Old Testament Commentary Survey

by Tremper Longman III

Book Overview

For the student, minister, and layperson alike, Old Testament Commentary Survey makes finding the best Old Testament commentaries easy. In this fourth edition, Longman focuses on the best of established commentaries and commentaries published in recent years. He lists a number of works available for each book of the Old Testament, gives a brief indication of their emphases and viewpoints, and evaluates them. Longman also indicates who would most benefit...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801031230
• ISBN13: 9780801031236
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Length: 157 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Great Resource and Money Saver!

Tremper Longman has done a wonderful job with this book. Search online, or just go to your local Christian bookstore and to see all the available commentaries is just mind numbing. They are also so expensive. But in this book Longman reviews most of the commentaries out and tells you what is good, and what you should avoid. A awesome resource to save you money and to build a awesome library.

Does the job without wasting words

This is one of the most clean, organized, and easy to use commentary surveys I have seen. It doesn't try to take on too much, and does a great job at selecting the best commentaries. The notes and 5 star ranking system are also very helpful.

Helpful guide to Old Testament commentaries

Books are expensive! As Jim Beale's T-shirt says: So many books, so little time? Which books are you going to spend your money and time on? Longman's book is a helpful guide, and the latest edition includes many new books, not reviewed in the 2nd edition. At times I wish that Longman would clue us in more on the theological stance of the books he recommends, but overall his book is an indispensable guide to the bewildering array of books available on the Old Testament. I appreciate his ratings, including the 1 to 5 star system, and the rating of the work as suitable for Layperson, Minister or Scholar. An additional aid would be a rating of the scholarship's place on the continuum of conservative to critical approach. Highly recommended.

Worth the wait

It is a great joy to finally have available the third edition of Tremper Longman's fine review of Old Testament commentaries. It has been a long wait since the 1995 second edition. Again Longman offers judicious and careful advice on the merits and demerits of a large number of OT commentaries. As with all such comments on the commentaries, there is subjectivism at work, and not all will agree with all of Longman's assessments. After all, how can one say what is the best commentary on, say, Deuteronomy? It really depends on the needs of the reader. A busy pastor may want something more expository and devotional, while the academic may prefer the more technical and scholarly.Thus Longman tries to rate the commentaries by what they set out to do, or what the series they are contained in set out to do. Thus he comes up with recommendations that may differ from others. For example, of the 19 commentaries on 1 and 2 Kings, he gives the highest rating (5 stars) to Iain Provan's volume in the NIBC series. While acknowledging that it is a bit too brief (in keeping with the series), he believes that in terms of accessibility and readability, along with a good balance of literary and theological emphases, this is the best thing going on Kings.Interestingly, David Bauer, in his An Annotated Guide to Biblical Resources for Ministry (Hendrickson, 2003), does not even give Provan's volume a mention, in the 21 books he lists. However, John Glynn in his Commentary and Reference Survey, 9th ed. (Kregel, 2003), does mention it, along with 16 other commentaries.Thus there will always be disagreements in this area, as a lot of differing criteria and measuring sticks are used to make assessments. One omission from this volume is the section on OT reference works and Hebrew helps. They too, like the commentaries, continue to pour forth at an alarming rate. Thus cuts need to be made somewhere.But of the three reference works cited here (the other two cover the NT as well), Longman is my first port of call. Unlike the other two authors, Longman is an OT specialist, with several fine commentaries of his own.Longman mentions in his intro that many people emailed him, urging him to get a revised edition of this work out. I was one of them, and such lobbying has paid off. One hopes to see a 4th edition before another 8 years lapse however!

This book will save you hundreds of dollars

If you love commentaries this book will save you hundreds of dollars. He shows in a concise way the strengths and weaknesses of hundreds of commentaries. He is a well read scholar and I have profited much from his insights. My only complaint is that he is too soft on some of the more liberal critics. The book is definately a must buy. This book should be purchased along with D.A. Carson's New testament Commentary survey published by Baker.