Religion & Philosophy Research Guide: Bible Commentaries

There are several ways to search for commentaries. Here are a few suggestions.

1. When searching the JFL main page for a Bible commentary, select the Books tab, then enter Commentary, and the biblical book in question.

• Commentary AND Romans
• For digital commentaries only, limit the results to Online Books. 

2. Another search tactic is to pick a popular series and enter that name along with the biblical book of choice. If the series has more than one word, put quote marks around the exact title phrase.  

• "Baker Exegetical" AND Acts
• "Pillar New Testament" AND Ephesians 

3. Or try an advanced search by searching for either commentary or commentaries, then a specific kind of commentary (homiletical, preaching, expositional, devotional, exegetical, historical, critical, theological, Christ-centered, dispensational, reformed, etc.), and then set a search for Title as your biblical book. You can copy and paste this search string, but then change the biblical book to one of your choice. 

• (commentaries OR commentary) AND (Exegetical) AND (TitleCombined:(Acts))

4. And try entering Commentary as a Genre search, then adding in your book of the Bible as a secondary search term. 

• (Genre:(commentaries OR commentary)) Psalms

Note - Some older commentaries are available free online, typically on free Bible resources sites such as StudyLight.org. Many of these are helpful for devotional use, but they are not recommended as the best materials for college or graduate level work. The JFL provides many quality resources for your biblical studies projects.   

There are several Types of Bible Commentaries:

• Exegetical --> Intended for advanced study with significant treatment of the original languages and engagement with other scholarly writing. They are ideal for understanding the human author's intended meaning of the biblical text, while also giving extended treatment of problem passages and interpretative debates. Several of these should be consulted for any upper-level academic writing. 
   
• Expository or Expositional --> Intended to explain the meaning of the text and to make personal application. These are ideal for preaching or teaching. They can include scholarly references or notes, but they are accessible to most readers
   
• Cultural or Historical --> Intended to help the reader with the cultural background behind the biblical text, social or rhetorical features in the text, and key historical information related to the text. These are ideal for gaining a deeper understanding of the background context in which the text was written.
   
• Theological --> Intended to highlight doctrinal and theological concepts. These often focus on intertextuality, canonical relationships, or thematic coherence. These often cite Church Fathers or other historical persons who have sought to demonstrate how Scripture interprets Scripture. 
   
• Devotional --> Intended to assist the reader with their personal walk with God. Emphasis is on application or personal appropriation of the text. While theologically sound, they are not ideal for research projects. 

Qualities of a Good Scholarly, Exegetical, Commentary:

• Covers the historical background behind the biblical book and includes authorship, recipients or audience, and date of composition, along with academic debates or discussion on these elements. Some exegetical commentaries will address textual criticism and differences among extant manuscripts. 
• Seeks to understand the human author’s intended meaning through word-by-word, verse-by-verse analysis.
• Seeks to understand how the original recipients would have understood the human author.
• Discusses various interpretations of a difficult passage. Provides a survey of different ways to understand the passage, with documentation of other commentators. 
• Will give what the commentator believes is the best interpretation of a difficult passage.
• Relies on the original languages for interpretation; Hebrew & Aramaic for OT and Greek for NT. Assumes the reader has some level of proficiency in those languages.
• Cites journal articles and books; also typically makes references to primary texts (2nd Temple Jewish writings, ancient Greek writings, Church Fathers, etc.).

For additional help on what makes for a good commentary see Fee, Gordon D., and Douglas Stuart. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth: Fourth Edition, HarperCollins Christian Publishing, 2014.

Note - The author alone is not the best way to determine if a work is an exegetical or scholarly commentary. And, sometimes a scholar may produce two versions of a commentary, one that is more technical and one that is more applicational or aimed at a general audience. Find your passage in the commentary, and then look for footnotes, in-text citations, use of original languages, and other forms of documentation. Pick a problem passage, one that is often debated, and examine how the author works through the difficulties and interpretative debates. Once a commentary has been identified as scholarly, the others in that same series can safely be deemed scholarly too.

To identify a commentary as 'devotional' or non-scholarly is Not a statement about its theological perspective or truthfulness. Some very academic commentaries have questionable viewpoints, and some devotional works are solidly biblical. The distinction is about how the author documents their own resources, how they openly engage other viewpoints and perspectives, how they provide the reader with quality resources that were used within the commentary and that can facilitate more research, and how thorough or detailed is the treatment of problem passages and disputed meanings.

For additional help in how to find commentaries watch the tutorial below.

Bible Commentary Genre Search

Click here to do a genre search of Bible commentaries in the Jerry Falwell Library. A variety of Bible commentaries will show up in the search results covering books in the Old Testament and New Testament.

For an introduction to these various types of Bible commentaries see the tutorial below.