My intellectual bibliography: the five influential books meme

John Hobbins has tagged me with Ken Brown’s “five books that influenced me” meme. This is not easy. First. here’s a reminder of his rules:

1. Name the five books (or scholars) that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible. Note that these need not be your five favorite books, or even the five with which you most strongly agree. Instead, I want to know what five books have permenantly changed the way you think.
2. Tag five others.

I’m going to stick to books (including articles or chapters of books) as far as possible in order of encounter rather than importance.

1. JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. I read this just at the right time to be profoundly influenced by his sense of teenage alienation, and as a result carried Holden Caulfield’s persona through my early engagement with existentialism, reading L’Etranger and a host of other classic texts through the estrangement of teen angst. I’m still a sucker for the self-romanticising outsider: it’s why I loved Donnie Darko before it started acquiring cult status. For a while back then Ecclesiastes was the only book in the Bible I thought worth reading
2. Dame Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love comes next. I returned to faith as an English student just as we were beginning some work on the mediaeval mystics. I’m not sure that either the Cloud of Unknowing or Revelations of Divine Love would be quite what I’d put into the hands of a neophyte, but they (especially Mother Julian) really helped set me on the path of a generous orthodoxy long before anyone had heard the phrase. Between them, they made sure I never said ‘The Bible says …” to end an argument. I should, I guess, record a public thanks to the young visiting preacher who, hearing my questions in a post-sermon session, generously took me out to lunch and helped me understand the place of both writings in Christian spirituality. Thank you, Archbishop Rowan.
3. The next is very slight. It’s a popular level essay by Tom Wright called “Justification: the Biblical Basis and its Relevance for Contemporary Evangelicalism”. This appeared in a 1980 book called The Great Acquittal, edited by Gavin Reid. It’s now available here as a PDF. This appeared two years before Dunn coined the term New Perspective on Paul, and perhaps because it is aimed at a popular audience has rather been ignored in the history of the NPP. It is, however the first post-Sanders writing I know to set out something very unlike Sanders’ Paul, and very like what came to be called the New Perspective. It is also one of the first things I read on Paul after coming to an adult faith which not only made sense, but excited me. Because of this essay I have never really had an old perspective on Paul, and have always been convinced Paul is the most exciting NT writer. (Incidentally, it always intrigues me that so few people noticed how fresh Tom’s perspective was.)
4. Then, I think, comes E.P. Sanders’ Jesus and Judaism. (I’d come across his ideas on Paul well before I read the book, and since this is about influential books rather than important ones …) This really excited my interest in Jesus research in a way none of the other things I’d read had done. It also, I think, seriously shifted the study away from sayings and titles in a way which has continued to be very influential. One of the things I most admire about Sanders’ is his ability to write with passion and clarity while being as well-read, studied and footnoted as anyone. This is a great book on Jesus.
5. My final choice is really difficult, but I think it has to be something by Moltmann who is exciting in ways German theologians are supposed not to be. I’m nowadays much more critical of his work than I once was, and I think his best book is probably The Way of Jesus Christ. The one that influenced me most, however, even if I now see it has having some severe problems, would have to be The Crucified God. It’s an odd choice for someone who now holds to divine impassibility, but it remains a profound stimulus.

I’m aware that nothing in this list is recent, and at one level that’s not fair to a large number of more recent writings which are important and influential. However, what I can see is ways in which these books have influenced me over a period of time, and become a part of my intellectual biography. I will be interested to know what of the books I’ve more recently or currently found stimulating will prove to have a similar lasting effect.

Now I have to tag some people, and apologies if they’ve already been tagged. I tag Sam Norton, David Ker, Mark Goodacre, David Keen, and Justin Lewis-Anthony.

Tagged as: books, memes