How to find the best bible commentary?
It would be easy to fill your book shelves with bible commentaries. I have recently had a bit of a cull on my shelves, making use of the Amazon Marketplace to lighten the load from commentaries I have never even opened. While trying to find a better commentary on Mark’s gospel, I came across BestCommentaries.com. This is an amazing catalogue of every bible commentary ever written (and yet to be written). Just take a look at the catalogue of commentaries on Mark’s gospel for example, that includes a huge list of forthcoming publications. I did begin to wonder why we need all these endless commentaries, but then despite my full shelves, I hadn’t found a commentary on Mark that told me anything I couldn’t already say.
So what did I buy?
Having sold a large number of a particular commentary series I had grown to hate, I saved up all my pennies and bought the new hefty Hermeneia commentary on Mark’ gospel by Adela Yarbro Collins. This is a pretty impressive commentary packed with historical background and comes at Mark with a historical-critical approach. It certainly fills any gaps other commentaries left.
But even more valuable to me has become the Oxford Bible Commentary, reccomended by a friend, which is a very recent commentary on the whole bible and does a pretty good job of surveying latest scholarship. It is where I turn first and probably the reason for loosing a few of those commentaries that were collecting dust.
