Norman C. Habel

This is my first experience with a "bible commentary." It happened to catch my eye at the library at a time when I was undertaking my first complete read-through of the Old Testament. It was quite helpful here and there. I was particularly interested in the sections that discussed the history of wisdom literature as a genre and its characteristics in various cultures at various times. If you are reading the bible for divination, letting it drop open at any spot to find your message from the show more universe, these sorts of study aids may be quite beside the point. But if, like me, you have undertaken to discover first hand what the bible sez (rather than what they sez it sez), footnotes, commentaries, and histories are useful. I always find it of interest to see how the various texts have evolved over the centuries and how one editor or another added passages here and there to emphasize a message or even alter it to make it more contemporary to their times (or germane to their purposes). There may be better commentaries out there; I wouldn't know. I trusted my little bit of biblical education to Cambridge's academic reputation. show less

Two stars: Norman talking tenderly, timidly, about kissing and petting in the character of a young girl. And as the dude tripping his gonads off in a "psychedelic room" peaking with the conclusion that "Jesus is changing everything."

Goes with record #2 of the Purple Puzzle Tree Series,

This book goes along with record #1 of the Purple Puzzle Tree Series.