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Rating: 
Summary: A Database for Specialists
Review: Aune's commentary sometimes has the feel of trying to drink from a fire hose. The full bibliographies and extensive notes on textual variants are comprehensive, navigable and useful. Aune's knowledge of ancient literature is also certainly impressive but of doubtful usefulness. This is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that forty-seven pages of 'comment' on Revelation 5:1-14, including twenty-nine pages of grammatical notes, statistics and references to ancient literature, lead to a single page of 'explanation', (where the rubber hits the road in a commentary you might think), fully half of which is merely a recitation of the events described in these verses. Under the weight of so much preparatory material you might expect that the 'explanation' would have formed some jewel of great price. At the risk of being unkind, probably the most profound insight that he, and we, get for the trouble is, 'The striking contrast between the two images [Lion and Lamb 5:6] suggests the contrast between the type of warrior messiah expected by first-cenury Judaism and the earthly ministry of Jesus as a suffering servant of God (see Mat 1:2-6=Luke 7:18-23).'The aspect of Aune's commentary that deserves to excite the most scholarly debate is his espousal of a multi-source theory of composition. This view has been generally out of favour for some time and so Aune deserves to be commended for taking on this difficult question. In short, Aune suggests three stages of composition. First, the composition of twelve discreet sections of the text in the course of the early prophetic career of the author (a sort of John's greatest hits?). Second, these units are embedded in a longer narrative - the so-called 'First Edition'. Third, further material is added at the beginning and end of the text, with further additions to the body of the text, to arrive at the 'Second Edition'. The original twelve discreet sections (the early 'hits') 7:1-17; 10:1-11; 11:1-13; 12:1-18; 13:1-18; 14:1-20; 17:1-18; 18:1-24; 19:11-16; 20:1-10; 20:11-15; 21:9-22:5 are initially identified by the presence of 'little if any continuity of the dramatis personae' (p.cxix). This is simply untrue. I was able to find at least twelve characters who were not confined to only one of these sections. At the second compositional step, according to Aune, John wrote, 'an overall sequential scheme to make the composition comprehensible' (!) (p.cxxix). The extent of Aune's 'First Edition' is difficult to pin down. On p.cxx it is said to run approximately from 1:7-12a; 4:1-22:5. Meanwhile on p.cxxx it is said to have a redactional link (4.1) that connects 1:9-20 and 4:2-22:9. By further contrast, on p.74, we are told that 'Revelaton 1:9-11 looks very much like the original beginning of Revelation (which immediately followed the title in 1:1-3), which was probably followed by Revelation 4:1-6:17. Aune's views on the extent of the additions used to create the 'Second Edition' are also variable. On p.cxx these consist of 1:1-3,4-6; 1:12b-3:22; 22:6-21. On p.cxxxiv they are instead 1:1-6; 1:12b-3:22; 22:6-21. On p.cxxxii they are 1:1-3; 1:12b-3:22; 22:6-21, or, on the same page, 22:5-21. On p.74-5 it is claimed that Revelation 1:12-20 was inserted together with 2:1-3:22 to form the Second Edition. These variations almost suggest a two or three stage composition for Aune's commentary. However, the case for multiple source for Revelation does not, so far as I can see, hold up. In his introduction Aune recognises various verses that 'homogenise the text'. He has to account for these as interpolations by an editor, or expansions by the author. In all Aune cites forty instances of additions, expansions, glosses, interpolations, etc., in the introduction. Not satisfied with this Aune appeals to further later additions when he encounters difficulties in his commentary e.g. on pp.36, 58-9, 74. Aune's overstatement of the distinctive character of his twelve separate 'oracles'; his uncertainty regarding the precise shape of the 'First' and 'Second Edition'; and his appeal to numerous later additions in order to sustain his theory, means that his source proposal hasn't convinced me. Richard Bauckham's contention that Revelation is perhaps the most unified text in the New Testament has, I think, easier to defend. The sheer size of this project inspires awe. Such reverence is justified when it comes to the bibliographies, analyses of textual variants, and extensive references to ancient literature. However, I was left feeling that the text was more like a database than a commentary.
Rating: 
Summary: Encyclopedic in Scope
Review: I was a part of a graduate (post seminary) seminar on Revelation and found Aune's three volumes to be extra-ordinarily valuable. Between all of the students, we used about all the major commentaries on Revelation, and while others were certainly profitable (including Beale's volume in the New International Greek Testament Commentary, Murphy's "Fallen Is Babylon," and Fiorenza's work)Aune's is encyclopedic and covers almost everything else that other commentators address. If you are looking for a less technical work, though, I recommend David Barr's excellent "Tales of the End."
Rating:
Summary: Encyclopedic in Scope
Review: I was a part of a graduate (post seminary) seminar on Revelation and found Aune's three volumes to be extra-ordinarily valuable. Between all of the students, we used about all the major commentaries on Revelation, and while others were certainly profitable (including Beale's volume in the New International Greek Testament Commentary, Murphy's "Fallen Is Babylon," and Fiorenza's work)Aune's is encyclopedic and covers almost everything else that other commentators address. If you are looking for a less technical work, though, I recommend David Barr's excellent "Tales of the End."
Rating:
Summary: Aune provides up-to-date Revelation commentary
Review: Not since R. H. Charles's two-volume 1920 International Critical Commentary has there been a commentary of this quality in English. For years Aune has been a leader in studies of Revelation and apocalyptic. His commentary is a masterpiece. Aune and, more recently, G. K. Beale are to late 20th-century Revelation scholarship what Swete and Charles were at the start of the century. This commentary is for NT scholars and other historians, not for the merely curious lay reader and not implicitly for pastors, though these readers could profit from at least some of this thoroughly documented 3-volume commentary.
Rating:
Summary: Aune provides up-to-date Revelation commentary
Review: Not since R. H. Charles's two-volume 1920 International Critical Commentary has there been a commentary of this quality in English. For years Aune has been a leader in studies of Revelation and apocalyptic. His commentary is a masterpiece. Aune and, more recently, G. K. Beale are to late 20th-century Revelation scholarship what Swete and Charles were at the start of the century. This commentary is for NT scholars and other historians, not for the merely curious lay reader and not implicitly for pastors, though these readers could profit from at least some of this thoroughly documented 3-volume commentary.
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