{"id":963,"date":"2009-12-30T01:05:44","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T01:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html"},"modified":"2009-12-30T01:05:44","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T01:05:44","slug":"ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html","title":{"rendered":"Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Russian_icon_Instaplanet_Saint_Nicholas.JPG\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Of the making of Biblical studies books there is no end, but not all books are created equal.  One of the questions I often get is what were the best Biblical Studies books that came out this year which should be added to a library.  So on my birthday and without trying to come up with any definitive or exhaustive list and without dealing with commentaries, here are ten books you need if you wish to be a serious student of the NT– in no particular order:<\/p>\n

1) N.T. Wright, Justification<\/u>.   Whether you love his work or loath it, Tom certainly articulates a particular, clear point of view, and this volume is unique in the Wright ouevre in being something of an apologia for his own views on justification which have been under attack.<\/p>\n

2) BW3, The Indelible Image<\/u> Vol. One.  Setting aside both hubris and false humility, this is an important work, not least because of its comprehensive coverage of all the NT witnesses and Jesus, and because it deals with both theology and ethics.  This work is incomplete without the second and final volume in this series which will appear in 2010. <\/p>\n

3) J.D.G. Dunn, Christianity in the Making Vol. 2. Beginning from Christianity,  <\/u> Jimmy Dunn’s work reflects a lifetime of vigorous thought, reading, dialogue, and interaction with a wide panoply of NT scholarship.  Dunn is attempting to do for our generation what Cadbury, Lake, Foakes Jackson and others did in their Beginnings of Christianity series from over 50 years ago. Few scholars have the scope of knowledge to pull off something like this with success, but Dunn does. <\/p>\n

4) Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.  <\/u>Though this book did not come out in 2009, it has only just begun to have its full effect, and as Richard himself has said to me– its probably his most important book.  If you haven’t read it yet, stop everything and do so.  It puts the cat amongst the pigeons when it comes to a variety of issues including the nature of how Christians passed on the sayings of Jesus and the authorship of the Gospels. <\/p>\n

5)  John Meier, A Marginal Jew, Vol. Four.  <\/u>Though it appears that the apex of the third quest for the historical Jesus has come and gone, when the dust has settled this series of books on Jesus may well endure as the most important contributions to the discussion. <\/p>\n

6) Philip Payne, Man and Woman. One in Christ, <\/u>As the culture wars rage on in the conservative church about the role of women, a few scholars have spent most of their careers dealing with the detailed historical and exegetical and theological issues. Few have done a better job of dealing with these issues than my old classmate at GCTS, Phil Payne. <\/p>\n

7)  E.A. Judge, The First Christians in the Roman World, <\/u>Finally the many many important essays of Edwin Judge on the social history of the NT period are being collected and put into print enmasse.  This collection is voluminous, and it was presaged by my old teacher David Scholer’s last labor of love editing a much smaller collection of Ed Judge’s essays in Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century. <\/u>Both of these volumes are invaluable.<\/p>\n

8) Gary Burge et al. The New Testament in Antiquity, <\/u>Though I have a few bones to pick with some of the judgments in this volume, it is still excellent, and an excellent place to start when trying to assess the  NT in its various settings in the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds. On top of this it has wonderful pictures and illustrations as well. <\/p>\n

9) David deSilva– Seeing Things John’s Way. The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation. <\/u>This book is extremely rich and offers a rhetorically sensitive way of reading the Apocalypse. David writes well to boot, and so hopefully this will help us all get a better grasp of John’s world view and persuasion. <\/p>\n

10) Craig Keener, The Historical Jesus. <\/u>If Meier’s four volumes is too many big books on Jesus, here is just one giant book that does justice to the subject of what we can know and say about the most influential person of all time. Craig’s work reflected detailed and at times exhaustive research on a subject and his coverage of important issues can’t be beat. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the making of Biblical studies books there is no end, but not all books are created equal.  One of the questions I often get is what were the best Biblical Studies books that came out this year which should be added to a library.  So on my birthday and without trying to come up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nTen 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Of the making of Biblical studies books there is no end, but not all books are created equal.  One of the questions I often get is what were the best Biblical Studies books that came out this year which should be added to a library.  So on my birthday and without trying to come up…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-30T01:05:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/12\/Russian_icon_Instaplanet_Saint_Nicholas-thumb-441x548-10448.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"Of the making of Biblical studies books there is no end, but not all books are created equal.  One of the questions I often get is what were the best Biblical Studies books that came out this year which should be added to a library.  So on my birthday and without trying to come up…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html","og_site_name":"The Bible and Culture","article_published_time":"2009-12-30T01:05:44+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/12\/Russian_icon_Instaplanet_Saint_Nicholas-thumb-441x548-10448.jpg"}],"author":"Ben Witherington","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html","name":"Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read - The Bible and Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/12\/Russian_icon_Instaplanet_Saint_Nicholas-thumb-441x548-10448.jpg","datePublished":"2009-12-30T01:05:44+00:00","dateModified":"2009-12-30T01:05:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/12\/Russian_icon_Instaplanet_Saint_Nicholas-thumb-441x548-10448.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/12\/Russian_icon_Instaplanet_Saint_Nicholas-thumb-441x548-10448.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/12\/ten-2009-books-on-the-new-testament-you-should-have-read.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/","name":"The Bible and Culture","description":"All Things Biblical and Christian","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426","name":"Ben Witherington","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","caption":"Ben Witherington"},"description":"Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}