If money was not a big problem...

I would add Grammatical Analysis of the Greek NT, the IVP Essential Reference Library, LSJ (if you got the Perseus collection, both if you didn't), The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, The Exegetical Summary series, a good grammar (like Wallace's), The Anchor-Yale Dictionary, and Baker Exegetical. Personally I don't gain much from Hermeneia/Continental nor from the Anchor-Yale Bible. You don't need Tyndale, and I think Hughes' Preaching the Word series is a better (but less complete) expository series than BST.

 

Hi Taxee,

It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing your own theological leanings. Based on your existing purchases, you're more likely to find Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, Baker Exegetical Commentary, Tyndale and BST Commentaries valueable than you are Hermeneia/Continental and Anchor Yale Bible.

I was asked to do a buyers guide for an evangelical seminary recently. Here's my "other useful resources" section, minus the resources you already own. If you're not upgrading to portfolio, the most useful resources you'll miss are HALOT and Liddell-Scott lexicons, together with ISBE. They're all worth considering, but they wouldn't be a first-line choice (unless your Hebrew is half-decent, in which case you'll want HALOT).

Commentaries

• The Bible Speaks Today - an excellent intermediate series. Excellent value.
• Tyndale Commentaries - one of the best intermediate evangelical sets. Covers OT & NT. Good value.
• Preaching the Word Collection - very good series designed for preachers. Full of application and illustration. Many volumes by R. Kent Hughes. 19 vols.
• Calvin's Commentaries - all 46 volumes of Calvin's commentaries. Old, but still very well worth reading. £96.
• Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT - another excellent evangelical academic set. £122 for 8 volumes (though that's still much cheaper than in print).
• NIV Application Commentary - an excellent set, particularly helpful in sermon prep as it covers the original meaning, timeless principles and contemporary application. NT, 20 vols. OT Prophets, 8 vols, £100.
• Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary - excellent and almost unique. Points out very useful background information in every chapter of the Bible. Full of photographs, though regrettably expensive. NT, 4 vols. OT, 5 vols.
• Lloyd-Jones' Exposition of Ephesians - transcriptions of his sermons. 8 volumes.
• Focus on the Bible Commentaries - Christian Focus' answer to Welwyn. Includes several volumes from Dale Ralph Davis. Rather pricey. 32 volumes.
• Complete Charles Spurgeon Collection - all 63 volumes of the Metropolitan Tabernacle and New Park Street Pulpits.
• IVP NT Commentary - similar level to BST. Equally evangelical, though not quite as helpful nor as good value. 18 vols.
• Baker's NT Commentary - from Hendrikson and Kistemaker. Solid, reformed, but sometimes uninspiring. 12 volumes.
• Additions to commentary sets
  Several new volumes have recently been added to most commentary sets, including NAC, BECNT, Pillar and NICOT/NICNT. They're not yet included in the base packages or collections so if you want everything that's available you have to buy the extra volumes.

Dictionaries

• Essential IVP Reference Collection - fantastic collection of IVP dictionaries, with a genuine claim to be essential. Budget for this if you can. 2 volumes of OT dictionaries are available separately.
• Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary - the most comprehensive Bible dictionary. Not evangelical, so not every article is useful, but it's consistently excellent on people/places, and often good elsewhere. 6 volumes.
• NIDNTT and NIDOTTE - very good theological and exegetical dictionaries. NIDNTT is similar to TDNT and EDNT, but NIDOTTE has no major competitor (at least until TDOT is finished, and gets much cheaper). NIDNTT is 4 vols, NIDOTTE is 5 vols.

Theological Journals

• Theological Journal Library - can be very useful for essay-writing and some post-grad work. Volumes 1-10 includes Westminster Theological Journal, JETS and many others (500 years worth!). There's no better way to access these journals once you've left seminary. A further 4 volumes are available, adding - among others - 50 years of the Tyndale Bulletin.
• Themelios (1975-2008) - 99 issues of this evangelical journal for students.
• Journal of Biblical Literature - could be useful for postgrads. 26 vols.

Other sets possibly useful for postgrads

Logos offer the Hermeneia, ICC and Anchor Commentaries, which won't help evangelical preachers over much, but may be useful academically. Both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds are available (Neusner's translation) as is the Göttingen Septuagint. There are lots of JSOT and JSNT supplements, Barth's Church Dogmatics, and many volumes from Sheffield Academic Press, T & T Clark, Zondervan, Eerdmans, IVP, Baker and other academic publishers.

Other authors you might look out for

Many well-known authors have collections of their books in Logos. These include (in no particular order): John MacArthur, N. T. Wright, John Piper, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, A. W. Tozer, Max Lucado, Warren Wiersbe, Cornelius van Til, Norman Geisler, John Owen, Don Carson, Thomas Goodwin, Richard Baxter and Louis Berkhof.

 

Mark Barnes:

It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing your own theological leanings.

Theological leanings?  Conservative - the Lausanne Covenant with a charismatic slant would probably best describe me.  The detailed concepts of reformed theology are rather new to me but I am finding it quite fascinating.  I probably sit in the middle of the road on a lot of issues and enjoying exploring both sides of positions (e.g. I'm probably somewhere in between hard core Calvinism and Arminianism - I'm dispensationalist but currently looking at the a-mill point of view).

