Barclay's Daily Study Bible - Any chance of getting it back?

Faithlife used to be able to sell the license. Then it lost it. Then it got the New Daily Study Bible, which is different. All of this happened years ago. This morning I discovered that at least one other retailer of Bible software sells both the new and the old one, as does Amazon. I only want the old one, and I'd really like it in Verbum*/Logos. At present I am reduced to slowly collecting them in hard-copy, the only commentary set that I am doing this for.

Is there any chance of Faithlife getting the license to sell the DSB again? Even for distribution in Vyrso? I would happily buy the whole set.

*The Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen praised it repeatedly, causing plenty of Catholic lay people to buy it. If FL gets it back, it could market this commentary to both Logos and Verbum customers.

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abondservant

If were talking about the same set, I have a number of them (mostly - paperback) that I picked up in NC at a book store as part of a box of commentaries...

I haven't really used them, and if I have some that you need I am sure we could work something out.

If you're interested drop me an email jcr dot chilis at gmail dot com.

Dan Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/736754#Comment_736754

As an owner of both sets I can tell you the change is minimal... and where there is a significant change (removal) it has been done because it was factually wrong (according to the preface). It should also be noted that the Second edition from the 70s differs dramatically from the 50s original which had a significant amount of duplication. An improvement in the third edition is also quotations made by Barclay are attributed when the source is know, writing for a newspaper as the DSB started out attributing quotes hardly seemed necessary... I personally would love to see FL offer the original companion series to the Old Testament done mostly in the 80s as I find most of those volumes great, and wish others could benefit from them.

My father always had a great love for the English language and its literature. As a student at the University of Glasgow, he won a prize in the English class—and I have no doubt that he could have become a Professor of English instead of Divinity and Biblical Criticism. In a pre-computer age, he had a mind like a computer that could store vast numbers of quotations, illustrations, anecdotes and allusions; and, more remarkably still, he could retrieve them at will. The editor of this revision has, where necessary, corrected and attributed the vast majority of these quotations with considerable skill and has enhanced our pleasure as we read quotations from Plato to T. S. Eliot.

There is another very welcome improvement in the new text. My mother was one of ﬁve sisters, and my grandmother was a commanding ﬁgure as the Presbyterian minister’s wife in a small village in Ayrshire in Scotland. She ran that small community very efﬁciently, and I always felt that my father, surrounded by so many women, was more than somewhat overawed by it all! I am sure that this is the reason why his use of English tended to be dominated by the words ‘man’, ‘men’ and so on, with the result that it sounded very male-orientated. Once again, the editor has very skilfully improved my father’s English and made the text much more readable for all of us by amending the often one-sided language.

It is a well-known fact that William Barclay wrote at breakneck speed and never corrected anything once it was on paper—he took great pride in mentioning this at every possible opportunity! This revision, in removing repetition and correcting the inevitable errors that had slipped through, has produced a text free from all the tell-tale signs of very rapid writing. It is with great pleasure that I commend this revision to readers old and new in the certainty that William Barclay speaks even more clearly to us all with his wonderful appeal in this new version of his much-loved Daily Study Bible.

Ronnie Barclay

Bedfordshire

2001

Ronnie Barclay, “Series Foreword,” in The Letters to Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, 3rd ed. fully rev. and updated, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), xiii.

3rd Edition

PAUL’S PRIVILEGES

Philippians 3:4–7

And yet it remains true that I have every ground of conﬁdence from the human point of view. If anyone has reason to think that he has grounds for conﬁdence in his human heritage and attainments, I have more. I was circumcised when I was eight days old: I am of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin: I am a Hebrew, born of Hebrew parents. As far as the law goes, I was a Pharisee: as for zeal, I was a persecutor of the churches: as for the righteousness which is in the law, I was beyond blame. But such things as I could humanly reckon as proﬁts, I came to the conclusion were all loss for the sake of Jesus Christ.

