Free iPad Books

Free Book from Logos – Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall

Creation and FallLogos Bible Software has another nice selection for their “Free Book of the Month” promotion. This month they are partnering with Fortress Press to offer volume three of the Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall. This volume is a new translation by Douglas Stephen Bax based on the German edition edited by Renate Bethge And Ilse Tödt. The 224 pages hardback edition retails at $40, although a paperback and Kindle edition is available.

Creation and Fall was originally a series of lectures on Genesis 1-4 given by Bonhoeffer at the University of Berlin (Winter, 1932-33). The series editor John W. De Gruchy comments ” It was a winter of profound discontent in Germany; it was also a time of confusion, anxiety, and, for many, false hope, as social and political upheavals led to the demise of the Weimar Republic and the birth of the Third Reich. In the midst of these events Bonhoeffer called his students to focus their attention on the word of God as the word of truth in a time of turmoil” (1).

Logos is also offering an “almost free” book: volume seven of the Bonhoeffer collection, Fiction from Tegel Prison, translated by Nancy Lukens and edited by Clifford J. Green. Bonhoeffer spent eighteen months at the Tegel Prison before being moved to the Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in October, 1944.  The text of this collection is drawn from Bonhoeffer’s own handwritten manuscripts of an incomplete drama and novel. This material may be unfamiliar to readers of more popular works such as Ethics or The Cost of Discipleship. The short story was not published until 1970 and the drama and novel not until 1978. Of these stories, Bonhoeffer said “There is a good deal of autobiography mixed with it.” Since these incomplete stories were written in his final years in prison, they offer an insight into Bonhoeffer’s heart in those difficult years. This book is a great value at 99 cents for the month of August.

As always, Logos is offering a chance to win the complete 16 volume collection of  Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, valued at well over $400 in the Logos library. Actually, since the giveaway uses PunchTab, you get 24 chances at the collection. The free/almost free book deal runs through the month of August.

Logos “Free Book of the Month” for July – Hans Iwand’s The Righteousness of Faith According to Luther

InwaldLogos Bible Software is offering another nice little in their “Free Book of the Month” promotion.  Partnering with Wipf & Stock this month, Logos is giving away a copy of Hans J. Iwand’s The Righteousness of Faith According to Luther (Wipf & Stock, 2008). Hans J. Iwand (1899-1960) was professor of theology at Gottingen and Bonn. This translation of the 1941 Glaubensgerechtigkeit nach Luthers Lehre was made by Randi H. Lundell. According to the W&S catalog, the book “is an important contribution to contemporary appreciation of Luther’s theological significance for today. Although Iwand wrote his study three decades after the beginning of the Luther Renaissance, it nevertheless developed some of the central insights of Luther scholarship during that period.”

In addition to this free book, Logos is also offering an “almost free” book, Brett Muhlhan, Being Shaped by Freedom: An Examination of Luther’s Development of Christian Liberty (Wipf & Stock 2012). Robert Kolb of Concordia Seminary says  “This refreshing analysis contributes significantly to our understanding of the holistic view of Christian righteousness fashioned by Luther’s distinctions of law and gospel and of two kinds of human righteousness.” Muhlhan contents that we can confidently affirm that Luther did indeed get Christian freedom right and that he did not fail to live by the implications of this radical theology (from the cover). The book is only 99 cents for a limited time.

The give-away this month is also Luther-related: Select Studies in Martin Luther’s Life and Influence, Part 1 (15 vols) from Wipf & Stock. The print versions of these books would run well over $300.

 

The Epistle to the Hebrews, Ceslas Spicq

SpicqThere was one other bit of Logos Bible Software news I wanted to pass along. Logos is preparing an English translation of Ceslas Spicq’s two-volume commentary L’Épitre aux Hébreux (1952-53)If you have done any work in Hebrews, you know Spicq’s commentary is constantly cited.  His detailed discussion on the relationship between Hebrews and Philo is foundational for later studies.

