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hi /u/lenusme. this is probably not the right place for this. self promotion is generally frowned upon here, unless you have an exceptionally well researched blog post, or an actual academic paper you'd like to share. and this is a pretty surface level discussion at best, to be honest. but i'd like to discuss some problems anyways.

> Some believe that Moses wrote Genesis while was in the land of Midian. Others believe he wrote it in the desert after his encounter with God on Mount Sinai. Although there is no way to know.

in fact, modern scholarship nearly universally rejects mosaic authorship entirely. you may want to consult the popular books "who wrote the bible?" and "the bible with sources revealed" by richard elliott friedman for an introduction to the documentary hypothesis (or start with this wiki page, if you'd like).

there are a number of other notable problems with mosaic authorship too, from an archaeological/historical standpoint. for instance, the amarna letters contain a few hundred correspondences between the pharaohs at akhentaten (now el-amarna) and their vassal territories in the 14th and 13th centuries BCE, and are among many other pieces of evidence that indicate that the egyptian empire looked rather like this for most of the time between 1550 BCE and 1100-ish BCE:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Egypt_NK_edit.svg

other relevant pieces of evidence for this are the egyptian hittite peace treaty that places the border between those two empires approximately 100 miles north of jerusalem around 1259 BCE, signed by the great ramesses ii, and the stele left by his son mernepteh in 1208 BCE reaffirming conquest of canaan -- including our oldest positive historical reference to a people called "israel". there are also egyptian outposts like jaffa which persisted until about the mid 1100's BCE, when egypt begins to lose control canaan in the bronze age collapse.

you can probably see why this causes some problems; the entire historical context of the narrative is wrong. there was no free land to lead the israelites to: moses's destination in the story was egypt in history. so, who was moses, then?

> Although the Jews call it Bereshit because it is the first and means "in the beginning."

it actually means "in the beginning of." you may wish to see rashi's commentary:

>> This verse calls aloud for explanation in the manner that our Rabbis explained it: God created the world for the sake of the Torah which is called (Proverbs 8:22) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) way”, and for the sake of Israel who are called (Jeremiah 2:3) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) increase’’. If, however, you wish to explain it in its plain sense, explain it thus: At the beginning of the Creation of heaven and earth when the earth was without form and void and there was darkness, God said, “Let there be light”. The text does not intend to point out the order of the acts of Creation — to state that these (heaven and earth) were created first; for if it intended to point this out, it should have written 'בראשונה ברא את השמים וגו “At first God created etc.” And for this reason: Because, wherever the word ראשית occurs in Scripture, it is in the construct state. E. g., (Jeremiah 26:1) “In the beginning of (בראשית) the reign of Jehoiakim”; (Genesis 10:10) “The beginning of (ראשית) his kingdom”; (Deuteronomy 18:4) “The first fruit of (ראשית) thy corn.” Similarly here you must translate בראשית ברא אלהים as though it read בראשית ברוא, at the beginning of God’s creating. A similar grammatical construction (of a noun in construct followed by a verb) is: (Hosea 1:2) תחלת דבר ה' בהושע, which is as much as to say, “At the beginning of God’s speaking through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea.” Should you, however, insist that it does actually intend to point out that these (heaven and earth) were created first, and that the meaning is, “At the beginning of everything He created these, admitting therefore that the word בראשית is in the construct state and explaining the omission of a word signifying “everything” by saying that you have texts which are elliptical, omitting a word, as for example (Job 3:10) “Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb” where it does not explicitly explain who it was that closed the womb; and (Isaiah 8:4) “He shall take away the spoil of Samaria” without explaining who shall take it away; and (Amos 6:12) “Doth he plough with oxen," and it does not explicitly state, “Doth a man plough with oxen”; (Isaiah 46:10) “Declaring from the beginning the end,” and it does not explicitly state, “Declaring from the beginning of a thing the end of a thing’ — if it is so (that you assert that this verse intends to point out that heaven and earth were created first), you should be astonished at yourself, because as a matter of fact the waters were created before heaven and earth, for, lo, it is written, (v. 2) “The Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the waters,” and Scripture had not yet disclosed when the creation of the waters took place — consequently you must learn from this that the creation of the waters preceded that of the earth. And a further proof that the heavens and earth were not the first thing created is that the heavens were created from fire (אש) and water (מים), from which it follows that fire and water were in existence before the heavens. Therefore you must needs admit that the text teaches nothing about the earlier or later sequence of the acts of Creation.

the simplest explanation is that rashi's first reading is correct, and the masoretes have mispointed בָּרָ֣א as a perfect verb, when is should be pointed בְּרֹ֤א (gen 5:1) as an infinitive construct, which is the same kind of grammatical construction. this construction, a complex preposition in construct form, followed by an infinitive, sets up a subordinate clause. the following statement is an aside, with the initial action taking place in verse 3:

