Sunday, December 20, 2009

Help! Galatians commentary recommendations

From time to time I take a personal inventory of what my library is lacking. This is particularly true when it comes to commentaries. My OT collection is rather sparse, so I won't even go there. However, it does surprise me from time to time that which is missing in my NT collection.

It recently dawned on me that I am severely lacking in my Galatians commentaries. I have two to be exact, Longenecker's WBC volume, and Fee's in the Penecostal series. A couple I have thought about are Martyn's Anchor Bible Commentary and Silva's Interpreting Galatians. My first question would be, for those of you who own these aforementioned volumes, what do you think of them? Secondly, what are some others that I should be looking into?

I know Moo's BECNT is on the horizon as well as Schreiner's ZECNT, but those are still some ways off. Let me know what you all think.

6 comments:

Brandon said...

I'd suggest Betz's Hermeneia. Though it's thirty years old, it's still one of the best around.

Also, Martyn's Galatians (Anchor Yale) is very good. Yale has reprinted it in paperback, so it shouldn't be too expensive.

Daniel said...

Matt,
Silva's is pretty good. You can check out Dunn in BNTC. Also its not a commentary per se but Bruce Longenecker's (son of Richard Lonegenecker) The Triumph of Abraham's God: The Transformation of Identity in Galatians was agame changing book for me.

Thomas said...

It really depends on what you plan on doing with your commentaries. You mention that you would like to continue on to PhD work. If that's realistic then you will need such works as: Martyn, Betz, Riches, Dunn, Burton, Bruce, Witherington, and last but not least J.B. Lightfoot. He's old but is the base against which many current commentaries still measure. You can see a complete list by series here: http://epistletothegalatians.wordpress.com/galatians-commentaries-by-series/

Cliff said...

I would agree with Brandon on Betz's.

I have not read Martyn's, but I have read his work on the Gospel of John and found it intriguing.

Silva's is not a commentary proper, but one worth having nonetheless.

I do enjoy Bruce's NIGTC volume. You cannot go wrong with his commentaries.

Some of the older commentaries are still worth looking at: Eadie, Lightfoot, the dude who wrote the ICC, Burton I think. These are always helpful in some areas.

J. R. Daniel Kirk said...

You simply have to have Martyn. End of story.

simon said...

No one has mentioned Richard Hays in the NIB. I'd also recommend Dunn and Esler and suggest that Don Garlington's new perspective/ reformational reading has lots of good things in it.