Lenski's NT Commentaries
Comments
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SteveF said:
To my "brother" and fellow Canadian, Milford:
Now that you have connected to Giovanni, could you edit your earlier post to take out his email address?
There are "bot" machines out there that "harvest" these so they can distribute spam.
Peace
Yes, Good Brother! Yes! Should have thought of that myself! Thank you for sharing.
Blessings and Peace to you in the New Year, Steve! *smile*
That gigantic snow storm with the army and helicopter rescue must have been just north of you. Sounded dreadful on the news!
Weather is relatively peaceful here in Oshawa. Lake Ontario keeps us a bit warmer than a few miles north of here!
Philippians 4: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand..........
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Matthew C Jones said:
him to be, well, rather Lutheran.
As I was taught Lutherans for Bible study, Anglicans for liturgy and Catholics for theology[:D] but I fear I'm moving to the Orthodox for liturgy, and Jewish for Bible Study (Tanakh, of course) ... I hope that's safe[;)]
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Matthew C Jones said:
I had Lenski's commentaries in hardback and found him to be, well, rather Lutheran.
And that does not especially bother me.(Here I go again, talking to myself in a forum thread. [:)] )
Hey Matthew, You can now add Lenski's Commentary on the New Testament (LCNT) (12 vols.) to your library at a significant savings. I found it on my Logos 4 homepage this morning.
So I went to check out the sample pages to refresh my memory of why I have favorable feelings towards Lenski. (I have parted with a few thousand hardback volumes over the last 10 years due to lack of space and Lenski was one of the casualties.) Imagine my surprise to find this snippet from his volume on Romans:
I find his comments on the genealogies in Matthew interesting and his observations of Paul's status as "slave" very insightful. But I have got to know: WHERE does Lenski get the idea the Apostle Paul was called both "Saul" & "Paul" from birth? Any comments?
This set has been on my want list for a couple years. I'm glad I can save some money on it now.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Hi Matthew
Matthew C Jones said:But I have got to know: WHERE does Lenski get the idea the Apostle Paul was called both "Saul" & "Paul" from birth? Any comments?
It seems to be an idea that others like is fairly likely suggesting that this was common practice for Jews in the diaspora (my underlining below):
1:1 “Paul” The Greek name “Paul” meant “little.” There have been several theories about the origin of his name: (1) a nick name describing his physical height, the second century tradition that Paul was short, fat, bald, bowlegged, bushy eyebrowed and had protruding eyes is a possible physical description of Paul. This came from a second century non-canonical book from Thessalonica called Paul and Thekla ; (2) Paul’s personal spiritual evaluation, passages like I Cor. 15:9; Eph. 3:8; I Tim. 1:15, where he calls himself “the least of the saints” (probably because he persecuted the Church, Acts 9:1–2). Some have seen this sense of “leastness” as the origin of this self-chosen title. However, in a book like Galatians, where he makes a major emphasis on his independence and equality with the Jerusalem Twelve, this option is unlikely (cf. II Cor. 11:5; 12:11; 15:10); or (3) parental, most Jews of the diaspora (Jews living outside Palestine) were given two names at birth. Paul’s Hebrew name was Saul and his Greek name was Paul.
Robert James Dr. Utley, vol. Volume 8, Paul Bound, the Gospel Unbound: Letters from Prison (Colossians, Ephesians and Philemon, Then Later, Philippians), Study Guide Commentary Series, 70 (Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International, 1997).
We know from fifteen references in Acts 7–13 that Paul also was called Saul. Saulos was the Hellenized form of the Jewish name Šaʾul. This was the form of his name Jesus used when addressing Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 26:14). Saul is first called Paul in Acts 13:9 when in the course of the first missionary journey he proclaimed the gospel to the Roman governor of Cyprus, a man named Sergius Paulus. Some scholars have equated this change of names with a major shift in Paul’s preaching career: his transition from a largely Jewish orientation to his new role as Apostle to the Gentiles. It is true that Paul nowhere referred to himself by his Jewish name in his letters. He did speak of the pride he once had taken in stemming from the tribe of Benjamin who had given Israel King Saul, after whom Saul of Tarsus likely was named (Phil 3:5). However, as one whose expressed missionary strategy was to become “a Jew to the Jews” that he might thereby win some to Christ, Paul may very well have continued to introduce himself as Šaʾul when working in a largely Jewish setting. It is even more likely that he carried the double name Saul Paul from birth since this was a common practice among Jews of the diaspora. Paul’s companion Silas also was called Silvanus, just as Barnabas’s nephew John carried a Roman surname, Marcus (cf. Acts 12:25).
Timothy George, vol. 30, Galatians, electronic ed., Logos Library System; The New American Commentary, 77 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001).
Graham
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Matthew C Jones said:
WHERE does Lenski get the idea the Apostle Paul was called both "Saul" & "Paul" from birth?
