Customer Reviews

The Revelation of Saint John (Black's New Testament Commentary)

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The first edition came out 1966 and the second in 1984, the year he died. G B Caird is a well-respected NT scholar and was Dean Ireland's professor of exegesis of Holy Scripture, Oxford. At the time he wrote the first edition he thought he was swimming against the tide, but in fact he is pretty main stream. He was influenced by A M Farrer, but that is no bad thing. While scholarly, it is very readable, not much Greek and very few footnotes. He did his own translation from Greek to English, my only quibble is that he uses 'lamps' instead of 'lampstands' in 1:20, this difference is important because Jesus is the lamp (21:23). He tends to deal with a section at a time but verses are indicated and key words are in bold. It is not exhaustive or over-detailed and occasionally he has little to say, but when he has something to say he is worthwhile listening to. For the student this would not be my first choice (try Osborne and Mounce), but if you already have a good working knowledge of Revelation you will enjoy Caird's thoughtful commentary, get it while it is still in print.

Note: Among 7 recent (1997-2005) scholarly commentaries on Revelation Caird is the fifth most cited author. Caird's commentary has now been superceded by Ian Boxall's Revelation of Saint John, The (Black's New Testament Commentary)