Dive In: Commentaries

I was only 17 at the time, so the meetings were welcome. All the Sunday school teachers gathered every other week while our pastor taught us the lesson we were to teach to our children. I had 5-year-olds and didn’t want them infected with wrong doctrine.

Today, my feelings about those meetings are a bit mixed. They were helpful to me as a young teacher but the more experienced teachers refused to do any study on their own. Their preparation consisted of repeating what the pastor told them.

We do the same thing with our Bible study when the first resource we pick up is a commentary. I have challenged you to read-read-read your Bible and to examine with care, noticing detail and also trying to discern the big picture.

A commentary should be one of the last books you pick up as you dive into the text. Commentaries are written by people who, in spite of their labor, cannot help bias and limitation. No commentary can fully capture the meaning of any text.

Add in to that that biblical scholarship continues to develop. New discoveries have added depth to biblical understanding. The Dead Sea Scrolls have added great richness to biblical scholarship, for example, because old texts were discovered, allowing translators to better discern word usage and syntax of first century writings.

For centuries, biblical scholarship tried to explain the lack of archeological evidence for the Assyrian nation. Many assumed it had not existed but then an ancient Nineveh was discovered. Discoveries help us better plumb biblical meaning.

All this to say that older commentaries are somewhat limited. They didn’t have the benefit of the Dead Sea Scrolls and archaeological finds. They worked with the knowledge of their day and they have very helpful insights. But don’t rest your analysis of a text on ancient commentaries alone.

Just like reading different translations of the Bible helps reveal meaning, reading more than one commentary helps produce a balanced presentation.

I will make some recommendations. Please know these are not inexpensive books. You may never own the entire set of them. I try to buy a text as I study a particular book, depending on financial resources. However, these will enrich your study.

My favorite commentary is The New American Commentary from Holman Press. It is evangelical and conservative, scholarly and deeply steeped in Hebrew and Greek research. Each volume is $20-$30 new. I’ve found used volumes for less.

Another suggestion is New Testament Commentary by Baker Press. It is from a Reformed standpoint. It is written by two authors so isn’t quite as consistent as the NAC, but still a valuable commentary.

Some helpful scholarly authors are: F.F. Bruce, Ben Witherington, Howard Marshall, Douglas Moo, Leon Morris, Craig Blomberg, Walter Brueggemann, Brevard Childs. This is a very limited list, but it might give you a foothold into further study.

Often you can find articles on the internet by these authors.

My basic tools for Diving In are several translations of the Bible, the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, a good atlas (we’ll look at those another time), and The New American Commentary.

First, study the details of the biblical text, noticing its design and provenance. Try to discover the author’s point to his original audience and see if that idea still resonates today. THEN dig out commentaries to see if others agree with your analysis. If no one has seen what you’ve seen, maybe you’ve better go back to the text and do some more digging. Use a commentary as sort of a answer sheet to check your work, not the place to begin.

Don’t just repeat what a commentary tells you. Dive in and drink the text for yourself. You’ll be revived and renewed by what you discover.