Logos Bible Software is teaming up with Zondervan to give away a copy of Craig Blomberg and Mariam Kamell’s commentary on James in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (ZECNT) series. This “free book of the month” is an excellent addition to your library. In addition, you can add Doug Pao’s Colossians and Philemon commentary for $1.99 and Karen Jobes’s volume on 1, 2, and 3 John for $4.99. For for a mere $7 you can pick up commentaries on three different authors in the New Testament.
I reviewed Frank Thielman’s commentary on Romans in the ZECNT series when it was released last year. Although that commentary is not part of this promotion, I did comment on the general format of these series. Each chapter in the body of the commentary begins with the literary context of the section under examination. Following this is a snippet of the detailed outline in a faux computer window graphic and a concise main idea for the section to be studied in the chapter. The English translation of the pericope is presented in a graphical layout marked with interpretive labels for each clause. The series introduction indicates these labels are “informed by discourse analysis and narrative criticism, but the editors have also attempted to avoid technical jargon. In order to help the reader follow the flow of author’s argument, main clauses appear in bold print, subordinate clauses are indented.
Following this graphical display of the text, the commentator makes a series of observations on the structure of the pericope followed by an exegetical outline. After setting the context in several different ways, the writer moves to the commentary proper under the heading “Explanation of the Text.” Here the style of the commentary breaks up into two columns. The commentary proceeds phrase-by-phrase, with the English text in bold followed by the Greek text in parenthesis. Since key Greek words are repeated in the commentary, printing the full Greek text may not be necessary.
The final unit in each chapter is labeled “Theology in Application.” Here the commentator offers two or three points of contact with biblical theology or contemporary church issues which arise from his exegesis.
These free and almost free books are only available through the end of the month, so be sure to get them right away.
Logos Bible Software 8 is a significant upgrade to this powerful Bible study system. I did a “first look” review of Logos 8 here. The software runs much more efficiently than the previous version, that alone is worth the upgrade. Everything seems to run faster than Logos 7 and the upgrade is well worth considering. As always, there are less expensive paths to upgrading that will keep you from mortgaging your home. At the very least, download the free Logos Basic or the $79 Logos 8 Fundamentals (currently on sale for 20%). With either minimal package you can download and use the free book every month and build your Logos library.