Reddit mentions: The best christian commentary books

I'm sure you'll get sarcastic remarks about "just read the Bible" (which, as a Reformed Baptist [charismatic] I'd agree with) but I think you're looking for solid theological interactions on the issue. In some ways, I think these are good starter books for not only the issue at hand (baptism) but also how it fits within the larger theological vision of the Christian life and community. Baptism is one of those issues that, for being seemingly simple, reveals a great deal about how one understands the nature of faith, the entire Christian life, and the nature of the Gospel itself. Just taking a guess, but I assume you're approaching it from the sobriety that the issue deserves given your reading thus far, so I commend you for looking for further resources on the topic and continuing to read!

Here are a few that are good starters, and for more reading, I'd look to their bibliographies and footnotes.

Believer's Baptism - This is a good resource. There are a few points here or there where I'd disagree with various articles. I'd want to emphasize different aspects here or there, but especially at points where the covenants (Covenant Theology v. New Covenant Theology) becomes the issue. So, good starter, and the basic presentation of a thoughtful credo-baptist view.

The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology - Taking up that point of covenant theology, this is a very thorough book on how the covenants play within a Reformed Baptist view of baptism. Very good.

Covenant Theology: A Reformed and Baptistic Perspective on God's Covenants

Covenant Theology: A Reformed Baptist Primer

The Confessing Baptist - This is a website and podcast. A good resource for articles and podcasts on various issues related to Reformed Baptists.

If you're looking for one book, I'd go with Believer's Baptism, and supplement with materials available at The Confessing Baptist website. That'll get your versed in the logic of the credo-baptist position, and hopefully provide some good things to mull over.

Hope that helps!

Well, my two cents:

Some of my family are Jewish, but I'm not halakhically Jewish and I grew up with basically agnostic parents. My religious upbringing was a hodgepodge of Catholicism and neo-paganism. I'm your age and an Orthodox conversion candidate.

I'll just get this question out of the way: why are you Reform?

Unlike many other patrilineal Jews, I don't have an internalized Jewish identity. I'm cultivating it from scratch, like you. I basically think that since we didn't have the advantage of being born Jewish, the only framework we have for becoming Jewish is halakha. I don't really question Reform Jews who had a Jewish upbringing - the halakha is irrelevant to them. They don't need Orthodoxy validating them.

But how can we as potential converts possibly assert that kind of confidence in a Jewish identity? I'm very sorry to seem skeptical, but what is the difference between a Reform convert and a righteous gentile/Noahide with lots of Jewish friends? I just don't see how I can claim to be Jewish without first becoming observant and fulfilling a halakhic conversion. Otherwise I feel like I'm playing Jewish.

If you're open to Orthodoxy, of course, I definitely recommend it. If you're shying away from it, I'm really curious about why. And if you are doing well financially, perhaps you can travel for shabbat. I know a man who travels 5+ hours to Brooklyn every week, since he moved to a town devoid of Jews and he grew up "as Orthodox as they come", so he says.

Anyway, some resources:

• One Shul
  
  
• Punk Torah
  
  Those first two will keep you busy for awhile.
  
  
• Orthodox Conversion Yahoo Group (this group is actually more to the right than I am, but it's a great resource and the rabbi is extremely responsive)
  
  
• Frum Satire (high traffic blog with useful discussion in the comments of the posts, and the blogger is an earnest and lovable dork)
  
  
• Dov Bear (I don't follow this blogger as much as I used to, but he seems to have a diverse - and political - audience and I would end up learning something new every time I went there.)
  
  
• RCA Conversion Standards
  
  
• Koren Publishers Jerusalem (I use their siddur and chumash)
  
  
• The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary I love this translation while I'm learning Hebrew, and it's extraordinarily poetic. I can't recommend Robert Alter enough. This is probably not a suuuuuper-necessary book, though.
  
  Feel free to PM me about conversion stuff. I can sound like kind of a hardass but I'm honestly bursting with enthusiasm. :-)

I think it's not a struggle to understand the NT, but a struggle to understand the OT for me. There is grace and love in the OT that we don't see. I'm no theological scholar of any standing, and certainly not an OT scholar, but despite God's earthly wrath against men in the OT, I think it only stands as a testament to his loving faithfulness to the covenant he made with Abraham and, through Abraham, with Israel.

It is tough to reconcile, sometimes. A book I've had on my Amazon wishlist has been the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament edited G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson, hoping that it will help me resolve some of these issues in my own heart.

Edit: I hope your dissertation goes well! You chose a good season in which to write on that topic.

ok here it goes
riddle 1 - this Why a spoon, cousin? Well, upon further review of my wishlist one would see that this spoon and a kettle are missing tools of a beer brewing kit. And if you need to ask HOW a beer brewing kit would help in school ... you haven't been to school. "but Pax" you say in an impatient tone "the answer to the riddle isn't beer. True ... the kit can also ferment wine (mind ... blown)
riddle 2 - this I don't have a broom on my wishlist. But with, your broom is my broom...
riddle 3 - this I have two beautiful and awesome toddlers. They like cate in the hat. Who is not awesome. But who is hearing ... a hat! What else s he wearing? A bowtie. Awesome, right?
riddle 4 - the books in latin is biblia - which means that the bible really just means book. This would help me understand it better.
riddle 5 - well, this, obviously the purpose of a trunk is among other to keep things safe (like my spoon, biblia commentary and so) This would help me keep everything safe.
extra point - be honest, when thinking about wearing a cap, one should also wear this

The problem is that you said this,

> It's like if the Gospels hadn't been put together into the Bible they'd count as non-Biblical records proving that Jesus existed, but because they are in the Bible that means they don't prove anything.

and you complained about this,

> If you put everything ever written about Jesus into the Bible then there would be no non-Biblical sources for proof, if you don't put everything ever written in then that shows you were picking and choosing your own religion

So now that you have engaged into "backtracking mode", as in,

>All the best historical accounts would be a subset of everything ever written, and so would 'accounts that best fit the goals of the early church'.

So...let's be clear how far we are:

• 1. There is little to no non-christian sources about Jesus.
     
• 2. There are many brutally contradicting christian accounts of Jesus
     
• Of those Christian items, a very few have been selected for inclusion into the canon. Probalby settling about the third/fourth century.
  
  Now, let me address your erroneous statement that the gospels are "the earliest". At best, a portion of one of the gospels may have been written by 70AD (Mark), but could be as late as 100AD. A full 40 years, best case, after the events. The next two (Matthew , Luke )were most likely written based on Mark. Finally, John is most likely even later
  
  This matches very well Egerton Gospel (70AD at earliest) or the Gospel of the Egyptian (80 AD at earliest) and many more whose dating might well be equal to or precede the canonical gospels.
  
  As far as the agenda of the early church, it is well known, and does not worry about historical accuracy, but about setting dogma straight. So, yes, they had an agenda, and that agenda was not to look for historical truth but for orthodoxy. Hardly the standard to create an even close to reliable text.
  
  Ergo, and as a whole, I tell you that this,
  
  > I think it's reasonable to think that the 'selected' canon was selected and held on to because it is the best historical account.
  
  Is not correct. It was selected because it met the orthodoxy of bishops in the 4th century.
  