>> When God began to create heaven and earth—

>> the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—

>> God said, “Let there be light”;

this is actually a common structure for ancient near eastern creation myths, and you can see it again in genesis 2 -- a work by a different author:

>> When the Lord God made earth and heaven—

>> when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil, but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth—

>> the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth.

subordinate clause, aside, initial action. you can see it other cultures, even:

>> When the heavens above did not exist,
And earth beneath had not come into being —
There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter,
And demiurge Tia-mat, who gave birth to them all;
They had mingled their waters together
Before meadow-land had coalesced and reed-bed was to he found —
When not one of the gods had been formed
Or had come into being, when no destinies had been decreed,
The gods were created within them:
Lahmu and Lahamu were formed and came into being.

>> Enuma Elish, Babylon

i point this out because i see hints you're going down the wrong path here -- this first verse is not a definitive statement about anything. it merely locates the story temporally.

> The new testament begins with the words biblos geneseos

by accident. early church tradition assumed that the gospel of matthew was earliest, but based on the two source hypothesis regarding the synoptic problem, and editorial fatigue in matthew and luke, scholars mostly think that matthew and luke were copying the gospel of mark. mark, of course, begins "Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ", arxe tou euaggeliou iesou xristou uiou tou thou, the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ son of god." but there's a better candidate here. consider:

>> Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (John 1:1)

>> ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν (Gen 1:1 LXX)

it's likely that john was specifically invoking genesis here. i am not sure, at the moment, when the title "genesis" was applied to the text. i suppose i could keep going, but these are some problems i see right off the bat.

if you'd like, i could talk about the function of genesis, literary style, dates of authorship, relationship to the babylonian calendar rather than the original hebrew one, the demythologization of other deities, the polytheistic background it's explicitly rejecting, etc. this is really just scratching the surface.

Academic Biblical studies encompass a very broad range of subjects, but I'll try to cover a bunch here. In my opinion, though many people who frequent this subreddit may protest, the best overall introductory text to Higher Criticism of the O.T. would be R.E. Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible?. Although Friedman holds a number of fringe views and the vanilla Documentary Hypothesis has overall fallen out of favor (though there has been a recent revival of it), this is definitely the best-written and most entertaining introduction to the basic theory (I read through the entire thing in about 3 days). If you're looking for more on DH after that, Joel Baden's book, The Composition of the Pentateuch, is much more scholarly and explains the logic behind source division using numerous test cases (providing both the original Hebrew and translation).

For literary studies, just start with Robert Alter. I'm not really sure if this falls under the category of "academia" or is what you were looking for, but it's certainly an interesting analysis of how the Bible (both as a whole and by source division) tells its stories.

The only book I've read on the foundation of the Bible in the mythology of surrounding cultures is Tim Callahan's The Secret Origins of the Bible, which wasn't written by a scholar, but the author sources just about everything he writes; think of it as a Wikipedia for Biblical mythology--not entirely trustworthy, but fine for reference and finding further information. This one's also the only book on this list that has information on the New Testament as well.

Finally, make sure to check AcademicBiblical's wiki! It has tons of resources including videos, articles, etc. that can help you out.

I don't really know of any good books for Hebrew language since I've just been studying it in school my entire life. If you do seem to find a good book/course though, make sure that it's in biblical Hebrew and not modern Hebrew, as a lot of the language is very different. Having studied Arabic myself though, I can tell you that it'll give a significant leg up in learning Biblical Hebrew. For example, the way that words are constructed by fitting 3 letter roots into certain formulations is the same in Hebrew, and the vocabulary of the two languages are often close cognates. Once you've learned Hebrew, it's much easier to pick up Aramaic (I know that as well), but if you're just learning it to read Daniel/Ezra, it's not worth learning the whole language; the grammar is practically the same and the words are also similar enough, so at that point it's easiest just to fake your way through it with knowledge of Hebrew and and good translation to check against (NJPS, NRSV).

You might find these books interesting:

The Invention of God by Thomas Romer

>Who invented God? When, why, and where? Thomas Römer seeks to answer these questions about the deity of the great monotheisms―Yhwh, God, or Allah―by tracing Israelite beliefs and their context from the Bronze Age to the end of the Old Testament period in the third century BCE.

>That we can address such enigmatic questions at all may come as a surprise. But as Römer makes clear, a wealth of evidence allows us to piece together a reliable account of the origins and evolution of the god of Israel. Römer draws on a long tradition of historical, philological, and exegetical work and on recent discoveries in archaeology and epigraphy to locate the origins of Yhwh in the early Iron Age, when he emerged somewhere in Edom or in the northwest of the Arabian peninsula as a god of the wilderness and of storms and war. He became the sole god of Israel and Jerusalem in fits and starts as other gods, including the mother goddess Asherah, were gradually sidelined. But it was not until a major catastrophe―the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah―that Israelites came to worship Yhwh as the one god of all, creator of heaven and earth, who nevertheless proclaimed a special relationship with Judaism.

