BibleTexts.com Book Review

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary

reviewed by Robert Nguyen Cramer

 

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, edited by Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy (Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990).

This commentary provides English-only Bible students with the most detailed representation of the wide spectrum of scholarly conclusions on any particular verse or topic that can be found in any other one-volume commentary. Though all of the contributing scholars whose articles and exegeses comprise this commentary are Roman Catholic, those same scholars give equal weight to and fair, respectful representation of the views of all scholars, including Protestant and Jewish scholars. There is no noticeable denominational or theological bias in this excellent work.

It is my honest conclusion that this is unquestionably one of the two best one-volume Bible commentaries in the English language, the other being the Oxford Bible Commentary. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary's (NJBC) considerable detail, its comprehensiveness, and the arrangement of the books of the Bible (generally by the estimated date of the composition of each book) make it not quite as easy to use as the Oxford Bible Commentary or the HarperCollins Bible Commentary, but the conclusions reached in each book's thorough introductions and detailed exegesis very consistently represent the best current scholarship on each issue. This is an exceptionally valuable commentary.

The contents and order of this commentary include:

 

Copyright 1996-2002 Robert Nguyen Cramer