The Bible Knowledge Commentary (TBKC) as a two volume set on the whole Bible has some advantages and some disadvantages. Let us examine the advantages.

First, TBKC is written from a conservative perspective. The contributors do not subscribe to the anti-supernatural bias of liberal commentators. Conservative commentators, furthermore, tend to reject novel, avant-garde interpretations proffered by more liberal commentators. For example, liberal commentators used source criticism to develop the documentary hypothesis (JEDP) with regard to the authorship of the Pentateuch. But conservative scholars have always rejected such approaches because those approaches assume the fallibility of Scripture. The New Testament, for example, is consistent in its witness that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses, not edited by some brilliant anonymous redactors with scissors and paste operating centuries later. The conservative Bible scholars who contributed to TBKC are committed to an inerrant Scripture. They reject views of Scripture that pit one part of the Bible against another or deny the possibility of God's supernatural intervention into the affairs of man.

Second, TBKC was written from a dispensational, premillennial viewpoint. Amillennialists may attempt to deny it, but too often, they deny the plain, literal meaning of eschatological portions of Scripture. Dispensationalists more consistently apply a literal hermeneutic to eschatological passages. While they acknowledge the symbolism in apocalyptic literature, they affirm that the symbols have literal referents. Additionally, dispensational interpreters hold to testamental parity. They deny, for example, that God's promises to Abraham and his physical descendants in the Old Testament can be abrogated by God's promises to the Church in the New Testament. In other words, the Church is not spiritual Israel, and cannot inherit all the promises God made to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Third, TBKC was written by scholars associated (at that time) with Dallas Theological Seminary. Edited by Roy Zuck and the late John F. Walvoord, the commentary enjoys, for the most part, a consistency of  theology and treatment not always found in such a collection of commentators.

The greatest disadvantage of a two volume commentary is that it simply cannot do justice to individual books of the Bible. Commentaries that adequately analyze longer books of the Bible, such as Psalms or Isaiah, must comprise at least one complete volume and sometimes two or even three volumes for that book. Too often, TBKC is sketchy in its coverage of a particular book. The reader gets help on the broad flow, but often, just where one might wish a more detailed exegesis, that detail is lacking. And understandably so. The commentary does what it was designed to do, but one volume each is insufficient coverage for the 39 books of the OT and 27 books of the NT.

Another disadvantage is that the commentary is by now somewhat dated, having been published in 1985. There have been many developments in theology and exegesis in the last quarter of a century which are not reflected in these two volumes. Nevertheless, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.

The reader is the beneficiary of a plethora of maps, charts and tables (pp. 3-5). On p. 13 of the introduction, there is An Overview of Old Testament History. The chart declines to date creation, but gives a conservative date for the Exodus of 1446 B.C. In keeping with its literal hermeneutic, the volume includes, in Genesis, an Artist's Concept of Noah's Ark (p. 38) and a Chronology of the Flood (p. 39). Diagrams in Ezekiel include The Gate to the Millennial Temple (p. 1305), The Millennial Temple Proper (p. 1306), The Millennial Altar (p. 1308), and The Division of the Land During the millennium (p. 1314). Between the books of Ezekiel and Daniel is sandwiched an Outline of End-Time Events Predicted in the Bible (p. 1319). Helpful tables include Rituals for Levitical Offerings (pp. 168-169) and Other Features of Levitical Offerings (pp. 170-171).

There are areas that I personally check to determine the theological and philosophical bent of particular  commentators. In Genesis, Allen P. Ross holds to the Mosaic authorship of the book (p. 18). He rejects the notion that Genesis is myth (pp. 18-19), and maintains that Genesis is factually and historically accurate (pp. 19-20). He holds that the days of creation "are literal 24-hour days of divine activity" (p. 28), and believes in the historicity of Adam (p. 30). He identifies the tempter as "Satan in the form of a snake" (p. 32). Ross holds to a universal flood (pp. 37-40) and the historicity of God's confusion of languages at Babel (pp. 44-45). Ross correctly identifies the covenant God made with Abraham in Gen. 15 as a unilateral covenant whose promises are absolutely secure (p. 56).

