I’ll need to start following that other blog of yours; it looks quite interesting. Not counting coursework and my thesis (I’m working on the temple in John, BTW), I’ve only once worked all the way through a biblical book with a commentary (Revelation, with a commentary by Bauckham), but it was very illuminating. I think it’s high time I do so again; thanks for inspiring me! Maybe Dunn’s BNTC commentary on Galatians….

Victor Furnish. Anchor Bible: 2 Corinthians.

I’m going to add that to the post as an update as well.

This commentary is part of my project of studying through every book of the Bible with at least one critical commentary. By “critical” I mean one that takes account of critical issues. I’ve used volumes from NICNT, ICC, AB, Hermeneia, OTL, Apollos OT Commentary, and so forth. The problem with getting the task done is that I tend to go pick up another commentary on the same book and run through it again, thus slowing my progress. I do the books in no particular order. In studying through at a minimum I read the text in the original language, actually read the commentary, and follow issues that catch my interest.

I blog about some of it. You can see my posts on 2 Corinthians thus far here. These actually started before I was working with the commentary. Issues like 2 Corinthians 5:21 made me move 2 Corinthians up on my list.

Just for interest, the next closes book was Raymond Brown’s Introduction to the New Testament. In my office there would be greater variety. Right now in my office working from nearest out, I’m seeing an NRSV Bible, an REB, a Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, a Holladay Hebrew lexicon, my Nestle-Aland 26th edition (for reasons I can’t recall, since it’s not my regular reading Greek testament). I have to decide which way to turn at that point–further left is Kurt Wise’s Faith, Form and Time, while in the other direction we have my wife’s book Grief: Finding the Candle of Light. So if I followed the procedure others have used, and skip over Bibles, I guess it would have been Faith, Form, and Time or Grief.

Interesting meme, eh?

It is an interesting epistle, though, isn’t it? Last year our Advanced New Testament Exegesis course focused almost exclusively on 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1 – whether it was really written by Paul, a source he made use of, a later addition, perhaps even a fragment of an unknown Dead Sea Scroll, and what is actually being argued in it, etc. (if you wonder how a prof could justify spending a whole semester on just 6 verses, he did get his PhD from Tubingen. Leave it to the Germans…)

Anyway, thanks for playing!