[B-Greek] What makes a good Greek Commentary?

Leonard Isaksson leonardo1orchardcity at mac.com
Mon Apr 20 23:41:10 EDT 2009


How about the Bryn Mawr commentary series for something concise?

It seems to me like NT commentaries have as their business to deal with 
the NT text and message.  Such as John Chrysostom  wrote commentaries 
that seem to me like they are longer than the NT book that it covers.

I like Zerwick.   I don't read Latin, so J. A. Bengel is not available 
for me, haven't seen the English translation of him.

On Apr 20, 2009, at 8:31 PM, Mark Lightman wrote:

> 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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