George Barker Stevens and The Epistles of Paul in Modern English

In 1898 Charles Scribner’s Sons of New York published a small volume entitled The Epistles of Paul in Modern English. Its author, George Barker Stevens, was then Dwight Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale University and one of the best-known writers on the theology of the Greek Scriptures in the United States. The book was not a translation in the ordinary sense. Stevens called it a paraphrase, and he described his aim as an attempt to reproduce “the thought of Paul’s epistles, and of the kindred letter to the Hebrews, in the language of to-day”. The volume belongs to a group of works produced at the close of the nineteenth century which sought to make the letters of the Greek Scriptures intelligible to readers who found the familiar wording of the English versions difficult. It is also of interest to students of the divine name, because in several passages, especially in its treatment of Hebrews, Stevens used the name Jehovah where the inspired writers quote the Hebrew Scriptures. This article considers Stevens’s life and scholarship, the purpose and method of his paraphrase, a number of its characteristic renderings, its reception and its place in the history of the divine name in English.¹

Early Life and Education

George Barker Stevens was born on 13 July 1854 in Spencer, Tioga County, New York. His parents were Thomas Jackson Stevens and Weltha Barker Stevens, and his middle name came from his mother’s family.² He studied at Cornell University from 1873 to 1875 and then moved to the University of Rochester, from which he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1877.³ He went on to study theology at Yale, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1880.⁴

Yale Divinity School had a long tradition of biblical scholarship. A history of the school records that in the 1870s George Edward Day, the first holder of the Holmes chair, was “especially distinguished nationally for his leadership in Bible revision efforts”, the work that led to the Revised Version of the 1880s.⁵ Stevens therefore received his theological education in an institution where questions about the text and translation of the Greek Scriptures were treated as matters of practical as well as academic importance.

On 23 November 1880 Stevens married Kate Abell Mattison of Oswego, New York.⁶ In the same year he became pastor of the First Congregational Church in Buffalo, New York, where he served until 1882. He then moved to the First Presbyterian Church in Watertown, New York, where he remained until 1885.⁷ During these pastorates he pursued further study and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Syracuse University in 1883.⁸

Study in Germany and Appointment at Yale

Like many American theologians of his generation, Stevens completed his training in Germany. He studied at German universities in 1885 and 1886, and in 1886 the University of Jena conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.⁹ German scholarship at this time was dominant in the historical and critical study of the Bible, and a period of residence there was regarded as a mark of serious preparation for an academic post.

In 1886 Stevens returned to Yale as professor of New Testament criticism and interpretation. A history of biblical scholarship at the school records that he succeeded Timothy Dwight in the Buckingham professorship when Dwight became president of Yale.¹⁰ He held the chair for nine years. In 1895 he moved to the Dwight professorship of systematic theology, which he occupied for the rest of his life.¹¹ The change of chair did not mark a change of interest. His most important books continued to deal with the teaching of the Greek Scriptures, and the paraphrase of Paul’s letters was written after he had become a professor of systematic theology.

Further honours followed. Illinois College awarded him a second Doctor of Divinity degree in 1902, and the University of Rochester made him a Doctor of Laws in 1903.¹² He died suddenly on 22 June 1906, at the age of fifty-two.¹³

A Scholar of Biblical Theology

Stevens’s reputation rested mainly on a series of works in the field then called biblical theology. This discipline sought to describe the teaching of each biblical writer in his own terms and historical setting, rather than arranging biblical texts under the headings of a later doctrinal system. The Biographical Dictionary of America lists his principal books as The Pauline Theology (1892), The Johannine Theology (1894), A Short Commentary on Galatians (1894), Doctrine and Life (1895), The Epistles of Paul in Modern English (1898), The Theology of the New Testament (1899), The Messages of Paul (1900), The Messages of the Apostles (1900) and The Teaching of Jesus (1901).¹⁴

He also contributed to the series of the early church writers edited by Philip Schaff. For that series he edited the homilies of John Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles and on Romans.¹⁵ The work required close attention to the Greek of a fourth-century preacher who was himself one of the most influential ancient interpreters of Paul. Stevens’s familiarity with Chrysostom’s expositions formed part of the background to his own attempt to explain Paul’s thought.

