Bibliography of Resources

[Tab]

Awesome, thanks Beth! Will keep me from my homework for awhile. Too bad religious doctrine isn't a class

[Adrian]

Greetings Beth,

I wonder whether we can start another topic for "Recommended Reading" which is a definitive list of "must read" books?

We can all add to them as well in the same topic, and most certainly including the Arthur Findlay books for example.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Beth]

I will be glad to...but Adrian[:I].... This IS my recommended reading list!![] LOL...

So, I will start a thread for suggested books by other members and then add them to this thread in other specific categories--okay??[]

Peace,
Beth

[Beth]

Greetings![]

These are the primary resources for these topics.  I have read most of them in full through the years, but a few of them I have only used as reference material. It is not necessary that you purchase them all (that would be very expensive!) but you may be able to buy some of these as used books or check them out through your local Public Library system, or a local university.  

*****I realize the enormity of this bibliography!  But just go through it once and then back through it again, and if a book "jumps out at you" then just start there!![]  

On Early Christianity:

Eusebius. The History of the Church, translated by G. A. Williamson.  

Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church: The Story of Emergent Christianity from the Apostolic Age to the dividing way between the Greek East and the Latin West.

Southern, R.W.  Western Society and the Church in The Middle Ages.

Trigg, Joseph Wilson. Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third Century Church.

Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines.

On early Jewish Mysticism, language based mysticism, the use of allegory and metaphor in biblical scripture and Kabbalah:

Barnstone, Willis. The Other Bible: Jewish Pseudepigrapha, Christian Apocrypha, Gnostic Scriptures, Kabbalah, Dead Sea Scrolls.

Borgen, Peder. Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time.  New York: Brill, 1997.

Buber, Martin. On The Bible: Eighteen Studies. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.

Butterworth, G. W. Origen on First Principles. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church. London: Penguin Books, 1993.

Charlesworth, James H. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Vol. I. New York: Doubleday, 1983.

Dawson, David. Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Dan, Joseph. The Ancient Jewish Mysticism. Tel Aviv: MOD Books, 1993.

Dan, Joseph. The Heart and the Fountain: An Anthology of Jewish Mystical Experiences. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Davila, James. Descenders to the Chariot: The People Behind the Hekhalot Literature. Leiden: Brill, 2001.

De Lubac, Henry. Medieval Exegesis, Volume 1: The Four Senses of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdman's, 1988.

Fox, Everett. The Five Books of Moses. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.

Garsiel, Moshe. Biblical Names, A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1991.

Ginsburg, Yitzchak. Alef-Beit: Jewish Thought Revealed Through the Hebrew Letters. Northvale: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1991.

Ginzberg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1909.

Ginzberg, Louis. Legends of the Bible. New York: Simon Schuster, 1956.

Goodenough, E. R. By Light, Light: The Mystical Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism. NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1935.

Grabbe, Lester. Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988.

Greer, Rowan. Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Collected Works. New York: Paulist Press, 1979.

Guthrie, W.K.C. Orpheus and Greek Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Hamilton, Edith and Huntington Cairns. Plato: The Collected Dialogues. Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1989.

Hess, Richard S. Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11.  Kevelaer: Butzon und Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verl., 1993.

Idel, Moshe. Kabbalah: New Perspectives. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

Idel, Moshe. Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia. New York:State University of New York Press, 1989.

Idel, Moshe. "Abulafia's Secrets of the Guide: A Linguistic Turn." Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism. Ivry, Alfred, Elliot Wolfson, Allan Arkush, eds. Amsterdam: OPA Press, 1998.

Idel, Moshe. Absorbing Perfections. New Haven: Yale University, 2002.

Jones, Alfred.  Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names. Grand Rapids: Kregel, Inc., 1997.

Kanagaraj, Jey J.  'Mysticism' in the Gospel of John: An Inquiry into its Background. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academy Press, 1998.

Kaplan, Aryeh. The Bahir Illumination. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1979.

Kaplan, Aryeh. Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation, In Theory and Practice. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1997.

Kugel, James L. The Bible As It Was. Cambridge: Belknap, 1997.

Melchert, Norman. The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 1995.

Origen. The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies. Trans. by Lawson, R. P., London: Newman, 1957.


Origen. On First Principles. Trans. by G. W. Butterworth, New York:Harper & Row, 1966.

Ouaknin, Marc-Alain. Mysteries of the Kabbalah. New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2000.

Ponce, Charles. Kabbalah: An Introduction and Illumination for the World Today. Wheaton, Ill: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1973.

Rowland, Christopher. The Open Heaven. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

Scholem, Gershom. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. Jerusalem: Schocken Books,Inc., 1946.

Scholem, Gershom. Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1960.

Scholem, Gershom. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. New York: Schocken Books, 1965.

Scholem, Gershom. Kabbalah. New York: Penguin Group, 1974.

Scholem, Gershom. On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah. NewYork: Schocken Books, 1991.

Von Balthasar, Hans. Origen Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings. Transl. Daly, Robert. Washington: Catholic University Press, 1984. Original copyright, Salzburg: Otto Muller, 1956.


Biblical and Extra-Biblical References

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgatensia, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997.

Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, The New JPS Translation According to the TraditionalHebrew Text. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985.

The Greek New Testament. USA: United Bible Societies, 1983.

The Nag Hammadi Library. Robinson, James, ed. The Netherlands: Brill, 1977.

The New International Version of the Bible. Compton's Interactive Bible NIV. (CD-ROM.) Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 SoftKeyMultimedia Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version. Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.


Should you want to get deeper into this realm of study, these are books that you can use.


Reference Dictionaries and Language Textbooks


Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979.

Brown, Francis. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Peabody MA:Hendrickson, 1997.

Ross, Allen. Introducing Biblical Hebrew. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2001.

Summers, Ray. Essentials of New Testament Greek. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995.

Strong, James. The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990.



May all or any one of these help you along in your journey![]