First published in 2008 by
SAINT ANDREW PRESS
121 George Street
Edinburgh EH2 4YN
Copyright © The William Barclay Estate, 1975, 1976, 2001, 2002, 2003
ISBN 978 0 7152 0860 1
eISBN 978 0 8615 3661 0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent.
The right of William Barclay to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Typeset by Waverley Typesetters, Fakenham
Printed and bound by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow
Contents
The man who sentenced Jesus to death
The glory of departure and the glory of return
Foreword
At last! I’ve discovered William Barclay, the Christian’s best kept secret (at least to this generation!) and he’s brilliant. I would describe his commentaries as the theological Brodie’s Notes I’ve been searching for and didn’t know exist. Thanks to Barclay I’m now devouring my Bible in the same insatiable way some devour a bestselling novel. The Bible is brimming with texture and dimension and history and politics and romance and heartache and promise and love and more and at last it is coming into full focus for me.
My new-found Bible-reading experience reminds me of the satisfaction I used to have as a professional actress during rehearsals. The process of transforming the words on the page of my script into a believable, living, breathing character, thrilled me. I revelled in the creative collaboration between actor and director as we strove to get to the heart of the play. Ultimately though, it was the director’s responsibility to have an overview, to capture the meaning of the play – in short, to tell the story.
It can be argued that, similarly, the Insights series takes on the role of director in breaking with tradition to examine the Easter story. Even though this method, like that of any other serious Bible commentary, involves extensive, critical examination and interpretation of the text, it opts out of following the conventional verse-by-verse structure. Instead, it examines the Easter story by leap-frogging around scripture ‘for the sake of keeping the narrative continuous’.
At first glance, this approach may seem chaotic, but it soon becomes evident that looking at the story from different ‘camera angles’ (whether it be form one of the gospels, or Acts or Corinthians) enhances the intensity of the story. The insight gained by galvanising the narrative tool transforms our understanding.
In my opinion, the decision to use this device is a stroke of genius as it allows the commentary to go beyond the boundaries of a typical exegesis. It
