Commentaries on Luke

I have a few commentaries on Luke (Marshall. NIGTC, Nolland (WBC), Robert Stein (NAC), J Reiling (UBS Handbook) and others. My professor said I needed to use Bock in BECNT and Fitzmeyer in Anchor Bible for Luke's Gospel. He said these were the best for finding future research trends. I am looking to cultivate deeper but I do not have much money and these two sources are only suggested in the syllabus. Can someone explain this to me?

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JBR

Seems to me that it would be best to ask your professor since he's the one who wrote the syllabus and made the statement.

DMB

Agree with JBR ... it is the professor's course.

But I'd also agree with the professor. And whoever wrote Luke is a complex author ... traditions associated with non-Jewish, but most dependent on hebrew.

Ken McGuire

As is said above, ask your Professor. But, back when I was in school almost 30 years ago I had a class on Luke. Our professor picked around a half dozen commentaries and assigned different people to read different commentaries before having class discussions on different texts. What I remember of some of the commentaries:

IH Marshall (NIGTC) Tough read, good on what he covers. But there are a lot of ways people interpret Luke that he simply does not cover - even to say why he disagrees. So it ended up being terrible at preparing me for in class discussion.

Noland (WBC) Longest of the commentaries we used. Fairly exhaustive, but it does take some time to get used to where all the information is in the WBC format.

Fitzmyer (Anchor) So fair in its scholarship that it is not always immediately clear which is his preferred understanding. It seemed to be pointless "Scholarshit" until I went to class and found I was always prepared for the group discussion. This taught me that it is a good technical commentary, since it provides a very good overview of the way scholars approach the text. It didn't so much tell me what the text means, closing off future study, but rather gave me handles on how to approach the question.

I am only a bit surprised that after all these years it is still so highly recommended.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1256280#Comment_1256280

Fitzmyer (Anchor) So fair in its scholarship that it is not always immediately clear which is his preferred understanding. It seemed to be pointless "Scholarshit" until I went to class and found I was always prepared for the group discussion. This taught me that it is a good technical commentary, since it provides a very good overview of the way scholars approach the text. It didn't so much tell me what the text means, closing off future study, but rather gave me handles on how to approach the question.

Interesting, as if I were to use the term "scholarshit" which is new to me, it would be applied to the commentaries that tried to tell me what the text means rather than provide the alternatives labeling some more or less likely. Of course, both personally and academically, I come from traditions that value the older commentaries and mistrust the new until it proves itself.

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1256286#Comment_1256286

Interesting, as if I were to use the term "scholarshit" which is new to me, it would be applied to the commentaries that tried to tell me what the text means rather than provide the alternatives labeling some more or less likely. Of course, both personally and academically, I come from traditions that value the older commentaries and mistrust the new until it proves itself.

Actually the term was coined by a RC classmate to contrast Raymond Brown's John commentary from Fitzmyer's Luke.Fitzmyer at first glance seemed to be scholarship that served no purpose for his argument, instead just showing off how intelligent he was. Never mind that is the point of a research commentary, and is the reason I have more than a bit of Fitzmyer in my Library. I maybe don't see things as clearly as I would like, but I have learned that after reading him, I see a lot of interesting things in a fuzzy way that tells me there is more to find...