[soc.religion.christian] Possibly for Christian newsgroup

john@watnow.waterloo.edu (John Robinson) (08/17/90)

I am looking for review-type information on Biblical commentaries, in 
particular any comments on the International Critical Commentary Series.

I recall you (ie the moderator) posting quite a long and good discussion of
different types of commentaries several months ago. If you still have that
I would appreciate an email copy. Otherwise could you post this request
please (with this paragraph removed I guess).

With thanks in anticipation

John Robinson

[I don't have any of the ICC, so I can't comment in detail.  However
you should know that there are in effect two ICC's.  The older ones
are from the early 20th Cent.  In fact I think some may go back as far
as the late 19th.  However there have been some recent ones as well.
The older ICC is very well regarded by current critical scholars, and
is often cited.  However there have been enough discoveries of new
documents and enough water under the bridge in NT criticism that you
probably wouldn't want to use a 70 year old commentary as your first
commentary on any book.  (This is less true of commentaries such as
Calvin's, which are more theological and exegetical.  But the whole
point of a series like the ICC is to present the results of relatively
technical research.)  From citations of the older ones and what I know
of more recent authors, I'd say that they are in roughly the same area
as Anchor Bible, the Cambridge Greek commentaries, etc., i.e. detailed
technical commentaries from people who do not accept inerrancy.  It's
hard to go much beyond that.  Reviews should really be of individual
commentaries.  Generally each commentary series has some really
outstanding ones, some that are scholarly but off the wall, and some
relatively boring ones.  --clh]