South Asia Bible Commentary - Sequal to the African

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DMB | Forum Activity | Posted: Sun, Jun 24 2018 10:32 AM

Actually Zondervan planned three ... African, South Asian, and Latin America.  Logos has the first one.

It's on Kindle, and pretty much most of the Christian book sites. Except Logos of course. And affordable; 

https://www.amazon.com/South-Asia-Bible-Commentary-One-ebook/dp/B00UF7W66E 

And there's bunches of reviews as well. Here's a sample.

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/review/south-asia-bible-commentary-a-one-volume-commentary-on-the-whole-bible 

After running into it on Still Evangelical? (book), I was curious, so I downloaded the Kindle version, and compared to the Africa:

- As a Kindle, not bad. You don't get Book-Chapter-Verse access. But it does allow clicking to pericopes per book. Easy.

- Structure, like Africa, is similar to Bible Knowledge Commentary. Basics but not simplistic. It's a commentary. 

- My impression; SABC is more involved with south asia than ABC is with Africa. And if you're toward the American evangelical perspective, you'll be nervous, more so than ABC.

- It's not a stand-in for south asian religions vs Christianity. Rather, Christians in south asia.

- Finally, it's primarily India (which is quite large, obviously). And quite readable ... interesting.

- And if especially south asian Logosians have (differing?) comments, that'd be great!

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Theo | Forum Activity | Replied: Thu, Jun 28 2018 8:50 PM

One can vote for it here:

https://suggestbooks.uservoice.com/forums/308269-book-suggestions/suggestions/34141126-south-asia-bible-commentary

I'm in!

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Francis | Forum Activity | Replied: Fri, Jun 29 2018 3:33 AM

Denise:

- My impression; SABC is more involved with south asia than ABC is with Africa. And if you're toward the American evangelical perspective, you'll be nervous, more so than ABC.

- It's not a stand-in for south asian religions vs Christianity. Rather, Christians in south asia.

Can you give a bit more detail if you don't mind? Whatever the professed purposes of the series, what do the volumes actually do:

• Help Western readers to see their own cultural prejudices by showing how reading from another cultural perspective affects interpretation?
• Feature interpreters from these continents regardless of where they were educated and what their style of scholarship and the cultural perspective thereby reflected are?

I mean, are we going to read liberation theology or African/Asian Oxford graduates that speak Western linguo or is this genuinely an enlightening approach to interpretation that is solid scholarship but through different cultural eyes?

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Dan Francis | Forum Activity | Replied: Fri, Jun 29 2018 10:48 AM

