This reading list is designed to help an intermediate user to read through the documentation provided by Faithlife as well as gain some familiarity with related resources and tools. For individual study it is simply an order to read through the materials at one’s own speed. For group study, it is broken into weekly readings.
Remember that your feature set may not include all available features. If you lack the documentation for a feature, assume that feature is unavailable – simply skip to the next session.
Biblical entities – persons, places, things, and events
These elements make up the Bible Knowledgebase, the foundation of the Bible tagging and the Factbook.
Week 2 – Biblical Entities
The most fundamental tagging of Biblical texts provides by Faithlife is the tagging of Biblical entities.
Week 3 – More on Biblical People
These resource provide additional information on Biblical People or categorize them in useful ways.
Week 4 – More on Biblical people continued
These resources provide visualizations related to Biblical people.
- Biblical People Diagrams Documentation
- Biblical People Visual Timelines | Limited to Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Paul
- Narrative Character Maps | Limited to Ruth, 1 Kings 1-2, Ezra, Job, Acts in two parts, 1 Samuel, Isaac, Abraham, Jesus before public ministry, Jesus public ministry, Jesus Passion week, and Jacob.
Week 5 – More on Biblical People continued
These resources include additional data in support of searches, primarily lable searches.
A workflow for studying Biblical People is available:
It is also useful to familiarize yourself with the Bible dictionaries, especially those that emphasize the Biblical People. Examples:
Week 6 – More on Biblical Places
These resource provide additional information on Biblical Places or categorize them in useful ways.
Week 7 – More on Biblical Places continued
A workflow for studying Biblical Places is available:
It is also important to be familiar with the atlas resources in your library. They fall into four categories:
Other atlas resources
The Lexham Geographic Commentary series illustrates the use of geographic information in Bible Study.
Week 8 – More on Biblical Things
These resource provide additional information on Biblical Things or categorize them in useful ways.
A workflow for studying Biblical Things is available:
Week 9 – More on Biblical Events
These resource provide additional information on Biblical Events or categorize them in useful ways.
A workflow for studying Biblical Events is available:
Week 10 – Micro-Biblical Events
A number of resources and datasets provide information on very specific events. These generally support label searches; the early ones are supported by an interactive resource.
Week 11 – Micro-Biblical Events continued
Week 12 – Micro-Biblical Events continued
Week 13 – Micro-Biblical Events continued
To compare miracles to the interactive miracles, see the documentation under “about”:
For a more complete view of the use of labels see:
Week 14 – Biblical Events Timeline
A timeline is simply the display of Biblical (and other) Events as distributed across time.
Timeline resources:
Closely related is the annual timeline as defined by feasts:
Conceptual classifications – topics, cultural concepts, preaching themes, theology topics...
The conceptual classifications overlap and are often combined into a single Factbook page or Logos controlled vocabulary item.
Week 15 – Cultural Concepts
These are a common classification scheme used across a range of socialsciences.
The source material can be seen at:
It is adapted for SIL in:
Cultural Concepts are referenced in this guide:
Week 16 – Preaching Themes
Preaching themes are topics intended for use in sermons or lessons. The terminology is evangelical/non-denominational; familarity with the terms allows one to “translate” the teerminology to reflect one’s own tradition.
The Preaching Theme is the base element for these workflows:
The Preaching Theme is a base element for these guides:
Week 17 – Preaching Themes – Thematic Outlines
These are found in the following guide:
- Sermon Outlines | this guide also accepts a reference or a topic (see below).
Recognizing that the distinction between thematic and topical resources is somewhat arbitrary, the related thematic resources include:
Week 18 – Topics – Catholic/Church fathers
An example of a thirteenth century Catholic topical index of the Bible:
The Catholic topical index uses the language of the ancient church andmoves beyond Biblical texts to include church fathers, church documents, ecclesial authors, etc.
The Catholic Topical Index is referenced in this guide:
These resources supplement the Catholic topical index:
Week 19 – Topics – Ancient Literature including Church fathers
The ancient literature data expands to cover ancient Near Eastern literature, Jewish literature, pseudepigrapha, apocrypha, Nag Hammadi, et.al.
The ancient literature data is referenced in this guide:
The Confessional documents begin in ancient literature but continue up to the present day:
The confessional documents data is referenced in this guide:
Week 20 – Topics – General
There is no formal documentation of topics. However, the documentation of the Logos Controlled Vocabulary discusses topics. Unfortunately, there is no documentation on the Unified Annotation Vocabulary.
Topics are referenced in this workflows:
Topics are referenced in these guides:
A feature that has not been seriously utilized allowed users to add web and resource links to topics.
This is an appropriate time to become familiar with some of the topical index resources:
Some topical resources have narrow coverage:
Week 21 – Biblical Theology
Biblical theology has its roots as a separate discipline in the late 18th century as distinct from confessional theology. It became popular in evangelical circles as distinct from systematic theology.
Biblical theology topics are referenced in this guide:
For theological terminology, these resources are useful:
Week 22 – Systematic Theology
Systematic theology is the traditional theology of Western Christianity, present also in Eastern and Oriental Christianity with less emphasis.
Theological topics are referenced in this workflow:
Theological topics are referenced in these guides:
Week 23 – Counseling Themes
Counseling Themes as a base level item in the Factbook sidebar index. There is no other documentation. It’s primary focus is Biblical counseling which reflects a particular theological stance.
Counseling themes are referenced in this guide:
Reference books from a Biblical counseling perspective:
Related reference books from a Catholic perspetive.
The Bible Books Explorer tool forms the basis of the Bible book weeks. They are followed by several detailed datasets that do not require the ability to read the Bible text in the original languages – think rhetorical, literary, grammatical, and semantic elements.
Week 24 – Bible books – overview, genre
- Bible Books Explorer | documentation is under “about”; concentrate on the books view section. There is no documentation for the summary sheet.
Genre analysis:
Genre is referenced in:
The summary sheet shares much in common with this Factbook section:
Week 25 – Bible books – outline and pericopes
Outlines and pericopes are available in separate tools. Note that Outlines is only partially populated, primarily with the more general outlines.
For outlines see:
For pericopes see:
Note that both of these tool use a narrower canon than the Bible Book Browser.
Week 26 – Bible books – intertext
The Bible book browser limits its visual intertext tool to a single resource. That resource uses the short Protestant canon.
Similar data:
Other intertextual data:
Week 27 – Bible books – timelines, liturgical use
Week 28 – Bible books – statistics, lists
- Bible Books Explorer | documentation is under “about”; concentrate on the statistics and List view sections.
Week 29
Week 30