Adam Clarke

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Adam Clarke

Methodism’s First Old Testament Scholar

Cornish Methodist Historical Association Occasional Publication no. 26 1994 ISBN 0 0509323 7 X

I first looked at Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary (8 vols. 1810-1826) when doing research on Ps.103 during sabbatical leave in the spring term of 1992, when I was teaching Old Testament and Hebrew at The Queen’s College in Birmingham. This paper is the result of being intrigued by what I read there, and researching and writing it complemented work on Ps.103 for the rest of that sabbatical. I am grateful to the Executive and Officers of the Cornish Methodist Historical Association for agreeing to publish this work in their series of Occasional Publications.

Contents

Introduction	Adam Clarke Methodism's First Old Testament Scholar
1	Adam Clarke and the Psalms of David
2	Adam Clarke and the Book of Isaiah
3	Adam Clarke, Moses and the Pentateuch
4	Adam Clarke and the Authorized and other Versions
5	Reactions to Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary
6	Conclusion
7	Notes

Introduction - Adam Clarke - Methodism's First Old Testament Scholar

John Wesley believed that the Methodists were to be a Reading People. To him reading was a key way to inform one’s mind which was itself an essential part of growing in grace and holiness. Although he described himself as a “man of one book” he read widely and encouraged the Methodists to do the same. To help them he not only produced his Explanatory Notes on the New Testament in 1754 and his Notes on the Old Testament in 1765 but he also abridged, edited and published numerous other books in the Christian Library. And there is no doubt that his Notes were read and that the books in his Christian Library were read also. It is a sign of that thirst for knowledge on the part of Methodists and of how seriously Mr Wesley’s views on this subject had been listened to, that no less than four Bible Commentaries were published by Methodist preachers in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century [1]. This Occasional Publication explores parts of the Old Testament section of one of them, the Bible Commentary published in eight volumes between 1810 and 1826 by Dr Adam Clarke.

The Rev Thornley Smith edited a six volume edition of the Commentary in 1881, and the following biographical details are taken from his Memoir in volume 1. Adam Clarke was born near Londonderry in 1762, the son of the village schoolmaster. After an eventful childhood which included being lost in a bog, being taken for dead after being thrown from a horse, nearly drowning and almost becoming ensnared by dancing he met up with the Methodists and joined the Society at Mullilical, near Coleraine, in 1778 and began to preach. Mr Wesley heard of him and offered him a place at Kingswood School, but when he met him when he arrived in Bristol he laid hands on him, prayed for him and sent him to begin his work as a preacher in Wiltshire instead. He was admitted into Full Connexion at the Bristol Conference of 1783 and sent to Norwich, and next year to the East Cornwall Circuit based on St Austell. It was during that year that he had his famous fall near Ruthernbridge from the horse he had bought off Mr Wesley. It would be fair to claim that he was stationed in Cornwall again the next year, for the Plymouth Dock Circuit to which he was appointed seems to have included more of Cornwall than of Devon and stretched as far as Altarnun and Launceston. It was while working in St Austell that he brought Samuel Drew into the fellowship of Methodism, and the friendship between these two lasted for many years. Although Clarke was never again stationed in the county he visited it on at least five occasions, usually going to stay with his great friends the Mabyn family in Camelford [2]. Missionary work in the Channel Islands and marriage followed, and all the time Clarke was studying with the Biblical languages a priority. The result was that the ladies of Halifax would not have him when he was stationed there in 1789 on the grounds that he was “dull, though learned.” So he was sent to Bristol instead and on around the stations as each year passed, preaching, visiting and beginning to write. The Commentary was begun on May 1^st 1798. In 1805 he was sent to London for the second time and began to take an interest in the newly formed British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1806 he was appointed President of the Conference for the first time. From 1808-1819 he was employed by the Government to edit the new edition of Rymer’s Feodora of the Public records, though he continued much of his preaching work. The first volume of the Commentary appeared in 1810 and eleven thousand copies of it were printed. He was appointed to a second term as President of the Conference in 1814 and maintained his interest in the Bible Society and the Wesleyan Missionary Society before becoming President again in 1822. The Commentary was finished on March 28^th 1825. He died of cholera in 1832 leaving six surviving children and is buried in the City Road burial ground.

It is the contention of this paper that parts of the Old Testament sections of Adam Clarke’s Commentary are so significantly different in their approach to the subject from those of its Methodist peers, and so similar in method to what eventually became recognized as Old Testament scholarship, that Adam Clarke deserves to be called Methodism’s first Old Testament scholar. It may be that Clarke deserves to be called Methodism’s first New Testament scholar as well, but that area is outside the writer’s specialism and discussion must be left to others. It is certainly true that his immense erudition was not limited to Biblical or theological matters, and that Adam Clarke might well be described as a polymath: so the claim of this paper that he is to be regarded as Methodism’s first Old Testament scholar is not to be taken to suggest that that is all that he was [3]. Nevertheless my claim is that among his many parts Clarke was an Old Testament scholar in a way that his Methodist peers were not. Of course it all depends what is meant by scholarship. Here I mean that Adam Clarke’s work is the first example of a Bible Commentary in Methodism which is not only scholarly in the sense of being erudite and learned, but is also beginning to be free to look critically at its subject. It still has a strongly devotional and evangelical intent, but some of those other issues which came to feature on the agenda of critical scholarship are beginning to be raised as well.

To give a context for Clarke’s views I shall refer to six other commentaries on the whole Bible. For the period prior to the Commentary I shall refer to the famous and widely used Matthew Henry’s Bible of 1708-1712, which had a major reprinting in 1761. In fact Wesley had used this as the basis for his Notes on the Old Testament, so much so that his Notes are little more than an abbreviation of Matthew Henry. For the period contemporary with Clarke’s work I shall compare the Commentaries by the two Methodists Thomas Coke and Joseph Benson of 1803-1808 and 1811-1818 respectively, and that of the Anglicans G D’Oyly and R Mant, The Holy Bible with Notes, Explanatory and Practical published in London and Oxford by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1817. For the period following there is the commentary by the Methodist, Joseph Sutcliffe, of 1834 and The Holy Bible with Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy of the Anglican Church published between 1877 and 1888 [4]. Coke’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments was largely an abridgement of W Dodd’s commentary of 1770, and whilst in his General Preface Clarke is appreciative of Dodd’s work, he takes a dim view of the usefulness of Coke’s because of its omissions of such things as the marginal readings and the parallel texts of the original [5]. He makes no mention of any other of these contemporaries in the General Preface where he is acknowledging the work of others that he has found helpful.

1 Adam Clarke and the Psalms of David

The section on the Psalms in volume IV of the Commentary is dated at Millbrook on October 27^th, 1822, and the commentary itself is the result of eighteen months’ work after the Introduction was completed on March 27^th, 1821.

