Logos Bible Software Blog

The Great Bible Giveaway

Dan Pritchett — 2009-07-02T03:00:00-08:00

We’re about to give away 72 ultra-premium versions of the most amazingly bound Bibles ever printed. From the finest you can imagine top-end offerings in leather and calfskin—to the limited production run—“only a handful in existence” type heirloom quality of ultra-premium goatskin in a custom-carved Rosewood box imported from England!

Wow, was that breathless or what? …but seriously, if you are used to the feel of the paperback Bible you got from church the first day you visited youth-group as a teenager, you won’t believe how different these bindings can be.

We know “…the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” and we love it no matter what it is printed on and no matter what it is bound with. In fact, some of the most “heirloom quality” Bibles in the world are the most plainly bound, simple, worn and weathered Bibles. What makes many Bibles “heirloom quality” is the deep personal connection to God’s Word that they represent for those privileged to steward them.

So why are we giving away such high-end Bibles? Well, it all started when I received an ESV Study Bible in Premium Calfskin. I literally had no idea that leather could feel so supple, so smooth and so cottony-soft. I found myself wondering if it was fair to say that my new Bible could actually be creamy, velvety, and like butter all at the same time. When it came time to launch Bible.Logos.com I wanted to do something spectacular. I wanted to highlight the brand-new ultra-premium access to the Bible that Bible.Logos.com provides, with some ultra-premium print Bibles that people would be more familiar with.

Over the next 6 months Logos is giving away 72 premium print Bibles on Bible.Logos.com—worth over $11,500.00!

Every month from July thru December, we will give away 12 premium Bibles featuring the most popular translations from Bible.Logos.com, including ESV, KJV, NIV, NASB, NLT, and NKJV. These Bibles are the top-of-the-line versions and feature the highest quality leather and binding—some are valued at over $400.

This month we will be giving away these 12 Bibles:

ESV Study Bible, Black Calfskin (Retail $239.99) from Crossway
KJV Concord Wide Margin Reference, Black Goatskin (Retail $229.99) from Cambridge Bibles
NASB In Touch Ministries Wide Margin Edition, Burgundy Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
NASB Large Print Ultrathin Reference, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
NASB Side Column Reference Wide Margin Limited Edition, Black Calfskin (Retail $149.99) from Lockman Foundation
NIV New Women’s Devotional, Espresso Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $59.99) from Zondervan
NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale
NIV Study Bible, Black Goatskin (Retail $229.99) from Cambridge Bibles
NIV Study Bible, Black Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $124.99) from Zondervan
NKJV UltraSlim Bible Signature Series, Black Calfskin (Retail $129.99) from Thomas Nelson
NLT Tyndale Select, Black Calfskin (Retail $135.00) from Tyndale
TNIV Reference Bible, Black Renaissance Fine Leather (Retail $99.99) from Zondervan

For details on how to enter, as well as the full contest rules and prize list, visit The Great Bible Giveaway page.

Using RefTagger with Bible.Logos.com and Ref.ly Links

Phil Gons — 2009-06-30T03:00:00-08:00

By default RefTagger will tag only the bare Bible references on your site. If a Bible reference is already linked to Bible.Logos.com or another online Bible site, RefTagger will ignore it. So you won’t get the cool tooltips to show up on references you’ve already linked manually.

We’ve received some feedback from people who want to be able to link Bible references to Bible.Logos.com and have RefTagger add the tooltips, so we’ve decided to add support for it. It also works with Ref.ly links, which is perfect if you syndicate your Twitter feed to your blog.

Here are a couple of examples:

Ro 8:28 (linked to http://bible.logos.com/passage/Ro8.28)
Jn 3:16 (linked to http://ref.ly/Jn3.16)

All you need to do to enable this new functionality is add one additional line of code to the RefTagger script code in the footer of your site. Simply add

Logos.ReferenceTagging.lbsConvertHyperlinks = true;

to the RefTagger JavaScript code anywhere before the line

Logos.ReferenceTagging.tag();

This will tell RefTagger to add tooltips to all of the Bible references that are hard linked to Bible.Logos.com or Ref.ly.

Why would you want to do this? Well, since RefTagger uses JavaScript, Bible references in your site’s feed don’t get linked because the JavaScript code runs only on your site, not in your readers’ feed reader (e.g., Google Reader or Bloglines). If you want your Bible references to be linked in your feed, you’ll have to link them manually (or use this hack to save a little time). Before, you had to choose between linking your Bible references to Bible.Logos.com or using RefTagger. Now you can do both and enjoy the best of both worlds.

