, check the Greek word for "lasciviousness," or look up something in a Bible dictionary quickly. It's free, easy to use, and much speedier than Logos or any of the other workhorse Bible programs.

But I consider Logos a must-have because of the wealth of excellent resources that have been formatted for Logos. For large-scale searches across a massive database of Bible-study material, Logos simply cannot be beat.

In 2001, when Logos released their third major upgrade—the one with the Libronix engine—I was deliriously happy with it. Its user interface was way cooler than any of its predecessors; it was more flexible and almost intuitive. That's when Logos became the software I preferred for reading, searching for obscure material, collecting hard-to obtain and out-of-print resources. I found loads of valuable Libronix-compatible books online, including a ton of Arthur Pink resources, Edwards' Works, and the complete works of John Bunyan. Great stuff.

Naturally, last November, when Logos announced the release of Logos 4, I was eager to see it.



It came at a very busy time, though, so I didn't try to install the new Logos right away. I read several reviews, all of which commented on the very long installation process. I decided not to upgrade until I could devote a full day to it. I also decided after reading the reviews that I was going to leave the older Libronix version on my computer until I was certain the advantages of Logos 4 warranted a full move away from software I liked so much.

That was a difficult decision, because all those resources take up lots of disk space. I had already heard Logos 4 couldn't use the Libronix format; it was going to reinstall all my books for me in a different format. I figured that would more than double the amount of disk space I had allocated to Logos. On my laptop that's no small matter.

For that reason, I decided when I did install Logos 4, I would install it on an external drive.

It turned out to be a good thing I waited, because when I finally did attempt to install Logos 4, the program kept crashing. It simply wouldn't install on my Windows XP virtual machines. Dan Pritchett, one of Logos's top executives, graciously offered help from the Logos technical staff when I was trying to track down the problem, but my schedule was jammed and I thought it likely that the problem was related to a configuration issue in my virtual machine. I didn't want to waste the Logos staff's time with that. Besides, I was still deliriously happy with Libronix, so there simply was no urgency to upgrade.



Then on August 4 (just a few weeks ago), Dan Pritchett e-mailed me to say he was making it possible for me to download the beta version of Logos 4 for my Mac. I jumped on the opportunity and downloaded it immediately. It installed flawlessly (though just like all the reviews had said, the process of downloading resources took several hours). It had a beautiful and informative home page that filled the screen on my 27-inch iMac. And (best of all) it gave me access to a fresh, new, more-complete-than-ever set of Spurgeon's works.

So my overall impression from the beginning was very positive. My only complaints were fairly minor: 1) it seemed just a bit sluggish; 2) it resided on the Mac side of my computer, and I do all my sermon prep in the Windows virtual machine, so switching back and forth was clunky; and 3) I couldn't find the location on my hard disk where Logos 4 put all those resources. (I don't think I ever did locate them, but after the first 10 minutes of searching, my attempts to find them were admittedly only half-hearted.)

Anyway, I liked Logos 4 enough that I thought I'd upgrade my Windows VM to Windows 7 and then try the Logos 4/Windows installation again. The switch to Windows 7 turned into a 4-week ordeal (but of course, that's not really germane to Logos, so I'll forego the details). When I finally got Windows 7 running well, one of the first things I did was try to install Logos 4 once more.

It crashed again. At exactly the same point in the installation process.

This time, however, I quickly figured out the problem. I was, of course, trying to install the Logos resources to an external drive. Even though the Logos install process offers a "custom" option where you can choose your preferred location for the program and resources, Logos 4 will not install happily anywhere except on the main hard drive. As soon as I allowed it to default to my C: drive, Logos 4 installed flawlessly.

Now I was in business, but not particularly happy about using so much of my disk space for that massive collection of Logos resources (especially since most of the same resources already existed on an external drive for the Libronix installation, and I also already had a copy of them somewhere on the Mac portion of my hard drive from the installation of Logos's Mac edition. In other words, I now had two copies of my all Logos data files on my main hard drive, and another set of the same data on an external drive. (Fortunately, I have a 2TB hard drive in my 27-inch iMac.)

