John Owen on Hebrews: To read or not to read?

Should I read John Owen's 7-volume commentary on Hebrews?


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I would not spend money on the Logos version when you may read it elsewhere online for free.

I definitely get that but it will be useful inside Logos for academic work. Plus, I have the rest of his works inside there. I want to complete the set. I intend to also get it in a tangible form. Owen and Hebrew are personal favorites. I hope to do academic work on them both in the future
 
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I have begun reading volume 5 today and managed to get through the first 90 pages. I may read a bit more tonight. I am convinced that the more you persevere with John Owen, the easier it becomes to read him.
 
I have now finished volume 5, which leaves me with only two volumes left to read out of the whole 24 volumes of works.

Even if you do not have the luxury of being able to read large swathes of the Hebrews commentary each day, I would encourage you to at least read 10 pages per day. In less than two months, you will have the first volume completed.
 
I started reading volume 6 tonight. I read the first c. 50 pages where John Owen concentrates on Hebrews 8:1-5. The next c. 50 pages are on verse 6 alone.
 
Well, as it turns out, the reason John Owen spends so long on Hebrews 8:6 is because he uses the verse as an opportunity to discuss his views concerning republication. While I too hold to a pedagogical republication of the covenant of works under Moses, I am not convinced that I could go just as far as Owen does on this subject, as I think that there were times when he left himself a hostage to fortune with some of his arguments.
 
I have now read the first 100 pages of volume 7. God-willing, in the next few days I will have read all 24 volumes of John Owen's Works.
 
I have now finished volume 7 of Hebrews and, with it, the entire 24 volumes of John Owen's works. Thanks to all of you who encouraged me to read the Hebrews commentary. Doing so was a very worthwhile endeavour. :cheers:

Here is something that I wrote on another social media venue to encourage people to read more of John Owen:


I have now completed reading John Owen's 7 volume commentary on Hebrews, which also means that I have read all 24 volumes of his works. Since late December, I have read 14 volumes in total (the 6 remaining volumes of the doctrinal and practical works that I had not previously read, the English translation of his "Biblical Theology", and the Hebrews commentary). There are a few items online and in other books that did not make it into Owen's works, which I will try to read shortly.

While the sheer volume of Owen's corpus may appear off-putting, it is worth making the effort to read all of his writings. Not many voluminous authors are worth reading in full, but Owen is an exception. If you own Owen's works but have not read much of them, I would encourage you to make a serious effort to work through them. Set a realistic target of one volume a year to begin with, and then gradually try to read more.

Having read all these works, I suppose that I should now consider going back and reading the volumes of Owen that I first read many years ago. :coffee:
 
I have now finished volume 7 of Hebrews and, with it, the entire 24 volumes of John Owen's works. Thanks to all of you who encouraged me to read the Hebrews commentary. Doing so was a very worthwhile endeavour. :cheers:

Here is something that I wrote on another social media venue to encourage people to read more of John Owen:


I have now completed reading John Owen's 7 volume commentary on Hebrews, which also means that I have read all 24 volumes of his works. Since late December, I have read 14 volumes in total (the 6 remaining volumes of the doctrinal and practical works that I had not previously read, the English translation of his "Biblical Theology", and the Hebrews commentary). There are a few items online and in other books that did not make it into Owen's works, which I will try to read shortly.

While the sheer volume of Owen's corpus may appear off-putting, it is worth making the effort to read all of his writings. Not many voluminous authors are worth reading in full, but Owen is an exception. If you own Owen's works but have not read much of them, I would encourage you to make a serious effort to work through them. Set a realistic target of one volume a year to begin with, and then gradually try to read more.

Having read all these works, I suppose that I should now consider going back and reading the volumes of Owen that I first read many years ago. :coffee:
Very impressive! You read much faster than I do. Let me ask- How long are your reading intervals? I'm guessing you're reading for 2-3 hours at a time. Is that correct? Or do you break it up in smaller chunks?
 
Very impressive! You read much faster than I do. Let me ask- How long are your reading intervals? I'm guessing you're reading for 2-3 hours at a time. Is that correct? Or do you break it up in smaller chunks?

When I was coming towards the end of my PhD, I developed the habit of being able to read whole monographs (usually circa 250 pages) per day. I did so because there were certain books that I needed to read before submitting the thesis, but could not afford to limit myself to reading 1 or 2 chapters a day. Generally speaking, I take a short break from reading whenever there is a natural break in the book that I am reading. Sometimes I only read for 30 minutes at a time, other times I can read for 2 hours at a time. It just depends on various factors.
 
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