Image: Ruth and Boaz

Painter: Josep Anton Koch (1768-1839)

Fortress Press has published a Bible Commentary in two volumes. This commentary seeks to introduce readers to each book of the Bible by focusing on the context of the text and how the text has been interpreted and applied in contemporary situations.

Below is the promotional material introducing The Fortress Commentary on the Bible:

The Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha and Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The New Testament present a balanced synthesis of current scholarship on the Bible, enabling readers to interpret scripture for a complex and pluralistic world. Introductory articles in each volume discuss the dramatic challenges that have shaped contemporary interpretation of the Bible.

Commentary articles set each book of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha in its historical and cultural context, discuss the themes in each book that have proven most important for the Christian interpretive tradition, and introduce the most pressing questions facing the responsible use of the Bible today. The writers are renowned authorities in the historical interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, sensitive to theological and cultural issues arising in our encounter with the text, richly diverse in social locations and vantage points, representing a broad array of theological commitment-Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and others, and alive to the ethical consequences of interpretation today.

A team of six scholar editors and seventy contributors provide clear and concise commentary on key sense units in each book of the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament. Each unit is explored through the lenses of three levels of commentary based on these critical questions. The result is a commentary that is comprehensive and useful for gaining insights on the texts for preaching, teaching, and research. In addition to the commentary essays on each book, the volumes also contain major essays that introduce each section of Scripture and explore critical questions as well as up-to-date and comprehensive bibliographies for each book and essay.

Fortress has made available a free sample of the commentary on Ruth. Ruth’s commentary is divided intro three sections:

1. The Text in Its Ancient Context
2. The Text in the Interpretative Tradition
3. The Text in Contemporary Discussion

You can download a PDF copy of the commentary on Ruth by clicking here. The commentary on Ruth was written by Gale A. Yee. Her commentary discusses the biblical text and then looks at how the Rabbis viewed Ruth and how they approached the text. The commentary then looks at the story of Ruth from the perspective of immigrants and impoverished women.

Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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If you are looking for other series of studies on the Old Testament, visit the Archive section and you will find many studies that deal with a variety of topics.