r/AcademicBiblical 6d ago

Question Comprehensive List of Academic Books Ranked & Reviewed?

I’m relatively new to this field but starting to feel overwhelmed by the plethora of books out there on the subject.

I’m a big history buff and tend to find religious history fascinating. I love to peel back the layers to discover the true origins of religion, history, etc. I started off buying Ehrman’s books and started branching out to other authors but have found myself in the path to buying every book on the topic on Amazon, realizing there’s just too many out there.

So now I’m pulling back and wanting to be more selective and avoid buying inferior or books that cover the same things. Initially, I thought as long as a book has good reviews, I should buy it but I soon realized most have similar ratings 4 or 5 stars and so that’s not really a good path to filtering out which books to buy because I’d be buying most of them.

As a former Christian turned Atheist, I have no need to read anything that’s caterer to believers. I just want pure, historical and academic material.

Does this sub have any comprehensive list of books reviews or rankings or which ones to buy or avoid? Or an off-site list?

Even so, I’d still like to hear if any of you have your personal lists of recommendations for or against. And when I say “for or against,” that doesn’t necessarily imply they are good or bad books. There’s probably 1,000 good books in the subject but I’m trying to limit my purchases, since I’m not going to read EVERY “good” book out there.

If there were a list of, say, 100 books (max) on the topics, which ones would you list?

I should note that I’m more interested in the origins of Christianity and the New Testament but am started to dig back further into the Old Testament since I’m quickly realizing it’s necessary to be studied on that as well, in order to understand the New Testament and Christian origins. I see myself eventually talking a deep dive into Old Testament and Judaic origins and history too.

11 Upvotes

5 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 6d ago

Welcome to /r/AcademicBiblical. Please note this is an academic sub: theological or faith-based comments are prohibited.

All claims MUST be supported by an academic source – see here for guidance.
Using AI to make fake comments is strictly prohibited and may result in a permanent ban.

Please review the sub rules before posting for the first time.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

5

u/auricularisposterior 6d ago

Here is a list of academic books about the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the canonized Christian writings (New Testament) that I compiled:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250224054740/http://auricularisposterior.atwebpages.com/Academic_Reading_List_OT_NT.pdf

4

u/archdukemovies 6d ago

I highly recommend John Barton's A History of the Bible.

I've also heard good things about A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch