LOGOS Bible Software

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PuritanCovenanter

The Joyful Curmudgeon
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Can someone explain to me why you would want Logos Software? I downloaded it because I have been looking for a few Table Talk back issues from the early 90's. But the prices are so bloated it is ridiculous in my estimation.

I can get the books for 50 dollars less. Bavinck is cheaper by the book than for the software from Logos.

Is the software user friendly? What is so appealing and why do people pay so much to use this software?


Reformed Dogmatics, 4 volumes


$200.00 $100.00
(You save$100.00) from Reformation Heritage Books

$149.95 for the Software from Logos
 
1st, they usually sell the digital at around resale value. Second they offer discounts quite regularly. Third, they have to do the word often of digitalizing older texts so by charging at a profit on newerbooks, it allows them to have the resources to put out older works in an integrated and searchable format that is reliable, fast, and has a good user interface unlike so many pdfs out there. Fourth, Groups like RHB are NON FOR PROFIT, LOGOS has made it clear that they are not a ministry. They are a business. They exist to allow ministries of any sort to use their product. They enable secularists, Reformed, Lutheran, Roman Catholics, to a smaller degree Mormons (in the foreseeable future), etc. Some people do not like this, but such is life. I have no problem with it.

Publishers permit the books to allow to be put on the platform, so they are limited in how much they can charge.
 
I use Logos mainly for the time it saves me. I have over 7000 resources in my library, including some 800 years worth of academic journals. When I write my exegesis papers for my seminary courses the time saved is incredible. The last paper I wrote for a class with Dr. Kistemaker I used 15 sources that would have taken me hundreds of hours to find and use and cite if I used paper resources, with Logos this was accomplished in minutes. I got a 100 on the paper and he commented on my outstanding use of sources. This alone makes the software worth every penny of the thousands of dollars I have invested.
 
I've been on the Logos 4 boat since about January this year, I waited quite some time to upgrade, but am glad I did. The prices vary depending on the resources, for the best deals I recommend "community pricing". So far this year I've acquired:

The Works of the Rev John Howe (3 vol) $10
The Works of David Clarkson (3 vol) $15
The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks (6 vol) $12
A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (2 vol) $10
The Whole Works of Thomas Boston (12 vol) $45
The Works of William Paley (4 vol) $15

If you know of somewhere to buy the same books for less in print, please help a brother out! The free PDF's from the internet archive are really not comparable. For me at least, trying to read through Internet Archive PDF scans (Ages Software "clean" PDF's are fast) on my puter is painfully slow, and not always easy to read for whatever reason, be it faded text, stains, ink blotches, the font, etc. Logos is fast and the texts are clear and easy to read, and Scriptures in texts are linked, which can save loads of time. Although PDF's are searchable, there really is no comparison, when you can search through entire collections of works at one time and get results for all of them fast. An issue I have with PDF's in general has to do with copying and pasting text. If you copy from a PDF and paste it into MS Word, you'll have to do some formatting to fix the text. With Logos, it is easy to copy and paste til one's heart is content and without any need to re-format the text. And once a person has a text in Word format, it's easy to convert to whatever format a person wants. Finally, it is nice to have them together under one hood, rather than having to click individual files.
 
I have a question. Is this software more for reference material? How do you get Bibles on it? I hit bible and it took me to some online site.
 
I use Logos (also WordSearch 10) and find it very spiffy on my new laptop with a solid state hard drive. You are correct, Logos is bloated and I cannot believe the speed improvement on my new laptop. The main benefit I have found over WS10 is that Logos offers many more books in electronic form than any other Bible tool software publisher and I can access them all on any browser, too, at biblia.com. Also nice is that some big-ticket items (e.g., Nicene Fathers collection) I have bought on their convenient monthly payment plans.

AMR
 
I have a question. Is this software more for reference material? How do you get Bibles on it? I hit bible and it took me to some online site.
No, it is for the full spectrum of resources: bibles, lexicons, interlinears, reference material, grammars, etc. The version you installed of Logos should have come with at least one or two free bibles, e.g., KJV. The comparison between various packages is found here: http://www.logos.com/comparison


You get other bibles by buying them: bibles - Logos Bible Software

 
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