  You should read this book. It would show you why the bible is not historical record.
  

Thanks!

>I have never tried in the Greek.

You should! It's quite rewarding.

As for what I'm using. I thankfully was a step ahead, as I'd studied Classical Attic when I was in college. That was awhile ago, but the alphabet and basic grammar was still floating around my memory. Vocabulary was and is my biggest shortcoming.

To refresh my grammar (and help me with changes in the language from Athens ca. 600 BC to the 1st century Roman Empire), I bought this textbook: Reading Koine Greek by Rodney Decker. It's an introductory one, so I was able to blow through the early lessons quickly enough, while focusing mainly on vocabulary. He structures his vocab lists based on word frequency in the New Testament and Septuagint, meaning you learn more common words first, which in turn helps to quickly build reading comprehension. It also focuses on the grammar of that time period and specifically early Christian writing (with reading exercises mostly from the NT, but occasionally the Septuagint or something like the Apostolic Fathers).

Once I was ready for some more advanced references, I picked up Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, which is a more general reference book (focused on the NT) recommended by Prof. Decker. I also splurged, thanks to some spare cash, and bought myself the BDAG, an incredibly thorough dictionary of Biblical Greek. The amount of scholarship in that one book is nothing short of mind-boggling. It has an incredible number of references to both the New Testament and tons of other contemporary usage, as well as citing to journal articles about certain words, the works. Oh yeah, I also got a dual-language (Greek and English) edition of the Apostolic Fathers somewhere along the line, although I haven't read it much yet.

So that's where I am. As I said, it's slow going for now since my vocabulary is still pretty bad, but it's improving. And I find that learning by seeing things in context is much better for me than just trying to do flashcards or something (although I may supplement with those).

I have two more books on the way: Metzger's Textual Commentary (where he talks about the decisions that went into which reading they chose in the UBS edition of the NT), and the most recent edition of his The Text of the New Testament (as updated by Bart Ehrman), which is an introduction to NT textual criticism and a kind of summary of various scholarly research on the subject.

So yeah, it's quite an undertaking!

Book recommendations? I don't know what you mean exactly. A supplement or resource? The following resources can probably be found in your church, public, university libraries. Often, you CANNOT check out these types of resources, so you may want to consider investing in a few books. Until then, check out biblehub.com. It is a little odd to navigate, but it is FREE!

Resource Standards (A serious must)

1. The Commentary Why you need these explained here
   
   A single edition condensed commentary as well as a set of solid commentaries such as The NAC and HarperCollins. There are several solid choices.
   
   
2. Systematic Theology Explained here
   
   I HIGHLY recommend one of the following: Christian Theology(used in many seminaries/MDiv OR Intro to Christian Doctrine
   
   3.Biblical Dictionary
   
   Holman's and Unger's are two well received one volume editions.
   
   The three aforementioned tools are in the libraries of every single minister I know. The names do matter, but there are plenty of fine, scholarly companies that produce up-to-date, relevant versions of very similar, but not identical, resources. Above is a minimal (and I mean minimal) list for putting together a 4-10 lesson study of Job. If you would like to learn more about hermeneutics, you should read How To Read the Bible For All Its Worth as a primer. There are several other required resources to add to your library if proper exegesis is something you are passionate about. I taught/lectured on systematic theology, intensive studies, and church history to a well-educated group of adults (some of which were my professors). Even so, remember this always-
   
   >HEB 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
   
   Job: Interesting observations/thoughts to consider
   
   
3. Regarding the person of Job, the author, the date (probably 1st penned book), history, etc HERE IS THIS
   
   
4. Was Job a parable (mythology)? Research this point.
   
   
5. Was Satan trying to tempt God anywhere in Job, and if so why?

If by 'lacking' you mean 'nonexistent', then yes.

I went to public school but with heavy influence from my folks and church, all of whom seem to be involved in some sort of Fundamentalism competition. I learned exactly as much as I had to in order to pass the test, but I was always convinced it was a lie because scientists are all "out to get" Christianity.

I'm still wrapping my head around just how unhealthy this worldview can be.

I'll echo /u/Cognizant_Psyche - kudos on taking that first step and deciding to get smart on this topic.

I talked to my church pastor, who passed me off to his wife (who has apologetics degrees out the ass). She recommended The Language of God, a tactic which soundly backfired on her. That book was fantastic. It explains evolution from a DNA perspective but then tries to tell me I can still believe in God if I want to. For me, from such a fundamentalist, literalist background, the bible had to be true word-for-word, yet this book flew in the face of the entire Genesis account of creation. If that wasn't real, how could I trust any of the rest?

Once I was 'cleared' to learn about Evolution, I grabbed Dawkins' The God Delusion. I watched the Ham-Nye debate. I grabbed Who Wrote The New Testament, and Misquoting Jesus. That pretty much did it for me.

I know I already answered this when you posted the same question over at /r/Reformed, but I wanted to answer here as well, so that others could potentially benefit.

Here's my reading list on Christian Perspectives on Creation. I don't agree with everything written by all of the authors, but they are all worth reading. If you are looking more for a Scientific perspective I'd particularly recommend Collins, Jelsma, and Haarsma since those are the ones written by scientists instead of theologians. If you didn't see it already, I also listed a number of other resources by Collins yesterday in the post about his AMA.

• The Literal Meaning of Genesis by Augustine of Hippo.
  
• Commentary on Genesis - Volume 1 by John Calvin.
  
• What is Darwinism? by Charles Hodge.
  
• The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins.
  
• The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design by Ronald Numbers.
  
• Is Creation Science Reformed? by Tony Jelsma (short article)
  
• The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John Walton.
  
• Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design by Deborah and Loren Haarsma.
  
• Also get a few good commentaries on Genesis. The rule of thumb on Genesis commentaries is that the author's name should start with W: Wenham, Waltke, or Walton

I think the best you can get is some surveys of the debates. Some texts (esp introductory ones) attempt to present the major debates without taking a side. The closest you can get IMO to a consensus is scholars agreeing about what the questions are, or perhaps a survey of the relevant literature on a given passage. And while even that has plenty of variety and disagreement, you can generally call it a safe consensus.

Although, since the field is so massive, I'm not aware of a single text which would encompass all of biblical scholarship. So, I'll recommend some (IMO) good surveys of the literature and questions:

Old Testament (general introduction, forthcoming) I've seen some embargo copies of this, and even though it says "catholic" in the title, its very nuanced and pays attention to the different scholarly debates, in such a way that it is pretty darn objective.

Pentateuch

Historical Books

Prophets

Psalms & Wisdom Literature

New Testament (general introduction)

Paul

Canonization

History of Biblical Interpretation: Ancient

History of Biblical Interpretation: Ancient-Medieval

History of Biblical Interpretation: 1300-1700 (probably my favorite on this list)

History of Biblical Interpretation: Enlightenment-20th century (with overlap from the previous one)

I would also recommend a good biblical dictionary. They're not just definitions, they're filled with entire scholarly articles on various topics in a given field. My favorite is the IVP Bible Dictionary Series. I use it all the time (individual volumes can be purchased separately).

>If you want me to take the evidence seriously, this is the only way.

