The Gospel of John: The New Daily Study Bible (Volume 1)

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Summary: Barclay's Commentaries on John's Gospel & the New Testament
Review: I have "seen" the Gospel of John over a dozen of times, but never really read it, in terms of deep understanding, until Barclay helped to reveal it to me in his commentary. Barclay's explanation of the Greek in the original text, and the historical background he provides, has been very significant to my study of Jesus Christ. An example is Barclay's extensive analysis of Jesus as the "logos" that commences his commentary on the Gospel of John. Barclay's discussion of the story of the woman caught in adultery is one of the most beautiful interpretations of an aspect of Jesus's ministry I have ever heard or read. I strongly recommend the Revised Edition to anyone in search of greater understanding of Jesus Christ.

One unfortunate criticism of the Revised Edition of Barclay's Commentaries on the New Testament is that it is somewhat inferior to the 2nd Edition. It is true that the Revised Edition has fewer pages, but this criticism does not take into account the fact that the size of the pages in the Revised Edition is larger than that of the 2nd Edition. Also, Barclay removed a number of redundancies of writing in preparing the Revised Edition. Barclay was a prolific writer, and I suspect that he improved his writing talent considerably in the 19 years between when the two editions were published. I am also hard-pressed to believe that Barclay would have compromised the message of these commentaries in any way in later editions. Further, printing technology improved considerably in that period, such that the Revised Edition is much easier on the eyes. And I would note that it is quite difficult to locate the 2nd Edition of these commentaries. I believe that the Revised Edition is a perfectly viable if not preferable substitute for the 2nd Edition.

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Summary: Barclay an excellent commentator-but beware of this edition!
Review: This edition, with minor changes and corrections, is essentially the same as the revised edition issued in 1975. What this and the previous revised edition fail to inform the reader of is that it does not contain all of the commentary text written by William Barclay. The two volumes of the revised edition of the Gospel of John contain 547 pages. However, the 2nd edition of the two volumes of the Gospel of John (published in 1956) contains 634 pages. Thus, the revised edition has 13.7% fewer pages than the 2nd edition.

This reduction in pages is not solely due to differences in formatting. It is largely due to the deletion of many portions of Barclay's commentary contained in the 2nd edition. I first noticed the selective deletion of portions of Barclay's original commentary in the commentary for John 13:33-35, in which Jesus speaks of loving one another as he loved us. In the 2nd edition, Barclay so beautifully states the following: "He [Jesus] knew all their [his disciples] weaknesses and yet He still loved them. Those who really love us are the people who know us at our worst and who still love us." However, these two sentences, along with four other sentences, do not appear in the revised edition, and they do not appear in this edition. Repeatedly, key sentences and phrases are deleted from this edition. At another point in this commentary, Barclay states that: "It is when we live with people that we find out their moods and their irritabilities and their weaknesses." Although this sentence is contained in this edition, the sentence that immediately follows it in the 2nd edition will not be found in this edition. That sentence is: "And others have the same experience with us."

Furthermore, the changes in the revised edition are not the work of William Barclay, but as William Barclay states in the introduction to the revised edition, "the work of revision and correction has been done entirely by the Rev. James Martin." Clive Rawlins, who wrote an authorized biography of William Barclay, stated in the biography that it was especially questionable for Barclay to allow republication without his own personal revision (due to Barclay's physical decline, Rawlins indicates that Barclay was unable to make the revisions himself). Rawlins was very critical of the revisions by Martin, stating that the nature of the original work was not always respected. At one point, Rawlins stated that Martin's elimination of two key phrases was a great pity and lessened the force of Barclay's statement. In the introduction to the book of Romans, Rawlins stated that it was strange that Martin should have so completely missed Barclay's emphasis in the revised edition prepared by Martin. Rawlins stated in the biography that the reduction of approximately 600 pages in the 17 volume set was because of "vigorous pruning" of Barclay's writing. In conclusion, Rawlins found that the revisions made by Martin in the revised edition "are not of the highest order."

On the other hand, I cannot emphasize enough the value of Barclay's commentaries. His knowledge of the Greek language, the Jewish culture and religion, and the Roman occupation during the New Testament era is phenomenal. Furthermore, he has a unique ability to convey this immense knowledge in a manner which is very easy for any reader to understand. William Barclay has the ability to convey to the reader not only what that passage meant to the people to whom Jesus spoke to 2,000 years ago, but what those passages say to us today. On countless occasions, I have felt that Barclay was speaking to me personally as he discussed the relevance of the passage in his commentary.

William Barclay's New Testament commentaries are the most insightful and meaningful commentaries that I have ever read, and I cannot recommend them highly enough. He has both challenged and inspired me; William Barclay's writings have truly changed my life. However, if you want to read all of what Barclay actually said instead of what some editor thought was important enough to leave in, then check with a used book store or do a used book search on the internet to get the 2nd editions of the Gospel of John or other volumes in Barclay's Daily Study Bible.