The Theology of the New Testament was published in the International Theological Library, a series of theological handbooks issued by Scribner’s. Its approach treated the teaching of Jesus, of Paul, of John and of the other writers in separate sections, each examined according to the writer’s own vocabulary and emphasis.¹⁶ The same concern to let each writer speak for himself appears in the paraphrase. Stevens did not try to harmonise Paul with other biblical writers or to bring later theological terms into his rendering. He tried instead to state what he believed Paul meant in each letter, in the order in which Paul developed his argument.

The Purpose of the Paraphrase

Stevens explained his purpose in a short preface dated at Yale University on 1 October 1898. He began by stating that he had deliberately avoided the vocabulary of the established English Bible:

“In this volume I have sought to reproduce the thought of Paul’s epistles, and of the kindred letter to the Hebrews, in the language of to-day. The terms of our English versions have purposely been avoided, so far as practicable, because their very familiarity is often a hindrance to the apprehension of the meaning.”¹⁷

He hoped, he wrote, “to awaken a fresh interest in the apostle’s thoughts by breaking up the form in which he expressed them and by setting forth his ideas in a free modern rendering”.¹⁸ The argument rests on an observation about reading habits. Words that are heard frequently in public worship can become so familiar that the reader no longer stops to ask what they mean. A fresh rendering, even one that departs from the form of the Greek, may force the reader to consider the thought again.

Stevens then set out the difficulties of Paul’s style. He listed “the apostle’s carelessness of form, his vehemence in utterance, his use of complex figures, and his involved and elliptical style” as features that “often render his meaning obscure”.¹⁹ A translation, in his view, could do little to remove these difficulties, because it was bound to represent the form of the original:

“Now a translation can only represent in English words the form of the original; it is debarred not only from introducing explanatory words, but even, to a great extent, from the use of free idiomatic English renderings. A literal translation is a kind of Anglicized Greek text.”²⁰

The phrase “a kind of Anglicized Greek text” is the most frequently quoted sentence of the preface. It expresses Stevens’s judgement that a literal translation, however accurate, “taxes the mind of the reader by compelling him to grapple with all the perplexing irregularities of the apostle’s style”.²¹

A Thought-Translation

Against the literal translation Stevens set what he called “a paraphrase, or thought-translation”. He described it in these words:

“It has seemed to me that a paraphrase, or thought-translation, which purposely disregards the form, and expresses in idiomatic English the substance of the apostle’s thought, would greatly aid the understanding of our popular versions by presenting the meaning in a fresh setting, by disentangling, in some instances, the idea from its figurative form, by expressing the implied thought of many passages, and by concentrating attention upon the main drift of the argument.”²²

Several features of this statement deserve notice. First, Stevens did not intend the paraphrase to replace the standard English Bible. Its purpose was to “aid the understanding of our popular versions”. Second, he openly acknowledged that he would disentangle ideas “from their figurative form” and supply “the implied thought of many passages”. The reader was therefore warned that much of what appeared in the paraphrase was interpretation. Third, he named his intended readers. He believed that the book would be useful “for use in schools in which Bible study is a part of the curriculum, and, especially, for use in Sunday-school classes”.²³

Stevens was also candid about the limits of his method. “It is obviously impossible to represent in a paraphrase every shade and turn of Paul’s thought,” he wrote. To do so “would require a commentary”, and commentaries were exposed to the danger “of obscuring the general sense by the elaborate treatment of details”. He had therefore “constantly aimed to bring into clear relief the central idea, the essential substance, of Paul’s arguments and exhortations”.²⁴ He accepted that “minor phases of his thought have sometimes been neglected” and judged that the omission was “justified in the interest of simplicity and clearness”.²⁵

