Appendix 13

HERE is a list of other helpful Christadelphian works about Bible people, given in chronological order, with a little more detail about some of them. Many of these works are still in print; all of them can be found second-hand, given a little patience. Some of them are available electronically.

Genesis:

Abraham: Father of the Faithful; Wrestling Jacob; and Joseph: The Saviour by Brother Harry Whittaker are highly recommended. The last one, at just 97 pages long, and really easy reading, is an excellent way of getting youngsters to start to read; though it’s good for older folk too! The notes at the end of each chapter are especially useful when you want to dig a little deeper.

Exodus-Deuteronomy:

Moses My Servant by Brother Harry Tennant began life as a series of Bible School addresses and carries the hallmark of his easy-to-listen-to style. All these books make excellent Sunday School prizes for youngsters, as they are easily accessible, and they contain some excellent material.

Joshua:

All three books that are available – the one by Brother Maurice Beale, and others by Brother Roy Standeven, I Will be With You and Brother John Ullman, Joshua – His Life and Times – are more about the book of Joshua than the man himself. Even so, they all contain some interesting insights.

Judges:

Brother Harry Whittaker’s Judges and Ruth deals with the entirety of both books, in his typically interesting and provocative way. You can download it, but it is worth having in hardcopy too (available from Muriel Whittaker). There are two CSSS publications: The Judges, by Brother John Martin (which especially deals with Deborah and Gideon) and Better is He who Rules his Spirit by Brother Ron Abel, about Samson, both of them in Study Note format.

Ruth:

Brother Roy Standeven’s book Under Whose Wings deals with the whole of the book and has some interesting ideas, especially about the legal settlement associated with the estate of Elimelech’s family. Sister Barbara Booker has also written Ruth – A Love Story, which you can also download.

Samuel and David:

Mention has already been made of the excellent books by Brethren Michael Ashton, Harry Tennant and Harry Whittaker (Samuel, Saul and David). Brother Roy Standeven’s The Warrior Tamed is his third book (all three are available from the author; the latter also from Printland Publishers direct.

Kings and Chronicles:

In addition to the books already mentioned about Solomon and Josiah, and Brother Ashton’s Chronicles of the Kings, CSSS have published Brother John Martin’s Elijah the Tishbite; Brother David Wood wrote Elisha the Neglected Prophet; and Brother Edmund Green, Elijah and Elisha. Brethren George Booker and Harry Whittaker wrote Hezekiah the Great and the Songs of Degrees, which includes an in-depth look at King Hezekiah, much influenced by J. W. Thirtle’s writings.

There are character studies of the various prophets and people in works which expound individual books, like the CSSS one on Nehemiah (Let us Arise and Build), by Brother Ron Abel. Those apart, that about covers the Old Testament list of characters that get individual treatment.

New Testament:

Brother Robert Roberts wrote Nazareth Revisited in 1890, which reviews the life and work of the Lord Jesus, and that has since been reprinted in several different editions. It was originally published in The Christadelphian so it can be tracked down on the Libronix database, but it is much more readily available on the Christadelphian Works CD-ROM, and it is included on both Volumes 1 and 2.

Mention has already been made of works about the Lord Jesus, and the apostles Peter and Paul. Brother Arthur Hall published The Twelve – the Lord’s Men, in duplicated format; there is a work forthcoming on John the Baptist; and Brother John Mitchell (of Llandudno Ecclesia) has written a series of books about the Lord and other New Testament characters, which are available direct from the author.

Non-Christadelphian Works

Many books and collections of books have been published about the life and times of Bible people by other authors. A lot of useful information is available in Bible dictionaries (see chapter 6 in this series, and the accompanying appendix, for examples).

Collections:

Some excellent insights are available from books like:

These books vary a lot in style and intensity, the older ones being rather more wordy; but you can usually find something that suits your own preference if you browse around. And once you find an author you like, stick with him or her, and watch out for the recommendations they make, in biographies and footnotes.

Series:

In addition to collections of character studies, there are series of volumes under a common title. Mention has already been made of Alexander Whyte’s series. Altogether he wrote six volumes, starting with Adam to Achan and finishing with Our Lord’s Characters; but they have been amalgamated in recent editions into two substantial volumes.

