In English it reads, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.”
The Septuagint straightforwardly translates the Hebrew, which is:
ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי־אור
The Greek καὶ is versatile. The first καὶ in Genesis 1:3 is connected to what precedes it in 1:2 (darkness over the deep), but not necessarily inextricably so. In other words, one could leave it untranslated when going into English, with 1:3 beginning just, “God said….” The second καὶ in 1:3, however, seems to be more closely related to what precedes it. “And there was light” follows immediately upon God’s calling for light. God said it, and it happened.
God’s first words bring light into being in order to counter the darkness that was over the earth. In the first words attributed to God, LXX-G establishes a formulaic speech pattern that continues throughout the chapter, namely, a verb in the third person imperative (let x be), followed by ‘and,’ and concludes with a verb in the aorist (and x was). The pattern, similar to that in the MT noticed by Westermann and others, not only represents God as an orderly creator, but more importantly, as a powerful creator whose very words accomplish actions.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer has much to say about this in his Creation and Fall lectures on Genesis 1-3. On Tuesday I’ll post about his take on the link between God’s speech and the resulting creation.
A book that I desire to delve into more deeply is Conybeare and Stock’s Grammar of Septuagint Greek. The grammar itself is short, and still leaves to be desired a fuller grammar of Septuagint Greek. But the selected readings have Septuagint text with reading helps at the bottom of each page, and make for a nice bridge into reading Old Testament Greek. The readings section looks like this (click to enlarge):
From the reading on Joseph
You can access the whole book for free (and legally) here. The format there is a little unwieldy, so you might also consider checking it out in print (affiliate link).
The grammar is pretty dense, and feels sparse in places, but I haven’t had a chance to examine the book thoroughly yet. The selected readings have helped me in improving my Greek, though. It’s recommended reading on this Septuagint Sunday.
Carl G. Rasmussen has recently released a Revised Edition of Zondervan Atlas of the Bible. Below I offer a description of its contents with some evaluative remarks.
What’s in the Atlas
After the Preface and Introduction the atlas consists of a Geographical Section and a Historical Section, followed by Appendices.
The Geographical Section is first, because:
This atlas has been written in the belief that once one has a basic understanding of the geography of the Middle East, one has a much better chance of coming to grips with the flow of historical events that occurred there.
After “Introduction to the Middle East as a Whole” there are these sub-sections:
The Geography of Israel and Jordan (the longest section, covering “the Five Zones,” weather, routes, and individual regions)
The Geography of Egypt
The Geography of Syria and Lebanon
The Geography of Mesopotamia
The Historical Section covers the Bible’s history in canonical order, from the pre-patriarchal period to the churches in Revelation. It concludes with a special section on Jerusalem (“Of all the cities in the Bible, this is the most prominent one: it is mentioned 667 times in the Old Testament and 139 times in the New”) and an essay: “The Disciplines of Historical Geography.” I appreciated being able to compare the layout of Jerusalem in the Old Testament, during the time of Nehemiah, and in the New Testament.
Rasmussen covers even the so-called intertestamental period, with sections on the Greeks (4th century B.C. onward), the Maccabees, and the Hasmonean dynasty.
The Appendices are also impressive. What really makes this atlas user-friendly is the 31-page Geographical Dictionary and Index. Any place name in the atlas (whether it has appeared on a map or in the descriptive text) is in the dictionary/index. There are also identifications with modern places, so one finds out, for example, that the biblical Bethany is the current-day El-Azariya. More specifically, here is the entry for Bethany at the back of the atlas:
Bethany (near Jerusalem)—Village on road to Jericho (Mark 11:1; Luke 19:29) less than 2 mi. from Jerusalem (John 11:18). Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived there (John 11) and it seems that Jesus spent the evenings of the week before his crucifixion there. Mentioned 11 times in NT.–El-Azariya (174131), 1.5 mi. E of Jerusalem, on E side of Mount of Olives. 212, 214, 217, 251, 252
There’s quite a lot of text in the atlas, too. (It’s far more than just maps and photos.) In the section covering Jesus’ life, for example, Rasmussen offers an almost narrative overview of the locations of Jesus’ ministry, interspersed with graphics.
The Graphics
As with other Zondervan books along similar lines, there are striking full-color images and well-drawn maps throughout the book. Photographs like this will have to suffice until I can visit the lands described in this book:
Full-color photograph from the atlas
The atlas contains both two-dimensional and three-dimensional maps:
One of many maps from the Atlas
Between the maps, photographs, and timelines throughout the book, you can easily get your bearings in any era or biblical passage of study.
Evaluation
I’ve not been able to take full advantage of all that the atlas has to offer–there is a lot here–but it is my current go-to atlas. I look forward to making further use of it. Perhaps the proof is in the pudding: even though I was given a gratis copy for review by Zondervan, I purchased an electronic version of it in Accordance Bible software so I could have access to it there, too (I rarely purchase a book in two formats). Accordance’s production of the module, from what I’ve seen so far, enhances what is already an excellent book, with the added advantages of hyperlinks and advanced searching capabilities.
My two points of critique are fairly minor ones. First, the timelines throughout the book are easy enough to follow, but they are stylized in such a way that they feel a bit cluttered. You can see examples using the Search Inside feature on Amazon here (affiliate link). Second, the font is narrow and looks crammed on a page, especially pages that have a good amount of text. The flip-side to this is that in a book that is still fairly portable (just under 300 pages), you’re getting a lot of great information, but it’s not always easy to read for long stretches of time.
Any serious reader, no matter their level of prior knowledge of biblical geography and history, could make profitable use of the atlas. It’s not highly technical or scholarly, though students and professors should still consider it, especially in a classroom or Sunday school setting.
You can view a sample pdf of the atlas (including a detailed Table of Contents) here. Its product page at Zondervan is here. Accordance has it on sale for the rest of today (Monday) here.
Zondervan has just published the first two volumes of a new Old Testament commentary series, Hearing the Message of Scripture. Here’s part of a brief description of its approach:
[W]hen dealing with specific texts, the authors of the commentaries in this series are concerned with three principal questions:
What are the principal theological points the biblical writers are making?
How do biblical writers make those points?
What significance does the message of the present text have for understanding the message of the biblical book within which it is embedded and the message of the Scriptures as a whole?
The achievement of these goals requires careful attention to the way ideas are expressed in the OT, including the selection and arrangement of materials and the syntactical shaping of the text.
Zondervan introduces the series more fully here, with a listing of contributors here. Or, if you prefer a video introduction, here is Series Editor Daniel I. Block on the series:
You can see PDF samples from Obadiah (by Daniel I. Block) here and from Jonah (by Kevin J. Youngblood) here. Zondervan’s book pages for each title are here and here. I’ve read half of the Obadiah volume so far and will post a review shortly.
J. Alec Motyer writes about his Isaiah (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries):
I have set out to provide a ‘reader’s commentary’ on Isaiah – a companion to daily Bible reading – and I believe that those who use it this way will reap the largest rewards from it. This is not to say that it cannot be used to look up ‘spot’ verses or passages, for I have done my best not to evade difficulties and, in every such place, to ask what a reader, Bible in hand, would find most useful to know.
The series has “the serious Bible reader” as its intended audience. It blends exegesis, theology, history, and application nicely.
Motyer’s Introduction to Isaiah
Motyer’s brief (less than 25 pages) introduction contains these sections:
Isaiah’s message: Motyer summarizes Isaiah in five pages.
Isaiah’s thought: “Isaiah is the Paul…’Hebrews’…James of the Old Testament….”
Isaiah’s book: Motyer highlights the canonical and literary unity of Isaiah, bluntly noting that using stylistic differences to identify different authors “is and always has been a nonsense.”
Text: “The Hebrew Text (MT) of Isaiah has come to us in fine preservation without any real doubt what the text means or a serious necessity of emendation.”
Isaiah and the New Testament: “The New Testament quotes Isaiah more than all the other prophets together….”
Following the introduction is a six-page “Analysis,” which is a fairly detailed outline of Isaiah. IVP and Motyer have made the commentary easier to work through by then using this outline to structure the commentary proper. Each of the headings, points, and sub-points appear at the appropriate spots in the commentary for easier navigation. You always know where you are in the larger context of Isaiah, as Motyer understands it.
The Commentary Proper
I’ve used the Tyndale commentaries in preaching and also individual Bible reading. Motyer is not only a good exegete; he’s engaging and funny (e.g., he refers to a “stink-fruit harvest” in Isaiah 5).
Theologically, Motyer is comfortable (as we all should be, I think) with the idea of predictive prophecy: “There is no need to find anything difficult or strange in Isaiah’s prediction of Babylonian captivity.” Yet he engages critical scholarship that reads the book differently. Motyer addresses the book’s authorship, but he is more concerned with the book in its current form than anything like redaction criticism.
