While I was at Westminster (Philly) yesterday, I got to looking around the library and found Joseph Caryl's Commentary on Job. The edition they have, I believe, is the latest version with an introductory essay by Joel Beeke. What I found averting about the edition is that it is literally a copy, page for page, of one of the original publications from what I can gather. Thus, the script is difficult to read, and the "s-f" issue is clearly left in the text and left to the modern reader to decipher the text. This seems kind of strange to me considering that most, if not all, other major Puritan publications have been reworked and modernized text publications. Can anybody speak to this? Is this just one of the available editions of Caryl's work on Job, or is this how they are all published? And if they are all like this, is there any reason why they were left in this condition?

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Jacob
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Simply the time and expense of editing 12 volumes of 17th century text. A large amount of such editing and resetting of the Puritans was done for us in the 19th century (and now realized much of it poorly, e.g. Thomas Goodwin's works) and these have simply been photo reprinted in our day. Job was not so treated. This is a reprint of the 17th century quarto editions (I'd say first editions; but I"m not sure if some of them were not reissued as the quartos appeared over many years as Caryl took a very long time going through the book).

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Jacob, it takes very little time to get used to reading this script. Caryl's Job is much easier than Calvin's sermons on Job. It doesn't take long to get used to reading that script. I find that after a couple of hundred pages, I can ever after read Caryl as fast as a modern-type Puritan, and much faster than Goodwin.

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OH yea, it's not an ease-of-reading issue for me. I did a lot of study in Middle-English in college, so the script is rather tame in comparison to that. It's more of a curiosity to me than anything else.

Ah. Well, I'm sure that the reason why Caryl's commentary was not re-typeset is the same reason that scares a lot of people from reading the set in the first place: its colossal length. However, I would love for people to read what is undoubtedly the very best commentary on Job ever written in the history of mankind. I am currently in volume 2 and plan on finishing the set before preaching on Job (don't think I could keep up if I was actually in the series).

Lord willing, someday someone will undertake the retypesetting of this commentary.

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I wouldn't attempt it (I'd run out of lifetime and too many Presbyterians to do still). To redo the Job some critical work will be necessary as the whole 12 volumes were subsequently produced in a rather grand and huge elephantine folio 2 volume set (there's one on ebay at this writing; damaged but still asking a lot of $). 1677 is after Caryl's death so it might be safe to presume he had no input but then again he may have; one would have to check.
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I would rather see a reprint in the old type than to have nothing at all. Kudos to everyone who is involved in reprinting these sacred treasures.

Did the work say anything about being a "facsimile" edition? I have, for example, several works by Calvin in my library, some of which are billed as "facsimile editions." Some like the "old" feel about those older scripts. Whether it is for the antiquity of the work, or for other reasons, I agree that it is good to have the work in this form than not at all. When one considers the amount of scanning to render Caryl's work printable, such an effort alone is formidable. To reset the work in modern type would be staggering, no doubt. Yes, it has been done for many other works. Maybe it would happen someday for the Caryl work. In the meantime, let us enjoy what we have.

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Edward
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