Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/robertsn/rwp.int

Text File | 1993-03-13 | 8KB | 140 lines

                             PREFACE

                                To
                       Dr. Adolf Deissmann
                            of Berlin
                       who has done so much
                     to make the words of the
                   New Testament glow with life

        It has now been forty years since Dr. Marvin R. Vincent
wrote his most useful series of volumes entitled _Word Studies in
the New Testament_. They are still helpful for those for whom
they were designed, but a great deal of water has run under the
mill in these years. More scientific methods of philology are now
in use. No longer are Greek tenses and prepositions explained in
terms of conjectural English translations or interchanged
according to the whim of the interpreter. Comparative grammar has
thrown a flood of light on the real meaning of New Testament
forms and idioms. New Testament writers are no longer explained
as using one construction "for" another. New light has come also
from the papyri discoveries in Egypt. Unusual Greek words from
the standpoint of the literary critic or classical scholar are
here found in everyday use in letters and business and public
documents. The New Testament Greek is now known to be not a new
or peculiar dialect of the Greek language, but the very lingo of
the time. The vernacular _Koiné_, the spoken language of the day,
appears in the New Testament as in these scraps of Oxyrhynchus
and Fayum papyri. There are specimens of the literary _Koiné_ in
the papyri as also in the writings of Luke, the Epistles of Paul,
the Epistle to the Hebrews. A new Greek-English lexicon of the
New Testament will come in due time which will take note of the
many startling discoveries from the Greek papyri and inscriptions
first brought to notice in their bearing on the New Testament by
Dr. Adolf Deissmann, then of Heidelberg, now of Berlin. His
_Bible Studies_ (Translation by Alexander Grieve, 1901) and his
_Light from the Ancient East_ (Revised Edition translated by
L.R.M. Strachan, 1927) are accessible to students unfamiliar with
the German originals.

        There is no doubt of the need of a new series of volumes
today in the light of the new knowledge. Many ministers have
urged me to undertake such a task and finally I have agreed to do
it at the solicitation of my publishers. The readers of these
volumes (six are planned) are expected to be primarily those who
know no Greek or comparatively little and yet who are anxious to
get fresh help from the study of words and phrases in the New
Testament, men who do not have access to the technical books
required, like Moulton and Milligan's _Vocabulary of the New
Testament_. The critical student will appreciate the more
delicate distinctions in words. But it is a sad fact that many
ministers, laymen, and women, who took courses in Greek at
college, university, or seminary, have allowed the cares of the
world and the deceitfulness of riches to choke off the Greek that
they once knew. Some, strangely enough, have done it even in the
supposed interest of the very gospel whose vivid messages they
have thus allowed to grow dim and faint. If some of these vast
numbers can have their interest in the Greek New Testament
revived, these volumes will be worth while. Some may be incited,
as many have been by my volume, _The Minister and His Greek New
Testament_, to begin the study of the Greek New Testament under
the guidance of a book like Davis's _Beginner's Grammar of the
Greek New Testament_. Others who are without a turn for Greek or
without any opportunity to start the study will be able to follow
the drift of the remarks and be able to use it all to profit in
sermons, in Sunday school lessons, or for private edification.

        The words of the Canterbury Version will be used,
sometimes with my own rendering added, and the transliterated
Greek put in parenthesis. Thus one who knows no Greek can read
straight ahead and get the point simply by skipping the Greek
words which are of great value to those who do know some Greek.
The text of Westcott and Hort will be used though not slavishly.
Those who know Greek are expected to keep the Greek text open as
they read or study these volumes. The publishers insisted on the
transliteration to cut down the cost of printing.

        The six volumes will follow this order; Volume I, The
Gospel according to Matthew and Mark; Vol. II, The Gospel
according to Luke; Vol. III, The Acts of the Apostles; Vol. IV,
The Pauline Epistles; Vol. V, The Gospel according to John and
the Epistle to the Hebrews; Vol. VI, the general Epistles and the
Revelation of John. For purely exegetical and expository
development a more chronological order would be required. These
volumes do not claim to be formal commentary. Nowhere is the
whole text discussed, but everywhere those words are selected for
discussion which seem to be richest for the needs of the reader
in the light of present-day knowledge. A great deal of the
personal equation is thus inevitable. My own remarks will be now
lexical, now grammatical, now archaeological, now exegetical, now
illustrative, anything that the mood of the moment may move me to
write that may throw light here and there on the New Testament
words and idioms. Another writer might feel disposed to enlarge
upon items not touched upon here. But that is to be expected even
in the more formal commentaries, useful as they are. To some
extent it is true of lexicons. No one man knows everything, even
in his chosen specialty, or has the wisdom to pick out what every
reader wishes explained. But even diamonds in the rough are
diamonds. It is for the reader to polish them as he will. He can
turn the light this way and that. There is a certain amount of
repetition at some points, part of it on purpose to save time and
to emphasize the point.

        I have called these volumes _Word Pictures_ for the
obvious reason that language was originally purely pictographic.
Children love to read by pictures either where it is all picture
or where pictures are interspersed with simple words. The Rosetta
Stone is a famous illustration. The Egyptian hieroglyphics come
at the top of the stone, followed by the Demotic Egyptian
language with the Greek translation at the bottom. By means of
this stone the secret of the hieroglyphs or pictographs was
unravelled. Chinese characters are also pictographic. The
pictures were first for ideas, then for words, then for
syllables, then for letters. Today in Alaska there are Indians
who still use pictures alone for communicating their ideas. "Most
words have been originally metaphors, and metaphors are
continually falling into the rank of words" (Professor Campbell).
Rather is it not true that words are metaphors, sometimes with
the pictured flower still blooming, sometimes with the blossom
blurred? Words have never gotten wholly away from the picture
stage. These old Greek words in the New Testament are rich with
meaning. They speak to us out of the past and with lively images
to those who have eyes to see. It is impossible to translate all
of one language into another. Much can be carried over, but not
all. Delicate shades of meaning defy the translator. But some of
the very words of Jesus we have still as he said: "The words that
I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life" (#Joh 6:63|). We
must never forget that in dealing with the words of Jesus we are
dealing with things that have life and breath. That is true of
all the New Testament, the most wonderful of all books of all
time. One can feel the very throb of the heart of Almighty God in
the New Testament if the eyes of his own heart have been
enlightened by the Holy Spirit. May the Spirit of God take of the
things of Christ and make them ours as we muse over the words of
life that speak to us out of the New Covenant that we call the
New Testament.

A.T. ROBERTSON.
LOUISVILLE, KY.