# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1855_S136
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

136 Lutheran-Theological Pastors’ Library.

That these works were written with dogmatic concerns in mind is, for us Lutherans, an advantage that cannot be praised highly enough, since we know that Lutheran dogmatics is nothing other than biblical theology, and that violence has certainly been done to the language whenever supposedly impartial linguistic research leads to conclusions about the content of Holy Scripture other than those set forth in our dogmatics. The fact that scholars today are so eager to bring our old aids for understanding the original biblical text into contempt, or at least into oblivion, is plainly all too often rooted in a disgust for the faith which those aids serve, and not in any deficiency in their linguistic scholarship, as they would like us to believe. One must often observe with astonishment how skillfully modern writers have made use of the works of the ancients for their productions, which are intended to displace everything old, while nevertheless seeking to discredit the very sources from which they themselves have frequently drawn their wisdom. Here the proverb often applies: What is good in them is not new, and what is new is not good. — For beginners in the Greek language, we should also mention here Georg Pasor’s small Greek-Latin concise dictionary, which was published in various places and at various times under the title “Georgii Pasoris Manuale N. T.” Although it comes from so long ago, according to oral statements it nevertheless found favor even in Winer’s eyes as a still very useful little book. This pocket lexicon is especially valuable for those who have not yet mastered the grammatical forms. Moreover, we have been all the more pleased to mention here the lexicographical works of Stock and Pasor because these in particular can easily be obtained through antiquarian booksellers at a very low price.

3. In the third section of the field of exegesis we place the writings that contain biblical isagogics.

a. As far as Old Testament isagogics is concerned, the most reliable and useful work that a Lutheran theologian can still use as a foundation in this branch of sacred scholarship is a two-part work by Johann Gottlob Carpzov (son of Samuel Benedikt Carpzov, senior court preacher in Dresden), formerly professor of Oriental languages in Leipzig, who died in 1767 while serving as superintendent in Lübeck. The first part of this two-part work was most recently published in Leipzig in 1728 under the title “Critica Sacra Veteris Testamenti,” in quarto. The work is divided into three parts: the first deals with the divine origin, authenticity, purity, integrity, and divisions of the original Hebrew text; the second part deals with the translations that serve textual criticism (especially the Chaldean, Greek, Samaritan, and Latin translations); the third part, finally, contains an altogether excellent critique of the pseudo-criticism of the notorious Arian and Baptist Will. Whiston (d. 1752), and the refutation of dangerous claims concerning the divine text