Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (63 volumes)

The volumes greatly differ in excellence, yet none could be spared. We have nothing equal to them as a series.
—C.H. Spurgeon

Newly added to the Logos Bible Software edition – but left out of more recent reprints – is the original fifteenth volume covering the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. Difficult and expensive to acquire on its own, this volume rounds out Lange’s magnum opus and adds extra value to the set for all commentary completists. Read the interesting story of how we discovered Lange's Long Lost Volume!

Used, print copies of Lange's commentary average around $20 per volume, which means you could piece together a full 24-volume print set for approximately $480.00. Moreover, the rare additional volume on the Apocrypha fetches approximately $100.00 on its own. The Logos edition will give you the set—complete, tagged and searchable—for far less than half what you'd expect to pay for these 25 volumes in print - including the additional long lost volume worth around $100.00 by itself!

This commentary series appears on recommended book lists to this day (e.g., the Master's Seminary 850 Books for Biblical Expositors) but is out of print and quite difficult to find as a complete set. The Logos edition will offer all the benefits of searching, copy-and-pasting, linked Bible references, and synchronous scrolling with whatever Bible you may own.

...we unhesitatingly commend the Commentary of Dr. Lange, which is, in brief, a vast reservoir in which is collected an immense amount of material for the use of students and all intelligent, educated Christians.
— Putnam's Magazine

Additional Details

Complete Title: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical, with special references to Ministers and Students. By John Peter Lange, D.D., in connection with a number of eminent European Divines. Translated from the German, and edited with additions, original and selected, by Philip Schaff, D.D., in connection with American scholars of various Evangelical Denominations.

The commentary's subtitle—"Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical"—aptly describes the author's three-pronged approach to the biblical text. Each biblical book receives a lengthy introduction, often between 30-50 pages in length with some books receiving much more (the introduction to Revelation is upward of 80 pages). The book's primary divisions are then laid out, and for each section the author provides the KJV text (with brief textual notes), exegetical and critical comments, doctrinal and ethical interpretation, followed by homiletical and practical suggestions for application. Authors frequently quote from the writings of other commentators (e.g., Myer, Heubner, Alford, Starke, Quesnel), especially in the homiletical comments section.

Lange's Commentary includes a number of unique features that add a great deal of value beyond the text-level commentary. Examples of this are theological and homiletical introductions to the Old Testament (157 pages) and New Testament (37 pages), general introductions for groups of biblical books (e.g., Three Middle Books of the Law, Poetical Books of the Old Testament, Pastoral Letters), and metrical/rhythmical versions of Job and Ecclesiastes.

Note: The American print edition of Lange’s Commentary was originally released as 25 print volumes, then later reprinted, unchanged, in 12 multiple title volumes as pictured above, plus an additional volume covering the Apocrypha (not pictured). For optimal usability we have divided the volumes into separate resources for the Libronix Digital Library System based on where the page numbering restarts, so there are 63 volumes total. Most volumes consist of a single biblical book, with only a few books (e.g. 1, 2, 3 John) having been combined into “logical volumes” with continuous page numbering.

Volumes Included

Vol. 61- General Introduction to the Minor Prophets

• 49 pages

Vol. 62- Index to the Volumes of Lange's Commentary on the New Testament

• 45 pages

Vol. 63- Apocrypha

• 680 pages

14,814 total pages

Praise for the Print Edition

It promises to be a complete and useful Commentary and will prove especially valuable to ministers. It contains critical annotations of the text and its translation, and a threefold commentary, exegetical, doctrinal, and homiletical. Under these three heads the text is viewed under every aspect. It forms almost an exegetical library by itself.
— The New Englander, Volume 23, 1864, p. 543

The critical, doctrinal, and homiletical elements are distinctly brought out; and the volumes... are marked by elaborate investigation, full and careful discussion, profound scholarship, liberal and enlarged views on debatable questions, admirable suggestions of topics for the pulpit, and, at the same time, by earnest advocacy of the great fundamental doctrines held among orthodox Protestant Christians.
—Putnam's Magazine, Third Volume, January-June, 1869, pp. 242-243

