I recently noticed that the Cornerstone Commentary Series on the NLT has the first few volumes out, including Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary) (Gus Konkel and Tremper Longman) and Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: John, 1-3 John (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary) (Philip Comfort and Wendell Hawley), among others. This series came up recently when we were discussed discussing Bible translations and traditions, and out of that I have the volume on Romans & Galatians, which I will be reviewing here soon.
I used to carry around a book acquisition list in my wallet, but it got outdated and I stopped the practice… but there have been times rooting through a used bookstore that I’ve kicked myself for it, trying to remember which was the better commentary volume on some particular book of the Bible, and what else I had on my shelf for that particular book. I discovered a little while ago that “Parableman” has a list of Commentary recommendations that is “continually” updated (last was October 2006) and is a part of his Commentary Reviews series, which quite helpfully includes a list of Forthcoming Commentaries. Lots there that I haven’t read through… everything you always wanted but were afraid to ask?
I’m curious about commentary use in the emerging/missional church… I’m partial to scholarly critical commentaries myself, but I wonder if there’s less of a tendency to refer to such study aids with less expository preaching going on… but is that true of the emerging/missional church or not? Just wondering aloud. What sort of study aids do your habits lend themselves toward?
For the record, I update my commentary posts all the time. The last major rehaul of the particular page you linked to might have been October 2006, but I could add or delete a commentary here or there at any time. The forthcoming commentaries pages usually get updated several times in a month, sometimes several times in a week. My more in-depth commentary posts show up whenever I get some time to do another whole book.
I’m curious what you think of the Cornerstone series. The impression I got from the fact that one of its supposed commentators didn’t even know about it is that they were taking the notes written for the NLT study Bible (which he did know about) and just repackaging them with things like maps added. If that’s right, then this is going to be extremely brief, barely more than what you get in a one-volume commentary on the whole Bible. But I haven’t seen any volumes yet, so maybe that’s completely wrong.
Jeremy,
Thanks for the clarification on the update frequency — sorry if I’d missed that notice on your site.
The Cornerstone series at a glance seems to run about the same depth as a TNTC/TOTC volume — so deeper than your typical study Bible, though I’ve not seen the NLT Study. Nary a map or diagram in the volume I have. There is a bit of Greek in the commentary, but transliterated rather than using the Greek alphabet. It should be a very accessible commentary for laypersons or pastors, but not up to the standard of a critical commentary; respective critical works are cited though (e.g., Cranfield and Fitzmeyer on Romans).