Text and Interpretation

Although the paraphrase was free, Stevens insisted that it was grounded in the Greek. “This version of Paul’s epistles has of course been written with constant reference to the original Greek and with the aid of various critical helps for the determination of its exact meaning,” he wrote.²⁶ Where the manuscripts differed in important ways, he followed the reading that seemed to him preferable. Where scholars disagreed about the meaning of a passage, he based the paraphrase “without justification or comment, upon that interpretation which commended itself as the best”.²⁷

This was a significant choice. A translation with notes can tell the reader that a passage is disputed and set out the alternatives. Stevens deliberately did not do so. “It did not accord with the plan of this book to append to it critical notes and explanations,” he explained, and if such notes were to be added at all they would need to be done “on a far greater scale than was possible in a small volume”. He added that “there is no lack of critical commentaries for those who have the time and patience to use them”.²⁸ The paraphrase thus presents a single continuous interpretation, that of its author, and leaves the reader to consult other works for discussion of the alternatives.

Stevens ended the preface with a sentence that summarises his approach: “I have preferred simply to present my conception of the meaning of these writings in as readable a form as possible, without distracting attention by a multitude of critical details. The book should be judged by its purpose and used in accordance with it.”²⁹

The Arrangement of the Letters

The table of contents shows that Stevens did not follow the order of the letters in the English Bible. The volume begins with the two letters to the Thessalonians and continues with Galatians, the two letters to the Corinthians and Romans. Then come Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians and Philippians, followed by 1 Timothy, Titus and 2 Timothy. The letter to the Hebrews stands at the end.³⁰

This order reflects the scholarly understanding of the time about the sequence in which the letters were written. The Thessalonian letters were widely regarded as the earliest. Galatians, Corinthians and Romans were grouped together as the major letters of Paul’s missionary period. Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians and Philippians were treated as letters written during his imprisonment, and the letters to Timothy and Titus as the latest. By arranging the letters in this way Stevens invited the reader to follow the development of Paul’s thought and ministry rather than reading the letters in the traditional order, which is based largely on their length.

The inclusion of Hebrews at the end reflects the uncertainty that Stevens and many of his contemporaries felt about its authorship. He described it in the preface as “the kindred letter to the Hebrews”, a phrase that associates it with Paul’s letters while stopping short of attributing it to him.³¹ The title of the volume nevertheless speaks of the epistles of Paul, and the running heads of the printed pages bear the words “The Epistles of Paul” throughout, including in Hebrews.

The Form of the Page

The printed page of the paraphrase differs from that of a conventional Bible. Stevens did not divide the text into numbered verses. Instead he wrote continuous paragraphs, grouped under chapter headings, with the verse numbers of the standard versions placed in brackets in the margin to show which verses each portion of the paraphrase covered.³² A single sentence of the paraphrase often covers several verses, and the bracketed numbers are frequently given as ranges, such as “1-3” or “4, 5”.

The arrangement allowed a reader to keep a Bible open alongside the paraphrase and to compare the two. It also expressed Stevens’s view that Paul’s thought should be followed as a continuous argument rather than broken into separate verses. In this respect the layout shared the concern of other scholars of the period who regarded verse divisions as an obstacle to understanding the letters.

The paraphrase is written largely in the first person, as Paul’s own words. The opening of Galatians illustrates the style:

“I AFFIRM the genuineness of my apostleship (which my opponents in Galatia have called in question), and declare that I did not receive my commission from any human source, but from God, through a revelation of the risen and glorified Christ, who is the world’s Saviour from sin, and to whom belongs eternal glory.”³³

The parenthesis “which my opponents in Galatia have called in question” does not correspond to any words in the Greek of Galatians 1:1. It explains why Paul begins the letter by insisting on the source of his commission. Such explanatory additions are characteristic of the paraphrase and correspond to what Stevens described as “expressing the implied thought of many passages”.

