(Part 2) Top products from r/AcademicBiblical

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).

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

Below is a response I received in PM from /u/Joseon1, who gave me permission to repost it here. (Joseon1 couldn't reply to me in /r/AskBibleScholars where he saw my question.) I figured I would post his helpful reply in case it helps others.

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Hi, I can't post on /r/AskBibleScholars but I can hopefully help you with your question.

About the translations you're looking at, I'd always recommend checking the publisher. If it's independently published (e.g. via CreateSpace) avoid it, this means there has been no quality control. Most independently published translations are just reprints of public-domain versions you can read for free, in fact all the 1 Enoch editions you linked to use the 1912 translation by R. H. Charles.

I wouldn't recommend Ken Johnson's translations either. Although he has a Doctorate in Theology he seems very uncritical, bordering on gullible. For example, he believes his "Book of Jasher" is the lost book mentioned in Joshua 10:13, but it's actually a medieval rabbinic document, Sefer haYashar (Yashar was misinterpreted as the name Jasher by early modern Christians).

Your list of gnostic books is good, they're all by legitimate scholars. I'd say the Meyer edition is the most bang for your buck, it has all the gnostic documents found at Nag Hammadi, not just the gnostic gospels. Plus it has extensive introductions and helpful footnotes.

So, recommendations. I'll recommend a free digital version and a paid physical version of what you're looking for.

1 Enoch

Free: R. H. Charles

Paid: G. Nickelsburg & J. Vanderkam

Jubilees and others

Free: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Vol 2

Paid: Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol 2

Gnostics

The Nag Hammadi documents were discovered in 1945, so most translations haven't passed into the public domain yet.

Free: Gnostic texts at sacred-texts.com

Paid: M. Meyer OR J. Robinson

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

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

To claim that the disciples' visions were of a true miracle would fall outside the scope of what historians can say about the past. So I guess my question is: What do you mean by mass hallucination theory?

I mean, barring evidence of purposeful deception, all miraculous visions are, by definition, non-veridical when analyzed within a historical context (non-veridical being a less loaded term for hallucination.)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as...

> “an experience which seems exactly like a veridical perception of an ordinary object but where there is no such object there to be perceived. Like illusions, hallucinations in this sense do not necessarily involve deception.”

Using this definition it's totally possible to talk about the real visions the disciples had of an unreal event. This is how Ehrman chose to approach the topic in his book: How Jesus Became God.

As far as problems with this approach, I guess it boils down to whether or not you think these visions had anything to do with the origin of Christianity. What's certaintly not up for (historical) debate is whether these visions were of an actual miracle—Bayesian apologetics notwithstanding.

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If you're interested in visions of the recently deceased outside of an academicbiblical context, there's plenty of scholarship on bereavement visions. The author provides a generous list of suggested readings at the end.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I already left this info in another comment, but I wanted to make it a top-level comment to make sure OP sees it.

This.

I just purchased this at AARSBL15. Haven't gotten into it yet, but I'm excited to.

This may also be worth your time

Here's the best primary source text I know of.

I'm not familiar with it, but if you are interested in learning Koine Greek, I'd recommend some online courses from DTS on iTunesU - as well as this book

That will cover your vocab in an easily digestible way. As far as grammar and syntax, many have recommended William Mounce thought I am unfamiliar with that book.

Depends what you're into. If you want some nice primer stuff on the field of textual criticism and the mechanics and practice of it, with some discussion of philosophical/methodological concerns, I would recommend David C Parker's 'An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts'.. I believe Ehrman spoke highly of this book (with criticism, as always) at a meeting of the SBL a few years back, and also said he thought Parker was one of the leading critics in the world. So that should give you an idea of where Parker sits in the scheme of things.

If you're just looking for arguments about various trends in scholarship (apart from maybe the idea of the 'original' or 'authentic' text, which is one of Parker's research interests and features here), this is not it. But frankly, more people who weigh into these discussion haven't taken the time to look at the actual mechanics of the field, to learn about what texts people use and how they make judgements about them, to learn about the Greek and versional evidence and how to actually read MSS. If that sounds valuable or interesting, this is a good book to pick up. Academic level, but probably pitched to an undergrad level, and is designed to be an introduction (although as an introduction, it is incomplete and there are some things it just doesn't go into, probably as a concession to length and complexity).

Also, because it's not polemically geared like most of the popular level stuff, it will act as a good palette cleanser and will give you good tools to use regardless of what other material, from whomever you choose to read it.

You might be interested in Mark S. Smith's book Where the Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World. Although you appear to be more interested in the character of God, I think his character, or different views of his character are linked to the views of his form and where he resides. In this respect, Smith shows from the biblical text and from the Ugaritic material that there are 3 forms of God. The first form is the Yhwh that visits Abraham. This form of God is of a human-sized being that is actually confused as a human by Abraham. The second form is that of a giant. The third is a God that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Anyway, it seems to me that the 3 forms are also related to the capacities of God.

Many times in the NT 'pistis' can mean 'faith of' or 'faithfulness of'. The new perspective on Paul material that I have renders pistis Christou as the faithfulness of Christ.

See:

• The Theology of Paul the Apostle
  
  
• Paul and the Faithfulness of God

Thanks for sharing this. Your timing is great; I recently got back into the enochic literature and will definitely add this to my new reading list. Earlier today I ordered The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions and The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6:1-4 in Early Jewish Literature, which seem promising.

Another potential good read for those interested:
Paul and the Faithfulness of God https://www.amazon.com/dp/0800626834/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_4-wJAbN6F1NS6

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.

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.

