God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper

Last weekend was John Piper’s “Why We Believe the Bible” seminar for The Bethlehem Institute. Several in attendance asked that we make a few booklists available that Pastor Piper referred to during the seminar.

There are 3 categories:

• The formation of the canon
• The reliability of the New Testament
• Refuting the claims of some recent critics

We disagree with some of these scholars on other points of doctrine, however their work on the Bible makes us profoundly thankful for them.

The Canon of the New Testament

• Bruce, F. F. The Canon of Scripture
• Geisler, Norman and William Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody, 1986.
• Harris, R. Laird. Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible
• Metzger, Bruce. The Canon of the New Testament
• The Origin of the Bible, Edited by Philip Comfort (Essays by F. F. Bruce, J. I. Packer, and Carl F. H. Henry)
• Sailhamer, John H. How We Got the Bible
• Warfield, B. B. “The Formation of the Canon of the New Testament,” in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible

The Reliability of the New Testament

• Barnett, Paul. Is the New Testament Reliable?
• Baukham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels As Eyewitness Testimony
• Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels
• Bruce, F. F. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?
• Roberts, Mark D. Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

Responses to Recent Critics

• Bock, Darrell L. The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities
• Bock, Darrell L. and Daniel B. Wallace. Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ
• Evans, Craig A. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels
• Jones, Timothy Paul. Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus”
• Witherington, Ben III. What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History—Why We Can Trust the Bible
• Wright, N. T. Judas and the Gospel of Jesus: Have We Missed the Truth about Christianity?

More on TBI Seminars

Pastor Piper normally teaches five of these weekend TBI seminars each year. They run from 7:00 to 9:00 on Friday night and then 9:00 to 12:00 on Saturday morning. If you’re in the Twin Cities area (or if you want to come from out of town, as some do), here are the dates (and a couple of the topics) for upcoming seminars:

• March 7-8, 2008 - TULIP, Part One
• March 14-15, 2008 - TULIP, Part Two
• September 12-13, 2008 - TBA
• November 7-8, 2008 - TBA
• January 16-17, 2009 - TBA
• April 3-4, 2009 - TBA