Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owens

In a wonderful gift to the church, Crossway has decided to provide free online access (pdf) to the recently released edition of Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owens and edited by Justin Taylor and Kelly M Kapic. I have begun reading this volume and it's marvelous. Moreover, Taylor and Kapic have really served us by transforming text like:

"The fame might alfo be fhewed concerning the reft of thofe Churches...."

into the far more readable

"The same also might be showed concerning the rest of those churches...."

Additionally, in their own words, they have

  • written an introduction to Owen's life and theology
  • provided overviews of the thesis and arguments for all three books
  • footnoted difficult vocabulary words or phrases and collected them into a glossary
  • Americanized the British spelling (e.g., behaviour to behavior)
  • updated archaic pronouns (e.g., thou to you)
  • updated archaic verbs (e.g., hath to have)
  • updated archaic verb endings (e.g., requireth to requires)
  • updated some archaic word forms (e.g., concernments to concerns, surprisals to surprises)
  • modernized some of the punctuation
  • placed Scripture references in parentheses
  • added Scripture references in brackets when Owen quotes or alludes to a passage but does not provide a reference
  • transliterated all Hebrew and Greek words, moving the original font to a footnote and providing a translation if Owen didn’t provide one
  • translated all Latin phrases that Owen leaves untranslated
  • provided sources for quotations and allusions where possible
  • removed Owen’s intricate numbering system which functioned as an extensive outline
  • added headings, italics, and extensive outlines to aid the reader in following the flow of Owen’s thought
Highly recommended.

ht: Justin Taylor

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