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This commentary has a surprisingly lot of detail for such a small commentary (though its small print means it is also longer than it looks). It is well written and easy to understand. Like Wenham he is always concerned to think about New Testament implications for each section. Harrison, unlike Wenham, leans more to the view that health was perhaps the major reason for the clean/unclean distinctions. This is a good commentary for pastor and student to consult if it is handy.
R.K. Harrison's TOTC (1980) is probably not as helpful as it once was. It has become seriously out of date. While this is true of Wenham, there is much more substance to Wenham, which in some ways is a model commentary. This commentary was for a long time very important to more academically-minded evangelicals. His works in general have fostered a more responsible and eventually more respected sort of conservatism as evangelicals have gradually submitted their work to more mainstream evaluation in the academy. This commentary's place in that general scheme makes it worth looking at, since much of what Harrison is up to is arguing for more conservative views that need much less argument for evangelicals today. Philip Jenson puts Harrison in the category of commentaties that "descend too quickly to allegory, apologetics or medical materialism". It's unclear to me how much of that he thinks Harrison himself does, since he may just think he does one of those things. [Full Review]
