Reddit mentions: The best christian bible history & culture books

Welcome to the sub, WalksWithin!

You'll likely get a much more in-depth response from Erra-Epiri when she's on next, since she's infinitely more scholarly than I am, but, I'll toss a few titles your way, and she'll fill it out for you.

First, I'm not personally aware of too many books that are overviews of Mesopotamian gods and goddesses exclusively. What I can recommend, on this subject though, is the following:

• Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia
  
  While it may seem a simple reference book at first, this is actually one of the most concise overviews of religious ideas and beliefs found in Mesopotamia. It has entries on deities, cities, mythological creatures, symbols, and so much more. It's very useful.
  
  Second, the real meat and potatoes concerning gods and goddesses is found in the mythology of Mesopotamia. Everything we know about them comes exclusively from the cuneiform tablets that have been excavated and translated. Here are my favorite books which cover exclusively mythology:
  
  
• The Harps That Once...
  
• Myths From Mesopotamia
  
  Third, an actual study of the religion may also be of interest to you. The following books are a bit more complex, though they can be very enlightening:
  
  
• The Treasures of Darkness
  
• The Image of the Netherworld
  
  Finally, a few general information books, which touch on religious ideas, mythology, the gods, as well as history and culture. These both come from a writer named Samuel Noah Kramer, an esteemed Sumerologist who's well worth reading:
  
  
• The Sumerians
  
• History Begins At Sumer
  
  My personal recommendation, if you're solely interested in the gods and goddesses, would be some combination of "Gods, Demons, and Symbols" + either "The Harps That Once" or "Myths from Mesopotamia" to get started.
  
  If you're willing to put a little more legwork in though, any of the other books I listed above will be very good. And, further, if you're curious, I can point you toward a number of online resources that have better information than just what you'll find on Wikipedia, or through a Google search.
  
  Once again, welcome to the sub! Feel free to ask questions if you have them.

If you haven't already seen them, there are quite a few recommendations in the Wiki. If you've been lurking here for any length of time, you've probably already come across these, but just in case: James Kugel's How to read the Bible and Richard Friedman's "Who wrote the Bible are classic introductary texts. They are fantastically expensive, but I've also enjoyed an number of the Great Courses lectures.

As for your specific focus, I obviously don't have the background of the scholars here, but of the books I've read, [Thomas Romer's Invention of God*](https://www.amazon.com/Invention-God-Thomas-R%C3%B6mer/dp/0674504976/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541389004&sr=1-1&keywords=invention+of+god) (IIRC it's a summary of these lectures) might scratch the early formation itch, and I have just a few days ago added van der Toorn's Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible to my reading list.

For my own focus, I kind of jump around, but pretty much stick to the OT. What really draws me, and I don't even know how to articulate this in academic terms, is trying to figure out what your average Israelite actually believed and how they practiced, which doesn't exactly line up with biblical precepts. In that vein, I really enjoyed William Dever's The Lives of Ordinary People, Kugel's The Great Shift, and Jodi Magness's Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus. A book I bought but haven't read yet is A History of Death in the Hebrew Bible, and I just got a whim to study the military outpost in Elephantine.

I stay away from NT study for the most part, as I feel it either veers into theological discussion, which I don't have any interest in, or it get bogged down in the minutiae of translation, which I don't have any patience for.

So, yeah, you'll find a number of members here who approach the bible from a non-devotional perspective. In the years I've been lurking it is becoming a bit less rigid in that respect; there a couple of users in particular I used to rely on to call out comments that were theologically motivated (/u/brojangles, where are you?!?), but with time you just learn to recognize the red flags.

Just as a follow up, I ended up going with The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha

It uses the New Revised Standard Version as the translation, has a lot more information than the NASB and is pretty much, from what I can gather, the standard for studying the bible in the academic setting.

One of the advantages is the extensive in-depth academic research present in the book, which comes from experts in the field from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and atheist contributors.

This fits perfectly what I was looking for: a modern translation focused on accuracy, without personal interpretation and featuring extensive commentary.

