I posted a list of the better books and articles I read or referenced during the first semester of divinity school at the end of last semester.  Below is a similar list for the second semester.  There were a few books that we used both semesters.

The list is not in any particular order, though I attempted to group them by topic.  We (or I) read all or part of each of the works.  This list includes around 85% of our assigned reading.  Most all the assignments were thought provoking and worth reading.

  1. Michael D. Coogan, ed., The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 4th ed (NRSV) (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2010).
  2. The Jewish Study Bible 2nd ed. (New York:  University Press, 2014).
  3. John J. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014).
  4. Bruce C. Birch et al., A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, Tennessee:  Abingdon Press, 2005).
  5. Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsey, eds., Women’s Bible Commentary 3rd ed. (Louisville, Kentucky:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012).
  6. Abraham J. Heschel, “What Manner of Man is the Prophet?,” pp. 3-26 in The Prophets (New York:  Harper and Rowe, 1962).
  7. Katheryn P. Darr, “Ezekiel’s Justifications of God,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 55 (1992), 97-117.
  8. R. Norman Whybray, “The Servant Songs,” pp. 66-78 in The Second Isaiah (Sheffield:  JSOT Press, 1983).
  9. Alicia Ostriker, “Psalm and Anti-Psalm,” Religious Studies News/SBL Edition, April 2003.
  10. E.P. Lee, “Ruth”, pp. 142-149, in Women’s Bible Commentary, supra.
  11. The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997).
  12. The Anchor Bible (New York:  Doubleday, 1997).
  13. Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: Reformation to Present Day. Volume 2, 2d ed. (New York:  HarperOne 2010).
  14. Alec. R. Vidler, The Church in an Age of Revolution (London:  Penguin Books, 1990).
  15. Bill J. Leonard, A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 2014).
  16. Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, Documents of the Christian Church, 4th ed. (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2011).
  17. Sor Juana De La Cruz, Poems, Protest and a Dream (New York:  Penguin Books, 1997).
  18. Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness (New York:  Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1952).
  19. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (Boston:  Beacon Press, 2010).
  20. Alexander Campbell, Familiar Lectures on the Pentateuch:  Delivered Before the Morning Class of Bethany College, During the Session of 1859-1860 (Cincinnati, Ohio:  H.S. Bosworth, 1867).
  21. Thomas G. Long, The Witness Of Preaching 3d ed. (Louisville, Kentucky:  John Knox Press, 2010).
  22. Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life (Lanham, Maryland:  Cowley Publications, 1993).
  23. Henry Mitchell, Celebration and Experience in Preaching, Rev. ed. (Nashville, Tennessee:  Abingdon Press, 2008).
  24. John S. McClure & Nancy J. Ramsay, Telling the Truth: Preaching about Sexual and Domestic Violence (United Church Press, 1998).
  25. Christine Marie Smith, Preaching Justice: Ethnic and Cultural Perspectives (Cleveland, Ohio:  United Church Press, 1998).
  26. Thomas G. Long, “Telling the Truth About Life and Death,” Chapter 9 of Accompany Them With Singing:  The Christian Funeral (Louisville, Kentucky:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009).
  27. Thomas G. Long, “O Sing to Me of Heaven:  Preaching at Funerals,” Journal for Preachers, 29, no. 3 (2006), 23.
  28. Robert G. Hughes, “Why I Preach at Funerals?,” Journal for Preachers 9, no. 2 (1986), 8.
  29. J. Philip Wogaman, Christian Ethics: A Historical Introduction, 2d ed. (Louisville, Kentucky:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).
  30. Plato, The Republic, 509d-511e (divided line), 514a-521a (allegory of the cave).
  31. Aristotle, Rhetoric I, 2.
  32. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.
  33. Aristotle, The Politics, I.
  34. Tertullian, On Idolatry, chs. 17, 19, 24.
  35. Stanley Hauerwas, “A Christian Critique of Christian America,” in Charles H. Reynolds and Ralph V. Norman, eds., Community in America:  The Challenge of Habits of the Heart (Berkeley, California:  University of California Press, 1988), 250-65. 
  36. St. Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Man’s Salvation.
  37. St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book I.
  38. St. Augustine, On the Morals of the Catholic Church.
  39. St. Augustine, City of God.
  40. St. Augustine, On Free Will and Grace.
  41. Eleonore Stump, “Augustine on Free Will,” chapter 10 in Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, eds., Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press).
  42. St. Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will, III.
  43. St. Aquinas, Summa Theologica.
  44. K.L. Hughes, “Bonaventure’s Defense of Mendicancy,” in J.M. Hammond, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and J. Goff (eds), A Companion to Bonaventure (Leiden, 2014), 509-42.
  45. Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian.
  46. Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.
  47. Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone.
  48. David Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals.
  49. Jonathan Edwards, Nature of True Virtue.
  50. Schleiermacher, On Religion.
  51. Kierkegaard, Works of Love.
  52. Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae.
  53. Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order and Prayers of the Social Awakening.
  54. John Dewey, “Human Nature and Value.”
  55. Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society.
  56. Karl Barth, The Gift of Freedom.
  57. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship.
  58. Paul A. Anthony, “‘Untruths and Propaganda’ – Churches of Christ, Darwinism, and the 1985-1986 ACU Evolution Controversy.”  D. Min. dissertation, Abilene Christian University.  Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 8.  2016.
  59. Daniel K. Brannan, “Confessions of an Evolutionary Biologist,” MetaNexus.  http://www.metanexus.net/essay/confessions-evolutionary-biologist (September 22, 2003).
  60. James L. Gorman, “The Stone-Campbell Movement’s Responses to Evolution, 1859-1900,” 14 Stone-Campbell Journal 191 (Fall 2011).
  61. Douglas Swartzendruber, “Scientific Knowledge and Belief in God,” Pepperdine Magazine (2009).

