English 116B: New Testament Literature

Reserve Book List

Chilton, Bruce, Rabbi Jesus (Doubleday, 2000). A learned, but somewhat novelistic, approach to the life of Jesus by a scholar well versed in Judaic texts and the Galilean background.

Ehrman, Bart D., The New Testament: a Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford U.P., 1997). An excellent, up-to-date, introduction to both the NT texts and other early Christian texts. "Collateral reading" will be assigned from this book.

Kelber, Werner H, The Oral and the Written Gospel (Fortress, 1983), BS 2555.2 K44 1983. An important work that traces the various stages of the gospel down to Mark; particularly significant in its understanding of the dynamics of oral and scripted language.

Kelber, Werner H., Mark's Story of Jesus (Fortress, 1979), BT 198 K44. A sophisticated, sensitive, and accessible reading of the Gospel of Mark by a leading NT scholar.

Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy (Harvard U.P., 1979), PN 81 K4. A book on the problematics of narrative by a literary theorist and interpreter that focuses on the Gospel of Mark. Kermode is particularly fascinated by the problem of the boy who runs away naked.

Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (Crossroad, 1983), BR 129 F56 1983. A learned and important book that argues cogently for the significant position of women in the church of the first century and why that position has been obscured in the textual record.

Burton L. Mack, The Lost Gospel: the Book of Q and Christian Origins (Harper Collins, 1993). Reconstructs the Q gospel (our text was taken from the book) and argues for its oppositional status, in relation to emerging Christianity, in the early decades.

Stephen L. Harris, The New Testament: A Student's Introduction (Mayfield, 2^nd ed., 1995), BS 2330.2 H326 1995. A basic but reliable guide, full of solid information presented in an objective and straightforward manner.

Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (Random House, 1979), BT 1390 P3. A sympathetic treatment of the Nag Hamadi texts, arguing the case for their position against the texts that would eventually dominate subsequent Christian belief.

The Jerome Biblical Commentary, eds. Raymond Brown, et al., BS 491.2 B 7. A very useful work that contains solid introductions as well as section-by-section commentary on the texts of the Bible. This is a reference to use if you want elucidation of a particular passage.

E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (Penguin, 1995), A solid, reliable work that aims at elucidating the historical Jesus and his world.

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