Logos 5: the base packages
June 24, 2014
Last week we began to look at the Logos 5 platform, assessing something of the underlying provision. Today we move on to the base packages. These come at a range of levels, the most popular likely to be Gold, Silver or Bronze. There's also a Starter pack with some of the very basic materials, and then the system runs up through materials more suited to an academic environment (Platinum and Diamond) until you get to the all-singing and all-dancing Portfolio package, the everything-you-could-ever-want-with-cheap-deals-forever option.
Materials on the base packages are organised under various headings: data sets (basically, bundles of organised information); ancient texts and morphologies; ancient texts in translation; apologetics; Bible commentaries; Bible history and culture; Bible introductions and surveys; Bible reference; biblical studies; church history; counselling; devotionals and spiritual formation; English Bibles; exegesis and interpretation; interlinear Bibles; lectionaries; maps, photo and media; ministry resources; original language grammars and tools; original language lexicons and word studies; parallel passages and harmonies; preaching and teaching resources; and, theology resources. There really is a bewilderingly rich array of resources, and - again - it will do the buyer well to make a careful and full comparison of what is available and to select what he really needs or can use, rather than to get mindlessly greedy. Even the lower level packages contain material enough for the average lifetime and then some.
It is worth pointing out, too, that the proof-reading and editing on all this material is high-grade. It is a sweet relief to read electronic text that has been either scanned or typed and then carefully assessed and corrected (with the added bonus of a quick link for any time you might spot a typo). For those who blood pressure has risen as they have wrestled with some mangled screed, trying to w0rk ont vvhat Is gcing 0n, this is a real plus. Work has gone into making these reader's documents. Hurrah and huzzah! Among other things, this quality - together with helpful gizmos like the pasting tool with automatic footnotes - makes this an ideal tool for writers, scholars and pastors who write out their notes in full. No excuses for plagiarism here!
At the same time, some of this is beyond helpful. For example, the sermon starter is a bit of a non-starter for me. Yes, if I search the passage I have in mind, it immediately offers a wealth of technical and explanatory material. But it is also very quick to let me choose a topic, and then offer me texts to preach it from, which makes me slightly uneasy: it is too much of a gift to the user looking for a means to vault into the saddle of his favourite hobby horse. While it is great to have all the passages of all your available commentaries available at the click of the button, Logos users will still need deliberately and actively to work at this. As it is, it seems or too easily becomes mechanical, even artificial. To be sure, the material is put on a plate, but - for all the investment of real people behind the glowing screen - it cannot prepare a sermon for my congregation, it cannot meditate on the text for me. You cannot put the Holy Spirit in a box. At best, a tool like this serves you food (sometimes too much) that you need to digest. Such an offering, generous as it is, too easily imposes itself upon the preacher, and potentially clogs up his thought processes and forces him down channels that may not be particularly profitable to him in his particular circumstances. It could make a man inclined to carelessness or laziness that bit more careless and lazy. I can imagine addresses that, because this tool has been abused, are reasonably well-themed collections of what is actually gobbets of disjointed material. That is not the same as a sermon. And just because you have a wonderful tool in your box doesn't mean that you should be always using it for everything.
(Next time . . . specialist packages and bundles. For those who like screen shots: ; ; )
Materials on the base packages are organised under various headings: data sets (basically, bundles of organised information); ancient texts and morphologies; ancient texts in translation; apologetics; Bible commentaries; Bible history and culture; Bible introductions and surveys; Bible reference; biblical studies; church history; counselling; devotionals and spiritual formation; English Bibles; exegesis and interpretation; interlinear Bibles; lectionaries; maps, photo and media; ministry resources; original language grammars and tools; original language lexicons and word studies; parallel passages and harmonies; preaching and teaching resources; and, theology resources. There really is a bewilderingly rich array of resources, and - again - it will do the buyer well to make a careful and full comparison of what is available and to select what he really needs or can use, rather than to get mindlessly greedy. Even the lower level packages contain material enough for the average lifetime and then some.
It is worth pointing out, too, that the proof-reading and editing on all this material is high-grade. It is a sweet relief to read electronic text that has been either scanned or typed and then carefully assessed and corrected (with the added bonus of a quick link for any time you might spot a typo). For those who blood pressure has risen as they have wrestled with some mangled screed, trying to w0rk ont vvhat Is gcing 0n, this is a real plus. Work has gone into making these reader's documents. Hurrah and huzzah! Among other things, this quality - together with helpful gizmos like the pasting tool with automatic footnotes - makes this an ideal tool for writers, scholars and pastors who write out their notes in full. No excuses for plagiarism here!
At the same time, some of this is beyond helpful. For example, the sermon starter is a bit of a non-starter for me. Yes, if I search the passage I have in mind, it immediately offers a wealth of technical and explanatory material. But it is also very quick to let me choose a topic, and then offer me texts to preach it from, which makes me slightly uneasy: it is too much of a gift to the user looking for a means to vault into the saddle of his favourite hobby horse. While it is great to have all the passages of all your available commentaries available at the click of the button, Logos users will still need deliberately and actively to work at this. As it is, it seems or too easily becomes mechanical, even artificial. To be sure, the material is put on a plate, but - for all the investment of real people behind the glowing screen - it cannot prepare a sermon for my congregation, it cannot meditate on the text for me. You cannot put the Holy Spirit in a box. At best, a tool like this serves you food (sometimes too much) that you need to digest. Such an offering, generous as it is, too easily imposes itself upon the preacher, and potentially clogs up his thought processes and forces him down channels that may not be particularly profitable to him in his particular circumstances. It could make a man inclined to carelessness or laziness that bit more careless and lazy. I can imagine addresses that, because this tool has been abused, are reasonably well-themed collections of what is actually gobbets of disjointed material. That is not the same as a sermon. And just because you have a wonderful tool in your box doesn't mean that you should be always using it for everything.
(Next time . . . specialist packages and bundles. For those who like screen shots: ; ; )
