Open letter to Verbum Staff a.k.a. what I personally want
Congratulations on the Biblicum package. I suspect that this will be a popular package for academics from a variety of faith traditions. I appreciate the fact that it illustrates the (comparative) independence of academic Bible study from faith tradition. I recognize that I should be patient and wait to see what FL implements from the academic wish list but I won't be patient and I will press you for what I believe would make this package even stronger.
- The multi-lingual aspect of this package reminds me that some people are not studying in their native language. The mouse-over provides access to their highest priority Bible for study. A quick method for accessing their highest priority Bible in their native language would be very useful.
- Many commentaries and monographs indicate a specific translation as being used - often with a short letter abbreviation. A quick method for viewing that translation, perhaps as crudely as entering the abbreviation, would be very helpful.
- It is easy enough to build a multiview window that shows the primary manuscript streams - Samaritan, Hebrew, Targums, DSS, Septuagint, Peshitta, Vulgate. But a prebuilt version that is quickly accessible would be very useful while one works on becoming a Verbum guru.
- The Bible study monographs are easily underutilized at the moment because there is no easy way to break them out and check them. I would suggest that breaking them out into their own type and providing an index to primary passages discussed (even a simple search on headings would be better than what we have) would greatly improve their usefulness.
- Expand the vocabulary card system to access prebuilt card sets with the vocabulary to utilize the various tags and datasets. Even if some refused to use them, they would still stand as a reminder that as a user, you need to know what you are looking at. [Yes. I'm already doing this using Anki.]
Yes, I could make a much longer list ... and this list doesn't include all of my "absolutely top priority" items. This list intentionally covers the issues that would make Biblicum more useful out of the box, things that should not require extensive development time.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
Comments
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MJ. Smith said:
Expand the vocabulary card system to access prebuilt card sets with the vocabulary to utilize the various tags and datasets.
All of MJ's suggestions are great, but prebuilt card sets is particularly relevant for me. I had been searching earlier today for a new set of Hebrew vocabulary words to tackle, and found them on Quizlet. Memrise has also been a very useful resource.
I realize that FL has word lists, however I've been using third-party apps since the Logos Flashcards app hadn't been updated in over three years.
Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!
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Thanks, as always, for the feedback MJ. This is helpful, as we're looking to do more Biblicum-branded packages, as well as developing a Verbum Academic line similar to what Logos Academic did earlier in the year.
Craig St. Clair | Verbum Product Manager |
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MJ. Smith said:
The multi-lingual aspect of this package reminds me that some people are not studying in their native language. The mouse-over provides access to their highest priority Bible for study. A quick method for accessing their highest priority Bible in their native language would be very useful.
Yes! It would be very nice if the mouse-overs can display our top-two Bible translations side-by-side.
Also while we're at it, please make the mouse-overs scrollable, i.e.
- If the reference is John 1, make it scrollable beyond the first few versions of John 1;
- If the reference is John 3:16, make it scrollable so that we can see what 3:15 and 3:17ff say.
Thanks,
Peter
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PL said:
Yes! It would be very nice if the mouse-overs can display our top-two Bible translations side-by-side.
I think we already have that functionality? Whenever I hover on a not-really-the-Bible verse ref, it goes and also gets the really-the-Bible verse (NABRE) too. Just a matter of re-thinking the code.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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we're looking to do more Biblicum-branded packages, as well as developing a Verbum Academic line similar to what Logos Academic did earlier in the year.
This is fantastic news. I hope they are sufficiently successful to increase the pressure for prioritizing the repair of bugs/feature design that experienced users have simply learned to live with, the completion/expansions of features that seem to have run out of steam, and the addition of features supporting a broader set of critical tools.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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"I suspect that this will be a popular package for academics from a variety of faith traditions."
It's certainly moved to the top of the list for me!"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected."- G.K. Chesterton
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The Biblicum Standard is also a part of the current 20% base packages promotion that is running on Verbum and Logos right now. That's $500 off the package. Typically, discounts like that only get offered at conferences.
Craig St. Clair | Verbum Product Manager |
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Thank you, Craig and FL! It’s wonderful to have made the savings available to non-attendees.
Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!
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