Noet for Classics or More?

I suspect Noet's a dream in the making. This morning I read about 'Invictus' a poem enjoyed by a man from a villiage in east South Africa. I wondered about Logos. It came up empty, but that's ok. But Noet certainly would seem to be an exciting opportunity. I suppose maybe a concept 'too far'?

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."

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Milford Charles Murray

Blessings and Peace to you, Denise, on this lovely Saturday morning! *smile*

Having had a Liberal Arts Education, loaded with the Classics, I also look forward to Noet!

Thanks for sharing that particular poem this morning! I appreciated it!

It also gave me an opportunity to look up a few things in my library ... I searched Invictus NEAR Henly and got 68 results in 39 articles -- one of which was this one that I found interesting -- and you may too perhaps ???

18 Among those with whom Paul met and conversed in the Agora were philosophers of the rival Stoic and Epicurean schools.

The Stoics, who claimed the Cypriot Zeno (c. 340–265 B.C.) as their founder, were so called because they met in the stoa poikili, the “painted colonnade” in the Agora, where he habitually taught in Athens. Their system aimed at living consistently with nature, and in practice they laid great emphasis on the primacy of the rational faculty in humanity, and on individual self-sufficiency. In theology they were essentially pantheistic, God being regarded as the world-soul. Their belief in a cosmopolis or world-state, in which all truly free souls had equal citizen rights, helped to break down national and class distinctions. Stoicism at its best was marked by great moral earnestness and a high sense of duty. It commended suicide as an honorable means of escape from a life that could no longer be sustained with dignity. Something of the proud spirit of personal independence which it fostered comes to expression in W. E. Henley’s Invictus:

“I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.”

As it happens, another English poet uses the same phrase, “whatever gods may be,” in a setting as distinctively Epicurean as Henley’s is essentially Stoic. That is A. C. Swinburne in The Garden of Proserpine:

“From too much love of living,

From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

Whatever gods may be

That no life lives for ever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.”

The Epicurean school, founded by Epicurus (340–270 B.C.), member of a family of Athenian settlers on Samos, based its ethical theory on the atomic physics of Democritus and presented pleasure as being the chief end in life, the pleasure most worth enjoying being a life of tranquillity (ataraxia), free from pain, disturbing passions, and superstitious fears (including in particular the fear of death). It did not deny the existence of gods, but maintained that they took no interest in the life of men and women.

Stoicism and Epicureanism represented alternative attempts in pre-Christian paganism to come to terms with life, especially in times of uncertainty and hardship; post-Christian paganism has never been able to devise anything appreciably better. But Stoics and Epicureans alike, much as they might differ from each other, agreed at least on this: that the new-fangled message brought by this Jew of Tarsus was not one that could appeal to reasonable people. They looked on him as a retailer of secondhand scraps of philosophy, “a picker-up of learning’s crumbs” (like Browning’s Karshish), a type of itinerant peddler of religion not unknown in the Agora, and they used a term of disparaging Athenian slang to describe him.³⁴ Others preferred to class him as a propagandist for foreign divinities—he spoke of Jesus and Anastasis (the Greek word for “resurrection”), and to some of his hearers these two words sounded as if they denoted the personified and divinized powers of “healing” and “restoration.”³⁵

19–20 But there was in Athens a venerable institution, the Court of the Areopagus, which exercised jurisdiction in matters of religion and morals. This aristocratic body, of venerable antiquity, received its name from the Areopagus, the “hill of Ares” (the Greek god of war), southwest of the Acropolis, on which it traditionally met. At the time with which we are dealing it held its ordinary meetings in the Royal Colonnade (stoa basileios), in the northwest corner of the Agora.³⁶ (It continued to meet on the Areopagus to judge cases of homicide.) Its traditional power was curtailed with the growth of Athenian democracy in the fifth century B.C., but in Roman times its authority was enhanced and it commanded great respect.³⁷ Before this body, then, Paul was brought, not to stand trial in a forensic sense, nor yet to be examined with a view to being licensed as a public lecturer,³⁸ but simply to have an opportunity of expounding his teaching before experts.^{^[1]}

³⁴ Gk. σπερμολόγος, lit. “seed-picker,” “gutter-sparrow”; then someone who picked up scraps in the market, a worthless character (cf. Demosthenes’s description of Aeschines as σπερμολόγος περίτριμμα ἀγορᾶς, “a prater, a market hack,” On the Crown 127); then of someone who picked up scraps of learning wherever he could, which is the meaning here.

