Questions about Biblical History sources

[smorton]

Thanks everyone for the responses and suggestions! I’m going to be pretty busy the next few weeks, but it looks like I’ll have quite the summer reading list (and this doesn’t even include my sociology books).

I also find everyone’s responses to Bart Ehrman’s interview refreshing. Before I listened to the interview, I read some of the comments on NPR’s page, and after listening to it, it was amazing to see how many people clearly did not listen to the whole interview. I don’t see his work as a huge threat, but it did make me question the authenticity of the Bible.

As far as specifics on books, what has been suggested sounds great to me. I’ll definitely check out Jason’s book, but it sounds a little over my head. I didn’t even know what metaphysics was until this semester

[alecforbes]

Hi Sarah,

Hope you find something helpful. At the risk of repeating myself, I’d recommend checking out Peter Enns’s blog. He has frequent guest bloggers who are also not inerrantists and you might be able to narrow down which books to actually buy from the blog-posts. At least you’ll get a view of a very different kind of discussion regarding scripture, history and Christianity than it sounds like you’ve seen before.

Oh and here’s a link to an interesting post to whet your appetite called “everybody…put the camel bones down and step away before someone gets hurt”.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/02/everybody-put-the-camel-bones-down-and-step-away-before-someone-gets-hurt/ I do like Enns’s sense of humor…but that may be a character flaw of mine.

Hope you stop by often as we’d love to hear your thoughts on other topics!

All the best,

Steve

[NightRevan]

To add to some of the suggestions made, if you want to read something which takes a good look at things from a historical perspective and goes indepth into the Jewish and Gentile cultures in the 1st century at a rigorous scholarly standard but written in a fairly accessible and readable style then (though I am biased) I highly recommend the work of NT Wright former Anglican Bishop of Durham who is currently Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland (who being trained in both Classics and theology works in both history and biblical scholarship spheres, comes at matters with both disciplines combined) in his academic series of Christian Origins & the Question of God:

amazon.co.uk/The-New-Testame … gy_b_img_z

amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0281 … d_i=468294

amazon.co.uk/The-Resurrectio … gy_b_img_y

amazon.co.uk/Paul-Faithfulne … YCNXK128S4

(I haven’t read Paul and the Faithfulness of God yet, but if you had to pick one for one of the strongest positive positions at a serious academic level, rather then an apologetic level, of the resurrection then it would probably be volume 3 that deals with that question. It is 700 pages long though, going deep into 1st century world-views and perspectives on death and the possibly of resurrection, to locate the question poised by the NT, and provides an interpretation from understanding the ancient world-views and the implications that leads to.)

There are is the work of Richard Bauckham’s book which I haven’t read yet, but is supposed to be good, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony:

amazon.co.uk/Jesus-Eyewitnes … d+bauckham

He was himself till recently Professor of New Testament Studies at St Andrews (a position I believe NT Wright now holds) and though now living in Cambridge remains as Professor Emeritus at St Andrews.

Anyway, hope they help, there are others but as books both accessible yet written at the full level of biblical and historical scholarship that fully engages with other views and interpretations those are ones I would recommend.

[JasonPratt]

I’ve read Bauckham’s book on eyewitness sourcing, btw, and can testify to its general quality.