Finding the "Best" Biblical Commentary

Recommending the “best” biblical commentaries from the hundreds available in a well-stocked library is complicated by their diversity of purposes, formats, theological or denominational orientations, and the level of your expertise in biblical interpretation. In our Religion and Theology Research Guide we've recommended a number of commentaries for each book of the Bible: Old Testament and New Testament. Calvin Seminary's Center for Excellence in Preaching also makes similar recommendations.


There are several excellent print resources for commentary recommendations:

Tremper Longman, Old Testament Commentary Survey, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 157 pp. ThRef Z7772 .A1 L64 2007

Longman describes himself as representing "an evangelical approach to the Old Testament." He gives a brief annotation for each commentary mentioned and categorizes each as suitable for the Layperson (L), Minister (M), or Scholar (S) (or some combination of these categories). He also rates each commentary on scale of one to five.

D. A. Carson, New Testament Commentary Survey, 6th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 160 pp. ThRef BS2341.2 .C33 2007

Carson's commentary recommendations take the form of brief bibliographic essays (4 to 8 pages); one for each New Testament book. He avoids a formal rating system, but his comments give one a good feel for the strengths and weaknesses of the commentary literature on each book.

John Glynn, Commentary and Reference Survey: A Comprehensive Guide to Biblical and Theological Resources, 10th ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007). ThRef Z7770 .G59 2007

Glynn's book is more ambitious than the above two, with a more comprehensive coverage of other biblical reference resources. For each book of the Bible, he classifies commentaries as either "Technical/Semitechnical" or "Exposition." He also assigns one of four different classifications to each commentary (See p. 17 for his explanation of these criteria):

• "Evangelical"(E)
• "Evangelical/Critical"(E/Cr)
• "Conservative/Moderate"(C/M)
• "Liberal/Critical"(L/C)

Additionally, he highlights (in bold type) those commentaries he highly recommends. For some (though not all) commentaries he gives a few descriptive phrases, but overall his evaluative comments are few. For each biblical book he also includes a list of "special studies" which cannot be classified as commentaries.

Nebo-Sarsekim : Outed from the Archives

When you do archival research, you can find surprising things. The British Museum announced this week that an Austrian scholar who has been working through an archive of economic cuneiform texts has translated a 6th c. B.C. clay tablet which mentions a Babylonian officer, Nabu-sharrussu-ukin. It appears that this corresponds to the Nebo-Sarsekim who was present at the Fall of Jerusalem recorded in Jeremiah 39.
The tablet reads:

(Regarding) 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

The tablet was acquired by the British Museum in 1920, and came from the ancient city of Sippar, southwest of Baghdad. Sippar was excavated by the British Museum around 1880 by an Iraqi, Hormuzd Rassam. Whether this was a tablet originally found by Rassam in the 19th c. (he uncovered 70.000 clay tablets in Sippar), I'm not sure.

I do know that Rassam's story as the only prominent Middle Eastern archaeologist in the 19th century is fascinating. David Damrosch has told it well in a recent book The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (Holt, 2006). It's a great book, not just about Rassam, but also about the decipherment of cuneiform in the early 19th c. and continuing to Saddam Hussein's fascination with Gilgamesh. For an excerpt of the book see the May 2007 issue of Smithsonian magazine, "Epic Hero," the story of George Smith, first translator of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which contains an early version of the flood story. It is reported that when Smith, sitting in the British Museum, realized what he was translating, he shed his clothes and began dancing around his desk in his underwear. (You see him on the right in a more modest moment.) Great summer reading, believe it or not!

Papal Pronouncements

Twice in the past week major newspapers have carried stories about papal pronouncements: "Pope Eases Restrictions on Wider Use of Latin Mass" (NYTimes, Sunday, June 8); and "Pope, Restating 2000 Document, Cites 'Defects' of Other Faiths" (NYTimes, Wednesday, June 11). The newspaper articles have brief quotations from Pope Benedict XVI's authorization regarding the Latin mass and this recent restatement of Roman Catholic ecclesiology. But what if you want to dig deeper and see the actual documents?

