This year I’m going deeper for Christmas. Or, more accurately, I spent Christmas money on resources to go deeper into studying scripture.
I’ve had the NIV Study Bible for several years, and it really is a great resource. Its footnotes, along with its cross-references between verses, are extremely useful in tying scripture together into a more cohesive whole, and it serves as a great basis from which to engage in personal bible study.
But I’d been sensing an impulse to kick things up a notch. So I started some research into additional tools to open up God’s word even more. As a result of that research, and some intensive mining of the new and used book markets, I scored some decent volumes for my library without a huge outlay of cash. (For some time now I’ve been amazed at the “gently used” opportunities out there for books, although a bit of good fortune – and sometimes patience – is essential for catching the best deals).
Two of the items are books I’d seen for years (in earlier versions), going back to the library of the church I grew up in:
Halley’s Bible Handbook, originally authored/compiled by a preacher named Henry Halley, has been around since the 1920s, though its modern form came about when Halley sold the rights to Zondervan in the early 1960s. It’s part commentary, part history, and part study guide. Though Halley died in 1965, it’s been periodically updated by Zondervan as new information has been uncovered (history, archeology, etc.). For many years it referenced the King James Version of the bible, but more recent editions are tied to the New International Version. The Deluxe Edition is worth tracking down for its larger format and its use of color photos and maps rather than black & white.
Then there’s Nave’s Topical Bible. It was compiled over the course of several years by an army chaplain named Orville Nave, and originally published in 1896. It’s more or less a concordance, but whereas standard concordances are focused on indexing/referencing specific words as they appear in scripture, Nave’s expands that notion to include general topics and biblical themes in its index as well. Like Halley’s Bible Handbook, it was originally tied to the King James Version, but more recently, NIV editions have been available.
And although I don’t recall seeing or noticing it before, I picked up a copy of the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, as it was mentioned favorably in multiple forums. It’s essentially an abridged version of the multi-volume Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, which was too spendy for me. But at a hefty 1500+ pages, this illustrated dictionary is no slouch.
Last but not least, I wanted to delve into the world of commentaries to help give more context to scripture, especially since I’ve not had any seminary courses on biblical-era history or culture, nor have I ever learned Hebrew or Greek. So I set out to search among well-regarded resources that were also approachable for a lay person. Suffice it to say, that exploration opened up its own little universe.
There are lots of commentaries out there, some published as individual volumes focusing on a specific book of the bible, and some published in complete sets for the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the whole bible. And there are even more opinions out there about which commentaries are best. Through my searching I discovered that even though different people prefer different commentary authors (many times based on different theological traditions), the general consensus among pastors and seminary-type folks seems to be that compiling a set of individual volumes by different authors – with different strengths towards specific books of the bible – is a better approach than getting a complete set from one author/publisher.
And if I ever go to seminary, and/or end up preaching/teaching on any kind of regular basis, I may go down that route. But for now, I’m cool with a more modest approach. Not the least among my reasons is that one can quite easily spend thousands of dollars compiling such collections.
Quite a few commentaries (and commentary sets) are now available in electronic format. From what I could tell, a sizeable number of pastors and seminary students appear to use the Logos bible study software platform. But the various electronic book collections offered by Logos range from significantly to extremely pricey for a lay person, and Logos really wouldn’t work for me anyway since my computers run Linux (and there’s no Linux version of Logos). Besides, I still generally prefer the tactile experience of cracking open a book and turning pages.
So I ended up finding deals on a couple of items. The first is a 2-volume abridged version of the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, which I serendipitously found for about half its normal price. The full version of Expositor’s is a 12-volume set, overseen by the primary editor of the NIV Study Bible. But this abridged 2-volume version (one volume for the Old Testament, one for the New Testament) comes pretty highly rated for personal study. If I were ever to purchase a full, modern commentary set (as opposed to individual authors/books), it would probably be the 12-volume Expositor’s series, because while that set is a single series from a single publisher, the content is a collaboration of 56 different contributors with diverse expertise in biblical scholarship.
Lastly, I got the good old Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary, which is a single-volume abridged version of Henry’s original 6-volume commentary from the 1700s. Although Henry’s old English vernacular requires a bit more concentration while reading, there’s a devotional element to his commentary that makes it all the more charming and compelling. In the limited amounts that I’ve used them so far, I’ll summarize them by saying that the Expositor’s volumes excel at engaging the head, and Matthew Henry excels at engaging the heart, making them quite complementary. (By the way, all six of Henry’s volumes, plus his concise commentary, can be downloaded for free from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library by clicking here). At some point in the future, I’ll probably pick up Henry’s original 6-volume set in hardcover.
One other thing from my research…for anyone wanting to dip their toe in the water of using bible commentaries, dictionaries, etc. as part of their studying, but without buying a bunch of books right away, you can get electronic access to a variety of these resources (including all of the above except for Nave’s) for $3.99/month at biblegateway.com, via their Bible Gateway Plus membership. For the average lay person who doesn’t mind electronic vs. physical access – at least during an evaluation period – this is a far better value proposition than Logos.
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