If you were only going to purchase one title on Acts…
Well, Craig S. Keener may indeed have written “the last and final word” on the Book of Acts for this generation. In print, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary by Keener comes in four volumes for a total of an incredible 4640 pages. This is not just the most complete commentary on Acts currently available, it is arguably the longest and most thorough commentary on Acts ever written. Available, beginning today, for the Accordance Bible Software Library, Keener’s Acts commentary is now much easier to carry with you wherever you go!
Click/tap image above for a larger view of Acts: An Exegetical Commentary by Craig S. Keener in Accordance 12.
Craig S. Keener, Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, is known to Accordance users through his numerous works available for the Accordance Library, especially the IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, which is available in a number of our Collections. If you’ve ever consulted Keener’s Background Commentary (I have it near the top of my Commentaries folder in Accordance so it always shows up in the InfoPane), you know the meticulous attention he gives to the cultural, historical, and literary context of the ancient world as it bears upon the New Testament. Imagine that kind of detail, magnified many times over, applied to one book of the Bible. That is what Keener’s Acts commentary is and much more.
Consider the extent to which Keener has researched the Book of Acts. His introduction alone is 638 pages long (yes, page numbers are included in the Accordance edition). The “Works Cited” section at the end of the fourth volume is over 300 pages and divided into primary and secondary sources. Sorry, I did not bother to count the total number of sources used; however, I am very impressed to see the sheer range of sources consulted. In an age that often values the new over the old, Keener’s commentary on Acts overflows with ancient sources on nearly every single page. Besides the immense number of ties to the ancient world found in the Book of Acts to which Keener refers, he also covers every significant (and some that might be considered insignificant) treatment of Acts over the last two millennia. No historical debate or interpretational school of thought is ignored. His coverage of each chapter in Acts, subdivided into smaller, more accessible sections, is the most detailed I’ve ever seen. For instance, over 250 pages are dedicated to Acts 2 alone.
Acts: An Exegetical Commentary is the recipient of the 2016 Christianity Today Book Award in Biblical Studies. Writing for CT, Gary Burge said this of Keener’s commentary on Acts:
Keener is a scholar with gifts that come along once every century, and here we see them employed in full force. Words like encyclopedic, magisterial, and epic come to mind when you examine 4,000 carefully argued pages on every aspect of the Book of Acts. Nothing like this has ever been done—and it’s doubtful that anything like it will be done for a long time. Keener has a grasp of the ancient world like few scholars anywhere, but he also has a heart for the church and its mission.
Keener’s four volume commentary on Acts has been described by David deSilva as “a one-stop resource on the book of Acts and the hundreds of issues/questions that have been raised in its interpretation.” If you were only going to purchase one title on Acts, I can’t imagine not pointing to Keener’s work. It represents a lifetime of research, and with its breadth of coverage, it may just take a lifetime to read and study—and that’s a good thing.
Acts: An Exegetical Commentary
Regular Price $269