Over at Euangelion, Mike Bird has draw attention to the death of C. F. D. Moule, former Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. I still remember reading his book The Birth of the New Testament, and wondering why other writers of New Testament Introductions needed to write books two or three times as long, to say half as much that was important for understanding where the New testament came from and what it was about.
I also remember R E O White, former Principal of our College, coming to teach us NT Greek armed with Wenham’s Elements of NT Greek, Arndt and Gingrich’s Lexicon, and C F D Moule’s Idiom Book of NT Greek, to answer the more elusive questions about this or that text. Below is a revealing extract from Moule, a friendly caution to those of us who live by words, and written in Moule’s little book The Holy Spirit. The book was written in 1978, when a lot of words were written about the Holy Spirit, charismatic experience and renewal, much of it anecdotal, only some of it theologically grounded, and even less of it related through careful scholarship to the evidence of the NT documents. Moule offered neither comfort for charismatics, nor ammunition for anti-charismatics – instead, measured reflection refusing to rush to conclusions:
Words are feeble things – never adequate for the job; yet priceless things – seldom dispensable. They are dangerous things, for they are so fascinating that they tempt the user to linger with them and treat them as ends instead of means. But the Word became flesh; and a word that is not in some way implemented goes sour and becomes a liability instead of an asset.
Charles was an important name in 20th Century British New Testament scholarship – Charles H Dodd, Charles Kingsley Barrett and Charles Digby Moule. I think it would be a good idea to have an alternative to the calendars of saints – how about a calendar of biblical scholars when we celebrate through the year, the gift to the church of countless hours of labour and devotion, poured like precious nard, upon those ancient documents that together we call the Bible. And on their feast day, a reading from that part of Scripture on which they have shed the light of their learning? Open for suggestions…..
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