I figured I would eventually default to either the Mac Version or the Windows version of Logos 4 (or else I could always revert completely to Libronix) and then I would uninstall whichever sets of data I wasn't going to use. I still liked the look of Logos 4, but one other thing puzzled me: That home page adds new information constantly. It draws all its data from an online source. You have to be connected to the Internet to use it. Logos 4 is also designed to keep all my settings, notes, and whatnot online—in "the cloud" rather than on my local drive.

I wasn't sure there was any great benefit to be derived from Logos's continuous connection to the cloud. I do a lot of study in out-of-the-way places, and I've always liked having my Bible-study software self-contained on my laptop so I can take it anywhere. I wasn't sure how much Logos relied on cloud computing, but it seemed like a lot, and I didn't see any serious advantage in that. I wondered what disadvantages I would notice when I needed to disconnect from the Internet and use Logos offline.

Then during last month's Ocean City Bible Conference, Logos expert Kendell Stellfox gave a presentation and demo on how to use Logos. He mentioned that there's an iPad/iPhone app that uses the cloud-based features of Logos 4 to maximum advantage. I don't know why I hadn't heard about the app before that; it wasn't exactly a secret; and it's even a free app! But that was literally the first I remember hearing about it.

So, sitting there during one of the sessions of the Bible conference, I downloaded the app to my iPad over the 3G network. It worked beautifully, immediately. All of my Spurgeon resources were right there, easily searchable, and (I suppose because the Logos files are well indexed) the search speed was about a thousand times faster than searching my local drive's .pdf versions of Spurgeon's works.

That opens up whole new vistas of advantages for me with Logos 4. Since I use it mainly for reading (as opposed to cutting and pasting texts), using the iPad as a reader offers some serious advantages. It's easily portable; it's a better interface for reading than a desktop or laptop screen; and all I have to do when I do need to cut and paste is use e-mail to send snippets to my desktop machine.

In short, the iPad/iPhone app alone makes Logos 4 worth the upgrade from Libronix. Meanwhile I'm learning the new desktop interface, and I'm almost as comfortable using it as I was with Libronix. If I can just learn how to move the data files for all those books to an external drive; consolidate the data files so that my Mac software and Windows software can use one set of data; and install my old Libronix .pbb files to Logos 4—then I'll be a really happy camper.

In the meantime, if you're still wondering whether the upgrade to Logos 4 is worth it, I strongly recommend it—especially if you can use the iPad/iPhone app.

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Charles Spurgeon Collection in Logos: a review

by Dan Phillips

Logos provided me with a copy of the 86-volume Charles Spurgeon Collection to review. It is a treasure-trove for any Spurgeon-lover, including books and works I hadn't even heard of.

Here you'll have Spurgeon's Treasury of David, on the Psalms, for instance. While Spurgeon is seldom a help with the Hebrew text, he is virtually always rich, rewarding, and eminently quotable in seeing the Christward, gracious, edifying content of the psalms. He will help turn any Bible lecture into a sermon. For instance, I recall preparing to preach on Psalm 13, which begins "How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?" (KJV). Spurgeon provides this word as to its setting:

The Psalm cannot be referred to any especial event or period in David’s history. All attempts to find it a birthplace are but guesses. It was, doubtless, more than once the language of that much tried man of God, and is intended to express the feelings of the people of God in those ever-returning trials which beset them. If the reader has never yet found occasion to use the language of this brief ode, he will do so ere long, if he be a man after the Lord’s own heart. We have been wont to call this the “How Long Psalm.” We had almost said the Howling Psalm, from the incessant repetition of the cry “how long?”

These words were both personally encouraging, and homiletically helpful.

You'll also find the wonderful series of addresses for pastors titled An All-round Ministry.  While not inerrant (Spurgeon sometimes sounds very much as if he equates outward numeric success with signs of God's blessings), it is a treasure-trove of wisdom and quotables, and characteristic Spurgeon humor. Like this:

There are brethren in the ministry whose speech is intolerable; either they dun you to death, or else they send you to sleep. No chloral can ever equal their discourse in sleep-giving properties. No human being, unless gifted with infinite patience, could long endure to listen to them, and nature does well to give the victim deliverance through sleep. I heard one say, the other day, that a certain preacher had no more gifts for the ministry than an oyster, and in my own judgment this was a slander on the oyster, for that worthy bivalve shows great discretion in his openings, and he also knows when to close. If some men were sentenced to hear their own sermons, it would be a righteous judgment upon them; but they would soon cry out with Cain, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”

