Colossians–Philemon · Anthology of Christian Literature

The Edition

Series editor: Bruce M. Metzger, John D. W. Watts, James W. Watts, Ralph P. Martin, Lynn Allan Losie

Plagiarism check: Flagged
Notes: Withdrawn in 2016, along with every other O'Brien commentary in print at the time. The affair began that July with an allegation that his Pillar Hebrews had drawn without attribution on William L. Lane's Hebrews in this same Word series; the publishers then examined the rest of his work. Eerdmans pulled the Pillar Hebrews and Ephesians, both catalogued here, and Zondervan — which had inherited the Word Biblical Commentary along with Thomas Nelson — announced in November 2016 that it was discontinuing this volume. The publishers' finding was that the books “failed to conform to the appropriate standards for the use and documentation of secondary resources”, and remaining stock was destroyed. O'Brien's own statement: “although I have never deliberately misused the work of others, nevertheless I now see that my work processes at times have been faulty and have generated clear-cut, but unintentional, plagiarism.” Best Commentaries gives 328 pages against a common retailer figure of 384. Copies already sold remain in circulation, which is why the volume is catalogued rather than deleted.