(Part 2) Best new testament bible study books according to redditors
We found 1,580 Reddit comments discussing the best new testament bible study books. We ranked the 446 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
I would recommend Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity. In it Tabor builds the case that Paul's particular gospel, which Paul states as my gospel that was once a secret but has now been revealed, was markedly different from the gospel held by James and Peter at the Jerusalem church.
The difference with Jesus is the motivation of the authors. Historical accuracy is a modern concern. These people were writing to forward the concerns of their particular communities. The world wasn't "global". Each gospel reflected the needs of the community that produced it, whether it's Gentile vs Jew, the proliferation of miracles, high vs low Christology, etc.
I think you would find this one interesting: http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/019020382X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458179626&sr=8-1&keywords=the+early+christians+ehrman
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.
Eh. I’m sure this is pointless, but I did my undergrad in church history. The ‘overwhelming scholarship’ you reference just doesn’t exist. If anything, scholarship is overwhelming in the OTHER direction.
Just, take the canonization of the Bible for example. In THE MOST general of terms, a cannon was somewhat agreed upon about 250 years after the birth of Christ, and would go through a progressive series of additions, subtractions, and revisions until the 16th century!
One of the criteria for canonization was authorial integrity, that the book was written by who it claimed to be written by. What’s known as pseudepigraphy, or writing in another authors name pretending to be that person, was INCREDIBLY common in the ancient world. Modern scholars agree that Paul wrote 8 of the 13 books attributed to him. The other 5 are very questionable.
This is a good history of the subject: https://brill.com/view/title/13087
Bart D. Ehrman’s work is a good place to start reading, as far as general scholarly consensus is concerned: The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings https://www.amazon.com/dp/019020382X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_pd5dBb4EWCZRH
Be warned: you WILL find a lot of blogs and word press websites that refute these texts and authors with a scholarly front. You will not find serious, peer reviewed refutations of these authors or ideas.
So that raises an interesting question, doesn’t it? Isn’t all scripture God breathed? Did God lie when he said Paul wrote the books he didn’t?
Also, yes, scholars very much agree that the Bible, as a whole and in parts, is a continuity NIGHTMARE.
This is only a summary because it gets kind of long, but the bullet points are this:
The identifications of Mark and Matthew come from descriptions of books given in a book written by an early church father named Papias. We no longer have any copies of this book. What we know of it is only what is quoted from it in the 4th Century by Constantine's church historian, Eusebius.
Eusebius quotes Papias as having said the following
>And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements. [This is what is related by Papias regarding Mark; but with regard to Matthew he has made the following statements]: Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.
The "presbyter" referred to is a shadowy figure called John the Presbyter (or John the Elder - presbyter means "elder"), who was allegedly a teacher of Papias. Eusebius says this was not the same person as the Apostle even though another church father named Irenaeus mixed them up.
Note that Papias does not quote from Mark or Matthew or give any information which would identify them specifically as the Canonical books. Those descriptions were used to identify anonymous books. The above mentioned Irenaeus decided that THIS must be the book written by Mark, and THIS must be the book written by Matthew.
The reason these identifications are now rejected by critical scholars is because the descriptions don't match the Canonical books. Papias says that Mark wrote down Peter's memoirs verbatim, and not in chronological order or any other order.
Mark's Gospel is very ordered and employs Greek literary sctructures called chiasms that can't happen from spontaneous speech (it would be like somebody speaking in iambic pentameter or exclusively in limericks). That becomes even more unlikely when the alleged speaker was an Aramaic speaking fisherman who would have known only pigeon Greek at best.
In addition, it needs to be remembered that the Gospel of Mark does not itself claim to be a memoir of Peter's, nor does the author claim to have known him. Furthermore, Mark's Gospel is anti-Petrine in tone and portrays Peter as an unredeemed coward who runs away and denies Jesus, and who himself is denied any witness of the resurrection. Why would a memoir of Peter's leave out any witness of a risen Jesus?
Mark is also written in a 3rd person, omniscient voice and includes scenes for which Peter could not have been a witness because, even internally to Mark's narrative, he wasn't there. The baptism by John the temptations in the wilderness, the prayer in Gethsemane and trial before the Sanhedrin for example.
Mark's Gospel also contains a number of geographical and legal errors would not be expected from a witness.
There are also scenes which appear to be based on rewritings of stories from the OT (particularly stories about Elijah and Elisha), but that's a whole other long argument. I'll just refer you to Randel Helms' Gospel Fictions.
So the evidence for Mark being written by a secretary of Peter's relies on a quotation from a lost book by a guy who says another guy told him that somebody named Mark wrote a memoir of Peter's, but describes a book which does not match the Canonical, which does not claim to be a memoir of Peter and which has internal evidence contradicting such a hypothesis.
Papias also says that Matthew compiled a collection of "sayings of the Lord" (Logia) in Hebrew.
Canonical Matthew does not claim to be written by Matthew or by any witness at all. It's not a sayings Gospel and it was composed in Greek, not Hebrew. It copies extensively from from Mark and the Septuagint (both Greek sources) and probably another Greek source called Q. The Q material is basically just sayings and may have, in a circuitous way, gone back to a collection of genuine Jesus sayings, but Matthew uses Mark almost exclusively as his narrative source. Why would a witness use a non-witness as a source?
This is already getting windier than I intended, so I'll rush through Luke and John.
The identification of "Luke the physician" as the author of Luke-Acts comes from Paul mentioning a companion of that name in Philemon and two mentions in the pseudo-Pauline epistles, Colossians and 2 Timothy. Because some passages in Acts are written in the 1st person plural (commonly called the "we passages"), it was assumed that the author must have been a companion of Paul's. Paul mentions a dude named Luke. Bingo, the author must have been this Luke dude.
The author himself never calls himself Luke or says he knew Paul. He was writing pretty late (around the turn of the 1st century), he says some things that contradict Paul's authentic epistles. His Gospel uses the same sources as Matthew (Mark and Q) indicating a lack of access to witnesses (in his prologue to his Gospel he says straight up that he is using previously written sources).
There is more than one theory about the we passages, including one argument that it was an ancient Greek literary device used for sea voyages or that it was a previously written source used by Luke. Bart Ehrman says that he thinks that somebody else wrote a fake account of travels with Paul and that Luke thought it was real.
The identification of John of Zebedee as the author of the Fourth Gospel first comes from Irenaeus, who identifies him as the "beloved disciple" (the Gospel itself never says who the beloved disciple was. The inference is made because it also never mentions John of Zebedee, so the reasoning was that the BD must have been J of Z).
For a variety of reasons, including the highly sophisticated Greek (from an uneducated, Aramaic speaking fisherman who the book of Acts explicitly says was illiterate), the late dating, the highly developed Christology, the long, developed theological speeches which would not be plausibly remembered and are not corroborated in the synoptics and the reflection and knowledge of the schism between Jews and Christians including the anachronistic placement of the expulsion of Christians from synagogues within the life of Jesus.
The last chapter also seems to imply that the Beloved Disciple had already died relative to the writing of that chapter.
As with the other Gospels, there is no real evidence in favor of the tradition and there is internal and external evidence against it.
N.T. Wright's book "Paul" synthesizes a lot of the information from the recent New Perspective on Paul and distills it in a manageable, nonacademic book. It's not the most current information, but it's a great start. (https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Perspective-N-T-Wright/dp/0800663578)
N.T. Wright, Wayne Meeks, E.P. Sanders, Beverly Gaventa, Douglas Campbell are all prolific, well-known contemporary scholars who deal with Paul (and there are many others). Wright writes both for academic audiences and lay people, so some of his books may be a bit more accessible than pure scholarly texts.
I have the Didache Bible. It's RSV-2CE. I've only had it about a month now, but I'm loving it so far.
The Didache Bible is great for study, but for just reading for the New Testament I like The Richmond Lattimore translation. It's very natural and reads more like a book. There are no distracting chapter or verse delineations and no commentary. It reads very naturally.
My recommendations from books I read in the last year or so (yes, these are all VERY STRONG recommends curated from ~100 books in the last year) -
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Science fiction-
Derek Kunsken's The Quantum Magician (I would describe it as a cross between Oceans Eleven with some not-too-Hard Science Fiction. Apparently will be a series, but is perfectly fine as a standalone novel).
Cixin Lu's very popular Three Body Problem series (Mixes cleverly politics, sociology, psychology and science fiction)
James A Corey's The Expanse Series (which has been made into the best sci fi tv series ever!)
Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief series (Hard science fiction. WARNING - A lot of the early stuff is intentionally mystifying with endless terminology that’s only slowly explained since the main character himself has lost his memories. Put piecing it all together is part of the charm.)
