Section 7
Reader
Training
- revised Booklist, June 2006
On this Page go to: First Year: Biblical Studies: Old Testament, New Testament | Second Year: History & Doctrine, Ethics & Issues
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HEALTH WARNING!
Booklists are very dangerous things; you can get addicted to books. Some people collect them without even reading them. The worst kind of addiction is the one where you try to get everything on the list and spend so much effort doing it that you don’t have time to read any of the books.Booklists are also biased.
They are prepared by people who may have particular ideas about what you should study and who won’t necessarily tell you about other books that could actually be a big help in your study.
This list has been revised by the Principal Officer for Initial Reader Training (who is badly addicted to books – but I have read lots of them!). These suggestions are offered from a point of view that takes the Bible seriously and is aware of the very wide range of modern and historical views and opinions and doesn’t take all of them very seriously.
AND ALSO…
Please, before you rush out and spend your hard-earned cash on any book, have a good look at a copy either in a bookshop or better still by borrowing one from your local library or from your Clergy/Reader(s) etc. Don’t forget too that there are second-hand books always available…you just need to know where to look, and not spend too much.To make this list as easy to use as possible I have divided it into four parts:
1. SOMETHING OLD…
There are several old books that are useful tools for study. Don’t forget the King James Authorised Version of the Bible. Everyone has one somewhere, and it is a very useful tool alongside a modern bible version (such as the NRSV). Between the two you can often see what the passage is saying a bit more clearly. Some modern versions, such as The Good News Bible, aren’t word for word translations (like the AV or NRSV) but attempts to put across the message of a bible passage as a whole. The Good News Bible and other similar versions use ‘dynamic equivalence’, translating a passage in the original language, Greek or Hebrew, by a whole passage in English without any word for word matching up.For academic use, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is the version of choice.
The best commentary on the bible is the bible itself. So you will profit from owning a decent concordance. A concordance is a word list of all the words in the bible, so that you can look up, say, every time the word ‘salvation’ appears (and so see what the Bible as a whole says about 'salvation'). Concordances for modern bible versions can be expensive, which is why it can be very useful to use your AV, and one of the old (and cheap) AV concordances such as Crudens, Young’s or Strong’s. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (one of the biggest books you’ll ever see) also has a numbering system. This enables you to discover the Greek or Hebrew word that the English word you looked up is translating, and then be able to find and follow each place that Greek or Hebrew word occurs. Which is why it is so huge…and useful. Amazingly, people often give them away!
Another helpful book is a ‘full marginal reference’ - a wonderful thing that can point you to other passages in the bible where the same or similar word or idea is spoken about. The fullest marginal references are to be found in a complete edition of the Revised Version, but this can be hard to find. Try “The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge”, many editions, published by Samuel Baxter, obtainable in all decent second hand bookshops (500,000 references and parallel passages). Study bibles have the same, though often much smaller, feature in them and can be very useful.
2. SOMETHING NEW…
If you are using a PC (or Mac), you may have looked at some of the software available to do with the bible. The best product for most people is one that is rarely advertised and is the least expensive of the lot – The Online Bible. This is the only bible programme in the world that encourages people to copy it freely.Free modules (if copied from a current user) include the AV, RSV with Apocrypha, Greek and Hebrew texts, Greek and Hebrew Lexicons, the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, Thompson Chain References, Naves Topical Bible etc., etc. Modern translations (NIV, NRSV, NKJV, NASB) are available for a small charge per module. Find this online at www.onlinebible.org A Starter Pack is free for online downloading – or you can order the CD-ROM deluxe edition for 30 euros if ordered online.
Books are published from time to time that are a real stimulus and encouragement. In the area of biblical studies I recommend Four Gospels, One Jesus? by Richard Burridge (SPCK 1994 191 pages £7.99). It will do your faith and your brains good, is easy to read AND includes an excellent guide to further reading. For a bit more of a challenge, try The Gospels for all Christians, edited by Richard Bauckham (T & T Clark 1998, 220 pages, £12.95). “This is a wonderful book, a bombshell in the playground of New Testament study… I look forward to watching the fall out” (John Goldingay).
Joining a specialist library can be a good idea. It currently costs £15 per year to be an external reader at St.Deiniol’s Library (at Hawarden, near Queensferry). Apart from the comfort and peace of the place, the book stock is quite good too, especially for nineteenth century studies.
