Friday, February 09, 2007

Pilgrim's Progress


I am finally catching up with the rest of Christendom in reading Bunyan’s classic. I have read various children’s editions and felt I knew the story from the abundant allusions one comes across. Nevertheless, I had never read it and finally have begun to do so. I am approaching the conclusion now and have really enjoyed this edition. Of course you can find various renditions, but this one has been very helpful. The language has been slightly updated to ease reading, but it is not a heavy handed revision. You can still sense the 17th century language, with many archaic words and phrases retained with bracketed explanations. Bunyan’s marginal notes have been moved to footnotes and the editor has added a few more explanatory notes. I do wish the editor had made clear which notes were original to Bunyan and which had been added, though of course one can readily compare another edition.

This edition would be great for a group study or for a gift. I hope to post soon some reflections on church and pastoral ministry from the reading.

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