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Fantasy-
James Islington's Shadow of What was Lost series (a deep series which makes you think - deep magic, politics, religion all intertwined)
Will Wight's Cradle series (has my vote for one of the best fantasy series ever written)
Brandon Sanderson Legion series (Brandon Sanderson. Nuff said. Creative as always)
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Manga -
Yukito Kishiro's Alita, Battle Angel series (the manga on what the movie was based)
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Non-Fiction-
Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind - Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (and how we are not as rational as we believe we are, and how passion works in tandem with rationality in decision making and is actually required for good decisionmaking)
Rothery's Geology - A Complete Introduction (as per title)
Joseph Krauskopf's A Rabbi's Impressions of the Oberammergau Passion Play, available to read online for free, including a fabulous supplementary of Talmud Parallels to the NT (a Rabbi in 1901 explains why he is not a Christian)
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Audiobooks -
Bob Brier's The History of Ancient Egypt (as per title - 25 hrs of the best audiobook lectures. Incredible)
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Academic biblical studies-
Richard Elliot Friedman's Who Wrote The Bible and The Exodus (best academic biblical introductory books into the Documentary Hypothesis and Qenite/Midian hypothesis)
Israel Finkelstein's The Bible Unearthed (how archaelogy relates to the bible)
E.P. Sander's Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63BCE-66CE (most detailed book of what Judaism is and their beliefs, and one can see from this balanced [Christian] scholar how Christianity has colored our perspectives of what Jews and Pharisees were really like)
Avigdor Shinan's From gods to God (how Israel transitioned from polytheism to monotheism)
Mark S Smith's The Early History of God (early history of Israel, Canaanites, and YHWH)
James D Tabor's Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity (as per title)
Tom Dykstra's Mark Canonizer of Paul (engrossing - will make you view the gospel of Mark with new eyes)
Jacob L Wright's King David and His Reign Revisited (enhanced ibook - most readable book ever on King David)
Jacob Dunn's thesis on the Midianite/Kenite hypothesis (free pdf download - warning - highly technical but also extremely well referenced)
The Amazing Colossal Apostle, by Robert M. Price
>The story of Paul is one of irony, the New Testament depicting him at the martyrdom of Stephen holding the assassins' cloaks. Then this same Paul is transformed into the biblical archetype for someone suffering for their faith. He becomes so entrenched, it would appear that he had walked with the Christians all his life, that he was the one who defined the faith, eventually being called the “second founder of Christianity.” But much of what we think we "know" about Paul comes from Sunday school stories we heard as children. The stories were didactic tales meant to keep us reverent and obedient.
>As adults reading the New Testament, we catch glimpses of a very different kind of disciple—a wild ascetic whom Tertullian dubbed “the second apostle of Marcion and the apostle of the heretics.” What does scholarship tell us about the enigmatic thirteenth apostle who looms larger than life in the New Testament? The epistles give evidence of having been written at the end of the first century or early in the second—too late to have been Paul’s actual writings. So who wrote (and rewrote) them? F. C. Baur, a nineteenth-century theologian, pointed persuasively to Simon Magus as the secret identity of “Paul.” Robert M. Price, in this exciting journey of discovery, gives readers the background for a story we thought we knew.
Yeah, I used the Harper Collins Study Bible when I was in school (I did a double major in English and Religious Studies in a Canadian University) but I believe the Oxford Annotated Bible is also popular when studying the bible academically.
Edit: I also used Ehrman’s The New Testament as a companion when studying the Bible in school.
If you would like to PM me and ask more questions, I'm always happy to help people who were where I was 4 years ago.
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Here are a few good Affirming (A) resources to start out with:
Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-VS-Christians Debate by Justin Lee (A)
God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines (A)
Modern Kinship by David and Constantino Khalaf (A)
Blue Babies Pink by Brett Trapp / B.T. Harmann (A)
Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships by James Brownson (A)
Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation by Dale Martin (A)
Risking Grace, Loving Our Gay Family and Friends Like Jesus by Dave Jackson (A)
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I'm compiling a list of other good resources / bad ones (from all perspectives, not just ones I disagree with), so let me know if you're looking for something more specific.
To be honest, there's not a ton of evidence. The martyrdoms of Peter, James, and Paul are pretty well attested, and there is some evidence for Andrews death as well. The rest is mostly legend and some of the legends are contradictory. That doesn't mean they weren't martyred, just that we don't have historical documentation.
This is a decent enough summary. I know you said you didn't have time for a book, but I can't recommend highly enough Richard Bauckham's book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses when you do have time.
Paragraph 1: "It pains Jehovah when his servants are treated unfairly. He will make sure that justice is served."
Yeah, eventually...
Paragraph 2: "The Mosaic Law ended in 33 C.E. when the Christian congregation was established."
Nooooo, that's not quite what Jesus said...
Matthew 5: 17 - 19 [JW online bible]: "Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I came, not to destroy, but to fulfill. 18 Truly I say to you that sooner would heaven and earth pass away than for one smallest letter or one stroke of a letter to pass away from the Law until all things take place. 19 Whoever, therefore, breaks one of these least commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in relation to the Kingdom of the heavens. [Governing Body, are you listening???] But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in relation to the Kingdom of the heavens."
I notice they skipped that bible reference in paragraphs 2, 3 & 4...
Paragraph 5: "When did Jesus teach? He taught during his ministry on earth. (Matt. 4: 23) He also taught his followers shortly after he was resurrected."
Yet oddly he said nothing about peddling corporate literature from door to door...
Paragraph 6: "Where are Jesus’ teachings recorded? The four Gospels record many of the things Jesus said and did on earth."
Those four gospels contradict each other - a LOT. https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Fictions-Randel-Helms/dp/0879755725
Paragraph 7: "Jesus’ teachings cover all aspects of life. So the law of the Christ governs what we do at home, at work or at school, and in the congregation."
Hilariously Jesus got the vital part about washing one's hands before eating meals DEAD WRONG. So I'm not sure about the accuracy and efficacy of the rest of his "laws", either.
Paragraph 8: "A well-made house built on a solid foundation makes those who live in it feel safe and secure."
Not if the owner of that house has been coerced or guilted into handing over the title of the house to a publishing corporation pulling a scam on religious people...
Paragraph 9: "Jesus willingly put the needs of others ahead of his own. Above all, he showed great love by surrendering his life in behalf of others."
Yeah, that's called making a human sacrifice. Who says the god of the Old Testament underwent a personality change when it came to the New Testament?
Wow, paragraphs 10 & 11 are a pack of lies!
"We can imitate Jesus by putting the needs of others ahead of our own." Aka co-dependency, an unhealthy form of attachment. Also - according to the New Testament, that also includes human sacrifice of his followers, if such is "demanded" of them.
"Jesus showed how deeply Jehovah cares about his worshippers." (Human sacrifice, anyone? See Matthew 10: 38, 16: 24, Mark 8: 34, and Luke 14: 27....)
"Jehovah is eager to welcome back a lost sheep who repents and returns to the congregation."
Funny how the congregation elders have failed to get that message...
And the fun continues in paragraph 12: "We view each of our brothers and sisters as valuable and precious, and we gladly welcome back “a lost sheep” who returns to Jehovah."
What a sick joke of hypocrisy spoken with forked tongues.
Paragraph 13: "Love fellow believers as Jesus loved you. That requires a self-sacrificing love. We are to love our brothers and sisters even more than we love ourselves. We must love them to the point of being willing to give up our life for them,"
Yet oddly there's nothing preventing the petty gossiping about minutia and nasty tattling to the elders.
Paragraph 14: "... or we take time off from secular work to help with disaster relief..."
Still drumming the disaster relief money pot, I see...
And: "We are also helping to make our congregation a place where each individual can feel safe and secure."
Even the pedophiles... Too bad about the kids, though. Their parents should have kept a closer eye on them.
Paragraph 15: “Justice,” as used in the Bible, basically means to do what God considers to be right and to do so without partiality"
Seriously? Have these fools never read the bible? Uzzah, Uriah, the daughter of Jephthah, the unnamed concubine of the Levite in Judges 19, the sons of Saul, all the little babies (and all the animals and plants) drowned in the "Flood", all the little babies and animals and plants due to be killed at "Armageddon"...
Paragraph 16: "He preached without prejudice to all, rich and poor. He was never harsh or abusive in his treatment of women."
Pity WT and the Governing Body don't follow his example. They cuddle up to the rich and denigrate women to second-class status.
Paragraph 17: "...and preaching to all who are willing to listen—regardless of their social or religious background."
Oddly the WT Society seems desperate to preach to people who'd rather just be left alone, too. Search "get rid of JW" on Reddit for a glimpse of the number of people who don't want to be pestered by bible-thumpers, especially early-ish on a weekend.
Paragraph 18: "Second, consider what Jesus taught about justice. He taught principles that would help his followers to treat others fairly. "
CoughTwo [eye]WitnessRuleCough...
Paragraph 19: "And if we have been a victim of injustice in Satan’s world, we can take comfort in knowing that Jehovah will cause justice to be done for us."
But isn't it nice to realize that bad old "Satan's World" will do its best to help protect us and cause justice to be done for us whenever evil people in the congregations victimize us...?
Paragraph 20: "Under the law of the Christ, how should those in authority treat others?"
