The Logos Free Book of the Month offer for December is How to Read Proverbs by Tremper Longman III (IVP, 2002). Longman is a well-know Old Testament scholar who has contributed a commentary on Proverbs in the Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms series (2012) and Psalms in the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (IVP, 2014). For only $1.99 you can add Longman’s companion volume, How to Read Psalms (IVP, 1988). I have used both of these small volumes on the book of Proverbs as a textbook in an undergraduate Wisdom Literature class.
The book is divided into three parts. First, Longman deals with the genre of Proverbs by defining and clarifying what proverbs are and “how they work.” For example, most readers of the book of Proverbs wonder if proverbial sayings are “always true” since we all know someone who “raised up their child in the way they should go” and the child certainly departed from that part.
In the second part of the book, Reading Proverbs in Context, Longman places the book of Proverbs in the context of the Ancient Near East. Most books on Proverbs deal with potential overlaps with international Wisdom (did Solomon use Egyptian Wisdom?) Longman also deals with the conversation between Proverbs and two other Wisdom books which have a slightly different view, Job and Ecclesiastes. This section also deals with theological aspects of this rather secular of biblical books in a brief chapter entitled “Where is God in Proverbs? Christ, the Treasure of God’s Wisdom.”
The third section traces three themes in the book of Proverbs, money, women, and words. These three chapters demonstrate how to create a thematic biblical theology within the book of Proverbs. I used this model for several assignments the last time I taught wisdom literature.
Logos also has a free book available through their Verbum site. For the month of December they are offering The Sermons of St. Bernard on Advent & Christmas is a collection of 19 sermons, originally given in Latin and translated by John Cuthbert Hedley, the bishop of Newport from 1881–1915. For 99 cents you can add The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, or, The Mysteries of Faith by St. Alphonsus Liguori. This book contains over 70 discourses and meditations on celebrating the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas.
Logos Bible Software partners with Kregel this month to offer Thomas Schreiner ‘s 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law(Kregel, 2010) for their “Free Book of the Month” promotion. Schreiner explains the “interplay between Christianity and biblical law.” Schreiner is well-known for his Baker Exegetical commentary on Romans and the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on Galatians. He serves as professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2014.
This book is part of Kregel’s “40 Questions” series. Schreiner therefore follows a Q&A format in order to cover a wide variety of questions about the relationship of Christians and the Law, such as What Does the Word Law Mean in the Scriptures? Does the Old Testament Teach That Salvation Is by Works? Does Paul Teach That the Old Testament Law Is Now Abolished? Is the Sabbath Still Required for Christians? Should Christians Tithe?
In addition to this free book, Logos is offering Four Views on the Warning Passages in Hebrews(Kregel, 2007), edited by Herbert W. Bateman IV. Bateman begins the book with a lengthy essay introducing the reader to the Warning Passages in order to set up the debate. The four views covered in the book are the “classic Arminian” by Grant Osborne, the “classic Reformed view” by Buist Fanning, the “Wesleyian Arminian view by Gareth Lee Cockerill and the “moderate Reformed view” by Randall Gleason. As is typical of these four-views books, each author responds to each position, and George Guthrie offers a concluding comment. More than most texts in the New Testament, exegesis of these passages in Hebrews is very much influenced by theological perspectives, so this book offers a balanced survey of the options.
Logos’s Free Book of the Month promotion is offering an excellent commentary once again for the month of June. Until the end of this month, Logos users can download Anthony Tomasino’s contribution on Esther in the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (EEC). If you are not familiar with the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary is a 44-volume commentary series published by Lexham Press, a division of FaithLife / Logos. The commentary incorporates the latest critical biblical scholarship” and “a distinctly evangelical perspective” and is in many ways similar to the Word Biblical Commentary or Baker Exegetical Commentary. The series was originally planned as a traditional print series but was dropped by the original publisher. Lexham picked it up a few years ago and has been publishing new volumes in the Logos system as they are released. (See this list of volumes, authors and publication dates.)
Anthony J. Tomasino (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is the Director of the Biblical Studies Program and associate professor of Bible, Old Testament and Hebrew studies at Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana and is well-known for his Judaism before Jesus: The Events and Ideas that Shaped the New Testament World (IVP, 2003). He wrote the Esther commentary in the Zondervan Bible Background Commentary of the Old Testament.
In addition to the Free Book of the Month, Logos is also offering Gary Derickson’s 1, 2, & 3 John commentary in the EEC. Derickson has a Ph.D from Dallas Theological Seminary and is currently Professor of Biblical Studies and Greek and Chair of the Bible and Theology department at Corban University.
This is another great giveaway from Logos I can think of no better use of 99 cents than adding these two resources to your Logos library. In addition to the free and nearly free books, you can enter to win the entire Evangelical Exegetical Commentary Series (a $999.95 value). I think this is the most expensive giveaway Logos has had since the started the promotion.
