V. Jenks (Congregationalist)—Produces Popular American Commentary

WILLIAM JENKS (1778-1866), Congregational minister and teacher, outstanding Biblical and Oriental scholar and a graduate of Harvard, was a prominent member of the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Oriental Society, and the New England Historic Genealogical Society. He wrote many literary and historical articles and pamphlets for their publications. But his influence was probably felt most through a compilation from earlier writers-his Comprehensive Commentary on the Holy Bible (1834-38), of which twenty thousand copies were sold immediately, with several later editions. It was a work characterized as “the best Family Commentary in the language, and admirably adapted to the wants of Bible—class and Sunday-school teachers,” standing “without a rival for the purpose for which it is intended ^{30[Samuel] Austin Allibone, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. 1, pp. 69, 963. In Order to reach a wider reading public, the first edition was issued in two forms in the same year. The special “Baptist Edition,” differentiated on title page by the addition of those to words at the top, carried an additional “Preface to the Baptist Edition, “in Volume 4 (on the Gospels), the first issue. This preface, signed by Joseph A. Warne, explains that the commentary is left untouched except at the specific spots where the comments were out of harmony with distinctive Baptist beliefs. The only difference was that in issuing the “Baptist Edition” these particular page ware printed from revised plates, on which acceptable material was substituted in bracket from the deleted comments, and the bracketed notation “[Baptist Edition]” was added at the bottom of each revised page.}PFF4 125.1

Thousands of copies of British commentaries were already in circulation in America, but this popular compilation, which professed to contain “nearly all that is valuable in Henry, Scott, and Doddridge,” and extracts from many other authors, all for only fifteen dollars, doubtless gave these writers a much wider reading public in this country, and was possibly the source of many a later reference credited to various originals. It carries an abridgment of Matthew Henry’s commentary in parallel columns with the text; at the end of each section, the “Practical Observations” of Scott; and at the bottom, a series of notes on the Bible content, each with separate credit to Scott and others.PFF4 125.2

In the notes on Daniel and Revelation, Scott seems to be given the principal place. Prominent also are Bishop Newton (often cited through Scott) and Woodhouse. It is interesting to note that this commentary occasionally cites an American writer, such as Griffin or Ethan Smith. The influence of the Comprehensive Commentary would also be in the direction of the prevalent postmillennialism of the time—the expectation of the world’s conversion and universal peace before the second advent and the judgment.PFF4 126.1