Some of the best evidence for the early development of literary criticism before Plato and Aristotle comes from Athenian Old Comedy. Playwrights such as Eupolis, Cratinus, Aristophanes and others wrote numerous comedies on literary themes, commented on their own poetry and that of their rivals, and played around with ideas and theories from the contemporary intellectual scene. How can we make use of the evidence of comedy? Why were the comic poets so preoccupied with questions of poetics? What criteria emerge from comedy for the evaluation of literature? What do the ancient comedians' jokes say about their own literary tastes and those of their audience? How do different types of readers in antiquity evaluate texts, and what are the similarities and differences between 'popular' and 'professional' literary criticism? Does Greek comedy have anything serious to say about the authors and texts it criticizes? How can the comedians be related to the later literary-critical tradition represented by Plato, Aristotle and subsequent writers? This book attempts to answer these questions by examining comedy in its social and intellectual context, and by using approaches from modern literary theory to cast light on the ancient material.

Get back to the roots on Revelation Through the centuries since its writing, the book of Revelation has captured the fascination of the Christian church. The earliest Christians were unanimous in understanding it along a premillennial view of Jesus' second coming, but other hermeneutical approaches began to emerge in the third century. These clouded, and added complexity to, the task of explaining the book’s meaning. For most of the Christian era, consequently, many readers have viewed this last of the NT writings as though it were hopelessly embedded in an aura of deep mystery. An avalanche of interpretive literature has evidenced remarkable interest in the book’s contents, but along with the interest has come widespread bewilderment. Written especially for the informed layman, student, and scholar, this commentary seeks to clear the air. The book is interpreted according to a historical and grammatical hermeneutic and propounds a conservative, evangelical theology, but the reader will not get a narrow view on areas of disagreement. This commentary interacts with a range of major views, both evangelical and nonevangelical. It reaffirms the basic framework of eschatology espoused by ancient Christianity, but with added help from centuries of maturing thought and doctrinal progress in the Body of Christ. All exegesis and exposition in this 2-volume commentary are based on the original language of the text. Translations used are those of the author, and textual criticism and word study are included where appropriate. This in-depth commentary also includes extended excursuses on important topics of theological and historical interest.

At the dawn of recorded medical history Hippocrates stands for the fundamental and primary importance of seeing clearly—that is of clinical observation. And what he observed was that the human organism, when exposed to certain abnormal conditions—certain stresses—tends to behave in a certain way: that in other words, each “disease” tends to run a certain definite course. To him a disease was essentially a process, one and indivisible, and thus his practical problem was essentially one ofprognosis—“what will be the natural course of this disease, if left to itself?” Here he found himself to no small extent in opposition with the teaching of the neighbouring medical school of Cnidus, where a more static view-point laid special emphasis upon the minutiae of diagnosis. Observation taught Hippocrates to place unbounded faith in the recuperative powers of the living organism—in what we sometimes call nowadays the vis medicatrix Naturae. His observation was that even with a very considerable “abnormality” of environmental stress the organism, in the large majority of cases, manages eventually by its own inherent powers to adjust itself to the new conditions. “Merely give Nature a chance,” said the father of medicine in effect, “and most diseases will cure themselves.” And accordingly his treatment was mainly directed towards “giving Nature a chance.” His keen sense of the solidarity (or rather, of the constant interplay) between the organism and its environment (the “conditions” to which it is exposed) is instanced in his book, “Airs, Waters, and Places.” As we recognise, in our popular everyday psychology, that “it takes two to make a quarrel,” so Hippocrates recognised that in pathology, it takes two (organism and environment) to make a disease. As an outstanding example of his power of clinical observation we may recall the facies Hippocratica, an accurate study of the countenance of a dying man. At the same time, while assigning the physician his post, Hippocrates would not let him regard that post as sacrosanct. He set his face against any tendency to mystery-mongering, to exclusiveness, to sacerdotalism. He was, in fact, opposed to the spirit of trade-unionism in medicine. His concern was rather with the physician’s duties than his “rights.”