New Daily Study Bible: The Letters of John and Jude. William Barclay

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СКАЧАТЬ communicator, would have welcomed it. In the discussion of Matthew 9:16–17 (‘The Problem of the New Idea’), he affirmed the value of language that has stood the test of time and in which people have ‘found comfort and put their trust’, but he also spoke of ‘living in a changing and expanding world’ and questioned the wisdom of reading God’s word to twentieth-century men and women in Elizabethan English. It is the intention of this new edition to heed that warning and to bring William Barclay’s message of God’s word to readers of the twenty-first century in the language of their own time.

      In the editorial process, certain decisions have been made in order to keep a balance between that new language and the familiar Barclay style. Quotations from the Bible are now taken from the New Revised Standard Version, but William Barclay’s own translation of individual passages has been retained throughout. Where the new version differs from the text on which Barclay originally commented, because of the existence of an alternative reading, the variant text is indicated by square brackets. I have made no attempt to guess what Barclay would have said about the NRSV text; his commentary still refers to the Authorized (King James) and Revised Standard Versions of the Bible, but I believe that the inclusive language of the NRSV considerably assists the flow of the discussion.

      For similar reasons, the dating conventions of BC and AD – rather than the more recent and increasingly used BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) – have been retained. William Barclay took great care to explain the meanings of words and phrases and scholarly points, but it has not seemed appropriate to select new terms and make such explanations on his behalf.

      One of the most difficult problems to solve has concerned monetary values. Barclay had his own system for translating the coinage of New Testament times into British currency. Over the years, these equivalent values have become increasingly out of date, and often the force of the point being made has been lost or diminished. There is no easy way to bring these equivalents up to date in a way that will continue to make sense, particularly when readers come from both sides of the Atlantic. I have therefore followed the only known yardstick that gives any feel for the values concerned, namely that a denarius was a day’s wage for a working man, and I have made alterations to the text accordingly.

      One of the striking features of The Daily Study Bible is the range of quotations from literature and hymnody that are used by way of illustration. Many of these passages appeared without identification or attribution, and for the new edition I have attempted wherever possible to provide sources and authors. In the same way, details have been included about scholars and other individuals cited, by way of context and explanation, and I am most grateful to Professor John Drane for his assistance in discovering information about some of the more obscure or unfamiliar characters. It is clear that readers use The Daily Study Bible in different ways. Some look up particular passages while others work through the daily readings in a more systematic way. The descriptions and explanations are therefore not offered every time an individual is mentioned (in order to avoid repetition that some may find tedious), but I trust that the information can be discovered without too much difficulty.

      Finally, the ‘Further Reading’ lists at the end of each volume have been removed. Many new commentaries and individual studies have been added to those that were the basis of William Barclay’s work, and making a selection from that ever-increasing catalogue is an impossible task. It is nonetheless my hope that the exploration that begins with these volumes of The New Daily Study Bible will go on in the discovery of new writers and new books.

      Throughout the editorial process, many conversations have taken place – conversations with the British and American publishers, and with those who love the books and find in them both information and inspiration. Ronnie Barclay’s contribution to this revision of his father’s work has been invaluable. But one conversation has dominated the work, and that has been a conversation with William Barclay himself through the text. There has been a real sense of listening to his voice in all the questioning and in the searching for new words to convey the meaning of that text. The aim of The New Daily Study Bible is to make clear his message, so that the distinctive voice, which has spoken to so many in past years, may continue to be heard for generations to come.

      Linda Foster

      London

      2001

      The Letters of John

       INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST LETTER OF JOHN

       A Personal Letter and its Background

      The First Letter of John is called a letter, but it has no opening address nor closing greetings such as the letters of Paul have. And yet no one can read it without feeling its intensely personal character. Beyond all doubt, the man who wrote it had in his mind’s eye a definite situation and a definite group of people. Both the form and the personal character of 1 John will be explained if we think of it as what someone has called ‘a loving and anxious sermon’, written by a pastor who loved his people, and sent out to the various churches over which he had charge.

      Any such letter is produced by an actual situation apart from which it cannot be fully understood. If we wish to understand 1 John, we have first of all to try to reconstruct the situation which produced it, remembering that it was written in Ephesus a little after AD 100.

       The Falling Away

      By AD 100, certain things had almost inevitably happened within the Church, especially in a place like Ephesus.

      (1) Many were now second- or even third-generation Christians. The thrill of the first days had, to some extent at least, passed away. In ‘The Prelude’, Wordsworth said of one of the great moments of modern history:

      Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.

      In the first days of Christianity, there was a glory and a splendour; but now Christianity had become a thing of habit, ‘traditional, half-hearted, nominal’. People had grown used to it, and something of the wonder had been lost. Jesus knew human nature, and he had said: ‘The love of many will grow cold’ (Matthew 24:12). John was writing at a time when, for some at least, the first thrill had gone and the flame of devotion had died to a flicker.

      (2) One result was that there were members of the Church who found that the standards which Christianity demanded were becoming a burden and who were tired of making the effort. They did not want to be saints in the New Testament sense of the term. The New Testament word for saint is hagios, which is also commonly translated as holy. Its basic meaning is different. The Temple was hagios because it was different from other buildings; the Sabbath was hagios because it was different from other days; the Jewish nation was hagios because it was different from other nations; and Christians were called to be hagios because they were called to be different from other men and women. There was always a distinct division between Christians and the world. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus says: ‘If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you’ (John 15:19). ‘I have given them your word,’ said Jesus in his prayer to God, ‘and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world’ (John 17:14).

      All of this involved an ethical demand. It demanded a new standard of moral purity, a new kindness, a new service, a new forgiveness – and it was difficult. And, once the first thrill and enthusiasm were gone, it became harder and harder to stand out against the world and to refuse to conform to the generally accepted standards and practices of the age.

      (3) It is to be СКАЧАТЬ