New Testament Commentary List

[Jaltus]

Don't ask. I've been working on a paper for Schnabel (which is where I am reading my other Silva book), but the OT paper is up next. I only have 5 pages left on the one I am writing, so it should be done Sunday. That means I start OT on Monday and hope to have 5-10 pages done before going back to classes.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

[QUOTE=Jaltus]
This is a list of the New Testament commentaries recommended by TWeb... Every time you buy...

Now for those of us who are poor and want to read a commentary written in koine Greek by someone who spoke koine Greek and who lived just after the Roman persecution of Christians came to an end [when a lot of writing came forth - It's really hard to be "published" during persecutions... It's the Lions, you know, and the tortures, and such...] you can find a fair amount of commentary online at:

http://www.chrysostom.org/writings.html

Matthew: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-10/

The Beatitudes: http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/read...matthom15.html

The Lord's Prayer: http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/read...matthom19.html

John: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-14/

Acts: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-11/

Romans: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-1....htm#TopOfPage

I&II Corinthians: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-12/

Galatians, Ephesians, Phillipians, Collosians, Thessalonians, I&II Timothy, Titus, and Philemon: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-13/

Translations and typological qualities are a tad varied, but the price is right, and the vintage is not the latest fad, but the teachings of the Church of the fifth century - And the early fathers were all about 80% or so right... And Saint John Chrysostom was one of the best - He has an intimacy with the works of Paul that modern scholarship, unable to even speak koine Greek, let alone have it as their native language, in which they think and speak, cannot even begin to approach.

Much of the Modern Greek Church still conducts its services in Koine Greek, and most of the prayers of the Church in it are in koine Greek.

So consider this an alternative free source of commentary...

Your mileage may vary - I love these commentaries...

geo-Arsenios

[djconklin]

... modern scholarship, unable to even speak koine Greek, ...

One of my profs would tell us to get out our Bibles and we could tell by looking at the binding and thickness of his that he was using the Greek NT Bible. Many NT profs could do the same.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

geo: "... modern scholarship, unable to even speak koine Greek, ... "

One of my profs would tell us to get out our Bibles and we could tell by looking at the binding and thickness of his that he was using the Greek NT Bible. Many NT profs could do the same.

There are some who can do this, but the NT Bible is of such a limited and well known mein that all the verses in it are far too well known to give difficulty to any competent NT scholar... They are all old hat...

In Greece, in Thessalonika, and Athens too, I believe you can take a NT course given in spoken Koine, and you read all the commentaries in Koine, and you write your reports in Koine, along with all the other modern Greeks...

And yes, you are right, there are competent NT scholars who can read Koine with fluency. Thinking in it and speaking in it and composing in it is another matter...

I sure can't... But if I was seriously headed into NT scholarship, I would head to Greece... And learn Greek, whose thought structure is still predominantly koine Greek, even if in the modern Greek language. And go to a Greek university that teaches some of it's NT courses in spoken koine Greek...

geo-Arsenios

[djconklin]

Can't speak for all seminaries but I think most require all their master's and doctoral candidates to take Greek and hebrew.

The prof I mentioned above pointed out that if we spent as little as 15 minutes a day one can read it quite well. There's only about 1,000 to 1,500 words that compose most of the NT (I'm working on a list that has 125+ words in it that are in both the Greek NT and in English) and then you just have to know the hapax's!

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Can't speak for all seminaries but I think most require all their master's and doctoral candidates to take Greek and hebrew.

The Greek makes sense, for the Christian Bible was written in Greek, and the Hebrew Bible is a later document written by the diaspora of the Jews.... It is not the Bible from which the lxx was translated [by Jews].

The prof I mentioned above pointed out that if we spent as little as 15 minutes a day one can read it quite well.

He is an optimistic child! 15 minutes a day will get you going on vocabulary, once you get the alphabet enbrained, but even that does not get you the vocabulary, because the Greek uses words that frequently don't translate into English all that well... Plus, it is easy to plug in your theological understanding into the text to translate a word, rather than just looking at the Greek, and the reason it is so easy is that when you look at a passage, you remember it from having read it dozens of times in English, so you can tend to look at the Greek as a prop for what you already are thinking...

