Today’s book could be subtitled “My Christmas List,” as it’s a list of useful New Testament resources. When the Old Testament Resources and the Church History Resources volumes come out (if they exist), their subtitles will be “My Father’s Day List” and “My Birthday and any other day that ends in ‘y’ List.”
There are a myriad of resources on the market for the study of the New Testament. If you’re like me, you have some that you really like, some that you are used to, and much of your purchase-planning is based on authors you already know. What, though, do you do once you own all the resources from the Ouachita faculty? Where do you go for the next list?
For years, John Glynn’s Commentary and Reference Study was the go-to source for that information. It gave the reader a look at many of the books for Biblical Studies and guided one to the best bang for the buck on the market. Today’s book, Best Bible Books: New Testament Resources is, effectively, the 11th edition of that time-honored help. Dr. Glynn has passed away, but Michael H. Burer has edited the work with the help of faculty and students at Dallas Theological Seminary. The choice was made to create this volume strictly for the New Testament, to make the packaging more manageable and to enable a quicker production.
The work opens with some basic guidance for the serious student of Scripture. It’s somewhat reassuring to read the “you should really have this book” list and realize some of it was written by professors I have had, and the rest of it was used by professors I have had. Beyond that, though, the list is excellent about how to build up the library in a good order. From there, you have graded resources in general aspects of New Testament studies then you get an annotated bibliography evaluating most of the available commentaries book-by-book through the New Testament.
It’s hard to find any fault here—one could quibble with Glynn and Burer’s ratings of commentaries, but all-in-all the work here should guide the purchaser well in choosing what you need. Further, you’ll see insights into the design of each commentary and its intention. I did find the division of “evangelical-moderate-liberal” interesting, as I suppose “conservative” has a bit too much baggage to fit where “evangelical” is being used.
This is a great resource for building a good library with the best use of your resources.
I did receive this book free from Kregel Academic.
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