New Interpreter's Bible

We recognise the New Interpreter’s Bible as a major multi volume reference set designed for ministers, teachers, and serious church readers. It aims to combine exegesis, theological reflection, and preaching helps in a single place.

The series draws on a wide range of contributors, and that breadth brings both strength and risk. At its best it offers clear summaries of scholarship and thoughtful connections to church life. At its weakest it can reflect uncertain convictions about Scripture and the supernatural.

Because it includes distinct editorial roles across the canon, it is often best treated as a library tool rather than a single voice. We can use it to consult perspectives and background, while keeping more confessional commentaries as our primary guides for preaching.

Publisher: Abingdon Press

Series Editor: Leander E. Keck

Series: New Interpreter's Bible

A substantial reference set with useful essays and exposition, but its mixed theological register calls for careful discernment.

Level: Mid-level Perspective: Non-Evangelical / Critical Best for: Pastors-in-training, Advanced students / scholars Priority: Use with caution Overall score: 5.4

Strengths

We often gain from the range of contributors, especially when a writer is both academically responsible and pastorally aware. The series can provide clear orientation to a book, key themes, and major interpretive options.

It can also be helpful for tracking how passages have been read across time and how they connect to preaching and teaching settings. That can spark fruitful angles, even when we refine the conclusions.

Where the exposition is careful, it offers a steady guide to structure and meaning, helping us avoid isolated proof texting and encouraging a more contextual reading.

Limitations & Cautions

Because the contributor pool is broad, theological reliability is not consistent. Some volumes will serve a confessional reader well, others will press critical conclusions in ways that sit uneasily with evangelical convictions.

The practical sections can also vary. At times they offer genuine help for preaching, but at other times they can feel generic, or shaped more by contemporary concerns than by the pressure of the text.

We also need to watch how the series speaks about biblical authority and redemptive fulfilment. Without discernment, it can cool the temperature of proclamation.

How to Use This Series

We recommend using this set as a consultative resource, especially for orientation, background, and alternative readings that we want to assess. It is rarely the best single commentary to lead sermon preparation.

Test a section quickly by checking how it handles context, the argument of the passage, and claims about authorship and history. Then ask whether the theological conclusions arise from the text, or whether they are imposed from outside.

Where it is strong, extract what clarifies structure and meaning, then complete the work with a more confessionally aligned commentary that keeps Christ and the authority of Scripture central in the final sermon shape.

Standout Volumes

In a set like this, standout volumes tend to come from contributors who combine clear exposition with genuine pastoral usefulness. They explain the passage plainly, respect context, and then offer applications that feel earned rather than forced.

Often the best entries also include introductions that orient the reader quickly, giving structure, key themes, and interpretive priorities that can serve sermon planning, especially when we read them alongside more theologically focused guides.

Weaker or Less Helpful Volumes

Quality can vary by volume. The weaker entries tend to be those where critical claims dominate the whole approach, leaving the reader with uncertainty about the text as the word of God.

We can often spot this early if the exposition repeatedly sidelines the final form of the text, or if theological conclusions treat core biblical claims as tentative. In those cases, use the material for background and debate only, and let a more confessional commentary set the direction for preaching.

Series in Context

Compared with the Interpretation series, it is often broader in scope and more reference like, with substantial essays and practical helps.

Compared with NICOT and NICNT, it is usually less unified in theological posture and more dependent on the strengths of individual contributors.

If we want dependable confessional exposition, NICOT and NICNT often lead. If we want a wide angle library tool to consult, New Interpreter's Bible can be a useful supplement.

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Joshua

AdvancedAdvanced students / scholarsUse with caution
5.6
Author: Robert B. Coote
Bible Book: Joshua
Series: New Interpreter's Bible
Type: Theological
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Theological Perspective: Non-Evangelical / Critical
Resource Type: Commentary

Summary

This Joshua volume reads the book with an interest in the social and political world that sits around the narrative. It treats Joshua as a text that shapes communal memory, identity, land theology, and public life, rather than as a simple chronicle of conquest. The commentary often asks what sort of community Joshua is forming, how the story functions as theology, and how the text speaks about inheritance, leadership, covenant loyalty, and the dangers of compromise.