Motyer’s application of Isaiah is inspiring. Of Isaiah 2:1-5 he says, “[I]f the world is ever to sayCome, let us go up (3), the Lord’s people must heed the call Come … let us walk (5): the first requirement in evangelism is to have a church that is worth joining!” While Isaiah was not necessarily thinking in these terms, it’s a good way for us who read him today to apply his message.
I would have liked to see more comment on the Servant/Anointed One as Jesus, or on how the New Testament picks up and uses such imagery. There is some of this–for example, Motyer mentions that Isaiah 61:1-4 is the passage Jesus read in Luke 4, “establishing the messianic credentials of Isaiah’s presentation.” And this is not necessarily a given in an Isaiah commentary, but since this is a series for “today’s Christian church and reader,” I had been hoping Motyer would go further in application.
Regarding the beautiful Isaiah 61 Motyer uses a wonderful turn of phrase to talk about the reversal of fortunes Yahweh will bring about: divine replacement therapy. His take on verse 3 is especially compelling. Isaiah reads (NIV):
and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
Motyer has this gem of a comment:
Note the downward movement of the transformation: from the crown (lit. ‘head-dress’; 3:20; cf. 61:10; Exod. 39:28), to the head (oil), to the clothing (garment). (Cf. the running down of Ps. 133:2–3, significant of heavenly outpouring.) Note also the inward movement of ashes, the visible evidence of grief (58:5; 2 Sam. 13:19), to mourning, grief in the heart, to the inner spirit of despair. The Lord thus acts to pierce progressively to the innermost need.
The series and the author’s aims to give the serious Bible reader a guide for Bible study are successful. I’d heartily recommend Motyer’s Isaiah to anyone who is reading through the Bible’s “fifth gospel.”
Thanks to IVP for the review copy. Motyer’s Isaiah (TOTC) is on Amazon here. Its product page is at InterVarsity Press’s site here.
The sort of “backgrounds” that Isaiah describes are history, geography, culture, archaeology, and comparison to other Ancient Near Eastern texts and traditions. The introduction is quite short, but with its timelines of kings and map and historical overview, it provides a solid orientation to Isaiah.
David W. Baker’s comments on the first two words of Isaiah give a good sense of the approach of his commentary:
The vision (1:1). Most prophecies begin with a self-identification that can contain elements such as the type of literature, the identity of the prophet, and the time period. These indicate that they contain actual messages to a real audience addressing real-life issues they were facing. “Vision” is a form of divine revelation that did not necessarily involve the physical eyes, since here it involves primarily words rather than images (cf. 2:1). Prophets of Yahweh and pagan prophets experienced them. In Mesopotamia, even laypeople, both men and women, received visions or dreams from their gods.
The commentary does not reproduce the entire biblical text, but the words and verse to be commented on are marked in bold.
Isaiah 22:16 (NIV) reads:
What are you doing here and who gave you permission to cut out a grave for yourself here, hewing your grave on the height and chiseling your resting place in the rock?
The verse makes some sense in its context already, but Baker’s concise comment adds more:
Hewing your grave (22:16). In Jerusalem, tombs were often hewn from the limestone rock, especially by people with means (e.g., Gen. 50:5; 2 Chr. 16:14; Matt. 27:60).
Baker has excursuses throughout the book that further illuminate themes like “Names and Naming” (Isaiah 9), “Assyrian Siege Tactics” (Isaiah 23), and “Divine Mercy” (Isaiah 54-55).
Swords shall be beaten into this (image from the book)
The ZIBBC series does not offer much by way of grammatical analysis or rhetorical criticism, but neither does it seek to. It ably accomplishes its purpose of giving the reader background information on the text, as well as sources for further reading.
To that end more than 1,700 (!) endnotes supply citations and bibliographic information that one can follow. (Note: I much prefer footnotes to endnotes, but with all of the sidebars and charts and photographs already in the body of the text, I think I see why the series uses endnotes.)
As the commentary progressed, I occasionally grew tired of the constant comparison of Isaiah to other Ancient Near Eastern parallels. On the one hand, it wouldn’t be entirely fair to criticize a “Bible Backgrounds” commentary for this, but the parallels sometimes felt a little strained.