>A masterpiece of detective work and exposition by one of the world’s leading experts on the Hebrew Bible, The Invention of God casts a clear light on profoundly important questions that are too rarely asked, let alone answered.

King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature by Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins

>This book traces the history of the idea that the king and later the messiah is Son of God, from its origins in ancient Near Eastern royal ideology to its Christian appropriation in the New Testament.

>Both highly regarded scholars, Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins argue that Jesus was called “the Son of God” precisely because he was believed to be the messianic king. This belief and tradition, they contend, led to the identification of Jesus as preexistent, personified Wisdom, or a heavenly being in the New Testament canon. However, the titles Jesus is given are historical titles tracing back to Egyptian New Kingdom ideology. Therefore the title “Son of God” is likely solely messianic and not literal. King and Messiah as Son of God is distinctive in its range, spanning both Testaments and informed by ancient Near Eastern literature and Jewish noncanonical literature.

Not a scholar, but a hobbyist.

The position presented by FRANKEL fits well with the predecessor (pre- Exilic period, prior to 5th-8th century BCE) where Yahweh was just one of 70 sons of El, the Father God/God Most High, in the large El polytheistic Pantheon, and during the process of the advancement of Yahweh and Yahweh worship from polytheism to henotheism (a monolatry for Yahweh; Yahweh is in charge, there are other Gods to worship) to an aggressive monolatrist polytheistic belief (Yahweh is the most important God, there exists other Gods but worship of these other Gods is to be actively rejected) to, finally, a monotheistic belief system (there is and, somehow, always has been, only Yahweh) was not yet complete. To me, this is just one of many verses in the Torah/OT that survived editing/redaction.

An area that I am interested in (as a hobbyist) is the origin story of Yahweh and Yahweh worship that precedes, and leads to, the Torah. If you are interested some references on the growth of monotheistic Yahwehism from a historical polytheistic foundation of holy scripture to the development of the henotheism and then monotheism of early Biblical Israelites:

• [The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel](http://www.amazon.com/The-Early-History-God-Biblical/dp/080283972X) by Mark Smith<br />

• The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts by Mark S. Smith
  
• A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong
  
• The Religion of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel) by Patrick D. Miller
  
• Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches by Ziony Zevit
  
• Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (Library Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) by John Day
  
• God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World by Mark S. Smith
  
  While limited to starting with the Hebrew Bible as a basis, and not addressing much pre-Torah scripture related to Yahweh, the following takes a look at:
  
  
• Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible, by Michael S. Heiser, PhD
  
  While a College Senior Thesis (and the perception therefore of a less credible scholarly/appeal to authority level), the following is a good source of other reference material:
  
  
• The Ascension of Yahweh: The Origins and Development of Israelite Monotheism from the Afrasan to Josiah by Andrew Halladay
  
  Some of the on-line summaries/arguments which related to the above argument/position are:
  
  
• Are Yahweh and El the same god OR different gods?
  
• Ugarit and the Bible
  
• Israelite Religion to Judaism: the Evolution of the Religion of Israel By David Steinberg
  
• The evolution of God

Right. That's an important question. I've read Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity and the rub is that when Paul spent his time in Arabia, the resurrected Jesus took him into the "heavens" and showed him numerous things. These things Paul encapsulated into what he called "my gospel" that he states was not taught to him by other humans, but rather by this risen Christ figure.

EDIT: Here's an excerpt from the aforementioned book:

> According to Paul this new genus of Spirit-beings of which Jesus was the “firstborn” is part of an expanded cosmic family (Romans 8:29). Paul believed that Jesus was born of a woman as a flesh-and-blood human being, descended from the royal lineage of King David, so he could qualify as an “earthly” Messiah in Jewish thinking. But for Paul such physical Davidic lineage was nothing in comparison to the glorification of Jesus as the firstborn Son of God. Paul describes it thus: “The gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh but appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness through the resurrection of the dead” (Romans 1:4). What this means is that God, as Creator, has inaugurated a process through which he is reproducing himself—literally bringing to birth a “God-Family.” Jesus, now transformed into the heavenly glorified Christ/Messiah, is the firstborn brother of an expanded group of divine offspring. Those who “belong to Christ” or are spiritually “in Christ,” to use Paul’s favorite expressions, have become impregnated by the Holy Spirit and like tiny spiritual embryos are growing and developing into the image of Christ until the time comes for their transformative “birth” from flesh and blood to life-giving Spirits. As Paul says, “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” Paul compares this union of “spirits” to that of a man and a woman when “the two shall become one flesh” (1 Corinthians 6:17).

