Q & R: Commentaries

Here’s the Q:

Hi Brian, I wonder if you can recommend any good commentaries on the Hebrew Scriptures? I have tended to avoid reading these apart from the well known stories and poetic sections as I find them too hard to understand. My bible study group wants to look at Esther…This is making me panicky! Do you have any suggestions? many thanks

Here’s the R:
I’d start with three resources:
1. Walter Brueggemann.
2. Paul Nuechterlein’s Girardian Lectionary. (You have to find where a passage is used in the Revised Common Lectionary … then look it up in the site index.)
3. You can also find Jewish Bible commentaries online. I think it’s a good idea for Christians to take more seriously the ways Jewish scholars read the text.
Hope that helps!