(Part 2) Best christology books according to redditors

tldr; There are millions of us that feel the same way. I hope you don't forsake Christ in name in response to those around you who are forsaking Christ in deed.

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I'm writing this during a break at work. Since I have to make it quick, I'll be recommending a lot of books. There is really too much here anyway to do justice to all of the questions you've put up, so even if I were to give a real, detailed response, I would probably have to resort to suggesting books anyway.

> 1.) I don't think that all of the Bible can be taken literally. I strongly believe in the sciences, so I think that Genesis was written either metaphorically or simply just to provide an explanation for creation. Are there others here that believe that or something similar? How do others respond to your beliefs?

There are many, many, many others who believe similarly. And not just recent people responding to evolution, there has long been a tradition of taking Genesis metaphorically. For a good group of scholars and prominent Christians that take a stand for a reading of Genesis that respects the way that science currently understands origins, see the Biologos Forum.

For a good book that shows the error of inerrancy, how it stunts your growth as a Christian and a moral agent, and how inerrancy limits either human free will or God's sovereignty see Thom Stark's excellent new book The Human Faces of God.

> 2.) Why does it seem that Christianity is such a hateful religion? I am very disappointed in many Christians because they spew hatred towards other instead of spreading love. I think that the energy that is going into the hatred that many spew could be used for good. Why aren't we putting these resources towards helping others? This would help bring people in instead of deter them away.

Again, millions of us feel the same way. It makes me sick as well. However, I don't think the answer is forsaking Christ in name in response to others forsaking Christ in deed.

There are many strands of the Christian faith that have strongly opposed violence of any sort. Look into the Anabaptists, the Mennonites. Podcasts from Trinity Mennonite are pretty good.

For a good book about Jesus and nonviolence see Jesus and Nonviolence by Walter Wink.

> 3.) How can people be against gay rights still? This is clearly religious issue and not an issue of morality. If you choose to follow the parts of the Bible that are against homosexuality, then why do you not feel the need to follow many of the other ridiculous laws that are in the Old Testament?

I'd like to stress that, again, there are millions of us that feel the same way. And many, many of those who still believe it's a sin think that we have no place emphasizing that in a world where LGBT teenagers are killing themselves from the humiliation. There are many, many of us that think that whether their lifestyle is "sinful" or not the only thing we should show them is love.

For more about interpreting the Bible in light of today's social issues, see Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William J. Webb and Sex and the Single Savior by Dale B. Martin.

> Do you believe that the government has the right to say who can and cannot get married? Why can't this just be left up to each individual church?

I'm actually strongly in favor of civil unions for everyone. I wholeheartedly agree that I don't want the government defining marriage... and the only way for the government not to define marriage is for the government to take its hands off marriage altogether; whatever the sexual orientation of those getting married.

> 4.) This was a question that I was asked in my other post that I was unable to answer.

Yes, the penal satisfaction view of atonement has its shortcomings. It's not a completely bankrupt idea, but it takes a lot of nuance to convey it in a way that isn't altogether abhorrent and senseless.

The first Christians believed something similar to what we call today "Christus Victor" atonement.

For a picture of the varied atonement theories available for understanding what Jesus did on the cross, see A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. For a list of ways to understand atonement in a contemporary context, see Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross by Mark D. Baker. For more on a view of God that is consistent with the love of God as revealed in Jesus, see Rob Bell's Love Wins: A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person that ever lived.

> 5.) I asked this in the other post, so I feel that I should ask it here. How many of you do or will teach your children about other religions? Will you present them as options or will you completely write them off?

I'd be wholeheartedly open to exposing them to other religions. And I'd want to do it in a way that does them justice. Most Christian "worldviews" books frustrate me due to the way they portray other's religions. In the long run if you don't accurately portray the rest of the world and you try to shelter your children from it, they'll simply feel betrayed when they grow up and finally learn what's out there.

I believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I actually believe this. Why wouldn't I try to raise my children as Christians?

But again, I wouldn't want to misrepresent the other religions and I certainly wouldn't want to shelter my children from them. For a book that I feel shows the good from many of the world's most prominent religions, see Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

Same here. It was about 2 years ago, and I had only recently gone through my deconstruction of hell and arrived at Purgatorial Universalism, and I'd decided that, as Augustine would say, "all truth is God's truth" and also:

>The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.

(Also Augustine.) So I decided that if this were true, then I needed to really start listening to people I had been taught to avoid, and that I did not need to be afraid. But I was afraid - I was especially afraid of the idea that some of the stories within the Bible were not historical truth. In hindsight, this fear seems so silly to me now - but I was terrified at the time. But I was determined not to let that stop me. So I read "The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions", thinking that this was a safe way to get into these things, since N.T. Wright would keep me from having my mind swayed. To my surprise, I found Borg much more persuasive, and I felt that Wright was just avoiding the facts. But even more to my surprise, Borg seemed very comforting to me - I felt that I didn't have to be afraid like I had been.

I really hoped I'd get a chance to hear Borg speak in person one day, and maybe even meet him. So I am sad about his passing - but it seems, from what I've read, that he was at peace (which seems very characteristic of him), so my sadness is really only for myself. He will be missed, though.

> History in general does have standards. Specifically, it requires contemporary written sources.

No, it doesn't. We don't have contemporary written sources for Confucius. We don't have them for most of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Nor for most of early Roman history. Our knowledge of ancient history in general is built on a framework of much later historical writings, the sources of which were lost centuries ago and cannot be verified.

> But the point of the Christ Myth argument is that the assumption of Christ's historical existence permeates our Wester discourse without enough consciousness that it is a belief rather than a well-documented fact.

And what would be the point of emphasizing that? Imagine a scenario in which a Christ Myth proponent confronts a devoted Christian with those arguments. The Christian responds, "I suppose you're right: it is a belief rather than a well-documented fact. But I'm okay with believing it, even in full view of its lack of historical bona fides." Do you think the Christ Myth proponent would be okay with that?

My experience in reading Christ Myth proponent arguments is that they're rarely written with a tone that suggests the disinterested pursuit of historical accuracy. They're intensely concerned with what people believe, and spend as much time building a case for imposing certain standards of belief as they do considering the historical evidence. That much is clear even in the introduction to Zindler's book.

As someone who reads a great deal of history, it's clear to me that this particular genre adheres to its own standards. Which might explain why Zindler's book was published by American Atheists Press, rather than a publisher with a broader range of historical titles in their catalog.

There's a book I have read on this exact topic that I would recommend.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucifixion-Jesus-Forensic-Inquiry/dp/1590770706


It goes into great detail of the physiological and biological processes that would have occurred in the historical Jesus' body during crucifixion (I'm not religious and it's not a religious book).

For example, he does not believe in Christ's descent into hell as traditionally conceived. You see this in the "Three Meditations" in Behold the Pierced One, especially the third, "Christ the Liberator." Whenever he talks about the descent into hell, he refers it forward to Easter: the importance of the descent to death is that it means Christ rose from the dead, but Ratzinger is highly agnostic about the significance of the descent itself, because "we are only acquainted with things on this side of death." In "Christ the Liberator," however, he comments on part of the ancient homily on the harrowing of hell, ascribed to Epiphanius, which is used in the Liturgy of the Hours for the day. He applies everything that is said to Easter and our present situation, while ruling out any application of what is said to the original event: he says, "this Adam does not signify an individual in a dim and distant past: the Adam addressed by the victorious Christ is we ourselves," and that "this prison which Christ opens" is not the netherworld but "the prisons of this world" like the prison of seeming freedom amid riches. In his 1967 "Meditations on Holy Week" which were later published in a book of paintings called The Sabbath of History, he says that "no one can really explain" Christ's descent, and after minimal discussion based on his speculation of the nature of death as loneliness, reiterates that "no one can imagine what the words 'descended into hell' mean in the end." He does not mean by this that he accepts the traditional teaching of the descent into and harrowing of hell, but it is ultimately a divine mystery whose fuller meaning surpasses our understanding: in the introduction he wrote to these meditations in 1997, he says that he thought then in 1967, and still thinks in 1997, that a way forward might be the suggestion of some exegetes that saying Christ descended into hell might be equivalent to saying he died—but of course, that only raises other questions, such as, What is death?

