using Logos for theological research

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to Logos and recently bought the Platinum library (plus a ton of other books).

I'm hoping to use Logos to help me with my Bible college assignments.

Unfortunately customer services have not been very helpful and have pointed me in the direction of the forums for help.

One of the questions I've been given for my assignment is:

What is the most plausible explanation for why some of the original recipients of 1 Corinthians did not believe in the resurrection of the dead?

How would you approach this in Logos? I've been trying trying to search for specific terms such as "corinthian philosophy" and "resurrection of the dead" and so on, but not been able to get much helpful information.

Any advice?

Blessings

Chris

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J. Remington Bowling

Others on the forum can probably give a lot better answers than me... but if this question were posed to me the first place I might look is in a commentary. I might start with the sort of commentary that provides material from other sources (the Faithlife Study Bible (click the + icon and read the suggested dictionaries and encyclopedias) or the Lexham Bible Guide or the Exegetical Summary series) and then move to other quality commentaries: NIGTC and BECNT.

Then I would also consult some encyclopedias and dictionaries on the resurrection (two are suggested in the Faithlife Study Bible in this case).

BTW, I think N.T. Wright has a slightly different reading of this passage than usual. I'll try to find it.

Mark Barnes

Unfortunately customer services have not been very helpful and have pointed me in the direction of the forums for help.

Customer Service will help you with problems to do with your account, and the software not working, etc. But these forums are the best place for 'how do I…' questions.

How would you approach this in Logos? I've been trying trying to search for specific terms such as "corinthian philosophy" and "resurrection of the dead" and so on, but not been able to get much helpful information.

You need to start with where that's discussed in Corinthians. If you didn't know, you could do a Bible search for 'resurrection', and restrict it to just that part of the Bible. But as I'm sure you do know, it's 1 Corinthians 15:12.

The next thing is therefore to look at your commentaries on that verse. To do that, run a Passage Guide on 1 Cor 15:12. You need to look out for more academic commentary sets such as NIGTC. Also included in Platinum, and will show up in the Commentaries section of the Passage Guide, is the Exegetical Summaries resource. That has the following:

What contemporary thinking may have influenced how these Corinthians thought about resurrection?
The Greeks thought that the body was evil and that at death the soul was set free from it. To return to the body was to return to prison [Ho, ICC]. What the Greeks thought about resurrection can be seen in Acts 17:32 where they scoffed [Lns]. The Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul [NCBC, NIC, NTC, TNTC]. The Greeks denied resurrection of the dead as seen in a quote from Aeschylus [NCBC, NIC2]. The Greeks denied bodily resurrection [NCBC, NIC2, TNTC]. The Epicureans taught that death meant the end of bodily existence and in fact ended existence itself either completely or enough to render it worthless [ICC]. Hymenaeus and Philetus taught that the resurrection had already happened (see 2 Timothy 2:18) [HNTC, NCBC]. Some thought that the resurrection was spiritual and that it had already occurred in that they were raised with Christ in baptism [HNTC, NCBC, NTC, TNTC]. Materialists denied any kind of life after death [HNTC].

You can see that there are range of different answers to the question (which is why your Professor has set it!). You should follow those up in the different commentaries.

That's enough to get you started. Once you've read more, you should find some other related topics/resources to help you dig further.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1036988#Comment_1036988

Thanks!

J. Remington Bowling

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1036988#Comment_1036988

BTW, I think N.T. Wright has a slightly different reading of this passage than usual. I'll try to find it.

I found what had come to mind, but it's very brief and may not be of too much use in itself:

In Jesus and the Victory of God Wright suggests (or, closer, implies) that the denial of the Corinthians is that the resurrection is still future. cf. pp. 216-217 with footnote 71. He provides no exegetical defense of this here, so I wouldn't suggest purchasing the resource if you don't already have it just to see what Wright says on this passage.

Phil Tuften

Hi Chris and welcome to the forums,

Hope you are enjoying College. Platinium is a good package to start with especially at at college or seminary level.

I enjoyed my college time, but iit was so many years ago. Where are you studying? What year are you in? What do you hope to do after College?

Where I would start, is to read a little about the church at Corinth. This can be done by reading Dictionary articles, or introductins to commentaries. The question is like asking some today why peopls don't believe. Think about the demographic of Corinth, it was a sea port, (why was it a sea port, what was important about the town, why did so many peoplle travel through here) lots of trade going on. As a result, lots of ideas from different cultures. And different belief systems coming together.

As I have the Platinum package, let me suggest some places to start

Intros to Commentaries: Read intros to PIllar Comentary; the NIGNT commentary, or any good commentary about the city's background.