Yet at other times the connections to ANE texts are illuminating, and downright fascinating. For instance, in a section called “Year of the Lord’s Favor,” covering Isaiah 61:1-11, Baker writes
Happiness and plenty are the goal of an ideal reign. A letter containing a prophecy addressed to Ashurbanipal foretells blessings from Shamash and Adad. These gods establish
a happy reign: days of justice, years of equity, heavy rains, water in full flood, a thriving commerce … Old men dance, young men sing, women and maidens are glad and make merry … Whom his crime has condemned to death, the king my lord has let live; who has been held prisoner many years, is set free; who were sick many days have recovered. The hungry have been sated; the lice-infested have been anointed; the naked have been clad in garments.
Many of these same elements characterize the anticipated messianic reign in Israel….
“He built a watchtower…” (Isa. 5:2/book image)
One can deduce, then, that the elements of this reign fulfill universally human desires (since they show up in other religious texts) for well-being and freedom. Understanding this enhances one’s read of Isaiah 61. The Messiah, one could say, fulfills a human longing that many cultures and religions have sought to express.
One missing piece in this single volume is the “Methodology: An Introductory Essay” by series editor John H. Walton, that can be found in the multi-book volumes. I would hope that future single volumes in this series include it.
The book is surprisingly well-constructed for a paperback that retails at $19.99. The glossy paper is of high quality, as are the full-color photographs, maps, and charts. The cover and binding are built to last. Regardless of your level of knowledge about the Old Testament or biblical background in general, Baker’s Isaiah is a good second book to have on hand when reading through the biblical book of Isaiah.
Thanks to Zondervan for the review copy. Find it here on Amazon, or at the publisher’s page here.
I still wonder what language(s) Jesus spoke. I know, I know. Easy: Aramaic…right? And possibly also Hebrew when he quotes Scripture?
I’m becoming increasingly open to the idea, however, that Jesus–at least on occasion–taught in Greek. At any rate, it is true that the Gospel writers that quote Jesus do so in Greek. There is also the fascinating question of what text form(s) Jesus used when he quoted Scripture, which he did frequently.
As Moyise sees it, the task of studying Jesus’ use of Scripture is two-fold:
First, we must study what each Gospel writer has to say about Jesus’ use of Scripture and seek to determine his method and purpose.
To do this, Moyise briefly (yet substantively) surveys how each Gospel writer presents Jesus’ use of Scripture. For each of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Moyise analyzes Jesus’ quotations of “the law,” “the prophets,” and “the writings.” For John he treats “the four explicit quotations” and scriptural allusions.
Moyise goes on:
Second, if we are to understand Jesus’ use of Scripture we must engage in historical criticism to decide what Jesus must have said to give rise to the various accounts we find in the Gospels.
To this end Moyise looks at three categories of scholars:
Those with “minimalist views” on Jesus and history: Geza Vermes, John Dominic Crossan, and Marcus Borg. They more or less “do not regard Mark as an accurate record of what Jesus said and did, which has implications for the accuracy of Matthew and Luke.”
Those with “moderate views”: James Dunn and Tom (N.T.) Wright. The moderate view “accepts that real events lie behind the Gospel stories but believes that they have been embellished as each Gospel writer adapts the tradition to meet his readers’ needs.”
Those with “maximalist views”: Charles Kimball and Richard (R.T.) France.” Jesus must have said all of the sayings and … each Gospel has been selective in what it records. …its strategy for dealing with differences between the Gospels is to seek harmony.”
Moyise lays out the issues in the synoptic Gospels and John clearly and succinctly. He raises as many questions as he answers, but this is a good thing. Reading Jesus and Scripture made we want to delve deeper into the topic at hand.
An Evaluation
While the volume is accessible, it does not oversimplify complexities where they exist. For example, after saying that Jesus’ Aramaic sayings “were translated into Greek, including his quotations from Scripture,” Moyise highlights the existence already of a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the LXX). He goes on:
The important question this raises is whether, when the translators recognized that Jesus was quoting Scripture, they translated his words for themselves or availed themselves of the translation already in circulation.
Gray shaded boxes throughout the book offer concise information about topics such as: “The text of the LXX known to Matthew,” “Hillel’s seven exegetical rules,” “Critical editions of Q,” and more.
Especially helpful for further study is Appendix 1: “Index of Jesus’ quotations in the Gospels,” which is listed in Old Testament book order. The select bibliography is short but a good starting point, too.