³⁵ F. H. Chase, The Credibility of Acts (London, 1902), pp. 205–6) suggests that they may have associated Ἰησοῦς with ηίασις (“healing”) or with Ἰασώ (Ionic Ἰησώ), the goddess of health, a daughter of Asklepios. “This interpretation of the words Ἰησοῦς and ἀνάστασις would be confirmed in the minds of the Athenians if they caught the words σωτηρία and σωτήρ in St. Paul’s teaching. “The view that he was a preacher of foreign divinities recalls the charges brought at an earlier date in Athens against Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates (cf. Plato, Euthyphro 3B, Apology 24B-C; Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1.1).

³⁶ See C. J. Hemer, “Paul at Athens: A Topographical Note,” NTS 20 (1973–74), pp. 341–50.

³⁷ See D. J. Geagan, The Athenian Constitution after Sulla (Princeton, 1950), p. 50: “Ordo Areopagitarum Atheniensium,” in Phoros: Tribute to E. D. Meritt, ed. D. W. Bradeen and M. F. McGregor (New York, 1974), pp. 51–56.

³⁸ This was Ramsay’s view (St. Paul the Traveller, p. 247); he recalls how Cicero induced the Areopagus to pass a decree inviting Cratippus, the Peripatetic philosopher, to become a lecturer in Athens,” and infers “that some advantage was thereby secured to him” (cf. Plutarch, Cicero 24.5).

^{^[1]} Bruce, F. F. (1988). The Book of the Acts (pp. 330–332). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

George Somsel

I suspect Noet's a dream in the making. This morning I read about 'Invictus' a poem enjoyed by a man from a villiage in east South Africa. I wondered about Logos. It came up empty, but that's ok. But Noet certainly would seem to be an exciting opportunity. I suppose maybe a concept 'too far'?

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."

Paste into your command bar

logosres:hvdcl40;ref=Page.p_1258;off=577

Milford Charles Murray

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/551866#Comment_551866

Thank you, George! *smile* I'm truly grateful for that "reference"! Indeed!

I was looking for it there; but, somehow, I missed it!

I have lots of poetry on my iPad that I often read in the evenings, and this will be added!

Thanks again, Denise, for your original reference.. *smile*

Psalm 29:11

Rosie Perera

I suspect Noet's a dream in the making.

Noet isn't going to offer us anything we don't have already. All of the Noet packages are Logos products that are already available. The only difference will be a new Noet app that doesn't have all the biblical stuff, for atheists to use to access the classics without being bothered by what they consider garbage. So I don't know why you're dreaming about Noet. Just buy the Harvard Classics and Fiction Collection and you'll have Invictus, and much more.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/551891#Comment_551891

Thank you, Milford .... very interesting discussion. Just coincidentally I'm digging my way through Anat (Ugarit) who turns into Athena in the greek culture. She's definitely one major killing machine. Even El had to hide and admited nothing could withstand the goddesses! Well, duh.

Thank you, George ... and Rosie for your comments. I hadn't guessed Noet was nothing more than re-badging. That's unfortunate. Just as with the liturgically-based denominations, new Logos functionality could work wonders, so the same is also true in Noet (phrase matching, poetic structure, and so forth ... all of which is buried in the current Logos db's). Indeed, the same 'engine-power' would be great in the OT as well.

Thinking more on the OT, I'm kind of surprised Bible software doesn't do much in that area. Or liturgical for that matter.

