Software Sale: Word Biblical Commentary Set — Save at Least $800 on WBC

Right now, the Word Biblical Commentary set is on sale at Logos, Accordance, Olive Tree, and WORDsearch software retailers.

If you act now, you will save at least $800. This is a very steep discount—you pay an average of just $6.56 per volume!

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Browse at Logos - 66% Off

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How will the Word Biblical Commentary help you?

The WBC series will help you build deeper theological understanding from a solid base of biblical scholarship. Gain a thorough understanding of the Bible through historical, textual, linguistic, structural, and theological discoveries collected within the series—equipping you with balanced insight into the meaning of the biblical text.

• WBC has more #1-rated volumes than any other commentary series (source: BestCommentaries.com, view the top commentaries)
• You get world-class scholarship from nearly 50 scholars, including Richard J. Bauckham, William D. Mounce, Gordon J. Wenham, John E. Goldingay, Richard N. Longenecker, and many others
• These are the leading scholars of our day who share a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation

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Excerpts from Word Biblical Commentary

Misguided Convictions about Daniel – From WBC: Daniel by John E. Goldingay

What assumptions should we bring to [Daniel] regarding the nature of the stories and the origin of the visions? Critical scholarship has sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly approached the visions with the a priori conviction that they cannot be actual prophecies of events to take place long after the seer’s day, because prophecy of that kind is impossible. Conversely, conservative scholarship has sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly approached these visions with the a priori conviction that they must be actual prophecies because quasi-prophecies issued pseudonymously could not have been inspired by God; it has also approached the stories with the a priori conviction that they must be pure history, because fiction or a mixture of fact and fiction could not have been inspired by God.

All these convictions seem to me mistaken.

I believe that the God of Israel who is also the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is capable of knowing future events and thus of revealing them, and is capable of inspiring people to write both history and fiction, both actual prophecy and quasi-prophecy, in their own name, anonymously, or—in certain circumstances—pseudonymously.

It was excusable for Pusey…to think that pseudonymity makes the author a liar and must be incompatible with being divinely inspired. It is less excusable now we know that in the ancient world, and in the Hellenistic age in particular, pseudonymity was a common practice used for a variety of reasons—some unethical, some unobjectionable—for poetry, letters, testaments, philosophy, and oracles, and by no means confined to apocalypses… That pseudonymity is a rarer literary device in our culture, especially in religious contexts, should not allow us to infer that God could not use it in another culture. Whether he has actually chosen to do so is to be determined not a priori but from actual study of the text of Scripture. I shall consider these questions in the Form sections of the commentary.

– John E. Goldingay

The Avalanche of Sin – From WBC: Genesis, 1-15 by Gordon J. Wenham

The ancient [Near Eastern] background to Gen 1—11 shows it to be concerned with rather different issues from those that tend to preoccupy modern readers. It is affirming the unity of God in the face of polytheism, his justice rather than his caprice, his power as opposed to his impotence, his concern for mankind rather than his exploitation. And whereas Mesopotamia clung to the wisdom of primeval man, Genesis records his sinful disobedience.

Because as Christians we tend to assume these points in our theology, we often fail to recognize the striking originality of the message of Gen 1—11 and concentrate on subsidiary points that may well be of less moment. But an examination of the wider context of Gen 1—11 within the book itself, and the structure of these chapters, does, I believe, emphasize the centrality of these [following] themes in the opening chapters…

The opening chapters of Genesis describe an avalanche of sin that gradually engulfs mankind, leading first to his near-annihilation in the flood, and second, to man’s dispersal over the face of the earth in despair of achieving international cooperation. Gen 3 describes how man’s first sin led to alienation between husband and wife and expulsion from the presence of God in Eden. Chap. 4 tells how Cain murdered his brother Abel and how Cain’s descendants further degraded mankind by their barbaric behavior. Chap. 6, the sexual union of women with the sons of God, is the last straw; the ultimate boundary between deity and the human family is breached, and the first creation returns to the watery chaos that characterized the earth before the separation of land and sea.

Noah, in many respects a second Adam, head of the new humanity and recipient of the renewed commission to fill the earth and subdue it, makes a more promising start… Yet he succumbs to wine, and his son Ham acts most dishonorably toward his father Noah, attracting to himself and his descendants a curse that was to be reflected in their future history. For from Ham descended Israel’s arch-foes, such as Egypt, Assyria, and the Canaanites (9:24-27; 10:6-20). Finally, the tower of Babel demonstrates the folly of the most illustrious civilization and religious system of the day. Their attempt to reach up to heaven is the acme of folly and prompts mankind’s dispersal over the face of the globe. Without the blessing of God the situation of humanity is without hope: that seems to be the chief thrust of the opening chapters of Genesis.