For another example, in Introduction to Christianity, he outright denies that we will rise again in our physical, biological bodies, glorified or not. Whereas the Church believes that we will rise again in this flesh, with this skin and these bones, Ratzinger denies this and says that what will be resurrected is our "spiritual body," synonymous with the spirit, person, or self. This was discussed two weeks ago and nobody explained how what he writes in Introduction to Christianity can be understood harmoniously with the orthodox doctrine, he was just given a pass because of his reputation.

/u/d602194
/u/leadedwand

Preface

Unfortunately I don't think there's a "one stop shop" book on the atonement. The atonement has a biblical/exegetical basis as well as philosophical and theological ramifications. Hence, to do justice to the atonement as a full-orbed topic in a single book, you'd have to find a scholar who is well versed and up-to-date in the relevant biblical scholarship as well as philosophical theology. That's exceedingly rare, and in fact I'm not sure if there is such a scholar today.

What's more, the atonement can be framed in terms of additional categories or sub-categories like biblical theology, Pauline theology, Johannine theology, and so on. (By the way, Tom Schreiner, Simon Gathercole, and Jarvis Williams are good in discussing the atonement in Pauline theology.)

In short, the atonement is a massive topic.

One book

However, if I had to pick a single book on the atonement that gets as close as possible to this ideal (but ultimately falling short of it), I think I'd recommend Pierced for Our Transgressions. The book has decent biblical/exegetical and theological (including historical theology) foundations. Not stellar in these categories, but not bad, solid. However, it significantly lacks in philosophical theology. In any case, I think you'd have to supplement this book with other books. I'd recommend:

Biblical/Exegetical

• Beilby, James and Eddy, Paul (eds.). The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views. This book is a debate between four scholars arguing for four different views on the atonement: Gregory Boyd argues for the Christus Victor view; Tom Schreiner argues for the penal substitutionary view; Bruce Reichenbach argues for the healing view; and Joel Green argues for a kaleidescopic view. In my view, Schreiner makes the best case, but read it for yourself to decide.
  
  
• Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Either this book or its less technical and more popular but still strong treatment The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance. This is an older text, but it was and remains a landmark text. D.A. Carson still tells seminarians and ministers to "sell your shirt and buy" Morris' book if they have to. Likewise see Morris' brief essay "Theories of the Atonement".
  
  Theological
  
  
• Murray, John. Redemption Accomplished and Applied. A classic Reformed text from a stalwart Reformed theologian.
  
  
• Nicole, Roger. Our Sovereign Savior. A good chapter on the atonement by a world class theologian. Nicole was a Swiss Reformed theologian.
  
  
• Nicole, Roger. Standing Forth: Collected Writings of Roger Nicole. Includes essays on the atonement and related matters.
  
  
• Packer, J.I., Dever, Mark, and Duncan, Ligon. In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement. This book contains several essays on the atonement from J.I. Packer including Packer's classic introduction to John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.
  
  
• Warfield, B.B. "Atonement". A brief article that gives an overview of five possible theories about the atonement. Warfield has other good material on the atonement, but I thought this would be a decent representative.
  
  Philosophical
  
  
• Craig, William Lane. The Atonement (in the University of Cambridge's Elements in the Philosophy of Religion series). A short book. An overview of the philosophical issues. Cambridge Press did offer it for free as a downloadable pdf, which is how I obtained it, but I don't know if that's still the case now.
  
