Today, October 10 (aka 10/10 !) is the day the Logos 10 arrives. We’ve been at work on it for awhile, and that means it’s time for me to write a post about some of the areas I contributed to (as is my custom; see posts on Logos 9 and Logos 8).

As with Logos 9, Logos 10 (and Verbum 10) will be released with complete packages and localizations in Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional). New editions of the iOS and Android versions of Logos as well as a new edition of the web version of Logos are also part of this release. In other words: We’re updating everything. Lots of work, but totally worth it.

Factbook, Factbook, Factbook

As with Logos 9, an emphasis for Logos 10 is the Factbook. For Logos 10, we spent a lot of time laying the groundwork to make linking into Factbook directly from resources a whole lot easier. “Factbook Tags” are places in resources that are tagged directly to Factbook. If the visual filter for Factbook Tags is turned on, a light blue underline appears below text. This indicates a point of contact with material in Factbook. Hover, and a hover card displays. If plain text, click, and you’ll open Factbook. If the text is an existing hyperlink (popup, article jump) right-click and you can navigate to Factbook using the context menu.

For the Logos 10 launch, we have evaluated most of the library for unambiguous names and theological terms (we’re working on making this more comprehensive). Hover and get information on them. Click and read the Factbook article (likely from one of your higher rated sources).

One area I worked on for launch was supporting Factbook tags for Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, so if you’re reading a commentary (or journal, or systematic or Biblical theology) in any language and there’s Greek or Hebrew in there, you can hover to see the lemma and then link to Factbook for a lexicon article.

Now, this is where it gets REALLY COOL if you remember some of the work I did for Logos 9. That work involved supporting NT, LXX, and Hebrew Bible manuscripts in Factbook.

So for Logos 10, a chunk of my work involved adding Factbook Tags to critical apparatuses to provide access to more manuscript information where manuscripts are cited. At launch we have Factbook Tags in the NA27, NA28, UBS5, and Tyndale House GNT apparatuses; at some time after launch we will have tags in a whole lot more (for NT: Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Metzger’s TCGNT, Comfort’s NTTTC, Hodges & Farstad, NET Bible v1 Notes, maybe NOBTS’s apparatuses; for LXX: Rahlf’s LXX, Swete’s LXX, volumes of the Göttingen LXX).

It looks like the below (using the UBS5 apparatus). Hover the “33” for the card to show. For more information, right-click the 33, select the manuscript item in the left section of the context menu, and then navigate there with “Factbook” in the right column.

From the Factbook page (on left) you can get more information on the manuscript, and for several even navigate to page images. Note that many page images require an account at the NTVMR, but an email query to the address specified in the resource should result in an account for you, though it may take a few days for a response (this is managed by the NTVMR folks, not Faithlife, so please be patient with them).

I’m not sure if you realize how important this type of linkage is to people interested in the text of the New Testament. It means that, for most things cited in modern apparatuses, images for the reading in the cited manuscript are just a few clicks away.

Creeds, OT Pseudepigrapha, and Christian Apocrypha, Oh My!

These are Factbook-related as well. But we’ve assembled resources to help users navigate and learn more about these particular areas. I’ll break these into two groups. The first group involves:

• The NASSCAL Handbook of Christian Apocryphal Literature

The NASSCAL Handbook of Christian Apocryphal Literature is an edition of the e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha which is produced by the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (NASSCAL). It contains summaries of several Christian Apocryphal writings as well as extensive manuscript listings and bibliographies. The Logos edition also includes supplemental links to editions of Christian Apocryphal writings in resources for Logos Bible Software. It is an absolute treasure of a resource and we all need to thank the folks at NASSCAL for creating this work and for making it publicly available.

The second group involves:

• Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms: A Guide
• Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: A Guide

These resources provide information about creeds and OT Pseudepigrapha as well as provide an index to locations in Logos resources that present editions or discuss them. They are designed to point you to more information in Factbook or potentially elsewhere in your library regarding the writings you’re interested in.

The Creeds resource has been translated into Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Korean, and Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional) for launch. We hope to translate the OT Pseudepigrapha guide into several languages over the next few months.

A Play on Words? That’s Wordplay

I worked very closely with my colleague James (Jimmy) Parks on Wordplay in the Bible. I wrote code to look for instances of wordplay discussed in commentaries; Jimmy analyzed all of that data to isolate and describe the instances. We then added links to areas where commentaries discussed the wordplay in the verse. The result is a resource, ordered like a commentary, that gives insight to wordplay going on in the original languages that may be helpful when studying the verse.

Wordplay in the Bible has been translated into French, Portuguese, and Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) for release. Translations to German, Spanish, and Korean are forthcoming.

Thanks!

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! It is my hope that you’ll find Logos (whatever version you’re running) useful for the context you use it in.

More information on Logos 10: https://www.logos.com/10