We've reviewed several useful works from the hand of Malina and others in what is called The Context Group and found every one of them useful. Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels is no exception, but it is lower down on the scale than the others, for practical reasons.

This is another of those works that explains how the ancients thought compared to us today, and it uses the Synoptics as a guide. However, it could have been cut down by about 300 pages. Parallel Synoptic entries are generally given exactly the same comments in each case -- verbatim. Indeed some comments are repeated a half dozen times are more throughout the book. I like to read about things like the sort of bread the ancients ate, and how this colors the meaning of Jesus' words, but I don't need to read it more than once in the same book! A simple "see here" entry (which is used, oddly, in other places) would have been sufficient, especially considering that to do so would have cut the price of this book in half.