The Epistle to the Galatians

This commentary replaces the venerable NICNT by Herman Ridderbos (1953). That volume was written from a thoroughly traditional perspective, Fung’s approach is biblical-theological, following his teacher, F. F. Bruce. His introduction to the book is excellent, dating the book before Acts 15, written to southern Galatia. He deals with major arguments for and against this view, creating an efficient and readable argument. Like most of the NICNT series, Greek is relegated to footnotes, permitting the layman or busy pastor to use the commentary without too much difficulty. In fact, some of his footnotes interact with other views in such detail it is hard to imagine why the material was placed there instead of the main text! I particularly enjoy his “additional comments,” brief excursuses on topics that go a bit beyond the text. I find these brief yet extremely helpful. Fung has written a major Galatians commentary in Chinese, something which I see as extremely promising. [Full Review]

Ronald Fung's NICNT defends the traditional approach (as opposed to the New Perspective), but I don't think he engages much with New Perspective supporters. I haven't looked much at it. This is a solid commentary, by all accounts, but no one seems to think it stands out in any way, and everything Fung is good at can probably be found in other commentaries. My one reason for still considering it would be that it may be more balanced than some of the commentaries that are strong in some ways but not in others, and it probably does offer more toward expositing the text than some of the more detailed works above. One reviewer criticizes Fung for relying too much on Kittel's word-studies. [Full Review]

[Full Review]