Of the three “views” he describes, Moyise writes about helping “readers decide for themselves which reconstruction they find the most convincing.” He excels here–phrases like “many scholars believe” are coupled with a fair spelling out of others’ views of Jesus and what he said. His even-handedness helps readers get the lay of the land in Jesus studies.
Phrases like “what Jesus actually said” got to be a bit tiresome to me after a while. Perhaps my maximalism shows through here, but I’m just not sure how productive or advisable a quest it is to try to ascertain what Jesus really said. (And if we did, wouldn’t we have to go back to retroverted Aramaic?) This is in part due to Moyise’s own “moderate views,” but he certainly does not push for them over France’s “maximalist views,” for example, which he describes charitably and even favorably. The reader can decide for herself or himself.
Jesus and Scripture would be perfect for a seminary course on the Gospels, or on the NT use of the OT. An advanced undergrad course would also do well to adopt this book. I’d also recommend it to a serious Bible reader–no biblical languages are needed here, and I found that even with my own knowledge gaps in historical Jesus studies, Moyise explained everything I needed to know.
Though this survey is short (less than 150 pages), Moyise gives plenty of sample passages and insights that have challenged me. I know this is a book I will come back to and want to read again in the future.
Thank you to Baker Academic for providing me with a review copy of the book. See its product page at Baker here. You can find it on Amazon here.
…to beef up your knowledge of vocabulary in the Hebrew Bible. But reading through the detailed instructions on building the tabernacle (Exodus 26 and following) can feel like too much of a vocab stretch. It seems like every other word is a rare one. Using an alphabetically organized lexicon for such passages really slows down the reading. Also, readers who have a way to gauge how common a word is can decide if they should know it or not.
Back in Print
A resource that has been out of print for some time is now back and available in a (cheaper) paperback edition. Zondervan’s Reader’s Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament offers verse-by-verse glosses (short translation equivalents) for rarely occurring words in the Hebrew Bible. The glosses are based on the Brown/Driver/Briggs (BDB) lexicon, with the context of each verse also taken into account. Organized in canonical order and covering the whole Old Testament, the lexicon lists each word that occurs 50 times or less in the Old Testament. Next to the word is the gloss and how many times that word appears in (a) a given book and (b) the whole Hebrew Bible. Each entry also has the page number in BDB, if you want to consult that additional work for a longer definition of a word. For verbs, the number of occurrences of that particular stem is also noted.
The lexicon follows the order of books that the Hebrew Bible does (i.e., the ordering differs from English Bibles). Only numbers and proper nouns are not included. The lexicon clocks in at 720 pages. It’s not as portable as when this single work was split into four volumes, but those are as hard to find as the four-volumes-in-one hardback had been. A Reader’s Hebrew-English Lexicon is intended to be a sort of counterpart to Kubo’s Greek lexicon by Zondervan. Here’s what it looks like:
I often struggle to remember Hebrew words that occur between 50 and 100 times in the OT, so the additional appendix is especially useful–it has Hebrew words that occur more than 50 times. There is also an Aramaic appendix.
How I Use It, Why I Like It
I’ve used this reader’s lexicon in tandem with Zondervan’s nicely laid out “reader’s” edition of the Hebrew Bible. Though that Bible already footnotes rarely occurring words, the frequency counts in this lexicon help me know if it’s a word I should have known (e.g., one that occurs 45 times) or one I shouldn’t be surprised to not know (e.g., one that occurs three times).
The glosses are sufficient for rapid reading of the text. And the frequency counts add a nice orienting element not found in the reader’s Bible.
This edition is a reprint, so nothing has been re-formatted or changed in terms of the font. The font, while not always crisp on every page, is readable, both in Hebrew and English.
Yes, there are good Bible software options for reading the text, but I still like to read through the Hebrew Bible in print, and this reader’s lexicon makes for a convenient and trustworthy guide. For bettering one’s Hebrew vocabulary and reading, I heartily recommend it.
Thanks to Zondervan for the review copy of the lexicon. Its product page is here. It’s here on Amazon.
This is a meta-review of sorts: a review of a book that briefly reviews commentaries for each book of the Old Testament. I.e., here are some words on some words on some words on the Word.
