Ben Witherington III is easily one of the most prolific commentators of our day. It’s hard to believe that he has written major scholarly commentaries on as many books of the New Testament as he has done. As with all his commentaries, he provides what he calls a socio-rhetorical commentary. Here he tackles Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians. When he says he commentates on the Captivity Epistles, you may notice that Philippians is missing. He explains in the Introduction that that omission is only because he had written a commentary on Philippians earlier. If you are familiar with any of his other commentaries, you will be comfortable in this one. As always, he writes well, he loves scholarly interaction, and he’s not afraid to chart his own course.

The Introduction runs at less than 40 pages and is an Introduction to the three letters together. This serves to highlight well the commonalities between the three. You won’t get far into this book before you see that his conclusion that these letters use an “Asiatic rhetoric” affects all his conclusions. While I find that hard to swallow, I did appreciate several of his conservative conclusions. He crushes the argument that the vocabulary of Ephesians denies it’s the possibility of a Pauline authorship. The other major component of the Introduction is the social settings of Paul and his audiences. In that section, he will cover Paul, his imprisonment, some of his companions, the effect of slavery in the Roman world and the philosophies at play in these regions. He provides a nice bibliography as well.

After one long paragraph of Introduction to Philemon he dives into the commentary. It is quite helpful. Colossians gets its own introduction before the commentary as does Ephesians. You won’t doubt that he has surveyed most all scholarship in his reading to prepare this commentary. He takes an egalitarian position in his commentary in the requisite passages in Colossians and Ephesians. (In Ephesians, he battled Peter O’Brien in his scholarly interaction and in my opinion lost badly).  Still, this commentary is a major contribution.

Witherington’s works are a great second commentary to refer to. This one has the quality and sparkle of all his other commentaries that I have seen.

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 volume covers the Song of Songs in the Old Testament Library (OTL) series. It’s best known for its literary criticism and I can see why as that’s clearly the emphasis throughout the book. As is common with this series, it takes a critical position throughout, but as is also common for commentaries on this book of the Old Testament, there are some strange theories suggested. It succeeds in what it attempts to do, yet I’m not sure it makes the same theological contribution as some others in the series. It’s not the place to look for application either. Though I did not at all agree with the overall arguments made in this commentary, there were some fascinating paragraphs.

The introduction is longer than most in the OTL series. After a substantial bibliography, the introduction begins by describing the Song as a love poem “about erotic love and sexual desire”. You will notice quickly how key the author finds this to be in the Song. I’ve seen a few popular commentaries that almost make it a book about marital intimacy, but this is the first major commentary that I’ve seen that goes as far as this one does. The most shocking part is the author takes what seems to be the strongest literal interpretation and then says there could be some allegorical meaning to it. The difference is it’s not an allegory of God and His people, but just of love. It’s surprising the way the author digs into this subject of love, relationship, and eroticism over many pages of the introduction. Along the way, gender studies are brought in. I really can’t agree with any of these conclusions, but this is the place I would suggest you go if you want to look into it.

There’s a look at poetic composition and style, including a discussion of whether it’s one poem or many, and a thorough review of literary arrangement and its significance. There’s a fine listing of how other commentators have divided up the book. From there more literary concerns are considered including the literary context of the ANE world. Copious examples are brought to bear. There’s a section on the historical-cultural context as well as a consideration of how this book made it to the Bible. The author concludes allegorization came about to explain its blunt material. There’s a good review of the historical interpretations that the Song has gone through.

The commentary itself is detailed and continues to be dominated by the things brought up in the introduction. Along the way, you will get a good representation of a critical outlook of the book. It’s not my favorite commentary in the OTL series, but it’s one of the most important critical commentaries available.

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.

Raymond Collins wrote this commentary on the Pastoral Epistles in the New Testament Library (NTL) series. Its critical stance is in line with what I found in several of these NTL volumes, though there are a few a little less critical in the series. I’ve heard it criticized for having too little scholarly interaction, but that proved no detriment to me as he at least thoroughly articulates his own critical position. I’m not sure I found as much theology as can be found in some of these NTL volumes, but at around 400 pages he never skimps on various passages.

After a bibliography, Collins provides an overall introduction to the Pastoral Epistles. From several angles (second-century witnesses, how the Pastorals differ from other epistles, and a scholarly review of authenticity and literary form), he rejects Pauline authorship and dates late. He reviews other issues within the Pastoral Epistles and determines that it’s reasonable to assume a single author for all three epistles though they came from someone else’s hand after the death of Paul. Strangely, in a section entitled “engaged teaching”, he argues that the teaching presented is taken beyond that which Paul gave. It is in this section, though, that he outlines what are the main themes, in his opinion, of these epistles.

Next, he provides a short introduction to 1 Timothy alone. Mostly that is just to discuss its unique elements. From there, he dives into commentary on the text. The same pattern is followed with 2 Timothy and Titus. Though I often disagreed with him, he did give some good food for thought for several passages. He used the analogy of “text and context” to reserve some of the more debated passages in these epistles to Paul’s day alone (e.g., the Household Code).

While this might not be my favorite NTL volume, it does uphold the series’ aims and is a good representation of the critical position. It’s not as wordy as those in the Anchor Bible Commentary series and so is probably the ideal commentary for those who want to add a critical commentary to round out their studies.

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.

Moody Smith delivered this commentary on the Epistles of John in the Interpretation Bible Commentary series. You may have noticed his name showing up in the literature on the Gospel of John so he was a natural choice to tackle the Johannine Epistles in the series. As you are probably aware, this series is known for its critical outlook and its homiletical/theological contributions. Though a thinner volume than I expected, it succeeds in reaching the aims of the series. Probably his background on John made him able to say much in fewer words.

He offers a somewhat breezy introduction to these epistles. Even where I could not agree with his conclusions, there was an evident love for these epistles which always raises the value of a commentary to my mind. In the unusual buildup within this introduction, I was beginning to believe he was going to suggest that the Apostle John himself was the writer. That was a surprise because it would not be typical in this series. As it turned out, he closely followed the well-known critical scholar, Raymond E. Brown, and his well-known thesis of the Johannine school or community. Though some of us have never bought into that theory, even critical scholarship has backed away from it in recent years. He does share some good information on how the same person could have written the gospel and these epistles, but his conclusions in my judgment on the impossibility of John himself as the writer fell flat.

He also discussed the audience and purpose of the letters, had some discussion of the composition and structure of these letters that also reminds one of Raymond Brown’s positions, and the use of these letters in the church. From there, he discussed interpretation and shared a few good insights along the way. The final two sections that describe the commentary itself and biological reflection were of less value.

Though it was somewhat brief and guided by some of the earlier critical conclusions mentioned, his exegesis was well done. There are reports that he plans a more substantial volume on these epistles in the future. Overall, I would label it a solid volume in the style I have come to expect from this series.

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.