List of biblical commentaries

This is an outline of commentaries and commentators. Discussed are the salient points of Jewish, patristic, medieval, and modern commentaries on the Bible. The article includes discussion of the Targums, Mishna, and Talmuds, which are not regarded as Bible commentaries in the modern sense of the word, but which provide the foundation for later commentary. With the exception of these classical Jewish works, this article focuses on Christian Biblical commentaries; for more on Jewish Biblical commentaries, see Jewish commentaries on the Bible.

A visitor to Alexandria at the time when Christ was preaching in Galilee would find there and in its vicinity Jews using the Septuagint as their Bible, and could enter their Great Synagogue. Whoever had not seen it was not supposed to have beheld the glory of Israel. The members of their Sanhedrin, according to Sukkah, were seated on seventy-one golden thrones valued at tens of thousands of talents of gold; and the building was so vast that a flag had to be waved to show the people when to respond. At the head of this assembly, on the highest throne, was seated Alexander the Alabarch, the brother of Philo.

Philo himself was a man of wealth and learning, who mingled with all classes of men and frequented the theatre and the great library. Equally at home in the Septuagint and the Greek classics, he was struck and perplexed by the many beautiful and noble thoughts contained in the latter, which could bear comparison with many passages of the Bible. As this difficulty must have frequently presented itself to the minds of his coreligionists, he endeavoured to meet it by saying that all that was great in Socrates, Plato, etc. originated with Moses. He set about reconciling Pagan philosophy with the Old Testament, and for this purpose he made extensive use of the allegorical method of interpretation. He taught that many passages of the Pentateuch were not intended to be taken literally. In fact, he said that they were literally false, but allegorically true.

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