James Hope Moulton Greek Studies Collection (5 vols.)

Based on the research for his larger reference work, Grammar of New Testament Greek, Moulton's introductory grammar has been used by thousands of first year students since its publication. Unlike the vast majority of introductory texts available, Moulton's grammar brings a linguist's perspective to the introductory study of Greek. In a number of areas, his discussion is superior to that of modern introductions. For example, Moulton recognizes that the middle voice continues to be a viable grammatical category during the New Testament period and is more caution on the question of deponency than most modern grammars. These features and more make this introductory grammar an important and helpful volume for studying New Testament Greek.

This small volume is made up of two lectures Moulton gave to students at Cambridge on August 19th and 20th in 1902. At the time of his lectures, there was no introductory volume in linguistics available in English, and so Moulton presented these essays to Cambridge University Press for publication to help fill that gap. The goal of the lectures was to rouse the audience's interest in the study of language and encourage further reading in the field.

While much has changed and developed in linguistics since Moulton's day, the study of historical linguistics, of which Moulton's comparative philology was a part, continues to use the same basic methodologies as Moulton himself used. This fact, combined with the reality that linguistic study still struggles to make inroads into biblical scholarship, makes Moulton's small volume particularly valuable.

In the first half of this popular little volume, Moulton seeks to present in an accessible style and manner the revolutionary research in the Greek papyri and its relevance to the study of the New Testament. More often than not, discussions of the papyri discoveries are limited to more technical volumes such as Adolf Deissmann's Light from the Ancient East. This is what makes Moulton's publish lectures so handy: they quite helpfully condense the value of the papyri from more technical works and his own research into far more accessible format.

The rest of the lectures published in this volume focus on other questions, including the origin and transmission of the gospels, the perfect timing of Christ's incarnation, and a short sermon on Revelation 14:3. The variety in these essays, from a lecture on the complex topic of textual criticism and transmission to an expository sermon on Revelation, reflects Moulton's academic interest and evangelical conviction, which he never lost sight of throughout his life.

This collection of essays, published posthumously, reflects Moulton's broad interests from apologetics, Synoptic Gospel studies, the historical Jesus, linguistics, textual criticism, and missiology. Fundamentally, Moulton was deeply involved in the major questions and issues of his day, issues that continue to be discussed and debated. How do we relate the claims of Scripture to the challenges of science? What is the relationship among the first three Gospels with their similarities and differences? How can linguistic and grammatical study of language generally impact the study of the New Testament text? How should missionaries deal with the intersection of Christ and culture? Moulton touches on all these questions and more, bringing his insightful thinking to bear on each one of them with his witty and accessible writing style.

At the time of his death in 1917, James H. Moulton had an untold number of unpublished studies, sermons, essays, and addresses. Thanks to the diligent work of his brother, William F. Moulton, sixteen of these are available here. Divided into two sections, the first consists of six essays on a variety of topics from the question of Christianity and war to the Greek papyri of Egypt. In the second section are sermons covering a range of Old and New Testament texts from the historical books to wisdom literature, from the gospels to the epistles and Revelation. The title for the whole volume is borrowed from a sermon that Moulton preached in 1899 on John 13:1-17, where Jesus washes his disciple's feet and commands them to do likewise.