Free iPad Books

Logos “Free Book of the Month” for April – Athanasius: On the Incarnation of the Word of God

Logos Bible Software is going with a historical text for their “Free Book of the Month” promotion. They are offering Athanasius’s On the Incarnation of the Word of God in the Logos library and they will add a free audio version of the book shen production is complete. Athanasius of Alexandria (c. A.D. 296–298 – Athanasius373)  wrote just before the rise of Arianism in AD 319. This is his best-known work and addressed to a recent Christian convert.  On the Incarnation “laid the foundation for the orthodox party at Nicea, was hailed as the noble champion of Christ.” (Mark Galli and Ted Olsen, 131 Christians Everyone Should Know, 18).

This edition was published in 1903 by the Religious Tract Society, although the text first appeared in the third volume of the Christian Classics Series in 1887. T. Herbert Bindley revised that translation and wrote an introduction to the book and a summary of each chapter (about 40 pages). The second part of the book contains a refutation of the Jews and the Gentiles, providing a window into evangelistic apologetics of the fourth century.

Athanasius-of-AlexandriaFor a mere $2 more, you can add Tertullian’s Against Praxeas. Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240) wrote this text to combat the rise of Sabellianism. This edition was published by A. Souter in 1920 by SPCK. The 25-page introduction outlines a basic introduction to Tertullian’s life and includes a brief synopsis of Against Praxeas. 

I notice On the Incarnation is the free Verbum book this month, but for 99 cents you can purchase Historical Tracts of St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria translated and edited by John Henry Newman (the volume contains the encyclical epistles of St. Athanasius).  Noet is giving away a copy of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment in exchange for an email address.

As always, Logos is giving away something related to the Free Book, so you can enter to win Enter to win Life and Works of Athanasius the Great (7 vols., $89.99 value). Enter early, enter often, but the free book offer and contest ends on April 30.

 

Free Books for Logos Bible Software – John Piper, Look at the Book

Look at the BookOnce again Logos is offering something a little different for their Free Book of the Month promotion.  Instead of a traditional book in the Logos format, the free “book” is John Piper’s Look at the Book, a series of 101 short videos on a wide variety of biblical texts.

Look at the Book is a “new online method of teaching the Bible,” in which the camera is on focus on the text, not the teacher. As John Piper speaks, the video shows him “underline, circle, make connections, and scribble notes.” Piper’s goal in the series is to help readers see what he sees and how he sees it.

These videos are accompanied by an outline for Piper’s teaching and a few study questions. Logos has a textbox below the question so you can type your answers which are saved as notes in the book. I could see this resource being used for a personal Bible Study or in a small group (listen to the video then discuss the questions). Since they are all around ten minutes, the videos could be used as a “daily devotional,” but the purpose is to model how John Piper reads the Bible. After hearing a few of these videos, the method can become your own as you read the text and mark your Bible in similar ways. Although there are a few Old Testament examples, most of the videos are based on New Testament texts.

Here is a screenshot of the video and the outline in my Logos setup:

Piper Capture

For $1.99, you can add Finish the Mission: Bringing the Gospel to the Unreached and Unengaged (Crossway, 2012), a collection of seven essays by  David Platt, Louie Giglio, Michael Ramsden, Ed Stetzer, Michael Oh, David Mathis, and John Piper. “Finish the Mission aims to breathe fresh missionary fire into a new generation, as together we seek to reach the unreached and engage the unengaged.”

Noet is a division of Faithlife focusing on classics and they still have Guide for the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides and his The Eight Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics  for only 99 cents. This free book has not changed lately, hopefully someone at Faithlife will notice and change the free book soon.

Like every other month, the Logos Free (and almost free) Book of the Month is accompanied by a give-away, in this case the Crossway John Piper Collection (39 vols.), a $359.99 value. There are many ways to enter, so if you ever had the desire to own everything John Piper published through Crossway, now is your chance!

Fitzmyer the-impact-of-the-dead-sea-scrollsVerbum is offering The Impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Joseph A. Fitzmyer and a collection of essays by Fitzmyer, Interpretation of Scripture for only 99 cents. Fitzmyer is a well-known New Testament scholar and has written extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Both are excellent additions to your Logos Library.

Both Verbum and Noet is part of the Faithlife family of companies. Verbum focuses on Catholic resources and Noet on classics. Both use the same Faithlife account as Logos, so these books are available to anyone with a Faithlife / Logos username and password.

Logos “Free Book of the Month” for January 2016 – The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus

Sarna ExodusLogos Bible Software is offering an excellent book for their “Free Book of the Month” promotion, The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus by Nahum Sarna. Sarna served as the general edited of the series published by The Jewish Publication Society (with Chaim Potok as the literary editor). Sarna’s commentary on Genesis was published in 1989, Exodus appeared in 1991. From the introduction to the Commentary series:

In the last century, a new way of looking at the Bible developed. Research into the ancient Near East and its texts recreated for us the civilizations out of which the Bible emerged. In this century, there has been a revival of Jewish biblical scholarship; Israeli and American scholars, in particular, concentrating in the fields of archaeology, biblical history, Semitic languages, and the religion of Israel, have opened exciting new vistas into the world of the Scriptures. For the first time in history, we have at our disposal information and methodological tools that enable us to explore the biblical text in a way that could never have been done before. This new world of knowledge, as seen through the eyes of contemporary Jewish scholars and utilizing at the same time the insights of over twenty centuries of traditional Jewish exegesis, is now available for the first time to a general audience in The JPS Torah Commentary.

