The best
Christian Bible Study & Reference books:
Reddit reviews
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
The best of Christian Bible Study & Reference books by number of unique Reddit comments:
![Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox, The [hardcover]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31uWDtHetfL._SL500_.jpg)
Top Reddit reviews mentioning Christian Bible Study & Reference books:
Except that’s not what happens. They eat of the fruit of knowledge which is what kicks them out. It’s an allegory for adulthood/leaving behind innocence, knowing the difference between right/ wrong and being self aware enough to feel shame (hence covering the body.) The creation story is an explanation why humanity isn’t childlike, and living in paradise. A lot of modern translations have tamed down the sexual language in scripture but there is a shit ton of sex, and sex play going on in the Bible. The Book of Genesis by Robert Crumb is a silly read but good at shocking people into realize how much sex goes on in the Bible.
Read The Bible Unearthed. There isn't even any archaeological evidence for the genocide of Canaan or the Exodus. So now ya get to have Christians not only argue that the genocide happened because the Bible said so, but that it was morally justified. Fun!
Neither. The Hebrew word for "day" there definitely means 24-hour time period, but that doesn't mean the universe was made in 6 literal days.
Genesis 1 is complex and beautiful, but ancient Near-Eastern people don't think like modern Western people, and ancient Near-Eastern people wrote Genesis 1. It's way too much to explain here. Read The Lost World of Genesis One, by John Walton.
I'm gay and I've had no problem reconciling my faith with my sexual orientation from the time I was 14/15.
The most important thing in my mind is acknowledging that historical context impacts the way the Bible should be interpreted. The word "homosexuality" wasn't in the Bible until the twentieth century. Verses that have been used to condemn all same-sex sexual activity are surrounded by verses that would seem to approve of slavery, if taken at face value.
Jesus, in reference to Christian teaching, says that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit. If teaching is sound, it will not result in the harm of those impacted it. This hasn't been the case with the conservative teaching on homosexuality. The church needs to act in a way consistent with the idea that "perfect love casts out fear."
There's a lot that can (and has) been said about this topic. I'd encourage you to grapple with it yourself, but to never forget that God loves all of their children. Also, if you haven't read them, God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines and Torn by Justin Lee are great books on this topic.
Warmest of wishes, friend.
HAVE THEM READ THE BOOK GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN. IT'S A GREAT WAY TO GET THEM TO REALIZE HOMOSEXUALITY ISN'T AS INCOMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIANITY, PARTICULARLY THE NEW TESTAMENT/COVENANT, AS PEOPLE THINK. IF THEY'RE WILLING TO PUT IN THE TIME TO VOICE THEIR OPINION TO YOU, THEY MAY BE WILLING TO PUT IN A LITTLE MORE TIME TO REALLY CHECK OUT THE SUBJECT.
An accessible work written about this subject is Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.
More about this subject can be found at the wiki/FAQ pages here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBibleScholars/wiki/faq
Specifically, numbers 12, 32, and 34.
Zenz is a religious nutcase.
The last blurb on his Wikipedia page is this:
> Zenz is a born-again Christian, and has stated that he feels "led by God" in his research on Chinese Muslims and other minority groups.[1] Zenz co-authored a book in 2012 with his father-in-law, Marlon L. Sias, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation.[1]
Here's the book just for fun:
Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation
According to secular historians?
Yeah...not a chance.
The consensus is that pre-Exile, the Bible is entirely unreliable. Post-Exile it has a lot of fact, but it's heavily propagandized.
Here's a great book to read on the matter: https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869136
Along with everything listed here, your friends may be inclined to listen to Bart Ehrman. He's an atheist New Testament scholar who has written and spoken quite a bit against Jesus mythicism. Be aware that as an atheist he has many claims about both the historicity of certain parts of the bible and the figure of Christ himself that I find problematic, but he does a good job refuting the idea that Jesus never existed period. If you or your friends enjoy reading, his book Did Jesus Exist? is a good presentation a secular case for the historical figure of Jesus. He has also been on the radio show/podcast Unbelievable?
If you like podcasts, then Unbelievable? has a ton of great episodes debating this issue if you search through the archives. (And, might I add, if you're doing any kind of apologetics it's a great resource to listen to Christians having fantastic apologetics discourse with people from all kinds of belief systems.)
I second this. I got R. Crumb's Illustrated Book of Genesis to read with my daughter. (Highly recommend! The illustrations are perfect, and he actually chose a decent translation. Given his history, I expected something entirely different.)
Such silly stories. Such interesting discussions. We got about 2/3 of the way through Genesis before we gave up. Her comment was, "They call it the good book, but it's not a very good book."
To start this off I’m not religious at, but all faith is definitely compatible with science. Anyone who says otherwise is plain wrong.
The creation story in Genesis is not meant to be read literally. Even some of the Fathers of the Church, like Saint Augustine, didn’t take Genesis literally. Instead, he thought everything was created in an instant. Of course this position isn’t really taken seriously anymore, but it goes to show that young-earth creationism is not and has never been the traditional position of Christians. Augustine said that if one’s interpretation of the Bible conflicted with well-established scientific findings, that interpretation must be revised.
