Ancient Christian commentary

[THELOVEOFGOD]

Could anyone inform me if the Ancient Christian commentary series is worth getting?

Has anybody here read any of them and found them useful, or not?

be greatful of your advice.

Paul

[DavidHawthorne]

Hello, Paul-

I use the ACCS pretty frequently in my readings. I think they're very good overall although I wish they had left out some of the sources they quote which are not recognized by the Church. But the great majority of the sources cited are good and Orthodox; so as long as you know which ones to skip over it can be a very useful resource to look up how the Holy Fathers interpreted various passages: particularly the volumes dealing with the Old Testament for which there are very few patristic commentaries in English. Another great commentary dealing with the Old Testament for Orthodox Christans is published by the Holy Apostle's Convent and called "The Lives of the Holy Prophets". It covers all the prophets, minor and major, and uses the Septuagint as its Biblical text. Its only drawback is that it is not set up in a verse-by-verse format so its not as easy to use when you just want to check specific verses. But it does have an index of verses cited so its not impossible to use it this way.
As for the ACCS I would definitely recommend it as edifying so long as you skip over the heterodox quoted (though, to be fair, I can't remember any specific quotations that were heterodox in substance- it would just be nicer to not have to read comments "with my guard up")

God bless,
David

[THELOVEOFGOD]

Thanks David, i have ordered the commentary of the twelve Prophets.

I think i read somewhere it uses the RSV or NRSV, how does this work when the quotations are from the Septuagint, do they use the RSV as a sort of title for every verse, but still include the Septuagint quotations?

Thanks again.

Paul

[DavidHawthorne]

Hi, Paul-

I am glad you ordered the commentary on the Twelve Prophets. It is a good volume with a lot of edifying quotations. Yes, the Biblical text used is the RSV. The ACCS divides each chapter into topical sections, pacing the verses covered at the beginning of that section. The verses have a lot of footnotes which do include most of the LXX readings. So it is a good reference for both what the Eastern Fathers and the Western Fathers (after Bl. Jerome) were reading. This is helpful of course because when the Eastern Fathers are being quoted they are commenting on the words of the LXX, while the Western Fathers after the fifth century are normally quoting the Vulgate which used an Old Testament based closely on the Masoretic text. I think the RSV and NRSV Bibles are beautiful and pleasant to read, and have the advantage of including the entire canon of Scripture accepted by the Church. Unfortunately they have the double disadvantage of (a) being based on
a different ancient text than the Church has officially used: Old Testament= Masoretic rather than LXX; New Testament= Alexandrian rather than Byzantine (Majority); and (b) they were translated using a dynamic "thought-for-thought" approach rather than a literal "word-for-word" one. That being said, if I were to apply a tenth of the edification I have recieved from these "inferior" text types I would be a much better Christian than I am now.
However, being a perfectionist in intent, I normally use my Brenton translation of the LXX for OT readings and my KJV, NKJV, or the Orthodox New Testament by Dormition Skete (NT readings) while looking up verses of interest in the ACCS.
I hope this long-winded answer helps..............

[THELOVEOFGOD]

It did help thanks, it wasn't too long winded it answered my question very well.