DCHindley

Since this board is full of amateur critics, and I count myself as one, I am curious to know what other amateur critics use to familialarize themselves with the subject at hand.

In other words, what source materials do you consider essential to have familiarized yourself with? I mean ... ones you have actually read *at least once*!

Personally, I have read the entire OT & NT several times. I cut my teeth on the KJV in High School - I read it so much I can understand it as well as modern English. I later switched to the NAB - a major Catholic update to the old Douay Rheims version but interesting in that it introduced me to the Apocrypha. Lastly I graduated to an RSV study bible so I could begin to really understand the historical situation in which the texts originated. In the process I made extensive notes about dates and personalities, and underlined things like any passage that I thought could have taken on a messianic significance (when I compare passages in textbooks I idfentified most all of them). Once, while I was still a Christian, I saw an interlinear Greek-English NT (based on the 1881 Westcott-Hort text - published by the Jehovahs Witnesses of all people) while at a bible study. Curious, I asked what it was, and the owner told me he used it to refute them, but I liked that interlinear format - consistant English glosses for every Greek word. So I got one and began to read the interlinear English text rather than English translations. To round out my understanding of the Lxx Greek version of the OT, I bought Lancelot Brenton's _Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek & English_.

Meanwhile, my introduction to the Apocrypha caused me to realize in college that there was intertestemental works known as pseudepigrapha - I Enoch etc. I bought the pseudepigrapha volume of R H Charles' _Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament_ (APOT) and thoroughly read it and made notes in it like I used to do the bible. Later on I also bought both volumes of _The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha_ edited by James H Charlesworth.

Around the same time, I realized that early Christians wrote more than what ended up in the NT, such as gospels, epistles and acts. I bought the ten volume _Ante Nicene Fathers_ series, and devoured it like all the rest. I also bought the revised edition of the two volume _New Testamnent Apocrypha_ by William Schnemelcher. As I could, I also acquired Greek-English versions of the Apostolic Fathers. I also bought the Loeb Classical volumes of Eusebius' _Church History_ and acquired the online files of the _Post Nicene Fathers_ series (although I have to admit I have not read much of it except for Eusebius).

Aware by now from my reading of the bible that most popular biblical "criticism" completely ignored world history that was going on around the events of the bible, I also bought various versions of Josephus' works, the works Philo of Alexandria (including Harry Wolfson's volumes on Philo's religious philosophy). I also acquired the revised edition of Emil Schurer's _The History of the Jewish People in th Age of Jesus Christ_ ("three" volumes that is actually four). An old paperback reprint of the (abridged) original ET of volume one of Schurer's work started me on this history kick.

I also discoverd the Hermetic books (not the alchemical ones, but the philosophical ones) and bought a set of translations. When the Nag Hammadi finds made it into print, I bought the Nag Hammadi Library (NHL), plus the usual commentaries. Of course, I was interested in the DSS, so I have several translations of them from a couple points of view. I acquired a couple translations of the Jewish Mishna and one of the Tosefta.

Luckily, I needed foreign language credits to get my BA, so I took a year of NT Greek and a second year of Classical Greek, leaving me able to at least read with difficulty the Greek citations in the secondary works of criticism I also liked to read. I got all three of John P Meir's _Marginal Jew_ books (he might always end up expounding a moderate position, but he gives very complete bibliographies that include almost all positions on the subjects he touches). Over the years I have acquired loads of textbooks and monographs on Judaism, rabbinic literature, Greek and Roman mythology, Q research, ancient philosophy, Jewish merkabah (throne) mysticism, the Pauline epistles, ancient sociology and literary criticism.

Am I an expert? No. The more I learn, the more I realize what I *don't* know. If I laugh sarcastically at certain people's pronouncements when it is obvious they haven't really studied the subject, perhaps you understand where I am coming from.

Where do some of you other amateurs come from? How did you get interested in it? I'm tired of people arguing with one another. Let's hear something positive.

DCH

ApostateAbe

I am an amateur in the truest sense of the word, I figure. I learn about the topics by arguing on the Internet, which I have done for eight years. I find the Greek and Hebrew translations at SearchGodsWord.org to be useful and reliable. And I read a few books by Bart Ehrman. Studying drab material like the second book of Samuel is intolerable to me if it isn't related to a topic of intense debate.

aa5874

Well, I am certainly not tired of people arguing at all, that's the fun part. It may get a little out of hand at times, but I am here for the arguments.

