New Testament reading
Merry Christmas to me, I got a book question! Shared with approval from the asker.
“Hi Emmy! I was wondering if you know of any good books/sources for like, actual historical non-religiously biased info on Jesus and the events surrounding the New Testament? I’ve been out of religion altogether for a bit but this Christmas it occurred to me that, apart from all the religious baggage, if I heard about this guy cold like he was just, idk DiVinci or Joan of Arc or something, I’d be super interested. But at this point in my life I have absolutely no idea how to separate the mythology from history. Everything I can find is all either all about proving the events from an evangelical point of view, or debunking it from an atheist point of view. I’m also curious about history of the NT writers and what actually happened there rather than like “this book is called Matthew because it was written by Matthew” if that makes sense. I hope you’re having a great holiday!”
My first two recommendations are The New Testament in Its World by N.T. Wright and Jesus for Everyone by Amy-Jill Levine. These are two REALLY different authors. Wright is very in depth on his scholasticism and kind of dry as a writer, and also tied to Christianity in the Church of England, so his is a very academic and yet faith-based approach. I think he sets a really good baseline for what the best scholarship says, without using it like a weapon to "take down" Christianity the way other scholars sometimes do.
Levine on the other hand is a Jewish woman who is an expert on the New Testament and Jesus. I haven't read Jesus for Everyone since it just came out this year but her other books (there are many) are very very good. She reads Jesus and the events surrounding him with a Jewish lens. She's a bit of a contrarian - if there's an opportunity to say the Christian church got or gets Jesus wrong, she'll say it which I think is a really worthwhile perspective, especially in contrast with Wright (although he's also very honest about historical and cultural influences on Christianity, hence my recommendation).
For history of the New Testament writers I'd go with Mark Allen Powell's Fortress Introduction to the Gospels, which is in its 2nd edition since first publication in the 90s -- just really solid scholarship about what we know or guess (a lot is academic reconstruction) about the gospels and their writers.
What say you, Substack? What other books would you recommend OR what question do you need a book prescription for?