Comt-Geneva-Daniel (Geneva S)

Young, E J

ISBN 10: 0851511546 ISBN 13: 9780851511542

Publisher: Banner of Truth, 2005

Synopsis

In the absence of a good commentary on Daniel, the average Christian has either tried to understand the book by means of some ill-founded scheme of prophetic interpretation or, too often, simply abandoned any attempt to grasp its message. Yet Daniel is altogether too important to be so treated. Without the revelation which its pages contain, we lack some of the most magnificent demonstrations of God’s rule in history as well as several far-reaching disclosures of the kingdom which is to conquer all.

Edward J. Young attained to his high reputation as Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary as the result of the many gifts with which he was endowed. These are soon apparent in this present work. The finer points of Hebrew and Aramaic, the literature of earlier commentators on Daniel, and the history of the ancient world – all these are departments of knowledge which he is well able to employ. But Dr. Young’s overruling purpose is simply to give – for the use of ministers and for every serious reader of the Word of God – the accurate sense of the text. The Scriptures themselves must speak. In his estimation, therefore, faith in Scripture is the prerequisite for the true commentator. Over against a commonly held view, he makes it plain that in the interpretation of Daniel the issue is not between unintelligent obscurantism and scientific scholarship; it is rather between a believing scholarship and a skeptical rationalism.

‘The people that do know their God shall be strong’, wrote Daniel. It was not as a learned exegete but as a humble pupil in the school of God that E. J. Young taught the Scriptures until his death in 1968. His commentary on Daniel is a valuable part of his legacy to the church.

About this title

About the Author

Edward Joseph Young (1907-1968) was Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary from 1936 until his death. He had an early interest in languages – having felt a call to the ministry when he was only fifteen and a student at Lowell High School in San Francisco, he thereupon started to study Greek. He had a speaking or reading knowledge of at least twenty-six languages, and most of these were self-taught. Following his graduation from Stanford University in 1929 (A.B.), he spent a year in Palestine where he taught school in Bethlehem and studied Syriac with a priest of the Syrian Church. During this same year, he crossed the Sinai desert with another American guided by two Arabs. The trip took a month and was made by camel. His second year abroad was spent travelling through Europe, learning more and more languages, seeing the places where Paul preached, studying in Germany and Spain, cycling through England.

After receiving the Stevenson Fellowship upon graduation from Westminster Seminary in 1935 (Th.B., Th.M.), he married Lillian Riggs Borden and made the trip to Leipzig, Germany, a honeymoon as well as an opportunity to study under outstanding scholars. He was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from 1935-36 and then in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from 1936. In 1943 he obtained his Ph.D. degree in Semitic languages from Dropsie College, Philadelphia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Banner of Truth
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0851511546
• ISBN 13: 9780851511542
• Binding: Library Binding
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336