>Most find it unpersuasive due to it being contradicted by the historical record.

I'm not sure that most (most who? People? Scholars? Christians?) find the arguments unpersuasive. I haven't read all the scholarly reviews of these works but the ones I have were positive. Also, contradiction of established historical record is typically not well received.

>"Well-received" does not mean accepted. It means responded to, taken seriously, respected. I respect the idea, just like I respect your thoughts on the matter. Your comments here are well-received by me

I agree. I appreciate your respect and I reciprocate!


>Incorrect. I am referring to Clement of Rome who quoted Acts of the Apostles between 96 and 98 AD.

I had actually never heard this mentioned before, which is odd because if this was accepted then it would be the immediate answer to the flood of questions on this sub regarding dating of the gospels.


I found several blogs making the claim but it appears this is not a scholarly position. I found a previous comment by /u/Otherwisdom which is informative (emphasis mine):

>…it is clear that this author (a) does not yet have anything like a canon of "New Testament" Scriptures, and yet (b) is beginning to ascribe authority to the words of Jesus and the writings of his apostles (see Hagner). He quotes Jesus' words on several occasions (see chs. 13 and 46), evidently as he knows them from oral traditions rather than written Gospels, since the quotations do not match any of our surviving texts.

• The Apostolic Fathers: Volume I: I Clement - II Clement - Ignatius - Polycarp - Didache
  

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

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

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

Pentateuch

Historical Books

Prophets

Psalms & Wisdom Literature

New Testament (general introduction)

Paul

Canonization

History of Biblical Interpretation: Ancient

History of Biblical Interpretation: Ancient-Medieval

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

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

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

My main recommendation here is usually James Kugel's How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. I do like Ehrman, I really enjoyed his dissection of NT studies, but Kugel definitely covers areas that Ehrman does not.

>are there perhaps any in-depth commentaries that are widely accepted that would make a good starting point for someone like me?

I guess that depends on what sort of commentary you are looking for.

One fantastic one I can recommend is The Jewish Annotated New Testament which gives both a lot of sorely needed context to NT texts with essays from many important scholars of Jewish studies, but also provides numerous cross-references in Rabbinic literature (probably only relevant for scholars more like myself) on relevant ideas.

1. Video lectures by Richard Elliott Friedman. (There is a fee, but they are worth every penny if you want to learn more about the Hebrew Bible.)
   
   
2. Video lectures by Shaye J.D. Cohen. (These are free and include class notes.)
   
   
3. The Jewish Study Bible.
   
   
4. The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
   
   
5. NIV Study Bible (This may seem like an outlier, but some of the notes are actually pretty good, and you see what the inerrantist view of certain passages is. I also give the caveat that the NIV is definitely biased toward Bible inerrancy and will fudge its translation accordingly.)
   
   
6. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. "Dictionary" is somewhat misleading due to the thoroughness of the entries.
   
   
7. A good commentary series or commentary about a specific Bible book.
   
   There are numerous resources that I could suggest, but these are a good start.
   
   ​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you're very new to OT biblical analysis, as a fellow lay person, and even though it's not intended to be a 2 Kings analysis per se, I highly recommend Finkelstein and Silberman's The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts.

2 Kings is sort of the linchpin for OT biblical archaeology. Virtually all the OT texts preceding 2 Kings appear to have been written (or at least redacted) at some point during the periods of the monarchies we read about in 2 Kings. So when reading this text in particular, you have to come at it with two questions in mind:

1. What events written here actually happened (or at least sort of happened like the way they're told here)?
   
2. Who wrote this, and when?
   
   These topics are typically in tension when you're trying to analyze the texts using the modern textual-archaeological hybrid approach. What we know from the archaeological record may suggest a reason that a story was told in a certain way--emphasis on one person may mean that the story was told by a political or social supported of that person's family. And what we read in the texts can help us fit pieces of the archaeological record together, or even fill holes. As you can imagine, some people give more credence to the biblical record as a factual record, while others sort of acknowledge it only when it coincides with the archaeology. But even those folks will then still try to fit the author into the historical context, again basing their understanding of the author's context on the archaeological record.
   
   In 2 Kings especially, this tension plays with what you're reading, because the historical context of the author is much closer to the context of the story itself (at least more closely than, say, the context of the author/redactor of Judges vis a vis the context of Judges). It makes it a little difficult to know where to begin; that's certainly something I encountered when I started learning about this kind of textual analysis. What I liked about Finkelstein and Silverman's book is that it does a bit of both: there is a broad, comprehensive historical context for what we know happened, and what may-or-may-not have happened, for the stories relayed in 2 Kings (especially the latter end of it), with a constant referencing back to the archaeology that supports what we know (and don't). And then there is discussion of the context and motivations of the author(s) of the texts, fitting those people (whoever they were) into the political and social movements of the time. It's a juggling act, but for me the narrative of this book was strong enough to carry me through, and allow for understanding how both biblical text and biblical author fit into their times.
   
