Opinion on Journals

Do you consider Theological Journals as a good resource for someone who is just a layperson and other than life experiences, no higher learning?

A web site that most of us are aware of is making its journals available on line and I was thinking of taking that route. I can not go for them in Logos any time soon (expense to catch up), and if I did, it would depress me that they may be of no use for my needs.

If I bought, say, volume 12 would I need to have the previous volumes or are they just good to have and I could enjoy volume 12 and later years without having to have the past?

Thanks

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Comments

Mark Smith

Richard,

I think that the journals may not be all that useful to you. They vary in target audience and theological perspective, but can get very technical and narrowly focused.. Some of them might appeal to you, however. The volume 12 collection might be a good way to sample what is available.

In addition Logos offers two other magazines you might find useful. Discipleship Journal: http://www.logos.com/products/details/3473 and Christian History and Biography Magazine: http://www.logos.com/products/details/4633 and a later collection: http://www.logos.com/products/details/4635

Biblical Archeologist and Bible and Spade are also available, but I can't comment on them as I don't own them: http://www.logos.com/products/details/913
http://www.logos.com/products/details/2850

Rick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/95941#Comment_95941

Thank you for the evaluation Mark. I truly appreciate all of the help I get here. I kind of thought that they would not really be for me but all of the talk about them peeked my curiosity, but knowing that a lot of people here have a Masters or Doctorates etc. I thought that I should just ask first and it probably saved me some money this time! [Y]

I am also open to more suggestions, I already have the Discipleship Journal collection and will take a good look at History and Biography Magazine which looks like it might be right up my alley.

Thanks again!

Rick

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/95956#Comment_95956

Rick FWIW, I'd have to agree with Mark, after buying TJ12 (first one.)

Rick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/95988#Comment_95988

Thank you too Allen. Looks like I have saved myself a few dollars instead of making mistakes like I have in the past where it just looked cool and I had to have it, just to never use it after opening it once because I had no clue or interest in its use! [:D]

Rick

Jacob Hantla

I would recommend a layperson does make use of some journals. I think you would find them incredibly helpful for indepth discussion of many topics. Journals are one of the most used resources in my library. And I also consider them one of the best values for my money that I have ever purchased for journals.

The great thing about journals is that each article generally stands on its own. The more journals you have, the better chance you have of an article meeting your needs. So you could start with volume 12 and work down. Or just pick and choose which set to start with based on the contents of that collection.

I would really encourage you that the journals are a great value for students of the Bible and highly useful, higher learning or not.

Dewayne Davis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96079#Comment_96079

I would recommend a layperson does make use of some journals. I think you would find them incredibly helpful for indepth discussion of many topics. Journals are one of the most used resources in my library. And I also consider them one of the best values for my money that I have ever purchased for journals.

The great thing about journals is that each article generally stands on its own. The more journals you have, the better chance you have of an article meeting your needs. So you could start with volume 12 and work down. Or just pick and choose which set to start with based on the contents of that collection.

I would really encourage you that the journals are a great value for students of the Bible and highly useful, higher learning or not.

I have found Journals to be very valuable to me. I go to them for detailed coverage of a passage or subject. I find that an article written on a given subject will reference material from dozens of commentaries, and makes a great go to resource. A single source commentary tends to lean toward a single point of view. But from my experience, Journal articles are written more towards giving multiple points of view.

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96114#Comment_96114

I would recommend a layperson does make use of some journals. I think you would find them incredibly helpful for indepth discussion of many topics. Journals are one of the most used resources in my library. And I also consider them one of the best values for my money that I have ever purchased for journals.

The great thing about journals is that each article generally stands on its own. The more journals you have, the better chance you have of an article meeting your needs. So you could start with volume 12 and work down. Or just pick and choose which set to start with based on the contents of that collection.

I would really encourage you that the journals are a great value for students of the Bible and highly useful, higher learning or not.