...Getting a little too big for our britches, elders and ministerial servants? "Authority" doesn't mean untrained volunteers in a religious setting; it means secular authorities with the power and training to investigate and truly punish wrongdoers with something harsher than having their "privileges" taken away.
Paragraph 21: "Some men may find it difficult to show such love, perhaps because they were not raised in an environment where treating others fairly and lovingly was valued."
Gasp! You mean - like those who are second, third and fourth-generation (and more) JWs???
Paragraph 22: "Elders must remember that the “sheep” do not belong to them."
HAW! Unfortunately, neither does the kingdom hall, even though the elders and other congregation members may have paid for it and helped build it!
Paragraph 23: "What is the role of elders in handling cases of serious wrongdoing? Their role is different from that of judges and elders under the Law that God gave Israel. Under that Law, appointed men handled not only spiritual matters but also civil and criminal cases."
Ah, HAW HAW HAW HA HA! [snort!] Seriously? Elders have been [mis]handling criminal cases for decades, especially those involving criminal sexual predators who prey upon children and underage teens!
Paragraph 24: "How do elders handle the spiritual aspects of serious wrongdoing? They use the Scriptures to weigh matters and make decisions."
So... Asking a teenager or young adult how many times they were penetrated, whether they enjoyed it, whether they pleasured the other person, whether they performed oral upon each other, is all SCRIPTURAL and therefore fair game for the crusty old elders' lascivious questions???
Paragraph 25: "Still, we are living in a world where “wicked men” have advanced “from bad to worse.” ... We must not let down our guard."
Especially not in a pedophile-friendly environment.
And for next week:
"How can the Christian congregation reflect God’s justice when dealing with child sexual abuse?"
Can't wait to see that demonstration of insane, self-serving hypocrisy....
Tangentially related to the Christian/Pagan thing, Richard Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? and Randall Helm's Gospel Fictions both demonstrate how the Bible arose as an amalgam of ancient myth and oral tradition. I believe Dan Barker also covers some of that ground in Godless.
I'm very sorry to hear about your struggle with Christian faith. This kind of thing is a lot more common than most Christians are willing to admit; this is too bad because many writers of the Bible seemed to struggle with doubt and "spiritual dryness". Some places to look would be the Book of Lamentations, wherein Jeremiah weeps over the destruction of Jerusalem and wonders where God has gone. Psalm 88 is another place where the writer wonders why God doesn't seem to be working in the writer's life. One could say that struggling with doubt and "spiritual dryness" is perfectly normal this side of the resurrection of the dead.
I'd like to gently probe an assumption you seem to be making in your post, which is to equate "having faith in God" with belief of some sort. This is a widespread assumption among Christians, that to have faith is really a matter of just believing really, really hard in certain things.
But I think this assumption is false, for several reasons. First, beliefs simply aren't the sorts of things that the normal human being has any direct control over. If I told you that I'd give you a billion dollars if you could just really, sincerely believe that 2+2=10, or that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of Canada, you wouldn't be able to do it. Coming to believe something is just not the sort of thing that is a matter of the will. But if believing in something isn't under our direct control, then it seems that God would be unreasonable to command us to believe. But God doesn't command us unreasonably. Therefore, God doesn't command us to believe.
Instead, I think that careful study of the Bible shows that Christians are wrong to equate faith with belief. Here I have learned a lot from reading a book by the theologian Matthew Bates called Salvation by Allegiance Alone, which argues two things: (i) that the equating of Christian faith with belief is not what the Bible teaches, and (ii) that what the Bible teaches is that Christian faith is embodied allegiance to Jesus, the one true King. In other words, having Christian faith is a matter of what you do with your body, what actions you perform, what habits you cultivate. This comment is already too long, but I'd encourage you to find a copy of the book and read through it—it may challenge and re-shape the way you think about what it means to be a Christian.
Finally, let me end on a personal note. I go through days, weeks, months where my belief in Christianity waxes and wanes, and I've made my peace with that. I've come to realize that God desires more my obedience to what He commands—that I love Him and my neighbor with all my heart, mind, and strength—than He does my having all my beliefs lined up correctly. Which isn't to say that beliefs don't matter—they do, and arguably they do follow upon what does matter. But what matters more is embodied allegiance to Jesus, the one true King of the universe.
The story of Jesus? Water into wine, resurrection, walking on water? Nope.
Do I think it's silly and frankly stupid to pin a historical theory of nonexistence purely on the lack of primary sources? Yep. Do I get into a tiff with people here on /r/exmormon about this every couple months or so? Yep. Is Zeitgeist a terrible movie because it sounds smart and well-founded but is nothing better than the crap usually found on the "History" Channel? Yep. Is the Jesus Myth Hypothesis (no historical individual known as Jesus of Nazareth existed and the Christ mythos that built up was fully imported from traditions outside of Christianity) a real historical theory with serious historians behind it? Yes. Is it currently a minority theory? Yes.
For those who want to talk about this realistically, please get your information from more than YouTube videos or popular documentaries. The issue of where the Christ mythos came from has been debated for centuries and is still unresolved, but there are accepted ways of doing historical research that have arisen in the past few hundred years because they work. Simply parroting somebody who says "There's no mention of Jesus in contemporary records, ergo no historical existence" isn't going to get you very far when talking to real historians of any stripe.
This book is a collection of essays by some of the current leading experts on this issue and includes an essay from one of the few respected historians who promotes the Jesus Myth Hypothesis, Dr. Robert Price, and defends it far more ably than what you usually find floating around on the Internet.
Also, Dr. Bart Ehrman, who is pretty much the biblical studies equivalent of Grant Palmer (ie, while he's a respected researcher and authority, his best skill is in distilling existing research for popular consumption) has recently released his own rebuttal to much of the Jesus Myth arguments.
For me personally, the reason I feel that Jesus of Nazareth was a real individual comes from a careful analysis of early Christian works (the Gospels and the genuine Epistles of Paul, especially Galatians) using them against each other to discern where they have overlap that they would probably have rather not had (usually called the Criterion of Embarrassment). There are many such tools used by historians in biblical and other non-religious historical studies to try and determine facts from biased historical sources through contextual analysis and such secondary research.
Let me put it another way: how many of us feel that every single prophet in the Old Testament, including the folk heroes of Elijah and Elisha, were similarly non-existent? David? Solomon? Do you think that a real box was carried around by ancient Jews and was placed in their temple at Jerusalem? Do you think there was a temple at Jerusalem before some Jews returned from Babylon? A tent that it was patterned on located at Shiloh? Could you describe it's size and layout? Because there's no proof for any of these items at all (well, the Babylonians prided themselves on destroying Jerusalem with its temple, but that's the only external mention of it), and I think most of us would probably be very comfortable with the idea that some actual historical figures and things existed (probably vastly different in real life from how they were remembered). Why should Jesus (a figure with far less time from when his own followers felt he lived and when they started writing their own stories about him) be any different?
I teach on Revelation. The book you want is a 4-views parallel commentary. It shows 3 main views of the Millenium. I imagine most reformed would take an amillennial viewpoint.
I hold an amillennial view. That isn't to say there is no millenium as the name suggests, but that there isn't a literal 1,000 year period - that it's symbolic (as nearly all of the numbers in Revelation are) of the Church Age. Satan was bound and powerless to deceive the nations (gentiles) through the death and resurrection of Christ, but there will be a seeming mass apostasy toward the end before the Final Judgement.
This view depends on a cyclical reading of Revelation - that the book tells the same story repeatedly from different vantage points, with different emphases. I think this to be the preferable approach to the book - otherwise we see Jesus returning 3-4 times and final and post-final judgements one after the other.
That said, compared to other theological stances I defend, I hold this the most loosely.
IIRC, this book has the best run down of the birth contradictions that I've ever read.The book is short, easily readable, and gets to the point.
There seems to be a large gap between what is taught in the churches and what is thought to be accurate - like Abraham, Moses, Exodus, etc. A growing number want to know if their beliefs are backed by evidence.
From this sub, I found reference to Tabor's Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity This is not what I learned in Sunday school. I watched a lecture referenced here: What Was The Exodus? Again, excellent and not what I was taught.
Academics sharing thoughts and references makes a difference. I hope a solution can be found and agree with a FAQ with links to books, lectures, articles, etc.
I recently finished this book: Salvation by Allegiance Alone. It completely reshaped my understanding of "faith" (Gk. pistis) and the ways it is used in the NT. One of his primary points is that even though "faith" and "belief" can be the meaning of pistis sometimes, we need to completely purge those words from our Christian vocabulary because we have so greatly missed their intended meanings. His view is that pistis most often means "allegiance," specifically allegiance to Christ as King. The purpose of the Gospel was to show that Christ has been enthroned as the ruler of the world, and salvation comes from our giving our full allegiance to Him in that role.
Academically, he also brings in several sources from outside the Bible to support this interpretation of pistis. I highly recommend this book and think it would answer most of the questions you brought up.