Likewise, anyone who says that Christians cannot be successful scientists is also wrong. Nicolas Steno, the founder of stratigraphy, was a devout Catholic. Georges Lemaître, who devised the Big Bang Theory which is the foundation of modern astronomy, was a priest. Einstein was a pantheist. And to top it off the man who led the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, is a Christian. Many faithful scientists believe that science can enhance, not deteriorate, faith.
The philosopher Thomas Aquinas believed that faith and reason could never conflict, since the same God created them. If God exists, he would likely create a world that people could study and interpret.
The overwhelming academic consensus is that there was a historical Jesus, the mythicist hypothesis (which is the main competitor) is really fringe (not that there aren't biblical scholars and peer-reviewed papers that support it, but they're treated kind of like climatologists who deny anthropogenic global warming).
Bart Ehrman (an extremely respected NT scholar who generally identifies as an agnostic) wrote a book for non-scholars on the topic, Did Jesus Exist?, but while I recommend Ehrman's work generally, I haven't read that particular book.
>Erm, you can read the full report here. It say quite clearly that the data on birth control and sterilization came from publicly available publications from local and national government institutions. So if you think the data is wrong then you have beef with the CCP, not Zenz.
No. Zenz is the one who lied about the data.
Adrian Zenz is literally paid by the American government. Is a crazy religious nutjob who wrote this book "Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation"
>https://www.amazon.com/Worthy-Escape-Believers-Raptured-Tribulation/dp/144976908X
>Many Christians follow the popular pretribulation rapture view. They expect that Jesus will rescue them "just-intime" before the tribulations of the Antichrist. However, few people realize that every single biblical promise of being raptured at that time is conditional on personal spiritual readiness. Eminent Christian leaders such as A.B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, as well as Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, first taught this biblical perspective of a conditional rapture.
>In their captivating account, the authors take their readers on a fascinating journey through the pages of the Bible, showing how biblical prophecies from Daniel to Revelation point toward not just one but two raptures: a conditional first fruits rapture for the ready "wise virgins" of the church, and a later rapture for "foolish virgin" believers who are spiritually unprepared.
1) the historical consensus is that Jesus did, in fact, exist. Bart Ehrman, the world's leading atheistic Bible scholar, even wrote a book dedicated to explaining to other atheists that Jesus did in fact exist: https://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062206443
2) So what if every religion thinks they're right and the others are wrong. the same is true of political ideologies. That's just how a debate works.
This book is worth the read: https://www.amazon.com/God-Gay-Christian-Biblical-Relationships/dp/160142518X
From what I've seen, many who still affirm the Bible's validity and affirm a gay lifestyle denounce the clobber passages as mistranslated and not referring to the kind of gay relationships we see today (monogamous, committed, loving). Most argue Biblical passages are referring to pedophilia, rape, and hyper sexual (guys would have sex with other guys out of extreme lust outside marriage) relationships.
If you're interested in HOW the bible was put together, by who, and when, the The Bible Unearthed is a great resource. It uses known history, archaeology, etc. not religious views. It's well sourced, and interesting.
>He is associated with the victims of communism foundation
He works there.
>has been quoted as saying that he has a mandate from god to eliminate China.
His idiotic views is available for purchase on Amazon.
>His methodology for the 1 million comes from 8 anonymous interviews from one area of xinjiang (actually the hottest area in Xinjiang for terrorism that way he could inflate the numbers as much as possible) and he asked them how many of their neighbors have gone missing.
Impossible. BBC is credible. Media Bias Fact Check says so.
>He then extrapolated from that to arrive at 1 million which isn't a good methodology.
His methodology is anti-science, it is closer to wishful thinking. But what else can we expect from our favorite christian fundy?
>To further explain why Zenz is a really bad source.
You really shouldn't have. I was waiting for him to send me another link with the exact same source. It probably doesn't matter in the end. He'll probably fail to do his due diligence and continue to send me more Adrian Zenz crap.
^(Will he send some ASPI, World Uyghur Congress, China Tribunal, or some Falun Gong shit next? Stay tuned.)
For all 4 of those groups there are differences in the number of books translated, this is only in the Old Testament though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Table
I can only speak for the English language but 'most' Christians generally use the same couple of bible translations which became the most popular, with Catholics/Orthodox adding their own books when printed. For example the NKJV which was originally made by Protestants for Protestants is also very popular with Orthodox Christians (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Orthodox-Study-Bible-OE-Some-NKJV/dp/0718003594). Likewise the RSV while being 70 years old is still used and updated by all groups of Christians, the Orthodox really like it because it was the first English translation with the whole Orthodox canon, there is also the RSV Catholic edition in print and the ESV revision for Protestants which is currently super popular.
I also think there are some traditional Catholics who would advocate only translating and reading the Latin Vulgate over the original Greek also but they are a pretty small minority today.
InspiringPhilosophy has many videos on Genesis which collate and summarize some relevant Biblical scholarship on this issue. Check them out!
We of course need to realize that Genesis is an ancient text, written by ancient prescientific people for prescientific people. If we think Genesis is teaching modern science, we are missing the point and missing what God is trying to show us through the text today. Biblical scholar John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One should be required reading for Christians in my opinion and will also more than adequately answer your question.
