When I began studying the Bible, I just wanted to learn the Bible itself in its original languages so I could spend the rest of my life living and preaching it. The more I studied it, however, the more I realized that I needed the background. Once I realized, more than three decades ago, that background helps us understand the Bible better, I desperately began looking for a book that would provide the necessary background for each passage, so I could use that in my sermon preparation. Unable to find such a book, I began scouring many books, and soon began working through countless volumes of ancient sources. Eventually I resolved to provide such a book, if no one else offered the service first, to save ordinary readers the years of study it had taken me. At the time of this foreword, the commentary has received almost unanimously positive reviews and, including translations and electronic editions, has sold more than six hundred thousand copies. Others have also developed different kinds of background commentaries for other purposes since that time.
I wrote the Background Commentary to serve readers like the young preacher I was when I began my study: many pastors and other readers who lack access to more detailed tools for reasons of time, training or economics. In addition to busy pastors, I envisioned students and others doing inductive Bible study, and readers in some parts of the world where few resources for research on the ancient world were available.
I did not write the book (in contrast to many of my other books) for scholars, who have access to many primary sources, or even for those pastors who had many commentaries providing more background detail. Many of my fellow biblical scholars have, however, expressed regret that this work does not provide scholarly documentation they could follow up. This lack is unfortunate, but given the book’s size and its primary audience, the editorial decision was made not to bog it down with documentation, which would have been extensive. I have added some more references for this edition, but only very sparingly.
Scholars will know where to find some of the information, but I am also writing more academic commentaries that provide much of the documentation as well as the detail for what is only summarized here. Those looking for my information on the Gospels will find most of it in my academic commentaries on Matthew and John (in addition to my Historical Jesus of the Gospels); my multivolume commentary on Acts; and my shorter commentaries on Romans, 1–2 Corinthians and Revelation, which also supply the most relevant of my sources for these works. I could not include such documentation here without expanding this volume and its printing cost, but I am making it available in the appropriate venues, where those who desire it can access it. I trust that no one who has perused my scholarly work will doubt the level of research in ancient sources that stands behind my work. Nevertheless, a good scholar keeps learning, and after two decades in print, the time has come to provide a slightly revised version of the commentary.
I am deeply indebted to the many professors with whom I studied over the years. I am also deeply indebted to the students I served through campus ministry or teaching, and to the congregations I served, for the opportunity to test out the ideas in this commentary. They are the ones who helped me sift through which elements of potential background were more relevant for communicating the message of the biblical text and which elements were more peripheral.
I should especially acknowledge InterVarsity Press and my editors there (at the time Rodney Clapp, Ruth Goring and Dan Reid) for taking seriously the mission of this book. Just as we need to make the text of the Bible available to ordinary readers in all cultures, we need to make the background available that helps readers hear biblical passages the way their first audiences would have heard them. About two years after I decided that InterVarsity would be an ideal publisher for a commentary like this if I ever got the time to write it, Rodney asked if I would be interested in writing for InterVarsity, and I proposed this commentary. Before I received word back I began calculating the amount of income I would need to buy groceries and pay rent (in an apartment large enough for my research files) if I spent a year writing the commentary full time. At the time, the figure seemed overwhelming, given the only kind of employment I thought available to me that year, and I could only pray. Less than twenty-four hours later, Rodney called, surprising me with the unexpected offer of an advance. He could not have known that the offer came to the exact dollar amount that I had prayed for the night before. I am most grateful to the Lord for providing the opportunity to pursue and publish this research, and I pray that this book will serve the needs of his church.