Speculative connections with literature

This is a list of the current and forthcoming commentaries in the Hermeneia series. For more series, see my post on commentary series

The Hermeneia series is noted especially for its comprehensive attention to parallels in other literature. This will almost invariably involve many speculative connections with literature not necessary for interpreting the biblical text and just amounts to distraction. A number of these commentaries are absolutely excellent and in fact the scholarly standards on their respective books (e.g. Psalms 51-100, Song of Songs, Amos, I Peter. Others are outdated or eccentric (most notably John and the earlier Bultmann I-III John), and such books might be better served by other commentaries.

It uses the original language and will be harder to read by those unschooled in Hebrew and Greek, but there is usually a translation of any non-English, which makes it much easier than some other series. Even though it's more detail than necessary in most cases, some of these volumes really are the best detailed exegesis of the book they cover, and I'll indicate some of those when I do the review of commentaries for each book. In most cases, scholars will need to refer to them, but expositors will not. The series is still very much in process in the Old Testament, with only one volume on the historical works in print, and that was just this year. The prophets and wisdom literature have much better coverage, and the NT is much further along. Non-canonical books also appear in this series.

One misleading element of the following lists is that many volumes are translations of German or French works, and the delay between the original and the Hermeneia translation is sometimes more than a decade. Some of these are much older than they seem to be from the date given, which is the date of its release in English translation in this series . Others were new works produced in English. Volumes out so far: Continue reading... - Jeremy at 09:30 AM Comments (2) TrackBack (0)