It ended up being very difficult to sift through all the partisan opinion on the various translation, but that allows me to understand a bit better why so many people are using older versions and interpretations (Tradition, diocese regulations, etc).
However, this conversation with you pushed me to refine my search a little bit more than what I'd done a few weeks ago and I ended up stumbling upon a version that satisfies me more, so thank you :)

Edit: I also decided to add this book titled How We Got The Bible as an add-on to my reading, as a way to understand the process through which the various texts have been transmitted and preserved. I'm hoping it'll provide a bit more historical background and perhaps give me a better understanding of the history of the Bible :p

Sorry for the late reply, you caught me between class and teaching last night.

> I did not know that about Luther. Did he say why he removed those books?

His reasoning for removing those 7 books were that they weren't recognized by the Jews as canon (who themselves only "formalized' their Scripture sometime between the 3rd and 6th centuries. There's no scholarly consensus on when it was exactly finalized or by whom). Part of his reasoning was that they weren't (debatably in some cases) written in Hebrew but instead in Greek, thus they weren't inspired texts like the rest of the Hebrew OT. The Council of Trent, a Catholic Ecumenical Council, defined the Catholic Bible as 73 books including the 7 removed by Luther and the Reformers as deuterocanon (or "secondary canon" though still full parts of Scripture).

> Also, was there ever some sort of original historical team that established a set of books that was later refined? Do we have a timeline where that occurred, and how the Canon shaped over time and research?

Wiki does a good job summarizing the major movements in the development. And as I said above, Trent was when the finalized Catholic bible was authoritatively declared, though it was basically a formal acknowledgement of what was already standard practice in the Church for about a thousand years.

>Is this what the "Magisterium's Team" is?

The Magisterium is the teaching body of the Catholic Church and they settle matters of doctrine, including what is contained in Holy Scripture. The Magisterium is what made up the various councils throughout the ages including Trent.

>Finally, is there any specific source you recommend where I can go to find out more about the history of the Canon of the Bible?

Like I said, wiki does quite a good job giving a summary level. If you want a more academic and in depth reading I recommend Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament as was already suggested (though it tends to be on the apologetic side, it is still quite reliable) or F F Bruce's The Canon of Scripture. Niel R Lightfoot's How We Got The Bible is also quite good.

> Why isn't there any archeological evidence for the Exodus

Actually there is some palatable evidence for an exodus. Whether its " the " exodus is a different story.

http://www.hakirah.org/Vol14Landa.pdf

http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Israelites-in-and-out-of-Egypt

http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/03/was-there-an-exodus/

https://kickass.to/barbara-j-sivertsen-the-parting-of-the-sea-2009-a-t9235433.html

Personal belief ? I believe that current scholarly agreement is that the Exodus, as described in the Bible is not historically accurate for the following reasons:
It would logistically impossible to support 600k men plus their wives and children as described in [Exodus 12:37-38]. The number is most likely symbolic or a gematria.
The route described in the account is full of anachronisms, naming places and people that did not exist until the 1st millennium BCE when the story is presented as occurring in the 2nd.
Probably the most damning evidence is the lack of archeological evidence, both for the mass enslavement of semitic people in Egypt during either the 1st or 2nd millennium BCE and for their supposed journey out of Africa into Canaan. Furthermore such a mass migration would have devastated the Egyptian demographics and economy and would likely have been noted in their history. The first extra-Biblical source of the Exodus story doesn't appear until about 300 BCE and was thus influenced by the Israelite telling of the story
Finally the exodus account that we have from written tradition isn't firmly established until the post-exilic period sometime around 500-300 BCE.
What this leads to is a de-literalization of the exodus event. The story is likely a conglomeration or fabrication of Israelite folk stories and millennia of smaller mass migrations. What it signifies however is important as the Exodus is the central point of the OT narrative. It provides not only a foundational myth for Israelite self definitions at a theosophical level but also serves to legitimize and validate the Israelite nation post-exile. Much of the covenantal language used in the Mosaic account matches Hittite vassal/master treaties, thus God's covenant with Israel ensures the latter's legitimacy as a sovereign state. Moses may have been a historical figure that became a mythic folk hero to which the establishment of Israel is ascribed.

