Lent approaches, and one the best Christian disciplines you can undertake during it is to embark upon a serious course of Bible-study. For those of a more scholarly bent, that might be aided by purchasing or borrowing a commentary or two. Here’s a most useful page, shared by perhaps the most text-focused preacher I’ve ever heard, that lists a reformed scholar’s judgment of the best commentaries for every book of the Bible.

I can tell you that among Evangelical bible scholars amateur and professional, that Lane commentary on Mark has long been treasured. A somewhat newer approach represented by Ben Witherington III, as “social-rhetorical,” also works well with Mark. Do any of our readers, Christian or Jewish, have any favorite commentaries they’d like to recommend?