Two translations of the New Testament have reached their completion: The Amplified New Testament (Zondervan) and Kenneth S. Wuest’s three-volumed Expanded Translation of the Greek New Testament (Eerdmans). The former amplifies the language in order to bring out the full sense of the words; the latter expands it in order to bring out the finer shades of grammatical usage.
The Swiss scholar Robert Morgenthaler has provided New Testament students with a most useful tool for their work in his Statistics of the New Testament Vocabulary (Zürich: Gotthelf), a comprehensive analysis and synthesis.
Alfred Wikenhauser’s New Testament Introduction (Herder), translated from the German, is a distinguished combination of critical assessment and conservative judgment.
Among books of the Festschrift category, one may be mentioned—a collection of 21 New Testament Essays, originally planned as a presentation volume for T. W. Manson, but because of his death, May 1958, was completed as a memorial to him. To enumerate (not to say evaluate) the contents would outrun the scope of this survey. Mention may be made of a contribution by the editor of the volume, A. J. B. Higgins, on research into the “Son of Man” concept (since Manson published The Teaching of Jesus in 1931), one by Manson’s colleague H. H. Rowley on “The Baptism of John and the Qumran Sect,” and one by C. K. Barrett on “The Background of Mark 10:45” in which he criticizes adversely the current view that the background of this saying is the fourth “Servant Song” of Isaiah 52:13–53:12.
A monograph similar to Barrett’s article is Morna D. Hooker’s Jesus and the Servant. She argues that Jesus’ understanding of his own sufferings must be seen against a much wider pattern of suffering than the one based on the Servant Songs alone—that is, a pattern interwoven with the mission of God’s people in the world.
Oscar Cullmann in The Christology of the New Testament (London: SCM Press), translated from the German, expounds this important subject on the basis of the various titles given to Christ in the New Testament. In A New Quest of the Historical Jesus (SCM Press) James M. Robinson shows how the old quest was bound to fail, and expounds the possibility and necessity of a new quest in the post-Bultmannian epoch. This new quest must start with the New Testament kerygma, the primitive Christian message. An English translation of The So-Called Kerygma and the Historical Jesus (Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd), by Paul Althaus, tackles the same problem together with the wider problem of the relation of faith to history, and takes issue with Bultmann’s existential Christology. The positive significance of God’s self-revelation in Christ is brought out in Karl Heim’s Jesus the Lord (Oliver and Boyd), also a translation from the German. Sherman E. Johnson’s Jesus in His Own Times (London: A. and C. Black) gives a useful picture of the world of the Gospels with special reference to the Qumran evidence. Josef Blinzler’s The Trial of Jesus (Cork: Mercier Press) provides the best available study of this controversial subject.
The student of the Gospels has a magnificent tool now in A Greek Synopsis of the Gospels (Leiden: Brill), by M. de Solages. This work of over 1,100 pages provides one with a synopsis, a concordance, statistical tables, an account of the help which mathematics may give in problems of textual interdependence, and a suggested solution to the Synoptic problem.
Martin Dibelius’ work on The Form Criticism of the Gospel (Tübingen: Mohr) has appeared in a third (posthumous) edition. A new line in this field of research is presented by Harald Risenfeld in The Gospel Tradition and Its Beginnings. Where Dibelius made the preaching basic to the formation of the gospel tradition, Riesenfeld thinks rather of the school—the school whose first teacher was Jesus and whose first pupils were the apostles.
F. C. Grant follows older established lines in The Gospels: Their Origin and Their Growth (London: Faber). Luke is evidently Dr. Grant’s favorite Evangelist; his account of the fourth Gospel is the least satisfactory thing in the book. Another veteran scholar, Edgar J. Goodspeed, has given us a well-argued defense of the apostolic authorship of the first Gospel in Matthew: Apostle and Evangelist (Winston). Matthew, he believes, was deliberately called and chosen by Jesus after the breach with the religious leadership of the Jews in order that he might put Jesus’ teaching on permanent record much as Isaiah’s disciples recorded his (Isa. 8:16). In view of the general consensus of exponents of classical Synoptic criticism that Matthew could not have been the first Evangelist, Goodspeed’s is a most notable book, especially as he continues to hold the priority of Mark.
A new edition of N. B. Stonehouse’s The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ (Eerdmans) is a most welcome sight. Stonehouse is abreast of the contemporary debate on the Gospels, and his work has been appreciated by liberal as well as conservative scholars. It is interesting to compare his chapter on “The Conclusion of Mark” with the recent reprint of J. W. Burgon’s The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark (Sovereign Grace Book Club) which is provided with a stimulating introduction by that doughty defender of the Byzantine text, Edward F. Hills.
