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» Ship of Fools   »   » Oblivion   » If you could recommend one series of commentaries? (Page 2)

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Source: (consider it) Thread: If you could recommend one series of commentaries?
Offeiriad

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# 14031

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Best of luck with them!

I haven't tried the 'Orthodox Study Bible', having been put off by a couple of reviews. I did see a copy in our ex SPCK bookshop, but didn't want to give money to 'St Stephen the Great' in view of how they were treating their staff.

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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
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I rather like the Concordia Commentaries, what I've seen of them. But VERY academic, though at least translation is provided.

And I've got a copy of the new Lutheran Study Bible! It appears to have lots of stuff from the church fathers in the notes. I haven't had time to go all through it, yet, though.

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cg
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# 14332

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Oferyas - yes, I've now read enough negative reviews of the Orthodox Study Bible to know that it won't do for my purposes. Someone suggested I look at a couple of books by Johanna Manley from St Vladimir's Seminary Press: The Bible and the Holy Fathers, and Wisdom let us attend (the third section of it). Do you know either?
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Offeiriad

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Sorry, don't know either of those.
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WearyPilgrim
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# 14593

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I still have my set (minus one volume) of the original Interpreter's Bible from the 1950s, and continue to find it very helpful after thirty years. I also have several of Raymond Brown's excellent books on the NT, the whole set of the Expositor's Bible Commentary from my con-evo days (a good, solid mainstream evangelical perspective) and William Barclay's Daily Study Bible NT set. Barclay's exegesis of some passages had a profound effect on the evolution of my theology. He was also a good, clear writer.
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Moo

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# 107

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{bump}

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Grape is thy faithfulness
Apprentice
# 15430

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quote:
Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
If you find the NIGTC too heavyweight, I recommend the volume in The People's Bible Commentary (published by BRF) which was also written by Dick (R.T.) France. It's written as a series of daily readings (which might not be what you want). I've just worked through it myself, and found it very enlightening.

(I was delighted to find the People's Bible Commentary series, as I find the typical daily bible reading books/booklets just too devotional and subjective.)


I've been looking for a while for materials suitable for personal study. I have read a number of the Tom Wright books but find them rather unsatisfying - the chunk-by-chunk approach doesn't lend itself particularly well to drawing out themes and patterns, and the commentary element doesn't generally give any hint about the degree of scholarly/church consensus or controversy about each passage. I've also bought the Nicholas King SJ translation/commentaries on the NT and Wisdom literature - I look forward to getting to grips with those.

I'd be interested in others' comments on their experiences:
- what sort of books would you recommend for the enquiring person in the pews;
- how open are these books about the theological orientation of the author, and the range of other interpretations that are possible (and why the author favours their particular standpoint);
- how helpful are the books in looking at context - the context of the particular book of the Bible within the Bible, within the religious framework of that book's author
etc

I may be a wimp, but I don't fancy commuting with the New Jerome or Oxford Bible commentary!

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Jengie jon

Semper Reformanda
# 273

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The BRF Peoples Commentary aren't by Tom Wright in fact none of the current published ones are. They seem to use a wide range of scholars. I certainly could spot: Anglicans(at least on liberal), Methodist, URC (conservative) and people who sounded as if Roman Catholic.

They seem to have taken people who are scholars but also good at presenting research to lay people in an open way.

Jengie

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Chorister

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# 473

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I'm a fan of the New Jerome commentary, too. But even though mine's the paperback version, it is rather heavy to carry around.
But, quite coincidentally, I've just had cause to look up a bible verse online and added 'meaning' after the verse, which brought up references to online bible commentaries. You'd need to spend some time checking if you were happy with their approach (which I expect would vary) but it sounds like some of these could be a useful potential resource.

(And welcome to the ship, Grape!)

[ 22. January 2010, 15:36: Message edited by: Chorister ]

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Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Grape is thy faithfulness
Apprentice
# 15430

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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The BRF Peoples Commentary aren't by Tom Wright in fact none of the current published ones are. They seem to use a wide range of scholars. I certainly could spot: Anglicans(at least on liberal), Methodist, URC (conservative) and people who sounded as if Roman Catholic.

They seem to have taken people who are scholars but also good at presenting research to lay people in an open way.

Jengie

I appreciate that the BRF books are not Tom Wright - but they seem to me to share the disadvantage of being strongly focused on daily chunks, rather than looking across the book. But thanks for your thoughts!
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tclune
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# 7959

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I wanted to bump this thread to share an incredible online resource that I stumbled across, Tyndale Seminary's virtual reading room This site has a HUGE collection of resources for Biblical scholarship. They are tied into Google's effort to make everything available online. The books are often not completely available through the site -- for example, there are only a few of the 15 volumes of the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament available without buying them. But you can really explore different texts that are current and see if they fit your interest and level of appreciation for the subject. Just don't click the link if you don't have a few days to waste...

--Tom Clune

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Bran Stark
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# 15252

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I really like The Interpreter's Bible. Twelve volumes, with "text, exegesis, and exposition". And said text is parallel-column KJV and RSV. Ironically the IB seems to have been considered a horrific liberal work when it came out, but today is very much on the "conservative" side of things. Rather like the RSV itself.

