N.T. Wright on My Computer

I have been benefiting lately from the wisdom of N.T. Wright. His For Everyone series now covers every book of the New Testament, with each passage being preceded by Wright’s own translation of Scripture.

I describe the series here. And here I review the Luke volume in further detail. In this post I’ll review the usefulness of the series in Logos Bible Software, both on an iPad and on a computer.

Logos syncs automatically across multiple devices and platforms. Its iOS app for iPad is one of the apps I use the most. It’s just recently received a nice makeover. It looks like this:

Here’s how I set up Wright in the app. You can sync the two windows of the app so that they move together, passage-by-passage. I.e., if I advance the Bible text in the top window, the commentary at the bottom follows.

You’ll also note that you can highlight as needed, which then shows up in Logos on any other device, almost instantaneously. The pop-up is a note I took (“Even if we know what’s coming, we’re surprised”) on this section of Wright’s commentary. Notes also sync automatically.

You could also view the Passage Guide for a given portion of Scripture and see all of your commentaries and resources (which would include Wright, in this case) with information on the passage to be studied. The Passage Guide stays open at the top while the bottom window cycles through various commentaries as you tap the selection in the Passage Guide.

The desktop/laptop version of Logos offers even more options for using Wright side-by-side with other resources:

The little “C” at the bottom left of each of the book images shows that I’ve linked resources together, so that they scroll in tandem. In the above, I can work through English and Greek texts, with Logos’s clausal outlines and Wright’s commentary all open. The other tabs to the left and right of Matthew for Everyone are other commentaries to consult. I have all of the above saved as a workspace called “Preach Matt,” to which I can come back at any time.

One feature I appreciate is that if I type “John 1:1” into the search window of one of the Bible texts, the N.T. Wright window automatically goes to Wright’s commentary on John, even though it’s a different book in the set. And you can see that my highlight and note from iOS automatically came over to this version.

In general I find Accordance commentaries a little easier and quicker to search with their specific content fields (where you can search by reference, by English content, by Greek content, etc.). But the command (or control) + F search box gets the job done just fine in these commentaries. (For more on searches and content fields, see the discussion on the Logos forums here.)

I write more in depth about using Logos for a commentary series here. I’ve found Logos to be more responsive on a PC laptop (and it seems to index less) than on a Mac laptop.

Whether it’s through iOS or at a computer, I recommend N.T. Wright’s companionship through the Bible. The print volumes, of course, do just fine, but the Logos edition of Wright’s commentary set has some nice features that enhance study of the New Testament and use of the For Everyone series.