Also, here is a list of some of the books suggested to me during the semester by people I respect, again in no particular order (I have not had a chance to read these):

  1. Timothy Keller, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering (New York:  RiverHead Books, 2015).
  2. John H. Leith, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition:  A Way of Being the Christian Community (Atlanta, Georgia:  John Knox Press, 1981).
  3. John Witte, Jr., God’s Joust, God’s Justice:  Law and Religion in the Western Tradition (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006).
  4. Ivone Gebara, Longing for Running Water:  Ecofeminism and Liberation (Biblical Reflections on Ministry) (Minneapolis, Minnesota:  Augsburg Fortress, 1999).
  5. Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics (Northwestern University Press, 1969).
  6. Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Zondervan Publishing House, 1992).
  7. Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart:  The Power of Boundless Compassion (New York:  Free Press, 2010).
  8. Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, eds. Feasting on the Gospels series (Louisville, Kentucky:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2015).
  9. Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance (Louisville, Kentucky:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2014).
  10. Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace:  How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York:  Simon & Schuster, 2010).
  11. L. William Countryman, Biblical Authority or Biblical Tyranny?:  Scripture and the Christian Pilgrimage (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania:  Trinity Press International,  1994).
  12. James V. Brownson, Bible Gender Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013).
  13. William P. Brown, Sacred Sense (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015).
  14. Phyllis Tribble, books and articles by.
  15. George Fox, George Fox:  An Autobiography (New York:  Scriptura Press, 1909).
  16. Frank Morison, Who Moved the Stone:  A Skeptic Looks at the Death and Resurrection of Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Zondervan, 1930).
  17. Four Views on Hell, 2d ed (Counterpoints:  Bible and Theology), Stanley N. Gundry, ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Zondervan, 2016).
  18. Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Counterpoints:  Bible and Theology), J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett, eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Zondervan, 2013).

What books would you suggest?

 

(The picture at the top is one I took in January of a sign outside of a church in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem.  It sought to discourage tour-group leaders from loudly giving long explanations to their group in the church (and from disturbing others), but some of the multiple ways to interpret the sign made me laugh.)