Below is a list of the better books and articles I read or referenced for my classwork during this past semester of divinity school.

I posted a similar list for my first year of divinity school here and here.

The list is not in any particular order, though I attempted to group them by topic.  My classes were on Greek, New Testament Interpretation, Theology, a Public Theology Internship, and Islamophobia.

This list includes around 85% of our assigned reading and the major resources for some of my papers.  Most all the assignments were thought-provoking and worth reading.  Below my classwork list is a list of some of the other books and authors recommended to me by people I trust over the past semester.

The list—

  1. The HarperCollins Study Bible, Revised Edition, edited by Harold W. Attridge (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2006).
  2. Clayton Croy, A Primer of Biblical Greek (Eerdmans, 1999).
  3. Bruce M. Metzger, Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek, 3rd edition (Baker, 1998).
  4. Warren Carter and Amy-Jill Levine, The New Testament: Methods and Meanings (Nashville: Abington, 2013).
  5. Jonathan L. Reed, Harper Collins Visual Guide to the New Testament (HarperOne, 2007).
  6. Krister Stendahl, “Why I Love the Bible.” Harvard Divinity Bulletin 35 (2007), https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/winter2007/why-i-love-bible.
  7. “Act of Thecla,” PBS.org, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/primary/thecla.html
  8. “Quotations from primary sources relevant to the study of Josephus’ account of Jesus,” Josephus.org, http://www.josephus.org/quotes.htm.
  9. Ernest Best,“Church,”  In The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, edited by Paul J. Achtemeier (New York:  HarperCollins, 1996), 183-185.
  10. Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, in Volume 7 of the Sacra Pagina Series, General Editor Daniel J. Harrington (Collegeville, Minnesota:  The Liturgical Press 1999).
  11. William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther, I Corinthians:  A New Translation.  Volume 32 of The Anchor Bible, General Editors William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman(Garden City, New York:  Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976).
  12. Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians:  A Commentary on the Greek Text, Volume 7 of the New International Greek Testament Commentary, General Editors I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner, (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000).
  13. Alister E. McGrath, Theology:  The Basics, 3rd ed. (West Sussex, UK:  Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
  14. Elizabeth A. Johnson, Abounding in Kindness (Maryknoll, NY:  Orbis Books, 2015).
  15. James H. Evans, Jr., We Have Been Believers: An African-American Systematic Theology, 2nd Edition (Fortress Press, 2012).
  16. Pamela R. Lightsey, Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology (Pickwick, 2015).
  17. Alister E. McGrath, The Christian Theology Reader, 4th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 2011).
  18. Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014).
  19. Pope Francis Address to Theology Faculty at the Catholic University of Argentina.
  20. M. Shawn Copeland, “Racism and the Vocation of the Theologian,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 2.1 (2002), 15-29.
  21. Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society (2005).
  22. Ivone Gebara, “Ecofeminism and the Trinity,” Longing for Running Water (1999).
  23. Jon Sobrino, Where is God?  (Maryknoll, New York:  Orbis Books, 2004).
  24. Michelle A. Gonzalez, Created In God’s Image:An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology (2007).
  25. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions.
  26. Julian of Norwich, Showings.
  27. Wendy Farley, “Knit and Oned to God,” The Wounding and Healing of Desire: Weaving Heaven and Earth (2005).
  28. Andreas Weber, Matter and Desire (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017).
  29. Council of Chalcedon, Definition of Christian Faith.
  30. JoAnn Marie Terrell, “Rethinking Sacrifice,” Power in the Blood?: The Cross in the African American Experience (2005).
  31. Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Marcia W. Mount Shoop, “Race, Memory, and Eucharist,” A Body Broken, A Body Betrayed: Race, Memory, and Eucharist in White-Dominant Churches (Cascade Books, 2015).
  32. William Placher and Paul Knitter, “What About Them? Christians and Non-Christians,” Essentials of Christian Theology (Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).
  33. Pope Francis, Evangelism and Interreligious Dialogue.
  34. Warren J. Blumfield,  “God and Natural Disasters:  It’s the Gays Fault?,” Huffington Post.com, November 5, 2012, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren-j-blumenfeld/god-and-natural-disasters-its-the-gays-fault_b_2068817.html.
  35. Benjamin Wirt Farley, The Providence of God (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Baker Book House, 1988).
  36. Gillian R. Evans, Augustine on Evil (New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1982).
  37. Terence E. Fretheim, Creation Untamed (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Baker Academic, 2010).
  38. Chad Meister, “Theodicy,” In Dictionary of Christianity and Science, Paul Copan et al., editors (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Zondervan, 2017).
  39. S. Paul Schilling, God and Human Anguish (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1977).
  40. Ted Steinberg, Acts of God, 2d ed.  (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2000).
  41. Gary Stern, Can God Intervene? (Westport, Connecticut:  Praeger Publishers, 2007).
  42. John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis (Downers Grove, Illinois:  IVP Academic, 2009).
  43. Todd H. Green, The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015).
  44. Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduction to Islam, Second Edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).
  45. Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics & Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (London: Oneworld Publications, 2008).
  46. Edward E. Curtis, Muslims in America: A Short History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
  47. Toufic El Rassi, توفيق (Arab in America) (San Francisco: Last Gasp, 2016).
  48. The Qur’an, Translated by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 2008).
  49. Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
  50. Mahmoud Ayoub, Islam: Faith and History (Oneworld Publications, 2005).
  51. William E. Shepard, Introducing Islam, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2014).
  52.  Joshua Canzona, “Opposition to Teaching and Learning about Islam” (July 20, 2016).
  53. Sachiko Murata and William Chittick, The Vision of Islam (Paragon House, 1998).
  54. “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All – Report of the Runnymede Trust Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia.”
  55. “Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and Its Impact in the United States,” CAIR.
  56.  Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs (1993).
  57. A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011).
  58. “Muslims, Islam(s), Race and American Islamophobia” in Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 2011).
  59. Alex Haley and Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
  60. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, Muslim Cool: Race, Religion and Hip Hop in the United States (NYU Press, 2016).
  61. Russell L. Weaver & Donald L. Lively, The First Amendment (4th ed. 2012).
  62. Daniel A. Farber, The First Amendment (3rd ed. 2010).
  63. Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America (Simon & Schuster, 2017).
  64. Jennifer Powell McNutt, “The Clergy Behind Science as We Know It,” Christianity Today (November 27, 2017) (available to non-CT subscribers here).