3. SOMETHING BORROWED…
Before you buy any book, always try to borrow a copy and look through it to see if it really is what you need and is written in a style you can cope with. Not all scholars are actually able to communicate what they want to say clearly, so that some books are very hard work for little reward. Sometimes a book that you might disagree with deeply will be a good investment because of the stimulation to thought that it will be.It isn’t a good idea only to read, borrow and study ‘approved texts’…and this booklist isn’t intended as a stamp of approval on the books listed below. It simply lists books we believe will be of some help.
4. AND NOW FOR THE DETAILS…
FIRST YEAR -
Biblical Studies. Introductory Books:
The Lion Handbook to the Bible (Revised), Lion, 1973 (and reprinted many
times)
Introduction to the Bible (Also published in separate parts), John Drane,
Lion.
New Bible Atlas, Edited J Bimson et al. IVP, 1985 (reprinted 1999)
(Any bible atlas will be a help in visualising the part of the world
where the action happens…. even an old one. Perhaps the best are
PC Programmes on CD-ROM).
A Bible Dictionary… there are a large number,
from the second hand last century several volume sets (never pay more
than a few pounds for
them) through to expensive sets in current production, e.g. New
International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis edited W. VanGemeren,
5 vols. Zondervan, 1997. Try before you buy and borrow where you can.
Perhaps one of the more accessible and least expensive dictionaries is
The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, IVP, 1980 (and reprinted more recently).
General Books:
- Models for Interpretation of Scripture, John Goldingay, Paternoster, 1995.
- How to read the Bible for all its worth, Gordon D Fee & Douglas Stuart. SU, 1994.
- Grove Booklets: Biblical Series, (four times a year, worth subscribing to).
Old Testament:
- Make the Old Testament Live, R Hess & G Wenham. Eerdmans, 1998 (this is a technical book for teachers of the Old Testament, but it has a comprehensive and up to date bibliography at the end and Web addresses).
- A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament, BC Birch, W Brueggemann, TE Fretheim & DL Petersen. Abingdon, 1999 (this is a good comprehensive introduction, and used to be our textbook).
- An Introduction to the Old Testament , The Canon and Christian Imagination, W Brueggemann. Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.
- Exploring the Old Testament , SPCK series, so far Volumes 1, 3 and 4 (Pentateuch, Psalms and Wisdom Literature, Prophets). We currently recommend (and provide at 10% discount!) these books.
- Please feel free to ask advice about books on specific Old Testament topics: ask your Tutor, or ask Dave. This booklist could grow to an enormous size otherwise!
New Testament:
- Introducing the New Testament , Its Literature and Theology, PJ Achtemeier, JB Green, MM Thompson. Eerdmans, 2001 (this is a good basic book for New Testament study, used to be our textbook).
- Exploring the New Testament, SPCK series, two volumes, 2001/2 (this works out as slightly more expensive than the book above, but is very good value and written for British students).
- An Introduction to the New Testament, Context, Methods and Ministry Formation, David A deSilva, IVP 2004 (this is currently the book we have provided for New Testament study).
- Exploring the New Testament World, Albert Bell. Nelson, 1998. (This is a fascinating book, with good bibliographies, and only costs £9.99).
- Encountering the New Testament, Walter Elwell. Baker Books, 1998. (This is part of a series called Encountering Biblical Studies. A CD-ROM is included, but it’s a bit expensive at £31.50.)
- Backgrounds of Early Christianity, E Ferguson. Eerdmans, second edition 1993.
- As with Old Testament books, we have refrained from listing many books on specific New Testament topics. Again, please feel free to ask advice.
Resist the temptation to have a lovely row of matching volumes lining your bookcase. Commentary series are not all at the same level either of scholarship or even plain usefulness. Even good commentary writers can have a bad day and get published!
Since Reader Ministry is focused around preaching from scripture, we recognise the need to give some clear guidance about useful commentaries and would appreciate very much your input for future editions of this list.
A useful note from Linda Jones follows: The People’s Bible Commentaries (published by BRF)
Rabbi Hillel (a contemporary of Jesus) said: “The summary of the Law is to love God and your neighbour as yourself…. all else is commentary…..”
I personally struggle with most commentaries as they very often manage to gloss over the very verse I am wrestling with! However, I have found “The People’s Bible Commentaries” generally to be an exception – they do not aim to give detailed word by word exegesis but the authors do give brief explanations of background material and the original Greek or Hebrew.
