L/V 10+ Tip of the Day #290 Logos bias - propositional vs. narrative, historic, mythic, covenant . .

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 post: L/V 10+ Tip of the Day #288 Logos bias - harmonization vs. deeper exploration - Logos Forums.

If my use of my Logos/Verbum library is accurate, the emphasis on the Bible as propositional is credited to Carl F. H. Henry, Francis Schaeffer, and J. I. Packer; the emphasis on the Bible as narrative is credited to Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, N. T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann, Stanley Hauerwas, William H. Willimon, and Kevin Vanhoozer; the emphasis on the Bible as sacrament has a long history being credited to Origen, Augustine of Hippo, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Alexander Schmemann, and Vatican II's Dei Verbum, etc. Remember when speaking of these understandings, theologians generally consider the Bible to be a mix so these are only emphases.

I first ran into Biblical propositions in a study methods book on the Pauline Epistles. Then it popped up as Biblearc and, of course, as Propositional outlines (a visual filter) in Logos where it is an outgrowth of some contemporary linguistic theory.

and for arcing, Canvas is not ideal but is certainly acceptable (shared file not my work):

Now let me show the Logos tools for analyzing narrative texts e.g. action > scene > event > narrative. Okay, I draw a blank. Let me show the Logos tools for analyzing the logic of narrative texts. Okay, I draw a blank. Let me show the Logos tools for moving from narrative to theme. Okay, I draw a blank. Even the semantic coding essential to understanding the narrative is limited to the clause search and omitted from the Context Menu. The only tools I can find are interactives - both useful, both available only for a very limited number of individuals.

Given the importance of storytelling in religious education and mission work, I consider the bias towards propositions over narrative a serious shortcoming.

Lew Worthington

Since my area of specialization has revolved around literary approaches, decades ago I suggested tools to promote things like narrative analysis. But as you suggest here, and as the posts from you and DMB in TOTD #292 suggest, Logos tools are rarely so open ended.