For pastors, Joshua presents both opportunity and difficulty. The book is rich in themes of promise, fulfilment, and the faithfulness of the Lord, yet it also contains hard texts that demand careful handling. This commentary can supply useful angles on structure and social setting, but it is not a confessional guide. Its theological stance means the preacher must read critically, and must be prepared to anchor sermons in the canonical storyline rather than in reconstructed backgrounds.

Strengths

The commentary can help readers see Joshua as more than battle scenes. Attention to land, covenant renewal, memorial practice, and the book’s closing exhortations can help a teacher keep the big themes in view. It is often helpful in tracing how the narrative is arranged, how key episodes function as turning points, and how the book uses public ceremonies to form a faithful people. For advanced readers, that can clarify the shape of the book and prevent narrow, episode by episode preaching.

It can also help with the ethical and theological questions Joshua raises. While you will not always agree with the framing, the commentary does not allow you to ignore difficulty. It pushes you to consider how conquest narratives function, how judgement and mercy relate, and how Israel’s obedience or failure is presented within the story.

Limitations

The limitation is that the interpretive framework can underplay Joshua’s place within a unified biblical narrative of promise and fulfilment. Pastors preaching Joshua will want a firm grip on covenant theology and on the way the book points forward to Christ. This commentary will not consistently provide that line, and in some places it may steer attention away from theological claims that the text itself makes plainly.

There is also the general caution that comes with reading Joshua through critical and sociological lenses. Background discussion can become a controlling filter. If the preacher adopts that filter uncritically, the force of Joshua as Scripture that addresses the church can be diminished. Joshua demands careful exposition that honours the text and the canon, and this volume will require supplementation to do that well.

How We Would Use It

We would use this selectively, mainly to understand structure, to think through difficult passages, and to consider how the book functions as communal formation. We would not allow it to govern the theological message of sermons. Instead we would pair it with a more confessionally grounded commentary that handles covenant fulfilment and Christward connection with clarity.

In a training setting, it could also serve as a useful example for learning how to evaluate methodological assumptions.

Closing Recommendation

A serious, context aware reading of Joshua that can help advanced readers grapple with the shape and challenges of the book. It should be used with caution, and always alongside more canonically and confessionally anchored exposition.

Deuteronomy

AdvancedAdvanced students / scholarsUse with caution
5.9
Author: Ronald E. Clements
Bible Book: Deuteronomy
Series: New Interpreter's Bible
Type: Theological
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Theological Perspective: Non-Evangelical / Critical
Resource Type: Commentary

Summary

This Deuteronomy volume approaches the book as covenant preaching, shaped for a people about to cross into the land. It is attentive to Deuteronomy’s sermonic style, its repeated calls to remember, and its insistence that life with the Lord is whole life, love, obedience, worship, justice, and public faithfulness. The commentary often reads Deuteronomy as a theological and ethical charter, not merely a legal code, and it tries to help readers see how the book frames Israels identity and future.

At the same time, the interpretive method reflects critical scholarship. That affects how some texts are handled and how confidently the commentary treats the book as unified divine address. Pastors can still benefit from the thematic and ethical attention, yet they should treat this as a secondary resource and keep their conclusions anchored in the words of Scripture itself.

Strengths

The commentary is frequently helpful in highlighting the pastoral and rhetorical purpose of Deuteronomy. It reminds readers that the book is not merely prescribing behaviour, it is shaping a covenant heart. Attention to themes such as memory, exclusive loyalty, love for the Lord, care for the vulnerable, and the dangers of prosperity can supply genuine sermon material, provided the preacher builds it from the text. The volume can also help you see how Deuteronomy weaves together worship and ethics, private devotion and public justice.

Another strength is the sense that Deuteronomy addresses the whole community. The commentary often draws out the public dimensions of obedience and the communal consequences of idolatry. That can be a corrective for individualistic readings and can help pastors preach Deuteronomy as covenant life for the gathered people of God.

Limitations

The limitation is the same caution that applies to the series, and to critical readings in general. The commentary may frame discussions in ways that do not fully honour Deuteronomy as Scripture that comes with divine authority and covenant clarity. Where the method emphasises development behind the text or interprets passages primarily through reconstructed settings, the preacher must be careful not to adopt conclusions that weaken the force of the book’s own claims.

There is also limited help in making the necessary canonical move toward Christ. Deuteronomy is rich in covenant theology, but sermons require more than ethical emphasis. They need gospel logic, and this volume will not consistently provide it. Pastors must connect Deuteronomy’s covenant demands to the wider storyline of redemption with care and confidence.