Searching the John Piper Sermon Manuscript Library by Topic

anavarrete — 2009-06-29T03:00:00-08:00

Today's guest post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos training seminars.

As mentioned in a previous blog, Logos released The John Piper Sermon Manuscript Library. Here's how to locate sermons on a particular topic or passage from the library:

After installing the sermon library click the small black arrow next to the Home icon on the toolbar
Choose Sermons from John Piper from the list of Home pages
When his Home Page opens click the Browse tab

Now you can browse his sermons by Series, Topic, Occasion, or Scripture!

For more tips like this, be sure to visit Morris Proctor’s Tips & Tricks blog or subscribe to the RSS feed.

ESV Study Bible Coming to Logos

Phil Gons — 2009-06-26T03:00:00-08:00

The ESV Study Bible from Crossway is one of the best study Bibles on the market. This carefully crafted volume packs in 2 million words (including the ESV Bible text), 20,000 notes, 50+ articles, 200+ charts, 200+ full-color maps, 80,000 cross-references, 40 illustrations, and more. The ESVSB brings together a wealth of evangelical scholarship in a concise and refreshing way and is sure to help you understand God’s Word better.

This award-winning study Bible is about to get even better. It’s now available on our Pre-Pub page in two different versions—a notes-only version for those who already own the ESV Bible (which is included in all of our base packages) and a complete version for those who do not yet have the ESV.

The Logos edition of the ESV Study Bible puts the Bible text in one resource and all of the other content in a second resource. This enables you to view the Bible and study Bible content side by side—and even scroll synchronously when both resources share the same link set. The ESV Study Bible Notes resource will function just like any other commentary and will show up in the Passage Guide along with your favorite study Bibles and commentaries. So no matter what passage you’re studying, the ESV Study Bible with all of its rich content is always just a click away.

Watch the video below to find out why you should add the ESVSB to your digital library.

Copying Bible Text without Footnotes

Phil Gons — 2009-06-25T03:00:00-08:00

Most Bible translations have a variety of footnotes throughout the text, giving you instant access to cross references, alternate translations, text-critical notes, and more. These notes are helpful when studying the Bible on your computer, but you may not need them when you copy the text into a sermon or paper.

A fairly common question we hear from new users is how to copy text from a Bible without including the internal footnotes. Let’s take Romans 12:1–2 in the ESV, for example.

You’ll notice 10 notes in these two verses. The superscript letters are for cross references, and the superscript numbers are for alternate translations, comments on manuscripts, etc. Sometimes you may want to include these when copying and pasting, but often you want just the bare Bible text.

There are three ways to accomplish this.

Method 1: Switch to “Bible Text Only” Viewing Mode.

With your Bible open and active, go to the View menu and select “Bible Text Only.” This will strip out all footnotes and allow you to copy only the text with chapter and verse numbers. The downside to this method is that you lose the paragraphing; each verse is formatted as its own paragraph.

Method 2: Uncheck “Include Footnotes When Copying.”

Another option is to go to Tools > Options > General > Interface and uncheck the box “Include Footnotes When Copying.” This will tell Libronix to skip any internal footnotes when copying text from your resources. Formatting and paragraphing will be preserved, but the potential downside to this method is that it applies to all resources and not just Bibles. So if you like having footnotes appear when you copy text from a commentary, for example, then you’ll want to try the next method.

Method 3: Use the “Copy Bible Verses” Tool.

This final method is far and away the best. If you’ve paid careful attention to the icons in your system tray (which is usually in the lower right corner of your screen next to the time), you’ve probably noticed that Libronix adds three icons when it’s open. The black one that looks like a Bible is the Copy Bible Verses tool.

There are two ways to use this powerful tool. You can double-click on the icon in your system tray, type in a passage, and click “Copy” (or “Copy and Paste” to send it directly to your open Word document, for example). Or you can highlight the text you want to copy and select “Copy Romans 12:1-2 to Clipboard” (instead of selecting “Copy” or using Ctrl+c).

One of the cool features of the Copy Bible Verses tool is that you can create as many different styles as you want—one for your sermons, another for your blog posts, another for papers, etc. For additional help creating styles, see the training article “Copy Text without Footnotes and Citations.”

If you copy Bible text frequently, you’ll quickly come to love this very handy little tool. It’s not hard to see why this is some users’ favorite feature.

People behind the Product: Meet the Anchor Yale Bible Team

Phil Gons — 2009-06-24T03:00:00-08:00

The Anchor Yale Bible was our biggest Pre-Pub ever in terms of its size, the number of hours it took to get it from print to digital, and the team assembled to tackle it.

Pictured below are the folks in our Electronic Text Development department who did the lion’s share of the work.