I woud supplement this with a few good Bible Dictionary articles on Corinth. If you have the Dictionary of Paul and his letters this is a good place to start or the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

You say, you earched for Corinthian philosophy, might not bring it up. Reason, Corinth was a huge trading city, lots of ideas from all over the place came together her.

Neo-patonism and other philosophies and ideas. Te more advances commentaries and dictionary articles should outline these.

After this I would spend a lot of time thinking through what the text on resuurection in 1 Corinthians 15 means.

Second last step: Do your exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15.

Before you write your answer, I would look at what commentaries say on th text of ! Corinthians 15 to see if you have missed anything. The level of commentary and discussion will depend on your year.

I am thinking you may be in 2nd or third year, which means looking at the Greek text. If it is taugt in English, look at the English text.

Hope this helps

Leaving you in God's Care and Grace

Phil

mab

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1036999#Comment_1036999

You should flesh out your study. For example, resurrection was a standing issue that clearly caused the Messiah trouble with the Jewish leaders of the day. So what happened in Corinth was not exactly a surprise. Conflict from within and without is a hallmark of the faith. And the same problems get a lot of play.

RyanB

The Lexham Bible Guide on 1 Corinthians under the section 1 Corinthians 15:12-34, has a detailed section on The Corinthians View on Resurrection and it analyzes 9 different commentaries on the topic. It's not really original research, but it does a lot of the research for you by giving you some nice summaries and pointing you in the right direction if you want to investigate further.

DMB

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to Logos and recently bought the Platinum library (plus a ton of other books).

I'm hoping to use Logos to help me with my Bible college assignments.

Unfortunately customer services have not been very helpful and have pointed me in the direction of the forums for help.

One of the questions I've been given for my assignment is:

What is the most plausible explanation for why some of the original recipients of 1 Corinthians did not believe in the resurrection of the dead?

How would you approach this in Logos? I've been trying trying to search for specific terms such as "corinthian philosophy" and "resurrection of the dead" and so on, but not been able to get much helpful information.

Any advice?

Blessings

Chris

I suspect your professor is smarter than the average bear. He narrows the question, so that your commentaries won't help, beyond tight exegesis.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1036999#Comment_1036999

Hi Phil,

Thanks for this.

I'm in my first year of Applied Theology at Moorlands Bible College in the UK. I'm thinking that I'd like to carry on studying afterwards, perhaps a Masters or PHD in the USA, God willing.

This section of the assignment has a word limit of 700 words so I need to be concise. Your advice has been very helpful!

Blessings

Chris

Ken McGuire

I hesitate to disagree with Mark Barnes, who has given countless users quality advice. That said, I would go about things slightly differently, holding off on using Commentaries as long as I can.

First of all, I would re-read 1st Corinthians - ideally in a translation different from what I am used to. This can be either a radically different English translation, or even better in another language. It should be obvious that Paul is talking about the topic a lot in chapter 15, with verse 12 speaking of a clear contrast between world views.

Many bibles in the Logos ecosystem will show you that the greek term there is "ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν". At around this point I would probably be using the ESV and a Greek Bible in Logos (right now I have NA28 up).... What reports are suggested when you click on what seem to be key words? Follow any that seem interesting.

Go to any greek resources you have to see how the term "ἀνάστασις" was used in both the Bible and wider culture. And then there is the term νεκρῶν. How is death and the afterlife viewed in different cultures? A Topic Guide on "Resurrection" may be helpful here in taking you to some of the more useful dictionary/encyclopedia discussions on this.

By the end of the chapter Paul links this concept with the "body". How has Paul spoken of the "body" before in this letter? (A search can tell you fast) Is this just accidental, or has Paul been laying a foundation for what he is saying here? How is 1st Corinthians organized?

Now I would start looking at both dictionary articles on Corinth as well as introductions to commentaries on the letters to the Corinthians. What was the community in Corinth like? Who were the people settling Corinth? What cultural background would they have?

How does Paul's concept fit in with "Jewish" discussion that was happening at the time? How much (if any) would the Corinthian community be aware of any of this discussion? Some of my questions have clearer answers, and some are more debated... But asking these questions can help guide you into discovering what the text actually says...

You may feel like you have found enough information well before going down all the rabbit holes I outlined above. And you may find additional rabbit holes that can be interesting - and which I may unfortunately be blind to. You likely will find texts (eg. Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries) that seem to be relatively reliable guides to discussion that has happened between people going down these rabbit holes before. Knowing what texts have been reliable in the past can save you a lot of time in the future when you approach similar topics. Logos as a tool allows us to look into those rabbit holes much easier than I could when I was in school and had to use traditional books...

