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PROF PUBLISHES COMMENTARY ON BIBLE BOOK OF DANIEL |
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April 02, 2008
GROVE CITY, Pa. – Dr. Iain Duguid, professor of religion at Grove City College, recently completed a commentary on the Old Testament book of Daniel. Duguid is a biblical editor for the Reformed Expository Commentary series, of which “Daniel” is the seventh installment. This is his second book in the series.
Duguid said that “Daniel” began as a series of sermons he preached in a California church in early 2006. He revised the series into a manuscript, which he sent to his fellow series editors. “It’s really a two-year process from submission of the manuscript to its being published,” Duguid said.
Though Daniel is a commentary, “it’s a book for anyone,” Duguid said. “You don’t have to be a pastor.” Duguid said that while his hope is that pastors will read it and be inspired to preach on passages that they might not otherwise feel comfortable preaching about, he also wants it to be used much more widely. This desire for a broad readership that has been achieved with the other books in the series. “It’s fascinating to troll the Internet and find out who’s reading these books,” he said.
Duguid’s hopes that readers will realize through their reading that the book of Daniel is really about Christ. “Jesus tells the disciples on the road to Emmaus that the message of the Old Testament is the sufferings of Christ and the glories that will follow,” Duguid said. “It’s not primarily about teaching us how to live a better life here … it’s about Christ, and particularly his sufferings and the glories that will follow.”
The biggest challenge Duguid faced when writing “Daniel” was giving enough historical information to understand the context of the story while making the lessons applicable and relevant for today’s readers. “That was a great challenge, but it was a lot of fun to do,” he said.
According to Duguid, the goal of the Reformed Expository Commentary series is “to fill in a gap in the commentary market.” He said there are typically two types of commentaries: those written for academics, which are difficult to relate to laypeople, and those written as devotionals, which often miss the message of the passage. “Our goal is to bridge that gap by providing both academic depth and devotional warmth and show how all the scriptures and the Old Testament point to Christ,” Duguid said.
Duguid is currently working on a book on Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi, which will be published by Evangelical Press, possibly by it next year. In the Reformed Expository Commentary series, his next addition will be a commentary on the book of Judges.
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