A. R. C. Leaney contributes the commentary on The Gospel According to St. Luke (A. and C. Black) to the series of Harper’s New Testament Commentaries. He endeavors to assess the theological as well as the historical character and value of this Gospel, and points out that scholars of the previous generation would have found the conception of Luke as a theologian impossible. A second edition of Henry J. Cadbury’s The Making of Luke-Acts (London: SPCK) shows that the author has found little to change in the first edition; he is concerned with the literary criticism of the Lukan writings and the “element of historical certainty and human interest” which they lend to New Testament study. An original and readable study of Luke’s outlook is presented by Adrian Hastings in Prophet and Witness in Jerusalem (Longmans).
D. E. Holwerda’s doctoral dissertation, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in the Gospel of John (Kampen: Kok), is planned mainly as a critique of Bultmann’s “present eschatology.” And it is good that a new English translation of Calvin’s commentaries should be inaugurated with T. H. L. Parker’s translation of his commentary on John (Oliver and Boyd)—the Gospel which Calvin was accustomed to describe as “a key to open the door to the understanding of the others.”
A study of Paul from an unusual angle is Jung and St. Paul (Longmans), by David Cox. This “study of the doctrine of Justification by Faith and its relation to the concept of Individuation” arose from the author’s reaction to Jung’s complaint that the Western mind has never devised a concept or a name for “the union of opposites through the middle path.” Does not the doctrine of justification by faith supply this need? That was his reaction which led to the writing of this book. He discovered that the matter is not so simple; there are radical differences as well as resemblances. But he ends on the Pauline note: “O the depth …!”
Ernest White, also a disciple of Jung, has given us St. Paul: The Man and His Mind (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott). But Dr. White is an evangelical Christian as well as a psychiatrist, and it is Paul, not Jung, that he is concerned to present to his readers in this “psychological reassessment.” Many aspects of Paul’s career and teaching are illuminated by Dr. White. The Mind of St. Paul (London: Collins) by William Barclay, bears a similar title, but this is no psychological study of the apostle. It is based on a series of articles in The British Weekly. After initial chapters on the apostle’s background and environment, Dr. Barclay gives a systematic exposition of the main aspects of the apostle’s thought in which he makes good use of his expert knowledge of the New Testament vocabulary.
Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (SCM Press) by Johannes Munck, which is a translation from the German, breaks new ground in a study of Paul’s own conception of the part his ministry as apostle to the Gentiles played in the consummation of God’s saving purpose. It is a work of more than ordinary importance. H. J. Schoeps, internationally renowned expert in the history of religion, has given us a study of Paul’s theology in the light of Jewish religious history which is shortly to be published in English translation by the Lutterworth Press, London. The heart of Paul’s theology can only be understood by those who have shared Paul’s religious experience, but in so far as Paul’s theology can be subject of an objective academic study, it could scarcely be done Better than by Schoeps. Herman Ridderbos in Paid and Jesus (Baker) takes issue with Rudolf Bultmann’s synthesis of the eschatological and religious-historical interpretations of Pauline Christology. N. Q. Hamilton insists that Paul’s doctrine of the Spirit must be understood in an eschatological context in The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paid (Oliver and Boyd).
The volume on Acts in the “Evangelical Bible Commentary” series (Zondervan) is the work of two men, Charles W. Carter being responsible for the analytic outlines and exposition, and Ralph Earle being responsible for the introduction and exegesis. To the “Tyndale Commentary” series E. M. Blaiklock has contributed a historical commentary on Acts in which he stands in the succession of W. M. Ramsay and makes apt and illuminating use of his expert acquaintance with classical history and literature. Not a commentary but a series of helpful studies of the Palestinian background of Acts and the apostolic writings is given by Eric F. F. Bishop in Apostles of Palestine: The Local Background to the New Testament Church (London: Lutteworth Press).