But the promises first made to Abraham in 12:1-3 begin to repair that hopeless situation…

– Gordon J. Wenham

Paul’s “Cutting” Remarks – From WBC: Galatians by Richard N. Longenecker

5:7 “you were running well. Who cut in on you to be keeping you from obeying the truth?” While the first half of this section on “Holding Fast to Freedom” is, as Betz notes, a “highly condensed section,” the second half beginning with v 7 “is freer, appearing like a rambling collection of pointed remarks, rhetorical questions, proverbial expressions, threats, irony, and, climaxing it all, a joke of stark sarcasm” (Galatians, 264). In effect, having argued and exhorted at length, Paul now brings his treatment of the Judaizing threat to a close with this loose collection of comments and remarks.

The figurative use of an athlete running in a stadium to represent living one’s life is frequent in Paul (cf. 2:2; also 1 Cor 9:24-27; Phil 3:14; 2 Tim 4:7; Acts 20:24). Such athletic imagery for life was common in the ancient world… The verb [translated as] (“hinder,” “thwart,” “block the way) in the context of a race suggests tripping or otherwise interfering with a runner, which inevitably had to do with one runner cutting in on another as they ran and so impeding the other’s progress… In the foot races of the Greek festivals there were rules against tripping or cutting in on an opponent…just as there are today. Thus Paul asks his Galatian converts: “Who cut in on you to be keeping you from obeying the truth?” The question, of course, is rhetorical and calls for the same answer as the question of 3:1, “Who bewitched you?” In both cases it was the Judaizers…

5:12 “as for those who are troubling you, O that they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.” Having concluded his treatment of the Judaizing threat…Paul now adds an additional, sarcastic comment meant to caricature and discredit his opponents…

Greek commentators consistently translated [the key feature of the sentence] as a term for self-mutilation. John Chrysostom, for example, read v 12, “If they will, let them not only be circumcised, but mutilated,” … And most modern translations view the verb in this fashion as well…

Latin commentators, however, treated the expression more ambiguously… So many have understood “cut off” in terms of a withdrawal from the churches or self-imposed excommunication rather than emasculation… W. M. Ramsay, in fact, mounted a rather vigorous attack against understanding Paul here as using such “foul language” as castration or mutilation, simply because such a “scornful expression would be a pure insult, as irrational as it is disgusting” (Galatians, 438; see also 437-40).

Yet as insulting and disgusting as it may seem, Paul’s comment should be understood as a sarcastic way of characterizing the Judaizers and his attitude toward them, as most modern commentators recognize (so, e.g., Lightfoot, Burton, Mussner, Betz, Bruce). Indeed, it is the crudest and rudest of all Paul’s extant statements, which his amanuensis did not try to tone down… Underlying the sarcasm and crudity of the comment, however, is paul’s understanding of circumcision as purely a physical act without religious significance (cf. 5:6; 6:15), which when done for societal or physical reasons is acceptable but when done either to gain acceptance before God or to achieve a more acceptable lifestyle becomes simply bodily mutilation (cf. Phil 3:2)…

Two dangers threatened Christian freedom in Galatia: the first was the acceptance of Jewish nomism as a lifestyle for Gentile Christians, which in effect brought one right back to the basic question of whether righteousness was to be gained by “works of the law” or by a response of faith to “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ” (cf. 2:16); the second was the corruption of the Christian life by reliance on “the flesh” rather than “the Spirit.” The most immediate danger was that of Jewish nomism, which was brought in from outside the church by the Judaizers. So Paul deals with that first and most extensively in 1:6—5:12…

Most often Galatians is viewed as the great document of justification by faith. What Christians all too often fail to realize is that in reality it is a document that sets out a Christ-centered lifestyle—one that stands in opposition to both nomism and libertinism. Sadly, though applauding justification by faith, Christians frequently renounce their freedom in Christ by espousing either nomism or libertinism, and sometimes (like the Galatians) both. So Paul’s letter to the Galatians, though directly relevant to the Galatian situation, speaks also to our situation today.

– Richard N. Longenecker

Don't wait, beacause this sale ends May 22, 2017! Here are the deals:

Browse at Logos - 66% Off

Browse at Olive Tree - 67% Off

Browse at Accordance - 73% Off

Browse at WORDsearch - 67% Off