C. F. D. Moule (1908-2007)

Professor Dan Wallace has given a very personal reflection on the passing of NT and Greek scholar Charles Francis Digby Moule (pronounced mole). Wallace also provides links to other articles on the man.

I remember when I was first learning Greek, it was impressed on me that knowing the Greek New Testament was far more than a matter of doing word-studies. It involved a grasp of syntax, and of the idioms used. (This is why interlinears are, at best, pointless.)

So I was delighted to stumble across Moule's Idiom-book of New Testament Greek. I bought it, and have used it often ever since.

But an even more delightful discovery (according to the tincture of Scots blood in me) was a discovery one year as I visited my beloved town of Bishop, California. I had learned that sometimes one can find treasures in used book stores or thrift shops. There are few finds for a lot of looking, but sometimes they're really golden.

In this case, I found a copy of C. F. D. Moule's Cambridge commentary on the Greek text of Colossians...

...for ten cents!

Now, there's been inflation since, but that was still an outrageously good deal at the time.

Now, we could chat about other aspects of Wallace's recollections. Moule seems like a genuinely charming man, and he certainly was a very solid scholar. But he did not confess the Trinity? It seems like we have a soft spot for Europeans scholars — like we're so grateful if they're even in the ballpark, so they get a "pass" on what we would call "heresy" if it were Joel Osteen or Benny Hinn.