Well, I suppose I haven’t been quite as communicative as I might have been about what is going on here in South Carolina. Let’s catch up!
Recently, I was given several books to review for the Journal of Modern Ministry. Most of them are tomes! It is taking quite a while to wade through them. One is Stein’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark—the one I’m currently going through. What’s a tome? Well, this commentary is over 800 pages long. So, you get the idea. So far, I have two observations to make:
- It seems thoroughly conservative
- It seems verbose in places, often making a point of the obvious.
I just finished Goldingay’s First of a three-volume set on the Psalms. It is also verbose—much more so. And it is definitely not conservative! While here and there you may find a nugget in translation or some observation, you certainly don’t want to follow a commentary that doesn’t even find Christ in Psalm 2, or makes Him only use Psalm 22 to describe His situation. This is one to avoid!
I also just finished the Three Views on the Use of the Old Testament in the New volume by Zondervan. I found it mind-stretching, tough going and interesting. I approved wholeheartedly of Kaiser’s views, partially of a Bock’s and not of Enns.’ Throughout, however, you had to think. That’s probably good for me.
I have another to review as well—a commentary on the epistles of John. I peeked into it at some crucial places and found that I disagreed with the interpretation. But it also seemed conservative, so far as I could tell by this sneak preview.