  
• Helm, Paul. "John Calvin's Position on the Atonement". Free article from an astute Reformed philosopher. Helm has discussed the atonement in published books too.
  
  
• Helm, Paul. "The Logic of Limited Atonement". Another free article.

Kereszty's book on Christology has a good section on the christological controversies of the early church. He describes all the major positions and outlines how the debates unfolded historically.

Books

• I Am That dialogues of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
  
• The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti
  
  

  Audiobooks
  

  
  

• The Realization Process by Judith Blackstone
  
  I highly recommend The Realization Process audiobook if you have any suspicion that you have more of a head-based awakening (if your awakening is tranquil, vast and empty, and your body is almost 'missing').
  
  
• Resurrecting Jesus by Adyashanti
  
• The Book of Undoing by Fred Davis
  
  
  

  Video
  

• Rupert Spira's Channel
  
• Igor Kufayev's Channel
  
  

  Podcast
  

• Buddha at the Gas Pump

I was just talking to friend about this yesterday. I believe that PSA is scriptural and Biblical, while also being sensitive to how it has been misused and misunderstood in church history. That being said, I think view the atonement only as PSA misses a large part of the picture. I think you need a multifaceted view of the atonement that has PSA, Christus victor, and even Moral Influence. Read Scott McKnights book A Community Called Atonement where he makes the argument to understand atonement, you need multiple models.

Yes, I do. As does /u/bsmason

Here's a hit list.

Episode 200 of Christ the Center. Richard Gaffin Jr. and his student Lane Tipton in particular are the best. If you are not familiar with Christ the Center, check them out. They also did a whole conference on Union with Christ. You will also find a debate between Horton and Tipton on this topic.

One With Christ

The Chapter on Union with Christ in John Murray's Book, Redemption Accomplished and Applied.

Sinclair Ferguson has now written on it in his excellent and recent book The Whole Christ. This one is good because he speaks on the dangers of Legalism and Antinomianism, which are the resultant errors when we get a function theology of Union wrong.

Tangentially related: Mark Jones' Antinomianism, Reformed Theology's Unwelcomed Guest is also related to the topic. He is particularly strong on Christology, and consistently emphasiszes that we are united to Christ, the God-Man and how this should impact us.

I have read all these books, some more than once, and recommend them.

Those are all good questions and common objections, I think.

Among the other resources you've been recommended here are a few others:

• The Logic of Penal Substitution article by JI Packer - free online
  
• In My Place Condemned He Stood by Packer and Dever
  
• The Cross of Christ by John Stott
  
• The Cross in the New Testament by Leon Morris - in particular chapter 8.
  
  All of these books and articles will reference scripture and bring scripture into your understanding. I'm not sure if those questions will be answered directly, but the more and more you understand about how scripture shows PSA, the more you will be able to answer those objections yourself.

I would check out The Historical Jesus in Recent Research by James Dunn. It's a collection of essays. I haven't read this particular collection of essays but it is part of a series called "Sources For Biblical and Theological Study" which is very good and tries to get the most important essays on a particular subject. This volume would have various essays from the most influential scholars.

Adding to that, the best Buddhist-Christian book I have ever read is Encountering Jesus & Buddha, co-written by a New Testament scholar and an Indian religions scholar.

Fair point. A lot of the heavier theological books are priced higher, IMO, because of it being kind of a niche interest. There's also this book on the doctrine of atonement (also with Fr Matthew as an editor) for about 30$ for pre-order.


I definitely know what you mean about the prices though. This is why we need parish libraries ;)

There is a mystical, beautiful part of in the message of Christ.

Forget the fear, that's the structure. Focus on the message, and reconcile with the gift given you through your original spirituality. Do as Christ would, and forgive the church for fear mongering.

To really reconcile your Christianity.... meet Him.

