(Part 2) Best products from r/AskBibleScholars

I got it for about 30 bucks on Amazon. So it’s more expensive than your standard pocket bible but it’s not bad as far as study bibles go. Considering the use I’ve gotten out of it and how much it’s helped me with both my studies and my faith, I would’ve gladly paid twice that. As a brother in Christ (sorry mods, I know that kind of language is kinda frowned upon here), I’d encourage you to splurge on it.

That doesn’t sound like a bad price for the ESV student bible if that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for, but I wouldn’t consider that and the New Oxford as alternatives to each other. They’re really trying to accomplish two different things. If you already have a decent grasp on fundamental Christian theology, I don’t think you’ll gain a lot from the ESV student bible, unless you just want to keep it around to compare certain passages, which I do still use it for occasionally.

Link on amazon: The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version https://www.amazon.com/dp/019027607X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_nqH6CbC9THYR6

I'd like to echo Pocket-Veto's request for more information about what your assignment question specifically is. Anyway I'd definitely get my hands on Introduction to the New Testament by RE Brown, if I were you. That textbook includes some discussion about the authorship of all the New Testament texts as well as commentary on themes and narrative and the like.


Other general textbooks on the New Testament that you might find useful are:

• Studying the Gospels: An Introduction by Gideon Goosen and Margaret Tomlinson
  
• The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation by Luke Timothy Johnson
  
• Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology by Marianne Thompson, Joel B. Green , Paul J. Achtemeier
  
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  The next place to look would be the entries on the gospels in a couple of Bible Dictionaries. E.g. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible or the Anchor Bible Dictionary, etc.
  
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  Next get a hold of some bible commentaries on the individual gospels. For example, Luke Timothy Johnson has a commentary on Luke in the Sacra Pagina series and RT France and Daniel Harrington have commentaries on Matthew etc. Go to!
  
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  I must say that all these are not so relevant to the question about how the text does or does not point to the divinity of Christ. For that I guess you want studies in Christology. So here's a few to get you started:
  
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• The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ by Brant Pitre (Actually, check out the contents page of this book. I think Pitre has chapters on quite a number of the topics that you would like to touch on for your paper).
  
• Christology: A biblical, historical, and systematic study of Jesus by Gerald O'Collins
  
• Jesus the Christ by Walter Kasper
  
• Jesus of Nazareth (3 volumes) by Pope Benedict XVI
  
• The Priority of Christ by Robert Barron (specifically the section on narratives about Jesus).
  
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  You also should get on to your university's library page and do some searches for journal articles or dissertations about the gospels. There's bound to be thousands. You don't need to read them all. Just find a few articles with your relevant key words in the article or description, give the abstract a quick read and then based off of that decide whether or not the article will be any use for you in your assignment and only read it if you think it will.
  
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  Let me know if you have any more questions.
  
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  Good luck!

Apparently I can't post this as a direct reply, but:

Richard Elliott Friedman's new book The Exodus talks quite a bit about this topic. I found this part of the book not quite so interesting to me personally so I won't try to muff my way through a detailed explanation, but in short according to Friedman it started with the Levites, the group he proposes as the only ones who were actually enslaved in Egypt and left for Canaan as the book of Exodus describes. When the Levites arrived in Canaan they were allowed to assimilate into the lands owned by the other tribes. The Levites brought with them the idea of YHWH and as the priest and teacher class were able to integrate the idea that their YHWH (their only god) and the god the Israelites worshiped, El, were one and the same. They worshiped no other gods at this point, hence "monotheism". I generalize of course, but this is the basic chain of events. Read the book for the details.

Luckily the book as has a lengthy free preview on the topic on Amazon although I didn't look to see how many pages on this topic could actually be read in free preview.

Here's a link: The Exodus.

That is a difficult question to answer, since each term (conservative, evangelical, biblical scholar) can be defined differently. If you use the example of the Evangelical Theological Society, there will be approximately 2000 people attending their national meeting in November, presenting some 350 papers. But some of those papers might not be considered "conservative" by people who are far more right-wing and they might not be considered "scholarly" by people who attend Society of Biblical Literature meetings, which also meet in November and attract more like 13,000 (along with AAR and a slew of other affiliate groups).

