Shame on you logos.com for this atrocious campaign to give away “luxury” Bibles. You make me want to puke. American Christianity has sunk so low that Bibles are a fashion statement and we give them away like sexy cars or a weekend trip to the Bahamas. Booooooo! Boooooo!
Yesterday I had students begging me for a copy of the Portuguese NIV Study Bible. If they only knew that people in America are spending the equivalent of several months salary on yet one more Bible when their shelves are already sagging from the weight of an endless collection of devotional Bibles and study Bibles in colors to match your every Sunday outfit and target each and every consumer niche.
I call on logos.com to repent and cancel this campaign. Stop pouring water in the ocean. Get your heads out of your spreadsheets and fulfill your mission to make God’s word accessible to the world.
HT: Mike Aubrey
I did notice that despite your criticism of Logos.com, you did manage to give them a plug and enter into the contest yourself.
Logos.com is a privately held for-profit corporation. I doubt that many of your African students can afford Logos software (do many of them even own computers of recent vintage, or have access to high-speed broadband Internet?)
(However, the Brazilian Bible Society is reportedly developing a Logos-based Portugese electronic library.)
The blogger community seems to value “giveaways” and contests more than they value philanthropy. Indeed, most bloggers who will blog about books and gifts that they are given free. Some even go out of their way to request free samples — promising reviews and publicity in exchange.
(I refuse to blog about gifts, because I think such postings are inherently biased. Every book, software, or gadget I blog about is something I bought with my own money.)
If you wish to change Logos.com’s behavior, you’ll need to change the behavior of your fellow bloggers. If bloggers posted favorably and recommended products where the company showed great philanthropy, things might be different.
—–
Frankly, the leather-binding fetish is quite odd — we have updates of translations every few years NLT, HCSB, ESV, NIV updates — as well as the flavor-of-the-month phenomenon that you mention. Why get a fancy binding for a Bible you will put aside in a few months or years? And, hardcover books are frankly easier to use — they open flat.
I’m just looking forward to the KJV enjoying a resurgence for its 400th birthday — that particular translation seems to be a little better than most at resisting the current cuthroat 5-year update cycle.
I don’t feel a need to buy a new edition of a cookbook or a dictionary or a classic work of literature just because a brand new shiny version has been released. I have yet to see any credible study suggesting that Biblical knowledge today is more widespread among Americans than it was 10 years ago, 50 years ago, or 100 years ago — despite the plethora of shiny new editions.
I most certainly did not enter that contest. And if this is a plug…
I have been at work for several days creating a Bible library in Portuguese using the Portable Apps BPBible App. I have had to create the PT interface myself and use “illegal” versions of Bibles but my students are really excited about having a copy of this.
I am dead serious that logos.com should cancel this giveaway. Somebody needs to grab a whip and clear the temple courts of hustlers like this.
What I really hate is how long and hard I have to dig around trying to decide whether you’re pulling my leg again, and I’m still not even close to sure.
If you’re pulling my leg then, “Good one. You got me.” This blog post definitely would not be a “winner” by their buzz-generating methodology, though I didn’t go through the nuisance of looking for your Facebook and Twitter and … accounts. When Theophrastus calls you on it and you say you’re dead serious, I have to take you at your word.
If you’re not pulling my leg, then I’m not quite sure what leg you’re standing on. The money-changers at the temple were not just getting rich, they were getting rich leveraging the means of grace – they were extorting the only path to God. Selling a luxury bible in America is hardly the same as failing to sell a cheap bible in Mozambique, and $100-$240 is hardly extortion – especially not in America. But Logos is just partnering with bible publishers on a giveaway of products they don’t even manufacture, sell, or profit from.
Ananias’ and Saphira’s sin was not holding back the money, but lying about having done so. Logos is charging a reasonable price for expensive materials (software developer time, not bibles) and doing so quite honestly.
So the problem comes down to someone, somewhere should be providing bibles for Mozambique and you’ve decided to land in the middle of Logos’ back with cleats on your feet. Of course, they market Bible software and give away access to some kind of content in Portugese. I don’t know anything about SBB except your unhappiness with them, but Logos software seems to be supporting them, and Portugese is one of the 12 languages Logos software supports. Then it’s also pretty cool that they’ll allow enterprising young men such as yourself to configure their software for ANY language, and make your work available to the world.
I’m not sure I understand your gripe with Logos, or, like I said, you got me.
Logos may do some wonderful things but this give-away stinks to heaven. It is a blind endorsement of the excessive materialism that saps the American church of its strength, resources and vision. It just so happens that I’ve been trying to cobble together scraps of Scripture for my Mozambican students (despite SBB) so I blew a fuse.
Fuses are cheap, and that’s what they’re there for.
I’ve watched brothers suffer before (nothing like what you’ve seen) and I know how it hurts. Thank you for standing in the trenches there, and using the tools you have. May the Lord open a door for you and for them.
Here’s Logos on the subject. They’re not bible translators, but they do produce bible study software. They cannot create a Portugese translation, but this is what they do:
http://www.logos.com/world#help
Maybe this is off-target from your rant, so I’ll keep my ears open.