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1037037#Comment_1037037

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for this tip. Unfortunately I cannot locate the Lexham Bible Guide?

Blessings

Chris

RyanB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1037047#Comment_1037047

Hey Chris,

If you own it, the price will be grayed out: https://www.logos.com/product/51804/lexham-bible-guide-1-corinthians

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1037046#Comment_1037046

Hi Ken,

Thank you so much for this insightful guide! Unfortunately I only have around 700 words to play with and the focus of the question is on the cultural barriers for the Corinthians around the idea that the dead will be physically resurrected.

Those are some interesting rabbit holes, though!

Blessings

Chris

Ahmama

Your question will be addressed in a few places: 1) the introductions of your 1 Corinthians commentaries, 2) in the commentaries, journals, and monographs that intersect with particular verses in 1 Corinthians (e.g. 1 Cor 15:12), 3) excursus columns in commentaries, 4) dictionary entries on 1 Corinthians or Corinth

For 1, you can pull up all your 1 Corinthians commentaries via Passage Guide or an intersect and search skim through the intros

For 2, you should definitely use passage guide. Having as many academic journals as possible is good, I also have a Collection for monographs from academic publishers, because I only want to search those, and ignore some of the other presses you get publications from when you buy Logos packages

For 3, you can check your commentaries table of contents if they include excurses page numbers, or just skim the few pages before/after passages you are interested in

For 4, I have a collection of academic encyclopedias, and I do a Heading search of them. You'll find some duplication (i.e. the AYBD book entries are often by the same author and reused in the introduction of those same Anchor Yale commentaries), but can get some useful information. However, this is usually the most general of the four

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1037046#Comment_1037046

I hesitate to disagree with Mark Barnes, who has given countless users quality advice. That said, I would go about things slightly differently, holding off on using Commentaries as long as I can.

First of all, I would re-read 1st Corinthians - ideally in a translation different from what I am used to. This can be either a radically different English translation, or even better in another language. It should be obvious that Paul is talking about the topic a lot in chapter 15, with verse 12 speaking of a clear contrast between world views.

Many bibles in the Logos ecosystem will show you that the greek term there is "ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν". At around this point I would probably be using the ESV and a Greek Bible in Logos (right now I have NA28 up).... What reports are suggested when you click on what seem to be key words? Follow any that seem interesting.

Go to any greek resources you have to see how the term "ἀνάστασις" was used in both the Bible and wider culture. And then there is the term νεκρῶν. How is death and the afterlife viewed in different cultures? A Topic Guide on "Resurrection" may be helpful here in taking you to some of the more useful dictionary/encyclopedia discussions on this.

By the end of the chapter Paul links this concept with the "body". How has Paul spoken of the "body" before in this letter? (A search can tell you fast) Is this just accidental, or has Paul been laying a foundation for what he is saying here? How is 1st Corinthians organized?

Now I would start looking at both dictionary articles on Corinth as well as introductions to commentaries on the letters to the Corinthians. What was the community in Corinth like? Who were the people settling Corinth? What cultural background would they have?

How does Paul's concept fit in with "Jewish" discussion that was happening at the time? How much (if any) would the Corinthian community be aware of any of this discussion? Some of my questions have clearer answers, and some are more debated... But asking these questions can help guide you into discovering what the text actually says...

You may feel like you have found enough information well before going down all the rabbit holes I outlined above. And you may find additional rabbit holes that can be interesting - and which I may unfortunately be blind to. You likely will find texts (eg. Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries) that seem to be relatively reliable guides to discussion that has happened between people going down these rabbit holes before. Knowing what texts have been reliable in the past can save you a lot of time in the future when you approach similar topics. Logos as a tool allows us to look into those rabbit holes much easier than I could when I was in school and had to use traditional books...

I don't think anyone is denying it's good academic process to have a working thesis before you begin serious research. But if he doesn't know Greek and he hasn't read a lot of second temple primary source material or surveyed the current scholarly debates in the history, culture, sociology of that period, then exegesis isn't going to get far (perhaps not even past the end of the nose, as they say). And even if he has, he's still going to have to prove he has read and appropriately responded to current positions on the topic.

It is possible the undergraduate professor is simply asking to see some of the students "thought process" and not "research abilities", there is just not enough context for us to judge. That said, you can still demonstrate your thought process in a well-sourced paper, but the reverse (demonstrating research abilities in navel-gazing paper) is not true. Lexicons and similar are useful in the hands of trained linguists and exegetes, but often more akin to speculation on genealogies and angels if not approached with proper diligence.

David Staveley

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to Logos and recently bought the Platinum library (plus a ton of other books).

I'm hoping to use Logos to help me with my Bible college assignments.