Section III of his Introduction to the Book of Psalms is headed, “On the Compilation of the Book, and the Authors to whom the Psalms have been Attributed.” This last phrase is a clear pointer to Clarke’s views that in the main the psalm titles are of little use in answering questions about the authorship of the psalms, for all that they do is to make attributions of authorship which have, in many cases, little or no relation to the actual facts of authorship. The first paragraph in this section reads,

After having said so much on the name and ancient divisions of this important Book, it may be necessary to say something in answer to the question, “Who was the author of the Book of Psalms?” If we were to follow the popular opinion, we should rather be surprised at the question, and immediately answer, DAVID, king of Israel! That many of them were composed by him, there is no doubt: that several were written long after his time, there is internal evidence to prove; and that many were written even by his contemporaries, there is much reason to believe.

What follows however, shows that there is a serious understatement in this paragraph. Following this reference to “internal evidence,” he goes on to say that,

The only method we have of judging (the authorship of the psalms) is, from the internal evidence afforded by several of the Psalms themselves; and from the inscriptions, which many of them bear.

From this he notes that many psalms can be traced to the days of David and to the events of his reign, but that there are others where no such conclusions can be reached. Quite how many he is not yet prepared to admit. With regard to the inscriptions he says,

… they are of slender authority: several of them do not agree with the subject of the Psalm to which they are prefixed; and not a few of them appear to be out of their places.

He then proceeds to give a list, taken from the works of Jerome, of the various psalms which have inscriptions, noting that in this list 70 are attributed to David, and adding that of the 53 which have no attribution it is probable that several of these too are by David. In Section IV he gives his own “Classification of the Psalms as they Stand in our Common Version,” and under this heading he notes that there are 73 “Psalms to which DAVID’S name is prefixed.” But then, with no further argument, he presents a conclusion which the reader cannot be expecting, that

After all that has been done to assign each Psalm to its author, there are few of which we can say, positively, “these were made by David.”

He then mentions four writers who have “taken great pains to throw some light upon this subject” (Calmet, Delaney, Chandler and Venema) and then follows Calmet’s example in offering in Section V a “Chronological Arrangement of the Book of Psalms.” His divisions are as follows:

I Psalms which contain no Note or Indication of the Time when written: 1, 4, 8, 19, 81, 91, 110, 139 and 145: total 9. Of these he adds that Ps 110 was “Probably composed by David.”

II Psalms composed by David while persecuted by Saul: 11, 31, 34, 56, 16, 54, 52, 109, 17, 22, 35, 57, 58, 142, 140, 141 and 7: total 17.

III Psalms composed after the commencement of the Reign of David and after the Death of Saul: 2, 9, 24, 68, 101, 29, 20, 21, 38, 39, 40, 41, 6, 51, 32 and 33: total 16.

IV Psalms composed during the Rebellion of Absalom: 3, 4, 55, 62, 70, 71, 143 and 144: total 8.

V Psalms written between the Rebellion of Absalom, and the Babylonish Captivity: ten in all, of which he regards three as by David - 18, 30 and 72.

VI Psalms composed during the Captivity: a total of 38.

VII Psalms written after the Jews were permitted by the edict of Cyrus to return to their own land: a total of 49.

Astute mathematicians will note that this list adds up to 147, and other observers might have seen that Ps 4 occurs twice. For some reason Pss 5, 94, 115 and 123 are omitted. More to the point, of the 73 psalms which are attributed to David “in our Common Version” (the Authorised Version is meant of course) Clarke recognises only 42 or 44, to which he adds 4 which are not so attributed in the AV (Pss 2, 33, 71 and 72), making a grand total of 46 or 48. The sums are as follows:

From his Chronological Arrangement, sections II-V	44
Ps 110 from section I which in the commentary has no “probably” about it	1
Ps 5 which he omitted completely from that list	1
Pss 63 and 138 which in the list are in section VII but in the commentary itself are regarded as Davidic	2
	48

He gives specific settings in David’s life to all these 48 psalms (to use the higher figure from the commentary rather than the list) which he accepts as Davidic, though in a number of cases he recognises that the setting is little more than supposition. The AV had only given such specific settings to 14 of the psalms, and of those Clarke agrees with the settings suggested for 8 of them (Pss 3, 30, 51, 52, 54, 57, 63, 143), disagrees with the suggested setting for 4 (Pss 7, v18, 34 and 56) and does not accept the remaining two psalms (59 and 60) as Davidic at all. In these titles the AV follows the Hebrew but Clarke’s headings seem to be his own: they are certainly not from either the Septuagint or the Vulgate. Thus of the other 29 (or 31) psalms which are regarded as Davidic by the AV he denies the Davidic authorship of two which are there given a specific setting in David’s life, and of a further 27 (to use the lower figure, based on the commentary rather than the list) which are non-specific in their headings. These figures illustrate the understatement in his opening paragraphs. He is prepared to deny the Davidic authorship of no less than 29 of the 73 psalms attributed to David by the AV.

His grounds for making these decisions are various. Not only does he consider the ancient Versions, from the obvious Septuagint, Vulgate and Targums to the more exotic Aethiopian, Arabic and Anglo-Saxon, but he also notes that different manuscripts say different things within the Versions. He is particularly indebted to the critical edition of the Hebrew Bible produced by Kennicott in 1776 and 1780, a copy of which had been given to him in 1785 by Kennicott’s sister when he was stationed at Plymouth [6]. From the Versions and the Hebrew manuscripts collated by Kennicott he knows that the inscriptions to the psalms are flimsy, varying considerably in detail across the traditions (for example the Septuagint credits David with the authorship of 12, or possibly 14, more of the Psalms than the Hebrew, and gives detailed settings in David’s life for 21 of them in all, whereas the Hebrew had given details for only 14 as we have seen). But mostly Clarke relies on “internal evidence,” and he is prepared to deny Davidic authorship on these grounds even when all the Versions and all the manuscripts are unanimous in its favour (as with Pss 65, 86, 103, 108 and 139).

Ps 8 is the first of the Davidic psalms which he does not accept: but in the commentary he makes no reference to the fact that he doesn’t regard it as Davidic. After this his courage grows, and a skim through some of his comments in the commentary is illuminating.