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Without-Conditions-Reflections-Christ/dp/1879159155

This helped me, when I was on the same part of the road.

Forgive yourself, focus on your own behavior, be communicative and gentle with this girl, remember that she isn't the source of your pain or self-worth, read books like this one or this one or this one, wait it out. You're digging yourself out of a karmic debt.

>our religion, ie: for Judaism

I was under the impression that you didn't believe the Torah. Do you?

>Put up or shut up.

I'm not sure how you would like me to, but I'll list some resources below. If you would rather delve into it by having a strict dialogue between the two of us, that's cool too. I may not be able to respond quickly every time, depending on how this carries forth, but I'll do what I can. As you mentioned, your soul is "at stake and all that."

Gary Habermas and N.T. Wright are the top two resurrection scholars. Michael Licona is also a leading scholar on the resurrection debate. Philosophers such as Richard Swinburne and Antony Flew have even shown their faces on the scene as well.

Books

• The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas & Michael Licona
  
• The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach by Michael Licona
  
• The Resurrection of God Incarnate by Richard Swinburne
  
• The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright
  
• The Resurrection Factor by Josh McDowell
  
• The Son Rises: Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus by William Lane Craig
  
  Presentations
  
  
• Gary Habermas - "The Resurrection Argument That Changed a Generation of Scholars"
  
  
• William Lane Craig - "Did Jesus Rise From the Dead?"
  
  
• William Lane Craig - "The Evidence for Jesus's Resurrection."
  
  
• N.T. Wright - "The Resurrection"
  
  
• N.T. Wright - "Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?"
  
  
• Michael Licona - "Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus"
  
  
• Michael Licona - "Evidence for the Resurrection"
  
  
• Doug Powell - "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?"
  
  Debates
  
  Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig, and Michael Licona are the most frequent debaters on the Christian side, and Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier are the most frequent debaters on the non-Christian side. Habermas, Craig, and/or Licona have debated the following (possibly) recognizable names on this issue: Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, Antony Flew, John Shelby Spong, Gerd Ludemann, Shabir Ally, Arif Ahmed, John Dominic Crossan, Robert M. Price, and Dan Barker.
  
  YouTube is great for finding those debates. There are also, of course, dialogues in book form.
  
  >if you don't like my tone
  
  I'm actually enjoying your tone, haha

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!

Yeah, the shroud isn't a painting, a scorch or a photograph. It has 3D properties that still cannot be replicated today using modern technology. It was wrapped around a person who was tortured (scourged, speared in the side and "crowned" with a bush of thorns) and crucified in the same manner as Jesus as described by the gospels (see the work of Barbet and Zugibe). The blood on the shroud is real blood and remains red (instead of turning black or black-red shortly after it is released) due to bilirubin, a chemical compound released by the liver following immense stress. It also matches extremely well with the Sudarium of Orviedo (more than sufficient points of coincidence and same blood type -- AB), which can be historically traced some 600 years earlier than the shroud of Turin. The shroud also has a significant number of pollen grains that are local to Jerusalem. The sudarium and the pollen grains put further doubt to the idea that the shroud is a medieval forgery. If that wasn't enough, the carbon dating test is seriously disputed, see the peer reviewed paper of Raymond Rogers, who was the Director of Chemical Research for STURP.

In my opinion, the evidence for the authenticity of the shroud is very strong. People who do not research the shroud deeply have more room to be skeptical. The more you research, the more you will become convinced that the shroud is the real deal. You will also come to know that the skeptical studies used to cast doubt on the shroud clearly fall short.

The Historical Jesus in Context. It's a collection of articles edited by Amy Jill-Levine, dale Allison and John Dominic Crossan. The articles give a fairly comprehensive overview of the historical, cultural, archaeological and literary context of Christian origins with contributions from several scholars including (in addition to Jill-Levine, Crossan and Allison), Dale Evans, John Kloppenburg, Jonathan Reed, Bruce Chilton, Ben Witherington and several other less known ones. This is really more for popular audiences than for scholars but it's a good introduction to a wide variety contextual perspectives.

