212 - Harper's Bible Commentary

Harper's Bible Commentary
Edited by James Luther Mays
San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1988. 1326 pp. $34.95.

James Luther Mays, professor of Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, was for many years the editor of Interpretation and is presently the editor of a successful commentary series by the same name. In the Harper's Bible Commentary, Mays has employed his considerable editorial skills to produce a worthy companion to the highly acclaimed Harper's Bible Dictionary. This one-volume commentary includes eight general articles, seven introductory articles to the major sections of the Bible, and commentaries on all of the biblical books, including the Apocrypha.

The eight general articles are intended to provide the reader with background information helpful for understanding the Bible in its historical and literary context. The topics covered are: biblical literature in its historical context (both the Old Testament and New Testament); the Bible and the literature of antiquity (the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world); the Bible and its interpreters (both Jewish and Christian); the Bible and its communities (the story of how the various books were brought together to form the Bible). All of these articles are clearly written and provide the reader with an overview of these areas by some of the best scholars in the field.

The seven introductory articles are intended to introduce the reader to the major portions of Scripture: the biblical story from Genesis to Esther; Psalms and Wisdom; the prophetic books; the Apocrypha; the Gospels and Acts; the Pauline letters; and the general letters to the

214 - Harper's Bible Commentary

churches. These articles provide helpful syntheses of large blocks of material, enabling the reader to see a particular book within its literary context. David Clines, for example, offers a fascinating discussion of the Bible's primary history (Genesis-II Kings) and its secondary history (I Chronicles-Esther), and Robert Jewett does a masterful job of summarizing the nature of Paul's letter writing. Other articles are equally engaging. The only drawback is the overlapping that sometimes occurs between these articles and the introductions to the particular biblical books.

The core of this work, of course, is the individual commentaries on each of the books of the Bible and Apocrypha. The format provides for a brief introduction, a section by section commentary (a kind of exposition of the text), and a brief bibliography. This means that those who are looking for a detailed, exegetical commentary that moves from verse to verse will be disappointed. The HBC has a different reading public in mind, As Mays says, this "commentary is designed to make the best current scholarship available to general audiences for reading and studying the books of the Bible." Although some might view this format as a weakness, this section by section approach makes for an eminently readable style, which allows the beginner to discover a biblical book for the first time and those more familiar with the Bible to review the contents of a book easily and quickly. In most instances, this format works exceptionally well, for example, Romans by Paul Meyer and Acts by Carl Holladay. Only in a few cases does the commentary seem too sparse.

The Harper's Bible Commentary is a joint venture of the Society of Biblical Literature and Harper & Row. Eighty-two members of the Society, all of them experts in their field, have contributed to this venture. Many of the contributors have already published major works on the topics assigned to them in this volume. Thus, the reader is assured of the best from the main stream of American biblical scholarship (Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish). Those engaged in pastoral ministry will be well served by this work. It will also serve as an excellent resource for adult education, as well as for college and seminary courses. All said, it deserves to be in the personal library of anyone who is seriously interested in the Bible.

Frank J. Matera
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.