comparing packages: general question

I was hoping to get some insight. I am looking at the different comparisons but it is hard to really even understand what the features are and what I would be missing. Like passage analysis tools and others in features and databases or some of the lexicons and grammer tools. Or is the literal translation of the greek new testament better than the NLT greek-hebrew interlinear and what are there differences.

I think I am trying to decide between the language package and the bible study package but as a layman it can be overwhelming even comparing the features. Is there a link or page explaining what each feature does?

Blessings

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Graham Criddle

Hi Jonathan - and welcome to the forums.

Yes, it can be very overwhelming!

Jonathan Burke wrote an excellent summary of some of the base packages (including original languages) which is available here http://community.logos.com/forums/p/24351/181065.aspx.

This might provide some useful insight.

Graham

Allen Browne

Hi Jonathan.

As simply as I can put it:

The Bible Study library is the minimum you should consider. It gives you all the basics to get started in Bible study: lots of English translations, some commentaries (explains Bible passages), Bible dictionaries (A-Z of things you can look up), some maps, and so on. Good value. Good package.
The Leaders' Library has the same things as the Bible Study library, plus some books on leading/pastoring. If you want to read books as well, it's not much more; if you really just want to study the Bible, you don't need these.
Ignore the Original Languages library. It doesn't have many of the tools in English you need, so is only relevant if you read Hebrew/Greek.
If you plan to learn Hebrew or Greek, consider the Scholar's Library. Otherwise it's no use at this stage.

You can upgrade to another package later. And you can buy lots of other books as well. It's kinda like a big Christian bookshop, except the books all link to each other (making them very fast and flexible to use), and you can take them all with you anywhere.

Hope that helps simplify what can be overwhelming.

Graham Owen

it is hard to really even understand what the features are

Hi Jonathan

In simple terms Logos consists of Software plus Resources.

The software is pretty much the same in all versions and in very simple terms consists of the reader, search engine and other tools.

The resources are what varies between packages and these, again simplistically, can be divided in two:

Normal books that you would purchase in hard or soft copy - note though that these are heavily tagged so that the software can do clever things.
Information resources designed by Logos to work with the software and power some of the special features. Most of the time these are invisible to the user but they are what enables the software to know so much about the Bible, etc.

Basically the bigger the package you have the more resources of both types and therefore the more "power" you have.

Tools that will help if you want to study the Bible are:

Text comparison - two or more versions of the Bible in parallel so that you can compare how they have translated the text
Passage analysis - will build a report on the passage from the resources that you have
Word study - so that you can drill into a word that is important to the text to better understand it

You mentioned interlinears and these can also help if you want to look at the Greek or Hebrew, note that you can do similar things with Strong s numbering and that this is an area that can get confusing and lead to spurious results if you do not know what you are doing.

The bigger the package the more options will have i.e. more Bibles for Text Comparison, more commentaries and other resources for Passage Analysis and bigger and better dictionaries and lexicons for Word Study.

You also mentioned that you were a lay person which may mean that some of the Pastoral helps in certain packages may seem like they are of no value but a lot will depend on what you mean by "lay" and a lot of small group leaders are lay people but they have Pastoral responsibilities. Also note that these books do not ignore scripture so they can be a good way of understanding how scripture can apply in a practical way i.e. to help people.

Edwin Bowden

I was hoping to get some insight. I am looking at the different comparisons but it is hard to really even understand what the features are and what I would be missing. Like passage analysis tools and others in features and databases or some of the lexicons and grammer tools. Or is the literal translation of the greek new testament better than the NLT greek-hebrew interlinear and what are there differences.

I think I am trying to decide between the language package and the bible study package but as a layman it can be overwhelming even comparing the features. Is there a link or page explaining what each feature does?

Blessings

I agree with the other recommendations that have been given.

I was in Christian publishing for over 20 years and have taught Sunday School for over 40 years. I have a large personal Bible study library on my shelves.

Logos revolutionized my Bible study. I started with the Bible Study library 3 years ago. It enabled me to locate resources quickly on any verse, word or subject. Logos made it possible to do things that would have been impossible with my regular library.

I upgraded to the Scholars Gold pkg (the top pkg available at the time) because of the excellent value of resources. With Logos 4, the Platinum pkg was added. I jumped at the opportunity to add the extra resources.

Logos provides tools to allow a lay person to access information from original language materials through interlinears and other resources.

The base packages provide a wealth of resources at an excellent price. No one is going to use all the resources in any of the packages, but they are a better value than buying individual resources.

Jonathan Reeves

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/191678#Comment_191678

Thank you all for your quick replies! Your information is very helpful and exactly what I needed. I am going to go through the comparison list a bit more and see what I decide. It seems most of you would ignore the language package even though it has some nice search and topic engines for keywording and comparison?

Graham Owen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/191738#Comment_191738

It seems most of you would ignore the language package

If you can stretch to Scholar's this will give you most of the Language Tools that you are likely to use, especially at first, a lot of the tools in that package are very specific to students who are specialising in the original languages. There are a few items over and above the leaders package that you may find useful but most of these are also in Scholars.

Wherever you start though you will have purchased a great tool to help you study and the chances are you should be budgeting now for your first upgrade!