"Out with the old and in with the new" is a reasonable principle to uphold only if you're impatient with the past, undiscerning about what's of lasting worth, and therefore guilty of what C S Lewis dubbed 'chronological snobbery.
This week the Second Edition of Dictionary of Paul and His Letters landed on my desk with a near onomatopoetic 'thwump'! I've had the First Edition of Dictionary of Paul and His Letters since its publication in 1993. It has been needing revision and significant updating because so much has changed in the subject field in the last 30 years, easily a generation.
Now that both sit on my desk I wish to make clear that I will keep and use both. Partly, that's due to affection and familiarity with a Dictionary I've used at least every week of those 30 years. It's also because it will continue to be a valuable source of scholarship on areas much less vulnerable to changing fashions and emphases in scholarship - and because I have an affection for that earlier generation of NT scholars - like Howard Marshall, George Beasley-Murray, F F Bruce, Jimmy Dunn, Gordon Fee, Ralph Martin, David Wright.
The new edition brings the landscape into clearer focus as older landmarks fade and new constructions appear on the scene, several of them currently dominating the foreground. That means the list of contributors in 2023 has few of the original scholars from 1993 re-contributing. After a period of 30 years many of those writing in the new volume are now established scholars, many of them in the newer fields of study. Of the three editors only Scot McKnight was an original contributor (The Collection for the Saints) - an article replaced by one newly commissioned from D J Downs whose monograph on the Collection was published in 2016. The other two editors, Lynn Cohick and Nijay Gupta are now established scholars with an extensive publishing record in NT studies.
The 1993 edition has 1038 pages, just over 200 articles, 107 contributors of whom 7 are women, and few outside white Western academia and church.
The 2023 edition has 1223 pages,around 210 articles, 141 contributors of whom 20 are women, with significantly more representation from beyond white Western academia and church.
The 1993 edition lacked this front Contents List of articles, making it difficult to easily discover what has been superannuated from the 1993 edition, and what is new in the latest 2023 edition. So the addition of this list of article contents in the new edition is a big help for easy and quick reference, providing a bird's eye view of where particular .
Thirty years is a long time in New Testament Studies and that is reflected in the thoroughly up to date bibliographies that come at the end of every article. A number of the subjects are of special interest in my own studies so I'm more familiar with the scholarship and literature behind those articles: The Prison Epistles, "In Christ" and participation, the fundamental importance of the three virtues of faith, hope and love, Pauline christology, biblical models of prayer, and for obvious reasons Paul as preacher and Paul as pastor.
In each of these the bibliography reflects current scholarship without neglecting important classic items, inclusions are representative of differing perspectives, and the listing gives more than adequate guidance to pursue further study in and beyond the topic.
The overall style retains the original format of a substantial main article, list of related and relevant subjects, followed by excellent bibliography. The indices cover subjects and scripture texts - as an aside by far the longest lists of entries are from Exodus and Isaiah, perhaps reflecting the volume of scholarship around Paul's constructive and narrative use of the Old Testament in building the theological framework for his understanding of the church and its mission to the world. These indices help navigate around the various articles that deal with a particular text or sub-theme.
The new Dictionary happily retains the user-friendly format, the comprehensive coverage, up to date scholarship and high quality of writing we got used to in the earlier edition. The physical heft and durability of the volumes is important in a heavy use reference book. Here too comparisons are favourable. I personally miss the dust-cover in the British edition, but I can also understand that on a quality bound hardcover destined for heavy use a dust-cover wears and becomes as much a nuisance as a useful feature. Overall the quality of production seems high quality and built to last - ask me if I;m right in 30 years!
In my next post I'll compare and comment on several of the main articles.
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