> We know very little about Jesus’ early life and upbringing. When
he went back to Nazareth with the disciples, the people were amazed to see
their carpenter as teacher and prophet (Mark 6:1–16), from which we can be
fairly certain that they thought he lacked the education needed for such
work, and thus had little in the way of learning. This comment also tells us he
had never taught there before.

> Of late much work has been done on the intertextuality of both the First
and Second Testaments. We have learned about the numerous allusions to
Scripture in, for example, Deutero-Isaiah, Matthew, and Paul. What needs to
be remembered is that such intertextuality was at home in oral performances:
Deutero-Isaiah, Matthew, and the Epistles of Paul were, like all other
writings in antiquity, intended to be read aloud. This means that their scriptural
allusions were designed to be perceived by ears, not eyes. This matters
so much because Jesus’ teaching was, from every indication, oral. We have no
evidence that he ever wrote anything. Indeed, we do not know what sort of education he might have had, nor even know for sure whether he could read,
although this may be the best guess. But our ignorance in these particulars
is no argument against Jesus’ ability to allude. Even if he did not write
anything, and even if he could not read at all, the evidence is that he and his
hearers, whether formally educated or not, had heard Scripture recited often
enough that large portions of it were quite familiar to them, sufficiently so
that oblique and sometimes even subtle references to it could be appreciated.

> We may surmise that he experienced the socialization of a typical boy in
that culture. Growing up in a Jewish home, most likely he attended school
from roughly age six to at least twelve or thirteen, as a system of “elementary
education” was widespread in Palestinian Judaism. His “primer” would have
been the book of Leviticus. Whether he had formal training as a teacher of
the Torah beyond the schooling given to every boy, we do not know.

> As a boy and young man, Jesus almost certainly attended the synagogue
(a place of Scripture reading and prayer in local communities) every Sabbath,
and perhaps on Mondays and Thursdays as well. As a faithful Jew, he would
have recited the Shema upon rising and retiring each day, the heart of which
affirmed: “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your might.” Presumably, he participated in the Jewish festivals and went on
pilgrimages to Jerusalem. From the gospels, it is clear that he was very familiar
with his Scriptures, the Hebrew Bible. He may have known it from memory,
a feat not uncommon among the learned. The Psalms were probably his
“prayer book.”

• The Historical Jesus in Recent Research

Want a reading suggestion that answers this question in full? Read "Behold the Pierced One" by Pope Benedict XVI.

He goes over in depth what it means to be in communion based on a biblical exegesis of the word "communio" and how it evolves from the gospels through Acts and the epistles. And in doing so represents the absolute necessity of being in communion with the physical church through the apostles to be able to participate in the Eucharist.

https://www.amazon.com/Mythologizing-Jesus-Jewish-Teacher-Epic/dp/0742558916

https://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Jesus-Two-Visions-Plus-ebook/dp/B0027KRRWK

Well first, read a Gospel straight through.

I thought this dialogue was pretty cool. I can at least vouch for Ulrich Luz, who has written extensively on Matthew's gospel: http://www.amazon.com/Encountering-Jesus-Buddha-Their-Teachings/dp/0800635647/ref=la_B001ITXLVW_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408078436&sr=1-4

This is kind of tangential, but this book where Buddhists write on the Rule of Benedict is really cool: http://www.amazon.com/Benedicts-Dharma-Buddhists-Reflect-Benedict/dp/1573221902/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408078637&sr=1-1&keywords=benedict%27s+dharma

In a certain sense, Benedict's Rule and the entire monastic enterprise is
an attempt to deeply understand and live out Christ's teachings. In a similar spirit I would recommend The Cloud of Unknowing, which is a shining example of Christian mysticism and apophatic theology. Apophatic theology tends to create a platform for Christian-Buddhist dialogue for some reason.