This, or any worthwhile academic book on the New Testament. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019020382X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i5
This isn't fringe scholarship, this is day 1 101 class stuff. We have no eyewitness accounts.
This is the textbook I used in my college course on the NT. It talks about this and a lot of other interesting aspects of the texts.
Although XalemD isn't wrong, there's more to it than just what he or she said. It's not just a matter of two new testament authors having the same name, making it appear as though they're a single person. Modern scholars are convinced that at least some of the NT books attributed to (the) Paul were forgeries. There is no single rationalization shared among Christians for this problem. A Christian has to ask himself or herself some questions to reconcile this:
In ancient times, much like today, it was not "considered okay" to forge a document by signing someone else's name to it. (A major exception for some philosophical circles, such as Pythagoreans.) This is discussed in the Bart Ehrman textbook, but ancient authors wrote treatises on how to identify their actual works and to exclude forgeries. So even ancient authors were annoyied that items were being written in their name.
> I'll look but I think Roman historians recorded Pauls death.
No they didn't. Seriously, who told you that?
Anyway, you can't use a source from the 16th century to show something happened in the first. Instead you would use Foxe's sources. But all of them also lived hundreds of years after the apostles, so it's all historically unreliable.
Plus, nowhere in the Bible is the author of Matthew identified as an apostle. In truth none of the Gospels claim to be written by apostles; that's just extra-biblical tradition.
But never mind all that, being willing to die for your beliefs does not make them true. Every religion has martyrs, and every martyr fervently believes. Remember 9/11? You said you'd never forget!
If you're really interested in being an apologist you should learn about Christianity, it'll help. Here's a great book on some of what I'm talking about here; it's popular in seminaries but is very readable:
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Historical-Introduction/dp/0195154622
Do not base your theology on translations. Study the original languages or learn from people who do. The Greek word behind "worship" in these verses is "proskuneo" which refers to prostration. Various people in the Bible received "proskuneo". It is not something that was reserved for God. In those days, people prostrated before anyone who was higher class than they were.
This information was gleaned from Jason David BeDuhn's "Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament", chapter 4, pp 41-49 ( http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Translation-Accuracy-Translations-Testament/dp/0761825568/ref=tmm_pap_title_0 )
Here are the three books that participate (the first accidentally) in the dialogue:
My impression from the forewords to each is that the exchange was friendly, though Piper does quite a bit of scaremongering. Each allowed the other to read their books before publication and so forth. All three are at the "probably suitable for seminarians" level of discourse, rather than popular-level.
I can remember eagerly waiting for Justification to come out back in 2009. Seems crazy that it was almost ten years ago.
It's not based on faith alone. It's based on an abundance of critical evidence. FF Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? is a fantastic resource on this topic.
Where faith comes in is that we trust that God has preserved his word because he said he would: 'For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.' And he has provided the church with all we need to determine what is God's Word and what is not. Furthermore, even if our manuscripts aren't perfect, we trust that God has given us everything that we need.
Even in the disagreements and differences, there are no major doctrines in disagreement based on text. And most importantly, there is no lack of the gospel in any of the differences.
I'm an atheist, and most will hate me for this, but I don't recommend The God Delusion. There are better books, and Dawkins is much better when he writes about biology.
Atheist worldview book: I recommend Sense and Goodness without God by Richard Carrier
Books about Christianity (there are so many to recommend, but these are some favorites):
I'm a big fan of Spong, so I would recommend any of his books. Also Robert M. Price is worth looking into, he has lots of free sermons and writings available from when he was a liberal pastor and theologian, which he is not anymore.
Believe it or not, a lot of people filling the pews in churches are like you. It's normal to doubt, it's normal to question the things that you question, etc.
It might be worthwhile for you to read some basic textbooks on biblical history. I recommend: Bart Ehrman: The New Testament, a Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings and Bernhard Anderson: Understanding the Old Testament Both of them are undergraduate level textbooks that are written in an approachable, yet academically sound, style. They go over the way in which the Bible was written and assembled.
A good study Bible like this will include a couple of introductory pages at the beginning of a book to help, plus tons of notes, charts, timelines, etc. Definitely helpful in understanding context! There's also more in-depth resources like these excellent Introduction to the Old Testament and Introduction to the New Testament books.
Elements of Exegesis the guy is a moderate evangelical, but the ideas here are pretty good.
How to read the Bible for all its worth by Fee and Stuart Great intro to reading the different genres of scripture. Two evangelical scholars.
Invitation to Biblical Interpretation Written by two heavy hitting scholars, it's a big book with a ton of info on how to interpret all parts of scripture.
Grasping God's Word Probably a good place to start as it is a workbook/textbook rolled into one. You get a lot of great info with tons of exercises.
In the book "Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament" by Jason BeDuhn he compares 9 different translations to the original greek, and the NWT compares favorably to most of the others and is actually much less biased than several.
N.T. Wright is generally considered to be the current expert on Paul.
A really great and short book, adapted from a lecture series: Paul in Fresh Perspective.
An exhaustive 1700 page monster: Paul and the Faithfulness of God. I'm working through this one now. It's very informative and a good read, but it really does engage with pretty much every academic writer of any substance from the past hundred years, so sometimes it feels like you're listening in on the middle of a conversation. The earlier books in this series, particularly The New Testament and the People of God (which is volume 1, and has much of the background material) covers the political and religious situation during the Second Temple period. It has a lot of great discussion about the Pharisees (a very complex group of people) and their opponents, Roman and Greek stuff, and so on.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Documents-They-Reliable/dp/0802822193
F. F. Bruce is solid.
I can't compete with /u/davidjricardo but here is/would be my list:
NIGTC Book of Revelation Commentary
[The Reformation Study Bible ESV] (http://www.amazon.com/Reformation-Study-Bible-Crimson-Hardcover/dp/1567694411/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=31Tj7%2BFDV2L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR114%2C160_&refRID=1NETK7XFP7A2DT6824VT)
A History of Western Philosophy and Theology by John Frame
Greek East and Latin West: The Church AD 681-1071 by Andrew Louth
The Letter to the Romans - The Bible in Medieval Tradition
I've also recently become obsessed with Terry Brooks' Shannara series. If interested I recommend starting with the Elfstones of Shannara
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
The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright is the best one, though keep in mind it is over 700 pages. It is highly respected and compelling, even among non-Christian, critical Bible scholars.
A completely separate argument (though more easily summarized) is Gary Habermas' "Minimal Fact" argument, where he argues using only historical facts agreed upon nearly unanimously by critical Bible scholars (including skeptics and secular historians.)
A more general book about the historical reliability of the Gospel narratives is Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham. Keep in mind this is also lengthy and academic in nature.
The best summary of these arguments I've come across is in chapters 7 and 13 of The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. This is the book that turned my faith around. He's also great at citations and includes a very helpful annotated bibliography.
TL;DR - Everyone should read The Reason for God by Tim Keller.
Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I found Richard Baukham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony a worthwhile read. It does offer arguments addressing the reliability and dating aspects of the question.
Jesus Christ is a manufactured entity, made up by people who thought they were being inspired by god who were following other people who though they were being inspired by god, going back to at least 500 BC. Other good book.
People need to educate themselves on mythological literature. If you still want to believe in god, even a lot of believers are taking a second look at their mythological literature.
If you're looking for a broad overview of the differing positions, this is a great resource, though it's not totally perfect.
I got kind of lazy with the links, but anyways here is my collection of Christianity related books, links etc.
Listening:
Books:
Links
>As an atheist, I don't believe that sufficient evidence has been provided to prove God's existence. To me, saying a miracle is an act of God is identical to saying a miracle is an act of magic. Attributing something to God, or magic, is no explanation.
Completely understood. You don't need to believe in something to agree that it is a valid concept, however. I don't believe in Hogwarts but I still can follow the plot of Harry Potter. It is true that if there is no God, there are no miracles. The question you asked is a conceptual one, however.
>Such as?
Spontaneous healings I suppose would be one example. If you want a whole host of non-Biblical instances of recorded "miracles" (you can assess for yourself if they are miraculous) there is a great two-volume anthology written on this topic. I don't expect you to buy it, but if you really want to look into this stuff, my posts will be no substitute for actually reading the accounts of supposed miracles.
>So you're saying that something extremely rare can be called a miracle? Such as?
I know you wanted non-Biblical, but just for clarification's sake, take David slaying Goliath. He slings a stone at the giant's face. Now this is really nothing special. Anyone can sling a stone. What would make it a miracle is if David wasn't going to hit Goliath if he acted alone, and God had intervened somewhere in order that the stone hits him right where he had to be hit in order to topple Goliath. This would be an instance of a miracle having more to do with probability than with the act itself.
I thought I saw one with the name Paul on it somewhere.
ah, here's one
http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Jesus-Apostle-Transformed-Christianity/dp/1439123322/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450243565&sr=1-3&keywords=paul+the+apostle
Price has written a book about Paul called The Amazing Colossal Apostle in which he spells out his reasoning. IIRC, he tries to make a case that Paul is a cipher for Simon Magus, who was the popularizer of a competing version of Christianity (non proto-orthodox). Marcion or one of his disciples compiled or created the epistles based on Simonian teachings, and then the proto-orthodox re-worked them into the current version of the epistles.
