Topical Search in Church Fathers

Milkman
Milkman Member Posts: 4,880 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Is there anyway to do a topical search or what the Apostolic Fathers thoughts were on a particular subject? For example, if I wanted to know what they thought/taught/believed about the resurrection how would I go about this? Or is it as simple as making the CF collection a Collection?

Comments

  • Mark Smith
    Mark Smith MVP Posts: 11,830

    Milkman said:

    Is there anyway to do a topical search or what the Apostolic Fathers thoughts were on a particular subject? For example, if I wanted to know what they thought/taught/believed about the resurrection how would I go about this? Or is it as simple as making the CF collection a Collection?

    Unfortunately there really is no such thing as a topical search in Logos 4. The only thing you can do is search all the text in a collection of the CF for the word resurrection which will give you hundreds and hundreds of hits, many of which you might not want.

    You can search the CF for a Bible reference if you feel that would narrow your results. For instance put <1 Cor 15> in the search for box. Unfortunately you will still get more references than you are likely to want and many not on the resurrection. Narrow it down to a verse or two and you might make some progress.

    Another way to go at this in Logos 4 is to use something like Thomas Oden's Systematic Theology. He refers to and tries to incorporate the ECF in his expositions and there are links to the ECF in his work. Volume 2 has a section of the resurrection of Christ and you'd find some relevant material there.

    Unless Logos implements topical tagging and topical searching in Logos 4 you will be handicapped in extracting this information from the ECF.

    If you install Libronix software you are in better shape for a task like this. Using the Topic Browser you can at least find a number of sections within the ECF dealing specifically with the resurrection. It isn't perfect as Logos will point out but is better and faster than anything you can do in Logos 4.

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  • Milkman
    Milkman Member Posts: 4,880 ✭✭✭

    thanks Mark. I have since uninstalled Libronix a year or so ago. It was a good system regarding topical searches - many of us miss that feature.

    I did the Oden thing as well, and it's ok. Maybe making a 'suggestion' if Bob and the boys could find a book that has a topical index tagged to other resources in L4 wouldn't be a bad idea.

    I guess I'll head on over there and do that. Have a good one.

  • fgh
    fgh Member Posts: 8,948 ✭✭✭

    I know what books I would recommend you to search if they were in Logos, but they're not, so I made a Suggestion for them: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/25246/187050.aspx#187050.

    Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2