Bible Knowledge Commentary

The full title for this book is "The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament An Exposition of the Scriptures by Dallas Seminary Faculty Old Testament Based on the New International Version." (BKC)  Man is that an impressive title or what?  As I explained in my last post I'm reading the NIV as my version of the Bible this year, and since this Bible commentary will sync with it I'm reading them together and so far I'm having a lot of fun with it, and learning quite a bit.  I'm going to call it the BKC for short because that's just to long of a title to type repeatedly.

I'm excited about reading the commentary because the Dallas Seminary seems to be a very conservative seminary.  The book has a preface that explains why they are writing another commentary on the Bible.  I don't remember why they're writing this, but I expect it has something to do with they feel that they can provide insights to studying the Bible for those who read the BKC.  There are two volumes, one for the Old Testament and one for the New Testament.

For Genesis, and I expect for all the books of the Old Testament, they start with an Introduction.  This one is written by Allen P. Ross.  I really liked this introduction.  Dr. Ross covers many of the different threads of scholarship that the Old Testament has been subjected to in a very succinct way.  I thought he dealt with them very well.

One thing that is pointed out is the natural division of Genesis into an initial section and the 11 following sections.  Each of these section is started by the word tol'dot ("these are the generations of...").  I never knew that before.  So the sections are

1. Creation (1:1-2:3)
2. tol'dot of the heavens and the earth (2:4-4:26)
3. tol'dot of Adam (5:1-6:8)
4. tol'dot of Noah (6:9-9:29)
5. tol'dot of Shem, Ham, and Japheth (10:1-11:9)
6. tol'dot of Shem (11:10-26)
7. tol'dot of Terah (11:27-25:11)
8. tol'dot of Ishmael (25:12-18)
9. tol'dot of Isaac (25:19-35:29)
10. tol'dot of Esau (36:1-8)
11. tol'dot of Esau, father of the Edomites (36:9-37:1)
12. tol'dot of Jacob (37:2-50:26)

One thing that I found funny about the preface was when the author said that they would take care of apparent contradictions.  I guess the Dallas Seminary take an inerrant view of the Bible.  This should be interesting.