Scott J asked:
What are your thoughts on:
WE Vines NT Commentaries
I assume this is the same Vine who published the Expository Dictionary of the New Testament, right? I've often found that to be a good resource (Greek for non-Greek-speaking people!), but I haven't used the commentary series at all.
I was briefly tempted to pick up the volume on Galatians since it was the only one for that epistle available off the shelf at the local Christian bookstore, but I opted to order in Timothy George (New American series) and Richard Longenecker (Word series) instead.
As far as the remainder of your list goes, I have only used:
Adam Clarke
Jamieson-Faucet-Brown
and have found much of value in both - JFB more than Clarke (his being a Wesleyan and all).
There are two good reasons (that I can think of) why older commentaries such as the above are so common on CDs. First, they are in the public domain; they can be reproduced freely and at little additional cost. Second, the work to digitize them has already been done; many of the lengthiest electronic commentaries, such as Gill's, are available through the efforts of Larry Pierce (author of the Online Bible). (While it's not illegal I do sometimes wonder about how ethical it is to simply take all the work he has done and repackage it as value-added material in your own product.)
Incidentally, for a thumbnail evaluation of some of these old commentaries, Spurgeon's lectures on
Commenting and Commentaries are a good place to start.
