In his own words…
This small book contains one or two ideas that, I think, are more or less original; but, in the main, it owes so much to others that, if the normal method of acknowledgement had been adopted, it would have consisted largely of footnotes. As it is, footnotes have been banned, with a view to the comfort of the reader; and I can only ask the living scholars whose ideas have been quietly pillaged to believe that I am at least a grateful thief, although, like most thieves, I do not advertise the robbery.
C. F. D. Moule, The Gospel According to Mark, Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible (CUP, 1965), v.
I suspect the words I’ve cited above have been quoted before, but I found them interesting nonetheless. I suspect that many commentary writers have had similar thoughts, though those that have not banned footnotes (or documentation of some sort) have hopefully been more careful to give credit where it is due. I’ve mentioned this before on the blog (though I haven’t gone back to find out where), but as I’ve worked on the Mark Handbook that I’ve had to make it a practice of always beginning with the oldest of my “commentary conversation partners”* since I find that more recent writers, even in well-known series, have often done little more than rearrange the furniture of previous commentaries. Even then I’m sure that there is a long history of shared observations that predate the span I’ve selected for interaction. (I start with the ICC commentary by Gould, 1896—an arbitrary cut off point I’m sure, but I decided to go with primarily 20th–21st C. works.)
The Handbook, BTW, is now complete in first draft and most of it in a second draft. I dearly hope to finish it this summer. What remains is the second draft of chs. 15-16 and the introduction. How soon you’ll see it from Baylor after that, I’ve no idea. I’d like to think that it might be feasible to have it out before ETS/SBL 2014. If so, then my two major projects of late will possibly both appear in 2014. (The Grammar is in the hands of the publisher now and is scheduled for spring 2014.)
*My “commentary conversation partners” list includes the following, roughly in chronological order. Were I writing a full commentary, then this list would have to be much longer and reach back further. Most noted here have more explicit grammatical comment than others (though there are a few exceptions). There are a smattering of other commentary writers that I cite occasionally, but the list below are those whom I’ve read in their entirety, paying particular attention to their grammatical comments whether they are explicit or implicit. There is also a selection of journal articles, etc. in the bibliography. So here’s the list: Gould, Swete, A. B. Bruce, Cranfield, Taylor, Lane, Guelick/Evans, Gundry, Edwards, France, Bock, Collins, and Stein.