Take as a specific example, Darrell Bock (link to Wikipedia for bibliography). He is at home presenting papers at both ETS and SBL, He was president of ETS in 2001. Bock has published conservative commentaries on Luke and Acts, an important A Theology of Luke and Acts, as well as both scholarly and popular books on historical Jesus. He edited Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus: A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence, a major contribution to historical Jesus studies published by Eerdmans. Since he teaches at Dallas Theological Seminary, most would consider him conservative scholar, but his work might be dismissed as "too liberal" by the greater constituency of DTS, and too conservative because he accepts Luke as the author of Luke-Acts and thinks Acts reports accurate history.

Another example is N. T. Wright. He is clearly not an evangelical in the American sense of the word and he is clearly a biblical scholar. But he can be fairly described as conservative when compared to someone like Bart Ehrman. Some of his positions on social issues might even strike some as quite conservative. He is also quite popular with the ETS types, although mostly so they can write books about how wrong he is in justification.

Not sure I answered the question, hopefully this helps clarify the issue.

My time to author a comprehensive comment is limited, but I believe you may derive some benefit from reading "A Roadmap for Aspiring New Testament Scholars," by Wayne Coppins (University of Georgia), and particularly the section entitled, "Choosing a Master’s Program: MA-PhD, MA, MTS, MPhil, ThM, MDiv," as it is germane to your question above.

Though geared for biblical studies, you should also look at Nijay K. Gupta's Prepare, Succeed, Advance: A Guidebook for Getting a PhD in Biblical Studies and Beyond , available for about $20 (USD).

Best wishes on your future studies!

Edit: added Gupta's book

I am impressed with your serious and thoughtful approach to all of this. You've been through a lot, and I hope you continue to find your way forward.

Two books I would recommend: One is Jennifer Grace Bird's Permission Granted: Taking the Bible Intro Your Own Hands, and another is Peter Enns' The Bible Tells Me So: How Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It.

From slightly different perspectives (Enns is more evangelical in his background and approach), they show how critical readings of the Bible can foster serious and faithful engagement with Scripture, and how the rigid and abusive interpretations of fundamentalists are often rooted more in their own agendas than in the text itself. You can certainly find a middle way through all of this. Good luck and/or many blessings!

>And what solid evidence is there for such claims outside the assertions of religious authorities who saw those groups as their enemies and thus had a vested interest in spreading slander and propaganda about their enemies/competitors?

Okay, how about archaeological evidence. I'm not even a real Bible scholar and it took me less than 5 minutes to find the following regarding ancient child sacrifice to molech and successor deities thereof:

French-led excavations at Carthage began in 1921, and from 1923 reported finds of a large quantity of urns containing a mixture of animal and children's bones. René Dussaud identified a 4th-century BC stela found in Carthage as depicting a child sacrifice. A temple at Amman (1400–1250 BC) excavated and reported upon by J.B. Hennessy in 1966, shows the possibility of bestial and human sacrifice by fire.

Human remains resulting from child sacrifice are certainly not "propaganda."

>rather I was simply pointing out how the remainder of those types of passages in a supposed "holy book" that billions of people today consider to be infallible universal truth and thus the basis of morality, in fact doesn't measure up against any truly objective moral standards; that is morality which falls outside the scope of ONE historical group's narrow sectarian assertions.

Consider reading I See Satan Fall Like Lightning by Rene Girard, which examines the history of religious myth from a psychological perspective.

Girard finds a common thread across almost all such myths, which is (oversimplified) the scapegoating and killing of innocent victims as a stabilizing societal force. Girard then draws the remarkable conclusion that, unique among all religious narratives, are the themes foundational to the Bible (and the Gospels specifically), which is that God fully takes the side of the innocent victim and redeems him. Girard makes a strong case that the introduction of this new meta-narrative -- which begins as early as Genesis and culminates in the story of Jesus -- led to concern for victims becoming the absolute value in all societies molded or affected by the spread of Christianity. It fundamentally changed the attitude toward the oppressed by society writ large, at a subconscious or barely-conscious, and unprecedented, level. Point being, be careful what you seek to do away with before you fully understand the social functions it performs that you take for granted.

