The latest issue of the Expository Time (119.5 [2008]) is out and it includes a must read tribute to C.K. Barrett by Robert Morgan: 'A Magnificent Seven: C.K. Barrett at 90' (pp. 226-28). Morgan compares Barrett's habits and scholarship to several giant figures of NT scholarship including F.C. 'Heiden' Baur, J.B. Lightfoot, E.C. Hoskyns, R. Bultmann, K. Barth, E. Kasemann. My favourite quotes from the article are:
On Barrett's many commentaries: 'Kingsley once said that commentators are the infantry brigade of New Testament scholarship, doing the basic footwork on which we all depend'.
Whereas F.C. Baur started work each day at 4.00 a.m., Barrett finished at 2.00 a.m. - 'How did he do in [sic]? Well, he has the physical constitution,unlike Baur who died of a heart-attack in his 60s. But above all: motivation. Yes - "laboured more abundantly than they all", plus Paul's verse 10a: "by the grace of God I am what I am". That's Paul, that's Luther, that F.C. Baur, and that's C.K. Barrett.'
On visiting Barrett's office: 'Seeing the huge set of Church Dogmatics ... on Kingsley's shelves taught one Chadsman that that a New Testament theologian should be a theologian as well as a New Testament scholar.'
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