Some suggested (non religious) reading:

Digging through the bible, Richard Freund amazon (one of my personal favorites. He has a whole chapter dedicated to this very question that I highly recommend anyone interested in the subject read).

https://www.amazon.com/Digging-Through-Bible-Archaeology-Ancient/dp/0742546454

Ancient Israel in Egypt and the Exodus from the Biblical Archaeology Society. (Free ebook)

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/free-ebooks/ancient-israel-in-egypt-and-the-exodus/

Where Is Mount Sinai?, Biblical Archaeology Review, march 2014.

http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=40&Issue=2&ArticleID=2

Has the Exodus Really Been Disproven?, Lawrence Shiffman.

http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/Exodus.htm

Some of these are Jewish and Christian sources. Mostly because the exodus is a Jewish and Christian thing. The Qur'an mentions it in passing.

> some of the events detailed in hadiths (Banu Qurayza)?

You think there is no proof that Banu Qurayza existed or that the events surrounding them in hadith happened ?

On both accounts, we have Muslim and Jewish sources stating a similar version of events. In Arabic oratory tradition, this is sufficient.

> Why does the Quran reflect the scientific understandings of a 7th century Arab rather than the creator of all existence?

This is a far larger question than possible. I really don't know what to say here, since I don't really know what you're trying to ask.

> How can just two people populate the earth when science says that is impossible?

I don't understand this as well. This is totally plausible. Two people can easily repopulate or create a species. When a bacterium develops a mutation, it splits into two, creating a partner, from there it continues to give birth, each one doing so as well, until there is an incalculable number.

More Adam/Eve related problems are discussed pretty well in this article. Its from a Christian perspective though, since I study all religions.

http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople-part-1?p=1

The observed mitochondrial DNA mutation rate indicates that all living humans descended from one female who lived around 6000 years ago, or about 9000 years if you also include neanderthals, both plus or minus a few thousand years. Anyone who tells you otherwise is citing studies that multiply the mutation rate by a large fudge factor that has to be applied in order to get the rates to line up with humans and chimps diverging 6m years ago.

To make up for this, a Y-Chromosome Adam was conjectured. The problem is were they alive at the same time ? A question that has yet been unanswered. Religious people say yes. Not-so-sure people say they can't say for sure.

Also I have to add, no Muslim really disbelieves in evolution. Evolution is the internal change in a species due to external factors. The Qu'ran and hadith talk about changing humanity and developing them at stages. However, no Muslim believes in one species changing into another.

> Why does the Quran mention magic, sooothsayers, and evil eye when there is no evidence none of those exist?

Again, I suppose this is all to do with personal experience. I did see a jinn extraction on two separate occasions. When I holidayed in South Africa on a Christian guy, and on holiday in Pakistan when a Muslim girl was possessed. On both occasions the only feeling I had was " what the fuck ".

I personally do believe in magic, since I've witnessed it before. But I suppose using myself and my personal experiences as proof wouldn't count for much.

• Jews, God, and History would actually be a good pairing for your book now - while Johnson is more Zionist and philosemitic, Dimont takes a stance similar to Spinoza, which - while still of course being 'pro-Jew,' is more cultural in the context of the world than religious as the 'Chosen People.'
  
• Jewish Literacy is what you are guaranteed to find on every single rabbi's shelf on Earth. Telushkin is an excellent writer, and is concise in his explanations of why we are the way we are and why we do what we do. It's less about a strict history than explaining all those things, but it's still valuable if you want to really get to your roots.
  
• History of the Jewish People - I read this in college. More of a text for students, but valuable all the same.
  
• Josephus is a historical text by one of the greatest historians from the turn of the first millennium. If you choose to get this, I highly recommend having Wikipedia open as you read it.

This might be a stupid question, because I am sure you would have thought of it, but your family doctor or the general practitioner you see can't help you out? Mine back home could (he was more help than my psychiatrist there actually), and my family doctor here in the US was also able to help me out in a pinch in December.

