WBC: the least Evangelical or most Anglican volumes?

Mikael S
Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

In Your opinion or based on the denomination of the individual authors. Either regarding methods used or resulting exegesis. Also regarding whether how much ancient works outside the 66-book canon are cited.

I have read about this series many times but only have the new volumes on Joshua and 2 Cor that came out recently. I was thinking of perhaps getting some additional volumes as printed matter.

Do You think I have any great use for the Feature Crossgrade when utilizing these commentaries or is the Anglican Silver level quite enough? I have Logos Now for another 11 Months.

translatio-princpld...
10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

Comments

  • Mike Childs
    Mike Childs Member Posts: 3,135 ✭✭✭

    Do you think Anglican and Evangelical are contradictory terms?  Would evangelicals have no interest in how the early church understood a passage of Scripture?   

    I would agree that some of the volumes of the WBC are more conservative than others.

    I think of John Stott as pretty evangelical, while being Anglican.  Just curious, not debating.


    "In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church," John Wesley

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    With this platform it's just too easy to gather too much Evangelical content, whether commentaries, language related features or collections from pre-pub. In comparison there's very little Anglican content, especially at a bit more advanced level. I understand there's a customer base explanation to all this but nevertheless I would need to know more about individual volumes, for example these:
    Gordon J. Wenham (1987). Genesis 1-15. (I would be surprised if this volume is not Evangelical.)
    John I. Durham (1987). Exodus. (Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, NC.)
    Simon J. De Vries (2003). 1 Kings. (Methodist Theological School in Ohio.)
    Peter C. Craigie and Marvin E. Tate (2004). Psalms 1-50. (Tate is a Southern Baptist, which is a denomination pretty far from the Anglican faith I'm familiar with.)
    John D. W. Watts (2005). Isaiah 1-33
    John D. W. Watts (2005). Isaiah 34-66
    Douglas Stuart (1987). Hosea-Jonah. (Probably good volume considering the language skills of the author.)
    James D. G. Dunn (1988). Romans 1-8
    James D. G. Dunn (1988). Romans 9-16
    Peter T. O’Brien (1982). Col. Philemon
    Stephen Smalley (2007). 1,2,3 John
    EDIT: this is still a question: does anyone know more about the above authors/volumes? (I did search Wikipedia and for several of th authors no page had been created.) You may answer within a couple of days. Regarding the Feature Crossgrade I'd like an answer at latest by Thursday this Week, Aug. 6.

    The Ezra/Nehemiah volume by H. G. M. Williamson (1985), is probably of interest to me.
    The author John Nolland of the 1993 volume on Luke 9:21-18:34 is an Australian Anglican!

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    I'm probably buying (EDIT: I didn't change this list now but note that it's a little different from the list in my previous post):
    T. R. Hobbs (1985). 2 Kings
    Roddy L. Braun (1986). 1 Chronicles
    H. G. M. Williamson (1985). Ezra/Nehemiah
    Douglas Stuart (1987). Hosea- Jonah
    John Nolland (1993). Luke 9:21-18:34
    James D. G. Dunn (1988). Romans 1-8
    James D. G. Dunn (1988). Romans 9-16
    Richard J. Bauckham (1983). 2 Peter and Jude
    ... as these (and the original Joshua-volume which I would include just as an overview as I have the fuller and up-to-date volume in Verbum) are offered to me for $130 + postage (what the postage actually costs) as printed matter ... unless someone has insights I asked for and I would be able to decide there's some volume among these that I would not want - but I would only get a very small discount if any EDIT: but I would save more on shipping as I pay the actual postage cost and it's more environmentally friendly to decide in time not to ship an "unnecessary" volume. As I'll have to apply for a little greater checkings account for this than what I have You'll have until Friday Aug. 7. to reply me about this!

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    If someone would help point out one volume in my previous post which I could remove I could add this one instead:
    Ralph W. Klein (1983). 1 Samuel. It's a pretty good author and also authored 2 Maccabees in the Hermeneia series. Only problem is there's a new 2nd or revised Edition that came out in 2009 but I guess I can't afford that new one at this point - maybe later on (does Verbum even provide it yet?).
    I tried to find the 2009-Edition with these two searches:
    https://verbum.com/search?context=product&query=ralph%20w%20klein&sortBy=newest&limit=60&facets=Resource%20Type_Commentaries%7CStatus_Pre-Publication&view=list

    https://verbum.com/search?context=product&query=samuel%20klein&sortBy=relevance&limit=60&page=1&view=list

    At this point I would be hesitant to add that 1989 1 Sam volume without at the same time removing one volume, as I don't want to affect the price just offered to me.
    Note that I also edited my above post saying I would save on shipping.