Some think that this Psalm was made when Doeg and the Ziphites betrayed David to Saul (see 1 Sam 22 & 23): but it is most likely that it was written during the Babylonish captivity. (Ps 12)

There is nothing particular in the inscription. The Psalm is supposed to have been written during the Captivity … (Ps 13)

… the word le david, “of David,” is improperly prefixed; as it is sufficiently evident, from the construction of the Psalm, that it speaks of the Babylonish captivity. The author, whosoever he was … (Ps 14)

The title of this Psalm has nothing particular in it: but it is not very clear that it was written by David, to whom it is attributed; though some think he composed it in the wilderness while persecuted by Saul. For this opinion, however, there is no solid ground. There is no note in the Psalm itself to lead us to know, when, where, or by whom, it was written. (Ps 19)

There is nothing particular in the title; it is simply attributed to David: but as it appears to be a thanksgiving of the Israelites for their redemption from the Babylonish captivity, it cannot with propriety be attributed to David. Some think … I rather incline to the opinion that … (Ps 23)

In the title this Psalm is attributed to David by the Hebrew, and most of the Versions: but it is more likely it was intended as an instructive and consoling ode for the captives in Babylon. (Ps 37)

… there is here added the supposed occasion on which David made this Psalm; it was “when Saul sent and they watched the house to kill him”. When the Reader considers the whole of this Psalm carefully, he will be convinced that the title does not correspond to the contents … There is not in the whole Psalm any positive allusion to this history; and there are many things in it which shew it to be utterly inconsistent with the facts of history. The Psalm most evidently agrees to the time of Nehemiah. (Ps 59)

I have only to remark here, that there is nothing in the contents of this Psalm that bears any relation to this title. (Ps 60)

By the time he gets to Ps 61 he can proceed without reference to the inscription to David and just say, “The Psalm appears to have been written about the close of the Captivity; and the most judicious interpreters refer it to that period.” Among these interpreters he clearly values Calmet, whose dating he has already acknowledged for Pss 36 and 59, and will do so for Pss 64 and 65.

Supposed to have been written during the captivity … (Ps 69)

The title attributes this Psalm to David; and in this all the Versions agree: but in its structure it is the same with those attributed to the Sons of Korah; and was probably made during the Captivity. (Ps 86)

It was composed long after David’s days. (Ps 124)

Some think … others … (Ps 131)

… notwithstanding these testimonies (of the Hebrew and the Versions in general), there appears internal evidence that the Psalm was not written by David, but during or after the times of the Captivity. As to the author he is unknown … (Ps 139)

Throughout his discussion Clarke is careful to examine the “internal evidence,” to read the psalm itself and to base his conclusions on that reading. He takes serious account of the writings of other scholars, especially Calmet, and he always looks at the readings in the manuscripts and Versions as well as that of the AV: but in the end he is prepared to override these and come to his own conclusion based on the “internal evidence.” In the same way he is prepared, on the basis of that evidence, to locate the psalms which he does accept as Davidic in specific settings in David’s life even where the AV and the ancient readings make no such specific location, and in the case of four psalms, as we noted, to argue for a different location than that given by his texts.

How does such a bold treatment of Holy Scripture compare with Matthew Henry, Wesley, his contemporaries and The Bishops and Other Clergy?

At the end of the Introduction he refers to the “helps” he has used. Kennicott’s Hebrew Bible goes without saying, and of the commentators he says that he has particularly valued the Commentary on the Psalms in six volumes published by Herman Venema in Holland in 1762-1767 and that by Samuel Horsley, the Bishop of St Asaph, which appeared in 1815. Horsley displays the same kind of freedom with regard to the authorship of the psalms that Clarke was later to exhibit, but is much more explicitly Christological than Clarke in his exposition. Above all Clarke records his indebtedness to the Commentair Literale on the whole Bible by the Benedictine, Dom Augustin Calmet, which appeared in France between 1707 and 1726. He writes that it was he who “afforded me most assistance: as he is, in almost all respects, the most judicious of all the commentators” (Psalms Introduction p.xx). He is equally fullsome in praise of Calmet in the General Preface in the first volume of his Commentary, part II. From a devotional and spiritual point of view he is full of praise for Dr William Nicolson’s David’s Harp Strung and Tuned, of 1658. In the commentary itself he gives Nicholson’s analysis, with some corrections and, omissions, after his own notes. He makes no reference in the Introduction to the Psalms to either Matthew Henry or Wesley; neither does he do so, to the best of my knowledge, in the commentary on them.

The contrast between Clarke’s work and Matthew Henry’s is enormous. Henry is in no doubt about the Davidic authorship of most of the psalms, not only of those which bear David’s name,

The penman of most of them was David … (some have other names or come from a later period) but the far greater part of them were certainly penned by David himself …

He recognises that we cannot always know on what occasion David penned a particular psalm, but doubts the Davidic authorship of not a single one of the psalms attributed to him and readily ascribes to him the authorship of many of the remainder. There is not so much as a hint that there may be any kind of question; and Wesley takes exactly the same line in his Notes. So too do Benson, Coke and D’Oyly and Mant. Sutcliffe knows that there is a question, but sidesteps it and comes to the same conclusions as the others, that David wrote all the psalms attributed to him in the AV and some of the others as well [7].

The commentary on Psalms in The Holy Bible with Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy of the Anglican Church is also quite different from Matthew Henry’s. This was published in volume IV of the series in 1880 and is the work of F C Cook, G H S Johnson and C J Elliot. On the question of Davidic authorship the introduction makes reference to the critical discussion on the Continent (pp.150-151). Vogel’s work of 1767 is cited as the beginning of a general trend in Germany to disregard the psalm titles, and the total scepticism of Hupfeld (1855) is seen as its climax. Then mention is made of other recent “German critics certainly equal in learning and honesty of purpose” who support the general trustworthiness of the titles. Finally the via media of Bleek (1860) and Moll (1869) is commended, which leads the commentators to accept over 70 psalms as the work of David and to set them in the different periods of his life! However it is the method and not the conclusions which are important for our purposes. Whilst this commentary comes to much more conservative conclusions than Clarke’s, it is clear that its methods are similar, taking considerable note of “internal evidence” and being open to scholarly discussion. The later commentary has, however, more Continental critics to draw on or to refute than did Clarke and sees its work in something like these terms, whereas Clarke did not, overly at least, adopt this approach. In mitigation it should be pointed out that apart from Vogel, all the commentators which this commentary engages with on this question date from after the publication of Clarke’s work.