Several others are not pictured here because they forgot to wear their t-shirts! Many more were involved in other ways like working with the publisher and doing things like marketing, sales, testing, shipping, and support.

Since this was a special Pre-Pub, we did something out of the ordinary. One of our artists designed a t-shirt that those who worked closely on the project received. Here’s a close-up of someone wearing his new t-shirt proudly.

I know some of you are thinking how much you’d like to add this to your wardrobe. Well, if you wear a medium, you just might be able to. We have three medium t-shirts left. If you bought the Anchor Yale Bible and want one of these cool shirts, leave a comment below. We’ll randomly pick out three winners and send out the shirts in the next day or two.

Goliath and the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament

Phil Gons — 2009-06-23T03:00:00-08:00

Was Goliath really nine-and-a-half feet tall? Did David actually kill Goliath? A new interactive article from BibleStudyMagazine.com has the answers.

In “Clash of the Manuscripts: Goliath and the Hebrew text of the Old Testament,” which appeared on pages 33–35 of the May–June issue of Bible Study Magazine, Dr. Michael Heiser discusses two textual problems that have bearing on the height and death of Goliath. Looking at all of the data, Dr. Heiser shows how to reconcile the conflicting sources.

Read the article to find out if your Sunday school teacher was right.

If you enjoy the article and want to share it on your blog, just copy the HTML code at the bottom of the page.

To see the previous interactive articles, be sure to visit the Interactive page.

Copying Biblical People

anavarrete — 2009-06-22T03:00:00-08:00

Today's guest post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos training seminars.

When you generate a Passage Guide (PG) report, one of the sections you may see is Biblical People (BP). BP is an automated report that displays a relationship graph of anyone mentioned in your passage.

To open the report just click one of the ovals (nodes) containing someone's name. The report builds for the name of the person you clicked.

To copy this image to another program like PowerPoint right click in a blank white area near the BP report and select Copy. Go to the other program and Paste the image (Ctrl + V).

For more tips like this, be sure to visit Morris Proctor’s Tips & Tricks blog or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Join Us at the New Logos Bible Software Forums

Phil Gons — 2009-06-19T03:00:00-08:00

Since 2002 we’ve had an active group of users on our newsgroups. After much deliberation we’ve decided that it’s time to make the switch to web forums. We’ve been testing them with a small group for a couple of weeks, and now we’re ready to invite you to come join the discussions at the new Logos Bible Software Forums.

To use the Logos forums, you’ll need to be logged in to your Logos.com account. If you don’t have one, you can sign up for one now. Already have one? Sign in and head on over to http://community.logos.com/, or just click the new Forums link in the navigation at the top left of any Logos.com site.

If you happen to get an “Access Denied” message, your Logos.com cookies need to be updated. Most of the time logging out of your Logos.com account (top right hand corner of Logos.com) and then back in again will take care of the problem. If that doesn’t work, delete any *.logos.com cookies, restart your browser, sign in at Logos.com, and then return to the forums.

If you’re fairly new to Logos and are looking for some help learning the ropes, the forums will be the perfect place to get help from our top-notch group of power users who love to help others learn how to use Logos Bible Software better.

We look forward to seeing you at the Logos forums!

People behind the Product: Meet Rick Brannan

Phil Gons — 2009-06-18T03:00:00-08:00

Rick Brannan is no stranger to longtime users and readers of the Logos blog. He’s been with Logos since 1993 and is approaching his 16th anniversary of employment with the company. Rick is an information architect in our design and editorial department and blogs at Ricoblog and PastoralEpistles.com.

Though he’s a regular contributor to the Logos blog and has done dozens of videos, most of his posts and videos are about Greek and not about Rick. In this People behind the Product video, you’ll get to find out a little bit about one of Logos’ earliest employees.

Logos User Survey

Phil Gons — 2009-06-17T03:00:00-08:00

We do our best to listen to our users through a variety of channels: comments you leave here on the blog, emails you send to suggest@logos.com, suggestions you share in our newsgroups—and now in our new web forums—and many more. We read all user feedback and make sure it gets to the appropriate department for consideration. Some of our best ideas come from our users.

Thank you for letting your voice be heard. Listening to what you want helps us to provide you with the best Bible software in the world.

We also benefit by learning more about you. Are you a pastor, a professor, a student? Do you know Greek and Hebrew? Do you own a Kindle? This kind of information is vital as we make decisions about products to offer, technologies to pursue, and much more.

Over the years we’ve asked survey questions in the sidebar on Logos.com. We’ve recently added some new questions and put them all in one place. If you’ve never answered our survey questions, or it’s just been a while, visit www.logos.com/usersurvey and answer as many as you want.