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    I'm applying for a bank-loan and will have to wait until Wednesday Aug. 12. on getting the employer's certificate so I will have the money to pay the postage at earliest on Aug. 17. So there's still time for You to reply here regarding help to choose volumes.
    And regarding Feature Crossgrade, could anyone help me out now (at latest tomorrow) whether I need to keep it?

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 33,290

    And regarding Feature Crossgrade, could anyone help me out now (at latest tomorrow) whether I need to keep it?

    As you have Anglican Silver the Feature Crossgrade additionally gives you (among other things):

    • Biblical Word Senses Dataset - allows you to search for the "sense" of a word 
    • Online Manuscripts Dataset - useful if studying textual variants
    • OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament - helpful to understand structures of the underlying Greek text
    • Bible Outline Browser - a way of comparing the ways different commentaries and other resources you own represent the outlines of biblical passages
    • Parallel Gospel Reader - a handy way of looking at parallel accounts in the Gospels keyed on different harmony resources you may own
    • Proverbs Explorer - a visual way of exploring the Proverbs
    • Psalms Explorer - a visual way of exploring the Psalms
    • The Reverse-Interlinear for the ESV
    • Biblical People Diagrams
    • Biblical Places Maps
    • The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
    • Lexham English Septuagint
    • Faithlife Study Bible

    To see the comparison go to https://www.logos.com/compare?productIds=43527,45041 

    The things I have referenced above are helpful resources and tools - but only you can decide how useful they are to you

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,539

    Mikael, excuse me for asking but you keep mentioning the postage. Am I to assume you require these on disk? They are normally delivered as electronic downloads.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • abondservant
    abondservant Member Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭

    Too much evangelical content!?

    Is that you Unix?

    L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    This comment is about the Feature Crossgrade only.
    Thanks a lot, Graham, that's very helpful! I have a 10 GB monthly data-cap in my broadband and I always use it up - usually because of Verbum, that's a big reason for why I very rarely use the databases that require big downloads and are online only. I also have the L4 Original Languages library base-package and there may be some of these features or datasets that I already have from that - probably not more than one though. Plus I have a newer Edition of The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge that I rather use.

    The question is whether any of these in the Feature Crossgrade are actually accurate (except they don't need to be completed yet) when it comes to bias and whether they (any of them) are worthwhile to learn to use in order to either save time or discover things. As I don't know how much effort it would take to learn to use them or whether I in the long run would have to pay expensively for tutorials it's hard to tell solely based on some look intriguing: Bible Outline Browser and Biblical Word Senses Dataset. As I know I won't have time during the next almost 1¾ years to use them a lot and don't know whether I'll upgrade to Verbum 7 Scholar (I would really prefer not to upgrade) or to any L7 base-packages (I probably won't) or even any L7 Crossgrade (I would like to but it would probably be expensive), it adds to uncertainty as I don't know if some or all of these features and dataset will be included in my purchases at some point. What I would prefer to do would be to return the Feature Crossgrade and not be bothered about what I'm missing until I come to a point when I actually discover I need to buy current features or databases - at which point there will probably not be a sale. I'm not comfortable with the idea of paying regular price:

    As you have Anglican Silver the Feature Crossgrade additionally gives you (among other things):

    • Biblical Word Senses Dataset - allows you to search for the "sense" of a word
    • Online Manuscripts Dataset - useful if studying textual variants
    • OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament - helpful to understand structures of the underlying Greek text
    • Bible Outline Browser - a way of comparing the ways different commentaries and other resources you own represent the outlines of biblical passages
    • Parallel Gospel Reader - a handy way of looking at parallel accounts in the Gospels keyed on different harmony resources you may own
    • Proverbs Explorer - a visual way of exploring the Proverbs
    • Psalms Explorer - a visual way of exploring the Psalms
    • The Reverse-Interlinear for the ESV
    • Biblical People Diagrams
    • Biblical Places Maps
    • The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
    • Lexham English Septuagint
    • Faithlife Study Bible

    To see the comparison go to https://www.logos.com/compare?productIds=43527,45041 

    The things I have referenced above are helpful resources and tools - but only you can decide how useful they are to you

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    The ones I was talking about the most and still ask about are print books. I got the new Joshua volumes and the new 2 Cor directly in Verbum as an early-bird pre-pub order:

    MJ. Smith said:

    Mikael, excuse me for asking but you keep mentioning the postage. Am I to assume you require these on disk? They are normally delivered as electronic downloads.


