mens_sana

Ehrman's Loeb Library volumes of the Apostolic Fathers, Vols. I & II (ISBN 0-674-99607-0 & 0-674-99608-9) are diglot. I have them both. And each work in the books has its own introduction by Ehrman, covering: Author, Date, Historical Significance, Textual Tradition & Editions, with the Manuscripts and a Select Bibliography.

S.C.Carlson

The Loeb edition of Eusebius is in two parts: books 1-5 by Kirsopp Lake and books 6-10 by Oulton.

OK. ICC=International Critical Commentary. Top notch. For a good book on all the abbreviations, see the SBL Handbook of Style.

Thanks.

:blush:

Stephen

JoeWallack

JW:

"Mark" ultimately will cause Christianity to Fall Away as it not only documents that the starting point for The Gospels was the Rejection of the Witness of The Disciples but also that Subsequent Christianity Dishonestly Forged Discredited Witness into Credited Witness. Therefore:

1) Mark's Story of Jesus - Werner H. Kelber

Simple, straight-forward and brilliant. Kelber points out that "Mark's" Jesus suffers an excorcism himself on the cross with the crying out and loss of his spirit. I'll be pointing out in Mark's View Of The Disciples that Jesus was giving an anti-prayer with "My God, my God, why have you forsaken?" which is the Inverse story for the Demon that could only be expelled by prayer.

I've already gone Way beyond Kelber in this Thread but it isn't a reflection of how wonderful I Am, it's a reflection of how lacking Christian Bible scholarship is in the area.

2) Mark traditions in conflict - Theodore J. Weeden, Sr.

Where Kelber is only explaining what the Story means by itself Weeden goes beyond to explain what it meant to "Mark's" audience.

3) Let the Reader Understand - Robert M. Fowler

An explanation of How 2) is accomplished.

4) Decoding Mark - John Dart

Detailed explanation of a Contrived feature of "Mark", the chiasms. Evidence of Style favored over Historicity (although Dart doesn't make this conclusion).

5) The New International Greek Testament Commentary The Gospel of Mark - R.T. France

"Mark" has long been shunned by Christian X-Uh-Jesus for the same reason Brown refused to do the book that was most desired of him, The Resurrection of The Messiah. Recognition by Biased Christian scholarship that publicizing "Mark" does more harm than good. This is the best detailed critical commentary on "Mark". Marshall, who has done the newer ICC commentaries passed on this one for the reason given. France, like Brown, is best at identifying problems but like Brown, his conclusions are occasionally God-awful.

6) A Rabbinic Commentary On The New Testament - Samuel Tobias Lachs

Illustrates the Pharasaic background of "Mark's" Jesus. The parallel Synoptic presentation makes it easy to observe the Theological Editing of "Mark" by "Matthew" and "Luke".

7) Porphyry's Against The Christians The Literary Remains - R. Joseph Hoffman

Even though Christianity destroyed Porphyry's 15 Volumes Against The Christians (this Type of stuff was probably a prime target at The Great Library) and most surviving shrapnel in Church Father rebuttals there's still enough left to observe that rational thinkers of the Time, like Porphyry, weren't so much different from rational thinkers of our time. Porphyry reasoned that Daniel was second century, post prediction. Not bad.

8) The Death Of The Messiah - Raymond E. Brown

The detail and summarization of different positions is unrivaled. The problem is Brown's Christian bias. He acts as if he is presenting all possible sources but the lack of consideration of Pagan influence is scholarly negligence if not dishonesty. He can observe that "John's" Jesus was wrapped in linen bandages and wonder if it was like a "mummy" but in about 1,000 pages of fine print there was apparently no room to consider Egyptian influence on "John".

9) Who Wrote The Gospels - Randel Helms

Simple, straight-forward reasoning of exactly what Type of witness we have for the Gospels.

10) Gospel Fictions - Randel Helms

Provides Specific examples of famous literature as the Source for Gospel stories. I just wish to God he would come right out and say he starts with the Assumption that the Gospels are Fiction and therefore the Source for the stories must be Fiction and not History. No Christian authors are going to quote him anyway.

11) Horae Synopticae - John C. Hawkins

The original analysis proving "Mark" first. Ironically, Hawkins, as a Clergy, had no Conception of what he had done.

12) Romans 1-8 ICC - C.E.B. Cranfield

Regarding any relationship between Paul and "Mark" this detailed commentary reveals what a Poor writer Paul was. The combination of lack of grammar, complex themes, writing for different audiences, Editing, double-negatives, proof-texting, Contradictions, multiple themes, nebulous subject matter, short articles and poor writing skills make it very difficult to understand what the hell Paul was trying to say at times. Comically, this is what Forms the basis of modern Christian theology. I think even "Mark's" Jesus would be sore Amazed that anyone would consider taking some minor supposed omission from one letter of Paul and arguing that it communicates by what it doesn't communicate. Even Brown would find this "Fantastic".