How We Would Use It

We would use this as a supporting resource when preparing sermons or teaching series, especially for its thematic mapping and its attention to the rhetoric of covenant exhortation. It can help you see how Deuteronomy presses for love and loyalty, and how it addresses a community under the word. We would always pair it with a more confessionally grounded commentary, and we would test every claim by close reading of the passage.

Used that way, it can serve as a useful supplement rather than a controlling voice.

Closing Recommendation

A thoughtful, theme rich guide to Deuteronomy that can assist advanced readers and teachers. Use it with caution, and ensure your preaching is anchored in the text and driven toward the gospel.

Numbers

AdvancedAdvanced students / scholarsUse with caution
5.8
Author: Thomas B. Dozeman
Bible Book: Numbers
Series: New Interpreter's Bible
Type: Theological
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Theological Perspective: Non-Evangelical / Critical
Resource Type: Commentary

Summary

This Numbers volume is written with a strong academic bent, aiming to read the book as a carefully shaped account of a people in transition. It pays attention to the mixture of narrative, law, lists, and ritual instruction, and it often asks how these diverse materials function together in the final form of the text. The commentary is interested in how wilderness episodes form Israels identity, how leadership and rebellion are portrayed, and how holiness and judgement operate as the community moves from Sinai toward the land.

For pastors, Numbers can be hard to preach because the book alternates between gripping narrative and material that feels administrative. This volume can help you see thematic links and structural signals, yet it is not written with proclamation as the primary horizon. The theological perspective is not confessional, and some interpretive conclusions reflect critical assumptions. It can still be a useful tool in careful hands, especially for advanced study and training contexts.

Strengths

The commentary is strong at helping readers make sense of the book’s varied content. It offers guidance on why certain lists matter, how laws relate to narrative, and how repeated incidents of grumbling and judgement build a sustained portrayal of Israels stubbornness and the Lord’s patient governance. For teachers, that kind of structural help can prevent Numbers from becoming a sequence of disconnected sermons. It encourages you to see how the book is teaching the reader what it means to belong to the Lord in the wilderness, under leadership, and under the word of God.

Another strength is attention to the narrative moments that shape the theology of the book, including leadership crises, intercession, and the consequences of unbelief. When the commentary slows down to track the movement of an episode, it can supply helpful observations and remind you how carefully the text is crafted to form the reader.

Limitations

The limitation is not a lack of intelligence, it is the mismatch between the commentary’s academic aims and the needs of proclamation. Pastors will often look for clear pastoral pathways, direct theological synthesis, and a consistent movement toward Christ. This volume more often offers analytical discussion and interpretive proposals that need further evaluation. Where it leans on critical frameworks, a preacher will need to test what is assumed about authorship, composition, and the status of the text as divine speech.

There is also a risk of losing devotional momentum. Numbers is meant to warn, humble, and steady the people of God, yet academic discussion can sometimes blunt the edge of the warning. Used without discernment, it can lead you to explain the text rather than to preach it.

How We Would Use It

We would use this as a supporting resource for advanced study, especially when working through difficult sections where structure and thematic integration are not obvious. It can help you map larger units and understand how legal material functions within the narrative. We would pair it with a more confessionally grounded commentary when preparing sermons, letting that shape the theological line and the gospel connection.

In short, we would consult it, not rely on it.

Closing Recommendation

A serious academic commentary that can clarify structure and themes in Numbers. Useful for advanced readers, but best used with caution for sermon preparation, and always tested by the text and the canon.

Leviticus

AdvancedAdvanced students / scholarsUse with caution
6.3
Author: Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
Bible Book: Leviticus
Series: New Interpreter's Bible
Type: Theological
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Theological Perspective: Non-Evangelical / Critical
Resource Type: Commentary

Summary

This Leviticus volume aims to help readers take the book seriously as Scripture, not as a dusty appendix to the story of redemption. It is attentive to structure, to repeated formulas, and to the way ritual, holiness, and priestly instruction shape Israels life with God. Readers will find discussion of sacrifices, purity, festivals, and the ethical demands of holiness, with an interest in what these texts meant for Israel and how they form a community that lives near the presence of the Lord. The tone is often more expository than many expect in Leviticus, and it can encourage patient reading through material that is easy to rush.