The question of when “Old Testament criticism” in anything like its modern dress can be said to have begun is not an easy one, but the statement that W M L de Wette (1780-1849) of the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin and then Basle was the “founder of modern Old Testament criticism” would be acceptable to many, with his Introduction of 1806-1807 seen as inaugurating the new era. This emerging German scholarship was filtering through into some circles in England by the time of Clarke’s death in 1832 [8]. For whatever reason Clarke makes no reference to it in the General Introduction and in his commentary on the Psalms enters into no dialogue with it, and what his reaction to it might have been if and when he encountered it I am not qualified to suggest. What is abundantly clear, however, is that his agenda is very different from that of Matthew Henry, of Wesley and of his ecclesiastical peers. On the question of David and the psalms we can say that compared with them Clarke’s work “feels” modern, and compared with the commentary by the bishops and Other Clergy, which undoubtedly is “modern,” Clarke’s looks radical. On this matter Clarke may be, technically at least, pre-critical but he is in no sense un-critical. He is in fact far too critical here for Thornley Smith’s taste. In his Prefatory Notes to the Book of Psalms in his 1881 edition of Clarke’s Commentary he launches into an attack on Ewald and company because they reduce the number of psalms written by David to 17, and in so doing he quotes Clarke as saying that there are 73 psalms ascribed to David. Clarke had indeed said that, by then he had gone on to show that so many of those ascribed to David could not have been written by him, and that Smith does not mention.

2 Adam Clarke and the Book of Isaiah

The Introduction to Isaiah is dated September 24^th, 1823, at Millbrook. With regard to the Book of Isaiah I shall focus on three issues which are, in different ways, still sensitive ones in Biblical study: the unity of the book, the exegesis of Isaiah 7:14 and the discussion of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.

The Jewish scholar Ibn Ezra had tentatively questioned the unity of the Book of Isaiah in the twelfth century, but it was not until the 1780s that someone, exactly who was the first to do so is not clear, put forward a definite theory that chapters 40-66 were exilic [9]. Clarke used the first edition of Isaiah by the Bishop of London, R Lowth, published in 1779, which he describes as “an excellent Work,” but he was also familiar with the work of Ibn Ezra (called Aben Ezra in the General Preface). His method in the Notes to each chapter was to “almost universally preserve” (plain words could simply say “copy” or “quote”) Lowth and “intermingle” his own words, distinguishing them by putting them in square brackets. Of any such character as “Deutero-Isaiah” Clarke is ignorant. All 66 chapters are the work of Isaiah of Jerusalem. He is “the writer of this book” (Introduction p.xiii), and chapters 40-66 were “probably delivered in the latter part of the reign of Hezekiah” (introduction to chapter 40). In the Introduction he says that Chapters 40-49 “refer to the Messiah and the deliverance of the Jews from the Babylonians,” while the remaining chapters, “point out the passion, crucifixion, and glory, of the Messiah.” For him the “return of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon is the first, though not the principal, thing in the prophet’s view.” It is “clearly foretold” (commentary to chapter 40). At first glance Clarke is disappointing here, at lest if we are looking for someone who has read the German critics and adopted their views. There is no hint that he has read them, for one suspects that if he had he would not be afraid of arguing with them. But first glances can miss important features.

Matthew Henry, as one would expect, sees Isaiah 40-66 as a prophecy of Isaiah of Jerusalem, and like Clarke sees these chapters as going far beyond the deliverance from the Captivity in Babylon to speak of “Christ and gospel-grace.” So he hurries on to speak of this, undetained by questions of history, geography or logistics such as Clarke takes time to mention. One suspects that Clarke might have Matthew Henry among others in mind when he makes this gentle criticism,

Indeed this evangelical sense of the prophecy is so apparent, and stands forth in so strong a light, that some interpreters cannot see that it has any other, and will not allow the prophecy to have any relation at all to the return from the captivity of Babylon. (Commentary on chapter 40)

Dr W Kay writes the commentary on Isaiah in volume V of the Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy which appeared in 1880. By this time questions about the unity of the book of Isaiah are public knowledge and Kay devotes no less than 11 of the 24 pages of his introduction to a “revindication of the later chapters” (p18). He too takes the same view as Matthew Henry and Clarke, that

along with and underneath (the story of the return from Babylon) there is constant reference to a higher work of liberation. (p228)

He sees Isaiah 40 as the introduction to the Second Part of Isaiah’s book which takes up “the mystery of Part I, which spoke of a human child, who should be Immanuel – God taking part with us.” In Part II the mystery is intensified to the last degree. In 53:10 we are told that this Divine Person is “bruised” and “put to grief,” and "His soul made a sin-offering” (p223). Thornley Smith also shares the abhorrence of the emerging German scholarship in his Prefatory Note on the Book of the prophet Isaiah in the 1881 edition of Clarke’s Commentary. Thus all six commentaries under review regard the Book of Isaiah as the work of one man, though Kay (and Thornley Smith) do so against a different background to that of the earlier works. All except Coke see Isaiah 40-onwards as pointing beyond the deliverance made possible by Cyrus to the work of Christ. Coke sees nothing of Babylon at all; for him these chapters “explain the great mystery of the Kingdom of God and his righteousness in the world by the Messiah, and his forerunner and apostles.” Of the six Clarke is the one most prepared to give attention also to the historical reference of these chapters, a tendency which we can observe as well in his exposition of Isaiah 7:14 and Isaiah 53.

Clarke takes pains to set Isaiah 7 in its historical context, both in his introduction to the chapter and by inserting into the Notes on 7:14 a lengthy repeat of his own discussion of this verse in the Commentary on Matthew 1:23. The setting is the coalition of Pekah and Rezin against Ahaz, and from Lowth he explains the sign to Ahaz,

… the obvious and literal meaning of the prophecy is this: “that within the time a young woman, now a virgin, should conceive and bring forth a child, and that child should arrive at such an age as to distinguish between good and evil, that is, within a few years, the enemies of Judah should be destroyed.”

This is the “historical sense” which does not exclude “a higher secondary sense.” Clarke’s attention to linguistic detail is seen here in his long explanation that almah means “virgin” and not simply “young woman.” His free use of textual criticism, seen throughout the Commentary, can be seen here in his inclusion of Lowth’s comments, following others, that the phrase “Even the King of Assyria” in v17 is to be omitted as a gloss. His concern for the “higher secondary sense” (which is Lowth’s phrase) is seen not only in his discussion of 7:14 in relation to the Virgin Birth of Matthew 1:23 but also in the way he sees the reference to “eating butter and honey” in v15 as indicating Christ’s true humanity and the “knowing how to refuse the evil and choose the good” of v15 as showing his divine nature. This whole discussion is set out as an apologetic with “the objections and cavils of the Jews” in mind.

Matthew Henry goes into detail about the historical situation in his discussion of Isaiah 7:1-9, but when he arrives at vv14-15 he moves into a different gear. This is about the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, in 500 years time, and whilst it is an encouragement to the “House of David” he makes no comment about its relevance to King Ahaz at the time of his anxiety. Instead he regards v16 which begins, “Before this child …” (his italics) as referring to Shear-jashub, Isaiah’s own son which he is holding in his arms. By the time that he is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong the threat to Ahaz will have passed. His comments about Jesus in vv14-15 are much briefer than those of Clarke, but for Matthew Henry these verses have no other sense at all. Needless to say that for him there is no gloss in v17, the reference to Assyria is simply part of the text. Wesley follows him on every point. So do the Methodist Three. So, at much greater length, and with considerable detailed discussion at the expense of clarity does Kay. Of the six commentaries it is Clarke’s which is noteworthy for its interest in the historical setting and context of the Immanuel saying, whilst sharing with the others the higher theological interest in seeing there a reference to “Jesus, our Immanuel.”

