This volume by Charles Cousar in the New Testament Library (NTL) series covers Philippians and Philemon. I’ve read some unfavorable reviews on this book mostly owing to its brevity. While that charge is true, I came away rating this book better than I expected. It does hold to the familiar NTL pattern, is less critical than I anticipated, and provides insight.

After a bibliography, we have an Introduction to Philippians. He begins by acknowledging the theme of joy. (How could we trust any book on Philippians that ignored the theme of joy?) He introduces us to both the city and the church at Philippi. Its history in the Roman Empire, as well as its significance, are clearly reviewed. He refers, as he has at other times, on the fondness Paul has for this congregation. When he moved to the subject of authorship and integrity of the letter, he admits that the Pauline authorship is rarely questioned. Though he mentions a few absurd prognostications about authorship, he seems comfortable with Paul. As to place and date of writing, he presents briefly the evidence for Rome, Caesarea, and Ephesus before cautiously choosing Ephesus for this commentary. He explains Paul sending this letter as a thank you to the Philippians. He discusses structure and suggests an outline. As with any of these Philippian commentaries, he discusses the opponents. I thought he provided his best observations when he discussed the message of the letter. In less than 70 pages, he provides a commentary on Philippians that is worth consulting.

I felt the Introduction to Philemon was simply too short and discussed too little. What he did discuss, though, was some of the things that you wrestle with in such an introduction. The commentary on Philemon was unacceptably brief.

While this volume may not rate as highly as some in the series, it’s by no means a throwaway volume, at least on Philippians. If you are filling out your NTL collection, there is still value here as this author does his best work in providing nuggets for the preacher.

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.

Here’s a moderately critical work that’s one of the best in the Interpretation Bible Commentary series. Steven Tuell, who has also written a succinct commentary on Ezekiel that has been well received, writes on First and Second Chronicles here. Though you might consider a work of 250 pages on both books of Chronicles a little too brief, he makes good use of every page. To my mind, the best contributions of this book are the theological reflection on and a big-picture presentation of Chronicles.

The Introduction begins by opining the diminished acceptance of Chronicles compared to other books of the Bible. He explains that to many Chronicles is little more “than a dull rewrite of Samuel and Kings”. The author works against that comman viewpoint and champions Chronicles as a unique book of the Bible that covers the broadest historical range of any book in the Bible – from Adam to the Babylonian Captivity. Though I don’t care for the label “Deuteronomistic history” as a description of Joshua through Kings, he gives good explanation of how they interact, are similar, and are different. He highlights how Chronicles uses other scriptures widely. In fact, he says, “the most distinctive feature of Chronicles is the large degree to which it reproduces other biblical texts”. He looks at Chronicles as it relates to Ezra and Nehemiah, and from there launches into an explanation of date and composition. The dating he explains is more conservative than what you might expect in a more critical series. The brief section on the theology in Chronicles is just a preview of what you will find in the commentary itself.

While this commentary might not be my first choice when I’m digging into a passage in Chronicles, I still see it as a great second choice and one that I will enjoy consulting. What I see in the commentary proper is of distinct value.

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.

This book exceeded the expectations I had when I picked it up. Not that I imagined it wouldn’t be a good volume, but that it would just be another introduction to the poetic sections of the Old Testament. What I found instead was a look at only those poetic books that could legitimately be called wisdom literature – Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. The unique contributions of those three books, as well as wisdom in the Old Testament as a whole, the ANE background, how Jesus both carried on and fulfilled Old Testament wisdom, plus all the theological implications of wisdom, are found in this well-written book.

The book begins with an introduction that explains why the subject of Old Testament wisdom is important. Chapter 1 introduces Old Testament wisdom itself including its historical background. Chapter 2 tackles the ancient world wisdom. I often think those discussions are overblown by scholars because they always mistakenly assume the Bible draws from other sources rather than the other way around, but the scholarly review is still well done here. Chapter 3 ties wisdom into the genre of poetry in the Bible and explains a lot of technical aspects of parallelism and other devices of poetry.

When the book reaches chapter 4, in my opinion, it really blossoms. The chapter on Proverbs that reviews structure and design, and how wisdom is essential to it, makes for revealing reading. I loved it. Chapter 5 is a continuation as it looks at what the authors call “Lady Wisdom” and “Dame Folly”. These two chapters together really added something to my understanding.

