Julian

Due to a generous tax return, improved home equity and other such benevolences, it seems very likely that SWMBO will allow me to buy some books sometime in the next few days or so. Below is a list of the books I intend to purchase. Bear in mind that I have a hundred or so books on this topic already. What I would like is for the august readers of this forum to comment on this list. Is there anything on this list that shouldn’t be there? Is there anything not on the list that should be (bearing in mind that I have many books already)? I have advanced enough in my studies that I try to avoid books for lay people. I am looking for stuff with some substances, footnotes and a decent index, at least a scripture one.

The Text of the New Testament : Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration by Bruce Metzger

The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essayson the Status Quaestionis (Studies & Documents (Paperback)) by Bart D. Ehrman

Mark's Story of Jesus by Werner H. Kelber

A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: The Roots of the Problem and the Person, Vol. 1 by John P. Meier

Mentor, Message, and Miracles (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 2) by John P. Meier

Companions and Competitors (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 3) by John P. Meier

Birth of the Messiah by Raymond Brown

Mark--traditions in conflict by Theodore J. Weeden

Gospels In Context (Academic Paperback) by Gerd Theissen

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by Walter Bauer

The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity by Hyam Maccoby

New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Acts (New Testament Greek Manuscripts) by Reuben Swanson

The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel by C. H. Dodd

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity by Walter Bauer

Novum Testamentum Graece by Eberhard Nestle

From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries by Peter Lempe

New Testament Greek Manuscripts - Romans by Reuben Swanson

New Testament Greek Manuscripts - 1 Corinthians by Reuben Swanson

Mutilation of Mark's Gospel by N. Clayton Croy

Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum by K. Aland

The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark by Stephen C. Carlson


Bear in mind that I have the rest of Reuben Swanson’s series not listed above. I also have UBS4 which is why only NA27 is listed above. I also have Robert Price’s books and several of Ehrman’s. Just trying to preempt any obvious suggestions.

Is Migne the best source for the church fathers? Seeing how it is rare and expensive, is there another decent source? In Greek and Latin or in English or, best, all of the above. My Greek is shaky and my Latin almost forgotten but I figure that not having translations might be a good incentive to get to some level of skill.

I would also like some good discussion(s) on GMark as well as good stuff on textual criticism which is a very sparse area. The more technical, the better.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated. A good post would be a list of a few books that you particularly like, something you think is especially good.

Julian

Julian

Well, 32 views and no one has posted any replies. From this I can only conclude that

a) Posters in BC&H simply do not read books.

b) Posters read books but have never read a book that they liked or disliked.

c) My list is so perfect that it cannot be improved upon.

Well?

Julian

Amaleq13

d) Julian lacks patience and the "usual suspects" are not among those who have viewed the thread.

Julian

It is true, I do lack patience... I want my feedback and I want it now! *whine*

I have to go to the dump with some trash, build two cabinets, and oil up some bead boards but then I'll be back to check replies. If I don't see any I might just show up at your house, rifling through your book shelves...

Julian

jjramsey

(c) is pretty close. I wouldn't call your list perfect, but it has heavy-hitters and scholars who are valuable at least from their historical influence on later scholarship. Judging from the bits I've read from Ehrman about Walter Bauer, Bauer was largely wrong in the specifics of his conclusions but on to something about the fractured nature of early Christianity. Some thoughts:

• Save your money for what you can't access online. Walter Bauer, for example, is available from http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Resources/Bauer/. Peter Kirby's sites are your friend.
• Try and see if you can get everything else used.

triffidfood

You could always try Google Book Search to see if they have any of the titles you're interested in listed .. if so, you can search inside the book & view xx number of pages for free (similar to Amazon Search Inside, except they're not trying to sell you anything); this might give you some idea whether you think they're worth buying or not.

To do this, do a Google search for book [space] followed by the title or author (or any other relevant phrase really, I guess): e.g. book Hyam Maccoby [Edit: or, much more simply, go to http://books.google.co.uk/ & then search as normal]

Then click on (in the example above) "Book results for book Hyam Maccoby" near the top of the page that appears, to see the complete list. (In this case, if you scroll down, you'll find "Mythmaker" on page 1 ).

To search inside a book (and view pages) you'll need to register with Google, but this only entails giving them an email address & password, and is more or less instant.

Similarly, you can use Search Inside (or Look Inside) to view pages from a whole pile of books listed by Amazon .. to search inside and view any page (up to a page limit specified by the publishers) you need to be registered with Amazon.com (or Amazon.co.uk in my case) and to have bought from them in the past (that is, bought an item actually sold by Amazon, not simply sold on their site) .. but even if you're not registered, you can still view a certain number extracted pages, usually, the Introducton, plus index, etc.

[For an example, Amazon.com have a number of Bart Ehrman titles listed with search Inside, see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...ds=bart+ehrman (sorry about ridiculously long URL!) .. simply click on any of the cover images; even if you aren't registered with them, you can still view the covers, contents, selected pages, etc.]

I only discovered both the above very recently (in the case of Google Books, yesterday!), but both seem like really useful tools for browsing books you might want to buy, or (in my case) couldn't possibly afford , or even I guess for finding references and citations etc.

Hope some of that helps....

Amaleq13

Be sure to bundle up, we should be hitting the mid-20's today. And watch out for the moose sleeping in the hay barn. She isn't as friendly as she was last winter.

On a more relevant note, I added Robert M. Fowler's Let the Reader Understand as well as Rhoads, Dewey and Michie's Mark As Story to my list of Books-To-Be-Purchased subsequent to reading about it in Mark's view of the disciples.

andrewcriddle

Hi Julian

One possible addition is Raymond Brown's 2 Volume 'Death of the Messiah'

On the Fathers; Migne has the advantage of being very comprehensive, but the disadvantage of sometimes not being a critically reliable text. I might possibly be able to be more helpful if I knew which Fathers in particular you were interested in reading.

Andrew Criddle

Julian

I am in Maryland and we are having fabulous weather. We are in the mid-twenties (Celsius) today.

As for Moose, yeah, I have seen rlogan's pictures. We have all kinds of animals here, Moose not among them.

Julian

Julian

Yeah, I have those, a christmas present from SWMBO, excellent but at 2000 pages I am still struggling to get through them. Very good work, though, especially because he summarizes other people's work without being prejudiced.
I am not sure. The fathers is one subject I have been sadly neglecting. I am assuming that Tertullian, Irenaeus, Ignatius and Origen would be the most useful but I am willing to be corrected on this. My main interest is early christianity and textual criticism.

Julian