Clarke shows no such interest in his discussion of Isaiah 53. Kay does list other interpretations than the Christological one in a Note, but though Clarke is aware of them, as we can see from the first quotation below, he gives them no mention. The tone of his own comments, which figure large in the Notes to this chapter, can be seen in these opening and closing quotations,

That this chapter speaks of none but JESUS, must be evident to every unprejudiced reader who has ever heard the history of His sufferings and death. The Jews have endeavoured to apply it to their sufferings in captivity: but alas! for their cause, they can make nothing out in this way.

In this chapter, the incarnation, preaching, humiliation, rejection, sufferings, death, atonement, resurrection and mediation, of Jesus Christ, are all predicted; together with the prevalence of His gospel, and the extension of His kingdom through all ages. (His italics)

This is the line taken by Matthew Henry who prefers to call this chapter “The gospel of the evangelist Isaiah,” rather than “The Prophecy of the prophet Isaiah” because it is “so replenished with the unsearchable riches of Christ.” The same conclusion is reached by our other commentators. Clarke is happy to quote Lowth and others and to use his own knowledge of the different texts and versions to elucidate the meaning of the verses and in v11 at least to challenge the reading of the AV: but beyond that he does not go. His view that

This Chapter contains a beautiful summary of the most peculiar and distinguishing doctrines of Christianity

effectively prevents him from asking the sort of questions about any historical context for the chapter which he was prepared to ask in the case of 7:14.

3 Adam Clarke, Moses and the Pentateuch

Clarke upholds the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch though he recognises that here and there we find interpolations. He enters into no debate with the questioning of this assumption, which had existed at least since the sixteenth century and which had been heard in England in Hobbes’s Leviathan of 1651 and which was currently being advocated by Alexander Geddes in his Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures corresponding with a New Translation of the Bible of 1800. This was a significant scholar deeply indebted to the work and friendship of both Kennicott and Lowth [10]. The fact that Clarke makes no reference in the Commentary to him or his work is in need of an explanation. Nor does Clarke make any reference to the different sources in Genesis of which scholarship had been made aware by the work of Jean Anstruc in France in 1753. He regards the opening of the second creation story in Genesis 2:4-7 as a recapitulation of the six days work of creation, sees no difficulty in the different names for God in Genesis, explains the use of the special divine name in these chapters in a discussion of Exodus 6:3, and on such details as the discrepancy between Genesis 7:2 and 7:9 or between 37:28 and 37:36 says not a word.

Here Clarke stands firmly, with his contemporaries and Sutcliffe, in the tradition of Matthew Henry. In 1877 we find E H Browne, the Bishop of Winchester, coming to exactly the same conclusions in the Genesis volume of the commentary of the Bishops and Other Clergy, though he has to spend much time combating the criticism which by this time has become established. He is equally lengthy in denying the Document Hypothesis, though he recognises, as had Clarke, that it had long been agreed that Moses could have used existing traditions, both written and oral.

The first paragraph of Clarke’s preface to Genesis deserves to be quoted in full,

Every believer in Divine Revelation finds himself amply justified in taking for granted that the Pentateuch is the work of Moses. For more than 3000 years, this has been the invariable opinion of those who were best qualified to form a correct judgment on this subject. The Jewish Church from its most remote antiquity, has ascribed the work to no other hand; and the Christian Church from its foundation, has attributed it to the Jewish Lawgiver alone. The most respectable Heathens have concurred in this testimony, and Jesus Christ and his Apostles have completed the evidence, and have put the question beyond the possibility of being doubted by those who profess to believe the divine authenticity of the New Testament. As to unbelievers in general, they are worthy of little regard, as argument is lost on their unprincipled prejudices, and demonstration on their minds, because ever wilfully closed against the Light. When they have proved that Moses is not the author of this Work, the advocates of divine revelation will reconsider the grounds of their faith.

The tone of the last sentence is difficult to grasp. Is he roundly and combatively denying the possibility that the critics of Mosaic authorship can ever be proved right? Or is he saying that if, unlikely though it is, some evidence turns up to confirm their opinions, then he would be prepared to take that on board and rethink his theology of the inspiration of the Bible? Why do I feel that, despite the rhetoric, the latter is more likely in the Adam Clarke of the Commentary? Or that, if he had been writing on Genesis in 1877 instead of 1810 he would not have had his head in the sand like the Bishop of Winchester, whose argument has all the feel of a weary tour de force attempting to defend what, deep down, the author knows is no longer defensible? Or is it that in this early stage of the Commentary’s life he is being careful not to give offence?

4 Adam Clarke and the Authorized and other Versions

The key figure in the development of the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible in the Eighteenth century is Benjamin Kennicott. He had been influenced by the work of Houbigant published in Paris between 1747 and 1753, and his mission of searching for and collating manuscripts culminated in his critical edition of the Hebrew Bible with variant readings which appeared in two volumes in 1776 and 1780. J B de Rossi added four volumes in supplement to this between 1784 and 1787, and Lowth, Newcome and Blayney based much of their commentary work in the last decades of the century on this new area opened up, not without opposition and severe criticism, by Kennicott. So too did Adam Clarke. In the General Preface he pays tribute to all of these critics, and throughout the commentary makes constant reference to the textual work of Houbigant, Kennicott and de Rossi in particular.

Thus Rogerson can say this,

The commentary is written from a completely orthodox point of view; nevertheless, it is marked by an amazing openness. Clarke was not frightened to emend the text where necessary, and he did not shrink from bold hypotheses.[11]

In one sense this sits uncomfortably with what Clarke says about the AV in the General Preface to the Commentary dated in London on July 2^nd, 1810. He calls the AV the “best translation into any language” and quotes with approval those who say that it is “the most accurate and faithful of the whole” (p.xxi), and he commends the revisions undertaken by Dr Blayney in 1769. He claims then to have re-examined not only the corrections made by Blayney, but also all the Italics which the translators thought it necessary to include to complete the sense. In these, he said, he found “gross corruption” (p.xxiii). He then refers to the Marginal Readings which the translators had used as a way of retaining variant readings, hinting that he could have added plenty of his own though he has declined to do so, preferring to keep the text of the AV as it is. But he ends this paragraph with the blunt, “Whatever emendations I have proposed either from myself or others, I have included among the Notes” (p.xxiv). In the next paragraph he ventures the opinion that in the case of the Marginal Readings, 8 out of 10 of these are to be preferred to the wording of the text itself (p.xxv). At this point one sees that his adulation of the AV is not quite what it seemed, and when the commentary itself is read examples of suggested textual emendments are frequent [12].

