Bible Background Collection

Does any one out there have a good working search string to create a collection for Bible Backgrounds like IVP Bible Background, Manners & Customs, Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, Archeological Encyclopedia etc. Bible Backgrounds seem to span multiple types.

Thanks for the help in advance

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Dave Hooton

Let me start you off with a query based on those resources:

type:media OR title:(background, manners, archaeological)

See how that fits your need and report back.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56127#Comment_56127

I'm not sure you can do it with a query, simply because the resources you're suggesting are so diverse. Here's what I'd suggest:

(title:(manner,custom,background,archaeolog) OR (subject:("iron age", excavation,archaeolog,antiquities) AND type:dictionary)) ANDNOT subject:(canon,doctrine)

In my library that pulls in everything apart from Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Frankly, I'm not convinced it naturally fits in with the other resources. If that's the case, better to add it manually if you think it would be useful, rather than create an artificial search string that 'works'.

There's some redundancy in my search string subjects, but that's deliberate. You don't know how future resources will be tagged. It's also deliberately set to exclude the Biblical Archaeology Review which is I presume what you wanted. If not change the type:dictionary to type:(dictionary, magazine)

Emery Horvath

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56142#Comment_56142

Dave and Mark,

Thanks for your responses. Part of what got me on this was that in my print library I have several excellent background books, "Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus" (Jeremias) - , "New Testament History" (Bruce) - "Man in the Roman Street" (Mattingly) etc. I was curious to see if there was anything in my Logos Library (1099 volumes - Scholar's Gold) like these volumes and if there were how could I pull them easily into this collection. For example, I did find "Time Travel to the World of Jesus" which would seem to be a background reference but doesn't come up in either of the suggested search strings. What do you think?

SteveF

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56142#Comment_56142

This is a very helpful thread.

Question: Mark or Dave, can you give me any hints why "The Cosmopolitan World of Jesus: New Light from Archeology" does NOT show up in my resulting collection? (David, I've copied Mark's longer string into the "Start with" window).

Thanks so much

Steve F

<EDIT> OK I've got it -- the difference is between the "USA" spelling and the "British" spelling of Archeology vs Archaeology! (I should have caught this sooner, 'cause I'm from Canada, eh?)

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56184#Comment_56184

I did find "Time Travel to the World of Jesus" which would seem to be a background reference but doesn't come up in either of the suggested search strings. What do you think?

Adding OR subject:(manners,customs) adds in Edersheim's "Sketches of Jewish social life" and the book you mention. Adding the wrong alternative spelling of archeology, the resulting string is:

(title:(manner,custom,background,archaeolog, archeolog) OR subject:(manner,custom) OR (subject:("iron age", excavation,archaeolog,archeolog, antiquities) AND type:dictionary)) ANDNOT subject:(canon,doctrine)

Emery Horvath

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56230#Comment_56230

Mark,

Wow! - that search string is a mouthful!

But it seems to be getting me there.

Do you think this would be pretty inclusive then?

SteveF

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56230#Comment_56230

Mark, I also had to include ANDNOT "Christmas" because I was picking up "A Christmas Carol" !

I hope there are no "real' background and culture books with Christmas in the description, or they will now never make it into this dynamic collection. - I guess I could have just "dragged" it out, rather than adding the above syntax "phrase."

Steve F

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56244#Comment_56244

Do you think this would be pretty inclusive then?

It looks pretty inclusive to me, but it's hard to say for certain. And we're relying a little bit on Logos' subject tagging which isn't always reliable. All you can do is look through your library and see if anything's missing. If it is, then you can revise the query.

Mary-Ellen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56297#Comment_56297

What's left out that I would want to include are some of my 2nd Temple Judaism and other histories; sociological works (social histories); and historical geographies. But "history" is a pretty "big" word to include in the search string--it could bring in lots of things I don't want.

I have great interest in this type of contextual background research, but my mind boggles when I think about trying to get a complete dynamic collection definition.

I think I just need to wait for bibliographic reports. I'm most comfortable sitting with a print-out and some different colored highlighters to design my collections, and then maybe try a string with just a few terms, followed by lots of hand-picking and choosing. I don't have confidence that the collections I'm trying to define dynamically really rope in everything I want, without throwing in the kitchen sink too.

John Bowling

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56445#Comment_56445

Things that may be relevant that I noticed were left out, in my library, were things like Blomberg's Jesus and the Gospels and Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. While a work like Blomberg's isn't primarily focused on backgrounds, it does have important and concise background information and gives some good resources for further study in particular background issues.