It's been a while since I read it, so I can't give you any of the specifics of his argument. I remember that he goes through each epistle and tries to break down each epistle into its Marcionite and orthodox components.
I'm not Bible scholar, just an interested lay person who hasn't spent much time on Paul yet, so I can't tell you how good his arguments are.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Amazing-Colossal-Apostle-Historical/dp/156085216X
VIDEO:
5 minute video from Oxford philosophy professor. Great setup for the following.
https://vimeo.com/138076932
BOOKS:
Most of these are written in a beginning to intermediate style. However, they accurately reflect the scholarly work on the topic. If you want the academic works, let me know.
https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Jesus-Gary-Habermas-ebook/dp/B01GKLSI8S/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1525454337&sr=8-4&keywords=gary+habermas
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection-Jesus-Gary-Habermas-ebook/dp/B001QOGJY0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525454337&sr=8-1&keywords=gary+habermas
https://www.amazon.com/Guard-Students-Thinkers-Guide-Christian-ebook/dp/B00U894IGA/ref=la_B001IOH3GQ_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1525454627&sr=1-6
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LUJDNE/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i3
https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Jesus-J-Ed-Komoszewski-ebook/dp/B001QOGJXQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525454914&sr=8-1&keywords=Reinventing+Jesus
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QOGJVI/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1
https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Reliability-New-Testament-Evangelical-ebook/dp/B01MSUCJ66/ref=pd_sim_351_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FNH5CSR0J6AF3B88HMS9&dpID=51heGflFcaL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=detail
https://www.amazon.com/Dethroning-Jesus-Exposing-Cultures-Biblical-ebook/dp/B007V91I7M/ref=pd_sim_351_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FKG1E1KYR46C9H9DDSQ5
https://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-God-Incarnate-Richard-Swinburne-ebook/dp/B003554IXM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1525456309&sr=8-3&dpID=51WkknIrkbL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=detail
INTERNET:
Reasonable Faith is probably one of the best sources there is. William Lane Craig has two PhD's. One on philosophy and the other in theology. He is a well respected scholar who brings his professional work to lay audiences. On his site you will find podcasts, readings, debates, videos, question of the week, etc. It just happens that this week's question is related to the topic of Jesus' resurrection.
https://www.reasonablefaith.org
Starting with podcast 14 Dr. Craig begins his assessment of the Resurrection.
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2/s2-doctrine-of-christ/
Here is the complete podcast which is excellent!!! After listening to this you'll know more than most.
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2
I think what Paul really did was strip the “Jewishness” out of Christianity. The absolute core of Jesus’ message is love, and Paul did get that right.
There is a great book on the subject titled Paul and Jesus. The Book does a much better job explaining the subject than I ever could, and it describes a time when Paul’s actions may have saved the religion from obscurity or even destruction.
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:
Good Luck.
You also have to take into consideration that the books of the new testament were written is such a way as to convince the reader that Jesus was the messiah (example Matthew was written to the Jews with the intention of convincing them that Jesus fulfilled those Old testament prophesies). The earliest book that was written closest to the death of Jesus was Mark. This is generally considered by historians to be most accurate. This book does not have any account of the birth of Jesus at all. (and therefore cannot "fulfill" the prophesy that the messiah would be born in Bethlehem, ect.) There are many discrepancies throughout the 4 gospels (the books that describe Jesus' life, acts and death) so that they don't tell the same story. (even though many try to make them line up somehow).
I guess my response to this would be that the gospel accounts are not necessarily historically accurate. The people writing them were not alive at the time of Jesus and did not know him. They had an agenda. Not saying they didn't believe what they wrote because many of them died for their beliefs. Anyway, I read this book: (http://www.amazon.ca/The-New-Testament-Historical-Introduction/dp/0195154622) and it really changed the way I looked at the bible.
(Note, these will probably go against or "provide a nice contrast with" captainhaddock's view --the current most popular post in the thread).
For the New Testament, Carson and Moo's Introduction to the New Testament is great: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0310238595/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=
You can get it for a good price, and it gives very balanced views. It will outline the different positions and go through the current academic questions.
For the Old Testament, there's a counterpart by the same publisher, but I have no experience with it: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Old-Testament-Second-ebook/dp/B000SEL1FQ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UN4C24G87RZ3&keywords=an+introduction+to+the+old+testament+longman&qid=1561995832&s=books&sprefix=an+introduction+to+the+old+testament%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C128&sr=1-1
Another option is a Catholic Introduction to the Old Testament, which is excellent: https://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Introduction-Bible-Old-Testament-ebook/dp/B07H46F524/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1RP4QZX3LE5HE&keywords=a+catholic+introduction+to+the+bible+the+old+testament&qid=1561995878&s=books&sprefix=a+Catholic%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C131&sr=1-1
The two first ones get called 'Evangelical,' and that's true. But, they don't settle things with pure theology. They argue both sides on any issue and give their opinion. The Catholic Introduction is Catholic, but that doesn't mean that it only gives one view either.
Thank you! Got An Introduction To The New Testament by Carson and Moo.
Get yourself a copy of Grasping God's Word by Duvall and Hayes. There are plenty of good books on how to exegete the Bible but frankly this is the best I have ever read for a relative beginner. You don't need to know Greek or Hebrew, but down the line as you get into it, if you wanted there are things like Strongs guides, Interlinears, Eclectic Texts like the Nestle-Aland 28th edition. And some free computer programs. Biblos.com is a free resource with more material than most people will ever need... I go there a lot when I need to reference the Masoretic text. But they have commentaries and other resources as well.
The textbook I used in my hermeneutics class was [Grasping God's Word] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0310492572/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=30968505261&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11654403599380140192&hvpone=22.16&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_1x21vrvqwq_b) with a supplement text of [How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310246040). Both I would suggest, they take a position of inerrancy and do an excellent job of teaching Scriptural study.
I think the best rebuttal (which you already touched on in your comments) is that there Ancient Near East had no concept of loving, equal relationship between same-sex couples.
Early Christians (including those with Jewish backgrounds) were all extremely Hellenized but would have also viewed Greek society as "worldly" and something that they needed to separate themselves from. So, since their only exposure to homosexuality was between an older man and a young boy for the purpose of material gain or idolatry.
>Some scholars locate its origin in pool initiation ritual, particularly rites of passage on Crete, where it was associated with entrance into military life and the religion of Zeus.[[5]](https://6trtt to ⅝6/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece#cite_note-5). The wiki has a lot of good info.
I'd also recommend [Sex and the Single Savior](https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Single-Savior-Sexuality-Interpretation/dp/0664230466
by Dale Martin), who is the professor of the Yale NT course.
Being gay and being Christian are not mutually exclusive. You have some reading to do.
If you liked Dale Martin's class, you might also enjoy his book Sex and the Single Savior. It was interesting to me because both Dale and I are gay Christians. I thought he raised some interesting points.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0664230466/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1418422830&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SY200_QL40
According to this book: http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Translation-Accuracy-Translations-Testament/dp/0761825568 the New World Translation is one of the least biased translations available (Most true to our oldest remaining biblical manuscripts). Bonus: You can get a copy for free. Just ask Jehovah's witnesses for one next time they knock on your door.
He has done a remarquable work in his book http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Translation-Accuracy-Translations-Testament/dp/0761825568
It's basically traditions. It's one of the older translations that are still around, and it's not incredibly inaccurate, although there are more accurate versions. The original manuscripts have been copied and copied and copied by scribes for centuries, and the originals are long gone, so it's a pretty extensive subject to discern which translation is the most accurate.
If you want to do more reading on it, I highly recommend this book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0761825568
I can't imagine it being too dated. This one by Wright is a great nugget as well:
http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Perspective-N-T-Wright/dp/0800663578
But truly, Westerholm put it all together and won the debate for me.
Yes, but the meanings of this word are more than that.
For an in-depth look about the word pistis and what it entails I recommend you this very cool book that I have stumbled upon last year, it literally talks about the different nuances of the word pistis.
https://www.amazon.com/Salvation-Allegiance-Alone-Rethinking-Gospel/dp/0801097975
There is a very good book by Matthew Bates called By allegiance alone, it explores the meaning of "faith" in the NT and the intertestamental period.
Long story short, what we call "faith" would probably be better translated as "faithfulness". This explains why James was adamant that "faith without works is dead" and that "a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone" (Js. 2:24), while also saying that merely to believe places one on the same level as the demons (see James 2). James was concerned with those who were trying to reduce faith to an intellectual subscription without any intent to follow God or Jesus, and "faith" means a full submission to God.
I highly recommend G.K. Beale - The Book of Revelation (NIGTC series).
I don't agree with all of the conclusions he draws from the textual data, but he is a brilliant mind and his ability for observing detail and connections intertextually and intra-textually is undeniable. This is a very thorough exegetical commentary.