We have already seen his dismissal of the psalm titles as secondary, his support of Lowth’s view that the last words of Isaiah 7:17 are a gloss, and his approval of Lowth’s criticism of the AV’s reading of Isaiah 53:11. The following is a tiny and random sample of his major and minor criticisms, suggested emendations of the text or “bold hypotheses.”

Genesis 2:2 – “And on the seventh day God ended his work” should read “the sixth day.” This reading follows the Septuagint, the Syriac and the Samaritan. “Seventh” is a misreading of two similar ancient numerals. God finished his work on the sixth day, and rested on the seventh.

Genesis 3:1 - The animal which tempted Eve was not a serpent but “a creature of the ape or ouran outang kind.” Of the traditional view that the animal was a snake, which he notes goes back to the Septuagint, Clarke says in conclusion that it “appears to me to be so embarrassed as to be altogether unintelligible.” A bold, and lonely, hypothesis indeed.

Genesis 4:13 – Cain’s words in the text should be replaced by those from the margin, “Mine iniquity is greater than that it may be forgiven.”

Exodus 3:22 – The “borrow” of the AV is “not a very correct translation.” The Hebrew simply means “ask” and the mistaken “borrow” came into the English translations in Bishop Becke’s Bible of 1549 (1551).

Numbers 21:14 – “In the book of the wars of the Lord” is probably a marginal note which in the process of time got into the text.

Deuteronomy 1:1 – There is no mention of “Sea” in the Hebrew, so the place in question is not the Red Sea but some other place.

2 Samuel 21:19 – who killed Goliath? What Clarke says is worth quoting in full,

Verse 19. Here is a most manifest corruption of the text, or gross mistake of the transcriber; David, not Elhanan, slew Goliath. In 1 Chron. 20:5 the parallel place, it stands thus – Elhanan, the son of Jair, slew Lahme, the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear-staff was like a weaver’s beam. This is plain: and our translators have borrowed some words from Chronicles to make both texts agree. The corruption may be easily accounted for by considering that oregim, which signifies weavers, has slipt out of the one line into the other; and that Beth ha Lachmi, then the Bethlehemite, is corrupted from eth Lachmi: then the reading will be the same as Chronicles. Dr Kennicott has made this very plain …

Whether this is very plain or not, here we see Clarke’s approach in a nutshell. The text as we have it is wrong because it contradicts the facts, namely that David slew Goliath. So he looks for the way back to the original and inspired text, and with reference to Kennicott, the use of textual criticism and comparison with the parallel text in Chronicles he finds it. Here we see Clarke using critical method. Where he differs from the critical approach which was already getting under way in Germany is in his belief in the existence of an original inspired text and in the reliability of the story in 1 Samuel 17 that it was David who killed Goliath.

At no point does Matthew Henry engage in any kind of textual criticism and references to ancient texts and versions are few and far between. The same is true of Clarke’s peers and Sutcliffe. Of the seven examples of Clarke’s approach just cited Henry remarks on only one, Genesis 4:13, where he says that here “some make him to speak the language of despair; and read it, Mine iniquity is greater than that it may be forgiven.” D’Oyly and Mant raise three of these seven of Clarke’s points, Benson four, Coke two and Sutcliffe five: but their interest is largely the same as Matthew Henry’s, it is expository rather than critical. Both Benson and Sutcliffe have to comment on Clarke’s notorious ape, but neither mention Clarke by name. Sutcliffe says tartly, “The rabbins and the christian Doctors have largely sported their opinions here.” On the wider issues the Holy Bible with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary by the Bishops and Other Clergy makes full use of the same kinds of critical methodology as Clarke, with only a few differences of degree among the various contributors. The last four of my examples of Clarke’s approach are also raised in this commentary.

5 Reactions to Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary

Clarke writes, surely with tongue in cheek, on pp.xxv-xxvi of the General Preface,

I simply propose what I believe to be the meaning of a passage; and maintain what I believe to be the truth, but scarcely ever in a controversial way. I think it quite possible to give my own views of the Doctrines of the Bible, without introducing a single sentence at which any Christian might reasonably take offence. (His italics)

Then he adds,

And I hope that no provocation which I may receive, shall induce me to depart from this line of conduct.

From the footnote to that sentence we see that he did expect some sort of reaction,

Some Gentlemen who can know nothing of my Work, because they have never seen one line of it, have expressed, “great anxiety to see it published, that they might tear it to pieces!” I should not have believed that so unprincipled a man could be found, professing to be a Christian Minister, had I not happened to be in the place (unknown) where one of these Gentlemen was declaring it to another. It is not difficult to hit blots and no doubt, with all my conscientious care, my Work will furnish butts enow of this kind for the unprincipled and the malevolent to shoot at; from such as the above, candid criticism can never be expected, who, in opposition to every dictate of justice and mercy, condemn without hearing: - and to serve a party or a system, sacrifice decency, propriety, honour, and conscience. For the credit of the land, and particularly for the honour of the Christian Ministry, I hope few such characters as these are to be found.

His last words in the Commentary are about how it had been received thus far, and are written with obvious satisfaction. They are dated April 17^th, 1826 at Eastwood and appear in the Conclusion to Volume V at the end of the comment on Malachi,

It has been admitted into the very highest ranks of society, and has lodged in the cottages of the poor. It has been the means of doing good to the simple of heart; and the wise man and the scribe, the learned and the philosopher, according to their own generous acknowledgments, have not in vain consulted its pages. For these, and all His other mercies, to the Writer and the Reader, may God, the fountain of all good, be eternally praised!

That Adam Clarke was a figure around whom controversy gusted is agreed, and these controversies were by no means confined to theological or Biblical matters. As far as the Commentary is concerned his idea of the Eden tempter as an ape caused raised eyebrows and his views about the Eternal Sonship of Christ caused raised blood pressure [13]. Insofar as these two opinions found expression in the Commentary the response to them could be used to illustrate reaction to Clarke’s work as a commentator: but as examples of critical Biblical scholarship the first is trivial and the second is relevant only to the extent to which it illustrates Clarke’s stress on the use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture and in doing theology generally. Neither of them are particularly good examples of his use of a critical method and his openness to new ideas, and reaction to them may have drawn attention away from the much more significant radicalities of Clarke which are seen so clearly when his work is compared with Wesley’s use of Matthew Henry and with the work of Benson, Coke and Sutcliffe. Other criticism of the Commentary at the time focussed on Clarke’s dependence on the views of John Taylor in his notes on Romans, and on the weakness of his coverage of the Old Testament prophets [14].

