In my review i'll be comparing and contrasting Old Testament Commentary Survey by Longman (5 stars) and New Testament Commentary Survey by Carson (4 stars). Both books seek to accomplish the same thing: Help you decide which Bible Commentaries are well written, thorough, and useful for the reader depending on that person's role (Scholar vs Pastor vs Layman) so that the person does not invest considerable sums of time and money on commentaries which don't meet their needs or are poorly written.

They take a slightly different approach to theit analysis. Carson is a bit more subjective, comparing commentaries to each other and judging how their author approaches the subject. This is helpful if you are familiar with the commentaries which are being compared because then you can intentionally decide to get one based on how it is similar or different from another one with which you are familiar. It is less helpful for those who are not familiar with many commentaries. Longman proceeds in a different manner. He classifies each commentary as being targeted to one of these types of readers:
L - Layman
M - Minister (including seminary students)
S - Scholar
He also includes two categories which are blends of those types of readers. In fact, most of the commentaries fall into one of these two blended categories:
LM - Laymen and Ministers
MS - Ministers and Scholars
Longman then rates each commentary between 1 and 5 stars, using half stars on occasion.

I found Longman's approach more useful for me because i am not as familiar with many of the commentaries Carson compares.

If you are a minister or someone who teaches the Bible, these books are both extremely useful and will save you much heartache and wasted money by being strategic in your purchases.

Both authors as a general rule, discourage buying commentary series (with a few exceptions), because in most series the quality can vary between different volumes depending on the author's abilities and writing. ( )

I have used this survey since seminary and find it helpful in laying out the strengths and weaknesses. My current version is bundled in my Logos Bible Software, which is helpful because it hyperlinks to commentaries I happen to have there.

I don't currently own the companion volume to this, Tremper Longman's Old Testament Commentary Survey. In many ways I think that is superior to this, though I don't think it has been updated quite as much. Carson is a good exegete and attentive to issues in the text, but I don't always agree with his conclusions and he gives short-shrift to scholars he doesn't agree with. Although this remains a pretty useful survey. ( )

Useful book to assist the spending of hard earned money. Carson has a graceful eloquence and strong judgement while describing different commentaries and supporting books. ( )

http://www.tutak.com/?p=161 ( )

An excellent resource for the wise spending of scarce dollars for students and pastors on limited budgets. Referring to this volume will prevent the penny challenged student from having buyers regret for wasting prescious funds on items that do not help them. Four years old at this time, this is the kind of work that goes out-of-date after about 5 years, and as new materials come onto the market in this subject area. ( )