3:1-4:49 The Levites
The description of the Israelite camp and the duties of each tribe moves from the outside (the tribes surrounding and protecting the tabernacle at a distance) to the inside (the Levites who camped around the tabernacle and moved it). In the centre of the Levites were the priests who served God and the Israelites in the tabernacle and directed its packing and carrying.
This section describes God’s choosing of the Levites, his giving them duties and their numbers. The Levites were to follow a very orderly and careful process when moving the tabernacle, for it was holy and the place where God’s holy presence dwelt among his people.
The special status of the Levites and their priestly tasks may suggest that their position was like that of the Brahmins who dominate religious and social matters in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. But we need to be careful when looking at parallels. The selection of Brahmins has a mythological connection to the creation of humans, but the selection of Levites does not have any mythological interpretation. The Levites were equal to all other Israelites, not an upper caste, and were called to serve the people, not dominate them.
3:1-13 God’s choice of leaders
God chose Moses and his brother Aaron, who were from the tribe of Levi (Exod 2:1), to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt (Exod 3:10; 4:14-16) and he chose Aaron and his sons to be priests (Exod 28:3). Moses had obediently ordained Aaron and his four sons as the first priests (3:1-3; Lev 8:1-36). However, the Lord had put Aaron’s two older sons to death for defiling his sanctuary (3:4; Lev 10:1-3).
Now the Lord told Moses to give the Levites, that is, the tribe of Levi, to Aaron to assist him and his sons in serving the Lord and the Israelites in the tabernacle (3:5-9). The Levites were not to offer sacrifices or enter the tent of meeting—those privileges were reserved for Moses and the ordained priests. But the Levites were to take care of the sanctuary and protect it. In doing this, they would also protect the Israelites, for any non-Levite who approached God’s holy presence would die (3:10).
When the Lord rescued his people from Egypt, he ordained that all firstborn Israelites and the firstborn of their animals were to be set apart as belonging to him (3:11-13; Exod 13:2). But he now announced that he would substitute the Levites for the firstborn sons of the exodus generation. The Levites would be his special possession (see 3:40-51). He first announced this choice when the Levites showed zeal for him during the incident with the golden calf (Exod 32:26-29). Yet his choice was probably based more on his sovereignty than on their merit.
God’s reasons for selecting who will serve him and lead his people are often puzzling. He does not choose according to any human convention, such as favouring the oldest son. Nor does he choose according to human reasoning, preferring the person with the most merit or ability. Aaron had led the Israelites in worshipping a golden calf (Exod 32:21-24), yet God chose him to be the first high priest of Israel and his sons to be priests for generations. Moses was the younger son, yet God put him over Aaron as the leader of Israel. God chose Joshua to be the next leader rather than Moses’ son (27:18-22). Levi was the third son of Jacob and a violent man (Gen 34:25). Yet God chose his tribe out of all the tribes of Israel to belong to him, instead of the tribes of Judah or Reuben or Joseph, which might have been our choices.
In the patriarchal societies of South Asia, firstborn sons, those from higher classes and the wealthy are often chosen for leadership and special privileges. But God does not choose leaders according to these conventions. The priesthood was not given to the firstborn, nor did God give the privileges of serving him to the wealthy or powerful. In fact, the Levites were by far the smallest tribe in Israel (see 3:29). We will do well to remember these truths when praying for God to reveal his choices of people to serve him and lead our churches and ministries.
3:14-39 Responsibilities and numbers
Moses was to count all of the men over the age of twenty in the other tribes for the army. But he was to count all Levite males who were over one month old by clan (3:14-16). The reason all the males were counted was because the Levites were to replace the firstborn males in the other tribes (see 3:40-41).
The Levites were divided into three clans: the Gershonites, Kohathites and Merarites (3:17-20).
The Gershonites were to camp behind the tabernacle on the west, for the tabernacle faced east. They were responsible for the care, moving and set up of the coverings of the tabernacle including all the curtains and coverings of the tent of meeting and all the curtains that formed the courtyard (3:21-26; see Exod 36:8-19; 38:9-18). However, the Kohathites were responsible for the innermost curtain of the tent of meeting.
The Kohathites were the clan of Moses and Aaron and the priests (Exod 6:18-20). They were to camp on the south side of the tabernacle and were responsible for the care of the holy furnishings of the tent of meeting, including the ark of the covenant (Exod 37:1-9); the table, lampstand and incense altar in the Holy Place (Exod 37:10-29); the altar of burnt offering (Exod 38:1-8) and all the tools and utensils related to them (3:27-31). They were also responsible for the curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place (see Exod 36:35-37). Eleazar the priest and son of Aaron was made chief of the Levites and was in charge of all who cared for the sanctuary (3:32).
The Merarites were to camp on the north side of the tabernacle and were responsible for all the wooden frames, metal bases, tent pegs and ropes of the tent of meeting and tabernacle courtyard (3:33-37; see Exod 36:20-34; 38:9-20). Moses and the priests were to camp on the east side of tabernacle, in front of the entrance (3:38). Thus the Levites not only served in the tabernacle, they were a kind of shield of protection between the people and the holiness of God. The total of all Levite males was much less than the other tribes, but nearly the same number as all the firstborn males of Israel (3:39).
3:40-51 The Levites’ redemptive role
The Lord in his sovereignty claimed all the firstborn males of the Israelites as his own (8:1; 18:15; see Exod 13:2; 22:29). The Israelites were to redeem all firstborn males when they were a month old (18:15-16; see Exod 34:20). But God substituted the male Levites to redeem the firstborn males of the exodus generation and made them his special possession to serve him in the tabernacle (3:40-41). In a sense, the Levites were to give up their lives as a sacrifice to redeem the firstborn Israelites of other tribes (see 8:16-18). But rather than being sacrificed on the altar, the Levites were set apart and dedicated to serving the Lord and the Israelite community.
Similarly, the firstborn animals of the Israelites also belonged to God. When the Israelites entered the promised land, God required his people to give him all firstborn sheep, goats and cattle as sacrifices and to redeem the firstborn of other animals (see 18:15-18; Exod 13:12-15; 22:30). But he decreed that the animals of the Levites were to replace the firstborn animals of the exodus generation. The animals were not counted.
The number of firstborn males in the other tribes of Israel was very close to the number of Levite males (3:42-43). So the Levite males became God’s special possession to redeem most of the firstborn males of Israel (3:44-45). The 273 firstborn Israelite males who exceeded the number of Levites were redeemed by paying the price to redeem a firstborn male—five shekels of silver, which was about six months’ wages at the time (3:46-48; see 18:16). Moses did all that the Lord commanded and probably collected the money from all of the firstborn of Israel (3:49-51).

 —Abraham Saggu, “Numbers,” in the South Asia Bible Commentary

This was my last use of the commentary last week... I personally found it rather insightful as I often do when i consult it.

-dan