New Testament Scholarship: 50 Books Everyone Should Read

If there is one thing my friends know about me, it is that I am a bibliophile—especially when it comes to good academic books that help me study the New Testament. Not only have I collected hundreds of books as a professor (and formerly as a doctoral student), but before that, I worked for a publisher (Hendrickson), as well as CBD (Christian Book Distributors). During my short stint working for CBD, I was also volunteering with a middle-school ministry where the kids (endearingly?) referred to me as “the book guy.”

Anyway, I often get asked about book recommendations by students, friends, and readers of www.cruxsolablog.com, and I thought it high time I shared my list of 50 books on the New Testament that every Bible nerd should read.

Caveat: this is my starter list, so it is subjective and incomplete, and it avoids massively long books wherever possible (expect a few key exceptions). I am thinking particularly of college students, seminarians, and pastors who want to dive into New Testament scholarship. When I look back on the shaping of my understanding of the New Testament, these are the books that stick out to me. Please share yours as well, in the comments. I’m always up for reading another!

Here goes! (In author-alphabetical order, because I’m weird that way.)

Gospels

We’ll start with Dale C. Allison’s The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus. Allison has written a lot, but this book (~100 pp.) offers a nice, personal reflection on the challenges of bringing history and theology to the table of the conversation about Jesus. It helped me get a personal perspective to help me process the messiness of “questing” for Jesus. (For a heftier study, try Allison’s Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History.)

Next we have Paul N. Anderson’s The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel. This is an introductory book, but Anderson did two really important things for me. 1) He introduced me to the paradoxical aporiae in John (the paradoxical stuff that makes you scratch your head), and 2) then he offered key pointers toward putting them into a wider, sensible framework. He also made a powerful argument for taking John more seriously historically.

Perhaps I could be faulted for not starting off this discussion with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic The Cost of Discipleship—not a normal “academic book,” but hugely influential, and for good reason. If you put this book in context (Nazi Germany) and read between the lines, it could have easily signed his death warrant from Hitler. It’s a bold (and fair) reading of the Sermon on the Mount that reminds us that Jesus calls with grace, yes, but he calls us to die.

One thing I regularly teach my students is that you will get the gospels wrong if you can’t figure out what they are trying to teach, and that leads to a genre question. Richard Burridge drove my understanding of the gospels forward in monumental leaps with his overall work, but especially What Are the Gospels? By comparing the gospels to ancient Greco-Roman biographies, he was able to show me that historical works in that time were, by nature, moral works aimed at promoting imitation of a heroic character. (I benefited also, in similar ways, from his Imitating Jesus.)

Genre is helpful. So is making sense of the gospels as narratives. My eyes were opened to the world of “narrative criticism” by Alan Culpepper in his Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel—a new classic! Now I cannot read the gospels (or any other narrative) without asking questions about narration, plot, and characterization—a gift and a curse. (How do I turn off the processing?)

What about what the church should do with the gospels today? Perhaps no book on the gospels has had a stronger impression on me than Luke Timothy Johnson’s short Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church, a stirring study of Luke-Acts in view of Luke’s shaping of a prophetic vision of Jesus and the people he sent in mission.

Craig Keener has also impacted me in my study of the gospels, but his books are much longer! I have so many of Keener’s works, but I would recommend his two volumes on Miracles, where he has taken on the old claim that Jesus couldn’t have done miracles because they just don’t happen and they are not a part of life experience. Keener traveled all around to record and analyze claims of the miraculous and has made a strong case that we really need to open our eyes and ears, rather than just running at the mouth!

I have taught John’s gospel many times, and I have learned so much from Craig Koester—especially from his Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. This book helped me see the powerful use of symbols and metaphors in the New Testament. (See also his outstanding The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel.)

Everyone should read something on Jesus and the gospels by Scot McKnight. It’s hard to choose, but I found his recent Sermon on the Mount commentary gripping: hermeneutically responsible, historically informed, and pastorally satisfying. You will never see Jesus’ most famous teaching the same again!