There are 39 questions in total (you may see fewer if you’ve answered some in the past), and you can quit at any time and return later to pick up where you left off. You’re free to skip the ones that don’t apply or that you just don’t want to answer. Get started with the Logos User Survey now.

Bible References on Twitter

rburns — 2009-06-16T03:01:01-08:00

A little over a year ago we launched RefTagger. Since launching, RefTagger has been installed on thousands of sites and helped bloggers and site owners engage readers with the text of the Bible.

The other day we began talking about how cool it would be to have something like RefTagger, only for Twitter. A couple emails, a designer, and one developer later, we launched ref.ly.

Ref.ly is a URL shortening service with a twist. Simply go to ref.ly, type in a Bible verse, and a custom link is automatically generated that you can use to link your friends and followers to the Bible. The added beauty of ref.ly is that the URL structure is really easy to remember, so you can simply create the link on your own. In fact, ref.ly recognizes almost every conceivable Bible referencing scheme, so you can share Matthew 16:18 as http://ref.ly/Mt16.18, http://ref.ly/Mat16.18, http://ref.ly/Matt16.18, or http://ref.ly/Matthew16.18.

Along with an easy to remember structure, you also have the ability to share a single verse (http://ref.ly/Ro8.28), a range of verses, (http://ref.ly/Jn1.1-18), a chapter (http://ref.ly/Ps23), or an entire book (http://ref.ly/3Jn). You can even specify a particular version by simply adding @ followed by the version abbreviation (http://ref.ly/1P2.2@ESV).

With ref.ly you can now help your Twitter followers and Facebook friends engage more deeply with scriptures you reference in your updates.

ref.ly – To the point.

Search All of an Author’s Books

anavarrete — 2009-06-15T03:00:00-08:00

Today's guest post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos training seminars.

From My Library you can initiate a search in all of the books by a particular author.

Right click on an Author's name like Chambers. Select Search All These Resources. When the search dialog opens enter your search query and click Search.

Now you can see what any author including Oswald Chambers has to say about a word, phrase, topic, or Bible verse.

For more tips like this, be sure to visit Morris Proctor’s Tips & Tricks blog or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Seminary Scholarship

rburns — 2009-06-12T03:00:00-08:00

Seminary is expensive. As a seminarian myself, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on tuition, books, and the many other expenses of seminary. During my journey I’ve always been on the lookout for scholarships and creative ways to finance my studies. That is why I am so excited to announce Logos’ latest project, SeminaryScholarship.com.

If you’re a seminarian and are looking for a seminary scholarship, then this announcement will come as good news. In November, just in time for the start of the Fall term, Logos will award its first $1,000.00 seminary scholarship. In addition to the tuition award, the scholarship will include a copy of the Scholar’s Library. The scholarship is open to all seminary students and the application process should take you less than 15 minutes.

If you’re a seminarian, head over to SeminaryScholarship.com and apply today. If you’re not a seminarian but know someone who is, please share the site with them. I’ve included some banner ads below that you can paste onto your website or blog to help spread the word.

Logos Bible Software for Mac 1.1.1 Now Available

Phil Gons — 2009-06-11T03:00:00-08:00

On Monday Apple launched Safari 4, the latest version of their web browser. There are a couple of incompatibilities with Logos Bible Software for Mac 1.1 (specifically with the Exegetical Guide), so we’ve released version 1.1.1 to address these issues.

Version 1.1.1 is identical to version 1.1 with the exception of which version of Safari is required. If you don’t plan to move to Safari 4 yet, then you should stick with 1.1 for now.

If you’re an existing Logos for Mac user, you can download this new version for free by going to Logos.com, signing in, navigating to My Account > Order History, and then clicking on your Mac engine or base package order. At the bottom of the order page, you’ll see a “Files to Download” section.

Click the “Download” link next to the appropriate file to save it to your Mac, make sure Logos for Mac is closed, and then double-click the file to install the update. Follow the instructions, and you should be up and running with the latest version in less than a minute.

If you don’t have a Logos.com account, don’t see the link below your Mac order, or have any other troubles updating, please contact our Mac Customer Service team at 800-875-6467 or macsupport@logos.com.

Update: If you’re running Mac OS X 10.4, you will not be able to install version 1.1.1 yet. We’re working on a fix. In the meantime, you’ll need to stick with Safari 3 and Logos for Mac 1.1. We’ll let you know as soon as this issue has been resolved.

Update 2: Version 1.1.1 now works properly on Mac OS X 10.4 as well.