   The caveat to this recommendation is that you should know at the outset that Finkelstein's views are by no means universally accepted. He is an ardent minimalist, and his evolving views of the origins of Benjamin and Judah and on what facts the Saul-David stories were based on have continued to be challenged. But as an introduction to the major topics affecting the study of that period, and of the major texts written in and/or about that period (primarily 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles), I found this book to be engaging and educating.

The big names would have to include OT scholars like Thomas L. Thompson, Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas Römer, Philip R. Davies, and John Van Seters, as well as archaeologists like William Dever and Israel Finkelstein. The top books on their respective Amazon pages are all very well-known works.

The best go-to book for beginners is probably The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman. Another interesting one that takes you through biblical history via two perspectives (religious tradition and historical evidence) is Israel's History and the History of Israel by Mario Liverani.

I sense a common thread in some of these answers: The Revised Standard Version. The NRSV is a descendent of the RSV, while the NASB a reaction to perceived flaws of the RSV:
>The NASB is a revision of the American Standard Version of 1901. This translation was an alternative to the Revised Standard Version (1946–1952/1971), itself a revision of the ASV, but considered by many to be theologically liberal. Wikipedia

Do you guys have a favorite "dynamic equivalence" translation?

And do some scholars respect the RSV or ESV enough to use them? I'm reading EP Sanders' 2001 entry on Paul in the Very Short Introductions series, and he quotes the RSV because he believes it's the "best translation" (p.150) even though the NRSV had been out for over a decade.

Biblical Studies major here.

The consensus I have gathered from my B.S. professors is that the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is a relatively accurate English translation backed by a lot of scholarship. In my classes (at Azusa Pacific University) we always use the New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, which uses the NRSV translation and is full of relevant scholarly annotations, introductions, and brief commentaries. I consider it indispensable. You can check it out here.

I've heard critiques that the NRSV can be biased toward "liberal/progressive" scholarship and translation. The ESV is also considered accurate, but has a more "conservative" bias, if that helps. Neither the KJV or the NIV are usually thought to be accurate, as both are dynamic equivalent translations (KJV is meant to sound pretty, and also has dogmatic translator's bias, and the NIV is meant to be relevant and easy to read for contemporary Christians. Neither is foremost striving for accuracy, which would be more of a direct equivalent translation approach).

TL;DR: The New Oxford Annotated Bible and New Revised Standard Version in general are relatively trustworthy and accurate the original texts. If you are looking for precise translation, NIV and KJV are not the best.

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.

1.) I think the wording of this title is hilarious.

2.) I just finished Benjamin Sommer's book The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel which examines the different theologies that Israelites had regarding the body and bodies of God, and related beliefs from other Near Eastern cultures. It was amazing. I could go into it, but it's better if you listen to Sommer himself. Here's parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of lectures he gave. If you don't want to listen/read, you can still always ask me questions and I'll do my best to provide a general gist.

That depends on what you are academically studying.

If you are studying the text, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) holds close to the original Greek New Testament.

The standard English translation used for academic study is the NRSV, in particular, the Oxford Annotated Bible and Harper Collins is widely used in major universities. It has the great advantage of being ecumenical, translated by people with a wide variety of theological viewpoints, rather than sectarian translations like the New World or NIV Bibles; and of being modern and thus based on a pretty up-to-date set of manuscript traditions, where the KJV (for example) suffers simply because the translators had less to go on.

Also, check out:

The Jewish Study Bible

Jewish Annotated New Testament

I would recommend, however, that if you want to academically study the Bible, you need a Greek New Testament and a Hebrew Old Testament, a Greek Lexicon and Grammar, a Hebrew Lexicon and Grammar, and several years of study.

subreddit posts on Bible versions/ translations:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/b0d0ac/probably_ask_before_but_what_is_the_best_version/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/3vtige/which_translation_should_i_read_for_cultural_and/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/8ovjr7/which_translations_of_the_bible_are_considered_to/

List of essential commentaries for each book of the Hebrew Bible:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/9p7ois/what_are_some_of_the_more_academic_bible/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/8myk8y/the_most_essential_commentary_for_each_book_of/

approachable resources for lay people on biblical scholarship and reading Recommendations for newbies:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/d21gz4/is_there_an_academic_bible_equivalent_of_the_book/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/c1c4ll/reading_recommendations_for_newbies_to_gospel/

No. The New Revised Standard Version is the most common translation used in academic formats that prohibit working in the original language (e.g. undergraduate students who do not speak Greek or Hebrew). I'd recommend this version, which has excellent annotations and introductory essays about each book.