I'm somewhat interested in the same thing as you lately... sort of. I used to be very interested in gnosticism and hermeticism, and it has come back lately as I've been doing some research on theology for school, and starting to get interested in demonology/magic and the way the Christian tradition kind of policed knowledge and divinity and it's weird intersections with the belief that there were in deed demons in the world. I was at Barnes and Nobles last week and they had this really cool book. It was a Penguins Classics -- you know that series with the black books of important historical books in philosophy in literature? -- called The Book of Magic from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, and it just had passages from thinkers throughout the ages on the topic of magic. Going all the way back to the Old Testament and Homer up to the Renaissance. https://www.amazon.com/Book-Magic-Antiquity-Enlightenment-Classics-ebook/dp/B00WYGH4RK

I want to buy it. Really bad. But I need to be more frugal with my money. I've gone over budget this month so far (like in terms of how much I want to have spent each day, not my overall budget of how much I can spend this month), and I also may have to buy bedroom furniture for my new place.

I'm almost through with Allison's Constructing and it appears to be a good candidate for the resources wiki. There's just a huge amount of useful information about historical Jesus studies in it as well as lots of differing views amongst the top scholars in the field.

I've ordered, through interlibrary loan, Fredriksen's Jesus of Nazareth since it looks like it would fit right into the aforementioned wiki.

After that one, I'll probably look at Boyarin's The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ since it looks like it fits the criteria here as well.

There are quite a few books like this. K. C. Hanson is very good, also consider Jodi Magness, Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus. This is much more detailed than Hanson, but also a little more academic.

If you are interested in something a bit lighter, the "Week in the Life" series is fun. These are novels written by NT Scholars: A Week in the Life of a Roman Centurion by Gary Burge (review here) or James L. Papandrea, A Week in the Life of Rome (review here), Witherington, A Week in the Life of Corinth and John Byron, A Week in the Life of a Slave. For each of these there is a bit of a story with numerous sidebars and pictures to illustrate practices. Or you can read A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome: Daily Life, Mysteries, and Curiosities by Alberto Angelo, a Roman historian writing short chapters on aspects of Roman life.

Not that I know of - but it sounds like a great idea.

You may be interested in A Concise History of Buddhism (link) if you're interested in how Buddhism evolved from the time of the Buddha to today.

It's funny how your fist post accuses people of not doing research when your second post clearly demonstrates your lack of own research. This is the person I studied under (among other professors of history and theology, who actually go through the efforts of the overlapping disciplines of history and religion to make our religious understanding as concise and in agreement with what historians have to say.) If you ACTUALLY want to study biblical history and analysis, start with this book, and for further context, look at the sources he sources and dig into those. This professor particularly studies the wisdom traditions (so books like Job and the Psalms) and explores where stories like that probably came from, how Jews put their own spin on them and how they ended up in the bible at all.
https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Near-East-Essential-Guide/dp/1426753276/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521400501&sr=8-1&keywords=the+ancient+near+east+john

If you want new testament scholarship, I can direct you there as well. Here's the thing you don't understand, the research for this has been done, and continues to be done, you just never heard of it yet claim to be an expert in it. And that's just so incredibly naive and undeservingly cocky.

This is a great read on the topic of anti-protestant discrimination in the south post independence. It’s not hard to see why the ‘siege mentality’  was/is still so strong in the Protestant community after what happened there.

The Faithful Tribe by Ruth Edwards (an Irish Catholic) while focussing on the Orange Order is also a great insight into the general loyalist mindset & their history.

I was super into Caribbean history for awhile. I gotta defend Vodou's honor here.

I have a huge amount of respect for Hatian Vodou. It's a monotheistic religion with a super long tradition stretching into antiquity. The lwa that the clergy propitiate are in a similar position to Christian angels.

It was already monotheistic before Xtians ever showed up and enslaved everybody (which made hiding it behind Christian imagery much easier).

People make a big deal out of the animal sacrifice and there is animal sacrifice in Vodou on special occasions but it's nothing like the animal sacrifice at the Temple at Jerusalem which was literally like lamb slaughtering from morning until night (source).

