How’s Bruce Waltke Commentary on Genesis
It’s on sale at $15 and change, so I was wondering how good it was. One review says he doesn’t believe in a literal creation for Genesis 1-2; kind of like Walton. But what about the rest of the commentary? Is it any good?
DAL
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DAL said:
It’s on sale at $15 and change, so I was wondering how good it was. One review says he doesn’t believe in a literal creation for Genesis 1-2; kind of like Walton. But what about the rest of the commentary? Is it any good?
DAL
I have it but to be honest I haven't looked at it. Did you want a sample? From what I can tell from internet he isn't a 6-day guy but let Ligonier finds it useful...
https://creation.com/disappointing-discourse
https://www.ligonier.org/blog/top-5-commentaries-on-the-book-of-genesis/
https://www.gty.org/library/blog/B150217/evangelical-syncretism-the-genesis-crisis
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Thanks, Matillo! I think I’ll save my money. I have the commentaries that are better than Waltke’s volume.
DAL
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His Old Testament theology was fantastic, especially in connecting with the background of the ANE.
I'm sure his Genesis commentary is just as good. Highly recommended as an author and biblical scholar.
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Talking about samples: Matillo, can you please post his comments on Noah’s nakedness?
Thanks!
DAL
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DAL said:
Talking about samples: Matillo, can you please post his comments on Noah’s nakedness?
22. saw his father’s nakedness. The Hebrew rāʾâ here means “to look at (searchingly)” (Song 1:6; 6:11b), not a harmless or accidental seeing. Rabbinical sources think either that he castrated his father or that he committed sodomy. However, they are guilty of adding to the text. Some are guilty of special pleading as they argue that the text has been purged of earlier sordid details. Probably just Ham’s “prurient voyeurism” is meant (see Hab. 2:15). His voyeurism, however, is of the worse sort. Voyeurism in general violates another’s dignity and robs that one of his or her instinctive desire for privacy and for propriety. It is a form of domination. Ham’s, however, is perverse, for his is homosexual voyeurism. Worse yet, he dishonors his father, whom he should have revered in any case (Ex. 21:15–17; Deut. 21:18–21; Mark 7:10), and then increases the dishonor by proclaiming it to others. Ham’s brothers thought it sin merely to look at their father’s nakedness and took every effort not to do so. In a Canaanite epic reflecting the ideals of that world, Baal prays that El his father will bless a certain Daniel with a son “who takes him by the hand when he’s drunk, carries him when he’s sated with wine.” Noah’s leaven of exposing himself spreads to Ham’s homosexual, parent-dishonoring voyeurism and will sour fully into Canaan’s rampant sexual perversions so that the land will vomit them out (see Lev. 18:24–30; Deut. 12:29–32).
23. took a garment … would not see their father’s nakedness. The narrator highlights the honorable character of Shem and Japheth with the elaborate description of their actions. “The shameless sensuality of Ham, the modesty of Japheth and Shem, marked a difference in common morality.”
Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 149.0 -
I consider Waltke a very dependable scholar. Anything he does is worth study.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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I’m giving him a test drive. After reading other samples and more reviews I thought to myself, “Why not? I got nothing to lose and possibly a lot to gain.” I got his Micah Commentary too, along with The Historical New Testament: A New Translation by Moffatt.
DAL
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Speaking of Waltke... new prepub for him today
https://www.logos.com/product/176184/the-psalms-as-christian-praise-a-historical-commentary
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