Category: Bible Commentaries

Earlier this year John Reumann's Anchor Bible commentary on Philippians was published. It has xxiv, + 805 pages. By any standards a massive volume. (By the way, I think the woodcuts used in the dustcovers of the Yale Anchor Commentaries are powerful images resonating with the biblical text). In the Preface readers are informed that Reumann's original manuscript was nearly halved to fit the publisher's demands. When it came into the College Library, given my interest in kenosis,  I had a read at Reumann's treatment of 2.5-11, the great Christ Hymn. The section was hard to read, frustrating to follow, and mostly made up of highly condensed notes. It felt like notes for a commentary rather than the notes of a commentary. Anyone people-watching in the library would have seen disappointment written in giant font bold italics underlined and filling the screen of my face.

The recent review of Reumann's work by James Dunn places the blame for the virtual un-useability of the volume on the publishers. Given Reumann worked on this commentary for over thirty years, the work should have been allowed two volumes, the same as Ephesians by Markus Barth. When it comes to metaphorical images, Dunn uses one to describe the failed editing process that is memorably incongruous and hilariously apt.

I refrain from offering any graphics. You can read the whole review over here. Meanwhile us Philippians buffs are now waiting for the next commentary blockbusters – Paul Holloway's volume in Hermeneia (still a few years off), and the new International Critical Commentary by N T Wright, the Bishop of Durham and storm centre of much debate about what Paul did and didn't mean – I hope Wright's will be published this side of the eschaton – otherwise there may be a few exegetical debates in heaven between Paul and N T Wright, or as his less charitable opponents call him, N T Wrong.

Blame Jason. It's his fault. He started me off. One of my lifelong interests is how Scripture has been commented on through the centuries. I can be boringly enthusiastic about what I consider one of the richest veins of Christian reflection, combining devotional theology and biblical scholarship – the magnificent tradition of Christian biblical commentary. A couple of weeks ago Jason suggested several "travelling companions" for my sojourn with Colossians, which is all the excuse I need to desiderate.

I'm already well into Dunn's volume in the New International Greek Commentary, which along with O'Brien in the Word Biblical Commentary deals with the Greek text. Marianne Meye Thompson's Two Horizon Commentary and A T Lincoln in the New Intepreter's Bible provide hefty nudges in the right direction for theological reflection.  Colossians Remixed. Subverting the Empire, by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmat I read a couple of years ago and found it a stunning eye opener to the political implications of Paul's vision of Christ, creation, church and cross ( these four inter-related themes in Colossians I'm currently preparing as a series of sermons). And if those aren't enough G B Caird deals with Colossians in the distilled elegance of his  Paul's Letters from Prison, and N T Wright's earliest published volume in the Tyndale series is still a wee gem.

From a generation earlier C F D Moule's New Cambridge Greek Testament is a wise and concise treatment in which Moule makes optimistic assumptions about the studen'ts competence in NT Greek, though his most important comments are now absorbed in the work of those who were fortunate enough to learn from him e.g. Jimmy Dunn and N T Wright. And Markus Barth's volume in the Anchor Bible might be good, though reviews were mixed – but that's because anyone who has used his two Anchor Bible volumes on Ephesians is likely to be disappointed by any subsequent work that tries to go beyond it in scope, penetration and independent conclusion. I love those two volumes, bought now 30 years ago and many a time browsed and some pages read for the sheer pleasure of it.

Recently published commentaries on Colossians might include (but not for me this time) the New International Critical Commentary by R McL Wilson; the Pillar volume by Douglas Moo; J L Sumney in the New Testament Library Series; C H Talbert in the Paidea series; and Ben Witherington's socio-rhetorical treatment of Ephesians and Colossians. But then there are older and too often neglected ones which I will peep into – J B Lightfoot's benchmark Greek commentary is obvious; Bishop Handley Carr Glynn Moule in the Cambridge Greek Testament from over a century ago, and whose writings on Paul's epistles are virtually Keswick holiness teaching with a deep Calvinist tinge; Alexander MacLaren's exposition in the old Expositor's Bible, a gem of Evangelical devotional theology from an unjustly neglected pastoral expositor.

