Conservative Friend

Dear Friends,

I have been wanting to read Barclay and am confused by all the editions on Amazon. So I went to FGC QuakerBooks online and found Barclay's Apology in Modern English, edited by Dear Frieday and Apology for the True Christian Divinity. I'm wondering if I may gather some opinions on which is preferred and why.  Is the second one listed the most original translation or should I be searching else where?

I've put off reading this.  What I really could use is an audiobook version due to some eye problems.  An audiotape is also listed, but is only 80 minutes in length, which makes no sense to me for such a long book.

Any comments appreciated.

Jan Lyn

Jan Lyn! Hello!

Freiday's book condenses the original Barclay by about 30 percent, and he doesn't tell you where he does it. It diminishes lots of what Barclay had to say, and garbles other parts. It deletes his logical sequences, deletes much of the Calvinist (Protestant) disputes, and is hard to follow. 

The original has been republished by QuakerHeritagePress in pretty good 12-point Times Roman. I'm looking for an audio, but I doubt whether there is one, as QHP is pretty old-school.

I have them both, but I only use Freiday to look up names that Barclay doesn't place.

That's great, Kevin--exactly what I needed to know.  I will check out QuakerHeritage Press then.  I will just take my time reading it.

 I have a much easier time reading books in my hand than print on the computer screen with the glare.....

Thanks,

Jan Lyn

Quaker Heritage Press republishes lots of old and hard to find stuff. Their printing of Sippel's Barclay is the first genuine republishing since 1907.

I tend to be a bit hard on Freiday, as for many people he is the first intro they have ever had to Barclay. but there were so many things that I simply couldn't understand until I got hold of an original and read the pre-edited text. Barclay is an interesting read. His Anarchy of the Ranters is also out of print for about 150 years. My copy here in the truck is a 1795 edition, I think. I have an 1828 copy of his Quaker Catachism around in here somewhere as well. Old stuff, sure, but very much alive to me.

Good to know.  I've just located both of them online there and also found excerpts to take a look at.  Now for the timing of writing a check.......:)