Baloney, it isn't the only way to take evidence - one simply critically exams the evidence - that the way to accept or reject evidence. But let's play your game.

Bruce Metzger was probably the most renowned NT textual critic in the last 100 year.

While the UBS5 or NA28 gives the conclusions of the textual committee that decided on the precise reading for each passage of the Greek New Testament, Metzger's A Textual Commentary of the NT gives the reasoning for each of these variant passages.

Here is Metzger's conclusion:

By comparison with the New Testament, most other books from the ancient world are not nearly so well authenticated. The well-known New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger estimated that the Mahabharata of Hinduism is copied with only about 90 percent accuracy and Homer's Iliad with about 95 percent. By comparison, he estimated the New Testament is about 99.5 percent accurate. So the New Testament text can be reconstructed with over 99 percent accuracy. And, what is more, 100 percent of the message of the New Testament has been preserved in its manuscripts! [B. M. Metzger, "Recent Trends In The Textual Criticism Of The Iliad And The Mahabharata", Chapters In The History Of New Testament Textual Criticism, 1963, E. J. Brill: Leiden, pp. 142-154.]

Now of course you will reject Metzger since he is a Christian. But curiously Metzger also wrote The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration with famed athiest/agnostic and Biblical critic Bart Erhman.

Ehrman and Metzger state in that book that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare. The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text. The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 – the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.

Here is what Erhman said in a footnote in his book Misquoting Jesus: Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

So now we have, in addition to a Christian expert that says the Biblical text is 99.5% accurate we have an atheist/agnostic expert who agrees.

Note: to review the many errors in Erhman's book Misquoting Jesus see here

>I don't, but the possibility is there due to their organizational ties. You don't think it's in their best interest to skew evidence to further their narrative?

Can we level this same criticism at you? That you will "skew evidence to further their narrative"?

How does one even have a conversation if one assume s that their interlocutor is so biased that it interferes with their rationality?

It seems the best we can do is assume that we are all being as unbiased as we can and the critically examine the evidence and arguments.

Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament, published in 1997 from the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library, includes attempts to review and summarize scholarly opinion on authorship (and date and purpose and audience) of all the books in the New Testament Canon. Here are some passages relevant to your question.

From "Did Paul Write II Thessalonians?" (pp. 592-594):

> In 20th-century German scholarship, running from W. Wrede in 1904 to W. Trilling in 1972, arguments presented against Pauline writing gradually made this minority view more and more accepted. English-speaking scholarship (e.g., Aus, Best, Bruce, Jewett, L. T. Johnson, Marshall, and Morris) has tended to defend writing by Paul, but more recently Bailey, Collins, Giblin, Holland, and Hughes have been among the increasing numbers opting for pseudonymity.

Of the scholars defending Pauline authorship, the most relevant might be R. Aus, Augsberg Commentaries, 1984; and R. Jewett, The Thessalonian Corresponandance, 1986. Brown also goes on to list the main arguments for and against Pauline authorship, which is worth reading.

From "Did Paul Write Colossians?" (pp. 610-615):

> At the present moment about 60 percent of critical scholarship holds that Paul did not write the letter.

A footnote here says that R. F. Collins, in Letters that Paul Did Not Write (1988), "surveys the various scholars and the nuances of their views." The footnote also says, "Cannon's detailed study favors Paul as the writer", referring to G. E. Cannon's 1983 publication "The Use of Traditional Materials in Colossians". Though Brown doesn't dwell on which scholars have which opinions, he does survey arguments for and against. I suppose Collins would be a good place to look for more.

From "Ephesians: To Whom and By Whom?" (pp. 626-630):

> Although some scholars continue to accept Paul as the writer of Eph, the thrust of the evidence has pushed 70 to 80 percent of critical scholarship to reject that view, including a significant number who think that Paul wrote Col.

Though Brown does not here list scholars who argue Pauline authorship, a previous footnote states "See in Cross, the debate over the Pauline writings of Eph (for, J. N. Sanders; against, D. E. Nineham." This refers to F. L. Cross's Studies in Ephesians (1956), and presumably earlier scholars he cites. Brown gives an analysis of arguments both for and against pseudonymity, though he doesn't list a single paper published after 1970 that argues Pauline authorship, which is telling.

In "Who Wrote Titus and I Timothy? (pp. 662-668), he gives a wide array of reasons to doubt the authority of the Pastorals, also explaining traditional reasons to suppose Pauline authorship, and concludes:

> About 80 to 90 percent of modern scholars would agree that the Pastorals were written after Paul's lifetime.

He indicates that more information can be found in R. F. Collins's Letters that Paul Did Not Write, which argues pseudonymity. But the only modern scholars Brown mentions who might still hold Pauline authorship of the Pastorals is G. W. Knight, from the New International Commentary on the New Testament, 1992, and L. T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, 1986. When discussing II Timothy, Brown only mentions that some scholars still hold Pauline authorship without naming them specifically, though he indicates that Johnson may be one.

All in all, I'd say Brown somewhat understates the likelihood that a modern scholar will think these letters are pseudonymous. But if you read the percentages as "percent of New Testament scholars still alive in 1997 who hold this opinion, regardless of when their most recent relevant publication was", it may not be far from the mark.

Brown also includes an entire chapter, "25: Pseudonymity and the Deuteropauline Writings" that examines the issues holistically, giving a great deal of insight about the complex issues involved in determining authorship of ancient texts. It's definitely worth reading, if you get a chance.

These are some of the better books I've accumulated in school:

• An Introduction to the New Testament - Raymond Brown. Exactly what the title says.
  
  
• The Early Church - Henry Chadwick. This is more of a historical overview of the development of the Church, etc.
  
  
• The Shape of Catholic Theology - Aiden Nichols. This book is kind of a dense read. Not gonna lie.
  
  
• At the Origin of the Christian Claim - Luigi Giussani.
  
  
• The Craft of Theology - Avery Dulles.
  
  
• The Theology of the Church - Charles Jornet. - This one is about ecclesiology, or the structure of the Church.
  
  
• Early Christian Fathers -Cyril Richardson. Includes primary sources like letters and homilies.
  
  
• The Trinitarian Crontroversy - William Rusch. Very good history of early heresies, like Arianism and Nestorianism, and how they pushed the Church to develop the Creed.
  
  
• Called to Communion - Joseph Ratzinger.
  
  
• Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man - Henri de Lubac. This book is fantastic!
  
  
• The Meaning of Tradition - Yves Congar.
  
  
• Introduction to Moral Theology - Romanus Cessario.
  
  
• The Major Works -Anselm of Canterbury. Nice collection, see especially: Cur Deus Homo.
  
  
• On the Incarnation - Ignatius of Antioch. I LOVED this one!
  
  
• Credo for Today - Joseph Ratzinger. Basically anything by Ratzinger.

In no particular order and without thinking they are all of equal importance:

1. Karl Barth. Whether you love him or hate him, you cannot avoid him and his influence on Protestant thought in the 20th century. I would be remiss if I did not recommend my good friend's book, Kenneth Oakes, Karl Barth on Theology and Philosophy.
   
   
2. G.W.F. Hegel. Again, whether you love him or hate him (and let's be honest, even if you did try to read him, only a fraction of people understand what he's saying), you cannot avoid his influence. To supplement Hegel, I'd recommend Cyril O'Regan's The Heterodox Hegel.
   