Before subscribing to IIDB, I basically had only read the Christian Bible (KJV), now after after about 2 years, I have familiarised myself with writings of Josephus, Philo, Tacitus, Suetonius, Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Pliny the Younger, Julian, and, even read online articles from Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty and Josh McDowell and others.

I find the more I argue, the more I have to read, and on IIDB one gets to discuss and debate topics from many different points of view.

mountainman

Comparitive translations (where possible) of the literary sources
for the writings of the authors of antiquity including on the one
hand Eusebius and his host of pre-nicene profiles, and on the
other hand, as many non-christian authors that I can find and
locate.

Additionally, seeing that I find myself drawn to the field
of ancient history, the works of ancient historians such
as Arnaldo Momigliano, Robert Grant and Robin Lane Fox.

However, my familiarisation process with ancient history
has not been restricted to the literary remains. I see the
importance of trying to understand all the aspects of the
ancient historical evidence, and have therefore researched
under the subject classifications such as epigraphy, papyri,
archaeological relics, architecture, coins, sculpture, art,
grafitti, funerary objects, burial relics, sarcophagi, frescos,
etc --- all these things being non-literary remains.

The Nag Hammadi coptic codices and the Syriac literature
translations are relatively "new on the scene" and need to
be separately assessed. The non canonical texts also need
to be read and integrated into the wntire account of history.
These things had authors, and in many cases the authors
appear to be expressing anti-christian polemic and parody.

Anyone who has taken a peek under the surface of BC&H
must understand that the field is one gigantic conjecture
founded upon the evidence tendered by Eusebius. It has
traditionally been presented to the world by a process of
"force-feeding" and it is only now that we are getting
objective enough about its constituent integrity, to be
able to question the postulates of the field.



Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Alethea

I received good old-fashioned classical education, so Latin and Greek were a part of my repertoire for double as much the time they were not. I must note that my education was not tied to any religion, but when one studies the language, one also studies the culture associated with that language; naturally, our main focus was classical antiquity so I spent far more time with Ovid or Euripides in original than with Bible, but there always was a certain, though small, part of our repertoire dedicated to the excerpts from original NT, and Latin translations thereof, or middle ages authors who wrote in Latin, as our professors thought it was stupid to simply ignore that part of culture tied to Latin and Greek. It meant maybe about ten classes per year dedicated to it, but throughout the years, it turned out to give a rather solid general foundation for future studies on our own, if we wanted.

Somewhere during my schooling I collected a couple of copies of Bible at home, I was given as a gift Greek one in one monastery, I bought a Russian one on some fair, and I received a copy of a Bible in my native language. Those three, accompanied with artistic Doré's illustrated Bible, are basically what I own regarding first-hand religious works (though I believe my parents have in their collection somewhere some religious works too). I actually speak rather decent Russian, and I mentioned earlier that I was taught Latin and Greek, so in addition with my native language and English translations I came across mainly in online format, I managed to read Bible in a couple of languages, including one of its original ones; I have never attempted to do an organised reading of an entire work, but over the years I have read, and re-read, the vast majority of the Biblical canon, in either or more of those languages.

Regarding Biblical criticism and theory, I have probably greater knowledge on it from Jewish than from Christian perspective, though I cannot understand Hebrew (despite being technically able to read it; I know precisely what which word means only in some excerpts of Torah which I went through both from linguistic and religious perspective). At some point in my life I would actually like to learn Hebrew 'for real' and be able to understand it, even though the rabbi I talked to told me to rather start doing it now that I am young (I am 17, btw), because later I would be swept by the torrents of life and find myself not having enough time nor will to dedicate to it. Alas, I digress; whilst we are on judaism, in addition to Tanakh (=OT), I have read excerpts of Talmud, particularly some Rambam's conclusions, though I know Talmud extremely poorly, given how huge set of books that actually is (though I had only some Rambam's conslusions in one book, and that is mostly what I read), as well as I have read a lot of theoretical books on judaism (not popular science, of course; the vast majority of those were written by rabbis ).

