Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

PREFACE
TO THE FOUETH GERMAN EDITION.
It was not without a degree of apprehension that I acceded to
the request of the respected publisher, to subject to a revision the
sainted Olshausen's Commentary on the Gospels. On the one hand,
the Commentaries of Olshausen bear an impress of such marked
peculiarity that the disturbing presence of a foreign hand would be
immediately recognized ; on the other, I was aware that I differed
so widely from my lamented teacher, not only in the interpreta-
tion of many individual passages, but even in some more fimda-
mental views, that it seemed to me difficult, if not impossible, to
steer between the opposite extremes of depriving the public of
Olshausen's expositions, and of proving false to my own convic-
tions. Finally, veneration for my ever to be remembered teacher
interposed additional obstacles to any thing that looked like cor-
rection. And still I could not conceal from myself that sacred
learning had within the last fifteen years made such advancement,
that this Commentary, if it was to perpetuate and extend its bene-
ficent influence, stood assuredly in need of revision. I determined,
therefore, upon the work, and proceed now to state to the reader
the mode of procedure by which the proposed end might be most
nearly approximated.
I have frequently substituted the more for the less precise expres-
sion. (Comp. e. g. at Matt, ii. 23, Olshausen thus : " the Evangelist
has reference to that use of language which employed Nazarene in
the sense of despised," I thus : " the Evangelist has reference to the
fact that the Nazarenes were despised by the nation.") Manifest in-
accuracies (e, g. in the same place the derivation of the name Na^apet
from n:s:) have been corrected. Polemical remarks which have no
importance for the present time, have been erased ; and on the
contrary, here and there more recent literary notices have been