"Most literal" isn't necessarily useful in understanding the texts. Translating a saying or phrase too literally can result in mangling a euphemism, metaphor, or other non-literal saying. We speak and write non-literally in our everyday lives; it's a major part of language to understand which phrases are to be taken literally and which aren't. The New Oxford, which I recommended above, will note when the original text is using metaphorical language and give you a scholar's opinion of how to understand it as well as the actual words in question. It also give variant readings, which is hugely important in NT studies because we have many variant wordings in the manuscripts that have come down to us and sometimes those readings have significantly different meanings.

> Therefore, I want to learn about the Bible; not what it says but rather how it was written, received (and translated), preserved, and most importantly: how we can be sure we know these things (how studying the Bible works).

Then you want to read this. There is a bibliography if you're interested in delving deeper into the textual criticism arena.

Also, these IVP dictionaries are a go-to for any reference topic you are curios about. You can get on Amazon for cheaper, FYI, but that link lists all the books in the series. There is a bibliography after each article for further study if needed.

Can you recommend a specific work by him? I'm particularly interested in the various gods worshiped in Palestine and and how they relate to YHWH. Like this one?

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

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

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

Just about anything by Geza Vermes is also very good.

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

or even Asimov's Guide to the Bible.

Benjamin Sommer, a conservative Jew and ANE scholar, has a fascinating book that shows how the roots of trinitarian theology can be traced back to the Ancient Near East and their conceptions of what it means to be divine.

https://www.amazon.com/Bodies-God-World-Ancient-Israel/dp/1107422264

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/

In regards to understanding the psychological impetus driving the mythic themes/archetypes of the early Levant cultures I found the work of Joseph Campbell to be an excellent starting point.

The Oxford Annotated Bible is another book i've found useful for its addition of supplementary historical context.

> Aune suggests the book was written in two stages, with the first stage being in the late 60s, and the second stage (that resulted in the current text) in the 90s.

Elaine Pagels also agrees with this assessment. She paints a a fascinating portrait of John of Patmos in her book, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation

https://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0143121634

The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith is a good resource. Densely references primary sources but still accessible to an interested non-academic audience.

Mark Smith has some good texts on the topic.

This is a book of his written more for the layman

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X/ref=la_B001H6IMK6_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481614235&sr=1-1

And this is a book of his written more for the serious student.

https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic-Background/dp/0195167686/ref=la_B001H6IMK6_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481614235&sr=1-2

I would highly recommend watching the semester of Yale videos on Intro to the Hebrew Bible with Christine Hayes

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNeyuvTEbD-Ei0JdMUujXfyWi

These are written on a more popular level

• Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman, a nice introduction to the Documentary Hypothesis of Torah authorship.
  
• The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finklestein and Neil Asher Silberman. An archaeologist examines the historicity of the Bible, from Adam through Solomon, based on the archaeological evidence.
  
• Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who changed the Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman. Hard to go wrong with any of Ehrman's books. This is as good a place to start as any.

> See E.P. Sanders' The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition. He shows there's really no direction of expansion/condensation.

Yet the Ehrman textbook says otherwise:

"A final and related point is that Mark is the shortest of the three Synoptics. If the author had used one of the others as his source, why would he have eliminated so many good stories? Did he want to produce a shorter version of the life of Jesus? This may sound plausible, but a close examination of the Gospel texts shows that it can't be right: in almost every instance that Mark and Matthew tell the same story, Mark's is longer." (Ehrman 1997 p.75, emphasis added).

The point being, that if you wish to have the theory of Matthean priority you have to explain why Mark both reduced the content of gospel so dramatically from the source material, yet expanded many of the narratives he decided to keep. Doesn't make sense. You can say there's no direction, but clearly there's a direction - we both agree that the direction is Mark written first and then Matthew used it as source material for his gospel.

If you look at a table showing the triple tradition in parallel it becomes immediately obvious, unfortunately I don't have a link handy.

For those interested, there is a Cambridge University text The Bodies of God that expands on these passages and much more, also from the prophets, illustrating a corporeal conception of God.

If it's textual criticism you're interested in and you're just starting out, I'd recommend the following two books to wet your appetite. They both will have bibliographies to get you deeper into the study as you wish.

David C. Parker. An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts. (ISBN: 978-0521719896)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521719895/

Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. Fourth Edition. (ISBN: 978-0195161229)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/019516122X/

The original authors (and later editors and redactors) weren't children of the Enlightenment like us. There's nothing to suggest they would have seen these as “plot holes” the way we do.

One scholarly perspective is that the authors intended to demythologize already familiar Sumerian myths in order to generate Yahweh-centric backstories for themselves—consistency be damned. See: From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends.