There's not really any "magic" in Vodou strictly speaking, just normal prayers and offerings and intercessions.

The possessions are where stuff gets unique. The lwa come down and walk among their followers and carry on conversations -- which is a lot more impressive than someone falling on the floor thrashing around speaking in "tongues."

If we're looking for an explanation for either phenomenon it may be rooted in the same thing, but Vodou has class and Pentecostals...well, they just thrash around on the floor.

Louisiana "voodoo" is from the hoodoo/conjure/rootwork tradition and is pretty much totally separate. That's witchcraft/sorcery stuff, and they may call on the lwa sometimes...but then Western occultists call on the angels and God in Western ceremonial magic, so, nothing new there. :p

Santeria is related to Vodou but I don't know much about it tbh. It's from the adjacent region of Africa and the "angels" are called orishas.

The moral of the story is don't believe what conservative Christians tell you about anything, including voodoo evil magic and santeria.

It's included in Benjamin Foster's superb Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature. It's far and away the best resource for Babylonian and Assyrian literature.

His chapter on Akkadian literature in From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature edited by Carl Ehrlich is a good companion to his translations.

I've come across many instances where some knowledge of Greek or Hebrew would be helpful to me. As just one example that comes immediately to mind, I've come across a number of articles regarding the meaning of pais in discussions regarding whether there is some indication in the New Testament that Jesus was not condemnatory of homosexuals.

And I've also encountered quite a number of instances, sometimes regarding Genesis, but sometimes with other parts of the Old Testament where someone will contest the interpretation of a passage indicating a translation in a particular version of the Bible may not convey the original intent of the passage to modern readers or comparing an Old Testament passage to other Jewish writings. E.g,, I've seen suggestions that the word translated as "rib" in the story of Adam and Eve could refer instead to the baculum found in males of many nonhuman mammals. Since I don't know Hebrew, it is sometimes difficult for me to judge alternative translations.

I've read Neil Lightfoot''s How We Got the Bible, which discusses various early Hebrew and Greek manuscripts and addresses some discrepancies in translation and I know from personal experience that attempting a word-by-word translation from one language to another or just plugging a sentence into an online translator, such as Google Translate or Yahoo! Babelfish, though it can be helpful for rough translations in many instances, is more useful to me when I know at least a few rudiments of the language.

I'm hoping there will be people participating in /r/BibleCoverToCover who do have some understanding of Greek and Hebrew who can contribute to the discussions.

If you are interested on the history of various translations and why there are differences between various translations, I'd recommend How We Got the Bible by Neil Lightfoot.

From the Inside Flap:

>Find answers to key questions about the Bible. How accurate are modern translations such as the New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version? Why does the Roman Catholic Bible have more books than most Protestant Bibles? How can we be sure that the Biblical message has been accurately preserved through the centuries? How We Got the Bible, after more than forty years, has become a classic source of answers for these and other questions on how the Bible has come down to us. Now in this revised edition, you will find five new chapters covering the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, the Sinaitic Manuscript, the illuminated manuscripts, and more. Every chapter in this edition includes new material, followed by a brief summary and questions for discussion. Neil R. Lightfoot deals with technical issues in non-technical language, making this book a valuable tool for any reader. Back flap Neil R. Lightfoot (Ph.D., Duke University) serves as Frank Pack Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. He is the author of several books, including Everyone's Guide to Hebrews. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

I'm been reading it recently, though I've misplaced the book at the moment; I suspect I may have buried it under other books and papers recently when I was shifting stuff around to find something else. I've found it to be very informative and I think you would find it interesting, if you'd like a historical context for various translations.

I think you need to do some more reading before you claim there is "no evidence".

Some suggested (non religious) reading:

• Digging through the bible, Richard Freund amazon (one of my personal favorites. He has a whole chapter dedicated to this very question that I highly recommend anyone interested in the subject read).
  
  
• Ancient Israel in Egypt and the Exodus from the Biblical Archaeology Society. (Free ebook)
  
  
• Where Is Mount Sinai?, Biblical Archaeology Review, march 2014.
  