Hi David, I can certainly understand your frustration. I’m not opposed to people paying a little more for nicer paper, good binding and a durable cover but a number of the luxiary versions are definitely a bit much. Perhaps you should challenge the whole affluent lifestyle an not just those that cater to it. There are people who’ll pay $800 for a pair of shoes so why wouldn’t they pay $230 for a luxiary Bible. (I’d rather logos.com got some extra profit out of the rich than raised the price further on products aimed at those with a lower income). Also I’d encourage you to rethink the comment about American Christianity, only bits of it have sunk as low as you imply, (shame that they get so much press).
Thanks, Peter.
I have just been thinking I need a good study Bible to use during our home group studies. It won’t be a goat skin covered luxury addition. Thank you very much!
Walmart has NIV Study Bibles for about $12. Or at least they used to…
I enjoyed the Princess Bride reference, but seriously, dude. The more expensive the Bible, the bigger the profit margin, the bigger the chunk of cash goes from the publisher to support Bible translation. (At least Zondervan and Tyndale support translation, I don’t know about the other publishers.) Is your objection that the money spent on luxury Bibles should go straight to translation instead? If Christians’ spending habits were determined for us by some command-and-control committee, that might work; until then, people will continue to be “consumeristic” (i.e., they will purchase things they derive enjoyment from), and we should be happy that such attitudes can benefit translation.
Maybe my picture is inaccurate–I don’t know.
I don’t buy your argument for one minute. Dropping a penny in the plate doesn’t purchase our forgiveness. The bigger beef here is with a culture of unholy consumerism, this is just a specific instance. Even Lazarus got scraps at the rich man’s door. But that didn’t excuse his feasting. Or keep him out of hell.
Sorry I falsely accused you of entering the contest. Your inclusion of the official advertisement and your link to Logos looked like an entry to me. Obviously I was mistaken.
However, I would not claim Logos.com had a “mission” other than to generate profit.
[...] Logos.com hawks luxury Bibles while the world starves for God’s Word [...]
the very minute they produce a luxury Hebrew Bible or Greek New Testament, I’ll get me one! Someone has to keep the world’s economy going. It isn’t going to be Nigeria (unless the corrupt there can stop feuding over oil or they get a lot of stupid people to answer the spam emails- neither of which seems likely).
that said, i understand what you mean and where you’re coming from. i just think you’re picking on the wrong people (and no- i am not in the logos contest either and neither do i have a link to them on ye old blog. i’m still mad they’re dragging their feet on the dss module).
the employees at logos are doing an honest days work and like many companies, they’re in it for profit. but so are you. when you ask churches to fund your work you understand that it can’t be done without money. software can’t be produced for free either.
in other words, everyone is for sale – or we would all simply sit around and have our hands our for whatever the government gave us- on welfare.
producers deserve wages. you can’t muzzle an ox when it’s treading out the grain. even if the ox is logos and the grain is a small profit.
Spot on man. Nothing makes me sicker than followers of Jesus grafting luxury onto their religion.
David, I understand and sympathize with the goal of hijacking English Bible publishers’ PR campaigns to draw attention to communities where the Word is scarce. Keep doing that.
But whence the fury? You and every commenter on this thread are the rich man to Lazarus. We all have luxurious lives of privilege. Your high speed internet connection is a luxury, the time you spend blogging is a luxury (you know, the people who support you thought they were giving money to something holy)–but I don’t think you should be ashamed of those luxuries.
Yeah, you’ve got a point there.
“Your high speed internet connection is a luxury, the time you spend blogging is a luxury”
Actually its not. In Africa and around the world, large portions of their population (especially the tech savvy youth like in US) have internet cafes and spend time online. Everybody has extra time when they’re not working to use these normal things.
Computers, the internet, and time are not luxuries. The poorest of the poor do not have access to these things, but a good portion of the world does.
Currently we have high speed Internet but no running water. So I can download large files off the Internet when I’m not carrying buckets of water to the bathrooms!
[...] in their income from donations, or from selling at a large profit the kinds of luxury Bibles which make David want to puke. There are also complex issues of the independence of national societies: the United Bible [...]
I wonder how many sheepskins were used in the production of Sinaiticus?
WAIT: I just looked it up. From the fount of all knowledge (the Wikipedia) comes this little tidbit:
“It is estimated that about 360 animals were slaughtered for making the folios of this codex, assuming all animals yielded a good enough skin. As for the cost of the material, time of scribes and binding, it equals the life time wages of one individual at the time.”
Seems like luxury Bibles have been around for a while and it used to have been much worse!
I can’t believe you’ve joined us on the Dark Side.
Well, I couldn’t find it in Britannica.
Bear in mind that the 360 animals would surely have been killed anyway for their meat, and that their skins would have been waste products if not used for making parchment or similar products. Of course the demand for parchment was sufficient that the skins came to command a high price, but that doesn’t mean that any animals were harmed just “for making the folios of this codex”.
But that still doesn’t explain mss like codex Palatinus that has silver letters written on purple-died vellum. But I think the main difference between pre-Guttenburg and now is that all copies were luxury Bibles, there was just simply no way to make a cheap Bible.
Davis, I suppose Codex Palatinus was made for a king or similar. I didn’t say there was no such thing as a luxury Bible. But I dispute that all Bibles were luxuries. Sure, they weren’t cheap. But some were probably made as cheaply as possibly, e.g. those using reused waste parchment (palimpsests). And I would strongly object to the suggestion that possession of the word of God, in a basic edition however expensive that might be, is a luxury in the sense of being unnecessary or a waste of money.