SteveF

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56472#Comment_56472

The New Testament Milieu

Steve F

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56556#Comment_56556

OK, here's a broader collection. It still doesn't include Blomberg's Jesus and the Gospels, nor Life and Times. As you noted, Blomberg might be useful, but isn't really about this, so if you wanted it you'd have to add it manually. Ditto for Life and Times (though admittedly less so). In both these cases, I would recommend tagging those books in a meaningful way, and adding OR mytag:"NT background" or whatever. Tagging resources in this is generally better than adding them manually, because you can potentially use the tag in another collection, and this maintains consistency. Here's the search, and the results. It's too broad for mu liking, but includes much of the Second Temple stuff some people mentioned.

(title:(manner,custom,background,archaeolog, archeolog) OR subject:(manner,custom,"New Testament--Background","Jews", "Judaism") OR (subject:(excavation,archaeolog,archeolog, antiquities) AND type:dictionary)) ANDNOT subject:(canon,doctrine,"Jews--Conversion", "Hebrew Language")

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56445#Comment_56445

I don't have confidence that the collections I'm trying to define dynamically really rope in everything I want, without throwing in the kitchen sink too.

If you've not done so already, you may find the collections videos referred to in my signature useful.

Emery Horvath

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56556#Comment_56556

Wow,

You guys have really opened up some things for me here.

Is this subject too dynamic (diverse) to be updated dynamically?

I wonder how some of these works that have been mentioned are tagged? Was the 'New Testament Milieu' just missed as a background work? (I am sure it's just 'the nature of the beast' here).

This is one of my thoughts in proposing the question originally in this thread - the idea that it would easy in a massive library to miss fundamental works that are right in your library 'under your nose so to speak', yet you are unaware of them. Also, if the answer to that is that you have to go through your library manually, doesn't that defeat the idea of keeping a collection dynamically updated?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56581#Comment_56581

Emery,

There's two issues here. First, the metadata for Logos resources sometimes just isn't good enough. Hopefully that will improve. Second, the collection you're trying to create would be even more difficult in a physical library setting. Assuming the library used Dewey, you'd be looking at at least ten different shelves.

220.67
220.9, 220.91, 220.93, 220.95
221.67
221.9, 221.91, 221.93, 221.95
225.67
225.9, 225.91, 225.93, 225.95
232.901, 232.908
296.09013, 296.09014
296.155
296.49*, 296.91*

So my suggested search string isn't that bad really [;)]

Emery Horvath

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56593#Comment_56593

Mark,

I agree with you 110% here, your search string is pretty awesome and I thank you for helping me (and all of the rest of us) with all of this. This has been a cool thread.

Emery Horvath

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56598#Comment_56598

Hey Mark,

How about uploading this string to Phil Spitzers Wiki Collection Post so others can have it? I would have been 'a month of Sundays' trying to figure this out on my own.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56607#Comment_56607

How about uploading this string to Phil Spitzers Wiki Collection Post so others can have it?

Thanks for the suggestion. I've added about half a dozen collection strings I use.

SteveF

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56621#Comment_56621

Mark, thanks again for the "strings" and the videos.

regards

Steve F

Bruce Junkermann

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56593#Comment_56593

Hey Mark, what happens to our collections when/if Logos updates the metadata? I would imagine that our strings will need to be modified. Would you agree or do you think all our bases are covered with the strings you have proposed?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56668#Comment_56668

When you write strings you need to anticipate new metadata, if only for the metadata in resources you will buy in the future. I've tried to write the strings as future-compatible as possible, but of course there are no guarantees. You'll be pretty safe, I think. It is an interesting question though, which I'm going to raise in another thread.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/56581#Comment_56581

Is this subject too dynamic (diverse) to be updated dynamically?

Indeed it's a pretty diverse subject, but it certainly makes sense to me why you'd want to make a collection for it. If the search string gets too unwieldy (I believe there is still a 200 character limit on the length of search strings, and anyway reading it and parsing it gets cumbersome when it's so complicated), you might want to consider using nested collections. Mark Barnes has created an excellent video on how to set up nested collection. You could make, for example, a collection for all your archaeological background books, another for all your manners and customs background books, another for history, etc. You get the idea. Your sub-categories might differ from what I'm suggesting. Then make one grand encompassing collection which includes those other collections nested within it. Mark's video will show you how to do that.

Allen Browne

Does any one out there have a good working search string to create a collection for Bible Backgrounds like IVP Bible Background, Manners & Customs, Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, Archeological Encyclopedia etc. Bible Backgrounds seem to span multiple types.

Not perfect, but try something like this:

(title:(introduction,survey,history,background,archaeology,antiquities) OR subject:(survey,history,background,archaeology,antiquities) OR (subject:Bible AND subject:introduction)) ANDNOT (title:church OR type:harmony OR subject:philosophy)

Depending on what else is in your library, you may need to add commas and more subjects before the last bracket, to exclude introductions to other subjects.

The exclusions kill off church history and harmonies. Subject with Bible OR introduction included too many, but insisting on Bible AND introduction (or one of hte othe subject lines) seemed useful.