   
3. Rowan Williams. Prolific does not even begin to describe Williams' writing career. He is well-regarded by nearly everyone (Catholics and Protestants alike). He writes on such a vast range of topics (from St. Augustine to Arianism to Christian Spirituality to Dostoevsky) and does so well. That's a real gift.
   
   
4. Rudolf Bultmann. He is a crucial figure in 20th century New Testament studies. His commentary on the Gospel of John ought to be read by everyone interested in NT studies.
   
   
5. F.C. Baur. He was instrumental in shaping the field of Patristics and the study of the early Church for Protestants. Heavily reliant upon Hegelianism. He founded what is known as the Tübingen School.
   
   
6. Kevin Vanhoozer. I think he's a big name among Evangelicals and rightly so. Vanhoozer is very bright and his books engage with a wide range of sources and theories. I don't agree with him on much, but he is not someone one can simply disregard. There's real meat in his theology and I think if Evangelicals are looking for someone to help them with their intellectual struggles, Vanhoozer would be a good place to start.
   
   
7. Adolf von Harnack. Another critical figure in my own field. What impresses me most about von Harnack's work is its range. The guy could do it all, from NT studies to Church history. The sort of education he received is that of a bygone era and I'm not sure we'll ever produce people as well-rounded as von Harnack.
   
   
8. N.T. Wright. Wright is sometimes disregarded by New Testament scholars, but I think it's because he is so philosophically adept. He knows what's at stake, what's underpinning certain methodologies, etc. I know his NPP stuff is not always so well-received (he is basically just saying what Catholics have known since St. Paul), but it is not easy to dismiss him. I think the fact that he's trained in Thomism (although of the Lonerganian sort) makes him very interesting as an NT scholar. As a modification of his theories on exile in the New Testament, I highly recommend Brant Pitre's Jesus, The Tribulation, and the End of Exile.

These Yale Religious Studies lectures are a fantastic introduction to critical scholarship. The OT series is particularly well done and this lay reader would think they'd give you all the background you need to explore topics more in depth on your own. IIRC, the OT series has the JPS study bible as recommended reading, which would also offer introductory essays for each biblical text.

If you have your heart set on a book, you would probably be best served by a proper introductory textbook, but FYI they do have the material from these courses in book form. The OT one reads pretty much like a transcript of the lectures, while the NT professor said he had to recreate the text from the ground up because of how freeform his lectures are ;)

> I was wondering if anyone has some solid, unbiased sources for serious Bible study?

They don't exist. Everyone has biases. The very best scholars are those who can divulge their biases and give reasons for them and reasons against the biases of others. That's part of the scholarly conversation.

For background stuff, maybe check out:
David Aune's The New Testament in Its Literary Environment

I liked Shaye Cohen's From the Maccabees to the Mishnah when it comes to understanding "Judaism" in the first century AD.

NT Wright's The New Testament and the People of God is very good.

I also really liked Brant Pitre's Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile - a reworking of his Ph.D dissertation at Notre Dame (under David Aune).

Mark Goodacre's work on Q is good. I read it early in my academic career and it has kept me from believing in the Q theory since.

The biggest journal in the field is probably Journal of Biblical Studies. New Testament Studies is another big one (from Cambridge).

Edit: Also, learn Greek. There are grammars specifically for New Testament Greek (Koine) like David Alan Black's Learn to Read New Testament Greek - which is fine for an NT Greek grammar (though he barely covers the optative since it's so little used in the NT). I would just learn Classical Greek using something like Hansen and Quinn. If you can read Classical Greek, nothing in the Bible (either LXX or NT) will give you a problem.

I don't think so. The first line is translated as

> in the summit “Elohiym [Powers]” fattened the sky and the land

The translation of בְּרֵאשִׁית as "in the summit" is a very uncommon conjecture made to strengthen the parallel between Genesis and the Babylonian Enuma Elish, which opens with "when on high". There are indeed parallels between the two texts, but the translation of that particular word is a non-literal interpretation. Literally, it means something like "at the head".

The translation of בָּרָא as "fattened" is something that I've never seen before. At best it's a fringe theory.

Skimming the rest of the lines, I can see many more of these unusual translations which were likely made to fit into some sort of specific non-standard interpretation. For example, the simple word "טוֹב" (good) is translated as "functional".

I recommend the Jewish Study Bible, which is often used in university courses. It uses the latest JPS translation, which is decent, but more importantly it includes ample commentary by unbiased experts.

It may be helpful to study the poetic structure of Genesis. One such example can be found here: http://speakingofyhwh.blogspot.com/2010/07/structure-and-poetic-parallelism-of.html?m=1

One popular source for information of this nature is [Genesis: A Commentary] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0310224586/ref=cm_sw_r_an_am_ap_am_us?ie=UTF8). I haven't read it myself but it is on my to do list.

One site I do subscribe to and read on a regular basis is Biologos. They are a fantastic resource and I highly recommend checking them out.

Science and religion are not contradictory, no matter what hardcore fundamentalists want you to think.

Another popular book is Belief in God in an Age of Science.

Sorry for the scattered collection of thoughts. I am typing this on my phone.

I've got to put in a plug for the translation and commentary of R' Hirsch, of which I'm a big fan. I love his elegant, holistic, thoughtful take on the whole Torah, especially the ritual stuff in Leviticus (Temple offerings, ritual purity, etc.) that's otherwise most difficult to understand from a modern perspective. When I read R' Hirsch, everything fits together so well, and I'm in awe at the elegance with with God constructed the Torah.

The original English translation (He wrote in German.), which I'm familiar with, is now out of print. The new English translation uses a more contemporary English. I haven't studied it carefully enough to say anything else about it, but I can certainly recommend the ideas is came from.

The cheapest I see on Froogle is a bit above your mother's subsidy, but IMO, well worth it.

With all due respect to psstein's post, I cannot endorse his syntopic problem list. For sure read Goodacre, but read it knowing that it is highly contentious and still not accepted by the majority of scholars. Streeter is a light and easy read, but he is outdated, having written almost 100 years ago. Farmer's theory, too, has few adherents, and the other two are redundant if you just read Goodacre.

My suggestions include first this article. This will quickly get you caught up on the basics.

For books, Pheme Perkins' Introduction to the Synoptic Problem is a great beginner's guide. I heartily recommend it before diving into the particulars of each major theory.

Speaking of major theory, Kloppenborg's Excavating Q is right up there as the most important book on Q. If you want to understand 2ST, start here.

psstein has it covered with Historical Jesus, though I would also recommend Erhman's Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.

For textual criticism, you'll want Metzger's Textual Commentary on the New Testament for sure, but do check out Tov's guide on the Hebrew bible while you're at it. (Older version is cheaper.)

If you want to help him in his studies rather than buy something especially for his soul, every seminarian should have Carson and Beale's Commentary on NT use of OT. It's a wee but pricy and probably won't be required for a specific class so he probably won't end up buying it himself. However, it is immensely valuable. I think that makes it a great option as a gift.