I have found Journals to be very valuable to me. I go to them for detailed coverage of a passage or subject. I find that an article written on a given subject will reference material from dozens of commentaries, and makes a great go to resource. A single source commentary tends to lean toward a single point of view. But from my experience, Journal articles are written more towards giving multiple points of view.

Exactly, Dewayne. And really much of a commentary's content is far from a "best of" of the author's research because of the sheer quantity necessary, but it certainly reflects an awareness of the full context in which a verse finds itself. A journal on the other hand, rather than being broad, tends to have much more depth and much wider recognition of the issues at hand than a commentary. You will still get the author's point of view, but a more thorough presentation of it interacting with a wider range of opinions.

After introducing people to a base package and a good commentary set or two, the next resource I direct them to are as many of the journal collections as possible.

Rick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96156#Comment_96156

Thank you all for you contribution. I have a friend that belongs to a denomination in which their pastors get journals from their publishers. He is going to get me a few from his pastor and let me look at them just to get a feel for them.

If all else fails and I am still teeter-tottering, I can always get a one year subscription through the web site. I can absorb the loss of $50.00 but over $300.00 would leave me with a bitter feeling.

Thanks again and Love you all! [:)]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96156#Comment_96156

I'm curious - How do you all find the journal content relevant to your current studies, since L4 doesn't currently offer a *real* topical search capability?

Peter

spitzerpl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96171#Comment_96171

I'm curious - How do you all find the journal content relevant to your current studies, since L4 doesn't currently offer a *real* topical search capability?

Have you tried the header: search yet? if you do a basic search in a journal for header:Jesus you will find every article heading with Jesus in it.

Granted, I still find this leaves a poorly organized structure. You don't know whether the header is a level one or level 3 header, and for the level 3 headers you don't know the focus of the article it is within. A while back I created an excel sheet with every header in it for journal volumes 1-10. It is very searchable and clicking on a header shows a pop-up with its table of contents. It would also hyperlink to the article. A week or two ago I tried it and it seemed like the hyperlinking got off somehow and I haven't messed with trying to figure out why yet, but it's still pretty useful for finding articles if you are interested.

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96191#Comment_96191

Have you tried the header: search yet?

I think this is heading:xxx not header:xxx. But it does work at least in the Galaxie journals. This search capability is not yet implemented in some (if not all) other journals and magazines.

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96171#Comment_96171

I'm curious - How do you all find the journal content relevant to your current studies, since L4 doesn't currently offer a *real* topical search capability?

The topic search rarely worked for me anyway because inevitably whoever is topic tagging something wasn't using the same words as me or would miss a topic covered in an article. It was helpful but not perfect.

I find articles a couple of different ways:

My passage guide has a section in it called Journals where I search my journal collection for any references to the passage I'm studying. This is a broad brush approach. There are usually a ton of results and I sort through them by title and journal.
Proximity search: If I am searching for a specific topic especially in relation to a passage I'm studying I will use a proximity search for a Biblical reference and a word. For example if I am looking for articles about unity, particularly unity with the building up of the church in mind, I would expect that article to reference Ephesians 4:16. So I would use the following search or something like it: <Ephesians 4:16> WITHIN 10 WORDS unity
Then simple searches and especially proximity searches "New Perspective on Paul" or "Justification WITHIN 10 WORDS Wright" or something like that might be helpful when applied to a collection that includes journals.

To create a journal collection I use the following as my criteria: type:magazine, type:journal OR subject:periodicals

Doing this I've had to remove the World Factbooks, but pretty much everything else is included.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96191#Comment_96191

Thanks Philip for the tip. However, when I tried that, it was not returning anything.

I have the Scholars library, which includes the Evangelical Review of Theology journal.

Peter

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96202#Comment_96202

the Evangelical Review of Theology

This journal is not yet tagged for heading searches. Basically the Galaxie produced journals seem to be the only ones I can find that are tagged for heading searches.