Tuesday, December 11, 2007

My How Times Have Changed!

Gerald F. Hawthorne's Philippians commentary in the WBC is approaching its 25th year. Recently, it has been revised with the help of Ralph Martin, making a helpful commentary even more so. I do not have the latter, but in the former I came across a striking quote as Hawthorne surveys those scholars who believe that Paul did not author Philippians:


With the aid of sophisticated computers, (A.Q.) Morton and (J.) McLeman are able to do intricate and detailed studies. For example, they claim that they can readily count the number of sentences in each epsitle that bears Paul name and at the same time the frequency of και in each sentence. On the basis of such analysis they show, to their satisfaction, which of the letters were written by Paul and which were not. (xxviii)

Wow! Even though Hawthorne criticizes their findings, they believe Paul did not author Philippians, their research was considered sophisticated! To live in a day in age where software programs such as Bibleworks and Logos can garner these results in less than a second is amazing. Who knows how long Morton and McLeman labored over this research in 1966! By 1983, Hawthorne still considered this research "intricate and detailed." I'm also curious as to whether this section on authorship has been completely revised in the second edition.

So bibliobloggers does anyone have the second edition?

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