From the continent Lohse in the Hermeneia series now over 35 years in print (which I once worked through page by page – and believe it did me good!), and Eduard Schweizer's theologically sharp exegesis as a stand alone engagement (I still think his commentary on Mark is in the top 4 of the Gospel Premiership). Ancient works include the homilies of Chrysostom, and treatments by Calvin, and (Jason tells me) Melancthon, and a big fat Banner of Truth reprint of Bishop Davenant's 17th Century Reformed commentary on which Spurgeon desiderated (probably not a felicitous expression).

In reality though, the whole commentary industry today is in danger of publication overkill and encouraged mediocrity, as publishers try to find yet another market niche nobody else has yet thought of and then try to persuade us that despite the multifarious options, this is a definite must have for the serious bible scholar. Aye right!

But meantime I have a few of the above as my panel of experts and "cloud of witnesses" who will try to keep me close to the text and open to God.

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.  

On May 21, this Thursday, the Church celbrates the Ascension of Christ, and May 31st is Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Spirit, then the following Sunday is Trinity Sunday. Decided I want to spend this high point of the Christian year and then into the "ordinary time post-Pentecost becoming familiar again with volume two of Luke's Gospel. We call it The Acts of the Apostles, but it's the story of the Gospel as it overflows from hearts into communities, then across cultural barriers, racial divisions and national boundaries.

So I'm reading my way through the new commentary on Acts by David Peterson. Now and again I'll include some of the story of the early Church in the occasional blog post. Instead of gazing wistfully at emergent church, I'm going to have a longish think about how the church emerged. I've a feeling the Holy Spirit had more than a little to do with it. The calls to co-operate with the Spirit, to be responsive to those prompts and nudges that knock us off our stride, to think new things and try again what previously "didn't work", to relinquish our grip on ideas we cherish and take into our hands trustfully that newness that by definition is unfamiliar, even untried.

In other words, we are back to questions of risk, impelled and compelled by the Spirit to innovative action, urged to subversive witness, shoved into places and circumstances where imaginative faith finds ways of undermining all those powers that frustrate the telling and living of the Good News. Peterson is a fine scholar and determined to provide reflections that do justice to the underlying theology of a book too easily assumed to be mainly history.

Now. One complaint and one compliment which I'll pass on to the publisher. To do with the indices. Compliment first. The subject index is substantial enough to be very user friendly and a helpful pointer to significant discussions – as it should be. But the author index is  so overloaded with citations that you are simply put off even trying to trace them. One writer has one work cited in the Bibliography, yet it is indexed over 150 times. But Krodel's brilliant commentary is cited once so gets one footnote! The standard commentary by the great C K Barrett has over 400 page references, and Witherington has over 300 – and all of them unsorted, a catena of numbers.

Come on!! Stop using computers to generate indices. There's no rationale or selection of the significant references, just a lumping together in consecutive page order of every citation. The result is an exercise in tedium that is simply a guaranteed turn away. Had the indexer taken a bit longer to edit this unsorted blizzarrd of data, by going through the citations retaining the most significant ones, then there might have been a point in the exercise. I want to know what Barrett thinks of the Jerusalem Council, but i don't need to know every time his name is bracketed in a footnote. As it is, the author index reads like the old logarithm tables – remember them? – and they are just as fun to use. 

Those of us who buy commentaries because it is our calling to study and preach scripture, have far too many options in what has become a crowded field, (especially with Evangelical publishers). There is an ecological ethic waiting to be discovered by publishers. Way at the start of my ministry I read and have followed W E Sangster's advice never to buy commentary sets. Find the best ones in a set and create your own "Best Set". That's even more important for someone like me who reads the things, providing they are well written. Amongst the tests of a good commentary is how they deal with the hard bits! Most exegetes can do the running commentary / say something about most things approach. But who unfankles textual knots? Who  hears and pays attention to theological tensions?  Which  commentary has the balance between raising and answering questions, and raises real questions without providing answers too controlled by unacknowledged personal agendas?