Why is this downvoted? Serious, conservative scholars like Bauckham hold that John the Elder wrote much of the Johannine material, including Revelation. This is based on both internal as well as external evidence from church history.
Edit: a bit more content for those who want to know. First: John was one of the most common first names for 1st century Jews living in Israel. We should not at all be surprised that there are more than one John involved - on the contrary, it would be very strange if there was only one.
Eusebius, writing around the year 325, speaks of Papias, a man who lived in the first and second century, in Hierapolis near Ephesus in modern Turkey. Papias was a Christian and whenever other Christians came through Hierapolis from Ephesus, Papias would ask them..
>“What Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, were saying”
Papias wrote this in the 2nd century and Eusebius is quoting him. Papias talks about two Johns - one in the list of Apostles, and one he calls 'the elder John'. Bauckham considers these to be two different Johns: John the son of Zebedee (one of the Twelve) and John the Elder (another disciple, but not one of the twelve). Both apparently are eyewitnesses to the work of Christ.
The author of 1 John addresses his audience as 'little children' which is fitting for an elder. The author of 2 and 3 John identifies himself as 'the Elder', in the opening verses of these epistles. So it's not at all unlikely that the writer of the epistles (and possibly Revelation) is this elder John, not John the son of Zebedee.
The authorship of the Gospel of John is also never mentioned in the Bible, though the author does claim to be an eyewitness. Bauckham makes the case for 'the beloved disciple' (a Jerusalem based disciple of the Lord with familial ties to the highpriestly family) as the author, instead of the son of Zebedee.
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802874312/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_wwLvDbGX3JG90
Kruger, on the other hand, doesn't seem to agree, though he isn't responding to Bauckham in this blog post: https://www.michaeljkruger.com/did-papias-know-the-apostle-john/
If Bart Ehrman is a Christian apologist, then I might as well be Jesus! Ehrman is an agnostic atheist, and about as far from being an apologist as you can get (you can tell because some Christians write books trying to refute him). He is a highly respected New Testament scholar and has written standard university textbooks in biblical studies. You can find a complete list of his books here. The formation of the biblical canon is a massive topic, but for the New Testament Ehrman has written something of a three-part series: Misquoting Jesus, Jesus, Interrupted, and Forged (which I'm reading right now and highly recommend). These are all books aimed at a general audience and are easier to grok than his academic texts.
This will probably start a flamewar, but I should also point out that Richard Carrier's views are pretty far off the beaten path. There's nothing wrong with that, but crucially, they seem to be motivated by his personal ideology as an atheist more than objective scholarship. (Yes, Jesus did exist, and no, you can't use Bayes' Theorem to prove he didn't).
As a side note, Yale has free online courses about the [Old Testament](http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-145
) and [New Testament](http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152
), along with books to go with them. These lectures really are incredible in framing the history of the Bible within its ancient context. I finished watching them a few weeks ago, and they have completely changed my perspective on the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity. You can find content of a similar nature in r/AcademicBiblical, which is a sub devoted to biblical scholarship. Cheers!
Well, I'm not qualified to judge such things. Suffice to say, scholarship on central religious sources carried out by Western academics has utterly demolished the foundations of all the the world's religions, and Islam is no exception. In the West, Christian apologists produce books trying to push back against the conclusions of scholars of Christainity, but they don't really work, and they are, of course, religiously motivated.
Apologists for Islam have done the same. Joseph Schact's The Origins of Muhammadean Jurisprudence is commonly cited as one of the central texts to undermine the intellectual foundations of Islam, and it has inspired Islamic apologists to produce books in reply. Ironically, in doing so, such apologists are forced to engage on the territory of Western academic scholarship, citing Western academics to bolster their case. In doing so, they are effectively agreeing to engage the intellectual battle on scientific territory, where religion will always lose, as it has done ceaselessly now for 300+ years. Islamic clerics are even reduced to citing Montgomery Watt, the British historian of Islam, in their books, partly because Watt was a Christian who was sympathetic to Islam, because he saw it as a potential ally in the war against evil secularism and atheism.
Delving into Robert Price would probably be a lot of work with very little return on the investment given that he is, effectively, the only scholar to hold his position. There are scores of well received historical Jesus works I would recommend before cracking open anything by Price, perhaps the only exception being The Historical Jesus: Five Views
If you are up for an entire book, try "The Historical Jesus: Five Views". The five writers each present their own view, and each rebut the views of the others.
Here is a good resource which lists the different views on the historical Jesus and which scholars and books support those views.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html
Here is a book which is written as a debate between five scholars: Price, Crossan, Dunn, Johnson, and Bock.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Historical-Jesus-Five-Views/dp/0830838686
When you say "historicity," are you talking about whether or not Jesus existed or what the historical Jesus would have been like?
Bart Ehrman, an atheist, has a book on the former that pretty well represents the consensus of historians that Jesus did, in fact, exist.
I haven't read this, but this book looks like it might be a good intro to the historical Jesus. I don't know all of the scholars on this list, but the ones I do know are good, and it shows a spectrum.
While I haven't read this book presenting four major readings of Revelation, I have read another by the author (about three major views on hell) and found it informative and fair -- I came away with a different view from the author, in fact. He withholds his take, but a friend who follows the author let me know.
By the way, in addition to the eschatology lecture series by Steve Gregg that I mentioned in a comment above, you might be interested in his book about Revelation, which lays out how proponents of each of the four views interpret each passage (without expressing his own opinion, as much as possible). Here are Amazon links for the older hardback edition or the newer paperback edition.
Definitely go ESV. The ESV has a nice readability while also being very accurate. I've checked the Greek several times (went to school for Theology/Greek), and I've so often been pleased with the results.
My recommendation for something fun/different has to go to Lattimore's translation of the NT.
Both Crossway and Holman publish a "Reader's Bible" that remove verse numbers, headings, and use standard single-column page format. Crossway's Reader's Bible uses the ESV while Holman publishes both KJV and NKJV.
Almost every edition of the New English Bible is single column and features a clean readable page format, where verse numbers are pushed to the side of the margin and not within the text.
Richmond Lattimore's New Testament has no verse numbers/headings and standard page format. It's also a good translation in my opinion.
This is only the New Testament, but you might be interested in the translation by Richard Lattimore. Lattimore was classics scholar who translated both the Iliad and Odyssey, many plays from Sophocles, et cetera. My understanding is that there is nothing either religious or irreligious about it. I believe the translation is meant to be a-religious: meaning, simply a faithful translation of the Koine Greek in which the New Testament was written.
> I implore people to simply read their Bibles without any aids.
While I think there tends to be a great deal of atheism in this forum, I agree it can be enlightening to simply read the Bible - particularly as it applies to a comparison with what the WTBS presents as biblical truth. And, for those who might want to pursue such a course, I've been working through the following title as an alternative to the standard KJV or NIV:
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Richmond-Lattimore/dp/0865475245
While Lattimore has significant credibility as a translator, I've found reading the Bible (or at least the New Testament in this case) without the intrusion of chapter and verse to be particularly useful. There is less a tendency to be captured by the writing as clause and sub-clause as you might with a legal document and more an opportunity to follow the writing as it was originally presented; the epistles were just epistles after all.
I've noticed a number of instances where this approach has shifted my understanding of what was intended and, by contrast, how fractured our view of the biblical narrative becomes when we simply verse hop as the favoured study approach of the Witnesses.
Congrats on your mission call, and double congrats on going to Central America.
As far as understanding and following the New Testament, you really can't do better than getting a good study bible. In addition to the text of the scripture, you also get scholarly essays that introduce each book, as well as notes running parallel to the text that help clarify and contextualize the tricky parts, written by academics from a variety of faiths. Either of the following two are great:
The New Oxford Annotated Bible
The HarperCollins Study Bible
You might also check out the next book, which is a standard text in divinity schools.
The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings
I don't know how much any of these are going to help you in 87 days, but I respect your ambition in trying to tackle the scriptures in such a short span.
>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.
> When Satan communicates his advice re: the fruit, he speaks directly to Eve only
The actual hebrew that genesis is written in suggests that the snake was speaking to both of them. The snake speaks to them. Eve responds. Eve eats of the fruit and shares it with Adam who was with her.
> Man was created first and woman was made from man
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." Genesis 1 suggests that they were made at the same time. Genesis 2 is where the text talks about a woman being made out of man's ribs, but it is a different creation story than the one in Genesis 1.
> 11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. (1 Tim 2)
First Timothy is not considered to be authentic Pauline writing. "When we come to the Pastoral epistles, there is greater scholarly unanimity. These three letters are widely regarded by scholars as non-Pauline" Source
Reputable sources please.
Here is mine:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0195154622
I trust Dr. Martin's lectures are quite beneficial, though I confess the busyness of the season will likely preclude my viewing them. However, rest assured I am familiar with a very similar series by Dr. Fantin, this book by Dr. Carson & Dr. Moo, and the writing of John Drane in his Introducing the New Testament. They assert synoptic dates in the late 50s through late 60s, mid 50s through the mid 60s, and mid 70s through mid 80s, respectively.
