The Acts of the Apostles: A Newly Discovered Commentary (The Lightfoot Legacy)
Overview
The Acts of the Apostles is the first volume in a three-volume set of previously unpublished material from J.B. Lightfoot, one of the the great biblical scholars of the modern era. In the spring of 2013, Ben Witherington discovered hundreds of pages of biblical commentary by Lightfoot in the Durham Cathedral Library. While incomplete, these commentaries represent a goldmine for historians and biblical scholars, as well as for the many people who have found Lightfoot's work both informative and edifying, deeply learned and pastorally sensitive.
Among those many pages were two sets of lecture notes on the Acts of the Apostles. Together they amount to a richly detailed, albeit unfinished, commentary on Acts 1-21. The project of writing a commentary on Acts had long been on Lightfoot’s mind, and in the 1880s he wrote an article about the book for the second British edition of William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible. Thankfully, that is not all he left behind.
Now on display for all to see, these commentary notes reveal a scholar well ahead of his time, one of the great minds of his or any generation. Well over a century later, The Acts of the Apostles remains a relevant and significant resource for the church today.
If you like this resource be sure to check out the Joseph Barber Lightfoot Collection (11 vols.).
- Provides newly discovered commentary by one of the nineteenth-century's most esteemed biblical scholars
- Includes an introductory essay on Lightfoot as a biblical commentator
- Contains annotation by Ben Witherington and Todd Still
- Introduction to Commenting in General
- Introduction to Acts–Preliminary Matters
- The Commentary on Acts
A profound debt of gratitude is owed to Professors Witherington and Still for relentlessly pursuing, recovering, and editing J. B. Lightfoot’s notes on Acts. Harnack said it best: Lightfoot was a true liberal for he was an independent, free scholar . . . in the absolute sense of the word. He has never defended tradition for the tradition's sake.’ We need more liberals like that today!
—Daniel B. Wallace, professor of New Testament, Dallas Theological Seminary
The discovery of hitherto unknown exegetical works by J.B. Lightfoot is a rare gift, full of potential for fresh insight both about the man himself (acknowledged worldwide as the leading scholar of his day) and, as he would have wished, about texts which he knew so well and which themselves express the heart of the gospel. Hearty congratulations to finder, editor and publisher on an unexpected and exciting addition to the core library of seminal biblical studies.
—N.T. Wright, professor of New Testament, University of St. Andrews, and former bishop of Durham
When I was a seminary student, one of my professors had given a full explanation of a critical passage in Galatians when a student across the room asked aloud, 'So then, do you disagree with J. B. Lightfoot?' The professor, given to the well-timed pause, looked first to the right and then to the left and then ended the silence with the rhetorical question, 'What does a mouse say to a lion?' Lightfoot, indeed, is an exegetical lion, and this incredible discovery by Ben Witherington and now publication of fresh materials by Lightfoot will mean a whole new generation can be exposed to the stalking, roaring presence of the nineteenth century's finest exegete of the life of Paul.
—Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary
- Title: The Acts of the Apostles: A Newly Discovered Commentary
- Author: Joseph Barber Lightfoot
- Series: The Lightfoot Legacy Set
- Volume: 1
- Publisher: IVP Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2014
- Logos Release Date: 2015
- Pages: 399
- Era: era:modern
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Bible. N.T. Acts › Commentaries
- ISBNs: 9780830896738, 9780830829446, 0830896732, 083082944X
- Resource ID: LLS:ACTSLIGHTFOOT
- Resource Type: Bible Commentary
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T21:49:09Z
Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828–1889), also known as J. B. Lightfoot, was an English theologian, preacher, canon of St Paul's Cathedral and bishop of Durham. His writings include essays on biblical and historical subject matter, commentaries on Pauline epistles and studies on the Apostolic Fathers as well as four posthumously published volumes of sermons. Lightfoot attended King Edward's School in Birmingham before attending Trinity College in Cambridge where he was elected a Fellow of his college. He became a tutor of Trinity College in 1857 and later a professor of divinity, editing the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology from 1854 to 1859. In 1871, Lightfoot became canon of St. Paul?s Cathedral, preaching regularly and participating in various ecclesiastical activities. He gained enormous popularity for his work Essays on the Work Entitled Supernatural Religion, a defense of the New Testament in response to Walter Richard Cassel's Supernatural Religion. In 1870, Lightfoot became Bishop of Durham, where he continued his theological study, writing, and preaching. Lightfoot wrote commentaries on Galatians, Philippians and Colossians and Philemon, and his newly discovered commentary notes on Acts, John, 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter are being published in the three-volume Lightfoot Legacy set.
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