My biblical library has two or three commentaries on each Bible book – and on a number of the more substantial books, quite a bit more than three. As newer or better commentaries become available (though newer doesn't always mean better), I happily weed out those that have been superseded. Which keeps my biblical work up to date and keeps my library within the limits of the bookshelves. But in all the culls and clearouts, the new additions and the jettisoned, there are commentaries I'd never let go.
The words 'benchmark', 'gold-standard', 'definitive' are too loosely thrown around by those who churn out the publishers blurb, those literary spin doctors who endorse, commend and give borrowed authority. And sometimes they boldly say 'destined to become a classic'. Maybe so. But isn't a classic a book that has proved itself, that bears rereading, that has enduring value for its content and insights, that has the capacity to address universal human questions, or to transcend limits of time and idiom? Those amongst other critieria? So a 'classic in its field', say a classic commentary – what would that be? And which commentaries would any of us hold up as such an example?
I'm happy to hear suggested classics from those who use commentaries. Meantime the reason for this post was a revisit I made to one of the first commentaries I ever bought…and read. Not all commentaries are readable. By their nature they are somewhere between a reference book to be consulted on a word, phrase, verse or section of text, or to be one of several perspectives being weighed as part of the comparing of evidence, perspective and interpretation that helps overcome our subjective often distorting individual preferences. That's why I have several commentaries on each biblical book. Not all from the same publisher; or the same theological perspective; or with the same exegetical approach.
And amongst them all are several I bought in my earliest years of Christian study. Not many of them would be called classics, benchmarks or definitive. At least not by others. But from the start of my Christian life, my spiritual development has always been closely indexed to my exegetical growing up. Taking text seriously, reading Scripture and hearing the Word of Christ opening up the Scriptures; trying to read the Bible from a heart informed by honest study.
And in all those years some commentaries have been for me, and without the say-so of blurb writers, benchmarks, definitive of my approach to the text, and thus for me, classic commentaries. One of them is pictured here. Published in 1976, the year of my ordination. I paid £2.25 for it, in the John Smith University Bookshop of Stirling University. There isn't a single word of endorsement or publisher's blurb. So if the publisher were to reprint it (the only Amazon copy is currently priced at £46.25), I'd happily do a wee endorsement, thus:
Or words to that effect! Wonder if Wipf and Stock would republish it? Think I'll suggest it……it's a classic.
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