Characteristic Renderings in the Letters of Paul

The opening of Romans shows how Stevens expanded a dense passage into a longer explanatory sentence. In the paraphrase Paul addresses the Romans “as one obligated to the will of Christ, commissioned by a divine call and specially set apart to the work of spreading the gospel which God has given to man”. The good news is described as “a message whose truths were heralded in advance by divinely inspired men in writings which, by reason of their origin and contents, are sacred, because they bear witness to the Messiah”. The Messiah is described as one “who was, indeed, in his earthly manifestation, a descendant of David, but who, in his spiritual and essential life, was proven to be God’s Son by a glorious act of power, even an act of resurrection”.³⁴ The paraphrase covers Romans 1:1–4. Words such as “obligated to the will of Christ” for the Greek term usually translated “slave” or “servant” show Stevens’s readiness to replace a familiar word with an explanation of what he believed it implied.

The description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 is given in a compressed form. “Love is patient under provocation, is not jealous of others’ good fortune, is not vainglorious or proud, is averse to unseemly contentions, is unselfish, does not yield to anger or hate, nor harbor revenge; glories not in the triumphs of wrong, but in the triumphs of righteousness; endures, trusts, expects, and perseveres without limit.”³⁵ The paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 reduces a series of short clauses to a single sentence, adding phrases such as “under provocation” and “of others’ good fortune” to make explicit what Stevens took the Greek to imply. He continues: “Love is an imperishable virtue; the gifts of prophecy, of tongues, and of knowledge serve a temporary purpose and shall pass away.”³⁶

In 1 Corinthians 10 Stevens rendered Paul’s question about the Lord’s evening meal in this way: “Do not the wine and the bread in the Lord’s supper symbolize fellowship with Christ? And does not this common fellowship with Christ constitute all believers one, even as the source of their spiritual life is one?”³⁷ The paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 10:16–17 uses the word “symbolize”, which does not appear in the Greek but represents Stevens’s interpretation of the passage.

The passage in Philippians 2 concerning the attitude of Christ was rendered with care. Stevens wrote of Christ, “who, though he existed in a divine mode of being, did not regard that state of existence as something to be eagerly grasped and retained, but relinquished it and assumed the likeness of men by taking on a servant-form”.³⁸ The expression “a divine mode of being” stands for the Greek phrase often translated “in the form of God” in Philippians 2:6. The paraphrase then continues: “Having assumed the fashion of our humanity, he stooped to suffer, in obedience to God, the shameful death of the cross.”³⁹ The words “in obedience to God” bring out the relationship between Christ and his Father that the passage describes.

Romans 9:5 is one of the passages in which translators have long differed. The question is whether the closing words of the verse describe Christ as “God” or form a separate expression of praise to God. Stevens paraphrased the verse as part of Paul’s description of Israel’s privileges, “chief of which is the descent of Christ from Jewish ancestry on his human side, while, in the depths of his being, he partakes in the nature of the blessed Deity”.⁴⁰ The rendering of Romans 9:5 avoids calling Christ “God” directly and instead speaks of his partaking “in the nature of the blessed Deity”. It is an example of the way in which Stevens, as he had warned, based the paraphrase on the interpretation that commended itself to him without discussing alternatives.

The Letter to Philemon

Not every part of the paraphrase departs far from the form of the Greek. The short letter to Philemon begins in words that are close to a translation: “Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother in the faith, to Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow-laborer in the gospel, and to Apphia, our sister, and to Archippus, our fellow-soldier in Christ, and to the church which assembles in your house: Grace and peace be with you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”⁴¹

The contrast between this passage and the expanded paraphrases of Romans and Galatians illustrates Stevens’s principle. Where the meaning of the Greek was plain, he saw no need to elaborate it. Where Paul’s argument was dense or allusive, he expanded it in order to bring out what he regarded as the essential thought. The amount of paraphrase therefore varies from letter to letter and even from passage to passage, depending on Stevens’s judgement of the difficulty of the original.

