Somewhere, I read a quote that went something like this: "Don't waste your time on good books, there are too many great ones out there." Well, this is one of those good books.
In the world of biblical commentaries, there are many, many, terrible books. There are also many, many good books, and even quite a few great ones. One of the greatest questions to ask of a commentary is "why read THIS book?" What makes it distinct, unusually helpful or especially clear? After reading this entry in the Kregel Exegetical Library, this book came up dry. Nothing stands out. While not a bad volume, the busy pastor/teacher would be better serviced elsewhere.
While other commentaries abound with pithy sayings, or address the depth of the text, or greatly aid in relevance, or even cackle with energy and enthusiasm, Aida's writing style feels flat and boring. Many of her sentences fall into the same tired structure, with the subject beginning the sentence and a passive state-of-being verb landing in the middle. (From Page 22: "James' language is direct." "His letter has many imperatives: sixty-seven" and "His use of imperatives is similar to Paul's use in the letter to the Philippians") They also tend to be devoid of emotion or passion. This makes for a boring read, compounded by the fact that the introduction doesn't even try to excite readers or assure them of the importance of James' epistle. Her opening sentence is quite literally "Determining authorship is a foundational issue for the letter of James." (Page 21)
At times, she does offer solid insights, noting on Page 28 that James probably heard particular words of Jesus and how that may have affected the letter. However, such notable insights are rare. P. 79 was the first quote of any real length in the book, which was unusually empty of quotations and illustrations. Overall, the curt sentence style and flat writing caused the commentary to feel empty, brief, and light, even if the depth of the material itself was roughly on par with the average New American Commentary entry.
Some unusual features of the commentary worth mentioning are the list of illustrations/graphs on Page 9. If one is searching for a particular graph of visual, that is handy. Oddly, there is also a list of "definition of terms in grammatical analysis" on Page 17 before the commentary proper, with all other lists (like a "glossary of stylistic terms," "unusual words and phrases in James" and even a list of all the imperatives in James) placed at the end, after the textual analysis. While some are mildly helpful, it's confusing that they are split up and shuffled around like that.
That leads into this book's worst flaw: the formatting is simply terrible.
While most commentaries today split the text into either preachable units/pericopes, or into smaller paragraphs, Aida chose instead to comment one chapter at a time, without any sort of subheadings denoting paragraphs divisions or even when her comments shifted to the next verse. This made hunting for information on a particular phrase incredibly difficult.
Within each of these five divisions she split the material under five subheadings "translation and grammatical analysis," "outline," "literary structure," "exposition," and "theological and homiletical topics." I've included a picture of the unusual and frankly unreadable formatting of the "translation and grammatical analysis." While the formatting of the lines, lack of distinguishing fonts, and similar spacing at once demphasizes everything and makes looking for details difficult, this problem is made especially clear when compared to the brilliant formatting of an identical feature in the Zondervan Exegetical commentary on the same book.
(Zondervan's volume is on the bottom left, while Kregel's is on top.)
Within the "exposition" section, there are, as mentioned, no headings or formatting marks to help clarify when comments move verses, which verses belong together, or any extra sidebars or extra insights. Besides the footnotes, there is only one formatting convention used. Often, Aida bolds a single word, which is usually followed by a quick definition, and regularly, how many times it appears in either James, or the NT as a whole. Now, while it's strange enough that that alone is the only formatting difference used, it's also used a lot. Over and over and over again, words were highlighted, defined, and commented on briefly, then moved past. Little was done to show how those words affected the context (or vice versa) and the entire effect was one of extreme atomization, not just missing the forest for the trees, but missing even the trees for the individual leaves. Her strength obviously lies in the analysis and explanation of individual words, rather than actual exegesis of passages.
Moving to the "theological and homiletical topics," Aida begins by very briefly noting some of the themes before moving to a couple pages tackling one of the themes at random. For example, nearly the entirety of the theological section for Chapter 1 was simply explaining why NT writers often used male pronouns generically. ("brothers" for "brothers and sisters") Rather than comment on any of the rich theological themes, or even try to reveal which was the main theme of James, she instead zoomed in on a seemingly small point that could have easily been dispatched in a few sentences elsewhere. It almost seemed like she had an ax to grind on that subject, as she also spent an unusual amount of space bringing up the arguments for women being teachers and leaders in the church in James 3, to the neglect of the actual content James was writing about.
These formatting and focus problems persist in every one of the five major divisions.
In the end, the writing keeps it from being a fun or passionate read, while the formatting prevents easy reference. There are few unique insights, though some of the graphs are helpful. Unless you have an abundance of study time and extra money, there's no reason to purchase this book. You're much better off with the Zondervan Exegetical commentary of James which excels this book in every category imaginable.
While certainly not terrible, nothing stands out in this commentary except the poor writing style and unhelpful formatting. Without any striking positive features, I cannot recommend this. As my opening quote detailed, there are too many great books out there to waste your time on good ones.
2/5
Here it is on Amazon.
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