Thanks for the reply! That about fits my expectations. Looking back at the references for most of the celestial deity claims, they seem to lean much more heavily on Goldziher, though he cite's Gunkel's Genesis commentary pretty frequently for other claims. There is one point in relation to this where he cites Gunkel, but he's citing Goldziher in the same paragraph, and he doesn't go into any detail about what he's pulling from either:

> Below the surface we can detect visages of earlier myths. First, we have another story of the perpetual rivalry between the sun and the moon. Esau is the sun, as noted above; Jacob is the moon. This is why he is described as a "smooth man" (Gen. 27:12) as opposed to his brother who is a "hairy man." [Goldziher, Mythology, pp. 127-28, 134-37, 139-50] There are flaming solar rays but only a gentle lunar halo. Similarly, Elijah, "a hairy man" (2 Kings 1:8), is the sun, replaced by the bald Elishah (2 Kings 2:23), the moon. Physical descriptions of Bible characters are very rare. When they do occur, they are clues. Who gets the priority? Who gets to rule the heavens? Which one will succeed the old, declining sun, the blind Isaac? [Gunkel at pp. 105-106]

"Gunkel" refers to this volume: https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Mercer-Library-Biblical-Studies/dp/0865545170
"Golziher" to a 1967 edition of Mythology among the Hebrews and its historical development

You wanted to be part of the intelligentsia, but throughout your philosophical journey, you always based your convictions only on authority and tradition instead of on evidence and arguments. Don't you realize that this is the epitome of anti – intellectualism?

It is correct that the New Atheists aren't the pinnacle of atheistic thought and didn't contribute many new ideas to the academic debate of atheism vs. theism or religion. But this was never their goal, and it is also unnecessary, since the academic debate is already over for many decades. If you want to know why the arguments for theism are all complete nonsense and not taken seriously anymore, why Christianity is wrong just about everything and why apologists like Craig are dishonest charlatans who make a living out of fooling people, your reading list shouldn't be New Atheists, but rather something like this:

Colin Howson – Objecting to God

George H. Smith – Atheism: The Case Against God

Graham Oppy – Arguing about Gods

Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against God

Herman Philipse – God in the Age of Science

J. L. Mackie – The Miracle of Theism

J. L. Schellenberg – The Wisdom to Doubt

Jordan Sobel – Logic and Theism

Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God

Richard Gale – On the Nature and Existence of God

Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism

Stewart Elliott Guthrie – Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion

Theodore Drange – Nonbelief & Evil



[Avigor Shinan – From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0827609086)

Bart Ehrman – The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings

Bart Ehrman – Jesus, Interrupted

Bart Ehrman – Misquoting Jesus

Burton L. Mack – Who Wrote the New Testament?

Helmut Koester – Ancient Christian Gospels

John Barton, John Muddiman – The Oxford Bible Commentary

John Dominic Crossan – Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

Karen Armstrong – A History of God

Mark Smith – The Early History of God

Randel McCraw Helms – Who Wrote the Gospels?

Richard Elliott Friedman – Who Wrote the Bible?

Robert Bellah – Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

Robert Walter Funk – The Gospel of Jesus

I think the Oxford Bible Commentary is a great resource in general. They publish commentary on sections of the Bible in separate volumes, including one on the Pentateuch, which includes an overview of the history of Pentateuch criticism and the development of the JEPD Documentary Hypothesis.

The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library has a lot of good resources in biblical criticism too. They recently released this hefty renewal/evaluation/overview of JEPD. It received a good review from the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, which I think is considered a respectable representative of mainstream biblical studies.

Also, Robert Alter (The Art of Biblical Narrative) is always fun to read for a fresh, literary perspective. He might have an interesting take on JEPD in his edition of the Pentateuch.

I read the bible with the aid of a commentary (The New Jerome Biblical Commentary), and a Bible Dictionary (HarperCollins Bible Dictionary). It slowed the pace a bit, but I got a lot out of it. I also had some good intros to the New Testament (An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond Brown and The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart Ehrman).

Some other interesting study aids:

• Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman - for an overview on the Documentary Hypothesis of the Pentateuch.
  
  
• Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman - goes over the difficulty of rebuilding the original words of the authors of the bible.
  
  Good Luck.

It's syntax and grammar. I'm not going to give you a third year Greek course on Reddit. Grab Dan Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics and make it your best friend.

After that, grab Moises Silva's Biblical Words and their Meaning. And remember the central rule - just because it's the first definition listed doesn't mean it's the definition of the word you're looking at.

Finally, grab a copy of D.A. Carson's Exegetical Fallacies. That'll help you out quite a bit.

That's assuming that you would actually read non-Watchtower approved materials. I know how touchy they get when people branch out from the approved list.

I second /u/ancient_dude's suggestion of John Dominic Crossan. He's probably the "safest" author if you want someone who is a fascinating scholar yet still a confessing Christian.

Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton Mack is a great read, information-dense but easy to get into.

Also good is Cutting Jesus Down to Size by G.A. Wells.

For a book more focused on Acts and its depiction of early Christianity, try The Mystery of Acts: Unraveling Its Story by Richard Pervo.

Every page of these books will present you with ideas and critical scholarship that probably never occurred to you (or most lay readers of the Bible).

First of all, can I just say how much I love giving and receiving book recommendations? I was a religious studies major in college (and was even a T.A. in the World Religions class) so, this is right up my alley. So, I'm just going to take a seat in front of my book cases...

General:

1. A History of God by Karen Armstrong
   
   
2. The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
   
   
3. Myths: gods, heroes, and saviors by Leonard Biallas (highly recommended)
   
   
4. Natural History of Religion by David Hume
   
   
5. Beyond Tolerance by Gustav Niebuhr
   
   
6. Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel (very highly recommended, completely shaped my view on pluralism and interfaith dialogue)
   
   
7. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
   
   Christianity:
   
   
8. Tales of the End by David L. Barr
   
   
9. The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
   
   
10. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
11. The Birth of Christianity by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
12. Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton Mack
    
    
13. Jesus in America by Richard Wightman Fox
    
    
14. The Five Gospels by Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar (highly recommended)
    
    
15. Remedial Christianity by Paul Alan Laughlin
    
    Judaism:
    
    
16. The Jewish Mystical Tradition by Ben Zion Bokser
    
    
17. Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman
    
    Islam:
    
    
18. Muhammad by Karen Armstrong
    
    
19. No God but God by Reza Aslan
    
    
20. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
    
    Buddhism:
    
    
21. Buddha by Karen Armstrong
    
    
22. Entering the Stream ed. Samuel Bercholz & Sherab Chodzin Kohn
    
    
23. The Life of Milarepa translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa
    
    
24. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers
    
    
25. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps (a classic in Western approached to Buddhism)
    
    
26. Buddhist Thought by Paul Williams (if you're at all interested in Buddhist doctrine and philosophy, you would be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this book)
    
    Taoism:
    
    
27. The Essential Chuang Tzu trans. by Sam Hamill & J.P. Seaton
    
    Atheism:
    
    
28. Atheism by Julian Baggini
    
    
29. The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
    
    
30. Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht
    
    
31. When Atheism Becomes Religion by Chris Hedges
    
    
32. Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith

If the Bible is the word of God, it'd have certain properties. I'd expect it to be right about the history and nature of the world. All evidence suggests that it isn't. Biblical understanding of history and nature is right in line with what you'd expect from ancient people.

