Kevin Skull has started another “meme” to those who are so fortunate to receive the honor of being summoned for duty. Here are the rules Kevin set forth:

1.) List the 5 primary sources that have most affected your scholarship, thoughts about antiquity, and/or understanding of the NT/OT.

2.) Books from the Bible are off limits unless you really want to list one, I certainly will not chastise you for it.

3.) Finally, choose individual works if you can.  This will be more interesting than listing the entire corpus of Cicero as one of your choices.

I’ve been summoned first by John Anderson, then Brandon “the Wason”, and then  Michael Whitenton, all of who have posted excellent works for consideration. Since my approach to Scripture is theological, this isn’t exactly an easy post for me because I often minimize the importance/necessity of such works for the understanding of Scripture. For this reason, I do break rule number 3 twice; but since the wording set forth is not so hard-and-fast, I feel no guilt whatsoever.  Moreover, since my theological grid is a canonical perspective, the works below are those that I thus far have found most helpful for a canonical approach to the Scriptures.

1. The Isaiah Scroll – For canonical studies, the discovery of the Isaiah Scroll is, in my opinion, probably the most significant primary resource. I say this mostly because historical critics make a strong cause for a proto, deutero, and trito-Isaiah. Since historical critics find this true, they suggest ripping apart the book of Isaiah into three sections and studying them individually without any thematic or literary unity. The discovery of the Isaiah scroll, however, suggests that the text was read as either a unified corpus or as a single text, regardless of authorship issues. This of course branches out and has implications for the individualizing of the Twelve, then, of course, for the Law, Prophets, and Writings, etc.

2. Enûma Eliš – The discovery of the Enuma Elish is very valuable for interpretation of the biblical texts, especially when it comes to the significance of genre (of course there are other examples, but this Babylonian text was what first influenced my thinking on interpretation and genre). In the Old Testament there are seven different creation accounts, so which one is ‘historical?’ Christians no longer have to blindly accept Gen 1-2 as an exactly historical account of the actual events, rather they are liberated to think freely about whether or not there is something else going on (in the case of Gen 1-2, probably a polemic).

3. Apostolic Fathers – Since the first three centuries of Church history are those who had to begin dealing with a completed canon of Scripture, albeit their interpretations quickly became heterodox and skewed, their commentary and interpretation of the entire biblical corpus is invaluable for a canonical approach

4. ANF & NPNF – See above (3).

5. The Book of Enoch – While this technically might be considered a biblical book according the Ethiopic canon, most do not regard it as a canonical text. In my studies thus far, this book has been very valuable for understanding messianism and progress revelation (in particular, an evolution of belief in the afterlife) and for its midrash on Genesis 6 (this can be debated).

It is now my privilege to bless 5 other with the honor of being summoned for duty: Rodney Thomas, Mark Goodacre, Richard Sherrat, Pete Enns, and Mike Fox (not to be confused with Michael V. Fox, of course).