PMW 2021-024 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

In my previous three postings I have been noting the significance of Milton Terry’s commentary as I plan to bring it back into print. Thankfully, Biblical Apocalyptics has remained in print over the years and has included “The Apocalypse of John” as a major portion of it. But the published versions have been created by merely scanning the original text, then printing it “as is.” No attempt at resetting the type was engaged. Thus, the quality of reproduction was quite low.

Though we are not changing any of Terry’s positions, we are editing it for a modern readership. In our newly typeset version of Terry’s The Apocalypse of John the reader will find the following improvements.

Blessed Is He Who Reads: A Primer on the Book of Revelation
By Larry E. Ball

A basic survey of Revelation from an orthodox, evangelical, and Reformed preterist perspective. Ball understands John to be focusing on the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. Insightful. Easy to read.

For more Christian studies see: www.KennethGentry.com

We are using a modern type-font: AmerigoBT. This makes the text cleaner, being aesthetically more pleasing in appearance as well as easier on the eyes. This is especially an advance over the older, scanned versions of his commentary.

Long paragraphs and sentences have been broken down into smaller sizes according to modern style. When sentences were broken into more comfortable sizes, we sometimes had to add a word or two of transition to make it flow smoothly. We also inserted serial (or Oxford) commas for greater clarity. In addition, we abbreviated parenthetical notes to lighten up the style. This included abbreviating parenthetical verse references (e.g., Matthew to Matt.), using the standard abbreviation “cp.” instead of either the bulkier “comp.” or the full word “compare,” and so forth.

We have also modernized some of the nineteenth-century language, Thus, we replaced some words and phrases with their modern counterparts. This included replacing the following words: “wont to be,” “ye,” “builded,” “must needs.” “wroth,” “sware,” “anon,” “sitteth,” “like unto,” and so forth. However, we did not change his direct quotations from Scripture, which also involved some antiquated language. For often his argument required a direct citation of the verse. According to Terry’s statement in Biblical Apocalyptics (Preface, p. 7), the Bible version he used was “in the main” that of the Anglo-American Revised Version of 1881.

The original commentary appeared as a single chapter of 228 pages in one large book. Thus, it was necessary to break down the material into several chapters to present it as a free-standing book. In the process we have unified the layout style which sometimes shifted in the original.

Antiquated Roman numerals have been replaced with Arabic numbers throughout. We have employed modern style for ancient references such as to Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, etc. For instance, we changed Josephus’ “Wars, bk. iv, 4, 5” to “Wars 4:4:5.

The Book of Revelation Made Easy
(by Ken Gentry)

Helpful introduction to Revelation presenting keys for interpreting. Also provides studies of basic issues in Revelation’s story-line.|

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

To make the commentary more accessible to a broader audience, we added English transliterations to the Greek and Hebrew characters found in the original.

We have made it easier to search for a commentary note, not only by breaking up Terry’s long paragraphs. But by bolding the Revelation quotations being commented on and by adding the Scripture addresses to each newly introduced quote (which was necessary since we broke down the larger paragraphs).

Hopefully our labor will not have been in vain and Terry will be more easily received by a new generation. We trust that you will find Terry as interesting and helpful as we have. He is certainly not inspired, but he is inspiring. He will challenge your thinking.

Coming soon (probably in April, 2021):

Tagged: Milton S. Terry