MacArthur Sermon Archive - Thousands of Typos - Who is Responsible?
Comments
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Phil Gons said:
Thanks for reporting this issue. We'll look into it and see what we can do to correct these issues. Since we were working with digital files, my guess is that the vast majority of these are issues with the files we received. I'm sorry this content isn't at a higher quality. We'll see what we can do to make it better. In the meantime, please report the things you come across. Thanks.
I called to return it and they encouraged me to wait a little longer. Is it possible for someone from FL to let us know if these errors will be corrected or if the resource will be capped at the quality of the original transcripts?
Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
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Justin Gatlin said:
Is it possible for someone from FL to let us know if these errors will be corrected or if the resource will be capped at the quality of the original transcripts?
[Y]
2017 15" MBP, iPad Pro
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I hate to bum a thread with my own question, but the CS rep was not able to give me a clear answer, and this is pressing for a lot of us who ordered the sermon archive and need to know before our 30 days are up to make an informed decision.
Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
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While I am not from faithlife, I have had logos products since version 2 (which I greatly preferred to "libby"). That said, I have never seen logos fix a typo that was in the original manuscript. I know that is a repeat of what has been said earlier, however it still stands.
I HAVE seen logos allow an individual to return a product beyond 30 days after the initial purchase. Indeed I have returned a product at 179 days. But then it was an exception in my purchase history, not the rule. As you can see from my signature I am heavily invested (now owning 25% of the logos catalog).
That said it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the logos typo reports weren't forwarded on to MacArthurs web team, who could then update the manuscripts, who could then provide logos with a higher quality product, Logos then could update all our files.
I suspect this is a long term thing - not short term. They are adding additional tagging to sermons to make them more easily searchable. That should be in a short to medium time frame if I had to guess.
If it were me, and I had purchased them at pre-pub prices I would not return them. I would wait out the improvement process, and by being patient save myself a lot of money in the long run.
pre-pub was what? 200$? regular price is probably double that. In six months or a year when the typos are fixed, it will most likely cost you the full price in order to have them in Logos.
Hopefully (for my sake) MacArthur places well in march madness so that we can have a good discount on his sermons
L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,
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I returned them yesterday.
For me it was not the typos but the topic tagging. When browsing the sermons I came across topics that piqued my interest yet when I used any to the (so many) guides, they simply did not show. If I cannot find things in a large collection like this that has just been published, then I am beginning to be concerned about older resource tags, and how much the guides are simply missing. This is a Logos 6 issue as much as this resource, but at $199, I was speculating a little at any rate.
Personally, I found Keller to be superior, with Piper as a backstop. I did not fid that MacArthur seemed to add much.
2017 15" MBP, iPad Pro
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Martin Folley said:
When browsing the sermons I came across topics that piqued my interest yet when I used any to the (so many) guides, they simply did not show.
Just to make sure I understand, when you say you came across a topic that piqued your interest, was it a Logos topic tag or your assignment of a topic? I'm wondering if the Logos topics are not obvious or if there is a error in processing or expectations of processing. I wonder because if a Logos topic tag did not get picked up in a Topic Guide, I would be very concerned.
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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Yes ... I wondered that, which is why I suggest that it may be a Logos 6 issue.
I wonder about the topics in then topic guide ... whether they are broad enough, or too detailed ... I cannot judge ... I was asking in another post whether there was a list of topics, or the definition of topics available. Presumably Logos has an internal set of words/descriptors, used by those collating the topics.
2017 15" MBP, iPad Pro
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Martin Folley said:
For me it was not the typos but the topic tagging.
I've responded to your other post to say that there isn't any topic tagging for sermons.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Justin Gatlin said:
I hate to bum a thread with my own question, but the CS rep was not able to give me a clear answer, and this is pressing for a lot of us who ordered the sermon archive and need to know before our 30 days are up to make an informed decision.
I returned mine. I'll look forward to an update in the future on quality. Hopefully it'll be fixed and go on sale at some point in the future for about prepub price
Jacob Hantla
Pastor/Elder, Grace Bible Church
gbcaz.org0 -
Taxee said:
I hadn't realized that John MacArthur had such poor elocution...
[quote]It’s a fantastic thing. Let me take ya to Romans 13, because here it’s explained even further. (John F. MacArthur Jr., John MacArthur Sermon Archive (Panorama City, CA: Grace to You, 2014).)
(chuckle) ...how about Charles Stanley, with his southern drawl?