N.T. Wright—No doubt he’s a power player in the historical Jesus arena, so I have to mention his epochal Jesus and the Victory of God. When I first began reading it, it made little sense to me. I have picked it up here and there later on and found it helpful, as I have understood the shape of Jesus studies throughout history and today better. However, I was really blown away by his When God Became King, a holistic and theological reading of the wider story behind the gospels, a story which brings together Jesus’ preaching and ushering in of the kingdom of God with his death and resurrection. I have used it as a textbook, and I would use it again and again. Not uncontroversial, but absolutely worth reading. One thing I love about Wright’s work: he repeatedly inspires me to turn back to the Old Testament to help make sense of the New.

Paul

Let’s start with Karl Barth—not your garden-variety New Testament scholar. Barth is often discussed in systematic and historical theology circles, but he was serious about Scripture and wrote some very important commentaries. Romans is his most famous (as the book that launched a thousand controversies), but also I want to mention his Philippianscommentary which, though quite brief, is also rich in theological insight. So make sure you get a chance to read a “Barth” commentary.

On an entirely different note, we have J. Christiaan Beker. Beker is known for his contributions to seeing Paul’s theology in apocalyptic categories—especially the triumph of the hostile cosmic powers. I would recommend his Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel. I used to think that Jesus’ salvific gift was essentially heavenly paperwork that erased my debt of sin. Beker was one of those leading figures who helped me to see the cosmic, world-transforming, powerful nature of God’s rescue operation in and through Jesus Christ.

Next we have Michael F. Bird. Bird is a “renaissance man” in NT scholarship, having published in Jesus studies, gospels, early Judaism, Paul, and now even systematic theology! But perhaps one of his most lasting and significant contributions is his work on Paul’s soteriology and especially the language of justification/righteousness. I suggest you read his The Saving Righteousness of God.

Gordon Fee should also be on your reading list. Fee is one of the most well-respected biblical scholars in all of history and for good reason. He has earned a reputation as a first-rate commentator (1 Corinthians, Philippians, 1–2 Thessalonians), as well as a textual critic. But he is most appreciated for his work on Paul’s understanding of the Holy Spirit. You could read his magnum opus, God’s Empowering Presence, but I would suggest starting with his shorter work, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. This book rocked my world in seminary and put some important pieces of the Pauline-theological puzzle together for me (pneumatology, salvation history, eschatology, anthropology, ecclesiology).

In the study of Paul, there has been a long history of interest in his doctrines, particularly of salvation. But I have been fascinated with Paul’s view of the life lived in obedience to God, or his ethics. On that subject there are few books as important as Victor Furnish’s now classic Theology and Ethics in Paul. Furnish shows, quite convincingly, that Paul’s “ethics” are not just another area of his life, but naturally flow out of his theology. One cannot understand Jesus Christ rightly without it having an effect on his or her life. A brilliant “must-read!”

This list would be incomplete without Beverly Gaventa, but where to begin? She has written so many fine works on Paul. One might point to her outstanding commentary on 1–2 Thessalonians (Interpretation series), but I would first recommend reading a collection of her Pauline essays called Our Mother Saint Paul. Gaventa excels at drawing out the dynamism of Paul’s apocalyptic theology and the richness of his use of metaphors.

Going back to the subject of theology and ethics (see Furnish above), we have the work of Michael J. Gorman. Gorman, like Bird, has worked in a number of areas (exegesis, theological hermeneutics, Revelation), but I sense that Paul is his first love. Gorman’s book on Paul’s theology of the cross, Cruciformity, has had an incalculable impact on my understanding of Paul, so much so that several articles I have published draw from Gorman’s theo-hermeneutical framework, and I even named my blog “Crux Sola” (the cross alone) as the key theological concept that motivates my scholarship. (I would be failing to offer the best advice possible to you if I didn’t also mention Gorman’s Elements of Biblical Exegesis and his Apostle of the Crucified Lord—both being my favorite textbooks in their respective areas.)

Few scholars have done more to shape and move forward Pauline scholarship than Richard B. Hays. His wheelhouse is Paul’s use of the Old Testament, but every single Christian with a brain and a pair of eyes needs to read his epochal Moral Vision of the New Testament. This is actually a book about the whole New Testament, but his reading of Paul is particularly strong. If you don’t already own it, buy a copy, plan a time to read it, and buy some tape because you will wear it out.

