Logos 5 Lutheran Gold Review Part 2

In Part 1 of my review, I surveyed the resources available in Logos 5 Lutheran Gold. In this Part 2, I will look at how the resources are implemented within the program.

A great strength of Logos is its capabilities as a library management system. With the integration of and hyperlinking between biblical texts and references, a person has a fast and powerful way of studying the Bible and conducting research.

Starting with a biblical text

One of the most often cited passages for summarizing a Lutheran perspective is Ephesians 2.8-9. (And verse 10 should also really be included!)  So if I go to Ephesians 2.8, right click, and choose Reference and then Passage Guide, I get the following.

All those headings can be expanded, but of interest here is the Commentaries which include these from the Lutheran Gold collection:

• Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament, Ephesians and Galatians (1985)
• The Lutheran Commentary, Annotations on the Epistles of Paul to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians (1896)
• Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Ephesians (~1870? - more info on Lange's here)

Once you've opened the commentary you want, it's easy to link the commentary window with the biblical text window so that they scroll together.

Biblical cross-referencing within a resource

As with all Logos secondary resources, wherever there is a reference to a biblical passage, one simply needs to hover the cursor over that reference in order for it to appear in a popup.

Searching for biblical references within a resource

As just noted, since the resources have had all the biblical references tagged, it also means that one can search any resource for any particular passage. Here you can see where I've used a Basic search for Ephesians 2.8 in the Book of Concord and obtained 8 hits.

One can search one's entire library of resources (with all the resources I have, I get 2402 results in 1918 articles in 448 resources) or a sub-library = a collection. Collections can be very helpful. In the graphic below you can see where I used Tools > Collections and then typed in Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament and named the resource ACNT. Searching this collection, I get 19 results in 14 articles for Ephesiasn 2.8.

Further, having created this ACNT collection, I can now click on the Library icon, click on Prioritize, search for ACNT, right click on the list of books and choose to prioritize this series. I moved this one rather high on my list, so now when I use the Passage Guide (cf. above), the ACNT commentaries will be among the first to appear.

Starting with a topic

Regardless of whether a word is found in a biblical text or some other resource, if one wants to do further research on that word/topic, simply right-click on it, and then choose Power Lookup, Bible Word Study, or Topic Guide. Any of these tools will provide access to the host of resources in Logos.

It is also possible to use a Basic search and choose a resource (or collection or entire library) and search for the word / topic that way. (580 instances of "grace" in the Book of Concord.)

As another example, Lutherans are often known for affirming sola scriptura, sola gratia, and sola fides (Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone). A Basic search in my entire library for "sola gratia luther" returns 4096 results in 126 articles in 53 resources, almost all of which are found in the resources in the Logos 5 Lutheran Gold.

Other features of Logos 5

All the other usual features of Logos 5 work with the Lutheran Gold version. Not only is it available for either Win or Mac, I also want to highlight that one's purchase of a Logos 5 library entitles one to use it on two computers (not at the same time) and also makes it available on a variety of other platforms. In particular, free apps can be downloaded for iPhone/iPad, Android, or Kindle Fire devices. One can also access resources on the web at Biblia.com (cf. graphic below) though there is not nearly as much functionality.

SUMMARY

Logos has done a fine job of  packaging Lutheran resources and implementing them in Logos 5 Lutheran Gold. For a Lutheran interested in building a library of Lutheran primary and secondary resources that will integrate with biblical study, it is an excellent choice. As mentioned in Part 1 of my review, the collection lacks Luther's Works, but there are numerous other Lutheran-oriented resources that make this an attractive option. If one is more interested in just working with the biblical texts, it might be worthwhile to look at Accordance or BibleWorks or Logos' own Biblical Languages library. With Logos one could always then add any other Lutheran resources, but the Logos 5 Lutheran Gold provides considerable value in the resources it does include.