From January 13, 2020 to June 4, 2020 I had the honor of doing the revised edition of BI101 Introducing Bible Interpretation. Frankly, BI101 the Logos 5 edition was one of the very first courses I obtained back in 2013 and I have completed it many times. The revised version stripped out the Logos Pro Screencasts of which I absolutely love and adore because it has helped me tremendously complete tasks with Logos Bible Software.
I would give Dr. Heiser’s education and job at this point but I did that for another course so I will not do it here. I had read Dr. Heiser is now a Children’s minister working in a church in Florida.
In all the courses I have seen from Dr. Heiser to include BI101 he starts with Obstacles to Interpretation and says we need to be aware of all these obstacles when we study. They are presuppositions, author, reader, medium, meaning, translation, precedent, context, relevance, and validation. He will explain what all these mean in the course so I am not going to explain them here since I have a limit on the amount of words I may use.
In one of our readings from Grasping God’s Word the author’s touched on the topic of Covenant and that is a topic I am currently revising myself by reading Kingdom Through Covenant. I used to be dispensational but after college I disbanded that belief and started investigating the topic of Covenant for my own edification and for my own theology I would say is right in the middle of dispensational and covenant theology.
Dr. Heiser next turned to Context. Throughout the entire course he reminded us that Context is King. But he says context is competency and everything the biblical authors wrote contribute to what they are trying to communicate. Heiser talked about Historical, Cultural, and Religious contexts.
Dr. Heiser turned to worldview, literary, and linguistic context and that takes us to the end of the course where he talked about application and gave his conclusion.
However, in the worldview context he gave us tools that are helpful for context. Primary Sources, Reference Works, Academic Monographs, Bible Commentaries, Journals Articles, and Digital Resources. With commentaries he talked about Devotional, Expositional, and Scholarly Commentaries.
For literary context he talked about genres of the bible in the Old and New Testaments to include the difference between prophecy and apocalyptic.
For linguistic context he talked about word level and working at it with word-level analysis.
In the Logos 5 edition of BI101 there are screencasts from the Logos Pros. These screencasts have been stripped from the revised edition. But over time I have enjoyed the Logos Pro screencasts and was disappointed to see them taken out in the revised edition.
Those screencasts are practical and extremely helpful and frankly I have used them to learn about Logos Bible Software things I would never have learned in any other way. I search the pros name to find the training from Mobile Education they have done and do those segments over and over until I am a master of the information and how to do things with the software. It is very unfortunate when a Mobile Ed course does not have those training videos from the Logos Pros. I highly recommend Faithlife produce Logos training videos from the Logos Pros for every Mobile Education course.
If I remember correctly, Todd Bishop did the training videos in the Logos 5 edition. The training videos were in line with the course segments. Things Dr. Heiser talked about Todd showed a great way to collect and investigate those things. In the revised edition users will now need to figure those things out themselves. It is my experience Logos Bible Software has a learning curve, and the Logos Pro videos are immensely helpful to take away that curve.
Dr. Heiser said his task was to alert us to various obstacles that we will run into as interpreter’s. He said that seeing the biblical text is more than just reading it. I read the bible every day of every year. But then I study a book using the techniques Dr. Heiser teaches and consider all the obstacles and contexts he mentions. I am grateful for Logos Bible Software to help with that task. I could do the same task with print resources, but it would be terribly slow and tedious. Logos Bible Software has revolutionized bible study for the church. And for that I am grateful.
- Glad you enjoyed the course. I wanted to quickly address the screencast issue you brought up. I'm sorry you are disappointed that the revised version of BI101 doesn't include screencast videos. A number of years ago we decided to start including Activities resource with all our courses instead of screencasts. These resources include a number of "Challenges" that are meant to replicate what the screencasts provided. These challenges are mostly text based, but they do link to more general screencast videos (as well as the Logos Help resource) showing how to use the specific aspect of Logos needed to complete the challenge. One of the main reasons for the change is because of how often the software changes. The screencasts you mentioned were made for Logos 5, and, while some of them may still be applicable, much of what they show would not be helpful for new users (and if fact, would be confusing). Updating screencast videos for our courses every time a new version of Logos is released is a nearly impossible task (we have over 260 courses now), and selling courses with videos showing a six year old version of the software isn't ideal (we are in the process of updating our older courses to include Activities resources). The Challenges in our Activities resources may not be quite as helpful as original screencasts scripted and recorded specifically for a course, but they are much easier to update since they are primarily text with links. Also, they do not need to be updated as frequently since the text of the challenge typically still works even if how the challenge can be completed changes. The Activities resources also offer additional places for you to reflect on what you have learned from each segment.
- I understand Miles and for the first couple of courses I have completed in the certificate programs I have failed to use the activities folder for now, but in about 4 more months courses I do I will complete the activities folder. Truth is those screencasts for earlier versions still apply, but I will give the activities book a chance later this year.