Greek commentaries on the Pastorals (was R.T. France - Mark (NIGTC))

plstepp at juno.com plstepp at juno.com
Sat Sep 21 13:18:56 EDT 2002


---------- Richard Ghilardi <qodeshlayhvh at juno.com> writes:
> I was wondering what you make of George 
> W. Knight's volume on the Pastorals in the 
> NIGTC series?

I didn't list Knight in the email, did I?  I also looked at his commentary, though not quite as thoroughly as the others. 

It's good, probably one of the better of the NIGTC series--which is not one of the series that I'm most familiar with.  

Knight's commentary on the Pastorals is idiosyncratic and tendentiously conservative (i.e., there seem to be issues on which he went into his exegesis with the aim of supporting a particular position [e.g., that there are no women deacons in the Pastorals].)  Which is fine, all commentators do that to a degree, I'm not smearing him or the commentary, he's an excellent scholar and it's a very good commentary.

My reason for mentioning the issue is that readers should be aware  that, if you need to have ONE commentary on the Pastorals, Knight's will not be the most balanced when discussing debated issues.  Marshall's is more neutral, equally detailed if not slightly more (Mounce is the only commentary that is MUCH more detailed on the Greek text than Marshall or Knight--I can't really imagine there will ever be a more detailed commentary on the Greek text of the Pastorals than Mounce.  What with the type and all, Mounce is more detailed than Spicq.)

On the whole, though, Knight's strong points are reproduced and improved on in Mounce and Marshall.  Marshall is better overall, and decidedly more balanced in his discussion of debated points.  Mounce is much longer and more detailed.  Mounce (like Knight) is quite evangelical in perspective, and Marshall only slightly more centrist.  And both Marshall and Mounce are up-to-date on bibliography, whereas Knight is more than a decade out of date.

Grace and peace, 

PLStepp


Perry L. Stepp, 
Ph.D. candidate, Baylor University
"We can only possess what we experience: Truth, to be understood, must be lived."     --Charlie Peacock




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