That is just one of many, many golden passages. Spurgeon will have you laughing, cringing, and taking heart all within a paragraph or two. Take this call to action, instead of endless organization and deliberation:

God save us from living in comfort while sinners are sinking into hell! In travelling along the mountain roads in Switzerland, you will continually see marks of the boring-rod; and in every minister’s life there should be traces of stern labour. Brethren, do something; do something; DO SOMETHING. While Committees waste their time over resolutions, do something. While Societies and Unions are making constitutions, let us win souls. Too often we discuss, and discuss, and discuss, while Satan only laughs in his sleeve. It is time we had done planning, and sought something to plan. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work, and quit yourselves like men. Old Suwarrow’s idea of war is mine: “Forward and strike! No theory! Attack! Form column! Fix bayonets, and charge right into the very centre of the enemy.” Our one aim is to save sinners, and this we are not merely to talk about, but to effect in the power of God.

Spurgeon's own lengthy autobiography (finished by his wife and his secretary) are here, as well as the volumes of The Sword and Trowel, Lectures to My Students, notes from his sermons, a devotional Bible, and a host of other books, booklets, biographies, collections of proverbs and aphorisms, "Our Own Hymnbook," devotionals, sermons, and studies.

I doubt there is much need to convince any regulars of the value of Spurgeon per se, however. Or if I do, I'm not the best-equipped of the three of us to do so. I anticipate some would reply, "Spurgeon's the best, no doubt; but I have some of those in hard-copy, and most of it is in public domain, available online or at Phil's site. Why get the Logos version, as expensive as it is?"

I can't argue with the bottom-line: I wish Logos products were not so expensive, too. I do think the prices reflect the work and care that go into reproducing the text well and thoroughly (as opposed to the typo-ridden, scanned, and/or PDF versions one can find online and in cheaper software). But still, it's a pretty penny in this economy, which I blame on... oh wait, wrong blog. Ahem.

Anyway, watch the Logos blog and the web-site; they do have occasional terrific sales, such as they are having right now. (See here and here.) Sign up for the newsletter to be alerted to deals and sales and pre-prod and community pricing. If Spurgeon specifically is now out of your reach, watch for the set to come up, or find it piecemeal — as you'll see part is on sale now, at the previous link.

But to the main question: why get this collection, if you already have some of it in hardcover (as I do), or can find a lot of it online? The answer is the integration provided by Logos software. Ask any Spurgeon-lover, and he'll tell you the same tale I'd tell, of wonderful Spurgeon sayings that you love, and know, and just can't find. With this suite, no longer. Even with just one word, you can search a book, a group of books, or the whole collection, and be able to quote (not paraphrase!) and cite the source (not guess, and perpetuate sloppiness).

Also, of course, you can incorporate these titles in your other searching collections, such as preaching or counseling or commentaries. Then Spurgeon's remarks will appear along with your other Psalms commentaries.

I'm very glad to have it. Obviously, you are your money's steward, not I. For any preacher, I think it's a worthy purchase. For any church, I think it'd be a terrific gift for a Logos-using pastor — and you'd benefit, in his preaching.

Win/win!

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Logos 4.0 launches today

by Dan Phillips

[BTW: Last Saturday was Reformation Day, and Pyromaniacs had a post inspired by the event... in case you missed it]

Howdy boys and girls. For some time now, I've been confined in a super-secret location, beta-testing the Logos 4 software. Only now am I allowed to Go Public — and hey, look! You're the public!

Okay, the confinement part isn't true, but the rest is. The folks at Logos are unveiling their new software platform, and it boasts quite a quiver-full of changes and upgrades in performance and power. Go check it out, now.

This is not a full review, but a peek and a taste. I'm not light-speed in capturing these new applications. I still have a grossly-overdue review of BibleWorks 8 that should finally arrive this week or the next, and that's been around for a good while. But let me share some of what I am seeing about Logos 4.

All the changes I see reflect the fact that the Logos folks have been listening carefully to their customers, which is all-good. Two such specific factors may be controversial, but are clearly targeted at addressing long-standing complaints about Logos 3's speed: (1) indexing, and (2) server based operations.

Logos 4 will periodically want to perform full indexing of the product (i.e. when new databases are added). In the short run, of course, this has a significant impact on pc performance. A simple workaround Logos provides is to put off the indexing until a more convenient time.

