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theLAB

The Logos Academic Blog

How Can You Make Logos Even More Helpful for Academic Work?

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by J. David Stark, PhD

Logos is an incredibly useful tool straight out of the box (or off the website). But as with any tool, it can take some time to get to know it well and use it better.

As an academic user, you’re also coming to Logos from a specific angle. Your context uniquely shapes how you want to use the tool. And as with any craft, you can produce better results by learning to use your tools better.

So, I’d like to share 12 ways that you can make Logos even more helpful for your academic work.

And if you read through to the end, there’ll be an additional free resource pack for you too.

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Definitively Destroyed: The Bible’s Not-So-Mysterious Teaching on Hell

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by Christopher M. Date

“What does God say about hell?” asks Kris Brossett, kicking off his two-article series on the topic.1 Brossett proceeds to survey the three historic Christian views of hell—eternal torment, conditional immortality, and universalism2—and commendably, he avoids offering readers simplistic, misleading caricatures of the two alternatives to the more historically dominant view (eternal torment). Brossett begins his second article equally commendably, rightly observing, “None of the positions I’ve examined in Part I deny [hell’s] existence. Instead, ‘they differ on what hell is like.’”3 This kind of honest representation of controversial views is refreshing;4 proponents of such views are accustomed to being terribly misrepresented.5

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The OUP Handbook Interviews: Timothy Lim on the Dead Sea Scrolls

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The Oxford University Press Handbooks are renowned as go-to volumes for students and scholars alike when embarking on research in new topics, or for seasoned scholars who desire efficiency when seeking to grasp the essential bibliographies for any number of issues within biblical and religious studies.

The second interview in our series is with Timothy Lim, Professor of Hebrew Bible & Second Temple Judaism at the University of Edinburgh, and editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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The OUP Handbook Interviews: John Collins and Apocalyptic Literature

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The Oxford University Press Handbooks are renowned as go-to volumes for students and scholars alike when embarking on research in new topics, or for seasoned scholars who desire efficiency when seeking to grasp the essential bibliographies for any number of issues within biblical and religious studies.

Over the next few weeks, the Academic Blog will publish a series of interviews with the editors of a number of the OUP Handbooks, which have just been made available for pre-order on Logos.

Our first interviewee is John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University, who is the editor of the OUP Handbook on Apocalyptic Literature.

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Hell: What Will You Infer? (Part II)

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by Kris Brossett

In Part I of Kris Brossett’s series he discussed three views of hell, including Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT), Annihilationism/Conditional Immortality (ACI), and Christian Universalism (CU). In this second section, Kris investigates the biblical evidence to analyze these three positions according to his matrix of “mysterious” and “definitive.”

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African Hermeneutics: Extensive Interview with Elizabeth Mburu

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I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Elizabeth Mburu about her fascinating book on biblical interpretation, African Hermeneutics (Hippo Books/Langham Publications). In this groundbreaking work, she lays out a fresh interpretive methodology, rooted in the rich soil of the African experience. I highly recommend our readers get a hold of this book and digest it slowly, even as the work is a delight to read thanks to her considerate prose.

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Why Verbal Aspect Improves Preaching, Part 3: Case Study

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By Donald C. McIntyre

See also Part 1 and Part 2.

A Case Study in Matthew 2:1–12

There are forty-seven verbal forms in this pericope; all but 10 verbal forms are perfective aspect. Of those ten forms that are not perfective, one is stative, two are future, and the remaining six are imperfect or present tense. Porters method combines the aspect found in the tense of the verbs with associated elements that are attached to the mood. Applying his theory will begin with the most basic argument of his theory, that imperfective aspect is “defined foreground” information, and then proceed to his views on the perfect tense, where he finds the aspect to be stative, and “well defined foreground information” for discourse purposes. The analysis will end with a discussion of Porter on mood before explaining the future tense, since Porter does not give the future tense an aspect but leaves it as a mood of expectation. It should be noted that since the aorist is “main line” to the discourse, the aorist tense verbs should be seen as the basic plot structure, which is slowed down by the foregrounding devices.

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Why Verbal Aspect Improves Preaching, Part 2: Emphasis

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Image: © Tavis Bohlinger

by Donald C. McIntyre

See also Part 1

Verbal Aspect has the Ability to Show Points of Emphasis and De-emphasis

In Porter’s analysis of Philippian 2:5-11 the two verbal forms which are not in the perfective aspect are the imperative φρονεῖτε, “Have this mind,” and ὑπάρχων, a present participle “to be,” in vv. 5 and 6a. In this case, Paul is issuing a command for the Philippians to imitate the mind of Christ, which is described through the hymn in two parallel structures revolving around secondary clauses (vv. 6 and 9a in S-C-P order) which are supplemented by two secondary embedded clauses (vv. 7a and b, and 9b and 10, S-P order), and a final secondary embedded secondary clause (vv. 8 and 11, C-S order).1

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Why Verbal Aspect Improves Preaching, Part 1: Apprehension

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by Donald C. McIntyre

Verbal Aspect is Critical to an Accurate Apprehension of the Text

Verbal aspect theory arose to prominence in 1989 and 1990 with the simultaneous work of Stanley Porter and Buist Fanning, who both sought to show how linguistics could further effect exegesis of the Greek New Testament (GNT).1 Upon the publication of the dissertations, a debate sprang forth between the two views, with Dr. Fanning’s views being more conservative to previous methods, and Dr. Porter’s being a hard break from previous grammatical theory. Thirty years later, their works are still cited in all relevant works on the subject.

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Paul and the IOG: Interview with Chris Kugler

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What’s your background (academic and otherwise) and how did that prepare you to write Paul and the Image of God?

I grew up in a small, charming town in Tennessee, USA, where I fell in love with Bible and Theology during my undergrad (a BA in Religious Studies) at Lee University. From there, my wife and I hopped around a bit–from Tennessee to St Andrews for an MLitt in Bible, to Duke Divinity School for a ThM in New Testament, and then back to St Andrews for a PhD in New Testament with Tom Wright.

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