The two books by Trobisch (no 'e' nor umlaut) you mentioned are really great, The First Edition of the New Testament particularly. I would recommend it to anyone interested in NT studies.

Also from DC Parker is An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts, a truly deep dive into a survey of the extant manuscripts. It's really dry, but comprehensive.

Mark S. Smith The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel and The Origins of Biblical Monotheism.

Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts

Thomas L. Thompson The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology And The Myth Of Israel

I'm a big N.T. Wright fan for the perspective he gives on the context and world of 2nd Temple Judaism and Jews in the Grecko-Roman world.

For more academic and lengthy reading, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. For more casual and accessible reading, Paul: A Biography

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.

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.

Hill makes a pretty good argument for the early establishment of the original canonical gospels from the forensic evidence of Egyptian papyri: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199551235/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I believe that Bauckham makes the case that the names recorded in the gospels statistically match with the general proportion of those names in the period, something that anyone inventing the gospels much later would have had a very hard time doing: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802863906

I’m not sure how Bauckham is received. Can anyone chime in with how his work has been reacted to?

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/

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

The trouble is, there wasn't any orthodox strain of Christianity at the time. Orthodoxy was invented later. In the 2nd century there were lots of (relatively small) Jesus groups presenting a wide array of beliefs that only started to resolve themselves into an orthodox creed after Constantine.

If you want to learn about what early Christian groups were like, and how orthodox ideas formed, you could try Snyder's Ante Pacem, Davidson's Birth of the Church, or Ehrman's How Jesus Became God. Davidson prefers to present orthodox ideas as appearing relatively early, while Ehrman emphasizes the late arrivals, and I haven't actually read Ante Pacem yet (though it's been recommended to me by multiple people).

Bart D Ehrman Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted would be a valuable place to start.
There are also some videos on youtube of related lectures or debates.

Edit, I would add Dale Allison's book, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus.

Bart Erhman's Jesus Interrupted

or many other popular books by the same author

I'd also particularly recommend:

Mark S. Smith, Where the Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World (New Haven; London: Yale University Press), 2016.

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Baucham might be a good place to look at. His argument is that the gospels could only have been written by eyewitnesses.

John Knox - Marcion and the New Testament and Joseph B. Tyson - Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle are more recent takes on that theory.

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauchman

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

There's also an associated book for that course.

One I was pondering last night while frantically redditing: Since Jesus probably was not buried in a tomb after his death, how did the empty tomb theory come about? It makes a great narrative and its purpose is clear, but what's the origin?

Check through the comments on these two threads:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/9n41tx/when_was_the_acts_of_the_apostles_written/

https://old.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/8auhjf/convince_me_that_lukeacts_was_written_before_140ce/

I also see the book Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle mentioned a lot in this debate, though I haven't read much of it beyond what's available in a preview on Google Books.

The sum of the theory -- and anyone correct me if you're more up-to-date on this -- is that Luke-Acts betrays an awareness of Marcionism, which requires at least a post-Marcion redaction of an earlier version of Luke-Acts. (Or, at its most extreme, that Luke-Acts didn't exist at all until after Marcion's Gospel.)

This alleged redaction was done to stress the continuity between the Hebrew scriptures and Christianity, contrary to Marcion's dualism between the unknown supreme God and the inferior demiurge Yahweh. This redaction stressed the "Jewishness" of Jesus as well as his fully human nature (as opposed to Marcion's apparent docetic teaching). The birth narrative in Luke 1-2 is probably a late addition, written in imitation of LXX birth stories, as well as other passages that emphasize his material nature (e.g. sweating drops of blood, eating food after his resurrection).

Start with Lawrence Schiffman's Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls and here (information mostly written by Dr. Schiffman) is a resource that contains a lot of good relevant information in more of an overview format such as this article: "What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?"

You might also want to grab James C. Vanderkam and Peter Flint's The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus and Christianity which is also a good survey on the topic.

> A group of antediluvians who were the product of the union of the sons of God (hā˒ĕlōhim) with the daughters of humans (hā˒ādām) (Gen 6:1–4). They are described as heroic (hāggibbōrim) and famous (˒anšê hāššēm). In Genesis 6, the Nephilim are connected with the multiplication of humanity on the face of the earth (v 1) and with the evil of humanity which brings about God‘s judgment in the form of the flood (vv 5–7). Verse 4 includes a reference to later (postdiluvian) Nephilim. The majority of the spies who were sent by Joshua to spy out Canaan reported giants whom they called Nephilim, and who are designated in the account as the sons of Anak (Num 13:33). The reference to Nephilim as ancient dead warriors in Ezek 32:27 requires a textual change from the MT‘s nōpĕlim (Zimmerli, Ezekiel Hermeneia, 168, 176; Hendel 1987a: 22).

> Their heroic attributes were noted in translating Nephilim in the versions. Both the LXX and the Vulgate render the expression as gigantes. The Syriac has gnbr˒. The Samaritan Pentateuch and Targums also follow this custom (Alexander 1972), using either gybryh (Samaritan), gybrym (Neofiti), or gbr˒ (Onkelos). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan translates Nephilim with the names of the fallen angels (šmḥz˒y w˓z˒l) mentioned in 1 Enoch as leading the rebellion. Nephilim are referred to as giants in the Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha, usually with reference to their pride and wickedness, and to God‘s judgment upon them (e.g., Bar 3:26–28). The fullest development appears in 1 Enoch 6–19, and this is followed by allusions in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Midrashim, and the NT (Dimant 1974; Hanson 1977).

• The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary
  
  Also, see The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6:1-4 in Early Jewish Literature