  
• Has the Exodus Really Been Disproven?, Lawrence Shiffman.
  

The Biblical Archaeologic Review published an article a while ago criticizing the unscientific theories about the location of the Temples. Ha'aretz did the same. I've never read the book, but Leen Ritmeyer lead many of the archaeological digs around the Mount and published his findings. The first major modern dig in the area was Charles Wilson's in 1886, well worth a read. Asher Kaufman has the most controversial views on the Temple locations, but even his opinions only place the Holy of Holies slightly north of the Dome of the Rock.

Hope that helps!

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>Why is Rome so important if Jesus was in Bethlehem.

First, some Catholic.com articles (seriously, they are a treasure trove), "Was Peter in Rome?" and
"The Primacy of Rome".

If you like to read books, there's an excellent book that dives into this topic, The Eternal City: Rome & the Origins of Catholic Christianity by Dr. Taylor Marshall.

Prof. George Menachery is one of the most prolific writers on Christianity in Kerala, so his books are a good start. His newest book, 'Facets of India's Christian Legacy' is free on Kindle (Edit: UK Store).

Highly recommend this book:

Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Library of Early Christology) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1602585490/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_WudIDbJFHAYD8

> books outside the Bible that compliment the bible

I found books on geography and archaeology of the bible lands to be helpful and enriching. My copies are still packed away so can't recall exact titles, but The Holy Land by Michael Avi-Yonah and The Land Of The Bible by Yohanan Aharoni are well-reviewed, if that interests you.

You might also enhoy Who Wrote The Bible? by Richard Friedman

I recommend that you read through each section of the Wikipedia article about the King James Only movement.
That should help toward what you're asking.

That article mentions this ebook by a KJV-only proponent, and this review lists some of the content of that ebook.

"Messianic Jewish" stuff? Really?

Orthodox Jew Daniel Boyarin and Conservative Jew Benjamin Sommer made more palatable references from the Rabbinic, Judaic side. Heck, there's this article by Yishai Kiel!

The Loeb Classical Library mentioned already is ideal for the Greco-Roman world.

Literature from Ancient Mesopotamia is, for the most part, a bit older than you are looking for since the conventional date for the composition of the Iliad is 725 BCE and most Mesopotamian stuff was well before that date, but there is much, much more stuff in cuneiform sources than in other ancient languages.

For Akkadian literature see Foster, Before the Muses.

For the even older, Sumerian literature, see Black, The Literature of Ancient Sumer, most of which is available online on the authors' website: ETCSL.

For a broad survey of all the materials, in various languages, from all periods of the Ancient Near East (including Egypt) see Hallo, The Context of Scripture - 3 vols.

For China see De Bary, Sources of Chinese Tradition - volume 1.

There are older jokes in Sumerian. See Ben Foster's Anthology

There's a book called Two Powers in Heaven by Alan F. Segal. "Alan F. Segal (1945-2001) was Professor of Religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College". The book goes through the historical record to show that 2nd Temple Judaism had a strain which believed in something we might call "Binitarianism" because of what they saw in the Scriptures.

Dr Michael Heiser has this video discussing it here. Christianity is monotheistic. Marcion was an ignorant heretic.

EDIT: The idea is that the Bible, starting with the book of Genesis teaches one God in more than one person, such as when the Lord ate with Abraham as would a man before the Lord walked over and rained fire on Sodom from the Lord in heaven.

Are you referring to

The Ancient Near East by John McLaughlin

or

A History of the Ancient Near East ca 3000 - 323 BC by Marc Van De Mieroop

He might actually be right about the two powers though?

Here's the book he's talking about.

https://www.amazon.com/Two-Powers-Heaven-Christianity-Christology/dp/1602585490

Ayyyyy, now that’s what I’m talking about. This is the kind of academic studying we need more of.

Edit: Check out Alan Segal’s book Two Powers in Heaven which kicked this whole thing off, followed by Michael Heiser’s work which you can find some of at https://twopowersinheaven.com.