ziffel

I'm looking to learn more about the formulation of the New Testament - preferably some reading material for a layperson. I'm currently reading some of Bart Ehrman's books (Misquoting Jesus, God's Problem, etc). I've taken a high level of interest in how things really went down around those times - and specifically how & when the NT was finally assembled.

From what I gather so far, virtually nothing about the process is what current society (Christians) generally thinks happened.

Toto

Here's an old recommended reading list for BCH. It hasn't been updated lately, but is still valuable.

ziffel

Thanks Toto. That looks to an excellent start!

aChristian

I would suggest you read some conservative Christian scholarship. I believe you will find much more reasonable answers with real evidence to back up the conclusions as opposed to the pathetic attempts to discredit the Bible that you will find from the pagan side.

steve_bnk

Buy the Oxford Bible and its comoanion comentary. It was put together starting in the eraly 1900s by cross-denomination biblical scholars using all available documents and fragments.

God Fearing Atheist

On the canonization of the NT (if that's what you mean formation of the New Testament), see Metzger's "The Canon of the New Testament" and Bruce's "The Canon of Scripture."

spin

Only someone who has no understanding of literature would talk this way. Conservative anything generally means preserving a thing rather than understanding it. Conservative approaches to English have fossilized it rather than helped people understand it, so that now very few have a clue about how English works at a linguistic level.

Literature, be it ancient or modern, requires constantly being confronted in various different ways, so that no idea about it becomes so entrenched that it loses its significance while canceling out any chance of other perspectives. Literature is very resilient. Readers aren't. Conservative approaches do a disservice to any text because it doesn't require effort by readers. They don't really need to read it at all as someone else has already read it for them. And if you read it now and get some other way of looking at it, you must be reading it wrongly, so conservative christian scholarship has difficulty understanding any approach outside what has long ago been established and has no way of appreciating it.

However, conservative christian scholarship is worth reading to understand how they don't think about issues. That will give you more of a grounding for evaluating more radical readings. Besides some very good work being done, there are a lot of loonies out there.


spin

spin

I think Bruce has been long superceded and now only finds support (and idolization) amongst conservative evangelical christians.

Metzger is serious scholarship, though old now. There is a lot of recent scholarship available. Try commentaries from academic publishers. One angle to consider is work done by the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars who accept that there was a historical Jesus and their work consists in trying to find that which is historical. Jewish scholars have written on the new testament and they should also provide another useful perspective.


spin

God Fearing Atheist

Erm...

1) My comment was premised on ziffel wanting accounts of the canonization process. Commentaries are good for other stuff, but not for this.

2) Bruce's book says essentially the same thing as Metzgers, so...

spin

Metzger gives substance (without Bruce's commitment). Scholarly commentaries provide a lotta stuff you mightn't expect.


spin