Commentaries

Commentary on the Gospel of Luke by F.W. Farrar

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Frederic William Farrar [1831-1903], The Gospel According to Luke with Maps, Notes and IntroductionThis is another of the Cambridge Bible for Schools series, a commentary on the Gospel of Luke by F.W. Farrar. My thanks to Book Aid for providing a copy for digitisation. This title is in the public domain.

Frederic William Farrar [1831-1903], The Gospel According to Luke with Maps, Notes and Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1888. Hbk. pp.392. [Click to visit the download page]

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

  1. The Gospels
  2. Life of St John
  3. Authenticity of the Gospel
  4. Characteristics of the Gospel
  5. Analysis of the Gospel; Chief Uncial MSS. of the Gospels; The Herods

II. Text and Notes

III. Excursus I-VII

IV. Index

Introduction, Chapter 1

The word Gospel is the Saxon translation of the Greek Euangelion. In early Greek (e.g. in Homer) this word meant the reward given to one who brought good tidings. In Attic Greek it also meant a sacrifice for good tidings but was always used in the plural euangelia. In later Greek, as in Plutarch and Lucian, euangeli’on meant the good news actually delivered. Among all Greek-speaking Christians the word was naturally adopted to describe the best and gladdest tidings ever delivered to the human race, the good news of the Kingdom of God. In the address of the Angel to the shepherds we find the words “I bring you good tidings of great joy,” where the verb used is euangelizomai. From this Greek word are derived the French Evangile, the Italian Evangelio, the Portuguese Evangelio, &c. Naturally the word which signified “good news” soon came to be used as the title of the books which contained the history of that good news….

Open Source Commentary Survey – October Update

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Open Access Commentary SurveyThere are currently six volunteers working on the Open Source Commentary Survey – a big “thank you” to those who have agreed to take part so far. See here to see which books still need to be surveyed. Tyndale House library have very kindly supplied me with a copy of their commentary catalogue in XML format. This will enable me to work out which commentaries are in the the Public Domain with a fair degree of accuracy. In return I will be supplying them with a copy of my list.

A number of people have suggested that I download commentaries already digitised on-line and use them. I did some work this week to see if this would be possible. Below is a screenshot of C.F. Burney’s commentary on Judges.

To me this well below the standard that I would want to use. The page colour is uneven and makes the text difficult to read. I experimented extracting the images, which removes the shadows and the colour-cast, but the resulting text is very pale and, again, difficult to read.

Fortunately I have access to commentaries through Book Aid locally and can order what they don’t have elsewhere, provided that the cost is reasonable. I will consider crowd-funding this if the cost becomes too great.

 

Commentary on Psalms 1-41 by A.F. Kirkpatrick

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Alexander Francis Kirkpatrick [1849-1940], ed., The Book of Psalms with Introduction and Notes. Books I. Psalms I-XLIThis is the first part of the Rev A.F. Kirkpatrick’s Commentary on Psalms in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges series.

My thanks to Book Aid for providing a copy of this public domain title for digitisation.

Alexander Francis Kirkpatrick [1849-1940.], ed., The Book of Psalms with Introduction and Notes. Books I. Psalms I-XLI. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892. Hbk. pp.227. pdf [This material is in the Public Domain]

Table of Contents

Preface by the General Editor J.J.S. Perowne, D.D.

I. Introduction:

  1. The Book of Psalms
  2. The Position, Names, Numbering, and Divisions of the Psalter
  3. The Titles of the Psalms
  4. The Authorship and Age of the Psalms
  5. The Collection and Growth of the Psalter
  6. The Form of Hebrew Poetry
  7. The Hebrew Text, the Ancient Versions, and the English Versions
  8. The Messianic Hope
  9. On some points in the Theology of the Psalms

II. Text and Notes

III. Appendices

Index

Chapter 1

Lyric poetry is the most ancient kind of poetry, and Hebrew poetry is mainly lyric. Neither epic nor dramatic poetry flourished in ancient Israel. Some indeed of the historical Psalms may be said to have an epic colouring, but they belong to the class of didactic narrative: Job and the Song of Songs may be called in a sense dramatic, but they do not appear to have been intended for performance on the stage. The only independent branch of poetry in Israel was Gnomic or Proverbial poetry, which in the hands of the ‘Wise Men’ attained to a rich development, and must have exercised an important influence on the education of the people.

The Old Testament is the religious history of Israel, and the poetry preserved in the Book of Psalms is, as might be expected, religious poetry. Secular poetry no doubt existed, but it has not come down to us….