It began with a Methodist publisher's casual question over a dinner table: "What, in your judgment, is the most urgent task in religious publishing today?" Answered scholarly Dr. George Buttrick of Manhattan's Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church: "A new commentary on the Bible which would bridge the gap between the exegetes [interpreters] and rank & file teachers and preachers."
That was ten years ago. Last week the first volume of just such a commentary was off the presses. Entitled The Interpreter's Bible, and prepared under Dr. Buttrick's general editorial direction, the new commentary is a landmark of biblical scholarship.
Exegesis & Exposition. The sheer statistics of the job are staggering. Buttrick and his collaborators have already spent seven years on it, and the twelfth and last volume will not be ready for six years more. The completed job will represent the work of 146 Protestant scholars (of more than 25 denominations), will consist of some 10,000 pages, and will cost more than $1,000,000. The publishers, the Abingdon-Cokesbury Press (Methodist), expect to sell individual volumes for $8 to $9 a copy. Price of the present volume (number seven in the eventual series): $8.75.
But the grand design of The Interpreter's Bible is more impressive than any statistics. Each page is divided horizontally into three parts. At the top, in parallel columns, run two translations of the Bible's text—the 17th Century King James version and the Revised Standard version. Below the text is a band of exegesis. Writes Dr. Buttrick of this part of the work:
"A reader who casts his eye on a line of scripture and accepts what it 'seems to mean' is dealing in astrology or pre-Copernican astronomy rather than in the present wonder of heavenly truth. Truth depends, not alone on accuracy of meaning, but on its total setting—on what a word or a phrase meant for its original speaker in the original time and occasion."
Below the band of exegesis on each page comes an "exposition"—a commentary on the text which ministers should find helpful in preparing sermons, the laymen in their devotions.
Living History. The volume published last week contains the first two Gospels (Matthew and Mark). The exegesis of Matthew is by Episcopal Dean Sherman E. Johnson of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the exposition by Dr. Buttrick. The exegesis of Mark is by Episcopal Professor Frederick C. Grant of Union Theological Seminary, and the exposition by Methodist Professor Halford E. Luccock of Yale Divinity School. The other scholars are of similar high standing.
Fifty years ago, such a commentary would have been much concerned with the so-called "higher criticism," i.e., the 19th Century emphasis on computing the age of manuscripts and comparing texts and writing styles in an effort to determine authorship and authenticity.