Books I cannot live without

Thought I'd start this thread here so students of religious subjects can share their favourite books relating to religious studies one way or the other. When you post the titles of the books here, let's try to avoid being too general, please follow the format of this thread or be even more specific in your descriptions. ISBN-codes are useful where they are available, year of publishing and edition is relevant, and make sure to name authors, or editors, compilers etc. where it is relevant and the name of the publishers, but most importantly, include a short text about each book, feel free to describe them any way you'd like, as long as it complies with the rules of the house.

Ah, there are so many books, but the first book that I would like to share with you, is one of my latest additions to my ever-growing collection. It's a book I can no longer live without. It's simply called....


Title: The Greek English New Testament, Nestle-Aland 28th Edition, English Standard Version.
Published by: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft and Crossway, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4335-3031-9
Description: Abbreviated NA28 among scholars, the Nestle-Aland 28th edition is the latest what I'd call a sum-critical edition (obviously not a real term, but I use it since I feel it covers it best) of the Greek texts of the New Testament. On the left side pages it has the sum-critical Greek text with a rather comprehensive critical apparatus in the bottom half of the pages, as well as cross-references in the left margin. And on the right hand pages, the same text is rendered in English according to the 2011 English Standard Version or ESV for short. It's a pretty, well-made book, and you could probably use it both as a shield and a weapon, needless to say, it's a useful book on many levels. On their webpage, Crossway (publisher) says about the book: «Simply formatted and easy to use, the Greek-English New Testament will be an invaluable resource for anyone studying and working from the New Testament in its original language.» I bought it off of Amazon.

Now, to work with biblical Greek texts, you need a few more tools than just a Greek text, and one book I use all the time when researching words and passages in the New Testament is my prized possession—


Title: The Analytical Greek Lexicon
Published by: Samuel Bagster & Sons LTD, 1971
ISBN: N/A
Description: On the title page it says: «An alphabetical arrangement of every occurring inflexion of every word contained in the Greek New Testament scriptures, with a grammatical analysis of each word, and lexicographical illustration of the meanings: A complete series of paradigms, with grammatical remarks and explanations.» Phiew. In short when you want to look up Greek words within a sentence in let's say the NA28 (above), these words and sentences need identifying and analysing in order to find out who is who and what is what, and finding the root words or the words in their simplest forms in order to look them up further, and doing that by hand the old way, can be pretty painstaking, and since we are talking about a third language that is no longer spoken, simply looking it up to get a quick format grammatical analysis will save you both time and energy, and most likely there are fewer errors in that whole book than the number of errors you will make on a single page doing the thing the old school way. So in short, a highly useful book I cannot imagine living without. Bought it at a used books store for nearly nothing at all.

The third book I want to share with you this time around, is another invaluable one when studying the New Testament and a book you will see referenced nearly anywhere when researching the Bible, in one edition or another, and since it's older than 100 years, it's considered public domain:


Title: Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
Author: Joseph Henry Thayer
Published by: Hendrickson Publishers, 11th printing, 2014 (reprint of Thayer's 4th ed. 1896 published by T&T Clark)
ISBN: 978-1-56563-209-7
Description: This is probably the most referenced Greek Biblical lexicon in connection with the New Testament. Ever. This given edition has been added codes for the Strong's Concordance, it's an easy to use resource for anyone dealing with NT translation and analysis. However, like Strong's Concordance this book is in some way limited, for it is old as lava and since it was first published in the latter half 19th century, plenty has happened with the advent of modern textual criticism and how since then, thousands of NT manuscripts and fragments have surfaced and lots has happened to our understanding on 1st century Koine Greek. Still, I use it all the time. It is available several places online for free as well, since copyrights on written texts only last 100 years, you'll figure out what works best for you. I like to have my books in physical format.

I have quite a few more books on the subject, over the years I have filled quite a few bookcases, to the extent I have to have some of my books in my bedroom, since the living room simply isn't enough— so if this thread catches on, I will supply with more book titles as the thread progresses. Anyway, the podium is yours....

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

The Researchers Library of Ancient Texts
www.survivormall.com...

a reply to: infolurker

Despite the fact that the Book of Jasher is a proven Medieval forgery, the founder of the Mormon church as well as many others believed it was the real deal when it showed up in the 18th century, and grew in popularity in the 19th century. Joseph Smith celebrated it as genuine, and is still today as far as I know— always kept in stock at Mormon bookstores.

Check out answers.org... for more

The other books included seem to be a compendium of #1 The pseudepigrapha and the apocrypha of the OT (RH Charles?), #2 The apostolic fathers (Lightfoot et al?) and #3 Sir Lancelot's 1851 translation of the LXX. I have all those books, only from different publishers. My standard apocrypha and pseudepigrapha of OT (1913, RH Charles, two volumes) and Church fathers (1891, Lightfoot & Harmer) and apocrypha of the NT (1924, MR James, reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press) are facsimile reprints of late 19th and early 20th century publications, republished by Apocryphile Press in the 21st century. My Septuagint is the same as yours, but republished at Hendrickson Publishers in 1986 (mine is the 16th printing, from 2014). All great books, and since most of these texts were published en masse in the 19th and beginning of 20th centuries, they are considered public domain meaning anyone with an exemplar can copy it and republish it. Which is great. Rule is 100 years I think.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

I just downloaded Esword and all the free bible versions ,dictionaries ,commentaries and graphics they had . www.e-sword.net... my fav. book is usually my new book which will be The Unseen Realm by Micheal Heiser drmsh.com...

Thucidydes, Herodotus, Livy, Plutarch

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Does E-Sword work offline?

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul
Thucidydes, Herodotus, Livy, Plutarch

I have Herodotus' Histories (Oxford) and The Fall of the Roman Republic by Plutharch (Penguin).

If I were to add a few other titles I have in connection with these, I'd like to add selected works of Cicero, Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars (both Penguin) and the complete works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston, A.M. (Thomas Nelson Publishers). These books I could easily live without and would be simple to find replacements for if I ever lost them, but just as much as I would hate to lose any of my books, I guess they sort fit in to this thread as well.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Yep I've got all those too - mainly in Penguin with a few Loeb.....but the original 4 are the "greats" IMO

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Yes it does .I had it on my other LT but it crashed and I just put it on this new one and it works fine

Kenneth Grant - Outside the Circles of Time

a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul

Love thy Penguins!