Even so, within the wider series context this volume should still be handled carefully. The overall framework is not consistently confessional, and the series is built to represent a range of voices. This commentary can still serve as a useful aid, but it is not a substitute for a thoroughly evangelical and Christ centred guide to Leviticus.

Strengths

A notable strength is the effort to present Leviticus as coherent. The commentary often helps readers see how sections relate, why instructions are grouped, and how the book moves toward the vision of a holy people living with a holy God. For teachers, that kind of mapping is valuable, because it gives you handles for explaining why Leviticus matters and how it fits within the Pentateuch. The author also draws attention to the moral and communal purpose of holiness, which can protect sermons from becoming either overly technical or overly allegorical.

The volume can also be useful for clarifying basic categories, distinguishing kinds of offerings, and explaining how purity language functions within the book. That kind of patient explanation can serve Bible study leaders and pastors who want to teach Leviticus with care, especially when combined with a stronger canonical and redemptive framework from elsewhere.

Limitations

The greatest limitation for preaching is the uneven connection to Christ and the fulfilment of the sacrificial system. The commentary may describe ritual logic well, but it does not consistently lead the reader to the theological centre that the New Testament provides. Without that, pastors can end up with sermons that are informative but thin, or practical but detached from the gospel. A preacher will need to do extra work to move from type to fulfilment in a way that honours both Leviticus and the wider canon.

There is also the broader caution that comes with the series. Where critical questions are raised, the reader must assess what is being assumed about the text and its authority. Even when the writing is helpful, it is not always shaped by the priorities of proclamation.

How We Would Use It

We would use this as a support tool when teaching Leviticus, mainly for structure, terminology, and the logic of the book’s instruction. It can help you avoid misreading the details and can give you a clearer sense of how sections fit. We would pair it with a more explicitly evangelical, Christ centred commentary for sermon preparation, letting that guide the theological arc and the gospel movement.

Used in that way, it can contribute without dominating.

Closing Recommendation

A helpful guide for orientation and explanation in Leviticus, especially for advanced readers. Still, given the wider series context, it should be used with caution, and supplemented with stronger Christ centred exposition.

Exodus

AdvancedAdvanced students / scholarsUse with caution
6.0
Author: Walter Brueggemann
Bible Book: Exodus
Series: New Interpreter's Bible
Type: Theological
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Theological Perspective: Non-Evangelical / Critical
Resource Type: Commentary

Summary

This Exodus volume reads the book as a public, theological drama about the Lord, power, freedom, worship, and the formation of a people. The commentary is less concerned with resolving every historical issue and more concerned with the rhetorical force of the narrative and the claims it makes on the imagination. You will find lively reflection on Pharaoh and empire, on the pattern of deliverance and complaint, and on the strange mixture of mercy and severity that shapes Israels life under covenant. The writing can be arresting, at times even prophetic in tone, and it often pushes readers to ask what Exodus is doing to its audience.

For pastors, the value is real but limited. The commentary can stir insight and help you feel the pressure points in a passage, yet it can also be suggestive where sermon preparation needs careful, text grounded argument. It belongs on the desk of the preacher who knows how to read critically, to test every claim by Scripture, and to distinguish evocative commentary from reliable exposition.

Strengths

The chief strength is theological imagination tethered to the broad sweep of the story. The author is good at noticing how Exodus confronts false gods, exposes the pretensions of human rule, and forms a community that belongs to the Lord. Discussions of memory, identity, and covenant can help teachers bring out the large themes that unify the book. If you are planning a series and you want to capture the big theological stakes, the commentary can provide language and angles that prevent your preaching from becoming small or merely technical.

There is also an attentiveness to the shape of conflict and resolution within scenes. The repeated rhythm of demand, refusal, judgement, and deliverance is handled with energy, and the movement from rescue to worship to law is treated as central to the book. Even when you disagree, you will often be helped to see what questions a passage naturally raises, and what pressures it places on hearers.

Limitations

The same imaginative strength can become a weakness when the commentary presses beyond what the passage clearly warrants. At points the argument feels more like a theological meditation than an exposition that is tightly constrained by the words of the text. Pastors who want to anchor applications in precise textual claims will need to slow down and verify, and at times to set aside conclusions that do not sit comfortably with a robust doctrine of Scripture.