Chapter 6 on Job was just as provocative. They dug in with so many wonderful thoughts that would help someone who was diving into the book of Job. Chapter 7 probes the scholarly debate over Job 28. I personally don’t see the problem that many scholars do, but it’s well explained here. Though it is likely just a matter of personal taste, I didn’t get as much out of the discussion on Ecclesiastes as I did on Proverbs and Job. I disagreed with both some presuppositions as well as some conclusions. Still, there were nuggets to find.

Chapter 10 took us to Jesus as the Wisdom of God. Wisdom as a controlling focus in the New Testament is not one I can accept to the degree that some people do, yet it’s equally true that wisdom has not vanished from the discussion when we enter the New Testament. You can do your own weighing of the subject in this chapter. The final two chapters are about theology. There’s much to gain as you read these two chapters, plus they give some guidance on how our Western eyes often miss the point.

Bartholomew and O’Dowd really pulled off the production of a good book here. It’s my new favorite introduction to Old Testament wisdom literature.

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.

Here’s a commentary that’s just a little different. The author, Frederick Dale Bruner, who was well known for his earlier two-volume commentary on Matthew, has a writing style that is at once thoroughly academic and personally chatty. How else could I describe this commentary of over 1200 pages where Mr. Bruner seems to be having such fun? I’ve reviewed a lot of commentaries and I don’t think I’ve ever before described the author as having fun. But that is my distinct impression in this case.

The label I’ve heard (“mildly critical”) seems accurate. He follows a few critical theories that I couldn’t accept, yet in other instances he writes beautifully about the deity of Jesus Christ. His preface, again the most personal that I’ve read in a major academic commentary, almost reads like a stream of consciousness flowing happily along. You’ll read about his family and what must be an unusually large social network. He apparently loves people, and with all the interesting people that Christ will encounter in the Gospel of John, that probably makes him an ideal commentator.

There is no introduction to the Gospel of John, which is quite surprising for a major commentary. In any event, the publishers gave him all the room he wanted in the commentary itself. I don’t feel that the more academic subjects that are usually found in an introduction would be his strength anyway, as interesting theology is his forte. I’ve even read that some major reviewer’s think that he misfires occasionally on the exegetical level, but I believe that some well-done theological commentaries are excellent to use on the second pass after we’ve already used our exegetical ones. Maybe it would be fair to call him a modern, mildly critical Herman Ridderbos.

I’ll still reach for D. A. Carson, Leon Morris, and Edward Klink first on the Gospel of John, but I am genuinely happy to have Mr. Bruner on hand to draw out theological reflection and to give me something that the others will not. I found unique angles in every passage I surveyed. Eerdmans went all out with a nice hardback in a very attractive dust jacket. You should check out this lively, bubbling commentary!

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.

Prolific commentator Richard Nelson has given us this volume on Deuteronomy in the Old Testament Library (OTL) series replacing the earlier work by Gerhard von Rad. Though he is without doubt from the critical side, his work here is widely considered one of the most mature from that viewpoint. In fact, I’ve seen several scholars rank it highly. Its critical analyses are much more up-to-date than the von Rad work it replaced. We have Jack Lundbom for an exhaustive, huge exegetical work and Patrick Miller with a briefer homiletic approach from the critical camp, and that leaves Nelson standing in the middle with the more typical exegetical commentary. Though I clash with the critical viewpoint in many ways, I found Nelson clear and able to provide me a solid understanding of how critical scholarship both looks at and affects the study of the Book of Deuteronomy.

After a brief bibliography, Nelson gives us 12 pages of introduction on Deuteronomy. While that is a little short, he made use of every word in some paragraphs that contained an incredible amount of information that could be mined. After a huge paragraph that opens the discussion of what Deuteronomy is, he enters into a section he calls “shapes and structures”. In this section, he pulls out many nuggets to help you approach your own study of Deuteronomy. He talks about the linguistics of the book and all kinds of structural information. He addresses the final form of the book and while admitting the structure is complex, he makes many astute comments. As you might guess, I couldn’t agree with much of what he said about the composition of the book, but he’s no more extreme than many other writings on Deuteronomy that I’ve seen. He really shined on the section called “theological themes”. I can easily agree that he has suggested many of the main themes found in Deuteronomy while giving insights and references to help.

The commentary proper is a positive representative of the OTL style. He gives the text, a lot of exegetical footnotes, some opening comments on the passage that discusses theme and structure, and then commentary on the text itself. Depending on your theological background, you might be looking for different things in this commentary than other readers. If you know what you’re looking for in an OTL volume, there’s no doubt you will find it here.

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.