Saturday, June 08, 2013

Free Wesleyan Commentary Online!

I was excited this morning to realize that the Asbury Bible Commentary seems to be available in its entirety for free on Bible Gateway here: http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/asbury-bible-commentary/toc

A look at the authors reveals that they are Asbury Seminary authors from the 80s when I was there.  What a rich resource from the likes of John Oswalt, David Bauer, David Thompson, and many more!  This is an A team of scholars from the Wesleyan tradition at a time when I think Asbury was in a Golden Age. I heartily recommend it for Wesleyan pastors.

Another great resource on this site, believe it or not, is the IVP New Testament Commentary series: http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/ivp-nt/toc/

What superb resources to have available for free online!  I personally think the Wesleyan Church should put its commentary series online for free as well (it might actually bump sales as some people would want to buy them either in Kindle or book format).  They don't come near the level of the resources above, but influence today comes by making things free online.

3 comments:

Keith Drury said...

It is getting harder and harder for Publishers to sell information when resources like this is available for free electronically... for publishing houses to make it in the future a new model for income is needed.... advertising? Patron-sponsored writing? Mission-driven publishing? Some of all three? Who knows? But I'll bet a new model is in the wind...and the publisher who discovers it first will have a leg up.

John Mark said...

I like the Asbury Commentary but it doesn't seem to be very organized on Gateway. They jumble a lot of information at times.
I bought a nice hard copy.

John Mark said...

I guess I should have clicked on your links :) before commenting. Being a slow learner, I didn't realize 'til you posted this that the commentaries are indeed accessible in their entirety. I was referring to the presentation that comes up when you hit the 'other resources' tab, which doesn't always make sense to me.
So thanks for this post! :)