When I was in seminary, two other seminary classmates (Jim Davis, Steve Beck) and I began to play a game with one another. Here was our game: “Do you know what the initials in a NT scholar’s name stand for?” So, we would come to class with a new set of initials every day. It was a fun game until one of us (I’ll not give names) found about five initials for Edward Schillebeeckx and ruined the fun of finding a name to top. But, at any rate, here are a few and do you know their initials?
By the way, the rules of the game were: (1) a reputable NT scholar, (2) deceased [which we fudged on all the time so some of my list below is of living scholars — but this criteria kept us from using some brand new scholar’s publication], and (3) the questioner had to know for certain what they stood for.
C.H. Dodd
C.F.D. Moule
T.W. Manson
G.R. Beasley-Murray
W.G. Kümmel
C.K. Barrett
F.F. Bruce
H.J. Cadbury
G.B. Caird
F.C. Baur
F.C. Burkitt
W.D. Davies
F.C. Grant
R.M. Grant
J.G. Herder
F.J.A. Hort
J.B. Lightfoot
B.F. Westcott
R.H. Lightfoot
H.A.W. Meyer
A.D. Nock
F.D.E. Schleiermacher
D.F. Strauss
L.C.F. von Tischendorf
J.J. Wettstein
We always had some contemporaries too:
J.R.W. Stott (I know, he’s a pastor but he wrote NT books, too)
E.P. Sanders
J.D.G. Dunn