I would expect God to be able to keep his facts straight. The Bible does not. From what I've read, scholars seem to have a pretty good handle on who wrote the various parts of the Bible based on the agendas revealed by these contradictions.

Finally, if the Bible was the word of God, all his prophecies would come to pass. They have not.

Finally, I'd like to note that there are Biblical scholars that hold this view. They include Robert M. Price, Bart D. Ehrman, Richard Elliot Friedman, and Burton L. Mack. I guess they're all misinformed too. If only they had studied the Bible.

Talk to an Imam (a Muslim community leader) about which Surahs (chapters of the Qur'an) to read in which order, because the order of Surahs in the Qur'an is according to length, not according to the order in which they were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

The Documentary Hypothesis can be read in depth enough to get the gist of it on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

It discusses the authorship of the Torah. It was originally called the Five Books of Moses because Moses was the principal character of the Torah, but somehow people got it in their heads that Moses wrote the Torah, which is incorrect.

An academic introduction that's pretty good for the New Testament can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Testament-Anchor-Reference-Library/dp/0300140169/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1292989694&sr=8-2

It's basically a book on who wrote which book, under which circumstances. The overall issue here is that the Bible itself covers an undetermined span of time of prehistory pretty simplistically, then covers about 1,000 years of history with a magnifying glass, and without some idea as to the overall themes and stories of what's going on, it's easy to get lost in the narrative.

Did choose one - Jesus was a Jew.

Scholars will make it a course of study...Has been done since the Church was first started, as in "The Book of Hebrews"...

> https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Study-Bible-Publication-Translation/dp/0195297512

> The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation: Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler, Michael Fishbane: 9780195297515: Amazon.com: Books

> The Jewish Study Bible is a one-volume resource tailored especially for the needs of students of the Hebrew Bible. Nearly forty scholars worldwide contributed to the translation and interpretation of the Jewish Study Bible, representing the best of Jewish biblical scholarship available today. A committee of highly-respected biblical scholars and rabbis from the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism movements produced this modern translation.

> No knowledge of Hebrew is required for one to make use of this unique volume. The Jewish Study Bible uses The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.

> Since its publication, the Jewish Study Bible has become one of the most popular volumes in Oxford's celebrated line of bibles. The quality of scholarship, easy-to-navigate format, and vibrant supplementary features bring the ancient text to life.

>* Informative essays that address a wide variety of topics relating to Judaism's use and interpretation of the Bible through the ages.

• In-text tables, maps, and charts.
  
• Tables of weights and measures.
  
• Verse and chapter differences.
  
• Table of Scriptural Readings.
  
• Glossary of technical terms.
  
• An index to all the study materials.
  
• Full color New Oxford Bible Maps, with index.
  
  

Read Edith Hamilton's Mythology and then read the Bible. If your university offers a Bible as Literature class take it, otherwise you could look into taking one in the religions department. You'll have more motivation to get through it if your grade depends on it. Plus, the benefits of actually learning the material so you can recognize it on your own while you are reading, with the ease of the subconscious. I also highly recommend this book

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Books-Moses-Translation-Commentary/dp/0393019551

It's a new translation of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and it's written in a modern literary style which is quite impressive.

I have noticed that what I first thought was "free" video resources are actually not.

With that said I will offer a few things anyway.

Craig R koester offers a number of books with this one "Revelation and the End of All Things" being the most on topic. It's a good companion piece for video/audio lecture series produced by The Great Courses called "Apocalypse: Controversies and Meaning in Western History". While his works do have issues that can be questioned (and should be!) they are an excellent and readily available source for pretty much anyone.

You can acquire the lecture series from a very specific bay frequented by a specific type of seafarers of dubious reputation, Also you can just buy them.

There is a wide variety of beliefs within christianity. For example, there are some christians that hold to trinity theology while others do no. There are some who believe that you need only grace to be saved while some others think those who will be saved through predestination while some yet believe you need works too to be save. All of these people can point to chapters and verses in the bible to support their beliefs. To quote Jeff Dee, "the bible is the big book of multiple choice."

When it comes to reading the bible, I don't know that I have the only correct approach but what I did was get some really good scholarly books and videos on the bible. Some of the things I used are:

Videos

Introduction to the Old Testament

New Testament History and Literature

Divine Inspiration and Biblical Inerrancy: The Failed Hypothesis

Matt Dillahunty's Atheist Debates Project


Books

Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman

The Human Faces of God by Thom Stark

The Oxford Bible Commentary

Podcasts

Reasonable Doubts Podcast

Thinking Atheist Podcast

Hmmm, I don't personally know of any good intro to Jewish philosophy books, but I'm sure they exist. Maybe other redditors can give us some good suggestions? I wouldn't recommend that Talmud though. It basically assumes prior knowledge of Tanakh (the Jewish bible), and is the size of a full set of encyclopedias. I do really like The Jewish Study Bible however. It's basically an English translation of the bible and lots of commentary. It might be a decent intro to Judaism, but it might be a little too involved to read without background or someone to talk to about it.

>As I said, I grew up as Catholic as one can.

You also said you attended seminary for four years. One would think that you have studied the Summa upon immediate entry into your pre-theology.

>I actually studied for a year the Acts of the Apostles.

Then surely, as a former Seminarian, you have a Reverse Interlinear and a Greek Primer to study Scripture as in-depth as possible? Because, as every good seminarian knows, Scripture is written in Koine Greek, and we need to study various facets of language to understand the full meaning of what is recorded.

>Do I try to seek answers? Everyday I do. I visit /r/Christianity to check on discussions often

I would not qualify visiting an online forum as a means of seeking answers.

>I read a lot about the history of the Bible.

Whom have you read?

Surely, as a seminarian, you have read An Introduction to the New Testament by Brown and Reading the Old Testament by Boadt. Both are standard readings in seminary.

>I would never have known that creationism is a Jewish folklore.

Eh...I wouldn't say that "creationism if a Jewish folklore." I would say that Creationism is a non-Catholic interpretation of the Genesis myth (here I do not mean today's understanding of "myth").

Indeed. I am using the Robert Alter commentary to assist: http://amzn.to/1mTl5W4 I also have C.S.Lewis NSRV bible to help along the way. I certainly found it very challenging to read Leviticus and Numbers. With regards to moral quandaries, it certainly helps to have a reference section to guide you. I see the first 5 books in my own opinion a narrative of God trying to find the use for man. Abraham and Moses temper the wrath of God by debating his retribution on humanity at several points. These bits are where I feel chills down my spine..

>Why do you think Apollo was the patron god of Rome?
>From what I've read, Jupiter (Zeus) was the patron god of Rome.

The Julio-Claudian dynasty claimed it's legitimacy via their Apollo (at least according to the podcast The History of Rome. The idea of divine kingship was new to Rome (but old in the Crescent Valley) and very much a part of the perceived legitimacy of the new Emperor system (which replaced a Republic system). And though you are correct in the 3000 year history of Rome there has been numerous different patron deities including Jupiter, Apollo, Sol Invictus and eventually Jesus Christ. But at the writing of Revelation the emperial cult was Apollonian (also see Rev 9:11 where Abaddon (Hebrew) is Appollyon (Greek).

