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Notes to the Preface

1 An old adage from a different context is applicable to scholars: where two scholars are gathered, one expects at least three opinions.

2 A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), using over 10,000 extrabiblical references from ancient sources; The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), using nearly 20,000 extrabiblical references from ancient sources.

3 This problem became most obvious to me when two friends wrote a very fine and well-informed historical Jesus book, yet despite expressing great appreciation for my research, drew on it very rarely. My arguments could have advanced theirs, but they focused almost exclusively on “historical Jesus” books, not commentaries. Unfortunately, as I myself have realized the vast breadth of publications and the difficulty of noting all of them (even in my Acts commentary, which cites over 10,000 works), I realize that I also have failed to find and cite all worthy sources.

4 See e.g., Keener, Matthew, 16-32; idem, John, 3-76 (though released in 2003, John was submitted in 1997 and merely updated afterward). In a small minority of cases, writers have even made the same arguments using precisely the same ancient references I had already cited, sometimes even obscure ones; I will avoid inferring too much from such instances though I have often observed a pattern of commentators recycling earlier commentators’ sources without mentioning where they found them. In most cases, however, scholars’ arguments give every indication of being independent; overlap is inevitable.

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