If Hays’ Moral Vision is an important general work, then our most significant specific work is by Joseph Hellerman—Reconstructing Honor in Roman Philippi. Don’t let the title fool you, this book is not simply a socio-historical, geographic, or archaeological study. It is a powerful contextualization of Paul’s subversive, turning-your-world-upside-down theology. If you are willing to patiently read a hefty scholarly monograph, this book will repay you many times over. I have read this work several times, and I always refer to Hellerman’s insights when I teach introductions to Paul. (For those of you less likely to read a scholarly monograph, many of his insights are re-expressed more accessibly in his recent book Embracing Shared Ministry: Power and Status in the Early Church and Why Its Matters.)

Hellerman is a social historian and he shows his strengths in that area. But the “watershed moment” for Pauline scholars taking an interest in the social world of Paul is the book The First Urban Christians by Wayne Meeks. This book focuses on the context and ministry of Paul. Like almost no other, it takes you into the real-life world of Paul, on the ground with him in the city streets where he did ministry. Reading this book is like transforming your understanding of Paul from black and white to full, brilliant color.

And, again, thinking about social history, we have Francis B. Watson, a Pauline expert who was also one of two examiners for my doctoral defense (he passed me!). I recently had a chance to catch-up with Watson and interview him about his new book called Gospel Writing. But my first “Watson book” was his Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, a book (in some ways like Meeks) that fleshed out the real, rough-and-tumble world of life for Paul—a life fraught with accusations, hostility, persecution, and rejection. Watson helped me to understand that Paul was no ivory-tower theologian. He didn’t have book contracts or a blog. His “theology” developed through “social correlates”—real life circumstances and relationships that demanded his articulation of the truth of the gospel. Brilliant stuff, if provocative and controversial at times.

As much as monographs (as we have with Hellerman and Watson) help us to think about Paul’s life and his churches, we obviously rely on close study of his letters to make sense of him. So, we have commentaries to guide us. There are few commentators more capable and interesting than Ben Witherington III. I cut my teeth exegetically on his Chaos and Community in Corinth, and I must own at least ten or twelve other commentaries in the Witherington collection. He is an extremely bright scholar, he is a talented writer (even of fiction), and he has a pastoral heart (a combination you don’t come across very often).

And last but not least, N.T. Wright. You knew it was coming. Where to begin! The class that got me hooked on NT scholarship and even, perhaps, going down the academic path, is an introduction to Paul (taught by the esteemed Roy Ciampa of Gordon-Conwell Seminary) where we were required to read What Saint Paul Really Said by Wright. At that time, I did not even know who Wright was and I had never heard of “the New Perspective on Paul.” That short book knocked me off of my theological seat! Whatever random categories I had for Pauline theology were stripped away and I began to think about Paul as a Jew, in view of the story of God traced through the Old Testament, and in light of the appearance, life, death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus the Messiah who formed a new people around himself and the Holy Spirit! (If you dare, you might pick up his gargantuan Paul and the Faithfulness of God—I am currently on page 456 . . . of 1600).

New Testament Background

When I was in seminary, I had a voracious appetite to better understand the world of Jesus and early Christianity. One of the first books that underscored for me the “Jewishness” of the New Testament is an edited volume (eds. John M. G. Barclay and J. P. Sweet) called Early Christian Thought in Its Jewish Context, which boasted such contributors as Andrew Chester, John Barclay, N. T. Wright, David Catchpole, C. K. Barrett, D. Moody Smith, E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, Graham Stanton, Peder Borgen, William Horbury, Christopher Roland, and Markus Bockmuehl. Few things are more enriching for your study of the New Testament than discovering how Christianity develops within and from reflection on the Old Testament and the Jewish world of the second temple period.

But that was not my first taste of early Christian history and context. I have to give that credit to F. F. Bruce’s New Testament History—a classic, though now I might recommend a more accessible text like Ben Witherington’s New Testament History: A Narrative Account.

One interest that has stuck with me over the last decade or so is that of the social value system of the Greco-Roman world and how it helps us makes sense of early Christian experiences, challenges, and communal life. In this area, you would do well to read David deSilva’s Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Let me also mention his recent, outstanding book, The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James and Jude: What Early Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Before reading this book it never occurred to me that Jesus’ teachings may have been influenced by what he learned from his own teachers!

