Why I HATE electronic Bible study programs - current top 6 reasons

Big Smile

1. They allow me to get much longer lists of cross-reference verses but don't allow me to identify the relationship between the verses. So the program gives me more work and encourages me to redo the work many times.

2. They allow me to access many more Bibles, study Bibles, handbooks, commentaries and journals but don't allow me to organize my notes in terms of assertions and support.

3. The provide nicely tagged text in one diagram format (in Logos horizontal trees) but make me start from scratch ofr other forms of diagrams that could be generated from the same data.

4. When I buy a book (commentary, monograph), I get to move the information into highlighting myself (identify parallelism, chiasm, etc. as per source). And several hundred other purchasers get to do the same thing

5. When I try a Bible study method I get to create a markup palette and study document template to fit the method. And several hundred other purchasers get to do the same thing.

6. I have lots of outline/pericope options (Bible, lectionary, commentaries) which I can collect into a clippings file ... but I can't build my own comparisons within the software

So with these wonderful electronic programs I get more data (good) more setup (bad) that has already been done by umpteen other users (bad). So instead of having the electronic simply duplicate the manual how 'bout:

the ability to provide class and subclass for the relationship between cross-references
allow some type of argument mapping
auto generate sentence diagrams in a variety of styles
provide additional value-added for selected resources that provides pre-done highlighting for the scripture under study with a palette that allows the user to expand the study elements beyond the book
make a variety of study methods available as description, highlight palette and study document templates as appropriate
provide visual filters in support of each lesson/grammar section/vocabulary list in the language learning resources
all the building of input for display in either pericope comparison or Bible harmony formats

I appreciate being able to work more. Now I want to work smarter.

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Comments

DMB

Labeled palettes relative to Bible study would REALLY be useful to the early-users. Like me.

What would be also REALLY good, is if some of our pastors allowed a peak at their highlights. Sometimes I see my Dad's Bible (retired minister) or our present pastor's Bible. It's always edifying.

George Somsel

I appreciate being able to work more. Now I want to work smarter.

I would like to be able to work smarter too, but unfortunately I come up against my limitations so I'll need to settle for working more. [8-)]

Orville J Erickson

On the flip side - I remember being in seminary (in the dark ages...) and using Greek or Hebrew concordances to do textual research that took hours that I can now do in minutes using software. It may be imperfect, but wow in my mind we have come a long way!!!!

Blessings

Orville

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/270366#Comment_270366

but wow in my mind we have come a long way!!!!

Yes, we have come along way. But now it's time to not just automate how studied in the past - it's time to re-envision our tools. In the dead tree book era, scholars preserved and shared their work to help others. Imagine building a concordance by hand (Actually, I don't have to image it - I hand built one in Chinese for the I Ching). Now that computers allow us to go further, we need to find ways to make those efforts shareable.

Brother Mark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/270376#Comment_270376

Yes, we have come along way. But now it's time to not just automate how studied in the past - it's time to re-envision our tools. In the dead tree book era, scholars preserved and shared their work to help others... Now that computers allow us to go further, we need to find ways to make those efforts shareable.

NOW we're onto something! Logos represents a paradigm shift in knowledge transference and applying that knowledge to Understanding. The next logical step is to integrate the Logos tool's functionality with "the cloud" (forgive the tired metaphor), so that I can share my notes/conclusions/diagrams/cross-references/yada/more-stuff, and YOU can access it as though it were a Logos resource. The technology is obviously already there (I.E. Logos automatically searches sermoncentral.com, sermons.logos.com, gracewaymedia.com, and sermonaudio.com with every Passage Guide that's generated).

Alan Charles Gielczyk

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/270561#Comment_270561

I like where this is heading but I can imagine getting all this information from thousands of users and being unable to wade through it. So an easy way of turning the information on and off would be ideal. i.e. If I am wanting some precept markup on the book of John and I have several from many different users I can turn them on and off one at a time. This would lessen the "confusion factor."

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/270633#Comment_270633

This would lessen the "confusion factor."

You're absolutely right. Group knowledge is most effective when it is verifiable and a single "master copy" is kept (think of the best of wikipedia).

Brother Mark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/270633#Comment_270633

I like where this is heading but I can imagine getting all this information from thousands of users and being unable to wade through it. So an easy way of turning the information on and off would be ideal. i.e. If I am wanting some precept markup on the book of John and I have several from many different users I can turn them on and off one at a time. This would lessen the "confusion factor."

In the same way that we aren't drowned by a deluge of sermoncentral.com messages, but can pick and choose based on (admittedly esoteric) factors such as topic, title, text, etc. it would be unlikely that sorting and filtering would be more complex than handling the forums and topic threads on this website. Doh. Hum, that analogy probably didn't help my argument, did it....