Logos has listed the translation of Spicq’s commentary as a “pre-pub” special. This means if you pre-order the book, it is only $39.95. But Logos does not produce the book until they have sufficient interest. Spicq’s Hebrews commentary is “almost there,” but there are not quite enough pre-orders to begin work. The book is very difficult to find and expensive to purchase even if you do find a copy for sale, so $39.95 is a reasonable price for the first English translation. Anyone working in Hebrews should invest in this book and encourage Logos to produce more original translations like this.

Logos is also working on Aquinas’ Commentary on Jeremiah and Isaiah but there are other important works I would love to see translated to English, such as Adolf Jülicher, Die gleichnisreden Jesu (Mohr Siebeck, 1888). Ideally, it would be fantastic if Logos could not only publish the electronic version of these books, but also a short-run print version (perhaps through Wipf & Stock) so traditional libraries can add them tot heir collections.

Any other suggestions for Logos as a publisher of translated works?

Logos “Free Book of the Month” for June – Walter Brueggemann

Spirituality in the PsalmsLogos Bible Software is offering another nice little in their “Free Book of the Month” promotion.  Partnering with Fortress, Logos is giving away a copy of Spirituality of the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann. This 96 page book was originally released in 2001 in the Facets series and is an abridged version of his Message of the Psalms.  Brueggemann is an engaging writer who has written often on the Psalms, so this is a welcome addition to any Logos Library.

David's TruthIn addition to this free book, Logos is also offering an “almost free” book, Brueggemann David’s Truth: In Israel’s Imagination and Memory (Amazon). This is the second edition, published by Fortress in 2002 as an update to the 1985 edition. The second edition permitted Brueggemann to interact with several recent monographs on David. As he says in the introduction to the second edition, Brueggemann was moving away from historical criticism in that first edition toward “rhetorical and sociological dimensions of interpretation.”

The book is only 99 cents for a limited time. Be sure to enter to win a 24 Book Walter Brueggemann collection ($399 value!)

 

Classic Commentaries on Mark from Logos Bible Software

Logos Bible Software has a great deal on 24 “classic commentaries” on Mark. The current community price bid is $30 for all 24 volumes, so a lilttle more that a dollar a book.  Logos has produced a good number of these “classic” sets, providing a good value on resources that are not readily available. By getting in on the community price bid, you can get the books for far less than they will cost later.

By classic, they mean old (published between 1860–1954). Some of these are not particularly valuable; I am not sure I would purchase Arthur Ritchie’s Spiritual Studies in St. Mark’s Gospel even at a dollar a volume. (Ritchie was the rector at St. Ignatius’ Church in New York at the end of the 19th century and wrote several multi-volume “spiritual studies” sets.)  There are commentaries from Lyman Abbott and William Kelley; both were of interest when they were published but are quite dated. Some of the commentaries are of historical interest, however. Leicester Ambrose Sawyer’s First Gospel, Being the Gospel according to Mark (1864) is an interesting insight in to the state of Mark and Q studies int he mid-19th century.  Benjamin Bacon’s Is Mark a Roman Gospel? (Harvard University Press, 1919) is well worth a browse as well.

Marie-Joseph Lagrange

Marie-Joseph Lagrange

An added value for some scholars will be several foreign language commentaries. In French, the collection includes Marie-Joseph Lagrange (Évangile selon Saint Marc, 1935). Lagrange was the founder of the École Biblique in Jerusalem as well as the journal Revue Biblique in 1892.

There are three German commentaries as well. Reading these in the Logos format will be much easier since older German books were printed in the older letters (Fraktur). There are three German commentaries in the collection, including Julius Wellhausen’s Das Evangelium Marci übersetzt und erklärt,originally published in 1903. While Wellhausen is better known for his OT studies, this commentary on Mark is a significant contribution since he argues the priority of Mark against the hypothetical “Q” document. Another name associated with OT studies is included August Klostermann (Das Markusevangelium nach seinem Quellenwerthe für die evangelische Geschichte, 1867). Finally, the collection has a commentary by Bernard Weiss (Die Geschichtlichkeit des Markusevangelium, 1905).

Is the set worth $30? I think that it is, since I might have paid that for Lagrange and Wellhausen alone if I ran across them in a used book store. Head over to Logos, browse the list and decide for yourself.