    Yes, it's me. How are You my friend? How did You guess? Is it that rare to react with a question like mine about how Logos pretty consistently keeps favouring some denominations? I'm not asking for all denominations to be favoured - that would be even worse. I hope these are not too strong opinions because that's not my intention, I just keep wondering who needs all the books, there are probably few who even have time to have a glance at everything. OK so this much books being offered guarantees it is at least worthwhile to perform a search on Your favourite books or authors in the Store, but still Logos keeps spreading the interest thin which keeps prices on individual add-on books (sometimes very) high and prevents some community pricing and pre-pub items from ever reaching production (some of them important and part of the reason are the prevailing bids - I know I'm personally to blaim for one: the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica on which I lowered the price from $120 to $100 which I deeply regret and filled out in a customer satisfaction questionnaire to Faithlife once early this year that I wished they would do something about it and adjust it):

    Too much evangelical content!?

    Is that you Unix?

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • abondservant
    abondservant Member Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭

    Yes, it's me. How are You my friend? How did You guess? Is it that rare to react with a question like mine about how Logos pretty consistently keeps favouring some denominations? I'm not asking for all denominations to be favoured - that would be even worse. I hope these are not too strong opinions because that's not my intention, I just keep wondering who needs all the books, there are probably few who even have time to have a glance at everything. OK so this much books being offered guarantees it is at least worthwhile to perform a search on Your favourite books or authors in the Store, but still Logos keeps spreading the interest thin which keeps prices on individual add-on books (sometimes very) high and prevents some community pricing and pre-pub items from ever reaching production (some of them important and part of the reason are the prevailing bids - I know I'm personally to blaim for one: the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica on which I lowered the price from $120 to $100 which I deeply regret and filled out in a customer satisfaction questionnaire to Faithlife once early this year that I wished they would do something about it and adjust it):

    Too much evangelical content!?

    Is that you Unix?

    Your personality is hard to hide friend. Plus you're attending an Anglican institution as I recall. Add to that your predilection for non-evangelical resources, and the preference for penny pinching and I knew who it had to be :). In the world wars, they could identify and track the senders of coded telegraphs based upon an individuals dots and dashes. I suspect its a similar but less complicated phenomenon that lets friends recognize friends even in disguise.

    I am well - life is busy. But God is good! Yourself?

    L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,523

    Is that you Unix?

    Yes, it's me.

    Why the subterfuge? Why create aliases? 

    macOS, iOS & iPadOS |Logs| Install
    Choose Truth Over Tribe | Become a Joyful Outsider!

  • Ken McGuire
    Ken McGuire Member Posts: 2,075 ✭✭✭

    Don't know those OT volumes myself... With regards to the NT volumes:

    Nolland on Luke - used this (and many others) in a class on Luke back when I was in school. I found it a reliable research commentary - in that when I used it to prep for class discussions, I always felt prepared before and during the actual discussions. No matter what issues came up, it was covered. It may not be the most fun to read, but it makes the information available fairly clearly.

    Dunn on Romans - an important treatment developing the "New Perspective" on Paul. Since this is an important aspect of current Pauline discussions, the perspective needs to be heard clearly. Admittedly I think it is a bit of an over-reaction, but it is still important to hear and understand.

    Bauckham on 2 Peter and Jude - Bauckham is a gifted writer and has written many interesting works on the New Testament. While I have not actually used this commentary, I have heard very good things about it.

    The Gospel is not ... a "new law," on the contrary, ... a "new life." - William Julius Mann

    L8 Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox Silver, Reformed Starter, Academic Essentials

    L7 Lutheran Gold, Anglican Bronze

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    I felt like very very few wished that I would come back, plus I'm starting to get fed up with buying commentaries: trying to maintain a good coverage of what interests me and updating to new sets by applying for a loan is starting to get tiresome. There's a new 2015 print Edition of the NIB (New Interpreter's Bible) out and I couldn't even find any information about it the last time I looked, now that it's out I hope there would be at least some information or else I will definitely not buy that one.
    I'm grateful for advice regarding WBC!:

    alabama24 said:

    Why the subterfuge? Why create aliases?:

    Is that you Unix?

