A Distinctive Commentary on the Gospels

Many familiar Gospel narratives are filled with geographic details that we gloss over because of our distance from the Holy Land. Yet climate, landscape, natural resources, and other features of geography leave a lasting mark on the societies and cultures that have developed within them. In a world of dirt roads and dry riverbeds, where shepherds watch their flocks in the hills and fishermen mend their nets by the sea, Jesus taught from hill and plain, using the surrounding landscape as the backdrop for his teaching. Jesus’ parables and illustrations are often brimming with geographic clues, but the significance of these distinctive details is often lost on us today.

The Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Gospels puts readers in the sandals of the disciples as they travel throughout Israel with Jesus, explaining the significance of geography for mining the riches of the biblical text. With more than fifty Gospel stories expounded from this important geographical angle, you’re bound to take away something new from these well-worn stories.

This distinctive resource has been available in Logos Bible Software for a while, but now you can add this commentary to your physical library! The Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Gospels was just released in a beautiful casebound hardcover edition with a full color interior.

What others are saying about it

Here are a few of the glowing endorsements for this volume:

“A great number of the skills that contribute to solid biblical interpretation involve considering a text in one or another of its various contexts – linguistic, literary, historical, social, cultural, rhetorical, intertextual.  But how often do we give adequate attention to the geographical and archaeological contexts of the events about which we read or the settings in which Jesus was raised, taught, acted, died, and rose again? This distinctive and clearly-focused commentary is replete with solid information about those geographical and archaeological contexts, and with connections to the Gospel texts (ranging from the secure to the suggestive, but always stimulating), that will admirably help us keep those physical contexts in view as we read, interpret, teach, and preach from the Gospels.”

–David A. deSilva, Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek, Ashland Theological Seminary

“It is very rare for me to say in an endorsement that a work is ‘invaluable’ and a ‘must purchase,’ but this is one of them. As one who has been writing commentaries for over thirty years, my only question is why someone didn’t think of this a long time ago. Once I have this in hand, I will never write anything without consulting this ‘geographic commentary.’ I find it equally essential on general background issues as on geography itself. I am very impressed and cannot wait to start using it. Thank you, Barry, and thank you, Lexham Press! Now get me this material!”

–Grant Osborne, professor emeritus, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

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Discover fresh insight by paying attention to an often overlooked component of the Gospel stories—their geographical setting. Get the Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Gospels in print today!