[B-Greek] What makes a good Greek Commentary?
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Mon Apr 20 21:31:21 EDT 2009
I've been reading through the Iliad using several commentaries.
It's been frustrating, and the experience has reminded me that
I never really found a good commentary to the Greek NT. This
got me thinking about what makes a good Greek commentary.
Three things:
1. IT HAS TO BE COMPLETE. A commentary has to give you
help with ALL the diffficult passages. It's frustrating to come
across a difficult word or construction and look it up in several
commentaries and find nothing on it. A good commentary has
to somehow anticipate which passages will cause the reader
trouble and hit them all. It should probably offer a literal translation
of all the really difficult passages.
2. IT HAS TO BE CONCISE. This is a balancing act with criterion
one. The commentary has to stick to the Greek, giving background
informaton only when it is necessary to understand the Greek. A
commentary cannot be wordy because the point is to give you the
info quickly so you can get back to the text. NT commentaries in
particular drive me crazy when they get into theology or homiletics--
good things on their own but not what I need to unpack Greek. A
good commentary cannot be longer than the text it helps explain.
3. ITS FORMAT HAS TO BE USER FRIENDLY. This really means the
commentary has to be beneath the Greek text. One pet peeve of mine is
when a commentary says stuff like "See the note on page 101 above,"
Why not just repeat the essence of the note? maybe condensed, but I
hate having to flip back to the prior note. You should be able to go from the
commentary to the Greek text and back again as smoothly as possible.
The good news is I have found one commentary on the Iliad that meets
all three criteria, a 2002 effort by Pamela Draper. The bad news is, it
only covers Book 1, and I found it only after working through Book 1 several
times with other commentaries. Draper's really does set the standard in
my mind. She is complete AND concise and the format is great.
So, what about NT Greek commentaries? I haven't had much luck, and
wonder if list members know any that meet all three of my criteria. Zerwick is
fairly complete and pretty concise. If you put him under a Greek text you would'
have a nice volume. The NET Diglot is also concise and complete in the sense that
is offers you help with MOST of the difficult Greek constructions, and the format could
not be better, large print with everything on facing pages. Lightfoot's volumes
on Paul are the best real commentaries I have ever found. The only ones I own,
the Expositor's Greek New Testament, is generally neither concise nor complete,
though the format is nice.
Actually, I don't really need a Greek NT commentary anymore, but if list members
know of any really, really GOOD commentaries on anything in Greek that would
meet all three criteria, let me know. If a commentary is good enough, that may
be reason enough to read a Greek text. (Except for Thucydides.)
Mark L.
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