Unfortunately customer services have not been very helpful and have pointed me in the direction of the forums for help.

One of the questions I've been given for my assignment is:

What is the most plausible explanation for why some of the original recipients of 1 Corinthians did not believe in the resurrection of the dead?

How would you approach this in Logos? I've been trying trying to search for specific terms such as "corinthian philosophy" and "resurrection of the dead" and so on, but not been able to get much helpful information.

Any advice?

Blessings

Chris

The most plausible explanation for why some Gentiles didn't believe in the resurrection of the body is simple: Greek speaking people of the first century had no prior contact which such a concept. Resurrection of the body is uniquely a Jewish idea (if we discount the Egyptian version of it through mummification). The members of the Corinthian congregation were almost certainly more familiar with the Hellenistic concept of the immortality of the soul. A concept even some Jews held to rather than bodily resurrection (the Sadducee's were famous for rejecting it, and they ran the Temple). We are not even sure if the sectarians at Qumran believed in Resurrection. Certainly they believed in "the world to come", that is, life after death. But most scholars believe it was the immortality of the soul they believed in, rather than bodily resurrection.

So, don't be surprised if Greek-speaking people had issues with it. Even some Jews had issues with it. When you look at the time-line for beliefs about life after death, bodily resurrection is pretty recent in terms of what Jews believed. They only started believing in a world to come when they returned from the Babylonian Captivity (from 500 BCE onwards), and the book of Daniel is the first to mention it as "official" doctrine.

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1037743#Comment_1037743

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to Logos and recently bought the Platinum library (plus a ton of other books).

I'm hoping to use Logos to help me with my Bible college assignments.

Unfortunately customer services have not been very helpful and have pointed me in the direction of the forums for help.

One of the questions I've been given for my assignment is:

What is the most plausible explanation for why some of the original recipients of 1 Corinthians did not believe in the resurrection of the dead?

How would you approach this in Logos? I've been trying trying to search for specific terms such as "corinthian philosophy" and "resurrection of the dead" and so on, but not been able to get much helpful information.

Any advice?

Blessings

Chris

The most plausible explanation for why some Gentiles didn't believe in the resurrection of the body is simple: Greek speaking people of the first century had no prior contact which such a concept. Resurrection of the body is uniquely a Jewish idea (if we discount the Egyptian version of it through mummification). The members of the Corinthian congregation were almost certainly more familiar with the Hellenistic concept of the immortality of the soul. A concept even some Jews held to rather than bodily resurrection (the Sadducee's were famous for rejecting it, and they ran the Temple). We are not even sure if the sectarians at Qumran believed in Resurrection. Certainly they believed in "the world to come", that is, life after death. But most scholars believe it was the immortality of the soul they believed in, rather than bodily resurrection.

So, don't be surprised if Greek-speaking people had issues with it. Even some Jews had issues with it. When you look at the time-line for beliefs about life after death, bodily resurrection is pretty recent in terms of what Jews believed. They only started believing in a world to come when they returned from the Babylonian Captivity (from 500 BCE onwards), and the book of Daniel is the first to mention it as "official" doctrine.

give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1036990#Comment_1036990

You need to start with where that's discussed in Corinthians. If you didn't know, you could do a Bible search for 'resurrection', and restrict it to just that part of the Bible. But as I'm sure you do know, it's 1 Corinthians 15:12.

Search suggestion is looking for words (e.g. dead OR resurrection) mentioned in resources that have Bible Milestones (e.g. Commentaries & Bibles)

(dead OR resurrection) WITHIN {Milestone <1Co15.12>}

Keep Smiling [:)]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1037896#Comment_1037896

Thank you so much for all of your help, brothers! Blessings!

Liam Maguire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1037045#Comment_1037045

I'm in my first year of Applied Theology at Moorlands Bible College in the UK. I'm thinking that I'd like to carry on studying afterwards, perhaps a Masters or PHD in the USA, God willing.

This section of the assignment has a word limit of 700 words so I need to be concise. Your advice has been very helpful!

Blessings

Chris

Hi Chris.

What a small world, I went to Moorlands too (Graduated in 2011). I wish you all the best in your studies and whatever you do afterwards. I hope you enjoy the beautiful Dorset countryside!

Are you college or placement based? My room used to be on the ground floor of the Cedars block, the first room on the right-hand side as you walk in.

Moorlands has changed a lot since I graduated, but if you ever want to chat with someone who has been where you were, feel free to send me an email. Lmaguire1989 is the first part. @gmail.com is the other.

And if you happen to see Ian Kirby, please tell him "Liam Maguire says 'Hello' and 'Thank you!'"