Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Epistle to Philemon

by Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer

Publisher:

T&T Clark

, 1884

Overview

The Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, also known as “Meyer’s Commentary,” is considered one of the nineteenth century’s best English-language New Testament commentaries.

Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, a German Protestant with a gift for languages, was known to have an encyclopedic memory and an appetite for buying books. It was not uncommon for Meyer to be reading his contemporaries in his native German and, at the same time, poring over their work in English, Dutch, and French. A natural linguist, he was also well read in Greek, Latin, and even Gothic.

He published the first commentary in this collection in 1832, at the age of 32. He worked on this series, a lifelong project, for more than 40 years, adding to and extensively updating and revising his work while simultaneously tending to a busy pastorate and raising his own family. He completed 16 volumes before passing the baton to a few of his trusted peers.

The Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Epistle to Philemon includes a detailed introduction and a list of exegetical works that Meyer felt were integral to his studies of these two Pauline epistles.

With the Logos edition, you have instant access to a wealth of dictionaries, lexicons, and language reference tools. All Scripture passages link directly to the original-language Bible text and English translations, and double-clicking any Greek word automatically opens a lexicon to help you decipher the word’s meaning and context. This makes the Logos edition of the Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Epistle to Philemon perfect for students, pastors, and scholars.

Key Features

• Preface by William P. Dickson
• Bibliographical references

Praise for the Print Edition

We have only to repeat that it remains, of its own kind, the very best Commentary of the New Testament which we possess.

—Church Bells

The Handbook to the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philemon is the last of Meyer’s own contributions to the magnum opus of his life. His commentary is—within its prescribed limits—unrivalled. No Biblical scholar has done so much as he to set before us the exact meaning of the sacred text apart from all critical and dogmatical prepossessions. His philological accuracy, his exegetical tact, his profound intuition, allied as they are with stern loyalty to the truth, have placed his volumes in the very foremost rank, and it will be long before they are equaled by the productions of a later day. They form a “monument of gigantic industry and immense erudition,” and that one man should have been able to accomplish so much, and to accomplish it so well, is, to our thinking, marvelous.

—The Baptist Magazine

Product Details

• Title: Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Epistle to Philemon
• Author: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer
• Translators: Maurice J. Evans and William P. Dickson
• Publisher: T & T Clark
• Publication Date: 1884
• Pages: 383

About Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer

Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer was born in Gotha on January 10, 1800. He ministered at multiple churches throughout his life, and held pastorates in Othausen, Harste, Hoya, and Hannover. An avid early riser and walker, Meyer kept the same routine for more than 50 years: a 4 a.m. wake-up to study and write while smoking his pipe, followed by a three- to four-mile walk, then off to church to perform his duties as superintendant. After work Meyer was a dedicated family man, and his son, eventually a father too, described him not as a grandparent but as a “playmate” of his grandchildren.

Meyer finished 16 volumes of his New Testament commentary, although all 16 underwent numerous revisions and rewritings—he worked on them consistently from age 27 to 72. Battling illness the last year of his life, he still took his daily walks until the last bedridden month. He died on June 21, 1873. On the cross at his tomb are placed these words from Romans 14:8: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”