Leading Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman III provides students and pastors with expert guidance on choosing a commentary for any book of the Old Testament. The fifth edition has been updated to assess the most recently published commentaries, providing evaluative comments. Longman lists a number of works available for each book of the Old Testament, gives a brief indication of their emphases and viewpoints, and evaluates them. The result is a balanced, sensible guide for those who preach and teach the Old Testament and need help in choosing the best tools.
It’s a recurring question: What are the best Old Testament commentaries to get? To help answer that question, Longman rates an impressive host of commentaries on a 1-to-5 star scale:
One or two stars indicate that the commentary is inferior or deficient, and I discourage its purchase. Four or five stars is a high mark. Three, obviously, means a commentary is good but not great. I also use half stars in order to refine the system of evaluation.
One nice touch in this book is that all of the five-star commentaries are separately listed in an appendix in the back. Students or pastors looking to build a library might start there. Before turning to commentaries on individual books of the Bible, Longman briefly reviews one-volume commentaries (though this one is absent) and “commentary sets and series.” In addition to the stars, Longman notes whether a book is better suited for a layperson (L), minister/seminary student (M), or scholar (S), or some combination of those three.
To have a rating system is good, but there are some odd ways in which it is applied. One unlucky book got “no stars” on what the 1-to-5 star scale. And the comments (a paragraph’s length) under each commentary don’t always seem to match the rating. For example, a commentary on 1 Chronicles that has “a very helpful discussion of all aspects of the book” and other positive evaluation from Longman receives only 2.5 stars. A Genesis commentary whose author “shows great exegetical skill and theological insight” then receives 1.5 stars. As does another whose author “is insightful and knowledgeable.” One series receives four stars as a whole, but one of the individual commentaries that is “definitely one of the best volumes in the series thus far” receives just three.
There are also some things that were missed in updating the 2007 fourth edition to this 2013 fifth edition. The Berit Olam series was “just under way” in the fourth edition, and is so here, too. The New American Commentary series in both 2007 and 2013 editions is “relatively new,” even though it has a number of volumes published in the early 1990s. In the Proverbs section, Fox’s Anchor commentary still only consists of volume 1 (“Hopefully, we will not have to wait too long for the rest of the commentary to appear”), even though volume 2 was published in 2009. And there is also no mention of the Baylor Handbook on the Hebrew Text series, which had five volumes published by the time of this new edition of Longman’s work. Also, especially with the proliferation of commentaries now available through Bible software, an appendix covering electronic books would have been nice.
As far as his written evaluation of the commentaries, Longman is especially favorable toward Old Testament commentaries that discuss how a given passage is used in the New Testament. It’s not clear to me that–even for a Christian–this would be a requirement for a good Old Testament commentary, but I see his point, and am disposed to at least somewhat agree. He writes:
I continue to hope that future commentaries produced for use by Christian pastors in the church would include more reflection on how the Old Testament message is appropriated by the New Testament.
But, in my opinion, this criterion is perhaps over-applied, resulting in ratings penalties for what are otherwise strong commentaries, including ones that may have never set out in the first place to discuss the NT use of the OT.
One final critique: though there are not many commentaries on the Septuagint text of the Old Testament, a few series have begun. I can’t totally fault Longman for not having any Septuagint commentaries here, but I had hoped that the few that have been published might have been noted. I think also of John William Wevers’s Notes on the Greek Text series, which covers the Pentateuch.
Longman’s aim is for “this commentary survey [to] help students of the Bible choose the commentaries that are right for them,” and in that he is mostly successful. For example, he lets the reader know which commentaries date a given prophet according to “critical” or “evangelical” interpretations (I’m oversimplifying a bit here). He has helpful comments like, “If you get only one commentary on Joel, this should be it.” I finished this book feeling like I had a general lay of the land of Old Testament commentaries.
Despite a sometimes quirky or inconsistent rating system, and despite what appears to be a not really thoroughly updated volume, Old Testament Commentary Survey is unique, and one I already consult and will continue to consult whenever considering commentaries on a given Old Testament book. I just know I’ll have to supplement it with my own research and with seeking recommendations from others. The book works especially well as an introductory checklist that one can use as she or he is building a library of commentaries.
A sample pdf of the book, including introductory material and Longman’s take on one-volume commentaries and various commentary sets, can be found here.
Many thanks to Baker Academic for the review copy of OT Commentary Survey. You can find it here (Baker Academic) and here (Amazon).