Two well-organized web sites can help:

1. The official Vatican site is The Holy See (www.vatican.va) with sites in German, Italian, Spanish, French, English, and Portuguese). Here you will find links to recent documents in the news, including Benedict's apostolic letter "Summorum Pontificum" regarding the Latin mass, the letter to bishops on the occasion of the publication of "Summorum Pontificum," and the document "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church ." The site is fully searchable, with good cross-referenced links. But there's a problem: There's no officially authorized English translation of the Latin text "Summorum Pontificum." For a translation, see below.
   
   
2. Papal Encyclicals Online is not an official Vatican web site, but provides convenient access to papal encyclicals and other Catholic Church documents from 1226 to the present. Papal encyclicals and other documents may be browsed by Pope or searched by keyword. Includes the full text of papal encyclicals, apostolic letters, apostolic constitutions, apostolic exhortations, and other Papal communications. This site contains an unofficial English translation of "Summorum Pontificum." On this site you can also find such things as the famous papal bull issued by Pope Leo X against Martin Luther in 1520, "Exsurge Domine" (pictured above right)

Behind all of this, of course, are the liturgical texts in question: The 1962 edition of the "Missal of Pius V," also called the Tridentine Mass; and the post-Vatican II "Missal of Paul VI," promulgated in 1970. These texts can be conveniently found in the Catholic Liturgical Library web site. For some concise background history, see the Wikipedia article on the Roman Missal.

The Future of Christianity in Europe

Philip Jenkins's new book, God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis (Oxford, 2007) continues his ongoing analysis of the present and future of modern Christianity. In The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford, 2002, rev. 2007) and The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford, 2006) Jenkins outlined and analyzed the geographic shift of Christianity from north to south. In the present book Jenkins examines European Christianity as it experiences expanding Muslim immigration as a society in a state of advanced secularism. He does this with his customary presentation of an extraordinary wealth of detail together with intelligent analysis of options for Europe's religious future. According to Jenkins, Christianity in Europe is not dying, but rather, the current situation presents an opportunity for new forms of Islamic and Christian faith to flourish within a predominantly secular environment. While the traditional institutional church in Europe is in decline, he sees signs of revival in various movements in Roman Catholicism and other Christian groups, including vital, growing immigrant churches.

For Jenkins's own brief summary of his current book, see his recent article in Foreign Policy, "Europe's Christian Comeback." The July 2007 issue of the International Bulletin for Missionary Research features an article by Jenkins, "Godless Europe?" and Lamin Sanneh's remarks about Jenkins's book, "Can Europe Be Saved? A Review Essay." Editor Jonathan Bonk introduces these essays with his comments "Europe: Christendom Graveyard or Christian Laboratory?"

"A Hipper Crowd of Shushers"

The New York Times has discovered what the theology reference librarians of Hekman Library have long known - Librarians are very happening people. My colleague and I on the fourth floor of Hekman Library have spent most of our lives trying to be very "unhip," but we give up; we can't fight it anymore. See today's New York Times article in the Sunday Style section: "A Hipper Crowd of Shushers."

The Bookshelf as Womb

Sakura Adachi, a Milanese furniture designer, has designed a bookshelf she calls "the Cave." Those who really enjoy relaxing with a book while surrounded by books will want to order one of these (price: 2250 euros). If you prefer to do most of your reading in bed or at a desk, but like the idea, maybe your dog or cat would like a "cave." That's now also a possibility. Ms. Adachi has come out with a model designed for small dogs and cats. To order, visit her web site: Sakurah.net.

