Recommended Books

[Zenas]

His analysis of jewish traits and pathologies/methods is excellent, until he goes back into the Old Testament and tries to use the Yahweh-ordered genocides of Caananites..etc..as proof that "jews are genocidal".

I'm going to suggest no one here would refuse to keep a diamond they found in a dunghill.

MacDonald's expertise is not the OT. Like you say, "His analysis of jewish traits and pathologies/methods is excellent..." I may go to an excellent mechanic to maintain my Ferrari, but if he started telling me about economics, my field, I'd take what he said with a smile, thank him for his excellent care of my car, pay the bill and drive away, happy.

[Zenas]

_______________________________

Perhaps some here wouldn't mind posting the titles of some reference works they have found useful in their biblical studies.

I recently acquired Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, by John H. Walton and am currently working my way through its contents.

Walton suggests that a background in History, Archaeology, Literature and Language contribute to a better understanding of the Old Testament. I am looking forward to digging further.

[wmfinck]

Walton is correct. One book I have found extremely useful is:
Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton, 1969, J. Pritchard, ed.
Another indispensable read is The Works of Josephus : Complete and Unabridged, William Whiston, translator. Hendrickson's Publishers has a good one-volume edition for about $12 or $14.

Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Euripides, Aeschylus, Apollodorus, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo are all important for understanding the ancient Greek world. Livy if you only read one Roman historian. I have also read Thucydides, Xenophon (Hellenica and the Anabasis), Callimachus, Pindar, Caesar, Polybius, Procopius, Virgil, Aratus, Bede, Tacitus, Eusebius, The Greek Anthology, the Bucolic Poets, the Elegaic poets, the Iambic Poets (Archilochus comes to mind), the Epic fragments and Homerica, and certainly a few others.

I need Plutarch's Lives, which I have read parts of on my computer, but it just isn't the same as a book, and also Pliny the Elder, and perhaps Dio Cassius. Hopefully they are soon.

I stayed away from the Philosophers. Didn't want to fill my head with babble!

[Zenas]

____________________________

Anyone use and care to comment on the Ferrar Fenton translation?

I need to replace my Scofield.

[Les]

I sometimes use/read the Ferrar Fenton Translation, but while in some verses it is clearer,in others verses, it is just as murky as the KJV.
the Ferrar Fenton version of the Holy Bible was made by and for British-Israel believers I think.

It has a 'better feel" for those us us spoon-fed jewdeo-christianity all our lives, and are looking for answers why "white power" is not an 'evil' idea, but a Biblical one, a Holy racial Law... (it is after all the book about US, true Israel, not the satanic seedline impostors that the entire world follows now).

I would not just stick to that version only.
Fenton added some good footnotes in it, if you are in the mood to buy a book, it is a good addition to the library and your studies... until we have the William Finck version printed.