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The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2008
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2008
I’m considering purchasing LOGOS and am not convinced that it is worth my money. I’m curious to the perspectives of those who have purchased and use (or not use as the case might be) the ‘Scholar’s Library’ package. Through my Greek2 class I can get the Scholar’s Library at 50% off, but am not sure that it’s a fiscally wise decision.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m referring to, LOGOS is a Biblical Studies software program combining multiple versions of the Bible in English, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Aramaic (so I don’t have to learn the language) integrated with numerous other books in an ‘easy to use’ format. You can check out the specific program package I’m talking about here.
When I was planing on focusing on Biblical Studies for my graduate education not getting this software wasn’t even an option, but now that I’m planning on focusing on Historical Studies this program seems much less ‘necessary’.
A brief Cost/Value Analysis:
What I see going for it is: 1) The searchability and convenience 2) The Greek/Hebrew with Morphologies (I doubt I will remember Greek and Hebrew well in 2 years- my Hebrew is already very rusty after only a year) 3) Being able to buy digital books and integrate them to this software.
What I see going against it is: 1) I’m paying $300+ for 10% of what I actually get (I don’t want 90% of what comes with this package) 2) I’m probably only going to use this for Biblical research, something I don’t plan on doing professionally 3) I don’t read digital books 4) I really don’t like the idea of not having hard-copies of my books in the future.
So, Calvin, Art, Mandy, etc… What are your thoughts?
-Earl
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The Scholar’s Library is okay. I use it mainly for easy searching and lookup in the Hebrew text. I’ve had occasion to use a few of the reference books but honestly the ones they give you are mediocre. But, having reference books electronically is nice for easy of search. As far as regular books, I’m with you, I’d rather have a hard copy. Though, if you build up the library of ancient sources, once again, ease of search is nice.
First, if you let your Hebrew and Greek (especially Greek!) get rusty, you will make a horrible historical scholar. Beyond that, if you want to help the church to interact with scholarship, move forward, etc, you need to know Hebrew and Greek. Probably Latin too, at least as far as historical theology goes. So, letting them get rusty isn’t an option. Any PhD program will require at least Greek, Latin and German in your area, so get used to it. But, I do understand how languages can get rusty, so I empathize with you.
Second, I’m not really that impressed with Logos. It’s not horrid, and I got it for free so it was more than worth it. But you are correct, 90% of the scholar’s library is close to worthless. I’d recommend Bibleworks or Accordance over it (and I’m pretty sure Art will recommend Accordance as well).
Third, I think that even if you aren’t going to get a PhD in Hebrew Bible or New Testament that Accordance would be worth while.
Fourth, Libronix doesn’t run on a Mac, and if historical theology is anything like Biblical studies you should really get yourself a Mac.
Mandy- Thank you.
Calvin-
1) thanks for the lecture.
2) I’ll look into those two
3) see #2
4) haha, you’re going to have to validate the statement with some evidence for me to buy into it.
- Earl
Earl, I’m a Mac freak, so Calvin is correct: I use Accordance. Pound for pound, it’s the best Bible software in the world. Biblical scholars such as Emmanuel Tov, Martin Abegg, James Kugel, Daniel Wallace, Richard Hess, (and the list goes on and on) have actually switched to Mac in order to use it.
The only thing that comes close to its equivalence on Windows in BibleWorks, just like Calvin said. I know that is what Dr. Snyder used and I know that is what every Windows using person at WTS uses.
I almost forgot to mention, the entire Dead Sea Scroll project decided early on that Accordance was the best software available, so they switched the entire project to Mac, which, as you can imagine, was no small undertaking.
Wow. I just realized that Accordance should probably pay me…or at least hit me up with some free mousepads or coffee mugs!
So, it’s now clear, if it wasn’t before, that Art is a Mac fanboy.
Seriously though, here at GCTS Doug Stuart, Jeffery Neihaus, Tom Petter, Donna Petter, Richard Lints, and many other profs all use Macs. My recommendation would be to ask some of the profs wherever you end up going, in your field, what they use. I’m 99% sure it will be a Mac.