Opus 2026-458: The Purge Begins

I am looking at my library and thinking that it’s time to start whittling it down.  I have about three shelves of Bible commentaries, each shelf about 3 feet long.  As I sit and look at them, there are some really good books there and a lot of entertaining fluff.  I’m getting ready to box them up and see if I can find anybody that’s interested in them.  I’ll start with my children.  After that, I don’t know where to go.  I’m not ready to throw them away or put them in the trash, but they’re just gathering dust.

Over the years I have found that commentaries have not been very useful to me.  There are many times when I will have questions about how to understand a passage.  If I happen to have a commentary on that book, I will put it off the shelf and look at it and invariably the author does not seem to be concerned about the same things I am.  I have become a bit jaded with commentators.  Ultimately, I’ve come to the point where I think that what they have to say is pretty much their opinion and not much else.  I might want to get a feel for a Hebrew tense and what does that say in understanding a passage.  They will just ignore that and go off on another tangent.

Generally, I have found my basic Bible study software is most helpful in answering questions.  It takes a bit of time, but by doing word studies, finding cross-references and looking to see what the Bible itself has to say tells me all I need to know.  It may not tell me everything I want to know, but I find again, commentaries give me their opinions not necessarily what the Bible is say.

I find the same issue with what our called study Bibles. I have study Bibles with lots of notes at the bottom of the page.  Every great once in a while those notes actually have something useful, but generally speaking, they are the opinions of the editors.  And since most of the editors tend to come from dispensationalism and Calvinism, I find that I can’t really trust their opinions on things.  Once again, I am thrown back on that strange concept of doing my own research and reading what the Bible actually says.

I like books.  I enjoy looking at my library.  It makes me feel good to know that I have accumulated some great thinking.  But I’m not reading it.  I’m not getting anything out of it.  I could probably find a better use for the shelf space.

So I am going to work on a purge.

homo unius libri