I received in the mail this week, the second volume of the John commentary in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series, published by InterVarsity Press. This now completes the New Testament volumes (my first full set of NT commentaries–as my girls would say: wee haw!), with six more Old Testament volumes, and one volume on the “Apocrypha” to go (according to the publication schedule). I’ve read completely through a good portion of the New Testament volumes (all the Pauline commentaries, and a couple of the Gospels) and have found them interesting and useful. They, of course, have their inadequacies, but I don’t regret the investment.
As I recall, I got the first notice for the first volume (if I remember it was, counterintuitively for Protestants, Mark) –I was on the regular IVP bookclub mailing list–and was immediately attracted to the series. I purchased the first volume in August ‘99. They then set up a subscriber service where you could purchase the volumes for what was then 20% off the retail, and the subscriber price would remain fixed until the series was complete. (So as the retail price has climbed, my cost has stayed the same). Add in shipping and the discount is about a wash, though I still save a couple of bucks off the now-retail price. So, after Mark, in the following month, came Romans (what else?), then the Pauline commentaries. Eventually, if I recall correctly, Genesis set off the OT portions.
A caveat: one will not capture the patristic mind on particular doctrines with these commentaries, and if one tries to use them as most Protestants use modern commentaries, one will go far, far wrong. These are more like sayings of the Fathers on particular verses, not argued expositions on the texts. In approaching them as proverbial sayings related in some way to the verses with which they’ve been associated, I think one will be able to derive the maximal benefit one can from the series.
