Spurgeon’s College have very kindly given me Volumes 1 – 3 of The Lost Sermons of C.H. Spurgeon to sell to raise funds for the development of Theology on the Web. I have added a couple of sets of theological dictionaries from my library. You can find further details on each eBay auction by clicking on each of the images below.
This is the 1849 edition of John Calvin’s Commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans, published by the Calvin Translation Society, translated by the Rev. John Owen. I need to be careful to distinguish it from more recent translations, which may still be in copyright.
My thanks to Book Aid for providing a copy of this book for digitisation. This title is in the public domain.
The Argument
With regard to the excellency of this Epistle, I know not whether it would be well for me to dwell long on the subject; for I fear, lest through my recommendations falling far short of what they ought to be, I should do nothing but obscure its merits: besides, the Epistle itself, at its very beginning, explains itself in a much better way than can be done by any words which I can use. It will then be better for me to pass on to the Argument, or the contents of the Epistle; and it will hence appear beyond all controversy, that besides other excellencies, and those remarkable, this can with truth be said of it, and it is what can never be sufficiently appreciated – that when any one gains a knowledge of this Epistle, he has an entrance opened to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture….
![Joseph Barber Lightfoot [1828-1889], Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.](https://i2.wp.com/biblicalstudies.org.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/galatians_lightfoot.jpg?resize=225%2C761&ssl=1)
I recently digitised a hard-to-find article by F.F. Bruce:
Bruce’s thesis in this article is that training in the Classical tradition (typically that of the old Public School in the UK) is essential if one is to become truly competent in New Testament Greek. I have grave reservations about this idea – and I think the recent history of both linguistics and biblical studies in general have proved him wrong. I guess that Bruce is not alone in thinking his our own training was “the best” for his particular field. Nevertheless, I think that this article is helpful for its discussion of three of the greats of Nineteenth Century New Testament scholarship, Westcott, Hort and Lightfoot. I was therefore delighted to find a number of their commentaries at Book Aid recently. The first to be uploaded is J.B. Lightfoot commentary on Galatians.
I would be interested to hear what others think about Bruce’s thesis. Is a classical education a help or a hindrance to being a proficient student of New Testament Greek?