I've spent an hour or so chasing the 'test text' of the redeemer in Job
19.25. Briefly – Balentine finds the Christianisation of the text
attractive but unsupportable. Though he isn't prepared to be closed to
other interpretations – the way of wisdom, he thinks, may be to linger
within the question that refuses to be answered – who will be the
redeemer of the Jobs of this world? Amongst his more telling points –
Job has not been asking or expecting to be delivered BY God, but is
demanding to be vindicated before and delivered FROM God. All of which
sounds very Brueggemannish! He also (following David Clines and Carol Newsom)
proposes that v25 and v26a are separated from v26b and 27, so that the second
of Job's affirmations is that he will indeed see God, in his flesh,
before he dies. Thus he isn't postulating resurrection, but demanding and claiming
vindication through a redeemer-advocate who will take up his case, and before a death that now seems certain.

That is a far too limited precis – and captures none of Balentine's
subtlety and theological delicacy. Likewise, the treatment by Newsom in
the New Interpreter's is a careful and nuanced argument along similar
lines. Handel in the gorgeous aria from the Messiah may well have found a remarkable resonance for Christian
theology in the passage – but these modern commentators think the force of Job's
argument for pre-Christian readers / hearers is the sheer human
determination to speak out against any system, theological or cultural,
that unjustly inflicts suffering and is unresponsive to the cry of the
innocent. And that in the context of Job, and in the context of our modern world, there is a crucial aptness that a text of such defiant faith should be heard with its original force.

Still. Is Handel's oratorio an entirely mistaken appropriation of a text that has comforted countless Christian believers? Why should our contemporary treatment of the text be privileged over the way the Church has found in this text strong resources of pastoral support and theological vision? I've just listened again to Handel, whose rendering of the text frames it in adoration and the persistence of faith. And I confess I find no destructive dissonance between the ultimate and glorious vision of the redeemed before the Redeemer, and the urgent moral enquiry of the sufferer who refuses to have human anguish rendered meaningless by an ultimate and inscrutable silence. They are of course two very different hermeneutical methods – but must they disqualify each other?
The text is even further enhanced – and removed from strict context – by Charles Wesley – and then rendered even more creatively by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band. Maddy Prior's voice does something entirely different from the soprano performing Handel's oratorio – there is an intimacy and personal responsiveness that takes seriously the first person singular…"I know…." When cleansed of its dogmatic stridency, "I know…" is personal appropriation of mercy and grateful affirmation of faith in the grace that redeems – or so Wesley.

  As one who invests personally – in money and study time – on what I try to ensure are good commentaries, I fully sympathise with
the problem of choosing books wisely and within a tight budget. I've had to
do it all my life! So. I still think Balentine's is a magnificent
example of the commentary genre that does what I most want – wrestle
with the text, honestly, skillfully, creatively and with theological
sensitivity. Carol Newsom's work is bound with Clinton McCann on Psalms in volume
IV of the New Interpreter's Bible and that volume costs about the same
as Balentine, though it is one of the key volumes in the NIB. This isn't helping is it? I would find it very hard to do
without either now – but if the NIB is in a library near you, why not
treat yourself to Balentine. But I can hear at least one friend who is an OT scholar muttering about Clines' three volume masterpiece – and I just wish ……..

Some time ago I mentioned the commentary on Job by Sam Balentine. (And the other day I promised Robert a few extracts as a sampler). For a long time now I've read slowly through  a commentary as a kind of background music to other study. There is no pressure to read fast, the aim being a long slow conversation between biblical text, commentator and me listening in. Not all commentaries read easily because they're meant to be consulted, a resource available on demand. Still, I've persevered over a long while and found it for me a very satisfying form of lectio divina. It's taken me the best part of two months to read around half of Sam Balentine's commentary on Job, and I feel no compulsion to speed up the process – that would be like being part of a conversation where you rudely interrupt by saying to the other person, "Come on! Get on with it! Get to the point! We haven't all day!" You don't interrupt someone in a conversation who is speaking more sense than you are likely to.

So Balentine is being savoured sip by sip (think Sean the Baptist and an expensive but worth it Italian or Australian red wine!). Here are some of my pencil-marks-in- -the-margin extracts from Balentine.