    Yes, it's me.

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,523

    I felt like very very few wished that I would come back

    As long as you are respectful and abide by the forum guidelines, you will be welcome.

    macOS, iOS & iPadOS |Logs| Install
    Choose Truth Over Tribe | Become a Joyful Outsider!

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    I'm here to learn to use what I have: books, features and databases, intellect, and develop a better sense of humour. I hope there's nothing left for me to learn regarding showing respect to others - i.e. I hope I'm over things and that nothing new will ever trigger me here. I developed further late in life so unfortunately I at times didn't know how to handle people that were a bit bothersome towards me and wanted me off the forums when I talked about my own personal things. For me it's sometimes difficult to know what amount of personal things actually brakes any guidelines, and by that I mean my own personal things, as I know others are different from me and have always known I don't blame anyone for differing me with me, nor can I recall having blamed anyone previously but perhaps that's because I've moved on:

    alabama24 said:

    As long as you are respectful and abide by the forum guidelines, you will be welcome:

    I felt like very very few wished that I would come back

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • abondservant
    abondservant Member Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭

    I felt like very very few wished that I would come back

    Not true at all. You merely have strong opinions about the value of different items; and we (without knowing all of your strongly held positions) are unable to answer many of them.

    For instance, I could ask you if NT Wright's book on paul would be a value to me. You can't possibly know if its of value to me, because you aren't me. You can say you find it rediculous and not worthy of being studied, but you can't say with any level of certainty whether it would benefit me or not.

    The question on this post is phrased well however. Those familiar with it can say if a title is evangelical or more catholic. Though after reading "Is the Reformation really over" I think the line between the two is blurring in positive ways...

    L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    At this stage Gnosis can come either by reading the right paragraph or page from the right book (Faithlife usually tries to design the features and datasets in order to help out with that, but the marketing, bundling and tens of thousands of books I'll never buy are a distraction) or by own research. Sometimes that can be combined but not always and that's why I'm even more careful about avoiding books, publishers and authors than to get the lowest price, best tool or at times even the books by the most reputable scholars. It's a Japanese approach: to unclutter. As little as I've uncluttered my home, the more I try to with the Faithlife softwares. Starting on a new set (whatever resource type) is a bit agonizing but at this point commentaries is one resource type about which I've read a lot of opinions and reviews: one of my two Greek professors said that after the year (two one-semester half of full-time pace classes) we'd be ready to choose good commentaries. I feel Iike I'm a bit ahead of probably most if not all my classmates as the first set I got (Hermeneia) is probably decent and I've used it for years and even sold the set by now a few Months ago - thanks to the currency exchange rate fluctuation the ownership got very inexpensive. I did however buy the Hermeneia OT set in Accordance close to a year ago. (The Continental Gal -volume is excellent). But even regarding commentaries I'm behind thousands of forum users and by that I don't refer to the actual ownership (where I'm obviously way behind a lot of users) but the knowledge about commentaries:

    You merely have strong opinions about the value of different items; and we (without knowing all of your strongly held positions) are unable to answer many of them.
    ...
    You can't possibly know if its of value to me, because you aren't me. You can say you find it rediculous and not worthy of being studied, but you can't say with any level of certainty whether it would benefit me or not.

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • abondservant
    abondservant Member Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭

    Well, I will pray the same thing for you, that I pray for my self before making a purchase. That the resources when read will draw me ever closer to the Lord. That their use would better equip me as a minister, as an exegete, and as a student of the Word.

    L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,

  • Dan Francis
    Dan Francis Member Posts: 5,336 ✭✭✭

    I was raise in the Evangelical Lutheran Church and am now in the Anglican Church of Canada. I value the WBC as my second favourite commentary. I love the New Interpreter's Bible most of all, but it is not an overly in depth critical one (just a wonderful over all work in my mind). The WBC is written by evangelicals but it is mostly moderate and very well done. 