Ask a group of pastors, seminarians, professors, or serious Bible readers, “What one commentary series on the Old Testament would you most recommend?” and you’re likely to hear: “NICOT.” Eerdmans’ New International Commentary on the OldTestament blends scholarship with application in a readable and engaging manner. Few, if any, commentary series are consistently this good throughout the series. And I don’t know of any other series that has such broad ecumenical appeal.
NICOT in Olive Tree has 23 volumes, spanning 26 biblical books. The bundle includes the 2010 volume on Hosea. The only volume currently in print that is not here is The Book of Judges, by Barry G. Webb (2012). (Judges is not available in any other Bible software at the moment.)
General editor Robert L. Hubbard Jr. writes of the series:
NICOT delicately balances “criticism” (i. e., the use of standard critical methodologies) with humble respect, admiration, and even affection for the biblical text. As an evangelical commentary, it pays particular attention to the textʼs literary features, theological themes, and implications for the life of faith today.
As I preached through Isaiah this past Advent, John N. Oswalt’s two volumes on that book were the first commentary I turned to after spending time with the biblical text. While it was always clear that Oswalt knew Isaiah and his milieu well, the author would find himself swept up at times in praise of the God Isaiah preached. On Isaiah 2:2, for instance, he writes:
What Isaiah was asserting was that one day it would become clear that the religion of Israel was the religion; that her God was the God. To say that his mountain would become the highest of all was a way of making that assertion in a figure which would be intelligible to people of that time.
On that passage’s promise of peace among nations, he concludes:
Until persons and nations have come to God to learn his ways and walk in them, peace is an illusion. This does not mean that the Church merely waits for the second coming to look for peace. But neither does it mean that the Church should promote peace talks before it seeks to bring the parties to a point where they will submit their needs to God.
Oswalt is representative of the authors in NICOT, in that he loves the text (and its grammar, history, and background) and loves the God who inspired it.
NICOT in Olive Tree has hyperlinks to biblical references and commentary footnotes, which you can easily and quickly view in the Bible Study (computer) app through the Quick Details corner (by hovering over the hyperlink), or as a pop-up window (which can then also pop out and keep your place in a separate window). It’s just as easy to tap a hyperlink in the mobile app.
There are two ways I’ve used NICOT so far.
1. I use NICOT as my starting point in the main window.
After some time in the biblical text, I have made my way through parts of NICOT by starting from the commentary. I can use hyperlinks to read the verses being commented on, as well as any other references. I can keep a Bible open in the split window and have it follow me along as I read through NICOT.
Using NICOT this way, there are quite a few ways to get around, both by looking up a verse in the commentary, and by navigating its Table of Contents. You only need to use one of these options at a time, but here they all are:
(click to enlarge image)
Note that from the Go To drop-down menu, I can keep following the sub-menus till I get to a specific place in the commentary (Introduction to Malachi in the instance above). One could also do this from the Go To item in the toolbar, which allows for both verse searching and Table of Contents navigation.
2. I use the Bible in the main window and NICOT as a supplement in the split window.
This has the advantage of letting me use NICOT as one among multiple resources in the Resource Guide, as shown (in part) here:
Resource Guide shows relevant library results (click to enlarge)
In both of the above setups you can take notes in NICOT, highlight, and bookmark your place. You can also do a search on a word or phrase in the commentary, with the results appearing almost instantaneously. One may wish, for example, to find all the times Oswalt refers to the “Suffering Servant” in Isaiah, which is an easy and fast search to run.
In reviewing Olive Tree I have found it to have the most versatile, smooth, and customizable Bible app I’ve seen on iOS. I write more about the Bible Study iOS app here. The fact that Olive Tree is cross-platform makes it appealing to many. Though the desktop app is well-designed, I would like to see a future update where you can create a saved workspace with multiple resources open in various tabs and windows. That, I think, would take the app to the next level.
But everything is here to help you work through NICOT in a way that you couldn’t in print. There are a couple of options (one free and one paid) for Hebrew Bibles, too, if you want to use NICOT in tandem with the original language. (NICOT uses transliterated Hebrew.)
NICOT volumes consistently top the charts of the Best Commentaries site. Preachers and professors, parishioners and pupils will all find much to mine here, as they seek to better understanding the Old Testament and to more faithfully love the God whose goodness its pages proclaim.
Thanks to Olive Tree for the New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT), given to me for this blog review, offered without any expectations as to the content of the review.You can find the product here. For a little while longer, it’s $349.99 for the series, which is 50% off its regular price.
Words on the Word 