>In Rev 1, he writes to churches in 'Asia' (which were of course within the Roman empire).

The subject of Revelation pretty obviously appeals to more than the seven churches in Asia!

Also for future reading I was influenced by Revelation and the End of All Things and Revelation: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Revelation is the only book I have gone full scholarly research.

Good study bibles: The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible or The HarperCollins Study Bible.

Another good one for great insights into the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament): Jewish Study Bible

That's such a nice idea! It's not secular but you might appreciate the commentary of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Raphael_Hirsch there is a popular edition here

>. I've actually been wanting to look into the history of the Earth and see how different periods in our planetary history (when the planet cooled into recognizable "land," the first appearance of the oceans, the first appearance of complex life, the first appearance of the species homo sapien etc) and see how that corresponds to the "days" in Genesis. It would be really cool if there were some discernible pattern or correlation between the two!

There is!!! And it is actually more complex and staggering than you can imagine..

http://www.amazon.com/The-Science-God-Convergence-Scientific/dp/076790303X

This book single-handedly jumpstarted my faith back .

Thanks for this AMA

>What if I told you the only group of Christianity that really opposed Evolution is a specific, small subset out of the world-wide population of Christians? It is only really prominent within Conservative Evangelical Christianity (which happens to be, unfortunately, the largest, the most vocal and the most influential religious demographic within the USA, world-wide however is a different story)

I wouldn't call them small considering the influence they wield in government.

>Would you be surprised if I told you that the evidence for Jesus' existence is so overwhelming that no serious Ancient History, Classics, or Christian/New Testament Studies department in any university would deny that he was a real figure?

There are scholars that have put forth the theory he is an amalgam of characters of history and I'm not sure they are wrong. This aside even if a person name Jesus existed in this time frame there is nowhere near the evidence to substantuate the claims of the Bible.

>Would it surprise you if I told you that we know there are contradictions, and that a lot of us don't think they are significant enough to undo our faith?

Nope... I found plenty of Christians willing to cherry pick what they believe, nothing new here.

>We have a lot more complex and nuanced view than simply "everything the Bible says is true" and "the Bible never contradicts itself".

How can you expect us to believe its the word of god if it doesn't demonstrate divine like qualities? For example if the Bible was readable regardless of your language to everyone without translation this would be evidence there is something more here.. Or perhaps if Bibles were impossible to destroy. Two things a divine, all powerful being could do in order to demonstrate there is something special about this book. Instead the Bible appears to be a poorly written book, riddled with contradictions and historical inaccuracies.


>However, scholars generally believe that the NT is basically reliable in giving an account of his life, and along with the external evidence provided, is enough to explain who Jesus was and what he did in his historical context.

Very wrong here. Please go read 'Who wrote the New Testament'
https://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrote-New-Testament-Christian/dp/0060655186

A lot of what's been listed is devotional stuff, not critical stuff.

For a good critical intro to the New Testament, try Raymond Browns Introduction to the New Testament

Or Bart Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings

Just about anything by Geza Vermes is also very good.

For the Old Testament, I'd recommend James Kugel's How to Read the Bible

or even Asimov's Guide to the Bible.

Exegetical Fallacies is great, and I really like Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility.

I'd definitely go with the New Oxford Annotated Bible. It's fantastic. Apparently there's a new edition out.

Also worth checking out for more detail is the Oxford Bible Commentary.

CoC teaches something + faith for salvation, however you slice it. You combat this by preaching the gospel of justification by faith alone and defending it as the Reformers did against Rome. Unless members of your own church are being drawn away to the CoC then there's no need to address the church down the street directly--it would be difficult to do in love at any rate. If members of your church are being drawn away, teach them right doctrine. A polemic against the CoC down the street isn't what they need.

For an interesting read and insight into CoC history, I recommend "Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement" by A. B. Caneday, which is found as Chapter 9 in Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ.

For the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, "The Jewish Study Bible" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Jewish-Study-Bible-Publication/dp/0195297512) has pretty fantastic analytical commentary. While I can't attest to the quality of the translation itself, the extensive discussion of the midrash and modern historical analyses may give you the sort of nuanced details that you're looking for.

> hard from an intellectual point of view

I'm sorry, I had to snicker when I read this. There is no other organization that has more intellectual underpinnings than the Catholic Church.

If you are having problems reconciling Scripture (exegetically or hermeneutically), you need to start reading academic books, such as those by Brown, Meier, Gonzalez, and Martos, just to name a few.

Helpful for me was Thomism and modern Thomists such as Feser.

My understanding is that, theologically, there are two major groups of Jews today: Reform and Orthodox. The Orthodox are the fundamentalists who generally take the Jewish Bible as literally true. Reform Jews are much more numerous and much more liberal, and would not see the early chapters of Genesis as literally true.

I picked up a copy of The Jewish Study Bible a few years ago, when I started watching the Yale Online courses on the Old Testament (because that was the translation recommended by the professor). And the commentary in this version will tell you that these stories in Genesis are not literally true.

This came up elsewhere, but I figured asking for your thoughts couldn't hurt:

What about his book impressed you, specifically? I always felt that the author's attempt to mathematically justify the Genesis creation myth was as embarrassing contrived as Bible codes.

Gerald Schroeder has two great books on it. The Science of God and Genesis and the Big Bang.

He provides one possible framework showing that Creationism and Evolution are not at odds. He also has audio version available at Aishaudio.com.

I can't help you there I'm afraid. I was lucky enough to do new testament studies at school and that was very helpful. I have no idea where to start - you're looking for something like this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Bible-Commentary-John-Barton/dp/0199277184

Do some research and ask around.

You could also just go all out with the commentary and buy the St. Jerome Commentary. This is a masterpiece.

These two are probably the most respected in academia. If you want to get just one, I'd go with the NRSV for both Jewish Bible and New Testament.

Just the TANAKH (Old Testament): The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation

TANAKH and New Testament (The Christian Bible): The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version

The professor for this class on the Old Testament (lecture videos here) suggests the Jewish Study Bible.

Yale offers a course for the New Testament as well (videos here), and the professor suggests The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha as a good study bible.

I've not read it myself, but have heard good things about Who Wrote The New Testament

You're looking for a good critical commentary. That should survey the current state of the field and consider specific and general approaches.

Yale's Anchor commentaries has had a new Revelation a few years ago, which is good, perhaps a bit heavyweight if you're buying for curiosity, but if you can get it from a library, the introduction (which is about a third of the book) is readable and comprehensive.

The author of that book (Craig Koester) also has a smaller book on revelation for a more general reader. Though I haven't read it to vouch for it, personally, apparently it is consistent with his academic work.

This is the accompanying textbook for Yale's excellent Old Testament introductory course by Christine Hayes.

An excellent book to read regarding the depiction of the end times in the Bible is Revelation and the End of All Things ” by Kraig Koester.
While it’s primary focus is on the book of Revelation it also looks at the eschatological passages in other books such as Daniel.

For a scholarly translation: The JPS Study Bible

For a more "traditional" translation, The Artscroll Tanach

However, I need to note that you won't learn about Judaism or Jewish practice from reading the Tanach. I hear Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Telushkin is a very good starting place.