And if you really want to pass into the beyondos, I understand that there is now a Protestant Lexicon out that only translates the Greek in terms of its NT usage, as understood by Protestant scholars, where the ordinary usage of koine Greek of the time of the writing of the NT is ignored, on the theory that it is the Bible that defines the meaning of the terms used in the Bible...

There's only about 1,000 to 1,500 words that compose most of the NT (I'm working on a list that has 125+ words in it that are in both the Greek NT and in English) and then you just have to know the hapax's!

I took Greek as a kid in my 20s at SDSU under Dr. Ted Warren in the philosophy dep't, and we studied Attic Greek, the high Greek of the height of Greek culture, the culture that produced Alexander, who brought Greek to the Hebrews, and the world, and prepared the way for the NT to be written in Greek. I was an athiest at that time [till I was 36], and scorned the common street Greek of the NT - I would not lower myself to read it. [Lord have mercy!] And it is not easy to master, because it is mostly a head trip, without having the voice working together with the mind... Even the two guys from Athens had trouble once the class figured out the alphabet, for the ancient Greek of Attica is hard for even modern Greeks to understand, for Modern Greek is a derivative of Koine, and has been produced by a Christian culture [Greek] that worships to this day in the language of the Koine Greek of the New Testament.

There is nothing to compare with Greek Orthodox liturgical worship in the ancient Tradition of the Church in Greek. I listened to an Eldress [of Greek women monastics] once praying the Lord's Prayer [Pater hmwn o en tois uranois...] at a baptism in our Church, and I could not follow the Greek words, nor did I need to, for I found myself rising with them in ways that I cannot even describe.

I have just never understood why it is that serious Greek New Testament scholarship does not learn spoken koine Greek - Or why they do not hire Greek speaking teachers of it in their universities... I wonder if they even hire Jewish scholars to teach Hebrew...

If I had the time, I would learn to speak Modern Greek, so that I could then read aloud and understand its older ancestor, koine Greek, in an oral tongue with which I was thereby familiar...

Yet even the crusty and sagacious Carl Conrad of B-Greek mein has never learned to speak Modern Greek... And he can read and understand virtually any Greek placed before him, from Homer on...

Aah, well, enough!

geo-Arsenios

[djconklin]

djc: The prof I mentioned above pointed out that if we spent as little as 15 minutes a day one can read it quite well.

He is an optimistic child! 15 minutes a day will get you going on vocabulary, once you get the alphabet enbrained, but even that does not get you the vocabulary, because the Greek uses words that frequently don't translate into English all that well...

The 15 minutes a day is _AFTER_ one has taken the courses in Greek.

djc: There's only about 1,000 to 1,500 words that compose most of the NT (I'm working on a list that has 125+ words in it that are in both the Greek NT and in English) and then you just have to know the hapax's!

I have just never understood why it is that serious Greek New Testament scholarship does not learn spoken koine Greek - Or why they do not hire Greek speaking teachers of it in their universities...

One of the Greek teachers was from Greece, if I remember how to spell her name correctly: Elly Economou. I lived in her house for a couple of quarters.

The only way I could memorize the vocabulary words was to pronounce them, which we were taugfht as well.

[S. Howard]

I was a bit disappointed not to see Craig Keener on the list.

Craig Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Eerdmans.

________, The Gospel of John, 2 vols, Hendrickson.

[Jaltus]

Keener's Matthew is not that great, though his GoJ is much better. I wrote the list before I had read that commentary.

[TheAnalogman]

Jaltus, How do you like "Epistles of John" by I. Howard Marshall? Anything to look out for? Also, in a different note, Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. Good stuff, or no?

Thanks.

[Jaltus]

Frei's work is very helpful.

Marshall's Epistles of John is pretty good, though his intro is a bit brief. I think his choice of genre for I John is incorrect, but then that is not too big of a deal.

[TheAnalogman]

I think his choice of genre for I John is incorrect, but then that is not too big of a deal.

Can you explain a bit further?

Thanks again.

[Teluog]

Anyone familiar with Martin Lloyd Jones?

[Jaltus]

Anyone familiar with Martin Lloyd Jones?

Yup.

[Teluog]

Yup.

Is he any good? I have my dad and two uncles who really like him. My two uncles say that he's so good that he's really the only guy you need to learn from. I just want some other opinions on him.