Douglas Moo’s commentary on Romans in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT) series has been the highest-rated modern, exegetical commentary on that pivotal letter over its 20-year life. It’s really not even been close. It was a no-brainer to ask Moo to revise this commentary rather than enlisting a new contributor. To those who have used this conservative commentary, the good news is that the revision doesn’t involve its solid conclusions. Think of the same home-run exegesis with up-to-date scholarly interaction. Since the conclusions remain, maybe it’s more of a scholarly dismissal of wobbly ideas that this revision’s additions accomplish.

Academic types will love the massively-expanded bibliography. It grew from 8 pages to over 120 pages! The Introduction changed little but little revision was needed. It’s something of a model introduction with great findings. The word “refreshing” comes to mind compared to much that’s printed today.

The commentary itself had places that changed little as well, but other sections had more shoring up of an already great presentation. (I actually laid the old edition beside it and compared on several passages). In the preface Moo explains what he sought to do in this revision—interact with 20 years of work and improve the writing. He succeeded. As you would guess, the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) has mushroomed over these last 20 years. Moo shows us that, perhaps, it was a wasted two decades in many ways.

It’s no bold prognostication to predict this commentary will hold the top spot for another 20 years with this revision. I’ll further predict that scholarship will be at no loss at all if it does.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.