If was surfing around on bestcommentaries.com and one thing led to another, and suddenly I found myself checking out what commentaries actually exist on the Deuterocanonicals and the OT and NT Apocrypha, since this is an area where Logos is still sorely lacking, and since there have been several threads recently wondering about such commentaries. This is what I found:
New volumes in series already in Logos:
The Jewish Apocryphal Literature Series (JELS)
- 7 volumes published between 1950 and 2007 under 6 (sic!) different publisher names.
The Septuagint Commentary
- A recent Brill series with only 4 volumes out so far, but two of them are on 3-4 Maccabees, and one or two of the contracted ones are on I-II Esdras.
Mercer and Epworth
- Two series with one volume each dedicated to the Apocrypha.
New Testament Readings
- Tiny, very incomplete,1990-ies series with volumes on The Gospel of Thomas and Wisdom of James. Disciple of Jesus the Sage.
The first 3 volumes are, of course, musts.
Does anyone know anything about JELS? If it's good, it should be a must too, since it's a series specially dedicated to the Apocrypha, and since Jewish commentary to Jewish books is always interesting to read (I assume the authors are Jewish?). However, the long publishing period and the many publisher names make me a bit worried.
The Brill series should be interesting as well, if they can be persuaded not to charge their usual outrageous prices.
The rest depends entirely on the quality of the series as a whole -- though the volumes on Thomas and James might be interesting separately, even if the rest of the series isn't, simply because there is so little published. (Personally I wouldn't buy the series, but I might buy the Apocrypha volumes.)
If anyone knows of volumes not mentioned on bestcommentaries.com, please add them below!