Speaking of monks, Merton's Zen and the Birds of Appetite probably represents his most mature and developed thinking on Buddhism (or at least one dimension of it.) It pairs very nicely with his book on the Desert Fathers, The Wisdom of the Desert. (I don't recommend Mystics and Zen Masters, which is more of a historical overview of various figures.)

Here's a memoir of Paul Williams' conversion from Buddhism to Catholicism. Williams is a leading scholar of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. http://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-Way-Converting-Buddhism-Catholicism/dp/0567088308/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408078793&sr=1-2&keywords=paul+williams+buddhism

Thich Nhat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ is a very popular example of a Buddhist reflecting on Christianity as he sees it.

But seriously, read a gospel. Any of them, or all of them. That's the most important part. All the rest is commentary.

Also UK Amazon price is still discounted: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01CIMZ0C0?tag=bbooksysite-20

You are probably right, I'll just delete. This is a really good discussion of the language used in patristics if anyone is interested

https://www.amazon.com/Tree-Cross-Florovsky-Patristic-Atonement/dp/1942699093

Ok, so looking at your book links, this one appears to be the only one even trying for actual, historical rigor rather than Evangelical rationalization of belief in the literal truth of known-unreliable literature.

Now, what I want to know before I shell out money for a bloody religion book is:

A) What's the archaeological evidence? As in, not testimonies, because human testimony is supremely unreliable, so much so that many people want it thrown out of modern forensics.

B) If Jesus existed and was resurrected, why does all evidence for the Torah fail? After all, Christianity is premised on the initial correctness of Judaism: no Judaism, no Jesus.

C) Why are all authors appearing to write on this issue theologians and philosophers of religion, self-labeled "apologists", instead of reputable historians and archaeologists? After all, you're the one claiming it's a simple matter of fact provable by looking at the evidence: plainly all reputable historians of Second-Temple-era Israel ought to know quite unequivocally about this event, with far better archaeological and records-based evidence than personal testimonies by the members of a crazed messianic cult.

D) If God can resurrect the dead but does not do so, except through an afterlife granted by faith in Christ, is He not a complete massive asshole? In fact, why even bother making a world precisely crafted to cover-up His own existence by yielding naturalistic explanations for everything while also holding the possibility for naturalistic immortality in several different forms? It's like He wanted His own religion to fail!

E) Why on Earth should we trust that the Gospels contain any facts whatsoever and aren't totally fabricated? Hell, as long as we're supposing fabrication, literary analysis tells us there's only a few actual authors, so it's not like we need to explain tons of people all lying in the same way (which they could easily do, to promote an ideology they sincerely fooled themselves into), just a few people lying in the same way (which is even easier, especially after you account for self-delusion).

While we're at it, here's some Jewish apologetics; I hope your standards of evidence are higher than this shite.

http://www.rbap.net/our-books/recovering-a-covenantal-heritage-essays-in-baptist-covenant-theology-edited-by-richard-c-barcellos-ph-d/

https://www.amazon.com/Covenant-Theology-Baptistic-Perspective-Covenants/dp/1599253429

http://www.rbap.net/our-books/the-distinctiveness-of-baptist-covenant-theology/

http://www.rbap.net/our-books/covenant-theology-from-adam-to-christ-by-nehemiah-coxe-and-john-owen/

>you imbecile

I can already tell this is going to be fun.

>Jesus has literally ZERO contemporary historical data.

That's not what you asked for. You asked for peer-reviewed arguments for the historical existence of Jesus, of which I said there are thousands, and to which I said you'd have a much more difficult time finding the opposite--- peer reviewed articles and books arguing that Jesus was entirely a myth.

>I’ll wait for those libraries of sources you have.

Where do you want to start?

