Author’S Preface To The Second Edition
Author’s Preface To The Second Edition
The call for a new edition of this commentary has given me the opportunity of working through the material again, with the help of much that has been written in the years since the first edition appeared. I have been grateful for the commentaries to which I have referred, and especially to those by Barrett and Conzelmann.
The change from the Authorized Version to the New International Version as the base has meant many small alterations, and I have gone further and rewritten the whole. It is essentially the same commentary, though here and there the reader may notice a change of emphasis and even sometimes of opinion.
It may help the general reader if I point out that all cross-references have been checked against the Greek text; a reference to the English translation will not always make this clear. For example, I speak of Paul’s calling himself a ‘slave of Christ’ and refer to Romans 1:1. Now NIV has there ‘a servant of Christ’ and the English reader may wonder a little about the accuracy of the reference. But ‘servant’ translates doulos, which means ‘slave’. Despite NIV, Paul really did call himself ‘a slave of Christ’. It would have taken up a lot of space to make this sort of thing clear on every occasion, so I have often simply given the reference. But, as I have said, on every occasion the reference has been checked against the Greek.
It remains only for me to express the hope that in its new format this commentary will meet a continuing need. And to express my appreciation to Mrs D. Wellington, my former secretary, for her kindness in typing the manuscript so expertly.
Leon Morris