A Book Review from Books At a Glance
by Matthew B. Tabke
Michael H. Burer is the Dean of Faculty Development and a professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He earned a Bachelor of Music in 1993 at the University of Georgia, a Master of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1998, and a Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2004. He worked for Bible.org for several years assisting with the NET Bible before joining the faculty at Dallas Theological Seminary. He aided in the completion of the New English Translation Novum Testamentum Graece diglot during his time with Bible.org. He is an ordained pastor who is active in his local church and has ministered with the Evangelical Alliance Mission in France. He has also served as a visiting professor at Faculté Libre de Théologie Évangélique in Vaux-sur-Seine, France. His research focuses heavily on the Greek language, exegesis, the Gospels, and Jesus studies.
The Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series attempts to stay faithful to its name. First, the series specifically sought out those who would write from an Evangelical perspective. “Evangelical” is defined by a unified conviction that Scripture is the ultimate authority regarding all matters pertaining to the “knowledge of God” thus making Scripture alone “a guide to faithful living” (xv). Second, the commentary is exegetical. This means the commentary series places heavy emphasis on the original meaning of the original languages to the original hearers in their original context. Operating with the conviction that the Scriptural books were not written to us but for us, the commentators in this series were charged with uncovering the meaning of the texts to their original audiences. The importance of this task remains ever present even with the rise of theological interpretation and so proponents of such should not quickly dismiss the valuable contributions Burer makes in his volume.
As with many modern commentaries, the author begins with an Introduction lasting 21 pages and discussing the authorship, recipients of the epistle, date, occasion for writing, theological overview, and outline. There are a few unique contributions Burer makes that are helpful for understanding the state of modern Galatians studies. First, he determines the date of the epistle by discussing the book’s relationship to Acts. One’s understanding of the date of Galatians plays heavily into the occasion for Paul’s writing thus influencing any subsequent exegesis. Second, Burer draws a comparison between Galatians and Romans determining that Galatians was written prior to Romans and that Romans fleshes out in more detail, many of the ideas from Galatians. While one may thus be tempted to consider Galatians a less developed version of Paul’s magnum opus, Burer rejects the notion that Galatians is inferior to Romans and suggests instead that Galatians ought to be read and appreciated on its own terms. These unique contributions to Burer’s introduction help solidify the context of Galatians and prevent the introductory section from simply rehashing what is commonly written concerning the epistle.
The commentary proper is broken up into eight major divisions: textual notes, translation, commentary, theological comments, application and devotional comments, additional exegetical comments, selected bibliography, and excurses. The first of these is the textual notes section. These notes are focused exclusively on manuscript data. The base text which Bruer analyzes in this commentary is the NA28 as per the modern academic norm. However, unlike some other commentaries that simply list major variations in the text, Bruer selects particularly significant variations and discusses them in detail attempting to reconstruct the original penmanship of Paul. This allows one to see the author’s reasoning for his translation choices. The translation generally appears to follow a formal equivalence philosophy, smoothing over only what is necessary to make the text make sense in English. One critique concerning the text is the inclusion of grammar, syntax, and linguistics into the reasoning. While linguistics pretty much is the state of modern Biblical language study, the field could stand to explain upon what foundations they draw their conclusions. For instance, in footnote 9 on page 168, Bruer provides reasoning for his versification and states that the final clause of Galatians 2:19, “clearly connects with the following material” (vs. 20). Why is this clear? Many who preach weekly sermons have very poor Greek skills and need commentators to pick up the slack. Bruer certainly does this, but the syntactical aspects of documents that didn’t originally have any punctuation are very unfamiliar to the majority of those who are likely to pick up this commentary. This is a minor gripe, but it is nonetheless a critique that needs answering from those who are skilled in the languages. Why does the language function the way it does?
As mentioned above, the commentary section is focused heavily on discovering the meaning of the words in their historical contexts. Here the commentary shines by undergoing painstaking efforts to accomplish this goal. Bruer masterfully works through the Greek text, explaining his positions on the meaning of the text by using scholarly sources rather than regurgitating other scholars’ positions for pages on end. The author is focused on the text rather than what has been said about the text by modern scholarship. While most of the sources are from modern scholars, the Galatians commentaries from both Luther and Calvin are included which suggests an eye toward the past. The inclusion of these Reformation giants (and many others from church history) is a welcome addition that helps historically root the commentary even if ever so slightly. In addition, Bruer recognizes that Galatians and more broadly speaking, Scripture, is a primarily theological document and so follows his commentary section with a section on theological comments. What makes this section so helpful is the author’s adept consolidation of exegetical data into theological conclusions. Naturally, these theological comments then flow into the application section providing a substantial help for pastors preaching to their congregations.
The final three sections each make additional important contributions to the volume. First, the additional exegetical comments are responses to scholars who might disagree with Bruer’s interpretation. Rather than integrating these comments into the commentary section as other commentaries do, the author has chosen to let the commentary focus exclusively on the text and answer divergent interpretations separately. This saves the pastor concerned with the meaning of the text hours of sifting through variant argumentation while allowing the scholar to quickly isolate significant perspectives in the study of Galatians. Second, the selected bibliography is typical of serious scholarly commentaries meaning it will be largely inaccessible to the public given the cost and rarity of its contents. While a pastor without access to a seminary library will likely ignore several of these scholarly sources, a student in the throughs of serious Galatians research is provided with an impeccable starting point for sources on specific passages. Finally, the excurses are not found in every textual section covered in the commentary, but where they do occur, they are genuine digressions from the commentary section. Significant words and concepts appear with their own scholarly coverage providing key data points which help strengthen the arguments of the commentary. These excurses also offer some contributions to serious academic conversation.
Bruer’s Galatians commentary remains faithful to its goal of being both Evangelical and Exegetical. His work is marked by a Christian orthodox perspective on the authority of Scripture, submitting to the text rather than lording over it while simultaneously engaging in intense research and analysis. Perhaps the most delightful aspect of the commentary is that each textual division is considered in various sections that are all markedly different from the others. Sometimes commentaries include multiple sections which end up being more exegetical data leaving one with an inability to differentiate between the “comment” section and the “application” section. Bruer’s distinctions between these points of coverage tackle different purposes and thus allow for both student and pastor to quickly find the section they need most for their work. Bruer’s Galatians will provide an unquestionable help to those who are interested in studying the epistle for any variety of reasons. Perhaps one caution is that this commentary analyzes the Greek text so if your Greek skills are subpar or nonexistent, be wary about spending $60 on this book. However, if you have been exposed to Koine and you are interested in deeply analyzing Galatians for preaching, research, or teaching, purchase this book.
Matthew B. Tabke
Buy the books
GALATIANS (EVANGELICAL EXEGETICAL COMMENTARY), by Michael H. Burer