Books and Books and More Books

This weekend, I finished reading Gordon Fee and Eldon Epp’s Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism (Studies and Documents)

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The book is a collection of essays by two great text critics. I think my favorite essay was chapter 14, “The Significance of the Papyri for Determining the Nature of the New Testament Text in the Second Century: A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission.”

I think Epp’s discussion of the papyri and textual transmission is excellent. I like his provoking suggestion that the manuscripts we have from that time period, even though they were found in Egypt, are not necessarily from Egypt originally. And from what I’ve read, this thesis is not one that majority text adherents even discuss. They simply assume that because a manuscript is found in a place, it was copied in that place. Epp demonstrates otherwise.

Two other book interests that I have right now…

I came across this book in the library:

The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrativ by Christopher Wright

As far as I can tell, its about mission and hermeneutics. Basically two of my 5 favorite topics to read about (the others begins textual criticism, linguistics, and Greek).

The other book is:

Early Christian Mission: Paul and the Early Church by Eckhard Schnabel

The best price I’ve found for this book is $25 at half.com. I have volume #1 on Jesus and the Apostles. I’m about half way through it. This is the first detailed indepth study of missions in the New Testament in 100 years.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to get them though, the budget cannot afford books right now…maybe Christmas…