Davids had established himself as an outstanding exegete in 1982 with a commentary on the Greek text of the book of James.
Since that time, James' epistle has experienced some of the commentary publishing flood. Outstanding volumes on that book have been written by Ralph Martin (1988), Luke Timothy Johnson (1995), and Douglas Moo (2000).
Their effort is part of the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series, edited by Clinton Arnold. Neither Arnold nor Blomberg, both experienced interpreters of the New Testament, were interested in adding to the flood."When Clint Arnold, general editor of the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary Series on the New Testament, first sent out his prospectus to potential authors in 2002, he described his experience of having vowed never to participate in another commentary series, only to have his mind changed by the unique features that the publishers were proposing in this one," Blomberg recounts in the preface.
Eventually, Blomberg was also won over to the format of the new series and enlisted his then-teaching assistant at Denver Seminary, Mariam Kamell, to help produce the volume on James (Kamell is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Regent College in Vancouver).
In Davids' Catholic Biblical Quarterly review (July 2009 issue) of the ZECNT work, he notes "... the two have managed to merge their work thoroughly enough so that one can rarely tell who wrote what. The style is uniform throughout."
Readers can get a sample of the format that won over the reluctant Arnold and Blomberg by clicking here (go to page 7 of the 15-page .pdf file).
Firstly, scanning the pages reveals that the commentary is laid out in a way that will be helpful to time-conscious pastors. Davids notes this in his CBQ review, "It would be useful for pastors who need to grasp quickly the thrust of a passage."
The section the sample covers is James 1:1-11. You get three paragraphs that provide literary context and a straightforward one-paragraph assessment of the passage's main idea. Next comes an important visual aid, the structural flow of the passage. For pastors not trained in performing this type of analysis, this section models an important element of exegesis.
An outline of the passage precedes the Greek text and the authors' own translation of it, followed by verse-by-verse commentary. Though not as in-depth in Greek as Davids' work is, Greek is handled constantly throughout the commentary. Readers who do not know Koine Greek can quite easily read around those discussions and still profit from the exegesis.
Finally, there are "Theology in Application" sections and some in-depth excursuses that assist readers in moving from exegesis to application.
Not unlike the automobile market, the current state of study on the book of James gives buyers several 'models' to choose from. Buyers are able to choose on the basis of price, the thoroughness of comment, the amount of attention given to Greek, and their purpose for the purchase (e.g., sermon preparation, exegetical papers, etc). As Peter Davids indicated, those who teach and preach in the local church are the most likely candidates to find useful the volume by Blomberg and Kamell.