To quote their blurb: “Whilst it is important to deepen understanding of a given passage, the series always aims to engage both heart and mind in the study of the Bible”. (Alleluia!)
Be wary of The Daily
Study Bible (William Barclay) – it can be suggestive but must be
read alongside another commentary.
A very useful book to help preachers and students of the bible is Exegetical
Fallacies by D A Carson, Baker Book House (USA), 1984, a book intended
to help its readers become more careful expositors of the bible.
SECOND YEAR - History and Doctrine, Ethics and Issues.
This part of the course covers the history of the Church. One of the
main purposes of ‘history’ is to recount the deeds and heroes
of the past in a way that speaks to the present in order to build the
future. For this reason history is NOT simply the ‘record of what
happened’ (and probably never could be), but is the past presented
to us through the filter of the view and perspective of the historian.
And the historian is almost always employed by the winning side! It requires
a great deal of effort to rediscover any sort of view of the people and
places that were the losers down the millennia.
This is particularly important when it comes to exploring the history
of ideas and doctrine. We need to be aware of the philosophical and doctrinal
preconceptions of the writer we may be reading, since they will shape
the way the writer deals with the material. For example, if the writer
believes that ‘history’ is heading somewhere, to some goal
and purpose, what is written about will be very different from the same
material considered by a person who thinks that there is nothing new
under the sun and no particular aim or purpose in history.
History and Doctrine:
Some basic books useful to anyone:- Church History, An Essential Guide, J Gonzalez. Abingdon, 1996. An overview of it all!
- A Lion Handbook: The History of Christianity, ed. Tim Dowley. Lion, 1977 (and reprinted several times since then).
- Historical Theology, Alister McGrath. Blackwell, 1998. History AND doctrine! (This is the one we currently provide and use).
- An Amazingly Short History of the Christian Church, Ray Samuels. Privately published, and we provide it too - a useful bird's eye view.
- Great Christian Thinkers, Colin Blakely. SPCK, 2000. Good clear introductions.
- The Potted Guide to Theology, Tony Gray & Steve English. Paternoster, 2000. I like it!
- Church History (subtitled: An Introduction to Research, Reference Works and Methods), James E Bradley & Richard A Muller. Eerdmans, 1995. History buffs delight!
Those who search second hand bookshops can find some useful very old
Church History books – see if you can find (cheaply):
Abbé Louis Duchesne’s 3 (or 2) volume, Early History
of the Church.
Any of the books by Sir William Ramsay (mostly related to the archaeology
and background of the New Testament) are worth looking at (if not too
expensive).
Some of the historical character’s work is worth obtaining and reading if you have any spare time. In fact it is not difficult to find, for example, Calvin’s ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’ or Richard Hooker’s ‘Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity’ or John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrims Progress’. These books (and others like them) are interesting and worthwhile in their own right and also cast a great deal of light on the periods they come from.
[top]Ethics and Issues:
DO NOT FORGET that every book you read was written by an author with a particular point of view, that may or may not be stated and clear (and may not be one that you’d be happy to hold if it were laid out clearly for you from the beginning). BUT also don’t just read books you think you will agree with, by ‘safe authors’, because there is a need to look at very contrasting positions and do the hard work of reflecting on the issue for yourself.There are usually at least guidelines for thought in the bible and this is often an excellent place to begin…so do use a concordance, and rather than looking for answers, look for principles and guidance.
As with the First Year list, it is good to wrestle with books that you may not agree with. Sharpened thinking is very helpful for sermon preparation.
It is difficult to recommend one or two books useful for anyone, but
you could take your pick (if you can find them still in print where
we’ve given no date) from:
General Books:
- New Issues Facing Christians Today, John Stott. Marshall Pickering, 1999.
- Ethics and the New Testament, J L Houlden. T & T Clark
- The Moral Vision of the New Testament , Richard B Hays, Harper Collins, 1996.
- The Origins of Christian Morality, Wayne A Meeks, Yale, 1993.
For specific areas and issues, ASK before you buy... tutors can be really useful here (and other Readers or Readers in training)
The Grove Booklet Series: Ethics, Pastoral, Spirituality, and
Evangelism, if you can find someone with full sets, are a most excellent resource
in considerable detail on all these areas. As they say, not the last word on a subject, but often the first!
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