Several sources in my resources say that:
The question of the double name of “Saul” and “Paul” will require our attention hereafter, when we come in the course of our narrative to that interview with Sergius Paulus in Cyprus, coincidently with which, the appellation in the Acts of the Apostles is suddenly changed. Many opinions have been held on this subject, both by ancient and modern theologians.1 At present it will be enough to say, that, though we cannot overlook the coincidence, or believe it accidental, yet it is most probable that both names were borne by him in his childhood, that “Saul” was the name of his Hebrew home, and “Paul” that by which he was known among the Gentiles. It will be observed that “Paulus,” the name by which he is always mentioned after his departure from Cyprus, and by which he always designates himself in his Epistles, is a Roman, not a Greek, word.
Conybeare, W. J., & Howson, J. S. (1893). Vol. 1: The life and epistles of St. Paul. (New ed.) (57). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.-----------------------------------------
"Strongly rooted in the religious tradition of Judaism, he was also broadly receptive to Hellenistic culture and cosmopolitanism (→ Hellenism), as we see from his Hebrew-Greek double name “Saul” (Acts 9:4, 17; 22:7, etc.) and “Paul.” Contrary to traditional beliefs, this name does not derive from his call, for when Acts begins to use it with his first missionary work (13:9), it is simply indicating that he was known by this name in the Greek-speaking churches."
Fahlbusch, E., & Bromiley, G. W. (2005). Vol. 4: The encyclopedia of Christianity (100). Grand Rapids, Mich.; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill.----------------------------------------
"As a Roman citizen Paul had three names — praenomen (first name), nomen gentile (family name), and cognomen (additional name) — but only his cognomen, Paullus, is known. His nomen gentile if known might give some clue to the circumstances of his family’s acquisition of the citizenship (for new citizens commonly assumed their patron’s nomen gentile). His cognomen may have been chosen because of its assonance with his Jewish name Saul — Heb. Šā˒ûl, in the NT sometimes spelled Saoul and more often Saulos, the latter form rhyming with Gk Paulos. Since he belonged to the tribe of Benjamin (Phil. 3:5) his parents may have named him Saul after the most illustrious member of that tribe in their nation’s history, Israel’s first king."
Bromiley, G. W. (1988; 2002). Vol. 3: The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (709). Wm. B. Eerdmans.---------------------------------------
"1. Name. Paul is commonly known by his Greco–Roman cognomen, Paulos, but we know from Acts that he bore the Jewish name Saul as well (Acts 7:58; 8:1, 3; 9:1, 4, etc.). He himself never mentions his Jewish name in his letters, but always identifies himself as Paul (e.g., 1 Thess 1:1; 2:18; Rom 1:1; 1 Cor 1:1, 12–13; etc.)."
Freedman, D. N. (1996). Vol. 5: The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (187). New York: Doubleday.MacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540
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Graham Criddle said:
"most Jews of the diaspora (Jews living outside Palestine) were given two names at birth"
This is, in fact, still the case, I believe. Thus a Jewish-American child may be called Jacob or Susannah in school, but official documents (like a ketubah or a get) will say Ya'akov or Shoshannah. And the same when someone is called to read from the Torah, or is being prayed for. When Gabby Giffords was shot, the internet quickly became abuzz with requests for and postings of her Jewish name, so that she could be mentioned in the synagogue prayers.
And the names are not always as close as Jacob and Ya'akov. I've seen examples where the two names had absolutely nothing in common, except the person who wore them both. Furthermore, the surname used in these circumstances won't be the 'civil' surname but ben/bat something: in most cases the father's name, but the mother's when he/she's being prayed for. Thus most diaspora Jews will be known under two different first names and three surnames (and maybe more still if they live in an environment that still uses Yiddish regularly).
(I just looked up a detail in this, and ironically got another thing confirmed as well: the book was dedicated to "Max Dolnansky (Mordechai ben Moshe Halevy) and Eva Dolnansky (Rivka bat David Tzvi)". Not many letters in common there...)
Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2
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Thank you to everyone for all the great posts here.
I'm half a century old and you would think I would have learned by now to look at the Biblical text first to see what it does say and what it does not say. For whatever reason, unbeknownst to me, I had this idea the Apostle got a name change on the road to Damascus. (I know, that is really bad hermeneutics on my part, so please forgive me. [:$]) I could say I made the assumption with subconscious influence from the other Biblical characters who had an imputed change of moniker:
- Abram to Abraham
- Sarai to Sarah
- Jacob to Israel
Or I could try to blame it on poor scholarship of somebody else who taught me it happened thus. [6] It just goes to show we must carefully read the text and not add what is not there. I have done this same faux pas on two other passages in scripture:
- Matthew 24 (Jerusalem 70 AD and/or the end of days)
- Judges 11:31 (Did Jephthah sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering?)
But to stay somewhat on topic with my Lenski question; Is there a theological significance to the Apostle being called "Saul" by Jesus on the road to Damascus and when Ananias heard from the Lord to heal him versus "Paul" after he was called to go to the Gentiles? (Acts 13:9 calls him both names but occurred well after he took his message to the Gentiles.)
I guess it's time to dig deeper with Logos. [8-|]
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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