Your response was significantly more stream-of-consciousness than before and I trust you'll forgive me some questions of clarification? Which "more accurate description of events" are you referring to? In the wikipedia article's reference to oral tradition I see Halivne, Kalet, Herford, Wansbrough, and Henaut listed as authors asserting Christians had no written Gospels before AD 70, but I admit I am not familiar with any of them. Which would you recommend?
For further clarification, which assurances of mine are you referring to? More specifically, which assurances have lacked evidence? If you are indeed accusing me for failing to produce undeniable (concrete) evidence for the dating of the writing of the gospels... there's not any? If there was concrete evidence, it wouldn't be a dating puzzle, scholars would agree, and you and I would not be having this conversation.
You're right, we don't know where the apostle John was exactly in AD 70-75. However, whether he was in Judea or Asia Minor (Turkey), each was a center of Christianity by that point anyways. The notion that the only living disciple/apostle would be unable to correct an honest mistake (written or oral) strikes me as an unacceptably large assumption.
Unless I am mis-reading (and I apologize if it's the case!), your final assertion is that your weak assumption is negated by my weak assumption that early Christians were of trustworthy character. Did I not present valid historical evidence, dated within forty years of the AD 70s, that vehement enemies and torturers of Christians bore witness to their commitment to trustworthy character? This would be the equivalent of a letter from a British governor to the British monarchy, dated 1816, stating "I tortured those damned patriot Americans I captured. I hate their guts, but the only thing they had done wrong was trying to be the most upstanding men they could be."
My assumption is not based on conjecture, intuition, meditation, fasting, prayer, mushrooms, divine inspiration, dreams, voting, accepting a story I heard, or the most vivid story 2000 years later, but primary evidence from the time period.
I found this statement of yours particularly thought-provoking.
>If one is willing to risk one's life for a cause, one might also be willing to sacrifice historical accuracy.
It prompted me to do a willy-nilly google search on "Why do people risk their lives." I've read some interesting stuff, most of it about adrenaline junkies (though that's clearly not what we're talking about). Most interesting though, this quote, which I found here.
>Rohit Deshpande, a professor at Harvard Business School, has delved into the science of heroism to find out what causes someone to spring into action despite the danger to help or save someone else.
>
>In his research, Deshpande focused on how hotel workers took extreme risks to protect guests during the deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, in 2008. ...
>
>He found heroism had nothing to do with age, gender or religion. It started with personality.
>
>"It seems that they have a much more highly developed moral compass," he said. "They have this instinct for doing something good for other people. We find this across a whole series of situations. We find people who risk their own lives to protect people from harm."
I found nothing about people dying for a cause they know is a historically inaccurate lie.
I'm not quite sure what you are looking for, or where the 700 years comes from that you are referring to, and I'm not as experienced in books written from Christian perspectives as I am with others but I'll just leave these here for you to look into until someone else has more suggestions so you have somewhere to start for now. They are all written by Christian professors/scholars. This being the case however I am not sure that they will accomplish your goal. I only have real experience with the one written by Jeffers which is more about life in the era the NT was written.
http://www.amazon.com/Backgrounds-Early-Christianity-Everett-Ferguson/dp/0802822215
http://www.amazon.com/The-Greco-Roman-World-New-Testament/dp/0830815899
http://www.amazon.com/Arius-Heresy-Tradition-Rowan-Williams/dp/0802849695
http://www.amazon.com/An-Introduction-New-Testament-Carson/dp/0310238595/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
Hey, I know this is late, but if you're still watching this post, I have a couple books for you. I have no idea what you mean by "middleweight-heavy," so I'll just list a few I use and teach from. I'm working on my M.Div. at a Southern Baptist Seminary, so you know I'm not a Ph.D. or an expert.
And two I'm not as familiar with, but should be interesting for you:
To be honest, I haven't read Traina, and am not sure what sorts of things you've been getting from DTS, so I hope this is helpful. And if not, maybe it will be for someone clicking here to see what books people recommend.
Exegesis is looking at Scripture and trying to figure out what it originally meant to its audience. This means studying the historical context surrounding the verse. Someone mentioned Isaiah 53 not being about the Messiah. Why do they believe this? Well if you look at the historical context it makes sense that it's about Israel and/or Isaiah himself. Isaiah was traditionally believed to be martyred by the king of Israel. But later in the New Testament Paul applies a new meaning to the verse and attributes it to Christ. Which is right? Well as a Christian I would say both are important. Hermeneutics is merely taking what you learned through exegesis and applying it to a modern context or what it means to us.
As for learning more about it I could name many different books, but here are the ones I read first:
How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
Grasping God's Word
Inspiration and Incarnation
> IMO, statements like this could be used in a politically inappropriate manner.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? (Certainly, I see how it could be abused, but what are you suggesting practically? Many comments, even many biblical ones, are often applied inappropriately in a political setting, so I don't understand the point of your comment.)
> Also, there is a very interesting and well-informed earlier thread concerning this subject matter here.
>
> Furthermore, some may be interested in checking out Dale Allison's collection of essays entitled: Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation.
Thank you for the referrals. Out of curiosity, though, did you mean them as a response to my comment or as general recommendations for all readers of the thread?
I'm not trying to be mean, but did you really study that much if you didn't know that the Mosaic Law is invalid?
Sorry, we all have different paths of learning but that's a pretty important part of bible scholarship. A lot more things don't make sense if you try to incorporate the mosaic law into Christianity.
Also apparently back in the day age was a term for respect for Hebrews. So when they say Abraham was 500 years old they weren't really supposed to mean he is literally 500 years old, more that he was a very wise elder who should be respected. (this is secular thinking, JW's think he was literally that old)
Basically a literal read through of the OT is going to leave a lot of holes/contradictions/etc.
Finally there is some arguments to be made against the NWT, mostly John 1:1. I'm not a translator or anything but I do know that some translators hold the NWT in high regard.
For instance the book Truth in Translation, I haven't read it but its on my list, apparently shows the differences between major translations and the NWT comes out on top or very near the top IIRC.
http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Translation-Accuracy-Translations-Testament/dp/0761825568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408479207&sr=8-1&keywords=truth+in+translation
I'm glad you're finding this stuff out for yourself. I have been reading the bible and doing personal study for awhile now trying to figure it all out. Confusing is an understatement lol.
My objective in discussing Paul was to emphasis how his conceptualization of the law was indelibly connected to his understand of Jesus, i.e., his Christianity. My mistake if I misunderstand what you were attempting to say.
Paul's concept of the law is complicated and, interestingly, may even have changed as he aged and his personal theology evolved. Both James Dunn and NT Wright have good books about Paul's theology, two Christian academics you may be able to respect.
>Discussions about what is the most appropriate meaning to draw from texts is pedagogy, not debate...
This must be one of those statement you consider merely an opinion lacking any objective evidence [smile]. Why would you assume that I'm hostile simply because I make lengthy comments and expect rational argumentation?
Faith in the Christian bible is πιστις (pistis), it has the basic meaning of "believe in" but not in the sense of just whimsically hope in something, rather it is synonymous with words like faithfulness or even better, allegiance. So in the context that I think you might be asking, faith would be having allegiance to Jesus, not having a blind hope that he exists. For more info check out: https://www.amazon.com/Salvation-Allegiance-Alone-Rethinking-Gospel/dp/0801097975/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522107286&sr=1-1&keywords=salvation+by+allegiance+alone
> Historians look to other forms of evidence than written sources to support or deny historical assertions, and in the case of the Bible, these other forms of evidence don't always match up with the Biblical account.
One can look at K. A. Kitchens On the Reliability of the OT or Walter Kaiser's The OT Documents - Are They Reliable and Relevant? or Craig Bloomberg's The Historical Reliabilitiy of the Gospels or F.F, Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? or Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
>...the Bible itself is sufficient proof of the claims made within it.
No one I know makes that claim, except for atheists who think that is the position of Christians. See the above works for details.
That being said if Stephen Ambrose quotes Max Hastings or John Toland and it would taken as a valid reference. So one biblical author can cite another.
Dr. G.K. Beale has, probably, the best commentary on the Book of Revelation, a formidable and excellent work even for those who disagree with his amillenial position. If 1300 pages is overwhelming, then his Revelation: A Shorter Commentary at only 550 pages is also excellent. For mostly the same amillenial perspective, but in a much less thorough form check out the 213 pages of The Returning King: A Guide to the Book of Revelation by Vern Poythress, the text of which is freely available online from the author.
For books, I'd recommend something like Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham for a start. While I haven't read it myself (it's on my wishlist though, lol) many of the apologists I watch have cited it and its scholarship in their arguments. Bacukham in general is a good author by my understanding.
For videos, I would consider some of the following:
This Playlist
^ He also has some debates on his channel on the subject
Or this playlist
>Also, that doesn't explain why the other Gospels include it because there would have been people to illustrate the Resurrection account.
