Bibliography of Valuable Resources

  • Date published/Date accessed
  • Author/Editor/Responsible Party
  • Article or Chapter Title
  • Resource Title
  • Publisher
  • Link
  • Blurb: the basic topic, target audience, value of the resource, and author’s perspective. Try to include searchable terms.

Each resource gets it’s own post, if possible.

This is a bookish group of folks who share resources all the time, all over the place. I have found a few threads attempting to create book lists, but they seem to have lived short lives, maybe because they were too topic specific. If there is interest, I think this could be a useful thread to keep a searchable running list of valuable resources.

I recommend we use a consistent format like the one above, which should help us be able to find more quickly what we are looking for. Include what information is available about the resource, so others can get back to it. If you have a link (maybe to a book seller, Goodreads or a publisher) even for a book, that can help people find a physical book, if they want to read it.

I hope this is helpful and useful to you all. I am looking forward to resources that will help me learn more.

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Okay, I’ll play.

2012
E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien
Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible
IVP Books
https://www.amazon.com/Misreading-Scripture-Western-Eyes-Understand-ebook/dp/B00BL3JXYE

This book is a great intro to the idea of a culturally contextualized hermeneutic and has lots of examples of how just going with the “plain meaning” leads Westerners astray because of their implicit cultural assumptions that don’t match the ANE context. (It’s written from an Evangelical perspective for Christians.) It doesn’t deal specifically with origins issues, which makes it a good book to share with people who are touchy and defensive about culturally appropriate Genesis interpretations. It makes a great case for how often we misunderstand Scripture by imposing our own worldview, and how important it is to understand the world Scripture was communicated in. It makes a great prequel to books like the Lost World series.

3 Likes

Thanks, Christy! When you get a chance, would you add in The Lost World Series, too?

2019
Gregg Davidson
Friend of Science, Friend of Faith
Publisher: Kregel
Amazon link

Davison writes intellegently for the non-expert in science yet is honest about the need for expertice in the discussion of science and christianity. He covers the history of conflicts between science and faith leaders, a right handling of scripture, “challenging” areas of scripture, the credibility of modern science, and sums up the current war over origins.
Faith and Science; Evolution; Layman; Lay person; Geology; Paleontology; Creation; Theistic evolution .

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This is a great idea, Kendel - and I have all sorts of books I get excited about and want to share - most of which I will have already mentioned or discussed in other venues. The only reasons I’ve delayed in adding them here is that it would seem other works by, say, Francis Collins or Lamoureux are more central to what this site is about and probably deserve to be near the top of the list. And I’m not sure if you wanted this list to be focused exclusively on faith - science - Christian witness matters or if you want just any books here that we’ve found edifying or helpful for philosophy / life. Do you want the list to stay aloof from authors like Enns or Rohr that will stir up more controversy?

Whichever ways this bibliography goes, it’s a great idea. I too would prize having one place to come back to to do a search for highly recommended stuff.

My thought is to have a one-stop-shopping post for resources people think are important enough to mention to others. I would prefer to put no guidelines or limitations on the list, realizing that that may lead to an entire fail.
I wouldn’t worry about order, probably because I work with library catalogs a lot, where order of the bibliographic records is irrelevant. Also, this software remembers where we left off on threads, so people won’t automatically be taken to “the top”,if they’ve looked before.
Good terms in the “records” (individual posts) are more important. It’ll be interesting to see how this goes without controlled vocabulary like Library of Congress Subject Headings. Can we come up with useful enough “tags” on our own?

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True archivist spirit of a librarian showing through there! And in that spirit, I hope to contribute. As you suggest, if our tags are good and appropriate, then later searches ought to be able to unearth any treasures sought. Controversial stuff, if well labeled, can be sought or avoided according to the needs of the seeker.

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This is a good idea, but unless it is organized into an indexed database, as it grows it will eventually become unwieldy and unusable.

Not a very encouraging outlook, I’m afraid. No one is obliged to participate.
I guess we’ll see if it works.

  • Tagging is all the rage now, even among professional catalogers.
  • The Fora are searchable. I have found a good deal that way, so I’m fairly confident that anyone who includes “bibliography” in their search terms will get to this, and if people include useful words in their “bibliographic records” users will be able to find what they need.
  • Posters can edit their “bibliographic record posts” if they feel their item is being missed.

I work in state government. Many of us regularly deal with things not working and having to create work-arounds to actually accomplish something.

If it fails, it fails.
If no one participates, no one participates.
If people love it, they love it.
If it helps 3 people sane and 2 forgetful people find a title they knew was helpful but couldn’t remember more than that it was a paper back, mostly black with a gallexy and dinosaur bones on the cover, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
We have no way of knowing, unless we try.