Also, here is a list of some of the books suggested to me during the semester by people I respect, again in no particular order (I have not had a chance to read these):

  1. James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed.
  2. Vincent L. Wimbush, African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures (2012).
  3. James V.  Brownson, Bible Gender Sexuality (Eerdmans, 2013).
  4. Justin Lee, Torn (Jericho Books, 2013).
  5. Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (HarperOne, 1996).
  6. N.T. Wright, Acts (For Everyone) (2008).
  7. The Study Quran:  A New Translation and Commentary, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ed. (New York:  HarperOne, 2015).
  8. Kester on New Testament Gospels.
  9. Adela Yarbro Collins on New Testament Gospels.
  10. Gail O’Day on New Testament Gospels.
  11. Warren Carter, Telling Tales About Jesus (Fortress Press, 2016).
  12. Amy Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford University Press, 2017).
  13. Lucretia B. Yaghjian, Writing Theology Well:  A Rhetoric for Theological and Biblical Writers (Bloomsbury Academic, 2006).
  14. D.A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Baker Academic, 1996).
  15.  Sally Gary, Loves God, Likes Girls: A Memoir (Leafwood Publishers/ACU Press, 2013), centerpeace.net.
  17. Philip Yancey, Where is God When it Hurts? (Zondervan).
  18. Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (Anchor).
  19. Michael Eric Dyson,Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America (2017)
  20. Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (1996)
  21. James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (2013)
  22. Jon Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross (1994)
  23. Wendell Berry, anything by
  24. Peter Enns, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It (2014).

 

What book(s) would you add to the list of theological books to read?

 

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(The picture is one I took in the main library at Wake Forest University.)

Updated:  Added 19-24 in second list.