The Apostolic Fathers in English

The Apostolic Fathers in English

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Holmes significantly improves on his own second edition in a number of important ways.

Overall, the English translation is updated and improved. Only a few translation decisions seem unnecessary or excessive, though the notes provide a satisfactory rationale.

Greek Texts and English Translations

This third edition makes an effort to reach scholars without abandoning popular appeal. Scholars will be pleased by the improved critical apparatus, for which Holmes has adopted the familiar symbols of the United Bible Society UBS critical text. The editor also presents the Fragments of Papias in Arabic, Armenian, and Syriac, whereas the second edition included only the Greek and Latin versions.

And the introductions and bibliographies are appropriately updated to reflect the most recent important contributions. The revised design and typography of the third edition are perhaps the most obvious improvements. The new running page headers contain chapter and verse numbers, which assist in navigation. Also descriptive subheadings within the translation help summarize the content of sections.

This third edition of The Apostolic Fathers is sure to become the preferred edition for personal and classroom use by English-speaking academics and pastors as well as interested students of the early church.

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Book reviews are published online and in print every quarter in Bibliotheca Sacra. Holmes, editor Grand Rapids In short, it is a splendid teaching tool for university or masters programs in which the Greek text cannot be used. Students will find these intriguing texts accessible and comprehensible.

In his own masterful style Holmes has reintegrated useful introductions and current bibliographies into the collection, tweaking the translations and advancing the overall feel of the volume. This work will undoubtedly make a worthy contribution to the personal libraries of students and scholars alike in patristic studies. I recommend it highly!

Jefford, professor of Scripture, Saint Meinrad School of Theology "After the New Testament itself, churchmen like Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp provide the very earliest writings of Christianity, and so their testimony is of enormous importance. More than church fathers, they are Apostolic Fathers, immediately adjacent to the events that gave rise to our faith.

Small wonder, then, that Michael W. Holmes has focused his scholarship on this group, bringing out a third edition with all its enhancements in translation and commentary. Extremely readable and helpfully divided by headers, these texts are a gold mine of evidence on earliest Christian theology, worship, and history, including information on what happened to Peter and Paul at the end of their lives. As such, this material is next to the Bible in importance. It is a worthy successor to Lightfoot, with new introductions that bring the discussions up to date and enough revision of the translation to make it readable for a large audience.

One hopes such a readable and useful one-volume edition will create new interest in this very important aspect of early Christian history. Lightfoot was probably the greatest English-language analyst and exegete of earliest Christian texts. His work on the apostolic fathers was among his most important contributions to Christian scholarship. Michael Holmes has put a new generation of students in his debt by editing and revising Lightfoot's English translations, their value enhanced by new introductions, bibliographies, and notes.

Apostolic Fathers

He previously served as professor of biblical studies and early Christianity at Bethel University. Holmes is the author or Continue reading about Michael W. The resulting translation, published in , was widely recognised as an excellent introduction to the Apostolic Fathers. In this third English-only edition, Holmes makes more substantial changes than he did in The most significant change is in the translation, which Holmes now renders in contemporary and inclusive English.

This is his own work, not merely an updating of Lightfoot and Harmer. Footnotes included in the translation include more cross-references to Scripture than did those in previous editions. There are also changes in format and in Holmes's editorial content. Running heads and subheadings make it easier for readers to navigate their way through the translations, and judiciously constructed bibliographies. Two clear maps and an index of ancient sources are also included.

Holmes's bibliographies, his incisive and authoritative introductory essays and his fluent, accurate translation make this an extremely useful way into the study of the Apostolic Fathers. Further, Holmes, who is a respected expert in biblical scholarship and early Christianity, is especially sensitive to translation issues respecting gender. The result is a very accessible and readable text of these ancient writers that manages to be contemporary without being idiosyncratic or colloquial. It seems clear that this edition has been produced specifically for the purpose of accessibility for the student and general reader, both lay and clerical.

This of course is not to say that this book will not be of use to the scholar; but it is rather to point out just how useful this book will be in undergraduate, seminary, and Christian education contexts. Holmes gives us an excellent resource for entry into study of that first generation of thinkers who began that great tradition that we have come to know as Christian theology.

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