That's why questions such as “Where did Cain get his wife?” make little sense. That type of world-building isn't found in the original Farmer vs Shepherd myths (e.g. Dumuzid and Enkimdu) and isn't a concern for the Genesis authors either. By the way, the answer is that Cain got his wife from the same place all unjustified plot devices come from: Out of the writer's own ass. In modern times we call this sloppy storytelling and that's okay because this isn’t modern literature.

According to Assyriologist Samuel Kramer, this Sumerian baggage is most apparent when examining Eve in light of Ninti, goddess of childbirth, as found in the story Enki and Ninhursanga which presents many themes later incorporated into Genesis: a utopian garden, forbidden plants, and the creation of entities from various body parts.

At the end of Enki and Ninhursanga is a pun-filled section where eight deities are extracted from eight body parts—each body part sharing a core syllable with the deity's name. Ninti (whose name means Giver of Life) comes from Enki's rib because ti is also the word for rib.

This pun is completely lost in Hebrew which is why Eve's creation is such a head-scratcher for those who don't read Sumerian literature. The mystery disappears when you understand Eve as a demythologized Hebrew Ninti.

The following quote is from Janet Smith's Dust or Dew: Immortality in the Ancient Near East and in Psalm 49:

> “Eve has subsumed Ninti's identity as the Mother of all the Living [but] it would be an error to think that a simple borrowing has occurred here. The borrowing is polemical which deliberately modifies the old tradition in order to establish a new paradigm. It is unique to Israelite theology that Eve is a human, representing Yahweh and is no goddess.”

These traditions may represent some of the narrative commitments that the authors of Genesis were saddled with when crafting the Adam and Eve story.

Many academic institutions standardly use the the New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha--containing scholarly annotations, introductions, and commentaries, it is an excellent option.

I never got around to reading it but I would check out "God in translation" by Mark Smith.

here's the amazon page.

"Messianic Jewish" stuff? Really?

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

Here's the story written for any educated layperson:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-God-Back-Readers-Pick/dp/031606744X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453706897&sr=8-1&keywords=the+evolution+of+god

Here's the story for someone with a good familiarity with Biblical studies:
http://www.amazon.com/Invention-God-Thomas-R%C3%B6mer/dp/0674504976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453706971&sr=8-1&keywords=the+invention+of+god

'From Gods to God...' ? Looks like it is on [Amazon](
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-God-Debunked-Suppressed-Changed/dp/0827609086/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1524133333&sr=8-1)

Ok, so first things first, stop saying it in the plural - Its the Revelation to St. John, so "The Book of Revelation."

Secondly, some fun tidbits.

• Someone mentioned Nero as Anti-Christ, you might also check out p115, which has a variant reading of the mark of the beast (616 instead of the old 666) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_115
  
  
• Origen (et. al.) considered it to be "nothos" that is "bastardly," without proper apostolic patrilineage. However it makes it into the canon (but just barely)
  
  
• Its not prophecy, but a specific genre called apocalyptic. Revelation is generally thought to be a strong encouragement to retain faith knowing that soon the Hellenistic world order (under Nero) would be destroyed when Jesus returned. Other examples of apocalyptic include texts like 1 Enoch (portions) or "The First Apocalypse of James" - http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/apocalypsejames1st.html
  
  FOr a good lay treatment of the text by a scholar, try pagels - https://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0143121634

Came here to recommend the same Yale course, and combine that with Bart Erhman's book Introduction to the new testament.

For the New Testament, I recommend Brown

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

Smith all day every day. Also check out God in Translation.

Finkelstein and Silberman is still a very good read, but could be updated with 15 more years of archaeological finds!

I've seen people bash him as biased, which basically translates to 'expressing an opinion that isn't mine', but his textbook is used by Yale.

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Historical-Introduction/dp/0199757534/ref=pd_sim_b_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=0Q6BZ93J12DD40QV0N3R

I've also never seen him engage in polemic ... the guy maintains an even tone in the face of retards, and acts like a teacher should.

• English Translation.
  
  >http://www.brill.com/dead-sea-scrolls-study-edition-2-vols
  
  >http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-Bible-Translated/dp/0060600640
  
  
• Editio princeps (Only available in paperback).
  
  >http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/resources/djd.shtml
  
  
• Journal.
  
  >http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/15685179
  
  

Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman

The Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard Elliott Friedman
https://www.amazon.com/Sources-Revealed-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/006073065X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492561123&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+elliott+friedman

Friedman The Bible with Sources Revealed has the sections in different colors depending on the source

edited to fix link

Read Brojangles' reply, which is more accurate than mine. In this case, the KJV does have the line, but it's translated differently. There are many cases where the KJV includes or excludes lines that appear in modern translations, but this isn't one of those cases.

