Notable Books of 2009

Over at his blog, Ben Witherington has posted the "Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read." Not the most catchy title but it gets the message across. He has an interesting selection, a few which I would like to follow.

As I haven't been interested in too many technical books published this year, I am going to broaden my criteria a bit by inventing new categories every time I reach 2 books.

Academic:

1. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and other studies on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity (Eerdmans, 2009). Well, it is debated on whether this is a 2009 book, but my copy has that as the publishing date so I am sticking with that for convenience sake. This work is essentially God Crucified + a few essays, discussing the Christology of the New Testament in terms of the inclusion of Jesus as part of the "unique identitiy of God/YHWH." It is an excellent study on early Christology which, although not exactly compatible with the work of Hurtado, should be read along with it.
   
   
2. Michael F. Bird, Are You the One Who Is To Come? (Baker Academic, 2009). I am not sure why I purchased this book but I am glad I did. Bird deals with the Messianic questions surrounding Jesus, and proposes that Jesus did indeed have a "Messianic self-understanding" and trajected his ministry and mission in terms of a broad sense of Messianic categories. These categories being far broader than those set out by Joseph Fitzmyer in The One Who Is To Come.
   

Books from 2009 I Wish I had My Hands on:

1.  James D.G. Dunn, Christianity in the Making Vol 2. Beginnings from Jerusalem. (Eerdmans, 2009). I haven't read it, but I am generally impressed with Dunn, as well as the first volume Jesus Remembered.
   
   
2. Aquila H.I. Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son (Wipf & Stock, 2009). If a work is on Christology, I will generally like it  so I hope this will carry through.
   

Notable Books I First Read in 2009:

1.  Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans, 2006). In this work, Bauckham covers almost every possible detail you could think of regarding eyewitness testimony and the gospels. Although some parts are not as strong as others, it would be required reading for anyone dealing with the development of the gospels.
   
   
2. C.H. Roberts, Manuscript, society, and belief in early Christian Egypt. The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1977.  (Oxford University Press, 1979). This is a very small book which has influenced reconstructions of early Christianity in Egypt in a very big way.
   

Popular(ish):

1. Paul Barnett, Messiah: Jesus-The Evidence of History (IVP, 2009). This is an excellent introduction to historical Jesus studies for the interested reader by ancient historian and former bishop Paul Barnett. Unlike some of the other books which really don't talk about much at all, Barnett takes the reader into quite some detail.
   
   
2. James K. Beilby, Paul Rhodes Eddy (editors), The Historical Jesus: Five Views (IVP, 2009). I really enjoyed this book, and those with a bit of knowledge on historical Jesus studies would apprecciate the interaction between the various scholars. The book almost legitimised the Christ myth argument by including it but it is swiftly  shot down by a number of credentialed scholars. The conrtibutors are Robert Price (Christ Myhthicist), John Dominic Crossan (The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant), Luke Timothy Johnson (The Real Jesus), James D.G. Dunn (Jesus Remembered ) and Darrell L. Bock (Jesus Acccording to Scripture).
   

I meant to post this a while ago but got distracted while it sat in my "draft" folder. Happy new year to all.