If you have the time you should read this book called God and the Gay Christian, by Matthew Vines.
It's full of gay-affirming arguments and most of them are based on scripture or interpretations of it. Wish I'd known about it when I was figuring everything out!
This is the Orthodox Study Bible. It was based on earlier English translations (mainly the NKJV) that were edited in places where they disagreed with the standard Orthodox Bible. So it's not perfect, but it's the best full Orthodox Bible available in English.
On the other hand, for the New Testament - not the entire Bible, just the New Testament - there is a better Orthodox translation available. You really should start reading with the New Testament anyway, not the Old, so I suggest buying this one first.
The best way to read the Bible is to start with the New Testament (minus the Book of Revelation; that will make no sense without extensive study), then read the Old Testament, then read the New Testament again.
The reason to do it this way is because the NT contains the core message of Christianity, so you need to read it first in order to get the main points first. The OT is important background information, so read that second. Then read the NT again because you will understand more of it after you've gone through the background information.
Two books I would recommend on this topic: The Lost World of Genesis One and Genesis Unbound.
One author was a professor of Old Testament studies at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and was president of the Evangelical Theological Society. The other author is an Old Testament scholar and professor at Wheaton College/Moody Bible Institute. Serious, Jesus-loving Bible scholars, who are doing some really in-depth exegesis and work with the original language and cultural context and not some fringe YouTube wingnuts.
Genesis Unbound dives into the opening of Genesis 1 and explores why it might not be talking about the planet as it is modernly understood. The Lost World of Genesis One dives more into the cultural context of Genesis and how ancient audiences might have understood and comprehended it.
the historical and scholarly consensus is that Jesus did, in fact, exist.
Bart ehrman, the world's leading atheistic Bible scholar, wrote a book dedicated to explaining this to other atheists. https://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062206443
> Sure, I think that there is some historical evidence in the Bible
The Bible is not a historically accurate document. It's a fairy tail. I wouldn't look for answers there. Also, check out this book (also available as an audiobook): "On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt" by Richard Carrier. The best damn deconstruction of the New Testament I have ever listened to. You will learn more about how the Bible was constructed than any Christian in bible study. It should be required reading for this sub.
We have massive amounts of evidence which contradicts the Bible's story. It's not just absence of evidence.
You should read this book. It gives the consensus archaeological view of the history of the early Bible. It's not quite up to date, but still very good. https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869136
All of the facts in this video and more are in The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman and if you read the book you will get more facts more efficiently (Finkelstein is interviewed on camera in the video). Nevertheless the video definitely adds. The CAD representations of the Temple Mount are the best I have seen. Also I have not before seen video of the Samaritans doing blood sacrifice by the ancient recipe and it makes for a whomping visual impact.
The life is in the blood. Yeah we all learned that part a long time ago but a picture can be worth a thousand words.
The same as Old Testament Scholar John Walton. He argues that Genesis 1 is actually about God assigning function to the cosmos in a 7 day period, and not about an actual material creation. By comparing the creation account in Genesis 1 with these other accounts, including those from Egypt, Babylon, and Mesopotamia, we can see some big similarities between Genesis 1 and the creation myths of Israel’s neighbors.
His main arguments are 1. Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts are typically concerned with function, rather than material origins. 2. The Hebrew term bāra͗ (“to create”) refers to the assignment of functions. 3. The beginning state of Gen 1:2 is one that lacks function, not materiality 4. The first three days establish the major life-sustaining functions of time, weather, and food. 5. In days four through six God assigns functions to plants and animals. 6. The refrain, “It was good,” is a comment on function. 7. God’s rest on the seventh day implies that he is taking up residence in his temple, since “everyone” in the ancient world knew that “deity rests in a temple, and only in a temple” (p. 72).
There were no historical official records such as birth certificates and the like. The kind of records you could expect for Jesus would be mentions by Jesus’ contemporaries or by historians who reported what they knew, or thought they knew, about Jesus.
Philo of Alexandria was a contemporary of Jesus and wrote about every important movement or person of whom he knew in Judea, but never mentioned Jesus or a movement founded by Jesus. Nicolaus of Damascus (official court historian of Herod the Great) could have mentioned the amazing events surrounding the birth of Jesus, and Justus of Tiberias (King Agrippa’s personal secretary) could have mentioned the events in the life of Jesus, but it seems that neither did. Richard Carrier says, in On the Historicity of Jesus:
>We do not have the works of Nicolaus or Justus. but we have the works of Josephus, who used them as sources, and we can safely conclude that if either author had mentioned anything about Christ, Christians or Christianity, later Christian authors would have preserved at least mention of it, if at the very least to rebut it or make note of their attestation to Jesus or early Christians or Christianity.
The first-ever non-biblical reference to a Jesus of history is in the Annals of Tacitus, dating to around 116 CE.
It's so strange that the same Bart Ehrman wrote a book called Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument <strong>for</strong> Jesus of Nazareth
He argued that the Historical Jesus (i.e. the man, not the religious claims) existed.