Clarke’s Obituary in the Minutes of the 1833 Conference is fulsome yet guarded in his praise,

Without at all presuming that he was wholly free from defects, either as a man, a Preacher, or a writer, we may yet safely place him, in all these characters, among the great men of his age.

Of his writings in general it may be confidently said, they have added largely to the valuable literary and biblical stores of the country.

There is nothing specific about the Commentary, his work for the Records Office or the major controversies. The same things are absent from the obituary published in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine of 1832 (p.766), but there the reference to his contribution to scholarship is noticeably less niggardly. Sellers says that all reference to the Commentary was removed from the Conference obituary by the censorship of Jabez Bunting, but his quoted source does not substantiate his remarks and he himself suggests no reasons why Bunting should have acted in this way [15]. It does remain a strange fact, however, that the official Obituary does not make any direct reference to the Commentary, especially as in their seasons the obituaries of Benson (1821 Minutes) and Sutcliffe (1856 Minutes) refer to theirs and with some emphasis.

Three comments from nineteenth century Methodist writers can be quoted here. In 1858 T M Newnes made the following comment on the Commentary before proceeding to outline the kinds of criticisms we have already noted,

Ministers of religion of every confession have found a true and faithful friend in this Commentary, not in the way of exegesis of the sacred text, but in the way of information on all subjects relating to Biblical literature and history. [16]

Chapter III of Book VI of George Smith’s History of Wesleyan Methodism is devoted to Methodist Literature [17]. In it he makes a comparison of the four Methodist commentaries by Coke, Benson, Clarke and Sutcliffe:

Coke – “The work was deservedly well received and had an extensive circulation” (p654),

Benson – “Notwithstanding all that has since been done to promote biblical science, if we were now to be shut up to one Commentary, we know no one that we should prefer to Benson’s” (p655).

Clarke – “Hartwell Horne says of it, “The literary world in general, and biblical students in particular, are greatly indebted to Dr Clarke for the light he has thrown on many very difficult passages” (p656),

Sutcliffe – “The principle feature of this work is the beautiful and somewhat extended Reflections at the end of each chapter” (p658).

Smith goes into more detail about Clarke than about any of the others, and goes on to pay tribute to Clarke’s other writings on the Bible. On pp657-658 and p662 he writes about the Commentary,

Dr Clarke laid a solid foundation for the preparation of this great work by first translating the whole Bible into English. The Greek portion occupied him eleven months, and the Hebrew and Chaldee about fourteen months; both being accompanied by extensive notes and memoranda. The work, in our estimation, passes rather beyond the limits of Commentary, and almost assumes the character of a biblical Cyclopaedia. The amount of knowledge it embodies is diversified, extensive, and exceedingly valuable. The great fault of commentators in general is copying from predecessors. We have not unfrequently consulted half-a-dozen Commentaries in succession on a given text, and found four or five of them with the same exposition, so nearly in the same words that the common source whence it was derived was at once apparent. Dr Clarke was neither ignorant of what had been done by preceding writers, nor inattentive to their productions; but he was no servile copyist. His whole work is characterized by strong independence of opinion and judgment. This gave his Commentary many important excellencies, and a few glaring defects.

Dr Clarke’s Commentary was, from the first day of publication, eminently successful. Ten thousand copies on common, and one thousand on fine, paper were printed as a first edition. Successive editions have since been issued, and we doubt not that this great work will continue to edify and enlighten the church to the end of time.

A telling cameo can be found in Dunn’s Life of 1863. He says that Richard Watson had observed to him that, “Had Clarke been acquainted with the German Neologists, he would have filled his Commentary with extracts from them.” Dunn sees this as a nasty accusation against which he springs to Clarke’s defence with, “This witness is not true,” which he backs up with an example of Watson’s poor judgement to show that he need not be taken seriously on this point at all [18]. Needless to say, we can’t hear Watson’s tone of voice in this exchange, and what Dunn thought of German Biblical Criticism is abundantly clear, but which of them had correctly seen what Clarke’s views on the “German Neologists” (what a delightful description) would have been is interesting to speculate.

Two mentions of the Commentary in reviews of An Account of the Infancy, Religious and Literary Life of Adam Clarke (1833) may be given here,

Though great variety of opinion may obtain as to the accuracy of some of Dr Clarke’s theological statements, and though it may be questioned by some how far he has disposed of his materials with accuracy and judgement, there can but be one opinion as to the depth and variety of his learning, and as to the piety and devotion everywhere abounding in his Commentary. It is such a work as no Bible student should be without … It contains more real critical matter than any single commentary in our language; and though a careful and discreet judgement must be exercised in adopting many of our author’s criticisms, yet there will be found a large portion of solid,, excellent matter, after all reasonable deductions have been made …[19]

His Commentary, though highly learned, interesting and valuable, abounding with new and important matter, and conscientiously devoted to the setting forth the truth of God and the spiritual benefit of mankind, could not but involve a variety of controversial subjects, and some opinions which many other wise and good men did not consider tenable.[20]

These reviews amount to a health warning. For whatever reasons, and no doubt ecclesiastical politics and personalities were among them, Clarke’s Commentary merited at best two cheers in Nineteenth century Methodist and evangelical Christianity.

This can also be seen to some extent in Thornley Smith’s assessment of the Commentary. He begins his Editor’s Preface by saying that this commentary “has for some time occupied a very prominent position in Biblical Literature,” having had a circulation second only to Matthew Henry’s Commentary. He notes that it is sloppy in places, but gives an extensive quotation from the Life by J W Etheridge to say that its defects are insignificant compared with its “substantial excellencies.” He admits that not everyone regards it so favourably, and he recognises too that the work is inevitably a trifle dated because of the advances in Biblical Science since Clarke wrote, including that of “higher criticism.” Nevertheless he confesses himself honoured to have been asked to edit it for republication in 1881. It must also be said, even though it may count against the thesis of this paper, that if Clarke’s Commentary was Methodism’s first work of critical Old Testament scholarship, such criticism had little effect on its later editor for Smith’s Prefatory Notes are usually scathing in their attacks on the emerging German scholarship.

