Preaching's Survey of Bibles and Bible Reference

Biblical Foundations Award Winner

InterVarsity Press is proud to present The Lightfoot Legacy, a three-volume set of previously unpublished material from J. B. Lightfoot, one of the great biblical scholars of the modern era.

In the spring of 2013, Ben Witherington III discovered hundreds of pages of biblical commentary by Lightfoot in the Durham Cathedral Library. While incomplete, these commentaries represent a goldmine for historians and biblical scholars, as well as for the many people who have found Lightfoot's work both informative and edifying, deeply learned and pastorally sensitive.

Among those many pages were two sets of lecture notes on the Acts of the Apostles. Together they amount to a richly detailed, albeit unfinished, commentary on Acts 1-21. The project of writing a commentary on Acts had long been on Lightfoot's mind, and in the 1880s he wrote an article about the book for the second British edition of William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. Thankfully, that is not all he left behind.

Now on display for all to see, these commentary notes reveal a scholar well ahead of his time, one of the great minds of his or any generation. Well over a century later, The Acts of the Apostles remains a relevant and significant resource for the church today.



Ben Witherington III (PhD, University of Durham) is Jean R. Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He has written over forty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, bothof which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. His books also include The Indelible Image, Women and the Genesis of Christianity, The Gospel Code, A Week in the Life of Corinth, and commentaries on the entire New Testament.







Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828–1889), also known as J. B. Lightfoot, was an English theologian, preacher, canon of St Paul's Cathedral and bishop of Durham. His writings include essays on biblical and historical subject matter, commentaries on Pauline epistles and studies on the Apostolic Fathers as well as four posthumously published volumes of sermons. Lightfoot attended King Edward?s School in Birmingham before attending Trinity College in Cambridge where he was elected a Fellow of his college. He became a tutor of Trinity College in 1857 and later a professor of divinity, editing the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology from 1854 to 1859. In 1871, Lightfoot became canon of St. Paul?s Cathedral, preaching regularly and participating in various ecclesiastical activities. He gained enormous popularity for his work Essays on the Work Entitled Supernatural Religion, a defense of the New Testament in response to Walter Richard Cassel?s Supernatural Religion. In 1870, Lightfoot became Bishop of Durham, where he continued his theological study, writing, and preaching. Lightfoot wrote commentaries on Galatians, Philippians and Colossians and Philemon, and his newly discovered commentary notes on Acts, John, 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter are being published in the three-volume Lightfoot Legacy set.







Todd D. Still (PhD, University of Glasgow) is Charles J. and Eleanor McLerran DeLancey Dean and the William M. Hinson Professor of Christian Scriptures at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University. He is the author of Thinking through Paul: A Survey of His Life, Letters, and Theology (coauthored with Bruce W. Longenecker), Philippians Philemon, and Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways into an Old Debate.



Abbreviations

Foreword

Editors? Introduction: J. B. Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator



Part I: Introduction to Commenting in General



Part II: Introduction to Acts—Preliminary Matters



Part III:The Commentary on Acts



The Superscript



The Preface



Ascension, Judas? Demise, the Filling Up of the Twelve (Acts 1)

Excursus: On the Historical Problem of the Varying Accounts of Judas? Demise



Pentecost and Its Aftermath (Acts 2)



The Beginnings and Trials of the Church in Jerusalem

(Acts 3?6)

Excursus: The Sanhedrin and the High Priests

Excursus: The Primacy of Peter

Excursus: The Diaconate



The First Martyr for Christ (Acts 7)

Excursus: The Tabernacle

Excursus: The Authenticity of the Speech of St. Stephen



Simon, the Samaritans, and Philip (Acts 8)

Excursus: Simon Magus

Excursus: Conversion of theEthiopian



The Conversion of Saul (Acts 9)



The Surprising Story of Cornelius (Acts 10)



Trouble in Zion—Peter Explains (Acts 11)



The Persecuted Church and the Dawn of the Mission of the Persecutor (Acts12)



The First Missionary Journey (Acts 13?14)

Excursus: St. Paul?s Apostolic Journeys



The Apostolic Council and Its Aftermath (Acts 15)



The Second Missionary Journey (Acts 16)



Macedonia and On to Athens (Acts 17)

Excursus: The History of St. Paul?s Days at Thessalonike



And So to Corinth (Acts 18)



Finally at Ephesus (Acts 19)



The Third Missionary Journey (Acts 19:21?21:39)

Excursus: Timothy and Erastus

Excursus: The Speech of St. Paul at Miletus



Conclusions on the Rest of Acts



Appendix A: Lightfoot?s Article on Acts for Smith?s Dictionary of the Bible

Appendix B: Illustrations of the Acts from Recent Discoveries

Appendix C: St. Paul?s History After the Close of the Acts

Appendix D: The Obituary/Homage to Lightfoot



Author Index

Scripture Index