After browsing through the socio-historical commentary of John's gospel written by Craig S. Keener and comparing it with the pastoral and concised one written by F.F Bruce, I cannot help, but conclude that I am more inclined to the types of commentaries that are related to the former.
Maybe this is because of my natural inclination towards historical subjects. I find commentaries that merely describe systematic theological interpretations of the verses uninteresting and 'dry'.
Though I understand that this is merely my own subjective preference, I have no qualm to say that commentaries that take into account of the socio-historical contexts would be able to provide meanings that are closer to the original meanings of the texts as understood by its original audience.
Maybe this is because of my natural inclination towards historical subjects. I find commentaries that merely describe systematic theological interpretations of the verses uninteresting and 'dry'.
Though I understand that this is merely my own subjective preference, I have no qualm to say that commentaries that take into account of the socio-historical contexts would be able to provide meanings that are closer to the original meanings of the texts as understood by its original audience.
Comments
u mean the 2-volumes Keener on John??
I wanted to get it here but too expensive for me.
Lucky you! :)
but so far, only catholics publish literary commentries..
check it out: berit olam series and sacra pagina..
you know of any other such series, let me know..hehe
but books to read bible literarily, a lot..
Looks like a literary commentary is pretty close to what we do in applied linguistics. (This is the field that I was trained in which sparked my interest in the first place.)
I guess socio-historical analysis coupled with applied linguistics would be a good combination to produce commentaries that hopefully would stay true to the meanings of the events, the author and his text.