Well, back to the killing machine.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/551913#Comment_551913

I hadn't guessed Noet was nothing more than re-badging. That's unfortunate. Just as with the liturgically-based denominations, new Logos functionality could work wonders, so the same is also true in Noet (phrase matching, poetic structure, and so forth ... all of which is buried in the current Logos db's). Indeed, the same 'engine-power' would be great in the OT as well.

As with Verbum, they probably will eventually add new functionality specifically for the kinds of content that Noet users will buy, but that functionality will probably be available in Logos too with a command, as with some of the Verbum stuff that we have access to in Logos. But my key point is that it won't provide any new content that we won't also have in Logos, and the one thing in particular you were missing is already available.

John Besse

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/551919#Comment_551919

Speaking of Verbum, what do you think of the plus up grade on Capstone as to both content and new functionality?

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/551913#Comment_551913

Even El had to hide and admited nothing could withstand the goddesses! Well, duh

Sounds like the Power Puff Girls.

I will have to check into this resource.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/556443#Comment_556443

Ha.

I've moved on to Israelite Religions by Hess. He's trying really hard to help El out. Poor Anat; I doubt Hess is willing to admit Baal had to ask help from Anat to buy himself a palace (real estate prices were out of sight at the time and El was short on chump change).

Last night I was hoping Noet for iOS would silently show up. A Logosian staff member said they were trying for before New Years. That'd be today or tomorrow.

Michael Grigoni

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/556451#Comment_556451

Hi Densie, the Noet app is live and can be downloaded for iOS here: http://appstore.com/noet

We'll roll out messaging about the app's availability soon, but we're waiting a few days given our continued focus on Christmas-related promotions like the Mega Pack.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/556461#Comment_556461

Woo hoo!!!! Last night I couldn't believe how far afield the iTunes store search algorythm got on 'Noet'!

Thaaaaaank you!

Michael Grigoni

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/556464#Comment_556464

No problem! Please help spread the word and leave a generous review at the app store. We're looking forward to getting Noet out to customers who have never used Logos technology before. [:)]

Floyd Johnson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/556473#Comment_556473

I have said it before and will probably say it again, as a Chemistry major in college, with graduate degrees in Ministry, Computer Science, and Counseling (in that order [:)]), I would love to have the tools of LOGOS, Verbum, Noet, etc., available as I made my way through my text books - regardless of the field. With the most advance highlighting tools available in any e-reader that I am aware of, it could support almost any field of study.

Diversifying into different fields takes a commitment and time - but I could easily see LOGOS becoming the standard e-reader for academics in many different disciplines. For the students of the future, and for the continued success of LOGOS, I hope that it can find a way to do exactly that.

Sorry to beat my drum again, but this is what I see LOGOS eventually going.

Butters

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/551853#Comment_551853

It also gave me an opportunity to look up a few things in my library ... I searched Invictus NEAR Henly and got 68 results in 39 articles -- one of which was this one that I found interesting -- and you may too perhaps ???

18 Among those with whom Paul met and conversed in the Agora were philosophers of the rival Stoic and Epicurean schools.

Mr. Murray, do you by any chance have a citation for this article/book?

~Butters [:)]

Milford Charles Murray

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/557413#Comment_557413

It also gave me an opportunity to look up a few things in my library ... I searched Invictus NEAR Henly and got 68 results in 39 articles -- one of which was this one that I found interesting -- and you may too perhaps ???

18 Among those with whom Paul met and conversed in the Agora were philosophers of the rival Stoic and Epicurean schools.

Mr. Murray, do you by any chance have a citation for this article/book?

~Butters

Peace and a Blessed and Happy New Year, Dear Brother!

That's simply a quotation from "The Book of Acts" - Bible Commentary - by F.F. Bruce - NICNT - https://www.logos.com/product/37579/the-new-international-commentary-on-the-new-testament-the-book-of-the-acts

Reference = Bruce, F. F. (1988). The Book of the Acts (pp. 330–332). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (see very end of my post re. this!) *smile*

Edit! I'm leaving my Study for a while! If you want a longer quote - or another reference - please post back -- I'll do the best I can when I get back! *smile*