Anchor LogoAs a member of our Content Development team, I occasionally look over our Module Request forum to see what resources people are requesting to come to Accordance. I have been encouraged over the past few years to see an increasing number of those wishes granted. One of the commentary sets that has garnered a lot of attention is the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary. We released the 27-volume Anchor Yale New Testament in November 2013, and some of you have already put it to good use, but we’ve also been hard at work on the Old Testament volumes. While we finish our labors on the complete set, we’re releasing the extant nine volumes on the Pentateuch for purchase at the price of $999.99, with free upgrades as we add the remaining 51 volumes of the Old Testament.

Anchor-Gen CoverLike the best-selling Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary is notable for the broad range of its contributors. Top Protestant, Catholic and Jewish scholars have all brought their skills to bear on the Old and New Testaments, as well as the Apocrypha. The founders of this project, William F. Albright and Professor David Noel Freedman, aimed to assemble scholars from different theological perspectives, and the massive resulting commentary is “accessible not only to scholars but also to the educated nonspecialist.”

In addition to theological breadth, the AYBC is notable for offering each author’s personal translation of the book each volume focuses on. Most commentary sets include the text of a single established English translation (as the NAC and the NIVAC do with the NIV text), but the AYBC offers what is essentially a “new” translation from its diverse scholarship. In Accordance, this means the ability to search the words of the Bible translation with the Translation field, without interference from the rest of the content.

As well as the Translation and a thorough Introduction, many of the volumes of the AYBC have not one but two sets of verse-level comments. One is Textual Notes, which focuses more on text-critical and linguistic details of the text. The other is Notes, which is more general commentary on the verse at hand. Most volumes also feature a broader Comments section that examines the passage as a whole instead of at the verse-level. The Accordance module allows for the user to scroll the AYBC in parallel with a favorite Bible Text, or to read it in a separate pane.

Genesis p88 in AYBD

The Pentateuch volumes we’re releasing include:

Vol. 1 – Genesis by E.A. Speiser (1964)
Vol. 2 – Exodus 1-18 by William H.C. Propp (1998)
Vol. 2A – Exodus 19-40 by William H.C. Propp (2006)
Vol. 3 – Leviticus 1-16 by Jacob Milgrom (1991)
Vol. 3A – Leviticus 17-22 by Jacob Milgrom (2000)
Vol. 3B – Leviticus 23-27 by Jacob Milgrom (2000)
Vol. 4 – Numbers 1-20 by Baruch A. Levine (1993)
Vol. 4A – Numbers 21-36 by Baruch A. Levine (2000)
Vol. 5 – Deuteronomy 1-11 by Moshe Weinfeld (1991)

Several Bible books are covered over the course of multiple volumes. This speaks to the depth of the scholarship represented in the AYBC. Milgrom’s three-volume commentary on Leviticus is an enormous work of scholarship, and is much easier to carry around in Accordance, as I can attest. And interestingly, commentators Baruch Levine and Jacob Milgrom are also featured in the JPS Torah Commentary, with Levine on Leviticus and Milgrom on Numbers.

As the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary is a particularly large set of commentaries, we’ll be adding the Old Testament volumes in installments as we complete them.

This long-awaited set of commentaries features the work of such noted scholars as Joseph Fitzmyer, Markus Barth, Raymond Brown, Craig Koester, and Luke Timothy Johnson. I work with many of our top-level commentaries and the works in this 27-volume set are frequently referenced by many of the authors of the commentaries we have already released. Replete with the authors’ personal translations, Textual Notes and Comments, this commentary set will be one you’ll want to refer to as well.

If you’re gathering background information on a passage you’re teaching from, you can use Accordance to scroll along in parallel with a favorite Bible Text. You can cite a passage from the author’s comments using Copy as Citation, while writing an academic paper. Accordance takes all of the valuable information in the AYBC and makes it even more accessible and useful in your Bible study.


Don’t delay, buy and enjoy Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries today!

Anchor Bible 60 Volume OT and Apocrypha
(currently only Pentateuch is released––to be completed in the next few months)
Print value: $3048.00; Regular price: $999.99

Anchor Bible 27 Volume NT
Print value: $1279.00; Regular price: $599.99

Anchor Bible 87 Volume OT with Apocrypha and NT
Print value: $4327.00; Regular price: $1499.99