PAUL has just attacked the Jewish teachers and insisted that it is the Christians, not the Jews, who are the truly circumcised and covenant people. His opponents might have attempted to say: ‘But you are a Christian and do not know what you are talking about; you do not know what it is to be a Jew.’ So Paul sets out his credentials, not in order to boast but to show that he had enjoyed every privilege which a Jew could enjoy and had risen to every attainment to which a Jew could rise. He knew what it was to be a Jew in the highest sense of the term, and had deliberately abandoned it all for the sake of Jesus Christ. Every phrase in this catalogue of Paul’s privileges has its special meaning; let us look at each one.
(1) He had been circumcised when he was eight days old. It had been the commandment of God to Abraham: ‘every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old’ (Genesis 17:12); and that commandment had been repeated as a permanent law of Israel (Leviticus 12:3). By this claim, Paul makes it clear that he is not an Ishmaelite—for the Ishmaelites were circumcised in their thirteenth year (Genesis 17:25)—or a convert who had come late into the Jewish faith and been circumcised as an adult. He stresses the fact that he had been born into the Jewish faith and had known its privileges and observed its ceremonies since his birth.
(2) He was of the race of Israel. When the Jews wanted to stress their special relationship to God in its most unique sense, it was the word Israelite that they used. Israel was the name which had been specially given to Jacob by God after his wrestling with him (Genesis 32:28). It was from Israel that they in the most special sense traced their heritage. In point of fact, the Ishmaelites could trace their descent from Abraham, for Ishmael was Abraham’s son by Hagar; the Edomites could trace their descent from Isaac, for Esau, the founder of the Edomite nation, was Isaac’s son; but it was the Israelites alone who could trace their descent from Jacob, whom God had called by the name of Israel. By calling himself an Israelite, Paul stressed the absolute purity of his descent.
(3) He was of the tribe of Benjamin. That is to say, he was not only an Israelite; he belonged to the elite of Israel. The tribe of Benjamin had a special place in the aristocracy of Israel. Benjamin was the child of Rachel, the much-loved wife of Jacob, and of all the twelve patriarchs he alone had been born in the promised land (Genesis 35:17–18). It was from the tribe of Benjamin that the ﬁrst king of Israel had come (1 Samuel 9:1–2), and it was no doubt from that very king that Paul had been given his original name of Saul. When, under Rehoboam, the kingdom had been split up, ten of the tribes went off with Jeroboam, and Benjamin was the only tribe which remained faithful with Judah (1 Kings 12:21). When they returned from the exile, it was from the tribes of Benjamin and Judah that the nucleus of the reborn nation was formed (Ezra 4:1). The tribe of Benjamin had the place of honour in Israel’s battle line, so that it was Benjamin who led the way: ‘the people of the Lord marched down for him against the mighty … following you, Benjamin, with your kin’ (Judges 5:13–14; cf. Hosea 5:8). The feast of Purim, which was observed every year with such rejoicing, commemorated the deliverance of which the Book of Esther tells; and the central ﬁgure of that story was Mordecai, a Benjaminite. When Paul stated that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, it was a claim that he was not simply an Israelite but that he belonged to the highest aristocracy of Israel. It would be the equivalent in England of saying that he came over with the Normans, or in America that he traced his descent from the Pilgrim Fathers.
So, Paul claims that from his birth he was a God-fearing, law-observing Jew, that his lineage was as pure as Jewish lineage could be, and that he belonged to the most aristocratic tribe of the Jews.

William Barclay, The Letters to Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, 3rd ed. fully rev. and updated, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 67–69.

2nd Edition

THE PRIVILEGES OF PAUL

Philippians 3:4–7

And yet it remains true that I have every ground of confidence from the human point of view. If anyone has reason to think that he has grounds for confidence in his human heritage and attainments, I have more. I was circumcised when I was eight days old; I am of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin: I am a Hebrew, born of Hebrew parents. As far as the Law goes, I was a Pharisee: as for zeal, I was a persecutor of the Churches: as for the righteousness which is in the Law, I was beyond blame. But such things as I could humanly reckon as profits, I came to the conclusion were all loss for the sake of Jesus Christ.

