Critical/Exegetical Commentaries

Hello and Welcome to the Guide for Critical Commentary sets.

The tabs in this guide provide a variety of information about our critical commentaries. All of it is practical. Some information is didactic, and some purely locational. The purpose of this guide three-fold:

1. To assist users in locating the exegetical commentary sources they need
2. To aclimate the unfamiliar with the functionality of critical verses general commentaries
3. To introduce users to the salient features of the major series

Note: for those requiring access to scholarly Bible commentaries for exegetical work (academic or personal study), all of our scholarly Bible commentary series are located on the same floor leve (Moody 3rd floor). You will find all of our scholarly commentary series on Moody 3rd floor, by call number.

These include series like Hermeneia, Anchor (Yale) Bible Commentary, Word Biblical Commentary, Old Testament Library, New Testament Library, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, New International Commentary on the New Testmant, International Critical Commentary series, etc.

There are a few commentaries on individual Bible books in the Jones reference collection. By and large however, these are commentaries of the devotional or homiletical variety. Most are not scholarly, exegetical commentaries and would be of limited value for academic work.

We retain this modest selection of commentaries in the reference collection for instructional purposes.

If you need access to commentaries for exegetical purposes, you can bypass the reference collection altogether and just concentrate on the titles available on Moody 3rd floor.

Each of the tabs in this guide is designed to meet one of the forementioned orienting goals.

A. Finding Guide to the commentaries provides a review of locational information regarding current whereabouts of the commentary sets.

B. Holdings policy calls attention to recent changes to holdings policy for these high demand commentary sets.

C. Commentary series itemizes the critical/exegetical commentaries included in the holdings policy, providing searchable series links and indicating whether the volumes of each set are classified by title (Bible book) or series.

D. Commentary Features show cases the unique features and tools of each of the major series.

E. LC Call Numbers enables users to scan relevant library shelf ranges of Moody 3rd floor for commentaries.

F. What is a Critical commentary? indicates the features and functionality distinguishing technical/exegetical commentaries from general commentaries.

G. Criteria for Commentary Evaluation summarizes a helpful inventory of commentary selection criteria produced by Old Testament scholar Douglas Stuart.

H. Bibliographic Tools lists some of the print commentary guide books available in Baylor Libraries that offer technical advice on preferred commentaries and sets.

I. E-Resources for Commentary Reviews short lists some of the online resources available for locating scholarly reviews of commentary volumes.