The Letter to the Hebrews

The paraphrase of Hebrews occupies the final section of the volume. It opens with a summary of the first verses of the letter:

“In ancient times God partially revealed himself by various methods to the Jewish people through men specially chosen to declare his will; in these closing days of the present age he has revealed himself to us in no less a person than his Son. To this Son, his agent in the world’s creation, God has given supreme and universal dominion. In him shines forth the radiant glory of God; he bears the impress of the divine nature; his will supports the order of the world.”⁴²

The paraphrase of Hebrews 1:1–3 uses phrases such as “his agent in the world’s creation” and “in these closing days of the present age”, which bring out the sense of the Greek in modern terms. The passage also shows Stevens’s concern to keep the distinction between God and his Son clear. God reveals himself through the Son, gives him dominion and exalts him to the seat of honour.

It is in Hebrews that the name Jehovah appears most often in the paraphrase. The letter contains many quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures, and in several places Stevens identified the speaker of those quotations by name.

The Divine Name in the Paraphrase

An examination of the digitised text of the 1898 edition shows that the name Jehovah occurs thirteen times.⁴³ One occurrence is in 1 Corinthians and the others are in Hebrews. Because the work is a paraphrase, the name does not always stand in the place of a particular Greek word. In some passages it represents the Greek word Kyrios, “Lord”, in a quotation from the Hebrew Scriptures where the original Hebrew text contained the Tetragrammaton. In others Stevens introduced the name to identify the speaker of a quotation in which the Greek text says only that God spoke.⁴⁴

The occurrence in 1 Corinthians comes in Paul’s warning drawn from the history of Israel. Stevens wrote: “Our fathers passed safely through the Red Sea under the protection of Jehovah.”⁴⁵ The Greek of 1 Corinthians 10:1 speaks of the fathers being “under the cloud” and passing “through the sea”. The paraphrase interprets the cloud as the sign of Jehovah’s protection, drawing on the account in Exodus 13:21, where Jehovah went before Israel in a pillar of cloud.

In the first chapter of Hebrews the writer argues that the Son is superior to the angels because God never addressed an angel as his son. Stevens rendered the thought in these words: “In the Old Testament we do not find Jehovah represented as applying this title to angels.”⁴⁶ The paraphrase of Hebrews 1:5 makes it clear that the speaker of the quotations from the Psalms is Jehovah, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. A few verses later, in the paraphrase of the quotations collected in Hebrews 1:10–12, Stevens wrote that “Jehovah describes him as occupying the seat of authority”.⁴⁷

In the second chapter the writer quotes Psalm 22 and Isaiah 8 as words spoken by the Son. Stevens paraphrased the passage to say that the Saviour addresses men as his brothers, “expressing, in common with them, his trustful dependence on Jehovah”.⁴⁸ The paraphrase of Hebrews 2:12–13 thus identifies Jehovah as the God in whom the Son places his trust, a point of some theological significance.

In the third and fourth chapters the writer recalls Israel’s experience in the wilderness. Stevens wrote that “the Scripture describes the indifference and disobedience of the people under the leadership of Moses, in consequence of which Jehovah declared that they should not enter the promised land”.⁴⁹ The paraphrase covers the quotation from Psalm 95 in Hebrews 3:7–11.

The seventh chapter contains several occurrences. Stevens wrote that the priesthood of Christ “is fitly typified by that of Melchizedek”, as is seen “in the fact that in the name of Jehovah this royal priest pronounced a blessing upon Abraham”.⁵⁰ The paraphrase of Hebrews 7:1 draws on Genesis 14:18–20, where Melchizedek blesses Abraham by the Most High God. Later in the chapter Stevens wrote that Christ “was declared a priest by the solemn oath of Jehovah”, and that the priest of the new covenant “whom Jehovah has appointed by his oath is a Son”.⁵¹ Both passages relate to the quotation of Psalm 110:4 in Hebrews 7:21, a psalm whose Hebrew text contains the Tetragrammaton.

In chapter 8 Stevens referred to “the Mosaic tabernacle, whose construction Jehovah directed”, and to the prophets, “who describe Jehovah as promising his people a new covenant”.⁵² The second of these passages corresponds to the quotation from Jeremiah 31:31–34 in Hebrews 8:8–12, a passage in which the Hebrew text repeatedly contains the expression “declares Jehovah”. The final occurrence is in chapter 10, where Stevens wrote that “in the Scripture Jehovah solemnly declares that he will punish his foes”.⁵³ The paraphrase of Hebrews 10:30 reflects the quotation from Deuteronomy 32:35–36.

