20a - Filling your open mind

PLENTY of recommendations are available for non-Christadelphian expositions of scripture, if you look for them. Publishers’ catalogues, especially the glossy ones with coloured pictures, often contain a blurb encouraging you to buy. Reviews can be helpful, including by individuals on the web; but you need to know something about the doctrinal background of the people making the recommendation. And there are books which make nothing but recommendations. My wife would say: “It’s a sure sign that you’ve got the collecting bug when you buy books about books”, and she’s probably right!

Sometimes books about Bible study will contain lists of recommended commentaries (we have already looked at two such lists, by a Christadelphian, in Chapter 4a). How to Read the Bible for all its worth, by G. D. Fee and D. Stuart (Scripture Union, 1982) contains a useful list from a conservative source. There is an Old Testament Commentary Survey by Tremper Longman III and a New Testament Commentary Survey by D. A. Carson, jointly published by Baker and IVP, on a regular basis, which tells you a little about the various books and authors and rates them in order of preference. And you can find many lists on the Internet. if you want to see a sample of what is available, try this, this or this.

Who are they?

To find out about the various authors, and their academic or other credentials, there are many books which tell you about their background and attitudes.

There are biographies and autobiographies, like In Retrospect, by F. F. Bruce (whose religious affiliation was with The Brethren) or William Barclay: The Plain Uncommon Man by R. D. Kernohan.

There are useful summaries in books like the Historical Handbook of Major Bible Interpreters, edited by D. K. McKim (IVP, 1998) or Bible Interpreters of the 20th Century (edited by W. A. Elwell and J. D. Weaver; Baker, 1999).

There are abbreviated details of some of the older writers in dictionaries, like the New Dictionary of Theology by IVP, 1988, edited by J. I. Packer.

Now to some recommendations of books by non-Christadelphians you might find helpful, in whole or in part. Remember that because their doctrinal stance is different from ours, you are not going to agree with everything. If you are uncomfortable about that, stick to Christadelphian writings and consult the list in Chapter 19a instead.

KEY: Title / Author / Publisher (Notes)

Old Testament
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
Samuel
Kings & Chronicles
Ezra & Nehemiah
Esther
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
The Minor Prophets

(Many of the studies listed below cover several Biblical books)

Hosea
Joel
Amos & Obadiah
Jonah, Micah & Nahum
Habakkuk & Zephaniah
Haggai, Zechariah & Malachi
New Testament
Gospels
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts
Romans
Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians / Philemon
Thessalonians
Timothy & Titus
Hebrews
James
1 & 2 Peter & Jude
1-3 John
Revelation

These are the abbreviations used to identify the various series:

Get Electronic Versions Free!

The majority of these books are still in print, or still available, at a price, but you don't always have to pay to get access to electronic versions. There are two really good options for books where the copyright has lapsed, and sometimes where the writers have waived their copyright. Here are the details:

1. PDF format

If you are happy to access books in Adobe Acrobat pdf format (you can download a pdf reader easily), then don't miss archives.org. This is an electronic library which caters for all tastes but several universities, notably in the US and Canada, have uploaded scanned images of a lot of theological works. The indexing isn't brilliant, so it's just like browsing in an old secondhand bookshop, for you never know what you might find! But, to whet your appetite, if you are after Bible Dictionaries, you can download all those by James Hastings, William Smith (the 3 volume one), Cheyne (the "Encyclopedia Biblica"), Kitto ("The Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature") and Fairbairn's ("Imperial Bible Dictionary" - though it's the edition  without C H Waller's preface about the Inspiration of Scripture). If you're after commentaries, you can find all of the Speaker's Comentary (including the two volumes about the Apocrypha!), Ellicott's, Lange's, Keil & Delitzsch, Jamieson, Fausset & Brown and Alford and Meyer on the New Testament. Most of the (older) ICC ones can be found, as can the majority of the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges and the Cambridge Greek New Testament ones. And that's just the start. Track down individual authors that interest you, or particular titles you are looking for and you may find what you want. if you can't read from a computer screen, at least you can view the book to see if it would interest you, when you manage to buy a printed copy. That also means that you can check out a lot of the books mentioned on this website.

The site offers a comprehensive search facility, so you can search by author or title, including Boolean searches (including command words like "AND" or "OR"). Be aware that the same author might be listed in several different ways. For example, seach for "Kitto" (a helpfully unusual name) and you will find "John William Burgon" and "John William Burgon, 1813-1888". Different titles are listed under both designations, but you get soon used to that and can check on the right hand margin to see if the author you have tracked down is listed in any other way. You don't have to download the books you find, but can read them online. Some of them are large files (for example, James Hasting's "Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels" (2 volumes) is 234Mb) and you should only contemplate downloading if you have a broadband connection and plemty of harddrive space. Again, downloading is not always straightforward. Some listings offer the book in pdf format stright off; just right click on the link and the downloading will begin. But the books captured on the google.com site are more difficult to download. With these, right click on the "All Books HTTP" link and then on "Open". When a list of files appears, highlight the pdf one and right click to "Save target as...". Then its just a matter of building up your own set of folders, devising an index system, and you have made a start of building your electronic library.

2. Libronix books

If you are a regular user of the various electronic Christadelphian works that are now available in Libronix format (like "The Christadelphian Magazine 1864-2000" or "Christadelphian Works") you will know all about the Libronix search engine. The software company Logos are very clever marketeers and have assembled a vast electronic library of theological books and journals and you may have been persuaded to buy one of their libraries (which is by far the cheapest way of getting your study material). If so, you will inadvertently have acquired a key with which to unlock any books which have been converted into this format by using the Libronix Personal Book-Builder facility. This enables people to convert books which they have written, or which they have acquired in pdf or other formats, into Libronix format, so they can be included in their copy of the Logos library. Full details can be found on the Logos site. So far, so good, but how does that benefit people who haven't got either the time, the money, the ability or the inclination to do the conversion; and how can this be described as "free", as you have to buy the Book-Builder package and licence it every year anew?

Public-spirited people who have done such conversions very kindly make those books available freely and they can be downloaded and added to your own library, when they work almost as well as the ones you have purchased from Logos. That means that they can be searched and scutinised in just the same way as other material. The best site for downloading useful material is stilltruth.com but there are some difficulties to overcome:

  1. You can only access these books if you have purchased a Logos library (details on the logos.com site) and thus acquired the necessary key, and
  2. This facility will only work at present if you are still using Logos Version 3, or lower. Logos have now upgraded their search engine to Version 4 and are gradually resolving all the software problems that resulted from a major overhaul. The Book-Builder facility is not yet available for this version and, more especially, books that were privately formatted for Version 3 do not yet work in Version 4 although Logos say that they will remedy this situation sometime this year, God willing.
Once those teething problems are over, and if you feel like investing in an electronic library, then look out for the free books that are already available (although they may need to be converted again) and teh new ones that become available week by week. As the situation changes I will update this note. Meanwhile happy searching!

(Concluded)