William Albright's Matthew Commentary Pretty Good (AYB)

Normally, I'd put the Logos.com reference here. But (1) Logos used to sell it. (2) Then they stopped. (3) Then they started again (my Logos copy). (4) Then, they stopped again. I don't see it, anyway. Had to do with family rights.

Initially, I got it in hardcopy at stage 2 above. And dumped it. Unimpressed. I got it again at stage 3, just to fill out my AYB. And lately began reading it. Pretty interesting.

This illustrates the problem of 'commentaries'. You really need to know what strategy the editors were pursuing. Often on the forum, you see the query for the 'best' ... maybe qualified by conservative or critical/not.

AYB, as I understand it, was looking for varying ideas ... more than perspectives. If I remember right, the AYB Joel volume looks a literary musical devices in hebrew. Who knew?

Albright seems to nudge along with things he doesn't much care about. Then, suddenly, he digs into something in-depth ... his expertise. It's the latter, worth the read.

So. If you lucked out, it's worth another look!

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Ken McGuire

Back when I was in school, a professor said that reading - and writing - commentaries is pretty boring because they are expected to say something about every significant issue of the text, even if you have nothing new or interesting to say... And many of the early Anchor Bible volumes are exceptions to this. They only talk about what they find interesting. This means that the writer was more interested in what they had to say, and that they have original ideas that often are not really elsewhere. It also means that they are terrible at giving the student a sense of the major issues and proposed solutions that biblical scholars have found for the passage in question.

So, yes, Albright can be interesting - and that is great. But he is not a reliable guide to scholarship on Matthew, so it is NOT a good place to start.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1205197#Comment_1205197

In what way is he not reliable? Is it because he is dated? because he espoused positions other than the consensus? because of personal biases?

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1205206#Comment_1205206

First of all, it is very short for a commentary - and so cannot and does not include a lot of things.

Second of all, he takes a minority position on the Synoptic Problem - namely, the priority of Matthew over Mark. But is is so short that he doesn't take that much space to actually argue for it.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1205211#Comment_1205211

Thanks Ken

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1205211#Comment_1205211

First of all, it is very short for a commentary - and so cannot and does not include a lot of things.

Second of all, he takes a minority position on the Synoptic Problem - namely, the priority of Matthew over Mark. But is is so short that he doesn't take that much space to actually argue for it.

Albright is what the NT would call a ‘stumbling-block’. He was how scholars drew their borders, though today, he’s largely historical.

His Matthew-primary recognized the weakness of the church canon, in a Matthew-primary absence.

mab

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1205215#Comment_1205215

If I recall correctly, Albright was really a decent scholar but this commentary wasn't his finest hour. He made other contributions of more value.

I consider questions about which gospel came first are answered with more than a little conjecture. The Holy Spirit was first, have fun arguing how He moved among men.