6 Conclusion

In his Wesley Historical Society Lecture of 1942 Maldwyn Edwards said of the Commentary,

(It) was written before the true beginning either of textual or historical criticism of the Bible and consequently it has small value for modern scholars. Nevertheless it can still be read with profit by the general reader, for Clarke was not merely content to translate carefully any difficult word or phrase and to illustrate from a bewildering number of ancient writings, but to make his own clear and helpful comments upon the meaning of the sacred text.[21]

More recently John Rogerson has written,

The commentary is written from a completely orthodox point of view; nevertheless, it is marked by an amazing openness. Clarke was not frightened to emend the text where necessary, and he did not shrink from bold hypotheses. The Mosaic authorship of Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch was upheld, but allowance was made for the possibility that there had been interpolations into the text … In his work on the remaining books of the Pentateuch, which followed closely upon Genesis, Clarke faced up squarely to many difficulties that would later be explained by the critical method … It is clear that in 1810, an orthodox commentator could be daring and original within the limits of the traditional views on authorship and authority …[22]

Quite what constitutes the “true beginning” of historical criticism is difficult to define, as we have see, but Rogerson confirms that Edwards is right with regard to his assessment of Adam Clarke’s relation to it. The true beginning of “modern” textual criticism is even more difficult to place, for textual criticism is a continuum going back at least to Origen, but Clarke’s approach certainly follows the line of Bentley and Bengel which leads to Greisbach and into the recognisably modern era.

Even looking at modern commentaries and attempting to compare them is an inexact and complex science, as dependent on impressions as on quantifiable data. Looking at early nineteenth century ones adds the inevitable and considerable difficulties associated with any form of historical research. Any conclusions about Adam Clarke and his Commentary will therefore be tentative as well as impressionistic: but in both areas there is, as we have seen, a perceptible difference between him and his three Methodist peers, and also between him and D’Oyly and Mant. This is most clearly seen in his treatment of the authorship of the Psalms, and whilst that can hardly be called the biggest question in Old Testament interpretation then or now it cannot be dismissed as an insignificant one. In other areas Clarke’s place in the devotional and exegetical commentary tradition may have prevented him from seeing questions that would later be asked, but ever there his approach was different, at least in degree, from that of his peers. That difference in tone and approach could be called at least “proto-critical,” for in his methodology he stands much closer to the Bishops and Other Clergy of the 1880’s, who are clearly “critical” scholars though their conclusions are often less bold than Clarke’s, than he does to his peers. Of the Old Testament sections of the four Methodist Commentaries in the early Nineteenth century Clarke’s is to be distinguished not only by its magnificent erudition and independence and originality of judgement but also by the critical nature of its scholarship.

Adam Clarke was a polymath, a scholar of many accomplishments and great knowledge. He was a Methodist preacher of considerable stature, both physical and spiritual, thrice President of the Conference and also, I suppose, Methodism’s first “minister in another appointment.” Of course he was not a scholar of any kind in the overly and exclusively specialised sense that applies in the scholarly worlds of today, for he lived before the days of our specialisms within specialisms. In no sense then does this article claim that Adam Clarke was an Old Testament scholar in that sense. But that having been said, enough has been seen of his approach in the Commentary to justify the title of this Occasional Publication, that Adam Clarke could be regarded as Methodism’s first “critical” Old Testament (and Biblical?) scholar. In the Methodist arena his Commentary and its methodology remained unparalleled until the work of W F Moulton and then that of A S Peake.

7 Notes

[1] J R Gregory in The New History of Methodism, Hodder and Stoughton, 1909, vol 1, pp421f and p393 comments: “The four great Commentaries (Coke’s, Benson’s, Clarke’s, Sutcliffe’s) were read eagerly and widely by Methodists; Clarke’s circulated largely among the general public” and “Both Clarke’s and Sutcliffe’s Commentaries were bought largely and eagerly, and were read.” J M Turner remarks that all four “circulated widely” (A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, vol 2, p104, Epworth, 1978) and N P Goldhawk refers to the four commentaries as “among the chief publications in the Wesleyan Connexion” (ibid p129).

[2] For Adam Clarke in Cornwall see “Adam Clarke’s Ministry in East Cornwall” by T Shaw in the Journal of the Cornish Methodist Historical Association, vol 7, no2, 1986, pp59-62, 83-4.

[3] J M Turner can simply refer in passing to Clarke as “Methodism’s leading scholar” (Conflict and Reconciliation, Epworth, 1985 p103). Cf W J Townsend, “Adam Clarke and Joseph Benson were the scholars of the Connexion” in The New History of Methodism vol 1, p373.

[4] Some of these Methodist commentaries are elusive. In particular, I could find no copy of Sutcliffe’s in British Methodist collections or anywhere else outside the British Library.

[5] In two of his letters Clarke expresses an even dimmer view of Coke and his commentary. In an undated letter to Joseph Benson around 1810 he complains about his treatment by the Book Committee when compared with that of Coke, taking some comfort from the fact that the Preachers know well that his work was well under way before Coke ever stepped forward (Letter no PLP/26/9/7 in the Archive Collection). Writing to Rev George Marsden of Leeds on 27^th March 1822 or 1823 he refers to the difficulty of writing a commentary as opposed to merely compiling one, and there is little doubt about who he is referring to when he writes, “to compile or vamp one is no great task even for a blockhead – but to make one is a truly Herculean task” (PLP/25/5/25).

[6] J W Etheridge, The Life of the Rev Adam Clarke LL.D. London, 1858, p261.

[7] “Whether David, therefore, or any other prophet, was employed as the instrument of communicating to the Church such or such a particular psalm, is a question which, if it cannot always be satisfactorily answered, needs not disquiet our minds. When we discern in an epistle the wellknown hand of a friend, we are not solicitous about the pen with which it was written.” From the preface to Psalms on p.424 of vol 1 of the Commentary.

[8] J Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century, London, SPCK, 1984, chapter 12.

[9] The credit is usually given to J G Eichorn (1783) and/or J C Doderlein (1789), but Rogerson (op cit p.23) notes that the Gottingen professor, J B Koppe, argued for it in 1780 in a German edition of R Lowth’s commentary of 1779.

[10] W McKane, Selected Christian Hebraists, Cambridge, 1989, chapter 5.

[11] J Rogerson, op cit p180, my italics.

[12] In a letter of 13^th May 1801 to Joseph Dutton about his intention to write a Bible Commentary he criticises the refusal of people to accept that there is a need for a new translation incorporating the fruits of modern scholarship, and wonders whether his attempt is worthwhile because few people take any notice (PLP/25/2/6).

[13] Ian Sellers documents that major controversy in his Wesley Historical Society Lecture of 1975, Adam Clarke Controversialist.

[14] J W Etheridge, op cit pp327, 332f.

[15] I Sellers, op cit p16 and note 107

[16] T M Newnes, Memoirs of the Life of the Rev Adam Clarke, Halifax, 1858, p348.

[17] G Smith, History of Wesleyan Methodism, London, 1863, pp651-659.

[18] S Dunn, The Life of Adam Clarke LL.D. 1863, p206.

[19] Evangelical Magazine, September 1833, p399.

[20] Christian Observer, December 1833, pp800f.

[21] Maldwyn Edwards, Adam Clarke, London, 1942, Epworth, p34.

[22] J Rogerson, op cit, pp180-182.

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