(Mostly) Loco for Logos [1]

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3]

The promise of technological progress is always "More, Better, Faster". The ability we have today to gather, organize, and quickly search massive amounts of data is absolutely amazing. Think about it: Probably the entire textual contents of the Library of Alexandria would fit on the memory stick I carry on my keychain and be searched in a few seconds by modestly-powered modern computer. Of course, discerning good data from bad data is still left to the readers... But that's another post!

This technological promise of 'more, better, faster' has cool implications for the study of the Bible too. As I mentioned previously, I jumped into the pool of Bible software by purchasing Logos Bible Software's upper-mid-level Scholar's Library back in early April. With a few weeks of using the tool behind me, I thought it would be a good idea to post a quasi-review of the package. I hope it's helpful to others who are considering the purchase of a Bible study package. Up front, it's important that nothing I say be elevated to the level of dogma... I'm still learning Logos, and I have limited experience with the competitors - so your mileage may vary and my mileage might get better with time.

I want to provide my thoughts by answering 4 questions:

• Why did I choose to buy Logos instead of Bibleworks or another competitive product?
• What things do I like or think are strengths of Logos?
• Similarly, what are some things I don't like or would identify as weaknesses?
• What support and resources for learning the software are available?
  
• Overall, are you pleased with the purchase? And what happens now?
  

I'm guessing all this will take at least a couple posts, so let's dive in...

Why did I choose to buy Logos?
For quite a while now, my Bible study involved a lot of surfing. I mean that, while studying a passage, I'd regular go out to sites like zhuberts, CCEL, the Spurgeon Archive, Desiring God, etc to get more perspectives on the passage I was studying. I had already been wishing for a way to pull this all together in one, neat-n-tidy package when Dan Phillips posted a review for BibleWorks 7 on TeamPyro and followed it up on his blog. Let's just say that review spurred a 'holy desire' in me... Sounds better than covetousness don't it?

I'm a highly analytical person, so I immediately started doing some research. In looking out on the web, I started to see people mentioning Logos as a similar product. Comparing the two online, here's what I gathered:

• Bibleworks seemed very popular with the academic set (a compliment!) and really appeared to specialize in enabling you to do interpretive/exegetical work. The speed and functions seemed to be clustered around faster, more intuitive study of the text (particularly in the original languages). Lexicons and other study aids were linked to maximize performance/speed.
  
• Logos represented a completely different approach. The aim here was to integrate a wide variety of resources into a true 'digital library'. The promise seemed to be that you could still do solid exegetical work but branch off quickly into other varied resources (commentaries, systematic theology texts, etc) with a click. Practically any book you might want in your library - like Grudem's Theology - could be digitzed and linked in.
  

The Logos approach of allowing all the varied elements to be tagged and thus cross-linked was really intriguing to me. In addition, I'm very much a geek - so the concept of centralizing my entire library on a computer (where I could carry it with me) and search it quickly made me drool. Our next door neighbor happens to have an older version of BibleWorks and seeing it in action seemed to confirm my gut-feelings...

However, one challenge was that very few people seemed to have used both tools. Both Logos and BibleWorks seem to have 'fanatical' supporters who would never consider switching camps. This made real comparative reviews few and far between... As a result, I just spent a couple months surfing various forums and tried to see which shoe I thought would fit me better. In the end, I think I could've easily gone either way but Logos just seemed the better choice.

So, at that point (around Christmas) I put all my eggs in the Logos basket and started evaluating which Logos version to purchase. I won't go into detail here except to say that no matter what you're looking for, there's a package for you out there. I settled on the Scholar's Library, and then pulled the trigger on the purchase after scratching the funds together.

There's the why... I'll try to get to the good stuff in the next day or so.