2 Likes

Published: 2018
Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Book: Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others
Publisher: Harper One
Amazon link ($12.99 for Kindle edition as of this posting March 2022)

If you’re a Christian who has grown uncomfortable with how that faith tradition has interacted with people of other faiths or no religious faith at all, and are ready to explore positive ways of relating to the rest of the world without turning your back on your own faith - this book is for you. But that comes with this caveat (that the author herself will volunteer): Your own faith and your own notions of who God is and who all God reaches will not easily emerge from this book unscathed. So if you are of the kind of person who feels a need to maintain a list of institutions or authors who stray outside a carefully policed perimeter of doctrinal boundaries, - then this book will not be for you. This author is entirely comfortable wrestling with scriptures. She writes very relationally and openly about how her own faith was changed as a result of her experiences with her students. It will help Christians (or anyone) relate more attentively and responsively with other major faith traditions of the world.

Religious pluralism, respect, dialogue, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism

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Not trying to rain on your parade. I just think this would work better in a relational database. Are you leaving this information in this thread?

I don’t think anybody is under the illusion that a thread in a forum will be as efficient as or do all the heavy lifting that dedicated databases (and libraries themselves) will do. It’s just a quick and easy crowd-sourced repository for great resources. In this computer age, it doesn’t even need to be ordered as Kendel pointed out to me. Search engines will do the heavy lifting of sorting through a long thread to find a fragment of a title or author. She’s not trying to compete with full-fledged institutions here. Just helping us pool our valuables in an easier-to-find spot for those who like to hang around these here parts! :books:

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If you can find the volunteer, LibraryThing and TinyCat are perfect for what you suggest.

  • Date published/Date: 2019
  • Author/Editor/Responsible Party: Todd Charled Wood, Darrell Falk
  • Article or Chapter Title
  • Resource Title: The Fool and the Heretic: How Two Scientists Moved beyond Labels to a Christian Dialogue about Creation and Evolution
  • Publisher: Zondervan
  • Link
  • Description: The Fool and the Heretic is told by two respected scientists who hold opposing views on the topic of origins, share a common faith in Jesus Christ, and began a sometimes-painful journey to explore how they can remain in Christian fellowship when each thinks the other is harming the church; provides a model for how faithful Christians can hold opposing views on deeply divisive issues yet grow deeper in their relationship to each other and to God.
    Science and faith;Gracious dialogue; Gracious discourse.
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  • Date published/Date: originally written in 1979
  • Author/Editor/Responsible Party: Gary Zukov
  • Article or Chapter Title
  • Resource Title: Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics
  • Publisher: HarperOne
  • https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Wu-Li-Masters-Overview/dp/0060959681
  • Description: This is a long time go-to for an introduction to modern physics, including quantum physics. This book is much more entertaining than the staid descriptions of physics in other books aimed at the general public. Zukov uses Buddhist concepts to give physics a somewhat spiritual context, but it is by no means a book meant to convert anyone to Buddhism. It is somewhat “new agey”, but only in the mall store crystal paperweight kind of way, and the surface treatment of spirituality shouldn’t offend any Christian. If you ask for suggestions on a good book to learn about the basics of modern physics this book will always be near the top.
2 Likes
  • Date published: 2019
  • Author: James Montgomery Boice
  • Article or Chapter Title
  • Resource Title: Foundations of the Christian Faith: Revised and Expanded
  • Publisher: Intervarsity Press
  • Link: Foundations of the Christian Faith - InterVarsity Press
  • 50-ish words listing: This is a very readable, thorough, easily-searchable, basic overview of Protestant theology, written for the intellegent layperson. The tone of the book is friendly without relying on stories. Excellent indexing and table of content. The book lends itself to a read through as well as use as a reference work.
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MacCauley was interviewed for the Language of God podcast Esau McCaulley | Justice & the Bible - Podcast Episode - BioLogos.

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  • Date published: 2020
  • Author: Ben Stanhope
  • Title: (Mis)interpreting Genesis: How the Creation Museum Misunderstands the Ancient Near Eastern Context of the Bible
  • Publisher: Scarab Press
  • Link: https://www.amazon.com/Mis-interpreting-Genesis-Creation-Misunderstands/dp/0578823691
  • 50-ish words listing: In this book, the autor pointing out exegetical fallacies of Young Earth Creationism, particulary The Creation Museum. Utilizing a clear language, he show the ANE context of severals passages in the Old Testament. Super recommended!!!
4 Likes
  • Date published: 2020
  • Author: Gijsbert van den Brink
  • Article or Chapter Title
  • Resource Title: Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory
  • Publisher: Eerdmans
  • Link: Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory - Gijsbert Van Den Brink : Eerdmans
  • 50-ish word description: Gijsbert van den Brink’s book is for anyone interested in the theological implications of evolutionary theory. For the sake of argument, he assumes that the Darwinian account of evolution is true. He then asks what that would mean from a (Reformed) theological point of view. This book is a serious consideration of the three places where adjustments are needed in classical (Reformed) theology:
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  • Date accessed: 03/16/2022
  • Principal Editor: Edward N. Zalta
  • Resource Title: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Publisher: Stanford University
  • Link: https://plato.stanford.edu/
  • Blurb: This free website is an outstanding reference tool, geared toward uppe-level undergraduate readers and beyond. It includes entries for specific terms and concepts, philosophical periods and movements, and individual philosophers. As an encyclopedia, it includes excellent entry-level essays, providing the user a good overview to begin further enquiry. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy should not be mistaken for the actual study of philosophy.
2 Likes