There aren't many commentaries on Job that are so pastorally oriented. I find that a surprising thought. Balentine's impatience with theodicies that seek to protect God from our deepest human questions and complaints gives his exegesis and comment a spiritual depth and theological reach that I have found deeply satisfying. This is a great commentary. Very different from Clines, (3 volumes in the Word Series) who can also write with pastoral and theological sensitivity, but with such informational detail that his work needs a different kind of study. But when complete it will be the benchmark in encyclopaedic coverage The commentary that comes closest to Balentine is that by Carol Newsom in the New Interpreter's Bible. At times I've checked Balentine against her work, because she is a remarkably lucid and searching contributor to the conversation about Job. Newsom has an independent mind, whose exposition is rich with pastoral intent, and who also writes beautifully. The next post on Job will be on the great Redeemer text in Job 19.25-27.

For a long time now I’ve used the Revised Common Lectionary Online as a basis for daily reflection on the Bible. The four weekly passages ensure that there is a reading from the Hebrew Bible, Psalms, Epistle and Gospel on which to think and pray each week. One or two of the passages I usually explore much more thoroughly – an exercise in exegesis intended to keep me exegetically fit, the equivalent of the three or four times a week run to sustain aerobic fitness.

Alongside this particular trek through the Bible in company with the many Christian traditions which use the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), I use the New Interpreter’s Bible (NIB) on each passage as a mid-range commentary. There are contributions to the NIB which are very high quality biblical comment – Fretheim on Genesis, Brueggemann on Exodus, Birch on Samuel, Newsom on Job, McCann on Psalms, Miller on Jeremiah, O’Day on John, Wall on Acts, NT Wright on Romans, Craddock on Hebrews I’ve found are highlights in a set that does have some less impressive efforts.

One passage this week is Acts 17.22.31, Paul’s speech at the Areopagus. I’ve always found this a passage that shows Paul at work as a skilled, innovative mission tactician – on this occasion outmaneouvering the cultural intellectuals on his way to making his witness to Christ the saving revealer of God. Maybe the church today has to respond ‘to a similar "culture war" in which the gospel is challenged by cities "full of idols" and where the church is asked to respond to the important questions  of secular intellectuals. In which case Paul’s proclamation of resurrection faith as a thoughtfully presented  challenge to those other ultimate loyalties (modern idols) to which people now give their lives. The knowability of God, the grace of the One who is no ‘unknown God’ but comes near in love and judgement, not the God of the Philosophers but certainly the God the philosopher is groping after; but the God who is not found by argument, not contained by reasoned logic, not domesticated by abstract concepts at a sufficient remove to leave the deep places of the soul undisturbed. The living personal God who is known in encounter, who speaks and calls, who comes and invites, – but also the God who to use a phrase used by Flannery O’Connor of Karl Barth – throws the furniture around.

The living room of the mind is given a radical makeover by affirming faith in the resurrection of Jesus. Faith in Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a correction of mental perceptions; it isn’t a surprising change of opinion; it is a reordering of the mind, a new worldview, a radical break with that most comforting of securities, that we inhabit a controllable predictable world. The resurrection of Jesus is a miracle of theology, not a miracle of technology. In Jesus, incarnate, crucified and risen, the unknown God (comfortingly vague and safely distant), becomes known.

Andy asks in his comment about Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on 1 and 2 Kings. Do I think it’s worth buying? The book costs over £30, it has 644 pages, a CD Rom with the text of the book, pictures, maps, and other searchable data. Some folk complain about its cost, and right enough, it isn’t cheap.

But it is beautifully produced. This is a book lover’s treat. High quality paper, multimedia presentation, sidebars, two colours of ink, the book stays open on the desk. And I haven’t mentioned anything about the author, or the written content. Years ago I read David Gunn’s The Fate of King Saul, and encountered the biblical narrative in all its literary power. I realised that an understanding of literary genre, appreciation of skilled storytelling, and an understanding of linguistic devices and literary criticism was a remarkably fruitful approach to biblical interpretation, yielding quite unexpected theological results. Few scholars within the church have exploited this approach more creatively and productively than Walter Brueggemann. His first sorties into Kings include the old two volume Knox Preaching Guides which are still amongst the most stimulating comments on these royal narratives.