There's more I could say on this (e.g., I could ask how you even hold to the existence of "truly objective moral standards" without acknowledging the existence of an eternal Source of moral truth against which the morality of human behavior can be measured). But what I've written above is sufficient for now, I think.

I thought I had more to say on this topic. I apologize. I can't necessarily comment on the greek terms involved, but I'd like to summarize a relevant doctoral dissertation. Hopefully, that'll get you started.

The dissertation is cheap if you want to pick it up, and not very long at all (something like 200 pages). It is Nathan Eubank's The Wages of Cross-Bearing and Debt of Sin: The Economy of Heaven in Matthew's Gospel

In Chapter 1 he surveys the rich variety of economic tropes found in early Jewish and Christian literature. Essentially Righteous deeds were frequently thought to earn heavenly wages that were stored up in heaven. In some cases, they're rewards in heaven. In other cases, they're the remission of sin, deliverance from death, or acquit the person on the day of judgement. Heavenly treasures are sometimes said to benefit people other than those who earned them.

In Chapter 2, he turns to Matthew specifically. For Matthew, sin is a kind of debt. Those who sin against God (or another person) are in danger of being thrown into debtor's prison. One's account with God determines their fate at the final judgement. Heavenly wages can benefit people other than those who earned them (Mt 10:41-42). God isn't a cold bank manager though. He cancels out debt of those who ask and pays righteous deed far more than they are worth. But those who refuse to earn wages or refuse to cancel the debt of others will be punished. Matthew is unusually clear that treasures are stored in the heavens with God as an actual place. He also describes the fate of insolvent sinners in terms of debt bondage. Matthew also describes Jesus himself as doing the kinds of things which build up treasure in heaven.

Chapters 3-5 consist of him applying these findings to the narrative. Chapter 3 analyzes Matthew's portrayal of Jesus as the one born to save his people from their sins. Chapter 4 focuses on Jesus predicting his death and resurrection. These passages indicate that Jesus and his followers must give their lives in order to be repaid with resurrection and the reign spoken of in Daniel 7. Jesus also tells his followers that they must die with him, and they will be repaid with eternal life. Chapter 5 deals with Jesus' death and resurrection itself. Matthew's passion and resurrection narrative, unlike the other gospels, depicts a threefold repayment: the many holy ones are raised up from the dead, Jesus is given eternal life, Jesus is given all authority.

I realize that this isn't a direct answer to your question, but pick up this book. Its a great read and it is related to your question.

Yours as well as ChiefPrinceOfNigeria's comments are not grounded in current scholarship.

See for example:

• The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John
  
• Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (reprint, Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012)
  
• One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism

Your first difficulty are that the vast majority of Jewish commentaries are not readily accessible in English, and even when they are they are often not what I consider simple to comprehend as they have a different style to them than your more modern writings. As mentioned in this thread, Rashi and Ramban are good starts. Some base translations can be had for cheap or free, while more explanatory sets (which make the text more comprehensible) are not so cheap but available even on Amazon. Artscroll published the Tanakh series which manages to put a large swath of commentators in English (equivalent to the above mentioned Mikraot Gedolot), as well as sets focused on specific commentators (Rashi and Ramban as mentioned).

For the NT, I will also pitch the The Jewish Annotated New Testament now in its 2nd Edition, which provides a lot of historical cross referencing between the NT and its Jewish contexts as well as essays and explanations by many academic scholars in the field.

I'm really curious to see what the scholars have to say on this, but until then, I'll add some resources that I didn't see mentioned in your other thread — it's a really interesting question, and I've done a bit of searching myself.

Larry Perkins wrote a paper (PDF warning) that drew on Robert Fowler's book Let the Reader Understand, as well as more recent scholarship. (I'm not sure how much the original book focuses on the parenthetical, so I would suggest previewing a PDF before paying $40 for a paperback, feel free to pm me if you're having trouble finding one.)

Also, a post on the earlychristianwritings.com forum summarizes the argument from the (unfortunately untranslated) German book, Der Weg Jesu. Here's an introduction to the post from Neil Godfrey, who I will note is not a scholar, but as someone unfamiliar with this particular area of scholarship, I found his explanation helpful.