That Lutheran Guy

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Revelation Commentary Reading Update

http://www.ww7.com/BeastsOfRevelation/images/7headedBeast-only-AlbrechtDurer.jpg
7 Headed Beast by Albrecht Durer

Greetings,

Maybe I feel this way because I'm not a lettered clergyman, maybe I am getting dumber as I get older but I just shoveled my way through another chapter. I always end with the Lenski commentary because it is the most challenging. I used to read it and think 'scholarly' and now I am getting to think 'pedantic'.

It would be sufficient for him to have said that a certain word or words is nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, aorist, participle, etc - but he has a tendency to use terminology like 'punctilliar aorist' and so on which is fine if you are a scholar of language but a bit heavy handed if you are not. I find I generally agree with his theological conclusions thus far but feel a bit like the soldier who is dragged over barbed wire by a comrade on his way to the field medic.

When my purse affords it, I am hoping the new Revelation commentary recently published by the LCMS bridges the gap between the People's Bible commentary with it's entry level simplicity and Lenski's with its overdetailed treatment. Lenski (IMHO) does great when he waxes more devotional and theological but gets mired in the details when he handles the Greek.

TTFN,

Jim

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