I don't really like it's supposed successor The New Interpreter's Bible as much. It includes the Apocrypha, which is good. It updates the RSV to the NRSV, which is fine and I even support, but on the other column then for some unfathomable reason it chucks out the KJV for the terrible clunky NIV.

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tclune
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I just want to add one enjoyable new find: I got the first volume of The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture which is a 28-volume commentary on all of scripture. It is a real pleasure, although it would be less than ideal to use as your only commentary.

The OT commentary is heavily biased toward jumping-to-Jesus, which was the style for many years but makes for a very unbalanced theological diet if that's all you consume. Nonetheless, it is a delight to see the words of so many of the Church Fathers in elucidation of the scriptures. FWIW

--Tom Clune

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Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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The following two posts have been copied from "Commentary recommendations".

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Jengie Jon- Posted 17 December, 2011 09:52
Rosa Winkel wrote on the inquire within thread in All Saints:
Could anyone recommend a Bible study book for Year B, or for the Gospel of Matthew (which I know isn't the Gospel focussed upon in Year B)?

I thought about Tom Wright..

Given that we have just started a new lectionary and are approaching a new calendar year, and it got roundly ignored on inquire within (except by me), I thought I would bring it here and see if it would kick off a thread not about Bibles but about commentaries and other resources.

Jengie

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Chamois

I'd also be interested in people's responses.


I've experienced great trouble myself getting recommendations for commentaries. I recently asked a number of clergypeople I know to recommend a commentary on Isaiah - without getting any response at all until I brought the question to this forum. It made me wonder how many clergypersons use commentaries themselves.....

I'm sure some of the erudite Kerygmaniacs will come up with something.

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Adam.

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quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
The following two posts have been copied from "Commentary recommendations".

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Jengie Jon- Posted 17 December, 2011 09:52
Rosa Winkel wrote on the inquire within thread in All Saints:
Could anyone recommend a Bible study book for Year B, or for the Gospel of Matthew (which I know isn't the Gospel focussed upon in Year B)?

I have to admit I haven't look at it personally, but a commentary that is arranged according to the Sunday lectionary is "The Word we Celebrate" by Patricia Datchuck Sanchez. It was recommended to us in preaching class. The prof is a very good preacher and says this is his most used weekly preaching resource.

My go to commentary on Matthew is Daniel Harrington's (SP 1). It's academically respectable whilst having a pastoral / application bent.

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Custard
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# 5402

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I'm a minister and a bit of a commentary geek... Matthew is quite tricky for commentaries - I still haven't found one I'm completely happy with. For commentaries generally, I find bestcommentaries.com helpful - it's an amalgamation of loads of commmentary reviews from various sources.

Commentaries on Isaiah:

The best is widely considered to be Oswalt's massive multi-volume commentary in the NICOT series. Helpfully, he's done a condensed (700pp) and less technical version in the NIVAC series.

For something shorter as an introduction or for devotional use, Webb in the BST series is very good.

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venbede
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# 16669

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quote:
Originally posted by cg:


Are you familiar with the Orthodox Study Bible (see link on the 'picky, picky' Bible thread)? If so, how do you find it?

Father Ephrem Lash's unenthusiastic review here:

http://www.anastasis.org.uk/bible_review.htm

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Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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bump

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Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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Originally posted by Hart on a new thread.
quote:

I'm looking to get a commentary on Wisdom. I'm not about to make an intense study of it, I'm more interested in something to help with preaching it, so I'd be looking for something on the more applied / pastoral end of commentaries, rather than something that spends a lot of time analyzing textual variants, etc. I'd prefer something on the shorter side, but the Collegeville commentary is only 88 pages, which might be a little too short (on my maybe list, though). Any thoughts?



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Trudy Scrumptious

BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647

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Originally posted by Truman White on a new (and now closed) thread:

quote:
I'm thinking of investing in a commentary on John. What do you like and why?

Any suggestions welcome since I haven't worked out what kind of commentary I'm after yet.

Surprise me.

Hope the commentary-wise among us have some advice to offer on these specific requests.

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Callan
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Put me down for another vote for Robert Alter. Also John Goldingay for the Old Testament and N.T. Wright for the New. Note that this is not an endorsement of everything the three of them have to say but that they are interesting, scholarly and thought provoking.

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Adam.

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I think I gave my best answer to the generic "what NT commentaries are good?" question here.
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Originally posted by Truman White on a new (and now closed) thread:
quote:
I'm thinking of investing in a commentary on John. What do you like and why?

Any suggestions welcome since I haven't worked out what kind of commentary I'm after yet.

Surprise me.

Hope the commentary-wise among us have some advice to offer on these specific requests.
On that, I note that I mentioned both the Sacra Pagina one and Ben Witherington's John's Wisdom. Since then, I've recently picked up Craig Koester's Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel to try to get through before the lectionary takes its Lenten Johannine turn. It's not technically a commentary, but he goes over almost every pericope in the gospel, not chronologically, but organized by symbol. So, all the water passages are together, as are all the light passages, etc.

[ 16. February 2014, 20:00: Message edited by: Hart ]

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