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May 31 2008

Tagging and Sorting Systems

by John Dyer

This week, I was created a "tagging" system which allows sets of tags to be added to books in various categories. Right now, every book of the bible has a set dealing with the academic level of the work. A give title can be tagged as:

  • Scholarly/Technical - heavily utilizes original languages
  • Pastoral/Expositional - less academic, but geared toward learned pastors
  • Devotional/Popular - geared more toward the "lay" person
  • Special study - some works, like the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture are distinct from regular commentaries.

Some works fit into just one category (ICC and Hermenia are clearly "Technical"), but others span more than one of these categories, such as the NICNT/NICOT series which are technical, but also useful for pastors and expositors. So I have made it so that multiple tags apply to each work. This is a distinct advantage of a web application over a traditional book since it's not limited to just one list or categorization.

In addition to the tags above, some books such as Daniel and Revelation also have another tag set called "Millennial View" with the following options:

  • Premillennial
  • Postmillennial
  • Amillennial

Other views could be added, such as Idealist, but these should work for now. The other tag set that I am considering is some kind of range between Liberal and Evangelical. John Glynn does a great job of this in his commentary and reference survey.

In addition to tags, the table of books can now be sorted by column for further refinement.

May 27 2008

More series!

by John Dyer

New Series

  • Reformed Expository Commentary
  • Believers Church Bible Commentary
  • Concordia Commentary
  • Holman Old Testament
  • Preaching Classic Texts

Updates (mostly forthcoming works)

  • Brazos
  • Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament
  • Baker Exegetical Commentary
  • Apollos Old Testament
  • Anchor Bible
May 24 2008

Additions and Updates

by John Dyer

Updates to

  • Hermenia
  • New Cambridge Bible Commentary
  • ICC

New

  • Eerdmanns Critical Commentary
  • Sacrina Pagina
May 24 2008

More Series, especially OT

by John Dyer

Today, these commentaries were added:

  • Historical Commentary on the Old Testament
  • Forms of the Old Testament Literature
  • Continental Commentary
  • Westminster Bible Companion
  • Abington Old Testament Commentary
  • Abington New Testament Commentary
  • Daily Study Bible (NT)
  • Sacra Pagina
May 23 2008

New Commentary Series Added

by John Dyer

This week I've added several great commentaries. I'm currently focusing on a lot of Old Testament data, but some of the series also extend into the New Testament.

  • Asia Biblical Commentary
  • Berit Olam
  • Daily Bible Study Series (OT)
  • New Century Bible Commentary
  • Hendriksen & Kistemaker
  • Smyth & Helwys
  • The Church's Bible
  • JPS Torah Commentary

The other big feature that I'm still working out is how to classify books along the spectrum of Technical, Expositional, and Devotional. There are other classifications that might be needed for the perspective of the author, such evangelical, liberal, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and so on. Certain books such as Daniel and Revelation might also need classifications such as amillennial, premillennial, postmillennial. These will make a huge difference in how useful the site is, so I really want to get them right!

May 17 2008

Alpha Site

by John Dyer

This weekend I finished an alpha version of Best Commentaries. So far there are commentaries from 50 different series, and the total number of commentaries is somewhere a bit north of 1,000.

I've gone through several iterations of the database to come up with something that I'm pretty sure will work for the long haul. At this point there are 5 types of entries in the database:

1. Normal - this is a commentary where one physical book represents a commentary on one book of the Bible.

2. MultiVolume - covers a single book of the Bible over several physical volumes. This is needed so that reviewers don't have to review both volumes separately.

3. Volume - a child entry of the MultiVolume. This is needed to keep track of individual ISBNs for purchasing.

4. MutliAuthor - one physical book which has several commentaries of different Bible books written by different authors. This has the ISBN for purchasing the physical book.

5. BookPart - a child entry of the MultiAuthor entry. Reviews will happen at this level instead of for the whole physical book.