When I started at Logos this summer, I was immediately introduced to two tools: Text Comparison and Passage Analysis. If you have Logos and don’t know about these tools, you will be happy you stumbled upon this post. A day has not going by where I haven’t routinely used them in my study of 1 & 2 Thessalonians.

The Text Comparison Tool:

To find this tool, select the “Tools” menu at the top of the program and select “Text Comparison”:

When you select the text comparison tool, a sidebar will appear within the program:

The sidebar will display as many different versions of the Bible you have in Logos/select. Here I have the LEB, ESV, NASB, NRSV, HCSB, KJV, and the RSV selected for 1 Thessalonians 3:1. Whatever passage you happen to be working in, you are able to pull up the different English translations to see how they have interpreted the passage. The advantage to using the text comparison tool is that it doesn’t take up too much screen space, won’t require you to open each individual translation, and can be opened and closed in a matter of seconds.

The second tool I’ve found to be indispensable is the “Passage Analysis.” When you are looking to determine what discourse features constitute a new point, paragraph, subunit, or unit in the Greek text, you might be interested to see how the various translations have divided the text. To get a visual snapshot of this, select the “Tools” menu, and then the “Passage Analysis” option:

The title for each unit as well as the length of the unit is set side by side for comparison. In the above photo, you can see that HCSB, LEB, and NASB believe a division exists at 1 Thessalonians 3:1, whereas the ESV, NLT, and NRSV see it as a continuation of the section begun in 1 Thessalonians 2:17. This tool allows students of the Bible to know where there is unanimity and disagreement over pericope divisions. Though it doesn’t provide the reasons that influenced the translators’ decisions, it will give the student a starting point for further investigation.