Wayne's Religion Book Recommendations
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How did a loose collection of unrelated scrolls and "odd sheets of papyrus" get cobbled together to form one of the most influential books in history? A veritable "dream team" of Biblical scholars was assembled under the aegis of the Oxford University Press, to answer just that question. This is the results.
A skeptic, a lapsed Protestant on the religious left enrolls as a student at Criswell College, a conservative Southern Baptist Bible school. Its not a debunking expose. A quote:
I hadn't been at Criswell long before I had this one question for those tens of millions who call themselves Christian, but who also have their doubts about Lazarus or any of the other miracles in the Bible: If you accept the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his ascension into heaven -- the most supernatural event in all history -- what is your problem with accepting all the others? What is the logic of rejecting the other miracles?
The inerrantist discussions are not the only fascinating reads. It widened my perspective on the evangelicals. His comparison of Old Testament classes at Columbia and those at Criswell were enlightening.
5000+ entries identify every person and place mentioned in the Bible
over 1000 categories which group related subjects for quick and easy comparison and study - dwarfs concordances in useability
John Cleese (of "Monty Python" and "Fawlty Towers" fame) reads with a quirky, brilliant rendering of Lewis's tongue-in-cheek Screwtape. Uncle SCREWTAPE, a master devil, gives advice to his nephew Wormwood via a series of letters covering the the ins and outs of entrapping human souls. Cleese is amazing. Lewis tried to explore the issues of temptation without sounding too preachy and didn't carry it off (at least not for me). The combination of Cleese and Lewis, succeed. Its wicked. It has a message. It will give you pause.
As an aside, if you are a Cleese fan, or better a Cleese fanatic as I am, check out his reading of Robert Pinsky's translation of
.
Not your childrens version of bible school stories. Manfred Bartel uses archeological discoveries and translation research to illuminate obscure passages of the Bible. What I particularly like is presentation of the historical context. For example, the period of Saul and David was marked by intense tribal and regional warfare percipitated by Egypt's military decline. A tidbit about David - read text for details:
Modern biblical scholars are convinced that it was not David who killed Goliath at all. Only much later, after David had won his reputation as a mighty warrior on other battlefields, did biblical chroniclers retroactively decide to make him the hero of the Goliath story as well. This kind of retouching of the historical record, common enough in our own century, is all the more predictable in this case, because the original reports of Elhanan's victory over Goliath were probably written about 950 B.C. and the story of David and Goliath about 580 B.C. ... Luckily, the retouchers gave the game away by making an elementary historical blunder. The David and Goliath story goes on to describe how David "took the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem", where he was taken immediately before King Saul. But Saul's capital was Gilbeah, in Judah, and Jerusalem was not even part of his kingdom; it was annexed much later, by David himself, seven years after Saul's death.
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It gives you a broad overview of church history. From his introduction:
This book was born out of the experience of many years in the teaching of church history. I have come to the conclusion that one of the main difficulties for beginning students in the field is the lack of global vision of church history. Many do not know whether the Crusades took place before the Reformation or after. ... In such circumstances, it becomes difficult for students to distinguish between that which is fundamental and that which is secondary, with the sad result that some spend hours memorizing details, and never achieve a global vision of what was taking place at a particular time, or how this has impacted the later history of the church.
With that name, what can you say?
Offers insights into Old Testament's earliest treatment of the problem of suffering: the book of Habakkuk. This is his own translation of this obscure book. Gowan gives his insight into the problems of tyranny and liberty as revealed in the dialogue between the prophet and God.