PAUL has just attacked the Jewish teachers and insisted that it is the Christians, not the Jews, who are the truly circumcised and covenant people. His opponents might have attempted to say, “But you are a Christian and do not know what you are talking about; you do not know what it is to be a Jew.” So Paul sets out his credentials, not in order to boast but to show that he had enjoyed every privilege which a Jew could enjoy and had risen to every attainment to which a Jew could rise. He knew what it was to be a Jew in the highest sense of the term, and had deliberately abandoned it all for the sake of Jesus Christ. Every phrase in this catalogue of Paul’s privileges has its special meaning; let us look at each one.
(i) He had been circumcised when he was eight days old. It had been the commandment of God to Abraham: “He that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you” (Genesis 17:12); and that commandment had been repeated as a permanent law of Israel (Leviticus 12:3). By this claim Paul makes it clear that he is not an Ishmaelite, for the Ishmaelites were circumcised in their thirteenth year (Genesis 17:25), nor a proselyte who had come late into the Jewish faith and been circumcised in manhood. He stresses the fact that he had been born into the Jewish faith and had known its privileges and observed its ceremonies since his birth.
(ii) He was of the race of Israel. When the Jews wished to stress their special relationship to God in its most unique sense it was the word Israelite that they used. Israel was the name which had been specially given to Jacob by God after his wrestling with him (Genesis 32:28). It was to Israel that they in the most special sense traced their heritage. In point of fact the Ishmaelites could trace their descent to Abraham, for Ishmael was Abraham’s son by Hagar; the Edomites could trace their descent to Isaac, for Esau, the founder of the Edomite nation, was Isaac’s son; but it was the Israelites alone who could trace their descent to Jacob, whom God had called by the name of Israel. By calling himself an Israelite, Paul stressed the absolute purity of his descent.
(iii) He was of the tribe of Benjamin. That is to say, he was not only an Israelite; he belonged to the elite of Israel. The tribe of Benjamin had a special place in the aristocracy of Israel. Benjamin was the child of Rachel, the well-loved wife of Jacob, and of all the twelve patriarchs he alone had been born in the Promised Land (Genesis 35:17, 18). It was from the tribe of Benjamin that the first king of Israel had come (1 Samuel 9:1, 2), and it was no doubt from that very king that Paul had been given his original name of Saul. When, under Rehoboam, the kingdom had been split up, ten of the tribes went off with Jeroboam and Benjamin was the only tribe which remained faithful with Judah (1 Kings 12:21). When they returned from the exile, it was from the tribes of Benjamin and Judah that the nucleus of the reborn nation was formed (Ezra 4:1). The tribe of Benjamin had the place of honour in Israel’s battle-line, so that the battle-cry of Israel was: “After thee, O Benjamin!” (Judges 5:14; Hosea 5:8). The great feast of Purim, which was observed every year with such rejoicing, commemorated the deliverance of which the Book of Esther tells, and the central figure of that story was Mordecai, a Benjaminite. When Paul stated that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, it was a claim that he was not simply an Israelite but that he belonged to the highest aristocracy of Israel. It would be the equivalent in England of saying that he came over with the Normans or in America that he traced his descent to the Pilgrim fathers.
So, then, Paul claims that from his birth he was a God-fearing, Law-observing Jew; that his lineage was as pure as Jewish lineage could be; and that he belonged to the most aristocratic tribe of the Jews.

William Barclay, ed., The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, electronic ed., The Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: The Westminster John Knox Press, 1975), 56–59.

-Dan

EDIT:PS: It should be noted also as the 2nd edition replaced in commentary quotations from the KJV to the RSV 3rd edition replaced RSV quotations with NRSV.