Just when you though the Logos Free Book of the Month promotion could not get any better, they offer Brevard Childs’ commentary on Isaiah in the in OTL series for free through the month of April. This 576 page commentary on on Isaiah was published by Westminster John Knox Press in 2000. Childs is a one of the major voices in the development of what has become known as “canonical criticism” as early has his OTL Commentary on Exodus (1974) and his Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments. Canonical Criticism means the exegete attempts to read the final form of the text of Isaiah a whole in order to develop theological themes, often listening to how those theological themes resonate in later historical Christian and Jewish interpretations. While the commentary is often not as nuanced in lexical or syntactical issues as some reviewers would have liked, Childs is an excellent expositor of the text and has a broad understanding of Jewish and Christian interpretations of Isaiah. Childs has continued to write on Isaiah, his The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture was published by Eerdmans in 2004.
In addition to the Free Book of the Month, Logos is offering Leslie Allen’s 2008 Jeremiah commentary in the OTL series for only 99 cents. Allen contributed the Ezekiel (1990, 1994) and the Psalms 101-150 (2002)in the Word Biblical Commentary and a Minor Prophets commentary ( NICOT series from Eerdmans). This 656-page commentary replaced Robert Carroll’s OTL commentary in the series and was very well-received in the academic community.
This is perhaps the best giveaway from Logos to date and I can think of no better use of 99 cents than adding these two resources to your Logos library.
Childs, Brevard S. The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004. 332 pp. $35, hdbk. $19.25, Kindle.
When Brevard Childs finished his commentary on Isaiah in 2001, he had some unfinished business. In the Introduction to The Struggle to Understand Isaiah, he explains that writing a commentary does not permit serious reflection on the way Isaiah has been read by past interpreters or the hermenutical assumptions made by these interpreters over the long history of reading Isaiah as Scripture.
Childs summarizes the problem he wants to address in this way: “I am very conscious of the great confusion in the church generated by an endless number of conflicting approaches for reading the Bible. Not only has the subject been heavily politicized both by the right and the left, but the field has become awash with a parade of fads, each promising major advances in personal and communal enlightenment” (x.)
Every generation has sought to read and interpret Scripture as God’s word, and apply that Scripture to the “present day.” And every generation has created a “method” which is believed to be the proper way to read Scripture. While some of the allegorical interpretations of the medieval church are laughable today, it was at one time the “assured results of scholarship.” In the same way, reading a serious scholarly commentary from the late nineteenth-century is usually an exercise in futility since the method used to read and interpret scripture has been completely rejected.
Does this mean that the church was hopelessly confused about the meaning of Scripture for the better part of two millennia until we wise moderns came along to sort things out? Or does this mean that Scripture has no real meaning until enlightened imaginations encounter it and create meaning? Neither option is attractive to Childs. He therefore wants to read a wide selection of commentaries on Isaiah in order to discover any consistency over the centuries of interpretation. My first reaction is “I cannot learn anything from Origen!” But this is not true; as Childs shows there is some consistency from the earliest Christian readings of Isaiah to the present.
Despite the fact that it is pre-Christian, Childs begins with the Septuagint as the earliest interpretation of Isaiah. This is an important step since it shows that Jewish readers in the second century B.C. were already struggling to read Isaiah and apply it to their own situation. After observing how the translators of the Septuagint struggle to read Isaiah, Childs surveys examples of commentaries on Isaiah from the earliest Christians (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen) through the great thinkers of the Church (Jerome, John Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas) and the Reformation (Luther and Calvin). He treats the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and postmodern interpretations in single chapters.
By moving through such a large number of representative commentaries, Childs then concludes by looking for what he calls “family resemblances” between these various Christian voices. He finds seven basic characteristics of Christian interpretation of scripture based on his historical survey of Isaiah commentaries.
Authority of Scripture.
Literal and Spiritual Sense of Scripture.
Scripture’s Two Testaments.
The Divine and Human Authorship of Scripture
The Christological Content of the Bible.
The Dialectical Nature of History.
History and the Final Form of the Text.
In the end, I think that Childs has collected the basic consistencies in this wide variety of literature. At least the first five of his points (and probably the seventh) would be true for any commentary I have read and found useful for teaching and preaching. I would also hope that my own reading of the Bible is consistent these points as well.
I do have some reservations, however. I do not think that every passage from the Hebrew Bible must be read Christologically. Certainly Isaiah 7:14 must be, since there is warrant in the New Testament for this topological reading. But what about Hezekiah’s illness in Isa 39? Must I read Christ into that account? It seems to me that the text has nothing specific to say about Christ and a great deal to say about how God is dealing with his people at that time and place in history. To find a Christological principle in Isaiah 39 seems to rob the text of the original meaning.
Childs provides an excellent overview of how thoughtful Christians have read Isaiah in the past. This alone makes the book a valuable contribution. His conclusions show that there is much consistency between the various Christian voices which have struggled to read Isaiah. Whether this is a platform for developing a “Christian Hermenutic” remains unclear, but Childs certainly shows that one cannot read Scripture as a Christian unless Scripture is central.
The Logos Free Book of the Month offer for December is How to Read Proverbs by Tremper Longman III (IVP, 2002). Longman is a well-know Old Testament scholar who has contributed a commentary on Proverbs in the Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms series (2012) and Psalms in the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (IVP, 2014). For only $1.99 you can add Longman’s companion volume, How to Read Psalms (IVP, 1988). I have used both of these small volumes on the book of Proverbs as a textbook in an undergraduate Wisdom Literature class.
