Matthew

Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006. Pp. 267. Hardcover. $29.99. ISBN 1587430959. John Nolland Trinity College Bristol, United Kingdom In their commentary work, biblical scholars for several generations have exercised great discipline in seeking not to go beyond what the text says. Initially this was in the name of Enlightenment objectivity, but more lately other reasons are likely to be in play, instead or as well: individual scholars often have an uncertain or problematic personal relationship to the faith stance of the documents they seek to elucidate; scholars belong to a whole structure of academic life in which communication across difference requires a certain amount of bracketing out of the difference; academic respectability may seem to require a certain distance from the life of the church; and so forth. But despite the highly developed skills of objectivity that have undoubtedly been involved, it has not been lost on thoughtful students that scholarly readings have an uncanny way of mirroring features of the personal stances of the scholars involved or of what seem to be scholarly fashions of the moment. In any case, postmodern sensibilities have been chipping away at all claims to objectivity and pushing us toward the conviction that all scholarship is done from a standpoint. The Brazos series of commentaries is after “an unashamedly dogmatic interpretation of Scripture” (series preface [13]). [Full Review]