Probably the best place for you to start is with Bart Ehrman, a leading scholar of on the development of Christianity, and he's also a popular skeptic speaker and writer. In addition to publishing he's written popular books about how many of the books of the Bible were forgeries, and how the belief that Jesus was divine developed in early Christianity, he also wrote an entire book laying out the widely accepted case that Jesus was likely a real historical person, written directly to skeptical lay people like yourself.

If you want a great introduction to the scholarly debate about the historical Jesus, you could start here or here. I also think Dale Allison's work is great critical look at some of the issues at work in the debate. There are lots of historical reconstructions of Jesus' life. Some of the more popular ones like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan tend to sell books to liberal Christian audiences, so I've always thought E.P. Sanders treatment was perferable. I'll spare you the links to scholars who identify as orthodox Christians, like Luke Timothy Johnson or N.T. Wright. It sounded like you specifically wanted more scholarly sources and not popular books, so you could just look at the scholarly journal dedicated to the study of the historical Jesus. Or the Jesus Seminar. Or either of the following Introductions to the New Testament textbooks which are used in secular universities throughout the english speaking world:

Introduction to the New Testament by Mark Allen Powell

Introduction to the New Testament by Bart Ehrman

These are the ones I'm personally most familiar with. There are tons more like Geza Vermes and Amy Jill Levine I haven't read and I'm not as familiar with.

But I'm not telling you anything you wouldn't learn in any basic 101 intro to New Testament Class. The academic consensus is that regardless of what you think about him as a religious figure, it is extremely likely that there was a first century Jew named Jesus who started a faith movement that led to him being crucified. Why do scholars think this? Because by the time Paul started writing his letters 20 years later there was a growing, spreading religious movement that worship a crucified Jew named Jesus as their messiah, and given critical analysis of the texts produced by this movement, some of which are now in the New Testament, there really doesn't exist a coherent argument for the development of this movement that doesn't include the existence of a first century Jew named Jesus who was crucified.

You might like st. Maximus the Confessor. He's been called the last Greek philosopher of antiquity and a Contential European philospher preceding Hegel.

Here is a combination of primary and secondary sources.

https://www.amazon.com/Maximus-Confessor-European-Philosopher-Veritas/dp/1498295606

https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-Maximus-Confessor-Handbooks/dp/0199673837

https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Mystery-Jesus-Christ/dp/088141249X

https://www.amazon.com/Origen-Alexandria-St-Maximus-Confessor/dp/1581122616

Happy to help. Here are some links I'd recommend.

https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-Orthodox-Dogmatic-Deification/dp/1885652410/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=dumitru+staniloae&qid=1564128511&s=gateway&sprefix=dumtru&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Mystery-Jesus-Christ/dp/088141249X/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=st+maximus&qid=1564128542&s=gateway&sr=8-3

https://www.amazon.com/Origen-Alexandria-St-Maximus-Confessor/dp/1581122616/ref=mp_s_a_1_34?keywords=st+maximus&qid=1564128599&s=gateway&sr=8-34

Also I can't reccomend this poetry enough

https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Eros-Theologian-Popular-Patristics/dp/0881413496/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=symeon+the+new+theologian&qid=1564128667&s=gateway&sprefix=syme&sr=8-2

Although I think it would be improper to use the term fiction for the gospels, there are scholars who argue that in focusing on their historical veracity (i.e. the historical Jesus) we are missing issues of genre. Thomas L. Thompson, for example, argues that we should understand the gospels in the context of ANE traditions of a divinely appointed kings that were supposed to set the world right again. And Dennis R. MacDonald argues that we miss a lot by not understanding that for those who read and heard read the gospels, they were understanding them in the context of Homer, Virgil, and Euripides.

Immortality through death, immortality through sacrifice, what's the difference exactly between these?

And, as this book and others on the 'you might like' list below it demonstrate that comparing Christian philosophy with Eastern philosophy is not at all hard or even inappropriate. As it turns out, it can even be profound and profitable at the same time.

Here's
a book that argues he definitely did not exist.