The Significance of His Usage

Stevens did not explain his use of the divine name in the preface, and he did not use it consistently throughout the volume. In the letters of Paul the name appears only once, although Paul quotes many passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that contain the Tetragrammaton. In Hebrews the name appears repeatedly. The pattern suggests that Stevens used the name chiefly where he considered that identifying the speaker of a quotation would clarify the argument, as in the opening chapters of Hebrews, where the contrast between God, his Son and the angels is central.

Whatever his reasons, the paraphrase shows that a leading American theologian of the late nineteenth century found the name Jehovah appropriate in a work intended for schools and Sunday-school classes. In the context of Hebrews, the name helped to distinguish the God who speaks in the Hebrew Scriptures from the Son, whom that God addresses, appoints and exalts. A modern reader of the Hebrew Scriptures will recognise that many of the quoted passages, such as Psalm 110:4 and Jeremiah 31:31, contain the divine name in Hebrew.

The Greek word Kyrios, “Lord”, was used in copies of the Septuagint available in the first centuries of the Common Era to represent the divine name, and the same word was used of Jesus and of human masters.⁵⁴ A translator who renders every occurrence as “Lord” leaves the reader to decide in each case whether the word refers to God or to Christ. Stevens’s practice in Hebrews resolves the question in a number of passages by naming God. In this respect his paraphrase shares a concern found in several other English works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Reception and Use

The Epistles of Paul in Modern English was published by a major New York firm.⁵⁵ It was one of the first of a number of paraphrases and modern-speech renderings of the letters that appeared around the turn of the twentieth century. In Britain, W. G. Rutherford published a new translation of Romans in 1900, and in the following decades a series of modern-language translations of the Greek Scriptures appeared in both Britain and the United States.

Stevens’s book did not attempt to compete with these translations. Its explicit purpose was to serve as an aid to the study of the standard versions, and its form, without notes and with bracketed verse references, was designed to make that use convenient. The intended readers were students and teachers rather than scholars, and its value lay in presenting a continuous interpretation of the letters in clear modern English.

Its method anticipated in some respects the modern-language renderings of the twentieth century that sought to convey the sense of the letters in contemporary idiom. Two of Stevens’s later books continued the same method. The Messages of Paul and The Messages of the Apostles, both published in New York in 1900, are listed in an appendix of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures among English works that use “Jehovah” in the main text of some or various verses.⁵⁶ The first edition is now freely available on the Internet Archive.⁵⁷

Assessment

The paraphrase has the strengths and limitations that Stevens himself identified. Its strength is clarity. A reader who finds Paul’s arguments difficult to follow in a literal translation can see in Stevens’s paraphrase how an experienced scholar understood them, presented in continuous prose and in the order in which Paul developed them. The paraphrase is especially helpful in passages where Paul’s thought is compressed, such as the opening of Romans, and in passages where a familiar wording may obscure the sense.

Its limitation is that the reader cannot easily tell where the text ends and the interpretation begins. Stevens acknowledged that he based the paraphrase on the interpretation he judged best, “without justification or comment”. In passages such as Romans 9:5 and Philippians 2:6, where translators have differed for centuries, the paraphrase gives only one view. Stevens’s own warning that “the book should be judged by its purpose and used in accordance with it” remains a fair guide to its use.⁵⁸ It was intended to be read alongside a translation, not in place of one.

The use of the divine name in the paraphrase is a modest but notable feature. In Hebrews, where the argument depends on the relationship between God and his Son, Stevens repeatedly named Jehovah as the speaker of the quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures, as the one in whom the Son trusts, and as the one who appointed him priest by an oath. These renderings show a recognition, on the part of a respected scholar, that the name of God belonged in an accurate presentation of the thought of the inspired writers.