Reckon on his sermon transcripts ever being published on Logos? Never heard so many "ya's" is all my life!
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Friends, I am the Internet Ministry Coordinator at Grace to You and have worked with Faithlife on the MacArthur Sermon Archive project.
As a number of you have already noted, this brief article explains why there are so many typographical errors in the archive. The average transcript length is approximately 20 pages (depending on formatting, of course). At 3,500+ sermons, that's 70,000 pages. Thankfully, not all sermons have a lot of typos. Sermons preached in the last 10 or so years have significantly reduced errors due to being created digitally. There may still be misspelling or faulty transliteration of Greek or Hebrew words, but the transcripts from the last few years should be largely clean.
Additionally, we are continually, if slowly, correcting errors when we are notified by website users, or when sermons are being prepared for our radio broadcast. Lastly, in light of larger and exciting ministry projects, we are working on a plan to systematically improve the archive.
All this to say that I would encourage you to make use of this valuable resource, even with its imperfections. Grace to You will send updated transcripts to Faithlife on a regular basis, and they will update the resource files according to their own schedule.
I know I'm biased, but in my estimation this sermon archive is the most valuable of them all. No other sermon archive includes every verse in the New Testament preached with the intense exegetical focus of John MacArthur. Sadly, the MacArthur Commentaries are not currently available in Logos, but this sermon archive gives you the same content in terms of interpretation and explanation.
If you'd like to take the archive for a test drive before purchasing, you can use the poor man's version on our website: gty.org. Personally, I'm looking forward to having this product in my Logos library.
Full disclosure: I am making these statements voluntarily with no financial benefit to me or Grace to You. Just trying to clear the air a bit as a fellow Logos user.
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Gabriel, thanks for your post.
Full disclosure: I was the original poster on this thread and am a graduate of TMS. I agree that, even in its unedited form, it is worth it to me to keep the archive. I am glad I collected all of the commentaries as they became available, and wish others who want them now could get access to them. But that is a Logos-Moody dispute. And GTY was generous a few years ago making all of Johns sermons free on MP3. (I grew up on these sermons, borrowing then from the tape library.)
I understand why unedited transcripts were made available on the GTY website. But most of these typos could have been easily fixed with a quick review before being published on Logos. I think even heavier editing would be worthwhile, even if the sermon transcript is altered from the original. (See the eternal sonship question). I would think that competent college and seminary students would have been happy to review and clean these up. Don't take out the sound of his voice that you can hear as you read them, but clean up the clutter that happens with the spoken word. These will last forever, until Jesus returns.
Very few in the last century will leave a legacy to match John's. That is why the surprise that these sermons were not in better shape. Until they are fixed, I will learn to read through them and ignore the mistakes. But it seems like a bigger job getting them updated now that Logos has put in the verse tags.
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Firstly thank you for posting [:)].Gabriel Powell said:Friends, I am the Internet Ministry Coordinator at Grace to You and have worked with Faithlife on the MacArthur Sermon Archive project.
As a number of you have already noted, this brief article explains why there are so many typographical errors in the archive. The average transcript length is approximately 20 pages (depending on formatting, of course). At 3,500+ sermons, that's 70,000 pages. Thankfully, not all sermons have a lot of typos. Sermons preached in the last 10 or so years have significantly reduced errors due to being created digitally. There may still be misspelling or faulty transliteration of Greek or Hebrew words, but the transcripts from the last few years should be largely clean.
Additionally, we are continually, if slowly, correcting errors when we are notified by website users, or when sermons are being prepared for our radio broadcast. Lastly, in light of larger and exciting ministry projects, we are working on a plan to systematically improve the archive.
All this to say that I would encourage you to make use of this valuable resource, even with its imperfections. Grace to You will send updated transcripts to Faithlife on a regular basis, and they will update the resource files according to their own schedule.
I know I'm biased, but in my estimation this sermon archive is the most valuable of them all. No other sermon archive includes every verse in the New Testament preached with the intense exegetical focus of John MacArthur. Sadly, the MacArthur Commentaries are not currently available in Logos, but this sermon archive gives you the same content in terms of interpretation and explanation.
If you'd like to take the archive for a test drive before purchasing, you can use the poor man's version on our website: gty.org. Personally, I'm looking forward to having this product in my Logos library.
Full disclosure: I am making these statements voluntarily with no financial benefit to me or Grace to You. Just trying to clear the air a bit as a fellow Logos user.