The epistle to the Romans continues to provide material for an unending stream of commentators. The Letter to the Romans: A Commentary (Lutteworth Press), by Emil Brunner, is the English version of a commentary first published in German in 1938. For Brunner this epistle is “the chapter of destiny of the Christian Church”; the Church’s welfare has depended time and again on the fresh discovery and appropriation of the message of Romans. Why this should be is what he endeavors to show in his exposition. A Shorter Commentary on Romans (SCM Press), by Karl Barth, is not simply an abbreviation of the historic Römerbrief of 40 years ago; it is the mature Barth who speaks here, and echoes of the Church Dogmatics may be heard throughout the work. Indeed, of both these commentaries it may be said that they tell us as much about the thought of Brunner and Barth as about the thought of Paul—although they make it clear how greatly Paul’s thought has influenced theirs. From the older school of Reformed theology comes Floyd E. Hamilton’s The Epistle to the Romans (Baker), an exegetical and devotional commentary by a well-known writer who believes that the doctrine taught in the Westminster Confession of Faith is the doctrine taught in Holy Scripture, and not least in the epistle to the Romans. The volume on Romans in the excellent “Shield Bible Study Series” (Baker) is the work of Gleason L. Archer, Jr. On the second half of the seventh chapter, to which we regularly turn in a commentary on Romans to discover the commentator’s standpoint, Dr. Archer says that it describes the “tension and defeat in the life of a Christian who tries his best to lead his own good life.” It is unfortunate that the linguistic barrier will prevent most of our readers from appreciating the magnificent Dutch commentary on Romans (Kok) recently produced by Herman Ridderbos. But nothing should stand in the way of their appreciating the reprint of Robert Haldane’s Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (London: Banner of Truth Trust), a volume which makes one’s heart rejoice as at the finding of great spoil. Dr. D. M. Lloyd-Jones of London, England, who writes a foreword to this reprint, couples Haldane’s exposition with Charles Hodge’s as the two best commentaries on Romans: “While Hodge excels in accurate scholarship, there is greater warmth of spirit and more practical application in Haldane.” The Imputation of Adam’s Sin (Eerdmans), by John Murray, is a characteristically able and thorough-going study of Romans 5:12–21. It will make one look forward all the more eagerly to the two volumes which Professor Murray is contributing on this epistle to the “New International Commentary on the New Testament.”
To the “Torch” series of Bible commentaries W. G. H. Simon, Bishop of Llandaff, Wales, has contributed a useful little volume on I Corinthians (SCM Press). The veteran Dutch scholar F. W. Grosheide has revised his large-scale commentary on II Corinthians (Kok) for the same series as includes Herman Ridderbos’ commentary on Romans. Floyd E. Hamilton has written the volume on Galatians for the “Shield Bible Study Series” (Baker): he prefers the “North Galatian” interpretation of the epistle.
F. W. Beare of Toronto has written the commentary on Philippians for the Harper-Black series (A. and C. Black). His attempt to distinguish three separate Pauline documents in the epistle falls short of cogency. But he writes as a man who has fallen under the apostle’s spell; the spending of six months in the study of this epistle he describes as “a most rewarding and at the same time a shattering experience.” He gives an interesting interpretation of the Christological passage of Philippians 2:6–11, and what he says about it, together with an appendix on “The Kenotic Christology” by E. R. Fairweather, exposes the futility of the once popular kenotic theory.
The volume on I and II Thessalonians in the “New International Commentary on the New Testament” (Eerdmans) is the work of Leon Morris who has already written on these epistles in the shorter “Tyndale Commentary” series. Dr. Morris has many good things to say, and he says them with a refreshing freedom from hallowed theological jargon.
John Knox’ Philemon Among the Letters of Paul (Abingdon) has appeared in a revised edition with its intriguing suggestions for the solution of quite a handful of problems in New Testament studies and early Church history. Some of the suggestions he gives are more convincing than others.
Two short but significant studies of Hebrews call for notice: Hebrews and the Scriptures (SPCK), by F. C. Synge, and New and Living Way (London: Faith Press) by Antony Snell. Synge takes note of the fact that in the Old Testament quotations at the beginning of Hebrews, God is represented as conversing with someone whom Synge calls the Heavenly Companion. He goes on to argue that Hebrews depends on a testimony-collection concerning this Heavenly Companion, identified by the writer of the epistle with Christ. Snell gives a fresh interpretation of the epistle which he thinks was written by Barnabas to a Jewish-Christian community in Cyprus.
The volume on I Peter in the “Tyndale Commentary” series (Tyndale Press) is the joint work of two authors: Alan M. Stibbs is responsible for the commentary proper, while Andrew F. Walls writes an excellent introduction.
On the book of Revelation comes a posthumously-published work by C. C. Torrey, The Apocalypse of John (Yale University Press), in which he repeats and expands his argument, first ventilated 18 years ago, that the odd Greek of this document is due to its being a meticulously literal translation from Aramaic. He provides a translation of the reconstructed Aramaic; we could wish that the reconstructed Aramaic text itself had been reproduced in full. Torrey makes out a stronger case for the Apocalypse than he does for the Gospels. H. M. Féret’s study of the same book has been translated from the French under the title The Apocalypse of St. John (London: Blackfriars). Féret’s aim is to inspire the same Christian optimism today as John sought to inspire in his day: the Christian “need never despair as to the ultimate victory of Christian truth.” An older work, Visions of the End (London: James Clarke), by Adam C. Welch, has recently been republished. His studies in Daniel and Revelation have still a timely message. Pierre Prigent studies the history of the exegesis of the twelfth chapter of Revelation (Tübingen: Mohr) from the earliest times to our own day.
Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.
