Expositor’s Bible Series
Some Final Observations
OMLB has completed the last of the 49 volumes of Robert Nicoll’s “Expositor’s Bible” series, originally published c. 1900. I’d like to extend my congratulations to the entire OMLB group on finishing this project, and to “The Holy Pig” for helping with the base manuscripts. This was a group project; and the group I get to be part of is a tremendous one.
Unrecognized Beginnings
When the first EB module was completed (in the late Spring of 2010), it was not my/our
intention to work on this series. I was looking for a good supplemental commentary
on the Book of Joshua, and discovered a book by William Blaikie from the Expositor’s
Bible series. It was an excellent commentary, so I turned it into an eSword module.
I thought that would be the end of it. In fact, the module was originally posted
at DDT as “Blaikie, William -
A few weeks after I published Blaikie’s Joshua, another OMLB team member independently built the Hebrews ExpoBib module by Thomas Edwards. At the time, several of us were working on “Hebrews” and “Tabernacle” modules. The EB Hebrews module was selected for it’s content, and not because it was part of a series. Along the same time frame, another of us built the ExpoBib “Exodus” commentary because the text was easily available via one of our text resource sites.
So by early summer 2010, we had “accidently” published 3 of the 49 volumes of Nicoll’s Expositor’s Bible series. Great. At that point, I thought “Maybe we’ll finish this series by 2025!” And then something unique happened.
A Series Completed
A “theWord” user (“The Holy Pig”) made a forum post at another eSword site that basically
said he was going to post all of the Expositor’s Bible titles at his site in .rtf
format. Anyone who wanted to convert his texts into modules would be welcome to the
material. OMLB batted that idea around, and we decided to tackle the NT modules.
With God’s help, the entire NT section was finalized prior to the end of 2010. OMLB
really did an outstanding job of working together to put out the 21 NT volumes (vols.
29-
One of our team members, though, was quite interested in seeing this project through to fruition. In his spare time, he worked diligently on the OT sections of the text. I’m not exactly sure all of the different places he took his original source texts from; but I know he went through a tremendous amount of work making many of the texts. When he got down to the last seven volumes (Psalms, Jeremiah, & Isaiah), he told us in particular that these texts were in poor shape. Yet he worked hard to get them to us.
The final volume (the second Isaiah volume) was emailed for our proof queue in early October; and it was posted on October 20.
Is There A Commentary Module Coming?
I’ve received more feedback on the volumes of Expositor’s Bible than I have from the rest of the DDT library combined. That’s a stunning statement, but it’s true nonetheless. And there is a common thread: “Is a .cmtx module going to be made when all of the modules are finished?” I originally thought that I would do it eventually; later I would think that someone else would probably do it after some time had passed.
Good news! The commentary module has been made for both eSword and TheWord! Please visit www.BibleSupport.com to download the eSword version, and www.WordModules.com to download the TheWord version.
Theology
Let me say a word about ExpoBib’s theology. Robert Nicoll seemed like he was a pretty
good guy. His “Expositor’s Greek New Testament” is one of my favorite resources (I’ve
used it since my college days). I must say, though, that his editorial choices for
some of his authors were puzzling. Some of these guys are great: William Blaikie
(Joshua & two Samuel volumes -
The Old Testament volumes seem to be particularly suspect. Many of the Old Testament commentators follow the Documentary Hypothesis of the formation of the Old Testament. As a result, many of the OT volumes are more liberal in their theology than what would typically be posted at DDT. They can still be used with profit; but they will need to be utilized with a greater degree of caution than most of our other DDT titles necessitate. (NOTE: everything should be read with theological filters! The only “thus saith the Lord” is the beloved Word of God Itself!)
Conclusion
For those just arriving at the site, we have made the entire ExpoBib Series available in one large download; and of course, you can continue to pick and choose individual volumes if you wish.
We hope that these volumes will be used to the Glory of God and the spread of the gospel all the way around the world.