To add more surveys of interesting perspectives, I'll also throw in:

Christopher Rowland - Christian Origins
Raymond Brown - An Introduction to the New Testament

Who Wrote the New Testament and The New Testament a Historical Introduction are both good places to start. The latter is by Bart Ehrman, who Bikewer mentioned.

When you want to dive deeper into the New Testament I’d recommend some introductory material such as:

• An Introduction to the New Testament
  
• The Jesus Legend

I'd recommend the Jewish Study Bible. If you get something like an Artscroll Tanakh, a lot of the translations are influenced by rabbinic traditions, which probably isn't what you're looking for.

Also if you find something labeled "Jewish Bible", it might be a Messianic translation, and those are completely 100% bogus and should be avoided.

For the New Testament, I recommend Brown

https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-New-Testament-Raymond-Brown/dp/0300140169

If you like the bible so much, you should also know who actually wrote it.
I suggest you read this book.

No, actually, they did not. Might I recommend "Who Wrote The New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth" by Burton L. Mack?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060655186

I don't think this is exclusive to Matthew, the NT writers seem to use the OT in a way that modern folks would get totally blasted for.

I've been meaning to pick this book up for a while, but haven't got around to it. Might be worth considering for tackling these types of questions.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0801026938/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484612155&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=commentary+on+the+new+testament+use+of+the+old+testament

Agreed. Here is a link.

The textual notes will be footnotes that tell you what manuscripts have different versions - either insertions/omissions/transposed wording, etc. It's a language to learn all in it's own both what each critical mark means and what the symbols for all the manuscripts means.

The Reader's Edition is great for translating. If you really want to dive into the textual critical part, I'd suggest getting this one. I'd also get the one with textual notes and the accompanying commentary explaining the text selection. It's really a different world from translating, unless you are doing a commentary.

>But I think to say Christianity has absolutely no possibility of being >possible is a really cocky thing to say.

I can't speak for every atheist, but I can speak for myself and people like Sam Harris when I say that we're not closed off to the idea of there being a god, it's just that there is no substantial evidence for such an entity. There's tons of claims that god exists, but so far they've all been dead ends. And all those teachings that are in the gospels are actually a greek philosophy that existed a few hundred years before Jesus. Burton Mack touches on that in Who Wrote the New Testament? I think there probably was a historical Jesus, I just doubt the supernatural claims.

"When censored for keeping bad company, Antisthenes replied, "Well, physicians attend their patients without catching the fever." which parallels Jesus eating with tax collectors and prostitutes.

There are other parallels as well, like living a life free from wealth, rejecting worldly possessions, rejecting fame (like when Jesus told people to not show their good works in Matthew 6:1-4). This shouldn't be too much of a surprise that greek philosophy was inserted considering that the new testament was written in greek.

The Jewish Study Bible if you want a more scholarly analysis.

You mean like the Jewish Study Bible?

Note that the reason there is only one of these (and I don't even know if this is what you're looking for), is probably because Jews and Christians take different approaches to learning the bible. I've found (and this is purely personal observation, not a scientific study) that Christians read much more finely taking single passages and sentences and analyzing them in their own right. Jews take a step back and usually consider each passage in it's larger context. Jews also tend to try to look at things through the prism of our sages first to see how things were interpreted by our ancestors, while Christians ask "what does this mean to me, today" and ignore older interpretations.

Revelation is apocalyptic, so much of its allusions are a muddled conglomeration of thematic ideas -- not usually a specific one to pin point. So be careful when trying to specify exactly. But the book as a whole really "drips of the OT", as I had a prof once state (i.e. references the OT without explicitly referencing the OT). So when I read, I'm looking for OT allusions or echoes. So would agree that the Isaianic references are likely. These demonstrate more of supremacy rather than oneness -- although the latter really demonstrates the former, so it could be both -- especially if you hold to a Johannine authorship since "oneness" is a key theme in the Johannine corpus.

Also note where in the book these references occur. The "first and the last" in chps 1 and 2 and "the beginning and the end" in the final chapter. In the final chapter, God/Jesus have demonstrated their supremacy in their victory over death, sin, Satan, etc. so 22.13 is really the final proclamation of this supremacy. And note the three-fold repetition of the proclamation, denoting completion. They also serve as inclusio (i.e. thematic "bookends") for the book as a whole. The idea in the inclusio generally represents a guideline for authorial intent, and thus interpretation. It's also (possibly) an inclusio to the Johannie corpus as well (cf. Jn 1.1). So there's a good bit going on here, both intercontextually and intracontextually.

Just my initial thoughts. But if you're really wanting further info, I'd recommend these two commentaries: NT Use of the OT, Revelation (NIGTC). I would consider the first source a must-have reference for any NT student worth his salt.

EDIT: gloss, grammar

Idea of how the Christian Movement began

For details about which parts of the Bible are from which era, you'll need to do some research. Because bible sources before the King James are so thin on the ground (very few of them around) each part is an area of expertise. I would look for the parts relating to prophecies in the OT that are linked to such events in the the NT.

Check out something like Burton Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth

I'm reading that now, he makes a reasonable argument for the Christ mythology idea, and provides an in depth analysis of the writing of the NT in a historical context.

chapter 3. page 45

You are correct, your professor is a fundamentalist. Check out The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart D. Ehrman and An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond E. Brown.

There's also an associated book for that course.

https://www.amazon.com/Textual-Commentary-Greek-Testament-Ancient/dp/1598561642

Get yourself a copy. Read the introduction. Get back to me.

If you can get your hands on a copy of this you'll spend the whole day reading it: http://www.amazon.com/Textual-Commentary-Testament-Ancient-Edition/dp/1598561642

For the New Testament read this http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Testament-Anchor-Reference-Library/dp/0300140169

For the Old testament Read this
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Old-Testament-5th-Edition/dp/013092380X/ref=pd_sim_b_78

Seconding Beale. Also see: http://www.amazon.com/Commentary-New-Testament-Use-Old/dp/0801026938

Jerome Biblical Commentary

New Jerome Biblical Commentary

G.K. Beale - Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

It's a surprise to exactly no one that there is an official hermeneutics for each expression of christianity, as the entire literary exegetical process has its start in widespread bible study over the past 400ish years. If you go from that notion, however, to buying the line that there is a consistent agenda that can be interpreted among the bible's authors, then you have limited yourself to non-academic, religious sources. Researchers in the fields of anthropology, history, and religious studies agree upon the conflicting political aims of the various authors of both the old and new testament. Some relevant works would be this overview of scholarship on the authors of the old testament and this overview of scholarship on how the gospels were written.

Sure thing. The books are NOT from his disciples. They were written decades after his death. This is mainstream scholarship for non-fundamentalist Christians (i.e., what regular seminaries teach people).

You may want to read: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrote-New-Testament-Christian/dp/0060655186

Two gospels mention the virgin birth. Two do not.

Jesus appears to four different sets of people and at different times.

Judas dies in two different ways.

So this thoroughly undermines the credibility of the New Testament (and there are dozens and dozens of such examples).

To take just a few:

http://www.thinkatheist.com/notes/101_Contradictions_in_the_Bible/