I agree that you've made a salient point, but I think we can resolve this by examining the facts a little bit more closely.
First, we can take a hint by looking at the scholarly datings for the synoptic^1 Gospels: late 50s-late 70s for Mark, early 60s-100 for Matthew, early 60s-110 for Luke (see my original reply above for citations). The vast majority of scholars agree that Mark is earliest. Many agree that Matthew was written after Mark, and then Luke was written after Matthew. If we approximate Mark to AD 65-70, and posit that (for instance) Matthew came about a decade later and Luke about another decade after that, then the reason why Matthew/Luke include the resurrection information becomes clear. That is: the witnesses to the resurrection, who were alive to orally "fill in the blanks" while Mark was being disseminated, were beginning to die off due to passage of time. Therefore, collecting the resurrection testimony and putting it in written form would have felt like an imminent and important task to the authors of Matthew and Luke.
Second, the above hypothesis fits well into what we already know about Matthew and Luke's use of Mark as a source (more than 90% of Mark's Gospel is used in Matthew, and more than 50% of Mark's Gospel is used in Luke).^2 If one of the primary goals of Matthew/Luke's authors was to expand Mark's Gospel to create a fuller written account including the resurrection testimony, then it only makes sense that they'd cite Mark rather extensively in the process of doing so.^3
---
Footnotes and Citations
---
Anyway, thanks for the interesting discussion! God bless you my friend, and may the peace of Christ be with you. :)
For people who are interested in this topic
I have been picking up the most boring books and articles over the past few years on this topic because to me it is one of the most interesting topics on the planet. Below are some resources which I first used when finding & approaching this subject.
I highly recommend these short, fairly-down-to-earth books:
Some articles by one of today's leading Textual Critics (he has been in many public debates with Bart Ehrman [the guy in the OP article])
I'd be happy to try and tackle any questions about the subject, at the very least I know I can point you to the right place to ask.
edit: formatting
We did this one in a Sunday School class, I think. It presents each passage from the four major views.
https://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Four-Views-Parallel-Commentary/dp/0840721285
http://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Four-Views-Parallel-Commentary/dp/0840721285/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320349623&sr=8-1
the best book on Revelation ive read.
Did someone say reading list?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005TA7PSG/ - Read
http://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Four-Views-Parallel-Commentary/dp/0840721285/ - Read, which help me also to get…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003YCQ8W0/ - Read parts of it
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H1UOPE/ - Read
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002BD2UR0/ - Read
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TXTC22/ - A pastor I follow online recommend this. I haven’t got to it yet.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0079QQ0RK/ - No way am I going to finish this!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003CYLD5C/ - Haven’t started yet.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030CVQ5I/ - Started, but read some of the low star reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007J71S62/ - I recently got this book, but haven’t started it yet.
http://www.amazon.com/Petrus-Romanus-Final-Pope-Here/dp/0984825614/ - Uh… yeah. I read it.
***
All of that said, I know of a few Messianic Jews on YouTube but don’t know if there is any such congregation in my area. Alas I am at work and can’t dig out the names here. I also like to pick apart how they view the “rest of us” since, IMO, Christmas and Easter is so paganized.
http://www.reddit.com/r/INTP/comments/1dy1ws/intp_christians/c9v2tia?context=3
http://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/1c3qyk/jewishness_and_the_trinity_confirmations_and/
Anyway, when I got more time and less interruptions (i.e. AT HOME), I’ll check out the rest. I know of Paul Washer already.
I'd be interested in hearing your opinion about Richmond Lattimore's translation
https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Richmond-Lattimore/dp/0865475245
The New English Bible (1961, 1970) because it flows very well and handles some difficult or awkward phrases well. Plus it keeps index numbers out of the way.
The RSV because it's plain and straightforward.
Richmond Lattimore's NT because it too is plain and straightforward.
I suppose I should caution you not to get your hopes up. I don't know how often God heals people.
But Trent Horn has recommended Miracles by Craig Keener, apparently documenting numerous medical mysteries.
Here's some light reading if you decide to further inform yourself on the topic. Craig Keener - Miracles
Maybe this? This is about miracles of the New Testament in general:
​
https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-volumes-Credibility-Testament-Accounts-ebook/dp/B007KOI2PY/
For scripture, you just need to read Paul at face value and understand that the version in Acts is a fiction meant to harmonize the two factions when Luke writes two or three generations later.
This book might be a good jumping off point:
https://smile.amazon.com/Paul-Jesus-Apostle-Transformed-Christianity/dp/1439123322/
This is a 2 volume book documenting thousands of miracles and drawing conclusions:
https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Credibility-New-Testament-Accounts-ebook/dp/B007KOI2PY/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1500691217&sr=8-5&keywords=miracles
It's a bit difficult to read cover-to-cover due to the quality of the prose, but worth the effort, I think, even if you just skim it.
I am also posting this as an apologetic resource for you to use.
Why Christianity?
https://youtu.be/nWY-6xBA0Pk
Why suffering?
https://youtu.be/v6Gl4ao8IzA?t=9m6s
Evolution? Genesis?
Part 1
https://youtu.be/qMU1soRrtJk?t=26
Part 2
https://youtu.be/HZrxogY9Pnc?t=26
Part 3:
https://youtu.be/G7HQzhi8UPM?t=26
Part 4:
https://youtu.be/_3R0bh9LtSc?t=26
Part 5:
https://youtu.be/KJ3IgGYf29k?t=26
Part 6:
https://youtu.be/KCxWhKe1AMg?t=26
Part 7:
https://youtu.be/AyQY5Z3GeG4?t=26
Part 8:
https://youtu.be/eOwA9L0IY3I?t=26
Did Jesus exist?
https://youtu.be/A6uWSoxG_Fs
Jesus claimed to be God?
https://youtu.be/gT2TN6kA5kY
Trinity?
https://youtu.be/LoTSqXY5uhc
The good news?
https://youtu.be/HSNayo631a0
Homosexuality?
• A sin to exist?
https://youtu.be/COIThVReiIo
• A call to love?
https://youtu.be/nPYRXop7aPA?t=9s
Hell?
https://youtu.be/dz2EaQMBS3Y
All You Want to Know About Hell: Three Christian Views of God's Final Solution to the Problem of Sin
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EQE3FJE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_.o7HCb3HS6NG3
Never heard of Jesus?
Part 1
https://youtu.be/RvyzODL4B9U
Part 2
https://youtu.be/ufROkQF8rvg
Where did God come from?
https://youtu.be/RVzeojdXbpQ?t=9s
You might also enjoy these reads below,
Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQFWQHD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_QfzpCbWNBDNS2
The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LUJDNE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_QizpCbDR7WP0G
Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MYP99J3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_UoApCbAY8N4YN
Jesus Among Secular Gods: The Countercultural Claims of Christ
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F1UD66I/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_u6wsCbDS1XXHR
Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EPYPY4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_3WypCbW728FHK
I agree with other recommendations around considering postponing the wedding, but I wouldn't break off the relationship yet... As a former agnostic myself, I used to find belief in the resurrection a bit of a stretch given how long ago it was and I felt like God had basically "been silent" for a few thousand years which didn't seem to make much sense to me. I started reading about miracles at Fatima and other Catholic Marian apparitions and doing my own independent research and realized that there was more than the material world can explain... I've attached a few books I read on my journey that were helpful but have tons more if she ends up having the interest in considering...
Miracle Detective - https://smile.amazon.com/Miracle-Detective-Randall-Sullivan-ebook/dp/B008RZKOFQ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=miracle+detective&qid=1572978404&sr=8-1
Fatima Prophecies - https://smile.amazon.com/Fatima-Prophecies-At-Doorstep-World-ebook/dp/B00534J76G/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Fatima+Prophecies%3A+At+the+Doorstep+of+the+World&qid=1572978579&sr=8-1
Resurrection- expensive and long but good- https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LUJDNE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Definitely keep everything in prayer as well, but it sounds like you definitely are being called to the truth of the Catholic faith, and you need to really consider how challenging it will be to raise kids in a "mixed" religious family. We'll be praying for you.
Its a tome of depth and breadth, but check out Licona's The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach.
Very often, I find the popular criticisms fail to stand up to scrutiny because the conclusion they cannot be applied consistently to other fields of historical study. Popularizers tend to not be privy to the theory or method of historical inquiry pertaining to ancient texts. Understanding the theory and method at any level will help, as if we are able to establish the NT documents as an average ancient document for historical inquiry, the question then becomes "What are we to make of the historical facts we can discern from the texts?"
I didn't say Paul was 3rd century: I was referring to religions that persisted until then.
I dunno if Paul existed. Brodie thinks he didn't.
A book I should read is The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul
Take a look at the book Truth in Translation if you ever get the chance.
We are not the only ones who believe that John 1:1 has been mostly mistranslated.
https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Jesus-Apostle-Transformed-Christianity/dp/1439123322