Of the present volume, treating of the most important, as well as most difficult of St. Paul’s Epistles, we need hardly say more than that its profound learning, its fearless investigation and discussion of points in debate, its searching exposition of the falsity and wickedness of pantheism and rationalism will prove of great value to Christian readers and students,  especially in these times. We have no space to attempt anything like a review of the present volume. It is one to be studied, and it will repay study, whatever conclusion maybe arrived at on the deep and unfathomable mysteries of absolute decrees, election, predestination (supralapsarian or suplapsarian), the free will of man, the sovereignty of God, the atoning efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ, and many such like.
—Putnam's Magazine, Fourth Volume, July-December 1869, p. 627

About the Editors

(from Who's Who in Christian History)

LANGE, JOHANN PETER (1802-1884)
Evangelical theologian

Born in Prussia, Lange studied at Bonn University. After his ordination he pastored Reformed churches until 1841. He gained the theological world’s attention through two publications. First, he wrote articles in Evangelische Kirchenzeitung. Appearing between 1830 and 1840, those articles revealed his commitment to orthodoxy. Second, he wrote a powerful criticism of the view of Jesus presented by D. F. Strauss in Leben Jesu (1835). Lange’s book, published at Duisburg in 1836, was an attempt to show that the portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels is a reliable record and not, as Strauss held, "mythical."

In 1841 Lange became professor of theology at Zurich, a position originally offered to Strauss. His first major work at Zurich was Leben Jesu nach den Evangelien (five volumes, 1844-1847), translated into English in 1864 as The Life of the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1854 he succeeded I. A. Dorner as professor of dogmatics at Bonn.

Lange was a prolific author whose writings included hymns. His name is primarily known in America through the translation edited by Philip Schaff of his Theologischhomiletisches Bibelwerk (twenty-five volumes, 1864-1874). That work, intended to help preachers prepare sermons, comments on the whole Bible. Lange’s evangelicalism was of the school known as "Vermittlungstheologie," which attempted to combine the emphases of the Protestant Reformation with the proved achievements of modern science.

Philip Schaff, editor of the American edition of Lange's Commentary, writes this in the preface to the commentary on Matthew:

"Dr. Lange’s theology is essentially biblical and evangelical catholic, and inspired by a fresh and refreshing enthusiasm for truth under all its types and aspects. It is more positive and decided than that of Neander or Tholuck, yet more liberal and conciliatory than the orthodoxy of Hengstenberg, which is often harsh and repulsive. Lange is one of the most uncompromising opponents of German rationalism and scepticism, and makes no concessions to the modern attacks on the gospel history. But he always states his views with moderation, and in a Christian and amiable spirit; and he endeavors to spiritualize and idealize doctrines and facts, and thus to make them more plausible to enlightened reason. His orthodoxy, it is true, is not the fixed, exclusive orthodoxy either of the old Lutheran, or of the old Calvinistic Confession, but it belongs to that recent evangelical type which arose in conflict with modern infidelity, and going back to the Reformation and the still higher and purer fountain of primitive Christianity as it came from the hands of Christ and His inspired apostles, aims to unite the true elements of the Reformed and Lutheran Confessions, and on this firm historical basis to promote catholic unity and harmony among the conflicting branches of Christ’s Church. It is evangelical catholic, churchly, yet unsectarian, conservative, yet progressive; it is the truly living theology of the age."

SCHAFF, PHILIP (1819–1893)
Swiss–American church historian and ecumenical pioneer

Born in Chur, Switzerland, Schaff was educated in the Universities of Tübingen, Halle, and Berlin, where in 1842 he was appointed privatdozent. Called to Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, to teach church history and biblical literature, he was ordained as a minister of the Reformed Church in April 1844 and in July of that year arrived in the United States. For nineteen years he taught at Mercersburg Academy, where, along with J. W. Nevin, he helped to develop the Mercersburg Theology, with its emphasis on the church and the sacraments. In 1863 he moved to New York City, where he became secretary of the New York Sabbath Committee, an organization opposed to the secularization of Sunday. In 1870 he joined the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he served until his death. His ecumenical interests were shown in his strong support of the Evangelical Alliance, of which he was the American secretary, and of the Alliance of Reformed Churches.

Schaff was a prolific author. His best–known work is his History of the Christian Church (seven volumes, 1882–1892). He also edited the Schaff–Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (three volumes, 1882–1884), and the set of patristic translations known as The Nicene and Post–Nicene Fathers (1886–1900); and he compiled a valuable collection of confessional documents in his Creeds of Christendom (three volumes, 1877). Schaff was also active in the preparation of the Revised Version of the Bible, which was published in 1881 (New Testament) and 1885 (Old Testament).

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Sample Page Scans from the Print Edition