Conclusion

George Barker Stevens spent most of his career explaining the teaching of the Greek Scriptures to students and readers. His books on the theology of Paul, John and the Greek Scriptures as a whole were widely used in their time. The Epistles of Paul in Modern English applied the same concern to a different form. It sought to free the thought of Paul from the familiarity of the standard wording and to set it out in clear modern prose for schools and Sunday-school classes. Stevens’s candid account of his aims and limits in the preface remains a useful statement of the case for, and the dangers of, the paraphrase as a means of studying the Scriptures. In its treatment of Hebrews, the volume also gave the divine name a place that most English versions of his day did not.

Notes

1. George Barker Stevens, The Epistles of Paul in Modern English (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), Preface, p. v, Internet Archive. ↩
2. The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10, “Stevens, George Barker”, Wikisource. ↩
3. Ibid. See also University of Rochester, Grokipedia. ↩
4. Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10, “Stevens, George Barker”. ↩
5. “Biblical Scholarship at YDS, A Bicentennial Retrospective”, Yale Divinity School Library, PDF. See also Yale Divinity School and Revised Version, Grokipedia. ↩
6. Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10, “Stevens, George Barker”. ↩
7. Ibid. ↩
8. Ibid.; “Biblical Scholarship at YDS”. ↩
9. Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10, “Stevens, George Barker”. ↩
10. “Biblical Scholarship at YDS”. ↩
11. Ibid.; Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10. ↩
12. Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10, “Stevens, George Barker”. ↩
13. “Biblical Scholarship at YDS” records his “sudden death at age 52 in 1906”. The date of 22 June 1906 is given in contemporary newspaper reports, among them The New York Times, 23 June 1906. ↩
14. Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10, “Stevens, George Barker”. ↩
15. Ibid. ↩
16. George Barker Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899), International Theological Library. ↩
17. Stevens, Epistles of Paul in Modern English, Preface, p. v. ↩
18. Ibid. ↩
19. Ibid. ↩
20. Ibid., pp. v–vi. ↩
21. Ibid., p. vi. ↩
22. Ibid. ↩
23. Ibid. ↩
24. Ibid., pp. vi–vii. ↩
25. Ibid., p. vii. ↩
26. Ibid. ↩
27. Ibid. ↩
28. Ibid., pp. vii–viii. ↩
29. Ibid., p. viii. ↩
30. Ibid., Contents. ↩
31. Ibid., Preface, p. v. ↩
32. Ibid., passim. ↩
33. Ibid., Galatians, chap. 1, p. 23. ↩
34. Ibid., Romans, chap. 1, p. 147. ↩
35. Ibid., 1 Corinthians, chap. 13. ↩
36. Ibid. ↩
37. Ibid., 1 Corinthians, chap. 10. ↩
38. Ibid., Philippians, chap. 2. ↩
39. Ibid. ↩
40. Ibid., Romans, chap. 9, p. 177. ↩
41. Ibid., Philemon, p. 211. ↩
42. Ibid., Hebrews, chap. 1, p. 291. ↩
43. Count made from the digitised text of the 1898 edition on the Internet Archive. ↩
44. On the Greek word, see Kyrios and Tetragrammaton, Grokipedia. ↩
45. Stevens, Epistles of Paul in Modern English, 1 Corinthians, chap. 10, p. 77. ↩
46. Ibid., Hebrews, chap. 1, p. 291. ↩
47. Ibid. ↩
48. Ibid., Hebrews, chap. 2. ↩
49. Ibid., Hebrews, chaps. 3–4. ↩
50. Ibid., Hebrews, chap. 7, p. 303. ↩
51. Ibid. ↩
52. Ibid., Hebrews, chap. 8. ↩
53. Ibid., Hebrews, chap. 10. ↩
54. See Kyrios and Koine Greek, Grokipedia. ↩
55. Stevens, Epistles of Paul in Modern English, title page. ↩
56. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (2013), appendix C4, entries J68 and J89, Watchtower Online Library. ↩
57. Internet Archive. ↩
58. Stevens, Epistles of Paul in Modern English, Preface, p. viii. ↩