13) The Orthodox Corruption Of Scripture - Bart. D. Ehrman

Not just an illustration of bad intent in Transmission but by the foremost Christian expert on Transmission. As a result Ehrman is no longer Christian. A Huge, Huge problem for the Christian intellectual like Bede. And the intellectual of today is the Layman of tomorrow.

14) Missing The "Mark" - JW

The book is written I've just been afraid to list an Author. Right now I Am deciding between "Anonymous" and Vincent Sapone. Would you pre-order it Julian?


Joseph

Ben C Smith

I am confused. The Skeptik texts are not photographs of ancient papyri; they are transcriptions which any Unicode font covering the Extended Greek range will pick up. Try the prologue to Origen, Against Celsus, for example.

Ben.

Phlox Pyros

7) Porphyry's Against The Christians The Literary Remains - R. Joseph Hoffman

If you're interested in Porphyry, check out Julian the apostate's Against the Galilean's as well. Julian was the last Roman emperor to hold pagan beliefs. He came into power after Constantine (his Uncle?) had "converted Rome to Christianity". He disliked Christianity, likely due to his upbringing in it. Anyway, it's an interesting read.

robto

It's hard to know what to recommend, since you haven't told us what the 100 books you've read are... Looks like you've got a good start, tho. Here are some you might look at if you haven't seen them already:

- Anything by Crossan, but especially Birth of Xty

- J.D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making

- H. Lietzmann, Mass and the Lord's Supper (especially the extensive commentary by Richardson)

- Kloppenborg, Formation of Q

You don't seem to have any OT-related books on the list. In case you're interested in expanding:

- Forsyth, The Old Enemy

Julian

My view is that although Mark seems adoptionistic, I consider it more appropriately separationist. Jesus' utterance on the cross reflects the moment when the christ spirit leaves him. Anyways, don't want to derail...
Yeah, that's on the list. Mostly because Weeden is much referred to here and it is very cheap.
Does this book support the chiasms? I do not believe that chiasms are very common, in conflict with other views here.
Sounds good. That may have to go on the list. I find that I often disagree with the conclusions overly zealous christian writers who sometimes make desparate leaps to a historical conclusion after what was otherwise an excellent analysis. The book is a bit pricy, though.
Another pricy book. You sure know how to pick them.
Do we have enough of Porphyry's material left to fill a whole book? I was under the impression that his leftovers were extremely scarce. I have The Christians as the Romans Saw Them and that mentions Porphyry, mostly in terms of us not having much of what he said.
I have this and am currently reading it. At 2000 pages it might take me a while to get through. Good stuff , though.
I have these but I bought them early on and when I look at them now they are simply not technical enough to satisfy my curiosity. Good stuff, but too much for the lay person.
No reviews on Amazon for this. It looks like a recent book, but it sounds from you like it isn't. What gives?
Another pricy one, although this one sounds possibly too good to pass up.
I have this and it is probably my all-time favorite book on this topic. It was the book that prompted me to study more, to learn Greek, to support the Western Non-interpolations and many other things. I have much to thank Ehrman for because of this book. I find it nothing short of brilliant.
Huh? I do not understand. Is this something you have written? Something Vinnie has written? There is already a book named Missing the Mark, is that it? Please explain.

Thanks for a good list.

Julian

Julian

My fault. I am clearly not expressing myself very well here. This is not an issue of font. It is when looking at photos of the actual papyri that I have trouble. Like this, for example: http://163.1.169.40/gsdl/collect/POx...2683.hires.jpg

I can't read any of that, it simply doesn't even look like Greek. Any books that can help me learn how to read those things?

I should point out that I do have a hard reading uncial scripts on the computer, as well, even with a working font. I like the minuscules with breathing marks.

Julian

Julian

It would have taken too long to list what I already had, but since my collection is not that extensive I figured overlap would be infrequent, and I was right.
Okay, added to the list. Can I read this without having read the first two?
Amazon is suddenly really slow here at work, so I will check these out later.
This is on my wishlist but I left it off my to-buy list because, although I am a Q supporter, I find that they take their speculations too far for my taste. I will eventually read it. I have a number of Mack's books.
I am currently staying away from the OT because there is so much to learn about christianity that if I try to learn it all I will be overwhelmed. I do have some stuff, mostly archaeology and Friedman's books. I will get to the OT eventually, I suspect.

Thanks.

Julian

P.S. Didn't you write a physics book?

S.C.Carlson

The first edition of Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, was in 1899. The second edition is in 1909. It has been reprinted more recently (1960s?).

Stephen