The Fellowship of Scientists

Bibliography, Part 3

History of the New Testament Period

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This listing is offered as a sample of sources likely to be helpful for reflection; it is neither exhaustive nor prescriptive. Books are listed alphabetically by authors; those marked with (P) are available in paperback.

Barrett, C. K., The New Testament Background; Selected Documents (P)
A useful anthology of passages from classical, Jewish, and Christian sources that provides a first-hand sense of the period.

Borg, M. J., Jesus: A New Vision (P)
Borg presents the historical Jesus in the context of first century Judaism, reflecting on the roles of prophet, sage, teacher, and messiah.

Grant, Michael, Jesus: A Historian's review (P)
Grant provides the perspective of a classical historian to this discussion of the historical Jesus.

Habermas, Gary R., Ancient Evidence for the Life of Jesus (P)
A useful review of the Christian and pagan evidence for the life of Jesus. Tone somewhat tendentious.

Harvey, A. E., Jesus and the Constraints of History
Harvey explores what can be known or eliminated about the historical Jesus by using classical history and philology.

Hengel, Martin, Between Jesus and Paul (P)
Hengel used the epistles, Acts, classical history and philology to consider the character of the early Christian church during the period before the Pauline epistles were written.

Selby, G. R., Jesus, Aramaic, and Greek
Selby presents the evidence for extensive bi-lingualism in classical Palestine and the probability that some of the apostles and Jesus spoke Greek as well as Aramaic. Short and persuasive.

Shanks, Herschel, Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (P)
A collection of articles from Biblical Archaeology Review that presents a broad cross-section of current studies of the Essenes, the Qumran community, the scrolls, and first century Judaism.

Wilson, Ian, Jesus - The Evidence (P)
A brief, popular summary of archaeological, classical and manuscript evidence of the life of Jesus.