Secondly you should talk to Logos - I bet they would forward their typo reports on to you guys in an excel spread sheet. Some will be duplicated, some will be faulty, but many many many more will be accurate. It would be a quick way to have ALL of the typos brought to light in a relatively short time period.
Blessings sir and thank you to GTY for making these available both on the website and in Logos. I am hoping they are a part of the March Madness sale, and that he wins this year L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,
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Thanks Gabriel for your post. I for one greatly appreciate the archive, and given that it's a transcript, I don't find the typos too much of a problem at all.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Gabriel Powell said:
the MacArthur Commentaries are not currently available in Logos, but this sermon archive gives you the same content in terms of interpretation and explanation.
I confirm this. John MacArthur's Commentaries are the same with his sermons from the 1970s and 1980s. So if you have the sermons, basically you have the commentaries. They're basically the same. I've heard the sermons, I've read the the commentaries and I can confirm they're almost exactly the same. And I love having both.
1 last thing.
Gabriel, we would love to have the Q&As to be included. THEY ARE VALUABLE!
I remember the website www.biblebb.com/ had John MacArthur's Q&As categorized very well, but GTY requested not to repost them. The way Biblebb.com had them was sooo much easier to navigate than the gty.com site.
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Oh btw Gabriel,
I was the first person who requested to have John MacArthur's sermon archive to be made available here in Logos.
I still hope one day I'll get a picture with Pastor John MacArthur while he is healthy. (I live nearby)
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mike,
If you haven't been, you're welcome to join us anytime at our 8:30, 10:30 or 6PM services. Probably the best time to meet John is immediately after the 6PM service as he enjoys greeting people at that time.
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Rick, greetings from a fellow TMS grad :-).
"But most of these typos could have been easily fixed with a quick review before being published on Logos."
Perhaps, but it's not that simple. It's one thing for a group of people to run through a couple thousand documents cleaning them up. But their work needs to be checked and managed and coordinated. Since the transcripts are based off of available audio, they need to be checked against the audio (when it is unclear what John intended to say).
For example, recently I had several emails back and forth regarding a reference John made to an historical figure. He correctly found a problem, but offered the wrong solution. It happened to be a situation where two similar names were viable options, and the two individuals had similar situations, so I had to compare John's description very carefully with the historical details of each individual to determine which person he was actually referring to, and then I would know the proper spelling of the name. Add to that, this person is often known by a nickname, not his actual name.
All that to say, improving the transcripts and matching them to the audio can be far more time consuming than most people realize. There are plenty of easy and obvious fixes, but anything that's worth doing, is worth doing well. And we're heading that direction. But it's not easy.
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I suppose living ones life shackled by the Queen's English would desensitize one to errors. You probably just see the typos as adding Flavor and Color to the text. [;)]Mark Barnes said:I don't find the typos too much of a problem at all.
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Anyone know how I can change the subtext in my comments (i.e. my computer information)? I've looked all over the profile area and can't find it.
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On the forums page...next to your name ...upper right. Click Edit
Scroll down to signature... make changes and click save[:D]
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mike said:
the Q&As to be included. THEY ARE VALUABLE!
Hi Mike:
I didn't know the Logos resource didn't have the Q&As. I didn't order it, but was intrigued by Mark Barnes post (from before the pre-pub) about querying the archives from the web, so I wanted to see if I could do something similar.
Here's a docx with just the Q&As that you can use until they are included in Logos. I'll kill the Dropbox link if anyone apoplexies, or if they show up in Logos..
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u0qoap9m275en9w/MacArthur%20Q%26A%20Archive.docx?dl=0
macOS (Logos Pro - Beta) | Android 13 (Logos Stable)
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Thanks!
What do I label/categorize this .pbb as so that it'll show up on my guides?
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mike said:
What do I label/categorize this .pbb as so that it'll show up on my guides?
That's a good question (which is to preface "I don't know"). I'm fairly simple-minded with regard to tagging PBs, so someone else could comment here.
I tagged the sermon passage headings as Bible milestones in the larger archive (where applicable) and categorized it as Bible Commentary, so its sermons should appear in passage guides.I suppose you could attempt to tag Bible milestones to references found in JFM's answers and call it a Bible Commentary, but that's probably pressing it a bit.
macOS (Logos Pro - Beta) | Android 13 (Logos Stable)
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The easiest method is to simply include it in a collection that is in your Passage Guide rather than trying to fill all the requirements for specific sections.
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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