"The Cave" is a recent innovation in the long history of shelving books. For a good summer read see Henry Petroski, The Book on the Bookshelf (Knopf, 1999). [Hekman Library Z685 .P48 1999] Petroski is an engineer, who has also written books about the pencil and about bridges (and, believe it or not, a forthcoming book in October about the technology and culture of the toothpick). In The Book on the Bookshelf, Petroski takes the reader through various forms of shelving, from the pigeonholing of scrolls and the arrangement of medieval chained books to contemporary library shelving and such fascinating topics as the architecture of the British Museum reading room. The book ends with an appendix which lists a multitude of ways people have arranged the books in their private libraries: not just by title, or author, or size, but by color, by price, by sentimental value, by order of reading, etc.

"How's My Bible Doing?" Dutch Staten Bibles at Hekman Library

Two very wonderful people showed up the other day and presented me with an article from the Grand Rapids Press dated June 10, 1967. According the the article, 40 years ago their mother had donated a 1637 Dutch Staten Bible to Hekman Library. The reporter noted that the Bible had been "desecrated by a sword thrust that nearly destroyed it. The marks of the sword . . . are still visible." The article further speculated that "some soldier surprised the congregation and tried to destroy the Bible." Let your imagination run with that for awhile. (Take a look at the photo on the left.) I'm skeptical about the scenario; I'm not so sure that soldiers were busting heads or spearing Bibles at 17th-century Dutch Reformed church services (16th century - maybe!).

But I did find the Bible and we looked at it together for awhile. Family members had written genealogical information in the front leaves. We've kept it safe these 40 years and will continue to keep it in our Rare Book Room. Maybe their children will come back to take a look again in forty years. It's a large format folio 1637 Dutch Staten Bible. This translation became the standard Bible of the Dutch Reformed Church, corresponding to the "King James Bible" (1611) of English-speaking people, and Luther's translation in Germany. Actually we have four 1637 first editions, as well as numerous later editions. One of my favorites is an 18th-century version with a Dutch East India Company binding (you might say this is an early example of what today we call a "niche Bible" [see also Daniel Radosh, "The Good Book Business," New Yorker (18 December 2006)].


In 1618 at the Dutch Reformed Synod of Dordrecht, one of the first orders of business concerned a new Dutch-language translation of the Bible from the original languages. Six Dutch theologians were appointed to the translation team: three for the Old Testament, Jan Bogerman (1576-1637), Willem Baudartius (1565-1640), and Gerson Bucer (c.1565-1631); and three for the New Testament, Jacob Roland (1562-1632), Festus Hommius (1576-1642), and Anthony Walaeus (1573-1639). The translation also includes the Apocryphal Books. While the first edition of the Bible has a printer's date of 1636, printing actually was completed the following year, and the first copy presented to the Dutch Estates General (which sponsored the publication) on September 17, 1637.

The Staten Bible also has extensive annotations and cross-references. (See the photo of Psalm 100 on the right.) The Synod of Dordt gave the translators a number of guidelines. They were to give brief and clear content summaries for each book and chapter. They were also to add brief marginal explanations if the Greek or Hebrew could not be translated entirely "literally." Unclear passages were to be explained briefly. The annotations are important for the history of interpretation, and have influenced generations of Bible readers in the Dutch Reformed tradition. This was the primary Dutch Bible translation until 1951, and has had considerable linguistic influence on the Dutch language. There is an online Dutch version which includes the annotations as well as information about the translators and other aspects of the Dutch Bible.

For those who do not read Dutch, an English translation exists. In 1645 the Westminster Assembly persuaded Theodore Haak (1605-1690) to begin work on an English translation of the Staten Bible. Haak's translation (he didn't include the cross-references or the Apocrypha) was finally issued in 1657, with the title: The Dutch Annotations Upon the whole Bible . . . A facsimile edition was published in 2002 by the Gereformeerde Bijbelstichting (ISBN 90-72186-31-1 , HL RareBk BS195 .H25 1657a). For those with access to Early English Books Online (EEBO), here's a durable URL link to Haak's translation.