Author: Thomas C. Oden

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-07-04

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 1135927502

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is a unique twenty-eight-volume series encompassing all of Scripture and offering contemporary readers the opportunity to study for themselves the key writings of the early church fathers. Arranged by the books of the Bible, each portion of commentary allows the living voices of the church in its formative centuries to speak as they engage the sacred page of Scripture, rendered throughout the series in English in the ecumenically accepted Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture does what very few of today's students of the Bible could do for themselves. With the aid of computer technology, the vast array of writings from the church fathers - including much that is available only in the ancient languages - have been combed for their comment on Scripture. From these results, scholars with a deep knowledge of the fathers and a heart for the church have hand-selected material for each volume, shaping, annotating and introducing it to today's readers. Each portion of commentary has been chosen for its salient insight, its rhetorical power and its faithful representation of the consensual exegesis of the early church. The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is an ecumenical project, promoting a vital link of communication between today's varied Christian traditions and their common ancient ancestors in the faith. On this shared ground we listen as leading pastoral theologians of the church's first several centuries gather around the text of Scripture and offer their best theological, spiritual and pastoral insights. Today the historical-critical method of interpretation has nearly exhausted its claim on the biblical text and on the church. In its wake there is a wide-spread yearning among Christian individuals and communities for the wholesome, the deep and the enduring. The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture seeks not to replace those excellent commentaries that have been produced in the twentieth century. It supplements them, framing them with interpretive voices that have long sustained the church and only recently have fallen silent. It invites us to listen with appreciative ears and sympathetic minds as our ancient ancestors in the faith describe and interpret the scriptural vistas as they see them. The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is a postcritical revival of the early commentary tradition known as the glossa ordinaria, a text artfully elaborated with ancient and authoritative reflections and insights. An uncommon companion for theological interpretation, spiritual reading, and wholesome teaching and preaching.