The payoff is substantial. Because of the standing index, complex searches now take a moment or two. Example: my Logos library is very large. I did a whole-library search on propitiation.  I received 4211 results in 2470 articles in 3.13 seconds, plus another 806 results in 452 new resources (not yet incorporated into the main index) in 2.48 seconds.

That same search in Logos 3 took nearly six minutes. That's a huge improvement.

Also, in ways I don't fully grasp yet, my resources are monitored on the Logos servers. That way, updates can take place overnight. But another payoff for me is that my iPhone can use the free Logos software app (that I mention here) to access — as far as I can tell — all of my Logos resources. This is really a staggering feature.

In fact, a Logos fact-sheet says that "all your documents—notes, clippings, and custom guides—are safely backed up on our servers. If your computer crashes, just reinstall Logos 4 and all your data will be restored." This also makes it possible to sync your Logos exactly with a second computer.

Logos 4 details 100 new features. Here are a few miscellaneous specifics.

• Logos 4 can accommodate multiple monitors.
• Logos 4 will read your selection aloud. 
• Put a Bible passage in the Go line on the home page, and both Passage and Exegetical searches are performed at the same time
  
• The results that come up are more comprehensive and more usefully-displayed, including text-comparisons, cross-passages, and Information window activated by a mouse-over.

• Many more facets are customizable, including layouts and tagging/rating of your favorite resources.

As I said, this is just a taste. When I'm able, I plan to do a more complete review. Go check it out yourself, compare packages — it's available to you today.

UPDATE: if all you want to do is upgrade your Logos engine, see here. I think it's certainly worth at least that.

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Olive Tree Greek NT and Hebrew OT for iPhone (review)

by Dan Phillips

Olive Tree Bible Software lays out a very impressive array of resources for the iPhone. A surprisingly large list of free books are available on the site. In this review, we take a look at Olive Tree's Hebrew and Greek Bibles.

(Click all images to enlarge.)

The Hebrew text is the standard Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS). I really love the display: very clear characters, sharp vowel-points and accents. In fact, their Hebrew display is even clearer than in my dearly-beloved BibleWorks.

There are a couple of temporary glitches, which actually allow me to illustrate another Olive Tree strength. In some displays, the Hebrew text is cut off (i.e. in the right margin of Psalm 32:4). But this has been reported through their online forum, and Olive Tree support is always very responsive. They're working for a resolution.

One other oddity about the text; in just a few passages that I've seen so far, boxes are inserted (see left, Isaiah 7:14). They are also aware of this problem, and working to resolve it.

You would not expect a textual apparatus for such a small display, and there isn't one. However, the text does preserve the kethib/qere'. [The former preserves the traditional text without emendation even when it made no sense to the copier; the latter is the way the text should be read aloud.] The readings are indicated by bracketing the kethib between single hash-marks, and the qere' between double marks, as in the image at the right.

The Greek text is the 27th Edition of the Nestle-Aland Text of the Greek New Testament.

It is also a very sweet, clear display, very easy to read. Like the BHS, the Greek text also contains no textual notes whatever. After Mark 16, the text includes both the "shorter ending" and vv. 9-20 in French brackets. Same with John 7:53—8:11, as in the following image.

Another very nice feature of Olive Tree's iPhone software is the ability to split-screen. Thus you can have (say) the Hebrew text and its English translation:


...or the original Hebrew OT prophecy and the Greek quotation in the NT:

Navigation is performed by selected book, then chapter, then verse. The application even supports Hebrew and Greek searches, either by exact spelling, or using wild-cards.

You can alter the font sizes, if you prefer larger or smaller displays, change colors, and perform other customizations.

I don't think anyone looks to his iPhone to support a full-orbed study program such as BibleWorks or Logos. But I think these are some absolutely terrific apps for redeeming the time (Ephesians 5:16), "using up odd moments" as F. F. Bruce once wrote me. Waiting for the doctor, or the DMV clerk, or the teller in the bank — you could be listening to some nice classical music, and reading your Hebrew OT or your Greek NT.

What was a pointless aggravation becomes an occasion for firming up your grasp on the very Word itself.

Sweet!

(I also have the ESV Study Bible by Olive Tree on my iPhone, and plan to review it at a later date.)

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