Next we have the eminent work of the great historian Martin Hengel—Crucifixion. This kind of detailed, historical study opens the eyes to the shame associated with Jesus’ particular death, and the scandal of the Christian allegiance to a crucified Lord.

Another “nonnegotiable” area of study for New Testament context is acquaintance with the Septuagint. And there is no better way to do so, in my experience, than Karen Jobes’ and Moises Silva’s Invitation to the Septuagint. I read it in seminary for a course on Jewish context and background of the New Testament, and it was required again in a postgraduate course at Durham on the Septuagint with Dr. Stuart Weeks and Prof. Loren Stuckenbruck. Prof. Hitzig famously said, “Do you have a Septuagint? If not, sell all you have, and go and buy yourself a Septuagint!” Well, I would add, pick up Jobes and Silva while you’re at it!

The work of Bruce Longenecker should be noted here as well. He has several books that successfully open up the world of the early Christians, but I would put at the top of the list his Lost Letters of Pergamum, a fictional story that puts St. Luke into conversation with a pagan who takes an interest in Christianity. It is the most fun you will ever have learning about New Testament history! If you want more Longenecker, check out his Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World.

Lastly, the apple must not have fallen far from the tree, because we end with the work of Bruce’s father, Richard Longenecker’s Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period. This was the book that opened my eyes to the cottage industry of biblical interpretation that was happening in the second temple Jewish period. I still regularly turn to this book for wisdom.

Theology, Ministry, and Discipleship

We are nearly done with our five-part series on 50 books on the NT everyone should read! We are up to the category of “New Testament theology, ministry, and discipleship.” Several great recommendations here.

First, we start with the work of British luminary Richard Bauckham. Bauckham has written so many outstanding works, but one of my favorite theological texts is his God Crucified, now reprinted within the book Jesus and the God of Israel. This book deals with questions regarding the status and identity of Jesus and the Christian commitment to monotheism. While Bauckham is a capable and careful historian, he draws out excellent theological insights regarding what the earliest Christians believed about Jesus as divine.

Next we have the work of Greg Beale. He wrote a really fantastic book called We Become What We Worship, a work in biblical theology that examines the theological nature of the Judeo-Christian anti-idolatry tradition. I cannot tell you how many times I have referred to this book in my own articles and essays. It is pure gold.

I cannot fail to mention James D. G. Dunn, one of my favorite New Testament theologians. What to recommend? While it is a bit controversial, many bells went off in my head (in a good way!) when I read his Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? Dunn’s answer may surprise some readers (and I disagreed with his answer), but his explanatory model is, I think, quite compelling! This is a short book that packs a heavy theological punch! Also be sure to pick up his Theology of Paul the Apostle.

One of my favorite books on Christian discipleship is Murray Harris’ Slave of Jesus Christ, a penetrating study of how the New Testament uses slavery language in a metaphorical way. It is clear in Harris’ study that central to this symbolism is the idea that Christians are called to total devotion to Christ. I love this book.

When I was living in England, I had the great privilege of having lunch at a conference with Morna Hooker, one of the finest New Testament theologians of our time. She has contributed much to Jesus studies, but I think she has left an indelible mark on Paul’s theology. Check out her essay-collection From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul. She has a few memorable essays in there, but one should pay particular attention to her work on “interchange” – a theory that makes great sense of Paul’s theology and speaks also into key areas like theodicy/suffering and ethics.

He has been called the “dean of evangelical biblical scholarship” – I. Howard Marshall. Can there be a more beloved British gentleman-scholar? If you haven’t read a Marshall commentary, give it some time –you will (otherwise shame on you and your teachers). I happily own (not only several Marshall commentaries, but also) his New Testament Theology – a nice, comprehensive work on the New Testament from a life-long journal of scholarship.

In clear contrast (in personality and theological perspective) is Ernst Kaesemann. He is one of those scholars that can delight and aggravate you on the same page of his writing. He is brilliant and stubborn and enigmatic and extraordinarily lucid. You could have a lot of fun reading his Romans commentary, but I would recommend a posthumously-published collection of lectures and sermons called On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene.

