Stevens Epistles Bible - Pauls Epistles
George Barker Stevens (1854-1906) was a professor at Yale when he published this paraphrase of Paul’s Epistles.
His college course was begun at Cornell, and completed at Rochester, where he graduated in 1877. After a year of theological study in the Baptist Seminary at Rochester, he came to New Haven, and graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1880. He was pastor of the First Congregational Church in Buffalo for two years, and then for three years of the First Presbyterian Church in Watertown, N.Y. In 1883 he gained the degree of Ph.D. from Syracuse University. The years 1885-6 he spent as a student in Germany; and earned the degree of D.D. at Jena, where he studied especially under Lipsius. He was then called to the chair of New Testament criticism and interpretation at Yale, succeeding Dr. Dwight, who entered on the presidency of the university, in 1886. This chair he held until 1895, when he was chosen to succeed the late Dr. Samuel Harris as Dwight professor of systematic theology.
In 1892 Stevens had published a major study of Pauline theology, 2 and we might naturally expect to find in this paraphrase of Paul’s epistles a reflection of the interpretations set forth in his earlier treatise. In fact we do find such a relationship in places, but it is most striking how the whole rationale of the paraphrase really contradicts what Stevens says in Pauline theology about the importance of taking seriously the forms of expression used by Paul, as indispensible keys to the true apprehension of his meaning:
Of greater importance for our present purpose than the consideration of Paul’s style is the study of the characteristics of his thinking and his favorite modes of presenting his thoughts, in order to gain a just conception of his teaching upon special subjects. By this study is meant something more than an examination of style; it includes the thought-forms which lie behind style,—the moulds into which ideas are run.
This subject has never received sufficient attention. Interpreters have too often taken up the Pauline letters without reference to the environment in which they were produced, the peculiarities of the writer, or the special ends contemplated in his writings. Upon his words have been put meanings which belong to opinions and speculations which he never entertained, and around his teaching have been thrown associations wholly foreign to his own type of thought. Paul has been read as if he had written in the nineteenth century (or more commonly as if he had written in the fifth or seventeenth), and as if his writings had no peculiarities arising from his own time, education, and mental constitution.
His college course was begun at Cornell, and completed at Rochester, where he graduated in 1877. After a year of theological study in the Baptist Seminary at Rochester, he came to New Haven, and graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1880. He was pastor of the First Congregational Church in Buffalo for two years, and then for three years of the First Presbyterian Church in Watertown, N.Y. In 1883 he gained the degree of Ph.D. from Syracuse University. The years 1885-6 he spent as a student in Germany; and earned the degree of D.D. at Jena, where he studied especially under Lipsius. He was then called to the chair of New Testament criticism and interpretation at Yale, succeeding Dr. Dwight, who entered on the presidency of the university, in 1886. This chair he held until 1895, when he was chosen to succeed the late Dr. Samuel Harris as Dwight professor of systematic theology.
In 1892 Stevens had published a major study of Pauline theology, 2 and we might naturally expect to find in this paraphrase of Paul’s epistles a reflection of the interpretations set forth in his earlier treatise. In fact we do find such a relationship in places, but it is most striking how the whole rationale of the paraphrase really contradicts what Stevens says in Pauline theology about the importance of taking seriously the forms of expression used by Paul, as indispensible keys to the true apprehension of his meaning:
Of greater importance for our present purpose than the consideration of Paul’s style is the study of the characteristics of his thinking and his favorite modes of presenting his thoughts, in order to gain a just conception of his teaching upon special subjects. By this study is meant something more than an examination of style; it includes the thought-forms which lie behind style,—the moulds into which ideas are run.
This subject has never received sufficient attention. Interpreters have too often taken up the Pauline letters without reference to the environment in which they were produced, the peculiarities of the writer, or the special ends contemplated in his writings. Upon his words have been put meanings which belong to opinions and speculations which he never entertained, and around his teaching have been thrown associations wholly foreign to his own type of thought. Paul has been read as if he had written in the nineteenth century (or more commonly as if he had written in the fifth or seventeenth), and as if his writings had no peculiarities arising from his own time, education, and mental constitution.
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