[B-Greek] Critical Commentaries

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Feb 22 11:08:07 EST 2003


At 10:25 AM -0500 2/22/03, Jim West wrote:
>At 09:14 AM 2/22/03 -0600, you wrote:
>>Question: Is there any significant difference between the critical
>>commentaries over the last two hundred years? What I mean by this - is
>>Bloomfield, Robertson, Lightfoot, Alford, McKnight, and Expositors STILL
>>going to be reliable sources. I understand the new discoveries and studies,
>>but will these sources still be considered reliable?
>
>in my nearly always humble (!) view- the works of alford on the linguistic
>and grammatical side of things re the nt are invaluable.  i make constant
>use of them.  sure, scholarship evolves- but what alford contributes is
>really something valuable and permanent.  luther said once that if you were
>going to write something- write it- set it on a shelf and wait nine years-
>if it was still important- then publish it.  alford could have set his stuff
>on the shelf for 100 years and it still would have been worthy of publication.

Actually, I think it was the Roman poet Horace rather than Luther he said
that, but it's good advice even if its 1500 years earlier.

I would add Robertson to this; I think that his _Word Pictures_ is always
worth checking and also that his big grammar will continue to be invaluable
for a long time to come. This does not mean, of course, that any particular
judgment he offers on any particular item is "the last word" (let's not
leave ourselves open to that!) but in my opinion (at least as humble as
Jim's!), Robertson's knowledge and wisdom with respect to Koine Greek has
probably not since his passing nor is likely any time soon to be matched or
surpassed. I know that I'm still learning from him.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.mcsinternet.net/~cwconrad/


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