What's Your Favorite Bible Commentary?

[In the Clouds]

I do use Matthew Henry and Halley's Bible Handbook on occasion.  I like Spurgeon but he is a little longwinded.  I use New Advent, too, even though I'm not Catholic .

My favorite study is methodology with Gesenius for Hebrew and Thayer for Greek.

[farouk]

5 minutes ago, In the Clouds said:

I do use Matthew Henry and Halley's Bible Handbook on occasion.  I like Spurgeon but he is a little longwinded.  I use New Advent, too, even though I'm not Catholic .

My favorite study is methodology with Gesenius for Hebrew and Thayer for Greek.

Hi @In the Clouds Spurgeon is more of a sermon writer; in fact, it was Mrs. Spurgeon that transcribed so many of them; a lot seem to be verbatim rather than summarizing the main points. But yes, Spurgeon was far more a preacher (known as 'the prince of preachers', indeed) rather than a consecutive commentator.

[farouk]

@Katie Rose Müller Do you think it's a traditional style of writing that puts you off some commentaries, etc.?

[Dennis1209]

On 11/13/2024 at 10:16 AM, Katie Rose Müller said:

I'm a Bible Commentary collector, and I'm wondering what everyone's favorite Bible Commentary is. I particularly like Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Pulpit; Barnes; Clarke; Kiel and Delitzsche. My least favorite is actually Matthew Henry.

Hi Katie,

You more or less stated my thoughts on the right tool for the right job at the right time. As you know, commentaries are divided in multiple ways for the task. Studying a Greek/Hebrew word, person, place, thing, event, background, or doctrine and theology needs tools inside an empty toolbox to dig deeper to obtain other thoughts.

The modern Dead Sea Scrolls translation and availability of commentaries/Bibles have much to offer, supplementing and adding to the Masoretic or other texts, replacing many Bible italics. Word meanings, adding to our exegesis, are in a constant state of change. In English, we see it comparing Webster's 1828 dictionary to modern dictionaries, not to mention legal word meanings not used in the ordinary sense.

East of Israel writing is from right to left, and West of Israel writing is from left to right. The ancient Eastern mind does not think or believe like the modern Western mind.

As the old saying implies, "The closer to the bone, the sweeter the meat." I am interested in what the early Ante Nicene fathers believed and wrote. In particular, Polycarp and Irenaeus were disciples of the apostle John, and what early Christians believed benefited my studies.   

Anyway, I'd have to say J. Vernon McGee to answer the question directly for various reasons. However, I do not prioritize my study commentaries by favorites.

 

[Katie Rose Müller]

On 11/19/2024 at 5:03 PM, farouk said:

@Katie Rose Müller Do you think it's a traditional style of writing that puts you off some commentaries, etc.?

Henry can make assumptions; put in his own paraphrasing quotes as though trying to envision the moment and I don't care for that type of rewording and imaginings. He occasionally has some good observations, but is particularly wordy so sifting through it is tedious.

I'm from the age of insta - so such length and wordiness is a bit cumbersome for me. But I am reading it. But I'm cheating and listening to the audio and reading along with it.

[Katie Rose Müller]

On 11/20/2024 at 8:36 AM, Dennis1209 said:

The modern Dead Sea Scrolls translation and availability of commentaries/Bibles have much to offer, supplementing and adding to the Masoretic or other texts, replacing many Bible italics.

Anyway, I'd have to say J. Vernon McGee to answer the question directly for various reasons. However, I do not prioritize my study commentaries by favorites.

 

 

A copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls and McGee are two that I currently don't have.

So no lie, I left off this post to search those two and have now impulsively bought a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls - there was a Black Friday Deal bringing the cost to $12 for the one book and McGee was also a Black Friday Deal on christianbook.com. I got the 6 Volume Set of Thru the Bible for $110. The original price was apparently $300 and when I looked around the internet they were all expensive so . . . I snagged the deal. Although I had to go to my Dad and be a problem daughter and I asked him for a loan. Ha ha ha ha.

[farouk]

41 minutes ago, Katie Rose Müller said:

A copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls and McGee are two that I currently don't have.

So no lie, I left off this post to search those two and have now impulsively bought a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls - there was a Black Friday Deal bringing the cost to $12 for the one book and McGee was also a Black Friday Deal on christianbook.com. I got the 6 Volume Set of Thru the Bible for $110. The original price was apparently $300 and when I looked around the internet they were all expensive so . . . I snagged the deal. Although I had to go to my Dad and be a problem daughter and I asked him for a loan. Ha ha ha ha.

Hi @Katie Rose Müller I've used McGee; there are indeed lots of good deals around for commentaries.

[Dennis1209]

7 hours ago, Katie Rose Müller said:

A copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls and McGee are two that I currently don't have.

So no lie, I left off this post to search those two and have now impulsively bought a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls - there was a Black Friday Deal bringing the cost to $12 for the one book and McGee was also a Black Friday Deal on christianbook.com. I got the 6 Volume Set of Thru the Bible for $110. The original price was apparently $300 and when I looked around the internet they were all expensive so . . . I snagged the deal. Although I had to go to my Dad and be a problem daughter and I asked him for a loan. Ha ha ha ha.

Congratulations! Yes, I know how expensive those are, and I think you will be thrilled with what you learn from them. I am delighted that you have a great deal on them!

J. Vernon McGee discusses and explains the Bible at the layperson’s level. There is no need to use more resources to understand his words.

I do not think it was a coincidence the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered when Israel was about to be reborn again after two millennia. We can learn much about the historical background and the missing pieces from the DSS.

If you are interested, I have a long note on the DSS related to the Essenes and John the Baptist.

Matthew 11:4-5 Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: ⁵ The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. [Emphasis added]

Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible or Septuagint does it say the coming Messiah would raise the dead; everything else is revealed in the OT. Only an Essene or someone familiar with the DSS would have picked up on the Messiah raising the dead.

[Katie Rose Müller]

14 hours ago, Dennis1209 said:

Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible or Septuagint does it say the coming Messiah would raise the dead; everything else is revealed in the OT. Only an Essene or someone familiar with the DSS would have picked up on the Messiah raising the dead.

Interesting. Where in the Dead Sea Scrolls would it point to the Messiah raising the dead specifically? Ezekiel 37 and Isaiah 26:19 of course discuss a resurrection, but ties it to the Lord, which is the only technicality. We know the Messiah and the Lord are one, but I suppose 1st Century peoples wouldn't have necessarily made that connection?

[marcus florian]

Hello ,I wouldn’t call myself a collector of commentaries but have accumulated a few over the years. I mostly use Cornelius a Lapide (most volumes) I also have Critici Sacri vol 1 only,  2 vols of Synopsis Criticorum, , some medieval comms eg Strabo and Maurus. As you see these are all older commentaters. I used to have copies of more recent ones eg New Cambridge  Bible but I began to dislike the aproach of the so called ‘higher criticism’ where they deconstruct the sacred  text as if it were a redaction  from different sources. I found this discrespectful, almost a pseudo-science and prefer the interptation which goes back to Origen and the Alexandrians exploring  5-fold exegesis,  allegory typology etc.