Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon

Philipps-Universität Marburg Marburg, Germany J. Robert Wright is St. Mark’s Professor of Ecclesiastical History at General Theological Seminary in New York. His recently published commentary on the three biblical books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon is the ninth volume of the Ancient Christian Commentary series. As opposed to other commentaries, this series does not try to give the reader an explanation of the text based on exegetical work but compiles the comments of the church fathers so far as these writings have been passed on to us. Although there seem to be some more projects of the same nature, the ACC 9 is to my knowledge the first commentary giving an overview of the exegetical tradition in the first centuries of our era to the three so-called sapiential books of the Hebrew Bible. It is obviously a useful book, helping the reader to compare his or her own reading of the biblical texts with the one of the church fathers, who laid the theological foundations to teaching and preaching in the Christian churches all over the world. In the main part of the book the reader finds the text of each of the three biblical writings, divided into manageable portions (usually following the chapters of each book) and presented in the RSV. In each portion Wright gives a summary of the comments of the church fathers in an introductory paragraph prior to providing their comments to the text in question, each with a superscription from the author of the book and complete with reference to the work that has been quoted. [Full Review]