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okay...back from vaction, and the thread is bumped. let's take a look at the book shelf.
For Old Testament. It's hard to go wrong with J. Collin's "Hebrew Bible"
It's a touch pricy, but it's one of the premier texts at the moment, and is up to speed on issues of social theory and recent textual discoveries. L. Boadt's "Reading the Old Testament" is a touch older and thus cheaper, but in terms of backgrounding will serve quite well.
NT is a little tougher to do-there's less material devoted to the NT as a corpus. people take on the Pauline letters, or Revelations, or a Gospel or three. I've used C. Roetzel's "World that Shaped the New Testament" but it's best as a intro text, and doesn't really help read along with the material. "Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context" by the same is a good intro to Paul, maybe a touch dated by now, but classic and careful.
For addressing the Gospels...it's hard to say. I can't in good faith reccomend anything by Crossen, even though it's the most aimed at a popular audience. I've heard good things about R. Brown's "Introduction to the NT." Otherwise, the slightly dated "Synoptic Gospels" by K. Nickle will get you through the first three...
B. Metzger has a book called "New Testament Canon", which should go through most of the issues i talk about here about making writings scripture. I haven't read it myself, but he's a good and accessible author, and i trust his work even if it's more conservative than my own.
that's probably a pretty decent start. i'll swing by the campus bookstore tomorrow...this survey has led me to think that my own collection needs some additions. book addiction, the sad symptom of graduate school.
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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-John 3:16
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