The volume is also not consistently geared to the pastoral move from exegesis to proclamation. It can offer striking phrases, yet it does not always help you craft the kind of clear gospel logic a congregation needs. Those who rely on it too heavily risk adopting emphases that are not proportionate to the passage, or framing the message of Exodus mainly in contemporary categories rather than in the Bible’s own terms.

How We Would Use It

We would use this selectively, mainly for orientation and for sharpening our sense of the big themes in Exodus. After working the passage ourselves and consulting a more confessionally reliable guide, we would read this to see what it notices about the narrative force and the public claims of the text. It may be especially useful in training settings, where students need to learn how to evaluate interpretive suggestions and to distinguish compelling rhetoric from careful proof.

We would not use it as the primary source for sermon structure or theological conclusions. Treat it as a stimulus, not a foundation.

Closing Recommendation

An influential and vivid theological reading of Exodus that can enlarge your sense of the book’s stakes. Use it with caution, and keep the open Bible in front of you at every step.

Genesis

AdvancedAdvanced students / scholarsUse with caution
6.0
Author: Terence E. Fretheim
Bible Book: Genesis
Series: New Interpreter's Bible
Type: Theological
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Theological Perspective: Non-Evangelical / Critical
Resource Type: Commentary

Summary

This Genesis volume is written for readers who want the book heard as a theological narrative rather than treated as a storehouse of detached episodes. The commentary moves through the text with an eye for recurring motifs, narrative pacing, and the way the stories of creation, fall, judgement, promise, and family conflict hang together. It frequently pauses to explore what the passage suggests about the character of God, the shape of human responsibility, and the moral world Genesis assumes. There is a real attempt to read the book as Scripture for the people of God, even while the interpretive instincts are shaped by critical scholarship rather than confessional commitments.

For pastors and teachers, this is not the sort of volume you place in the driving seat of sermon preparation. It is better approached as a thoughtful conversation partner, one that can surface questions you need to answer from the text itself. Used carefully, it can help you notice literary features, patterns of speech, and theological tensions that you might otherwise miss. Used uncritically, it can nudge you toward conclusions that are not well anchored in a full biblical storyline or a robust doctrine of Scripture.

Strengths

The commentary is often strong on the craft of the narrative. It helps readers slow down, see how scenes are framed, and track how key themes gather weight over time. Discussions of blessing and curse, promise and delay, family rivalry and providence can be illuminating, particularly when the author draws attention to repeated phrases, turning points, and the way a later episode echoes an earlier one. If you are teaching Genesis in an academic or training context, the careful attention to the flow of argument and the movement of the plot is genuinely useful.

Another strength is the theological curiosity brought to the surface of the text. The author often asks the kind of questions that teachers should ask, even if they will not always agree with the answers given. How does Genesis speak about divine action, human agency, prayer, judgement, and mercy. What kind of world does the Creator make, and what kind of patience does the Lord display toward flawed people. Those prompts can sharpen your own reading and keep you from flattening Genesis into mere moral tales.

Limitations

The main limitation is the interpretive posture. Because the volume is shaped by critical approaches, some discussions can feel less like exposition and more like a reconstruction of ideas behind the text. That can affect how confidently the commentary handles disputed questions, and it can sometimes weaken the sense that the final form of Genesis is the primary object of interpretation. Pastors who want a clear line from the text to proclamation will often need to do extra work to test conclusions, and to root their sermons in the plain claims of the passage.

The theological use is also uneven for pulpit work. It can be reflective and wide angled, yet it rarely helps you make the kind of direct, text governed claims that a congregation needs. The result is a resource that rewards patient reading, but can frustrate those who are looking for concise exegetical support, canonical synthesis, and clear Christward trajectory.

How We Would Use It

We would use this volume after first working the passage closely and consulting a more confessionally aligned commentary. Then, with the text already in hand, we would dip into this for its narrative observations and for the questions it raises about theological themes. It can be especially helpful in the early stages of planning a teaching series, where you want to map major movements and recurring ideas across large sections of Genesis.

We would not use it as the primary authority for sermon claims, nor as the main guide for theological conclusions where the church needs clarity. Keep it alongside Scripture, read it with discernment, and let it serve as a prompt to return again to the text.

Closing Recommendation

A substantial and often perceptive theological reading of Genesis, best suited to advanced study and training contexts. It can sharpen observation and stimulate reflection, but it should be used with caution in sermon preparation, and always tested by the text and the wider witness of Scripture.