Fireside books and references

Last updated on: April 5, 2018 at 11:55 am by Ben Spackman

Fireside books and references 2018-04-05T11:55:41-05:00 Ben Spackman

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1myxx4 These are books/authors I quote or allude to in the slides of my fireside/Sperry Symposium presentation. The actual paper has many more references, of course. I’ll be posting it in entirety, first in chunks as posts, and then as a complete pdf file. What is listed below will also overlap with my Recommended Resource for the Old Testament posts, coming in November.

Becoming “Competent Readers,” Learning the “Rules of the Game,” Reading with Ancient Eyes

Richards/O’Brian, Misreading the Bible with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible
Brettler, How to Read the (Jewish) Bible (This is very basic, short, and accessible.)
Barton, Reading the Old Testament (Still accessible, but longer and more complex.)
Relevant excerpts from the last two here. Highly recommended.

The Bible is Weird

Matthew Schlimm, This Strange and Sacred Scripture: Wrestling with the Old Testament and Its Oddities and
Robin Parry, The Biblical Cosmos: A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Weird and Wonderful World of the Bible

Study Bibles

Harper-Collins Study Bible– Based on the New Revised Standard Version, this is often assigned for New Testament 101, or Hebrew Bible 101 at colleges. The publisher is the Society of Biblical Literature, and translation and notes are done by a variety of scholars, so there’s little religious bias.
NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible– Based on the conservative Evangelical translation New International Version, this translation is demonstrably quite biased; it cheats. However, the notes (at least, the OT notes I’ve checked) are great. As you might guess from the title, the notes and essays focus on the cultural backgrounds, those things ancient audiences (likely) knew which moderns don’t. Review here. It’s edited by John Walton, an Evangelical scholar I like, and my understanding is that the notes and essays are derived or shortened from this stand-alone series. EDIT: I just learned that you can get these notes with the New King James Version (NKJV) translation, instead of the NIV. I strongly recommend that over the NIV. The NKJV is basically an update to the English of the KJV, so it retains most of the archaicness and problems of the KJV text. But that’s preferable over the deceptiveness of the NIV’s modern (but strongly biased) translation.
Jewish Study Bible– This translation and notes/essays are all written by Jewish scholars, which means it only covers the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. It’s a fantastic resource that will enlighten and challenge (since, for example, Jews are unlikely to interpret Isaiah as messianic prophecies of Jesus.) I enjoy contrasting its views with those of the NIV.
NET Bible-The advantage of this is it’s entirely free and online at http://Netbible.org, and in free App form, called Lumina. There are thousands and thousands of footnotes, often about translation or background.

Hebrew-focused translations with notes.

Robert Alter (no title to his series)
Everett Fox, The Schocken Bible

On Bible translations, and using Free Greek and Hebrew tools, see

my article here in Religious Educator (skip to the Application section for Bibles/tools)
my two blogposts here and here showing how to use free tools in Logos.

On genre, listen/read my podcast here.

Others Quoted/alluded to–

Nahum Sarna, a Rabbi with a PhD in Semitics who has written about Genesis.
Kenton Sparks, an Evangelical Bible scholar who does some fantastic work about faith, scholarship, and the nature of scripture, especially this one and this one.
V. Philips Long, Art of Biblical History.
Kevin Barney, “Understanding Old Testament Poetry” Ensign, June 1990.
Moberly’s article in Reading Genesis After Darwin
Thomas Alexander, Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Church from 1890-1930. This book, originally commissioned by the Church, contains the discussion of the 1922 FP letter about Jonah and Job.
C.S. Lewis, various.
Raymond Brown, I think it’s 101 Questions on the Bible,
Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon
Elder Ballard’s blockbuster discourse to Seminary/Institute teachers, and then the edited version in the Ensign.

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