Regarding Christianity, I have read some theological works, ranging from middle age philosophy and Aquinas-like stuff (some of those I also studied as a part of my philosophy education), to present-day doctoral theses from Catholic universities, etc; but overall we are speaking of maybe ~30 books, I would not like to give out an impression of somebody who really got into it (religion is relatively new interes to me, so over the years most of the things I got to were in philosophy, or 'by the way'). I have also met certain Catholic and Orthodox authorities with whom I conversed about religion (and one rabbi ), as well as various individuals who knew the materia non-professionally to greater or lesser extent (e.g. my current Latin professor is extremely knowledgeable on religion, so were some of my philosophy professors, etc).

Regarding Islam, I have read Qur'an for school when we studied in depth world religions. I have to admit that I have not read much serious religious works on Islam other than that, perhaps I skimmed a couple of books, but nothing serious. I know the least about Islam out of Abrahamic religions, in fact, sometimes I wonder whether I know enough at all to be able to say I know something. That is definitely a gap in my religious education.

I have read about other religions, too, and learnt at school (accompanied by excerpts from their texts, of course), but they are still too vague and probably as a result of that too romanticised in my mind. I had a phase in which I was interested in Buddhism (literary works I read at the time, Hesse-ish stuff mostly - hey, I was about 12, who at that age does not get taken away by it? - got me into becoming interested in it), which was followed by quite some reading on it, but looking back, I do not think those works were giving serious enough perspective, they seem to me hardly any better than mass-public 'introductions to'.
This is going to sound laughable, but of the Abrahamic religions, I still know the most about traditional European politheism (Greek, Roman, Slavic Gods, those stuff), probably largely influenced by Latin/Greek classes where we learnt a lot on those.

I am by no means expert on anything written above, though for a 17-year-old I probably have a decent spectre of knowledge on something which I do not believe in, nor ever did.

Ratnat

My study history and library is so similar to yours it is a bit creepy.

In addition, I grab any textbook available on ANE studies and archaeology digs. I hope to someday be able to read and understand the many tablets being unearthed today as well as the many tablets yet to be deciphered.

I am currently attacking Ugaritic and trying to teach myself to translate from the cuneiform. My middle-aged brain does not process as quickly as it once did so I think it will take me until 2009 to reach a basic understanding.lol

The biggest error I see in many history debates is the assumption that everybody in a particular culture believed the same thing or acted in a similar manner. Humanity has not changed as much as some think it has. Since the last ice age we surely have gained much knowledge but have discarded or lost much as well.

DCHindley

This is interesting. While I personally don't appreciate debate for its own sake (e.g., pick apart everything to the point of absurdity no matter what is said), it does seem like debate is what drives some of "us" to do the necessary research. I suppose we all have our unique motivations to dip into this well.

Although I sincererly believed the Christian message until about 30 years ago, I always felt it was just a little too hard to believe the story of its origins as it was portrayed in church and bible studies. I was sure, though, that the dissonance I felt was due to me having an incomplete familiarity with the times. So for me it started as an attempt to *confirm* the truth of what I had been taught. Of course, I came to realize the origins of Christianity were even more complicated and bizarre than I could have imagined.

Why debate like many do here? Is it to support an already accepted belief system (athieism, Christ mythicism, evangelical Christianity, moderate Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc), but if so, how does the most strident athiest differ from the most strident fundamentalist? For me, it was to come to term with what the Christian tradition meant to me (was it is a convenient ethical system for Western society that I can live with, or should it be allowed to rule the lives of those who don't accept its religious beliefs, which I don't).

I am not an athiest, but an agnostic (closer to a Taoist, in that I do not believe in a "personal" god who acts like a human being - Tao treats all things like straw dogs). I feel no need to disprove the existence of god or gods. I just don't like laws being enacted that decree I can't dance or go to movies, buy alcohol on Sunday, live with a significant other outside of matrimony without loosing certain benefits and rights of a relationship, be forced to sing Christian hymns and prayers in School, pledge allegiance to a nation "under God" when the words were added in the 1950's in response to McCarthyite anti-communist hysteria (I realized this was the case when they didn't include those words in the pledge in the "Our Gang" movie shorts), etc.

Hoping to hear from a few more of you. B.S. (I see why you don't go by your initials like I do <g>), C.Z., A.C.?

DCH