best way to "find" books on particular passage

toughski

When I study a passage I run PG, but mostly utilize my Language commentaries and Exegetical commentaries (I created specific collections for them).

I also have several "Author" collections that I mainly utilize for their illustration value.

With this methodology, I often miss 90% of standalone books in my library that may be written on my passage but are not on my radar screen.

For example, by browsing through my library, I just discovered "Design for Living: Lessons on Holiness from the Sermon on the Mount" by J. Dwight Pentecost

How can I utilize my library better? I thought of creating a note for Mt 5:1-12 and including a link to this book. But this only works if I manually find the books that deal with a specific passage.

Would you use "Cited By" tool?  maybe something else?

Can Logos automate this discovery and have the "Hey, dummy, you've paid for this resource, might as well use it" section in PG?

Mark Barnes

For example, by browsing through my library, I just discovered "Design for Living: Lessons on Holiness from the Sermon on the Mount" by J. Dwight Pentecost

The problem here is that Logos should set this work to be of type 'Commentary', with a Bible index, but it is currently of type 'Monograph' with a page index (it's an old resource that hasn't been updated). But moaning doesn't help! So we need a workaround.

But there are two parts to your question. (1) How do I discover resources like this? (2) How do I 'remember' them once I've found them?

With regard to (1), I don't know if I'd bother with it generally, but if I did want to for a specific purpose, I'd do two things.

• I'd filter my library for monographs (on the basis that commentaries already appear in the PG, and dictionaries etc. are unlikely to be useful) that mention the Bible book name. The syntax is type:monograph matthew. You'll get a few books authored by someone called Matthew but you can filter those out with -author:matthew if you need. A lot of books still won't be relevant, but you should quickly be able to find the 1 or 2 that are. I'd note books that I thought would be relevant in the future (see below).

• I'd then create a collection of all my monographs and do a basic "By Count" search for a single biblical book, using the search criteria <BOOKNAME> (e.g. <Matthew>). This will show the monographs that mention Matthew's gospel the most often. I would think that the first page of search results would should you any books that might possibly be relevant. Searches will take a little while, of course, and again most books won't be relevant, yet it should help you quickly find the ones that are. Again, I'd note relevant books to consult in the future.

Having found some books, we now need to remember them (2). My own way of dealing with this is to create a PBB and list in the PBB all the books that I would like to study on that passage. I do this for my dead-tree books, but also add in Logos books that don't come up in the Passage Guide where they should. You can add links to the Logos books, of course. Depending on how your dead-tree library is organised, you could add in information to help you find the non-Logos book on your shelf. The PBB should be created as type:commentary, and have the correct indexes (because of the way Passage Guide works, you only need to go indexes at book level, not chapter level). That will ensure it comes up in the Passage Guide. You may need to prioritise it as well, of course.

By way of example, here's an extract from one of my PBBs:

[[@Bible:Genesis]]Genesis

Genesis 1:3, 2:7, 2:23, 3:15, 3:21, 4:4, 5:29, 7:1, 8:20-21, 9:13, 12:3,
14:18, 15:1, 17:7, 22:14, 28:12, 32:30, 39:20, 41:56, 49:10, 49:18

• 
  The Gospel
  in Genesis by Henry Law (1854)

Genesis 3:22-24, 4:26, 5:21-25, 6:3, 9:1-6, 9:12-17, 11:6-9, 12:3

• 
  Beginning
  at the Beginning by Graham Harrison

Genesis 3:1, 3:7-9, 3:15, 3:22-24, 6:7-8, 11:1-2, 12:1-4

• 
  The Gospel
  in Genesis by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Genesis 36-50

• 
  Joseph:
  The Hidden Hand of God by Liam Goligher

[[@Bible:Leviticus]]Leviticus

• 
  Leviticus
  (Geneva Series) by Andrew Bonar (1846)

[[@Bible:Deuteronomy]]

Deuteronomy 4:1-40, 6:1-25, 9:1-20, 10:12-22

Ambassadors
to the World: Declaring God's Love by Chris Wright