The Oxford Bible Commentary (Hardcover)

~ John Barton (Editor), John Muddiman (Editor) "Pentateuch the fact that it is the product of a long process of tradition..." (more)
Key Phrases: ordinary high priests, mythic foe, evangelist underlines, Old Testament, Dead Sea, Cambridge University Press (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Bible stands in a category of its own among the world's literature. How you view the Bible, however, depends on what spectacles you are wearing. Like statistics, the Bible can be used to prove almost anything. As a result Bible commentaries are notorious for giving the author's particular angle on the Bible as if it is the only viewpoint. In the case of The Oxford Bible Commentary the angle is "objectively academic." John Muddiman and John Barton are the pair of Oxford dons who have put together the latest weighty book of Biblical scholarship. Happily, they are aware of the limitations of academic comment and don't pretend the book is more than it is. Contributing scholars are mostly British and American and most of them come from a mainstream Protestant background. The articles are therefore polished, precise, and professionally pedantic. No one can fault the meticulous scholarship and wealth of detailed content. That's just what you want from a hefty Bible commentary. On the other hand, what struck me from dipping into this tome is how slippery Biblical scholarship has become. At the turn of the last century Biblical criticism shot fundamentalism full of holes, but the new generation of scholars have now shot the certainties of old fashioned Biblical criticism full of holes. As a result the articles exhibit an odd mix of solid content with honest supposition, guesswork, and shoulder shrugging. This actually makes the book better. It's refreshing to read academics who admit their uncertainties. Their honesty allows some questions to remain open-ended, and that's exciting for any serious Biblical student. --Dwight Longenecker, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

Oxford, the king of biblical reference works for scholars, releases the tome of all time in The Oxford Bible Commentary, a line-by-line commentary edited by John Barton and John Muddiman. Its entries, penned by a team of 70 scholars, are detailed and comprehensive. The volume includes a general introduction and shorter introductions to each canonical book and to the Apocrypha. Students and scholars looking for a handy one-volume reference will appreciate this resource, which is also a relative bargain in the expensive world of biblical commentaries.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1416 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198755007
• ISBN-13: 978-0198755005
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.1 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #129,185 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

122 of 124 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent commentary on the Christian Bible, October 19, 2001

By	Tim Acheson (Hertfordshire, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Oxford Bible Commentary is a concise, expert commentary, providing useful verse-by-verse explanation of the Christian religious book.

The commentary encompasses all books recognised as canonical in any of the major churches of Christianity, and also includes excerpts from books in other canons. The advanced Bible scholar may additionally wish to refer to more specialist textbooks for detailed insight into specific topics or individual biblical books.

This is among the most authoritative Bible commentaries available. The reader will appreciate the expertise of the distinguished contributors, their concise verse explanations, thorough verse cross-references, and critical approach. The book is intuitively structured throughout and, despite the large size of this volume, easy to navigate.

It is a helpful aide toward informed reading of the Bible for any reason - religious, theological, historical, literary, or general interest. An extensive bibliographic resource and relevant maps complement the text.

A good Bible commentary such as this is highly enlightening. Each verse in the Bible suddenly makes much more sense in the light of expert explanation. In reading the Bible without the benefit of well-informed commentary, essential considerations such as the historical context, and relationships between verses, are almost certainly overlooked. While opinions expressed in this commentary are objective, they are frequently conservative and tend to be representative of the mainstream consensus.

The OBC is a huge, high quality reference textbook, with a proportionate price-tag, and I fervently commend it to anyone with a serious interest in Hebrew or Christian scripture.

110 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More coverage than some commentaries, April 18, 2003

By	"old_guy" (Ridgeland, MS United States) - See all my reviews

I sat in the real-world bookstore several hours before deciding that the two one-volume commentaries I wanted were this one and the New Jerome. The Oxford simply devotes more space to its analyses than did any of the other commentaries I looked at, including New Jerome and HarperCollins. You get a more in-depth treatment.

My spot-checking noted, for ex., that Oxford includes some comments on the "woman taken in adultery" story in John. Some commentaries merely sniff that the passage is a late addition and don't comment on it at all. Oxford at least includes some textual and exegetical remarks in an appendix.

The Oxford's virtue is its vice, of course, in that its devotion to covering the text means less extraneous material. The New Jerome, in classic Catholic fashion, won't let its 1000 pages of commentary go by without 300 pages on theology, papal pronouncements, hermeneutics, etc., so as to "frame" the commentary. But since I love that kind of stuff, whatever the motive, the NJ is the other one I decided to get.

So: Oxford for objective academic treatment, & NJ for a more dogmatic (tho very sharp intellectually) treatment. I'll put them on my desk with my Bible & let them fight it out.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive work, August 11, 2005

By	E. Pritchard - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was looking for a source of detailed biblical information that is scholarly, and without nuance towards any particular persuasion. This commentary has met my needs admirably. While it may have been written with the needs of the practicing clergyman in mind, for a lay person like myself it's not difficult to read. Indeed for me it has provided a totally new level of biblical insight. I've been most impressed and can recommend it to anyone who wants to extend their biblical knowledge.