    -Dan

  • DAL
    DAL Member Posts: 10,942 ✭✭✭

    I was raise in the Evangelical Lutheran Church and am now in the Anglican Church of Canada. I value the WBC as my second favourite commentary. I love the New Interpreter's Bible most of all, but it is not an overly in depth critical one (just a wonderful over all work in my mind). The WBC is written by evangelicals but it is mostly moderate and very well done. 

    -Dan

     I value WBC is my first go to commentary.  The only set I think I'm missing is NICOT/NICNT,  but that's going to have to wait until later.  As with all commentaries not all of them are even in quality but WBC is quite good that's why it's rnaked  One of the top five I guess Or top three.  Some volumes surpass NICOT/NT series  in rating according to bestcommentaries.com 

     If I was/were unix  I would get the whole set if I didn't have it, fortunately, I own the entire series; I'm just looking forward to the Acts volume when it finally comes out.

    DAL

    edit:  The only issue with NICOT/NT  is the price it's almost double than WBC. It also makes me wonder if it's so good  why are a lot of people selling it lately?  There's been quite a few users who have sold their copy. Oh well

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    Thanks for the advice, I appreciate!


    Someone else bought the Ralph W. Klein (1983) 1 Sam -volume. My shipping seems to be a bit high - as the seller just edited his new add 14 hours ago and removed four volumes (not the ones I get) as he sold to someone else as well, I would need to know quickly if any (these are print) volume "should not" be shipped to me and maybe I could get the cost down or it would at least be more environmentally friendly:

    If someone would help point out one volume in my previous post which I could remove I could add this one instead:
    Ralph W. Klein (1983). 1 Samuel. It's a pretty good author and also authored 2 Maccabees in the Hermeneia series. Only problem is there's a new 2nd or revised Edition that came out in 2009 but I guess I can't afford that new one at this point - maybe later on (does Verbum even provide it yet?).
    I tried to find the 2009-Edition with these two searches:
    https://verbum.com/search?context=product&query=ralph%20w%20klein&sortBy=newest&limit=60&facets=Resource%20Type_Commentaries%7CStatus_Pre-Publication&view=list

    https://verbum.com/search?context=product&query=samuel%20klein&sortBy=relevance&limit=60&page=1&view=list

    At this point I would be hesitant to add that 1983 1 Sam volume without at the same time removing one volume, as I don't want to affect the price just offered to me.
    Note that I also edited my above post saying I would save on shipping.

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data

  • abondservant
    abondservant Member Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭

    James Gunn says of his Romans commentary that its the most intensive work he has ever done. Some may see him as being week on Christs Deity (he some times says things along the lines of Arius and the Arianism controversy), he holds to the New Perspective on Paul (though he says its a modified version), and finally some argue that he is weak on Inerrency. Though in the link that follows he seems to be arguing that the big picture is inspired, and the details don't matter. Which settled the issue for me (a position I would deem weak).

    I have a couple WBC, but not this one - so I can't post an excerpt to help you out. But here is a link to an interview with the man, that might help you out.

    As always I warn against position bias... But I digress.

    L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,

  • Mikael S
    Mikael S Member Posts: 48 ✭✭

    My print WBC books are on the way, the ones I specified on Aug. 3. 2:53PM. I had to change most of my cash € to afford paying for theshipping right now separately (seller offered without that I asked); I'm getting half of a payment from a customer Monday Aug. 10. with which (and an Accordance Gift Card I previously bought for myself) I can buy some Accordance books and pay off the print WBC books themselves.
    If there's anyone interested in the few (8) remaining WBC print volumes that none of the two buyers (me and another person) have bought, they are at Logos Resales on Facebook, right now remaining ones are: vol 1 Genesis 1-15, vol 19 and 21 Psalms 1-50 and 101-150, vol 24 and 25 Isaiah chapters 1-33 and 34-66, vol 44 Colossians/Philemon, vol 45 1 & 2 Thess, vol 51 1,2,3 John. Price the seller has been asking: $10 per commentary + shipping, has been shipping overseas. (None of the volumes that are offered seem to be the revised/2nd Edition.)


    I printed and read that blog post You linked to, abondservant! Thanks!


    Tight now I'm thinking whether I should return Feature Crossgrade and/or "L6" ("Topical Bundle") Theology Bundle XL.

    translatio-princpld...
    10 Bibls.. Supporting the cause of the right for data