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/270664#Comment_270664

that analogy probably didn't help my argument, did it....

Sounds OK to me ...similar level of judgement and experience.

Orville J Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/270664#Comment_270664

That is actually a pretty intriguing idea - a wiki or forum styled collection of user submitted research that can show up in search results or accessed from within Logos. I also use Bibleworks frequently and I know they have a forum where users can share content they have generated and there is the ability to import that into the software (I am no expert on that I just have read some of the forum stuff). I wonder if the Personal Book Builder when it become available would be of any use in this way?

Brother Mark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271026#Comment_271026

That is actually a pretty intriguing idea - a wiki or forum styled collection of user submitted research that can show up in search results or accessed from within Logos. I also use Bibleworks frequently and I know they have a forum where users can share content they have generated and there is the ability to import that into the software (I am no expert on that I just have read some of the forum stuff). I wonder if the Personal Book Builder when it become available would be of any use in this way?

Just a little clarification: Isn't L4 already doing it when a Passage Guide generates a list of user generated research germane to your search criteria?.... not only a list of commentaries in your library (for example), but also a list of sermons from sermoncentral.com that also matches your search criteria. We're simply suggesting that Logos let us add forums here that L4 would search (in the same way our commentaries and sermoncentral are searched), but that are populated by our L4 notes (those we choose to share), and may be both imported into L4 from the forum, and/or read from our browser.

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271041#Comment_271041

My crystal ball tells me all of this is in the future. Some of it this year.

Orville J Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271041#Comment_271041

I am getting you now - I was not 100% clear exactly what was being suggested. My non-software developer-ignorance thinks that should not be that difficult to implement... (always easy in theory right )

Brother Mark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271044#Comment_271044

My crystal ball tells me all of this is in the future. Some of it this year.

Lynden, it would be incredibly helpful you'd consider mailing your crystal ball to Bellingham

Brother Mark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271045#Comment_271045

I am getting you now - I was not 100% clear exactly what was being suggested. My non-software developer-ignorance thinks that should not be that difficult to implement... (always easy in theory right )

Lessee:

1. Are the front-end hooks already in the L4 client to search online resources for germane results? CHECK!

2. Can we document our L4 research, then retrieve and display it later? CHECK!

3. Does Logos have Forums capable of being searched and displayed in a browser? CHECK!

4. Does L4 have the capability of importing YOUR notes/research into MY instance? KINDA CHECK? (http://blog.logos.com/?s=importing+notes&submit=Search)

5. I think the only technical issues are a repository (forum to hold the research/notes), and a L4 function to import selected notes from the forum.

George Somsel

My list of reasons I hate electronic bible study programs

When I got my books in electronic form I sold my print books which left empty shelves.
When I took down the empty shelves I had to patch and repaint the walls.
After the walls were emptied of shelves the room looked bare so I had to buy a chair to fill in some of the space created. Have you priced decent chairs lately?
Since I no longer need to search through a pile of books on my desk I am getting more work done and expect more work from myself.
Without a pile of books a foot deep on my desk no one will believe that I am actually working.
I no longer get as much exercise getting up to walk to the bookshelves to retrieve or to replace books so I am putting on weight.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271057#Comment_271057

[:D]

J Hale

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271059#Comment_271059

I do think that there should be other people’s commentary/notes, that you can access. Similar to Amazon’s comments from buyers, people can rate those responses, so the highest rated comment will come to the top, or it can be viewed by subject. If I were to do Bible study, I most likely won’t even have a fraction of the books that I have in Logos. Having a rating system on the books themselves would be great as well.

Edwin Bowden

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271057#Comment_271057

My list of reasons I hate electronic bible study programs

When I got my books in electronic form I sold my print books which left empty shelves.

When I took down the empty shelves I had to patch and repaint the walls.

After the walls were emptied of shelves the room looked bare so I had to buy a chair to fill in some of the space created. Have you priced decent chairs lately?

Since I no longer need to search through a pile of books on my desk I am getting more work done and expect more work from myself.

Without a pile of books a foot deep on my desk no one will believe that I am actually working.

I no longer get as much exercise getting up to walk to the bookshelves to retrieve or to replace books so I am putting on weight.

[;)]

Brother Mark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271148#Comment_271148

I do think that there should be other people’s commentary/notes, that you can access. Similar to Amazon’s comments from buyers, people can rate those responses, so the highest rated comment will come to the top, or it can be viewed by subject. If I were to do Bible study, I most likely won’t even have a fraction of the books that I have in Logos. Having a rating system on the books themselves would be great as well.

Interesting proposed methodology... but what if I disagree with the ratings?