But to answer your question, this is the book you want.

For a detailed look at exactly which manuscripts we have, and how they have been discussed and used overtime, see Bruce Metzger's "The Text of the New Testament": http://amzn.com/019516122X

New Oxford Annotated Bible.

The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart Ehrman. This is his text book for an intro class.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0199757534/ref=la_B001I9RR7G_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521610864&sr=1-15&refinements=p_82%3AB001I9RR7G

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

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

> the Jews during Exodus left egypt supposedly around 1250 BCE

There's no historical nor archaeological evidence for a Jewish captivity in Egypt, nor for the Exodus as portrayed in the OT.

See Finkelstein & Silberman's The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts for details.

I highly recommend Paul: A Very Short Introduction by E. P. Sanders, Luke Timothy Johnson on the New Testament, or Timothy Lim on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Richard Bauckham did the one on Jesus, but I have not read it.

>I'm also open to other suggestions if I have possibly missed other options that fit my needs.

The following two books are often recommended:

The Jewish Study Bible

Jewish Annotated New Testament


Both of these are academic in nature. You will find stuff about source criticism and they have scholarly articles about various things in there too. The Jewish Study Bible is also used in the Yale Online Course on the Hebrew Bible by Christine Hayes(you can find the lecture series on YouTube).

Just looked it up:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019516122X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Unfortunately we recently moved and all my books are in storage, so I can't get the page reference.

http://www.amazon.com/Text-New-Testament-Transmission-Restoration/dp/019516122X/

Hard to say why. It answers a lot of questions lots of people have, and lots of questions people didn't think to ask.

One of the top remarks theology students get is the old canard that the bible has been copied and translated so many times that we simply cannot know what it originally said. That is not so. Yes there are countless errors in extant manuscripts. But what kinds of errors? And what counts as an error? This book addresses these and many other salient issues in good prose.

I agree with /u/robsc_16. People are very uncomfortable with what may be perceived as a challenge to their beliefs, and our society (wrongly) sees religious belief and academic study as somehow opposed to each other.

But that view isn't wholly without reason. When you have people, say, denying evolution on the one hand, and others (such as Tyson or Hitchens) telling religious people that they're deluded and stupid, it's small wonder that everyone's a little nervous about that kind of conversation. That we can only communicate these days by yelling at each other just makes it that much worse.

Bart Ehrman's a good example. He's done a lot for the study of Christian literature, and I have the book he and Bruce Metzger wrote/updated on how the New Testament in its current form came to be. But some of the lectures he's given really seem like he has rather a chip on his shoulder about at least some Christian views, and beyond that, it's hard for all involved to separate authority from arrogance. He's also gotten some stuff wrong: for example, he said in one lecture that the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" story didn't show up until like the 10th century, which is wrong (it's in one manuscript that's a good 500 years older). Maybe a quibble, but when this is your job...

I think the problem ultimately boils down to why people go into it. Folks who do it to get ammunition then use it as such, and so tend to turn off everyone else. But beyond that, I'm not really sure...maybe it's just something that's taken for granted? Like, how many Christians really stop and think about it?

If you want to read extra-biblical sources, you can start with something like Old Testament Parallels., which has excerpts arranged by their possible similarity with the OT canon. For more comprehensive coverage, look at Outside the Bible (3 vols).

Heiser has his defenders on here, but from a historian's perspective my view is that his approach to those ancient texts has been unduly shaped by his theological agenda. You can compare his approach with the work of some others, including David Penchansky, Twilight of the Gods, Mark Smith, The Early History of God, Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan, Adam Kotsko's The Prince of This World, and Thomas Römer, The Invention of God.

On Enoch and the Apocalyptic tradition in particular, look at John Collins's The Apocalptic Imagination, and Anathea Portier-Young, Apocalypse Against Empire.

Now that I type this out, these would make a kick-butt course syllabus. Hmmm...

The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible is the first full English translation of the Hebrew Canon fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The work comprises the biblical manuscripts, plus many new Psalms, Apocryphal books, and previously unknown readings of Deuteronomy and Isaiah. The translation of each book is preceded by an introduction that describes the text's importance, their distinctive interpretations of the text, and suggestions of how historical and political events may have shaped these interpretations.

This isn't a complete text as such, but 'portions' of most books that make up the Hebrew Scriptures. Now, while you appear to be looking for a DSS English translation that cross references 'portions' to Canonical books/verses, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible provides English translations of those 'portions' and footnotes the parts of the DSS scrolls in which they are found. So in effect, you get the desired cross references in reverse form.

Here is the link to Amazon's listing of The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible.
https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-Bible-Translated/dp/0060600640/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501966252&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=abet%2C+the+Dead+Sea+scrolls+bible