L/V 10+ Tip of the Day #166 Customized commentary lists without the hassle of prioritization

MJ. Smith

Another tip of the day (TOTD) series for Logos/Verbum 10. They will be short and often drawn from forum posts. Feel free to ask questions and/or suggest forum posts you'd like to see included. Adding comments about the behavior on mobile and web apps would be appreciated by your fellow forumites. A search for "L/V 10+ Tip of the Day site:community.logos.com" on Google should bring the tips up as should this Reading List within the application. 

This tip is inspired by the forum posts: folders in prioritization - Logos Forums

STEP 1: Create a collection for each book of the Bible

• Include in the collection a study Bible or one volume commentary that includes the entire canon you use for study.
• Make that study Bible or one volume commentary your top priority commentary
• Include in the collection any resource that is indexed by Bible reference and includes the Bible book you are building the collection for
• Check the Show in parallel books box

Because my top Bible is the NRSV because of its ecumenical canon, I choose The New Oxford Annotated Bible which covers the same canon.

I then add the books I wish to include in my top commentaries for Genesis. This is my current list.

[quote]

Bible_Genesis_TopCommentaries Bibliography

Schroeder, Joy A., H. Lawrence Bond, Philip D. W. Krey, Ian Christopher Levy, and Thomas Ryan, eds. The Book of Genesis. Translated by Joy A. Schroeder. The Bible in Medieval Tradition. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015.

Severian of Gabala and Bede the Venerable. Commentaries on Genesis 1–3: Homilies on Creation and Fall and Commentary on Genesis: Book I. Edited by Michael Glerup, Thomas C. Oden, and Gerald L. Bray. Translated by Robert C. Hill and Carmen S. Hardin. Ancient Christian Texts. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2010.

Didymus the Blind. Commentary on Genesis. Translated by Robert C. Hill. Vol. 132. The Fathers of the Church. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016.

Reardon, Patrick Henry. Creation and the Patriarchal Histories: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Genesis. Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2008.

Skinner, John, 1851-1925. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis. International Critical Commentary. New York: Scribner, 1910.

Day, John. From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1–11. London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Cotter, David W. Genesis. Edited by Jerome T. Walsh, Chris Franke, and David W. Cotter. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003.

Brueggemann, Walter. Genesis. Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982.

Westermann, Claus. A Continental Commentary: Genesis 1–11. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994.

Westermann, Claus. A Continental Commentary: Genesis 12–36. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995.

Westermann, Claus. A Continental Commentary: Genesis 37–50. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002.

Brayford, Susan A. Genesis: Commentary. Edited by Stanley E. Porter, Richard S. Hess, and John Jarick. Septuagint Commentary Series. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007.

Carasik, Michael, ed. Genesis: Introduction and Commentary. Translated by Michael Carasik. The Commentators’ Bible. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2018.

Speiser, E. A. Genesis: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. Vol. 1. Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008.

Coats, George W. Genesis: With an Introduction to Narrative Literature. Vol. 1. The Forms of the Old Testament Literature. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983.

Sarna, Nahum M. Genesis. The JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989.

Coogan, Michael D., ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Louth, Andrew, and Marco Conti, eds. Genesis 1–11. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

Sheridan, Mark, ed. Genesis 12–50. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002.

Scarlata, Mark William. Outside of Eden: Cain in the Ancient Versions of Genesis 4:1–16. Edited by Robert P. Gordon. Vol. 8. The Hebrew Bible and Its Versions. London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Galambush, Julie. Reading Genesis: A Literary and Theological Commentary. Reading the Old Testament Series. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2018.

Exported from Verbum, 2:05 PM April 23, 2023.

STEP 2: Create a linked layout

• Open your Bible and your one volume commentary
• Link the two books
• set your commentary to a reference in the Bible book of you collection, in my case Genesis
• use the parallel icon to set the parallel resources to your new collection.

Now with the parallel resources icon toggled on, the arrow keys will spin you through your top priority commentaries for that book of the Bible. New commentary? simply add to the collection. Special project? simply adjust the collection. Out grow a commentary? delete it from the collection. Switch Bible book you are studying ... okay, you'll need to change the selected collection via the parallel resources icon ...but remember what you have saved by bypassing prioritization.

Dave Hooton

MJ. Smith said:

STEP 1: Create a collection for each book of the Bible

• Include in the collection a study Bible or one volume commentary that includes the entire canon you use for study.
• Make that study Bible or one volume commentary your top priority commentary
• Include in the collection any resource that is indexed by Bible reference and includes the Bible book you are building the collection for
• Check the Show in parallel books box

Manually adding commentaries is hard work for 66+ collections. If you tag your top commentaries, you could have a rule like

(subj:genesis OR mytag:OneVolume) AND  mytag:TopCommentary

Your OneVolume tag should include commentaries and study bibles that meet that criteria

MJ. Smith said:

the arrow keys will spin you through your top priority commentaries for that book of the Bible.

...but remember what you have saved by bypassing prioritization.

Those two comments seem to clash! The system default prioritization kicks in after any commentaries that the user has prioritized.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1255560#Comment_1255560

Dave Hooton said:

The system default prioritization kicks in after any commentaries that the user has prioritized.

Using collections in this way has no effect on the prioritization used in the Guides etc.; it only affects the spinning through your commentaries via the keyboard arrows or the parallels icon.

Dave Hooton said:

If you tag your top commentaries, you could have a rule like

(subj:genesis OR mytag:OneVolume) AND  mytag:TopCommentary

Many users may prefer your approach; I prefer the flexibility of direct adding/deleting to the collections.

Dave Hooton said:

for 66+ collections.

preferring the ecumenical canon, I am definitely on the + side. I didn't build them all at once ... you could look at a lectionary and make an educated guess as to the order I created them.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1255561#Comment_1255561

MJ. Smith said:

Dave Hooton said:

The system default prioritization kicks in after any commentaries that the user has prioritized.

Using collections in this way has no effect on the prioritization used in the Guides etc.; it only affects the spinning through your commentaries via the keyboard arrows or the parallels icon.

My point was that "what you have saved by bypassing prioritization" is not an alternative ordering (e.g. by title) of commentaries in the collection as it is still governed by prioritization.

Dave Hooton

MJ. Smith said:

Switch Bible book you are studying ... okay, you'll need to change the selected collection via the parallel resources icon

Did you clarify that the same one-volume commentary has to be in each collection, which means you get 33+ pages of Parallel Resource sets and have to  find the one with your new bible book when making a switch. You can't change the book in the commentary or the bible because the natural series connection will do the switch, which may not be a top choice.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1255562#Comment_1255562

Dave Hooton said:

My point was that "what you have saved by bypassing prioritization" is not an alternative ordering (e.g. by title) of commentaries in the collection as it is still governed by prioritization.

Correct. AFAIK the user has no control over the order of resources in a collection. The time saved in bypassing prioritization to which I was referring was allowing the prioritization for guides and such to be your generic favorite series and using parallel collections for your book by book favorites for spinning through your commentaries (and for searching).

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1255563#Comment_1255563

Dave Hooton said:

Did you clarify that the same one-volume commentary has to be in each collection, which means you get 33+ pages of Parallel Resource sets and have to  find the one with your new bible book when making a switch. You can't change the book in the commentary or the bible because the natural series connection will do the switch, which may not be a top choice.

Yes, there are all sorts of pitfalls where this approach may not be the most appropriate solution. However, I find that when I am doing serious work in one book, followed by another books, etc. it works well, especially since I usually use a second instance of my Bible to handle the "jumping around".