I have never attended seminary but have spent my entire career in the professional/business world.  I went through a rather painful church split a couple of years ago (over ethical issues) which  left me re-examining a lot of my basic beliefs.  This in turn led to a painful realization of how little I actually know about theology (It's real hard to get too focused on theology when you travel 125-150K miles a year and generally work 12 hour days)... but I have a fairly good knowledge of the KJV Bible 

I have now made a decision to slow down on the business side of things (semi-retirement is the wrong word as I expect to be very engaged in other pursuits including the study of the scriptures).  Hence the reason for my request. I want to spend at least one day a week studying scriptures/learning Greek/researching various topics using Logos.  I actually put together a textual research system back about 20 years ago so am very comfortable with the boolean algebra-type searching that one can do in Logos.

Thanks again for your suggestions!

Taxee:

Theological leanings?  Conservative - the Lausanne Covenant with a charismatic slant would probably best describe me.  The detailed concepts of reformed theology are rather new to me but I am finding it quite fascinating.  I probably sit in the middle of the road on a lot of issues and enjoying exploring both sides of positions (e.g. I'm probably somewhere in between hard core Calvinism and Arminianism - I'm dispensationalist but currently looking at the a-mill point of view).

Then my comments above would be relevant, I think. I'm sure others will chip in with their own suggestions, too.

MJ. Smith:

I'd suggest that you look at the pre-seminary reading list or the "suggested library" for seminaries that you respect.

Having spent most of my adult life in a very insular church (read - "we're right and everyone else is wrong"), I really don't have a seminary that I respect.  In fact, I really don't know of many seminaries.  As I said in a prior post, I have recently come to a realization of how little I actually know. 

A friend sent me Philip Cary's lecture series on the History of Christian Theology which started to open my eyes to things that I had been taught but had no appreciation of where they came from.  For example, the church I went to believed in the sovereignty of the local church.  However, I had no clue that this was the congregationalist governance model which arose from the nonconformist movement during the Puritan reformation of the Church of England. Once you know where something came from, you can go back and examine the roots of the teaching, its Biblical (or non-biblical) foundations, and other alternatives to that specific issue.

I am a bit like a kid in a candy shop with my purchase of the platinum package 4 months ago and my subsequent additions.  As a result, my focus has rapidly shifted away from business and I knew that I needed to take a significant amount of time off from work to really sort out what i believed.  That's where I am today.

I can't say that I am married to a specific set of beliefs and am more interested in well-written thoughtful works than things that follow my admittedly narrow belief set.

Thanks again for everyone's advice.

'Newbie' Mick ... it's becoming progressively more obvious you're intentionally misleading the forum members with your 'Newbie'. I notice you leff it off your above comment, probably getting used to going 'naked' as they say in the furniture and investment banking businesses. Just joking.

But I disagree (a little). Everyone kind of 'self-classifies' themselves. I view myself as far-(far)-right of my evangelical believers at the two churches I attend. But on the other hand I prefer commentaries like Hermeneia or Anchor or WBC. The reason is I like to work from the Bible 'outwards' and don't like commentaries that begin with theological assumptions, no matter their theology. In other words, I want to see lots of 'evidence' (Thomas-onian!).  I guess in a sense I agree with George to read the text and go from there.

But that said, I understand your points.

 

Denise Barnhart:

'Newbie' Mick ... it's becoming progressively more obvious you're intentionally misleading the forum members with your 'Newbie'.

well.... if I were to follow the words of a sophisticated forum member, I should start to consider a new nick - say in 2016 or so...

Denise Barnhart:

I'm a 'newbie' compared to others on the forum; I 'joined' in 2006.

(from http://community.logos.com/forums/t/41364.aspx ) - too good to not quote here

Denise Barnhart:

I prefer commentaries like Hermeneia or Anchor or WBC. The reason is I like to work from the Bible 'outwards' and don't like commentaries that begin with theological assumptions, no matter their theology.

Hm. I think I see where you're coming from, but I think I'll differ. Theological assumptions underly all commentaries, including liberal ones. And IMHO the groundwork established in the "Introduction" regarding authorship, date, situation of writing, redactions etc. will  inevitably set the stage for the detailed commentary later on. One may still learn from commentaries that take a very different position in this area, but it gets tedious. 

I believe also conservative commentaries claim that they read the text and go from there - but in a sense they sometimes are working on a different plane altogether, which means that the questions raised and discussed and the results that can be achieved may be totally different.

However, I'm not going to argue this dogmatically (or in any way comparable to the Isaiah-thread you hinted at)  - everybody builds their own library and chooses their own way of study. After all, this forum is about different people bringing different perspectives to the table - and in this thread, Taxee is free to regard or disregard the advice and mere subjective opinions posted (as a newbie, my comments are the latter rather than the former   .

Denise Barnhart:

But that said, I understand your points.

Thank you. It's good to have the possibility to exchange our views.

Mick

Alexander Longacre:

Why do I not see NIDNNT, NIDOTTE, or a pre-pub/community price for TDOT for Logos?

We don't know whether TDOT will be made available for Logos yet.

NIDNNT and NIDOTTE are here:

• http://www.logos.com/product/5463/new-international-dictionary-of-new-testament-theology
• http://www.logos.com/product/5465/new-international-dictionary-of-old-testament-theology-and-exegesis

 

Day dreaming here, but if money wasn't a problem I'd get:

1.  NICOT/NICNT

2.  Nelson's Reference Bundle

3.  Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary

4.  Hermeneia 

5.  NIDOTTE

6.  Exegetical Commentary Bundle (Though I could really care less about the IVP NT Commentary)

7.  NT Studies Bundle & Hebrew Bible Bundle

8.  Focus on the Bible Commentaries

9.  Interpretation Commentaries

10.  Interpreters Bible Commentary & Dictionary

Phew!!! There's my humble list! I'll eventually get some of those as finances permit...

Happy Holidays!

DAL

Everything here that I did not own. http://www.logos.com/products/search?Genre=Biblical+Studies