F. B. Meyer was equally prolific; but whilst Whyte’s coverage is quite brief (14 pages on Adam, for example), Meyer usually wrote an entire book on the chosen character. He wrote volumes on Abraham, Jacob (he called him Israel), Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, Peter and Paul. These are primarily devotional in their approach (concentrating on lessons for life) and Meyer has an appealing style. They are light reading, but expect to have to read the whole book to get a few helpful thoughts. When you are studying a particular topic, books like this can be a stimulus for your own thought: remember that sometimes a disagreement about something can be as helpful as complete agreement with the writer’s point of view!

A useful series, by different authors, is badged under the general title The Men of the Bible, with the catchphrase: … His Life and Times. Each volume is about 200 pages long, with quite small type, and there are 17 volumes altogether, starting with Abraham and ending with St Paul. These vary quite a lot in usefulness, depending upon the author; the intention is to deal in a comprehensive way with the character and circumstances of the particular subject, and their Biblical setting. Contributors range from W. J. Deane (who wrote Abraham and David), F. W. Farrar (who wrote Solomon and The Minor Prophets) to G. Rawlinson (who wrote Moses, The Kings of Israel and Judah and Ezra and Nehemiah). These books are available second-hand from time to time, for just a few pounds, and are small enough to tuck into your briefcase or handbag for a long journey, or to while away the odd moment profitably.

Individual Works:

That Men of the Bible series illustrates the advantage of focusing upon particular authors who have made an in-depth study of a character and his or her circumstances, rather than someone who sums up their life in just a few pages.

A. W. Pink was a prolific writer, whose works are also readily available electronically. His entire library of publications can be obtained from The AGES Digital Library on CD-ROM or by download, and many of his writings can also be accessed elsewhere online. He wrote The Life of David and The Life of Elijah, as well as several studies he called Gleanings, from Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Elisha and Paul.

F. W. Krummacher certainly wrote in-depth studies, if length is anything to go by. His book David – The King of Israel is 518 pages long, Elijah the Tishbite is 458 pages and he wrote two books about Elisha (251 plus 297 pages). Written in the 1850s and 1860s, and reprinted by Baker Book House, these are a product of their age in that the writer fully accepts the scriptural text and works his way through it, looking for lessons for life.

Alfred Edersheim is well known for his Bible History series and other useful and thoughtful books. He wrote Elisha the Prophet in 1882 and this has been reprinted by Kregel in 1983 as Practical Truths from Elisha.

James Stalker wrote two nice little studies: The Life of St Paul and The Life of Jesus Christ. The latter can be found electronically on a recent Libronix release, Selected Works on the Life of Christ, which also includes his Trial and Death of Jesus Christ. It also contains two works by F. W. Farrar, his Life of Christ and The Life of Lives, as well as G. Campbell Morgan’s The Crises of the Christ and S. J. Andrew’s The Life of Our Lord upon the Earth. You can look at some sample pages online. All these books are available second-hand from time to time, some of them more often than others.

Like Stalker, T. R. Glover also wrote two volumes on The Jesus of History and Paul of Tarsus, both of which are worthwhile. John Stott wrote Christ the Controversialist in 1970, and The Incomparable Christ in 2001, both of them published by IVP. G. H. Dalman wrote two books about the life of Jesus – Jesus-Jeshua and The Words of Jesus, which deal particularly with the Jewish background and circumstances, from a more scholastic point of view than these earlier works, and Emil Schürer wrote five volumes containing A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (sometimes published in a three-volume edition). This is also now available from Libronix, if you want to dig deeper into the background of the life of the Lord. There have been more recent studies about the Jewish contemporary scene, like Geza Vermes’ Jesus the Jew, or E. P. Sanders’ Jesus and Judaism, but these are books that need to be read thoughtfully, as the authors are often pursuing an agenda of their own.

Over the years, there has been a lot of speculation about the work and person of the Lord Jesus, the so-called “Quest” for Jesus, including his relationship with first century Judaism. If you want to find out about recent trends, Ben Witherington III offers a critique in his 1997 IVP publication, The Jesus Quest, which was recently made available electronically by Libronix. It includes a critical assessment of the volume by N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God.

Mention has already been made of the collections of character studies by F. F. Bruce. This summary would not be complete without mentioning his larger work Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit, published by the Paternoster Press in 1977, and also released for overseas as Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free. Bruce has written extensively about the Acts and his work ranks alongside the older classics, like Conybeare and Howson’s Life & Epistles of St Paul, and Sir William Ramsay’s St Paul: The Traveller and Roman Citizen.

The list goes on and on, and it still might not include your favourites. We are always glad to hear from you, so that we can include your recommendations.

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