In addition to this free book, Logos is also offering an “almost free” book, the JPS Commentary on Jonah by Uriel Simon. The commentary is only $1.99 for a limited time. Logos also offers a contest to win the eleven volumes of the JPS TANAKH commentary series for your Logos library. That is a $399.95 retail value, so enter early and often.

Noet is the Logos Library for classics but the Noet free book this month ought to appeal to biblical studies as well: Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed.  Although this book is 900 years old, Maimonides anticipated many of the critical questions we still wrestle with today. Books purchased through Noet are added to your Logos account and available on any Logos platform (desktop or mobile device). Enter to with the fifty-seven volume Medieval Philosophy Research Library (including The Major Works of Anselm of Canterbury (4 vols.); Select Works of Moses Maimonides (5 vols.); Summa Theologica: English and Latin Bundle (30 vols.); The Desiderius Erasmus Collection (17 vols.))

The Free book promotion expires January 31 so head over to Logos and download the free book while you can!

 

Logos Free Book – Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7

LuzThe Logos Bible Software “Free book of the Month” is Urlich Luz’s excellent Matthew 1-7  in the Hermenia series from Fortress Press and for a mere $1.99 you can get the second volume (Matthew 8-20).  These volumes retail for $75 each! Luz taught at Göttingen University and the University of Bern in Switzerland until his retirement in 2003 and is one of the premier interpreters of Matthew.

Typical of the Hermenia commentary series, this is a highly detailed exegetical commentary which interacts fully with the text of Matthew as well as the best in critical scholarship. Luz provides detailed bibliographies for each pericope, analyzes the structure and redaction history (especially important for the Sermon on the Mount). The exegesis often takes into account the history of interpretation (see, for example, on the “Golden Rule” in Matthew 7:12). He concludes with a “meaning for today” section.

As is typical, Logos is running a giveaway- the entire Hermenia series (nearly $1400 retail!) This includes not only the Hermenia volumes, but the Continental commentaries that fill out the Hermenia series. This one is worth entering as many times as they allow!

Sacra paginaI noticed only recent Logos gives away free books through Faithlife’s Verbum brand as well. This month they offer Wilfrid Harrington’s Revelation in the Sacra Pagina series for free, and John Donahue & Daniel Harrington’s Mark commentary in the same series for only 99 cents. The Sacra Pagina is written by the best in Catholic scholarship, but this should not limit their usefulness Luke Timothy Johnson on Acts in this series is excellent, I have used Richard’s commentary on 1-2 Thessalonians in the series and found it very useful.

Faithlife also has a Classics brand, Noet. They are giving away Caesar’s Gallic War. This is the two-volume Loeb Classical Library edition and includes both the Latin text and an English translation by H.J. Edwards. It is an older translation (and available around the Web in various forms). If you have the Perseus Project through Logos, you may already have this set. For 99 cents you can add Caesar’s Civil Wars to your library as well. You can enter a giveaway through Noet this month for the entire 20-volumes of Pliny’s Natural History in the Loeb Library.

All of these books are usable on any Logos platform (PC, Mac, mobile devices, etc.) You can build your Logos Library up with several excellent resources for very little money this month, so click the links and download the books!

 

Logos Free Books – Gary V. Smith and Walt Kaiser

Amos, Gary SmithThe Logos Bible Software “Free book of the Month” is Gary V. Smith’s Mentor Commentary on Amos published by Mentor in 1998. The book was originally published by Zondervan in 1989, this is a “revised and expanded” edition. In the preface, Smith says the revisions are some developments in his own thinking about Amos especially as it relates to the “Sociology of Knowledge.”

You may recall Gary Smith’s recent Interpreting the Prophetic Books (Kregel, 2015) which I reviewed in May, or his commentary on Isaiah in the NAC series from Broadman & Holman. After this Mentor commentary was published, he contributed Hosea, Amos, Micah in The NIV Application Commentary  (Zondervan, 2001). He has also contributed sections on Isaiah and Esther in Jason DeRouchie, What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About (Kregel, 2014).

In addition to the free book, Logos is offering Irvin A. Busenitz ‘s Mentor Commentary on Joel & Obadiah for only $1.99. Busenitz was at Talbot Theological Seminary before becoming a founding member of The Master’s Seminary. This commentary was published in 2003.

Both Smith and Busenitz represent conservative voices on the prophets, so there is little in these commentaries discussing sources for the prophecies or potential revisions (such as those suggested by Wolff in his Hermenia commentary on Amos, for example). Smith gives a brief overview of composition theories for Amos and conclude these theories risk “stripping the heart” from the message of the prophet. With respect to Joel, Busenitz dates the book early, about 860-850 B.C., although he does recognize there is no “easy solution” to the complex problem of dating this particular prophet. Likewise, he dates Obadiah to the reign of Jehoram and before Jeremiah rather than the later Exilic date.  Both commentaries represent careful exegesis from a conservative perspective from scholars who are experts on the Hebrew language.

Kaiser, Promise-PlanBe sure to get both books during the month of September and enter the contest to win all 16 volumes of the Mentor series ($370 value).

As a bonus, Zondervan is also giving away a book in the Logos library: Walter Kaiser’s The Promise-Plan of God (Zondervan, 2008). This is a “biblical theology of the Old and New Testaments.” Like Goheen and Bartholomew’s The Drama of Scripture (Baker), this is a college level textbook which offers an overview of the story of the whole Bible. Anything Kaiser writes is worth your attention.