Are you sometimes confused by the wide variety of literature that calls itself “biblical theology”? Then you should read Edward Klink and Darian Lockett’s Understanding Biblical Theology. It is a new(ish) work by some relatively young scholars, but it is a “must-read” to get a proper handle on the range of perspectives on biblical theology and a bit of the currents in the theological study of the New Testament.

In a sense, I was first introduced to New Testament theology by G. E. Ladd, so I happily suggest you read his A Theology of the New Testament. Fun story – one day in the Gordon-Conwell library (while I was a student in 2005), I happened across Ladd’s master’s thesis from when he was a student at Gordon. Everyone needs to read Ladd, especially on eschatology.

One area that I have invested much study in is the biblical language of holiness – thus I heartily recommend David Peterson’s eye-opening study, Possessed by God:A New Testament Theology of Sanctification and Holiness. In much biblical scholarship out there, there is a poverty of understanding of the nature, background, and meaning of holiness imagery in Scripture. Peterson rights many wrongs and paves a more responsible academic path of understanding.

When it comes to thinking about life and work in the church, I cannot think of a better book to recommend than Derek Tidball’s one-of-a-kind Ministry By the Book: New Testament Patterns for Pastoral Leadership. While I only recently started using it as a textbook for leadership courses, students have treasured Tidball’s close study and many insights.

Last, but not least, we have Chris Wright’s almost epochal The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Truth be told, this book has a main focus on the Old Testament, but Wright does cover the whole Bible and his study has vast implications for how we read the New Testament. Every single seminary student, pastor, and missionary needs to patiently and carefully read this book—and then pass it on to someone else.

Scripture, Hermeneutics, and Ethics

Let’s start with D. A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies. Carson, a master interpreter of Scripture, offers sage counsel on how to avoid logical missteps when reading the New Testament, particularly in Greek. Seminary students should all read this book early on in their studies.

When it comes to the broader activity of studying Scripture as the Word of God, I cannot praise highly enough Clayton Croy’s Prima Scriptura: An Introduction to New Testament Interpretation. This work shines, especially in the area of theological and philosophical hermeneutics and the question of how to find meaning in the text. Croy does not dwell on the nitty gritty of exegetical method, but he does supply a series of helpful indexes that offer some examples and samples.

In a similar vein, I want to recommend Joel Green’s Seized by Truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture. This is the perfect kind of book for getting seminary and college students to think about what it means to see Scripture as divine revelation and self-communication.

One of the most difficult and debated topics in hermeneutics and the ethics of Scripture is the matter of women in ministry. I am obviously showing a one-sided bias here, but I must commend Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, edited by Ronald Pierce and Rebecca Groothuis. Many of the exegetical and hermeneutical arguments that see women as restricted from roles of authority and instruction in the church are based on poor logic and slim evidence. Texts that many tout as presenting a “clear teaching” forbidding women from ministry leadership are far more difficult and complex than it may seem from the renderings of many English translations. Several essays in this book clarify historical and exegetical conundrums. Not all essays are equally convincing, but the perspectives offered in this book need to be carefully weighed and evaluated by all interested in the subject of women and ministry.

If you want to get into the method of the practice of sound exegesis, there are many fine textbooks (Blomberg, Fee, Osborne, etc). But I have found A Handbook to the Exegesis of the New Testament, edited by Stanley E. Porter, to be particularly helpful. In over 600 pages (from almost 20 contributors) this volume covers a wide variety of exegetical tools and perspectives: Greek grammar study, genre analysis, source/form/redaction criticism, discourse analysis, rhetorical and narrative criticism, literary criticism, ideological criticism, social-scientific criticism, canonical criticism, study of Hellenistic philosophy, Jewish backgrounds, Roman Imperial context, and application of biblical texts. The contributors are all experts in their respective areas.

And for my part, it is fitting to end this post (and the series as a whole) with N. T. Wright and his Scripture and the Authority of God. This book offers a helpful perspective on the nature and authority of Scripture. One of the key ideas in the book presents Scripture as a worldview story, and it is that story (from God’s perspective, narrating his action and mission) which shapes the Christian life and vocation of the Church.

So, that’s my 50(ish) books that I often recommend to students who want to study the New Testament. Read and enjoy!