Books to Read

Herman Ridderbos, "Paul: An Outline of His Thought". Essential Reformed reading and a classic text on Paul's biblical theology highly regarded outside of Reformed circles. It is a gold mine.

 

Herman Bavinck, "Reformed Dogmatics, volume 1: Prolegomena". Essential Reformed reading, a truly monumental work. All four volumes have recently been translated into English. Bavinck was a Dutch Reformed theologian who died in the 1920's.

 

N.T. Wright, "The New Testament and the People of God." This is the first volume of his five or six volume New Testament Theology, three volumes of which have been published.

 

John Frame, "The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God". This is the first volume of his systematic theology, titled "A Theology of Lordship," on the topic of epistemology from a Reformed perspective.

 

Vern Pothress, "The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses". An important work from a WTS-Pa professor on the relationship between Christ and the Mosaic Law.

 

Karl Barth, "Dogmatics in Outline". A short book containing lectures that Barth delivered in the framework of the Apostle's Creed. I'd like to read this or his "Evangelical Theology" before beginning to read his massive "Church Dogmatics." There's also a Barth reader published by Fortress Press in the "Making of Modern Theology" series.

 

Augustine, "City of God" and "The Trinity". Important classic works.

 

Soren Kierkegaard, "The Essential Kierkegaard". A reader of selections from Kierkegaard's works, compiled by the editors who translated most of his works into English.

 

Gregory of Nazianzus, "The Theological Orations." In the Library of Christian Classics volume on "The Christology of the Later Fathers".

 

Robert Letham, "The Holy Trinity." Recent Reformed work on the Trinity, partially as a response to Robert Reymond's Systematic Theology. Discusses history (ancient and modern), scripture, and worship.

 

Craig Blomberg, "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels." Important scholarly work on the reliability of the Gospels from an evangelical perspective.

 

Eugene Peterson, "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places." First volume of his multivolume "Conversation in Spiritual Theology.".

 

Frederick Copleston, "History of Philosophy," volume one of nine. It covers the origins of philosophy in Greece through Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and a bit past them.

 

Jaroslav Pelican, "Credo: Histoical & Theological Guide to Creeds & Confessions". His magnum opus. Also, his five volume "History of the Development of Doctrine" is pretty important too.

 

Michael Horton, "God of Promise". Recent, short book on covenant theology.

 

Kevin Vanhooser, "First Theology." A collection of his stimulating writings on the topic of theological interpretation.

 

George Ladd, "A Theology of the New Testament" and Donald Guthrie, "New Testament Theology." Both are classic NT Theologies written in recent decades from an evangelical perspective.

 

Brevard Childs, "A Biblical Theology of the Old & New Testaments." Magnum opus of the founder of canon criticism.

 

Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Truth & Method". Massive work on hermeneutics.

 

Brian Gerrish, "Grace & Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin." Important recent work on Calvin, in which he argues that all of Calvin's theology has a eucharistic shape, in which God as our Father is feeding us unto eternal life.

 

Ronald Numbers, "The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism". Scholarly historical overview of creation science and young earth creastionism arguing that it has its origins in a Seventh Day Adventist approach to literal seven-day creationism. The author is an agnostic.

 

George Caird, "The Language & Imagery of the Bible". Highly regarded work on biblical interpretation and exegesis, focusing on linguistic issues related to interpretation.

 

H. Oliphant Old, "The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the 16th Century". Important work on, well, the development of 16th century Reformed Baptismal rites by a (the?) leading Reformed liturgical scholar.

 

H. Oliphant Old, "The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship." The title says it all, by a (the?) leading Reformed liturgical scholar.

 

Thomas Oden, "Classical Pastoral Care". Four short volumes on various topics related to pastoral care in the early church, such as preparation for ministry, word & sacrament, crisis ministry, pastoring, etc.

 

Emmanual Tov, "Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible." THE book on the text of the Hebrew Bible.

 

Geerhardus Vos, "The Pauline Eschatology." The sequel to his "Biblical Theology."