Review in: Interpretation
2010 64: 186
Review door: Sharon
H. RingeGevonden op: http://int.sagepub.com/content/64/2/186.full.pdf+html
Luke
by Richard B. Vinson Smyth and Helwys, Macon, 2008.792 pp. $67.00 (cloth).
ISBN 978-1-57312-078-4.
To CALL THIS VOLUME A COMMENTARY so undersells it as to be an
inaccurate label. It is that and much more. Like any good commentary, this one
begins with a concise introduction to the biblical book. That introduction
addresses such issues as historical setting (date, audience, provenance, and
sources), literary design or structure, and theological themes of the book as a
whole. Richard Vinson does not attempt to break new ground in these
explorations, but to bring readers to an understanding of the state of current
scholarship and to prepare them for an informed study of the Third Gospel.
The commentary itself addresses the entire text of the Gospel
according to its logical divisions, whether or not these follow the traditional
chapter and verse designations. This distinction is crucial to the critical
reading Vinson hopes to foster, which involves an immersion in the Gospel's own
logic and patterns. The "commentary" section examines the language,
the history reflected in the text, and the literary forms by which the meaning
is conveyed, to the end of exploring the theological issues presented by a particular
passage. Each passage is also examined through a set of "connections"
that presents approaches and resources useful for teaching or preaching on the
passage.
Both the
"commentary" and the "connections" sections are
strengthened through a system of "sidebars"—a hyperlink format that
guides readers via appropriate icons to additional information and insights
that include drawings, photos, literary quotations (both ancient and modern),
maps, charts, and prints of art works that have interpreted a passage. That
same format is carried through on the enclosed compact disc in a form that is
fully searchable and able to be projected to accompany teaching or as a
resource for worship.
The format and the
multimedia resources provided for each text have moved this commentary from its
more traditional forebears into a new genre that is immediately accessible for
teaching in the contemporary academic or church setting. Many of the charts,
diagrams, and drawings or art reproductions that students take for granted, but
that teachers have to spend hours tracking down, are already present in this
volume and its companion disc. For that reason alone, this book is worth adding
to one's library.
What I find even more important is the author's sensitivity
to the ancient social and cultural world of this Gospel and of the time of
Jesus, and his gift of making clear and vivid the impact the proclamation of
Jesus would have had on those contexts. Furthermore, he transcends the bounds of usual academic biblical studies
by exploring those implications for the contemporary North American (or Western
European) context as well. The commentary is thus at once informative and
provocative. While I do not often read commentaries as I do books, from start
to finish, this one kept pulling me forward to the next section. In addition to
being a valuable reference volume, it is simply a good read.
While I will use this commentary in my exegetical
courses on Luke, what keeps me from an absolutely unqualified endorsement of
this book as a textbook is the careless copyediting. More than a mechanical
spell-checking program is necessary to catch the misuse of homonyms and other
syntactical errors. While in this case, those errors do not invalidate Vinson's
excellent work, they risk conveying to students the conclusion that such
concerns are unimportant in their own work. That is a lesson I do not want to
teach, either in itself or as an appropriate response to the elegant and
careful scholarship of Luke, and otherwise of Vinson.
Sharon H. Ringe
WESLEY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten