Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible

[Federbock]

I got the "Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible" as a christmas gift from my brother and my sister. I am not sure what to expect from it. It seems not altogether bad, even quite liberal at times.

For a quick commentary for my regular Bible reading I use "ESV Study Bible" and "MacArthur Study Bible". Often I find what I need there. When I teach a passage, for example in small group setting, I usually base it on Baker "New Testament Commentary" by Hendrikson and Kistemaker.

Maybe I can use "Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible" as a quick way to check current main line scholarship for a passage. What would be your advice?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Joe,
Taking a look at the offerings, I think your estimate of its scholarship is pretty accurate. Up-to-date, and fairly "liberal." I recognize a couple of the names as British "evangelical," which is to say liberal-who-loves-Jesus or neo-orthodox (from the standpoint of a theologian bound to defend a stricter strain of orthodoxy as indisputable truth).

So, if I had this book myself, I might use it to get a feel for a generally (but not necessarily always) contrasting "slant" on a passage. You will surely encounter broadly ecumenical sentiments (including universalism), as well as defenders of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP).

This is not to say that the authors cannot possibly be helpful. RBauckham, one of the British-evangelical (similar to NTWright) contributors has out a recent book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which is a compelling piece of scholarship that strictly liberal interpreters have to come to grips with, since it robustly challenges one of their cardinal assertions in the last century: namely, that the Gospel accounts are almost wholly disconnected from the Jesus of history; that they are essentially mythological accounts that only took shape over several generations of disciples of disciples of the man himself, and are movement-products emanating from distinctive/competing communities. Bauckham shows that on purely naturalistic principles and universal historical considerations, the weight of evidence points to direct connections between the four Gospels and Jesus himself (in stark contrast to the ahistorical nature of the pseudepigraphica and Gnostic gospels).

And Bauckham is doubtless not alone among the contributors who will give you a serious take of the document/s they have taken in hand to present. IHMarshall is a leading British evangelical. JGoldingay is another (prof. at Fuller). The problem is inevitably there are loggerheads between different schools of "serious" takes on the Bible. The view that the Bible is essentially an atomized collection of disparate writings, having no supreme Architect of its coherence, edited and reedited for generations before its "final/canonical form," including fictionalized (and contradictory) versions of past event/s, and wildly inaccurate predictions of future events alongside ex eventu "predictions"--that view is incompatible with equally serious scholarship that includes divine inspiration, concurrence, and predictive authority as postulates.

So, read with care. And be thankful the book will probably prove useful in some way.

 

[Federbock]

Many thanks. This will help me use the commentary in a good way.