The Logos Free book of the Month for May 2019 is I. Howard Marshall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (T&T Clark, Hb. 1999, Pb. 2013). This is a tremendous gift from Logos since Marshall’s commentary is a major contribution to scholarship on the Pastoral Epistles.The print version of this commentary in the cheaper paperback format is available on Amazon for $65, good luck finding hardback copies (list price $155)! In addition to the price, the major advantage of owning the book in the Logos library is all the Logos tools are available to reader. This goes far beyond simple searching and highlighting.

At over 900 pages, this commentary is one of the most comprehensive exegetical commentaries available. Marshall wrote the commentary in collaboration with Philip Towner, the author of the NICNT commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (Eerdmans 2006) as well as the short commentary in the IVP New Testament Commentary series.

I listed Marshall’s commentary in my “Top Five Commentaries on the Pastoral epistles” a few years ago. I said:

Marshall’s contribution is perhaps the most detailed exegetical commentary on the list, as is to be expected from an ICC volume. Marshall replaced Walter Lock’s 1924 commentary in the series. The book caused a stir when it was released since Marshall (beloved by many evangelicals) rejected Pauline authorship of these letters. The introduction to the commentary develops Marshall’s view of authorship. The body of the commentary contains detailed bibliographies for each section followed by an overview of the text. The format of the commentary is a phrase-by-phrase unpacking of the Greek text, including textual, lexical and syntactical issues. He interacts with a broad range of scholarship, with Marshall includes a number of excellent excurses (on Household Codes, in Titus, for example).

The International Critical Commentary has been one of the top critical commentaries for well over 100 years. Each commentary in the series comments on the Hebrew or Greek text, dealing with textual, syntactical, and lexicial issues. As with most commentary series, this commentary by Marshall replaced the 1924 volume by Walter Lock. Lock’s commentary had 46 pages of introduction and 159 pages dealing with exegetical issues for all three Pastoral Epistles. It is still available through Logos (and is often found used for $10 or so).

In addition to Marshall’s commentary, Logos is offering both volumes of C. K. Barrett’s Acts commentary in the ICC series for $1.99 and $2.99 each. Barrett is always worth reading and this Acts commentary is no exception. The two volumes were published in 1994 and 1998 and offer solid exegetical comments are remarkably readable. With respect to historicity, Barrett said “Where he agrees with other historical sources, his evidence is confirmed; where he disagrees, or where other evidence is lacking, he must at least be taken seriously (2:cxiv).

Logos usually does a related giveaway on their Free Book promo page. This month you can enter to win the The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew edited by David J.A. Clines (8 vols.; Sheffield,1993–2011; $299 value). This is an exceptional lexicon for serious students of the Hebrew Bible. In many ways the lexicon is like HALOT (Brill, 1994-2000) but is far more comprehensive and includes references to the Qumran literature. Enter early and often, Logos will give the Lexicon away to some lucky winner at the end of the month.

Logos recently released a major upgrade to their Bible Software. I did a “first look” review of Logos 8 here. There are plenty of new features to justify an upgrade and the software runs much more efficiently than the previous version. Everything seems to run faster than Logos 7 and the upgrade is well worth considering. Logos base packages are 20% off through May 31. As always, there are less expensive paths to upgrading and there are paths that will preserve your credit rating.



These three and almost free books of the month are only available through the end of May, so head to the Logos site and get them before the offer expires.