# John Goldingay on the Old Testament



## bookslover (Dec 30, 2010)

John Goldingay has a 3-volume "Old Testament Theology" in print. Has anyone read, or at least read in, these volumes?

Is it good? Bad? Somewhere in between?


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## greenbaggins (Dec 30, 2010)

I have read all of volume 1 and bits of 2 and 3. Volume 1 is definitely the best. Lots of good literary analysis. Goldingay is an open theist, so there's lots to disagree about as well. I was disappointed that so many "evangelical" scholars puffed the book. He's a liberal, too, so two strikes against him. But he has some helpful things to say, I think.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Dec 30, 2010)

greenbaggins said:


> Goldingay is an open theist, so there's lots to disagree about as well. I was disappointed that so many "evangelical" scholars puffed the book. He's a liberal, too, so two strikes against him. But he has some helpful things to say, I think.


 
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln did you enjoy the play?


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## bookslover (Dec 31, 2010)

greenbaggins said:


> I have read all of volume 1 and bits of 2 and 3. Volume 1 is definitely the best. Lots of good literary analysis. Goldingay is an open theist, so there's lots to disagree about as well. I was disappointed that so many "evangelical" scholars puffed the book. He's a liberal, too, so two strikes against him. But he has some helpful things to say, I think.


 
Thanks, Lane. I'll read around his open theism and his liberalism in general. What do you think of his 3-volume commentary on the Psalms, if you've read in it?


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## greenbaggins (Jan 1, 2011)

bookslover said:


> greenbaggins said:
> 
> 
> > I have read all of volume 1 and bits of 2 and 3. Volume 1 is definitely the best. Lots of good literary analysis. Goldingay is an open theist, so there's lots to disagree about as well. I was disappointed that so many "evangelical" scholars puffed the book. He's a liberal, too, so two strikes against him. But he has some helpful things to say, I think.
> ...



I've read the entire second volume, and a good deal of the first. It's pretty good, actually. The liberalness and the open-theism don't come out as strongly in the Psalms commentary as they do in the OTT. There are way better commentaries on the Psalms, though. As part of a complete Psalms library, it is well worth having.


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## bookslover (Jan 2, 2011)

greenbaggins said:


> bookslover said:
> 
> 
> > greenbaggins said:
> ...


 
Don't you find that ironic? His "liberalness and open-theism don't come out as strongly" in the Psalms commentary because, in the commentary, he must deal with the actual text of Scripture, which, if he's honest, will make him more conservative than his professed theology. Sort of like how Rudolf Bultmann had a theology that stunk worse than a dead hippopotamus - while, at the same time, he is supposed to have been a first-class exegete of the actual text of the Bible. Funny how there can be such a disconnect between a person's exegesis and his theology.


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