Recommending a one volume bible commentary
One of my new responsibilities at St Paul's Theological Centre is the development of a new theological library.
While I have not made use of them myself in the past, I did want to stock a few one-volume bible commentaries, and I wondered if anybody had a particular recommendation. I know of three
- We already have the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, ed. by James D. G. Dunn and John Rogerson.
- I have a slightly older version of the IVP New Bible Commentary. I actually never used it that much and a friend always called it 'The New Bible Cemetery'!
- Came across the Oxford Bible Commentary yesterday for the first time – like the Eerdmans commentary, it has contributions from top scholars.
Do you have any experiences with any of these or perhaps better ones? Let me know before I press the 'purchase' button.
posted by Chris Tilling @ 7:37 PM
19 comments
19 Comments:
I'm no expert on these things — but my own favourite is the excellent Catholic volume, The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. I reckon it's much better than some of the standard Protestant ones.
I agree with Ben in liking the New Jerome but would certainly give a vote to the Eerdmans which I think is very good, and the most recent as well. I haven't bought it since I already have NJBC and the Oxford one, but that's just a home and student budget for you!
ben's right. the new jerome is the best.
They're right about Jerome.
What edition of The New Bible Commentary do you have? The most recent edition has the Ephesians article written by your supervisor, Dr. Turner. And I would probably consider it one of the best one volume commentary articles on Ephesians (though Dunn in Eerdmans is good too).
You might also want to consider getting Harper's one volume commentary, published in conjunction with SBL.
I recommend either Harper's or Oxford. Both are great 1 volume commentaries.
I recommend New Jerome Biblical Commentary too. To take an example, I remember checking out an entry by J.P. Meier there a while ago. There was a very useful distillation of his multivolume work A Marginal Jew.
I will say that, for general use, the EERDMANS one is excellent. I especially like that it has Durhamites well represented including my own supervisors, Stephen Barton (1 Cor.) and John Barclay (2 Cor.), Loren Stuckenbruck (Revelation) and, of course, Jimmy Dunn. In any case, it also has Morna Hooker in many places, Beverly Gaventa, Anthony Thiselton, Richard Bauckham (on James!), Graham Stanton (1 Peter) and others. I also like the Oxford one, though I think only a handful of chapters are really good.
But, to be honest, these sorts of commentaries have a very limited use. Instead, I would save up the library budget and get the New Interpreter's multi-volume (12 volumes?) if you don't already have it.
yes, NIBC is 12 volumes- but it really isn't all that good. i hate to say it, but overall it's just not that impressive. if you're going to get a multi-volume one the Word Biblical Commentary is far better.
But you didn't ask about multi-volume bits did you?
I've already expressed my opinion on the one volume one and it's still Jerome.
All these suggestions are rubbish and these comments have been funded by a grant from the Quartz Hill School of Theology; clearly you should simply bind all NTW's little expositions together into one volume and call it "The New Testament for Everyone". That would be totally, like, THE BEST EVER.
Although multi-volume commentaries wasn't the question, I'd be pretty bummed if the religion libraries I used during school didn't have all the WBCs, Hermeneia, and NIGTC in reference at least.
I remember being very ticked at the person at our library who did the ordering because we had 14 of the 15 volumes of TDOOT, and of course that was the one I needed. (But don't let me sound too snoody, he was also my roommate)
What?!? You guys are happy with Matthew Henry's???
Don't do it Chris, don't do it. If you are building a theological library why would you stock it with commentaries made for the person in the pew?
Don't forget to buy the one and only fully inspired volxbibel.de for all your German speaking students. As you know very well, every single word in it is so clear and self-revealing that there is no need for any commentary any longer.
International Bible Commentary: Catholic and Ecumenical edited by W R Farmer
bad news mark, that comment got you removed from the lamb's book of life. which you would know about it you read my commentary on revelation. but alas, in your total depravity you haven't. you demon spawn from the pits of tilling-ianity...
;-p
Your responsibilities?!
Oh man, that was funny!
My top three would be the New Jerome, Oxford and Eerdmans. Then the HarperCollins, International Bible Commentary and New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition.
Routledge still publishes the old Peakes Bible Commentary at a ridiculous price. As it was published in the 1950s, I use it with the previous two editions of the New Bible Commentary for historical perspective.
Chris, as someone going through some undergraduate modules in Corinthians for a prospective Masters, I find that the Eerdmans one is very helpful. There is not a significant amount of detail on background, but it was a very useful 60 or so pages to allow me to give me a basic understanding of what Stephen Barton and John Barclay think is going on.
I have also been using it for getting a wider overview of OT, Apocrypha and even 1 Enoch, so it means that I have go some good commentators on the OT too. On the parts I used, I found that some OT effort focussed much more on the results of diachronic and the NT perhaps more on a synchronic. For example, Grabbe's work on Ezra-Nehemiah is pretty much a reflection on the structure of the text and its origins.
Alongside that, the Eerdmans Bible dictionary is useful too.
Thanks for your recommendations, people - very helpful comments, as always. Apart frm the usual spattering of sillness from predictable sources!
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