This Smyth and Helwys commentary is on a different scale, and is worked at a much more sophisticated level of exegesis, theological reflection and biblical criticism. But those familiar with Brueggemann’s writing know that he is the master of biblical commentary and crafted critique which together call in question all status quos which dare to place themselves over and against God and his purposes. Few writers so consistently, persistently, even insistently bring to light the biblical critique of power. The hegemony of empire, the tyranny of the market, the idolising of the economy, the bondage that is consumerism, the hubris that disguises itself as political self-sufficiency. And all of this is to be found in this commentary where Brueggemann sets the biblical narratives of bad kings and good kings, of false prophets and true prophets, of cynical abuse of power and the divine exercise of power, against the backdrop of biblical history and our own contemporary realities.

Like several commentaries the Smyth and Helwys format has exegetical comment which explores text, history and canonical connections; but it also has sections called connections, where Brueggemann becomes more explicit about how these words and stories become the Word of God to our age, and within our story. I confess that I am a Brueggemann fan; have been since the early 1980’s, a bit before he became so well known. His tireless  explorations of violence and intrigue, speaking truth to power, prophetic faithfulness and divine loyalty; the thick texture of his prose; the subversive intent of his language; the transformative power he discerns in the stance of hopeful imagination; these and many other qualities in his writing have brought major swathes of scripture to life for me. This commentary does all of the above, and is simply a joy to read. I am reading through this big, sumptuous, illustrated, exegetical wrestling match between text and interpreter during Lent. And if Lent is supposed to be the time when we discipline ourselves in an ascetic way, then I am surely failing. because this book is pure pleasure.

Not that I agree with all that Brueggemann writes. And yes when he focuses the ancient text on the power games of contemporary empire he often has his own nation in the sights. And there are times when he is so keen to show the free floating application of the bible text that its historical rootedness seems of little consequence over and against the critique it offers to our current history. But can he write! That isn’t a question, it’s an exclamation.

But if what you are looking for is a guide into the undomesticated realities of biblical politics and power games, read Brueggemann.

If issues of justice and peace, violence and power, faithful living and faithless existence, God centred worship and self centred atheism, are crucial issues for contemporary reflection, Brueggemann offers unrivalled access to the key texts, including in this volume the books of Kings.

If the study of Scripture is for you both an adventure in learning and a seeking of God’s Kingdom through a life of graced renewal and faithful obedience, then Brueggemann the Lutheran scholar will be a demanding but rewarding companion.

And if it matters to you that a biblical commentary should avoid the obvious, challenge our safe assumptions, mess up our comfort zones, and yet seek to remain in sensible touch with the meaning of the biblical text, then read Brueggemann’s books.

As to whether this expensive, expansive commentary is worth buying? Those who buy commentaries are usually preachers, pastors, scholars. And there are cheaper alternatives to this on Kings. The Interpretation commentary by R D Nelson, is a very fine treatment of these books, theologically astute and seriously engaged with the text. The New Interpreter’s Bible (a set I rate very highly – I often use it for lectio divina) also has a good entry but it’s bound with about 6 other biblical books and costs as much as this big Brueggemann volume. Marvin Sweeney’s new entry for the Old Testament Library is just out and yet to be reviewed, and is very likely to establish itself as an important mid-range critical and theological commentary. But none of these offer the one thing I prize most about the Smyth and Helwys volume – the original mind and brilliant writing of Walter Brueggemann.

Is it worth buying? Not for me to encourage others to spend their money pursuing my enthusiasms – but for me, this commentary mingles aesthetic enjoyment in a beautifully produced book, literary pleasure in reading such articulate and truth-slanted theology, intellectual provocation by a mind restlessly and faithfully prophetic, and spiritually clarifying argument both for the life lived faithfully towards God, and against life lived faithlessly in the endless spiral of wanting that is the consumer empire. Yet buying this book may well be just another such surrender. Precisely the double bind Brueggemann is so good at exposing. But yes – if book buying is part of your budget, and good commentaries are important voices in your conversations, then this one is a shrewd, ethically astringent and theologically imaginative voice that few of us can afford to ignore in our conversations about the meaning and demand of scripture.