The biggest weakness of the Genesis commentary is that Ross espouses the "Chaos Theory of Origins" in Genesis 1:2 (p. 28). Ross apparently believes that God created planet Earth at some undated, unspecified, and unrevealed time in eternity past. Satan then fell and brought sin into God’s original universe. Genesis 1:2 describes the chaotic, ruined state of the world as it existed because of Satan’s sin. Genesis 1:3-31 describes God’s reclamation of a world ruined by Satan. What this amounts to is a variation on the discredited Gap Theory theme.

Elsewhere, John D. Hannah treats Jonah and his experience of being swallowed alive by a great fish before preaching to Nineveh as authentic and historical (p. 1462-63).

John Martin holds to the unity of the entire book of Isaiah, citing Isaiah as the author (pp. 1029-31).  Martin  correctly states that the prediction of idyllic conditions of world-wide knowledge of Yahweh in Zion and global peace will be fulfilled in Christ's 1000-year reign (Isa. 2:1-5) (pp. 1037-38). Martin also takes literally the harmony in the animal kingdom that will prevail during the Messiah's global reign (Isa. 11:1-10) (pp. 1056-57). He identifies Isaiah's Little Apocalypse (Isa. 24-27) as describing "the earth's devastation and people's intense suffering during the coming Tribulation and the blessings to follow in the millennial kingdom" (p. 1072). Commenting on Isaiah 60, Martin writes, "When the Lord returns to live among His people (Isa. 60:2) the nations will be attracted to the light of His glory (cf. vv. 19-20) and will flock to Israel for the light (the blessings of salvation from spiritual darkness). This will occur in the Millennium. Though everyone entering the Millennium will be saved, people will be born during that 1,000-year period of time. Many of them will come to salvation because of God's work on Israel's behalf" (p. 1115).

Charles Dyer, writer of the commentary on Ezekiel, commenting on "A New Temple" (chaps. 40-43) (pp. 1303-1304), rejects the notion that Ezekiel predicted a rebuilding of Solomon's temple; rejects the view that "Ezekiel was prophesying about the church in a figurative sense" and that "he did not have a literal temple in mind." He correctly concludes, "A still-future literal temple will be built during the millennial kingdom." Commenting on Ezekiel 47:1-12, Dyer writes, "One feature in the Millennium will be a life-giving river flowing from the temple. Many think this refers only symbolically to the blessings that flow from God's presence. But nothing in the passage suggests that Ezekiel had anything in mind other than a literal river" (p. 1313).

Allen P. Ross, author of the commentary on Genesis, also wrote the commentary on Psalms. Ross acknowledges the modern challenge to the traditionally-held view that the lamed preposition in the superscriptions of the psalms indicates authorship (p. 782). He concludes, "Though a translator could interpret the preposition otherwise, sufficient evidence supports its usage in designating authorship." Thankfully, Ross comes down on the side of conservative scholarship rather than on the side of speculative scholarship. He remarks, "It must also be remembered that Christ and His apostles considered them [the superscriptions] as witnesses to the individual psalms' authorship" (p. 782). By contrast, for example, John Goldingay, writing twenty years later, "is unsupportive of Davidic authorship of any psalm" (Vol I, 26-28). Ross correctly places Psalm 2 in its historical context as authorization to rule for any obedient Davidic king (pp. 791-92). He does acknowledge its typological significance as referring to Christ (p. 793), but, it seems to me, he could have done a great deal more to link the psalm to Christ's Second Coming and Millennial Reign. Ross does slightly better at linking Psalm 22 to Christ - specifically, to His death on the cross (pp. 809-11). Again, he could have made a stronger case. In Psalm 110, Ross links the text of the psalm to Christ more explicitly than he did in either Psalm 2 or 22. His approach in that regard, though skimpy, is far superior to that of John Goldingay and his non-linkage of the psalm to Christ (Psalms, Vol. 3, Psalms 90-150, pp. 290-300). (In fairness to Goldingay, he does state that linkage to Christ is a topic for NT discussion of the psalm rather than OT discussion.)

J. Dwight Pentecost wrote the commentary on the book of Daniel. He argues that Daniel is the author of the book that bears his name (p. 1323), for the unity of the book (p. 1324), and for the date of its writing in the sixth century B.C. (pp. 1324-25). In that regard he notes, "Critics reject an early date for the writing of Daniel mainly because they reject predictive prophecy" (p. 1324). Pentecost cites five purposes of the book. Of particular interest is the fourth purpose:
His fifth purpose reads as follows:
In Daniel 2:44-45,