Fans pick 100 books like The Truth and Beauty

This book was what I needed at the time of my life at 19. It shared the teachings of Jesus in such a simple way that is well beyond what I was ever taught for 18 years being a Catholic and had me see Jesus more in the human form than how he is normally perceived.  

Written at a much more basic level than the first three books on my list, Roberts boils the issues down into easy-to-read, bite-size chunks that any thoughtful layperson can digest. After my own book on the historical reliability of the Gospels, it’s the next one I would hand to anyone ‘off the street’ and the first one I would give to someone ‘on the street’! Mark is an apologist with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, who has remained a person of impeccable integrity during their recent rough waters. While many writers tackle Matthew, Mark and Luke together, because they are more similar than different, Roberts includes John, who is more different than similar. A great read.

Bauckham is a world-leading Biblical scholar who shows in this ground-breaking book how direct eye-witness testimony underlies what we read about Jesus in the gospels, which should therefore be treated with the utmost seriousness. Particularly significant for Bauckham is the witness of the early second-century writer Papias, who had known and interacted with persons very close to the gospel events in his youth and explains how and by whom the gospels were put together. Eyewitness testimony is fundamental to forming our beliefs and can make the seemingly incredible totally credible. Bauckham draws a startling comparison with the Holocaust. We are convinced it happened only because we have eyewitness reports. Likewise with the resurrection of Jesus.

In the 1950s, Robert Coleman, then a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, was assigned to teach a class on evangelism. But he had a problem: he had no idea what to say. So he decided to pore over the four Gospels to discern Jesus’ strategy for winning people to his message. His lecture notes became The Master Plan of Evangelism.

The reach of The Master Plan since its publication in 1963 has been enormous. Billy Graham even wrote the foreword. But Jesus’ model of training a few was so alien to the operating systems of 20th-century churches and traveling evangelists that generations had no idea how to implement it. Not many books have been so widely read and so little applied. Yet if you only read one book on this subject, make this the one. And if you’ve already read it long ago, read it again.

Keener is one of the few living scholars who has actually read cover-to-cover all of the most relevant Jewish and Greco-Roman background literature to the New Testament and can speak with authority about the way the Gospels are similar to and different from other ancient biographies and histories. He addresses virtually every skeptical question, is abreast of all the scholarly trends, including those that get little press because they actually support the reliability of the Gospels. But he is no fundamentalist, insisting that we evaluate the ancient books of Scriptures by the standards of writing of their day and not ours. A soft-spoken man, who has overcome personal tragedy more than once, Keener is a good friend and amazing Christian gentleman.

According to the gospels, Jesus had 4 brothers – James, Jose, Simon, Judas – and at least two sisters (who are not named). What happened to these individuals after Jesus’ crucifixion? Butz explores the Jewish movement that stemmed from Jesus’ brother, James. James led Jesus’ followers from the time of Jesus’ death up until his own death in 62 CE. A leader who knew Jesus his whole life, James regarded Jesus as a Jewish teacher. He differed radically from Paul, who never met the Jesus of history. This book explores the original movement that originated from Jesus.

Keith Olberman said that The Bullpen Gospels, "Might be one of the best baseball books written in forty years." 

I would like to go a step further and say that it is THE best baseball book that has been written. Ever. Even better than Ball Four, to me, because it takes place during the modern era of baseball and was written by Hayhurst as he played professionally. 

Hayhurst gives readers a realistic view into what it is really like to be like the majority of minor league players, “Bonus Babies” aside, as he pulls the veil back on professional baseball. 

The Thomas Nelson Study Bible is my second favorite commentary to use. It shares many similarities with The MacArthur Study Bible. There are helpful charts and maps. The commentary is clear and understandable. The cross-references are helpful as are the other study tools. The images and charts are done wonderfully. There are over 1,000 articles and notes spread through the commentary, which provide a greater understanding of certain passages and topics. Again there are also book introductions and the outlines can be very helpful. The word studies, the Strong’s numbers in case you want to do further study. The indexes and concordances at the back are helpful and easy to use. One point to consider is while John MacArthur’s commentary is Calvinistic, The Thomas Nelson Study Bible doesn’t seem to lean toward Calvinism or Arminianism, probably to reach multiple denominations.

Like many others, my Catholic upbringing told me the Gospels were written by the apostles. I believed that for a long time … until I started to delve more deeply into the basis of my beliefs. I quickly realized that the simple fishermen Jesus supposedly had around him could not have written the gospels created in the late first to mid-second century. Nobody really knows for certain. 

I asked myself, ‘How could the gospel authors provide direct quotes supposedly said by Jesus?’ Were the texts pure inventions? An elaborate collaboration between Rome and Israeli factions to promote Roman rule? The more I delved into this book, the more its pages generated further questions…and provided answers that plainly contradicted accepted Christian dogma. I had a lot of material to digest, and the process wasn’t complete.

Bohemian Gospel is an unusual book. I wasn’t sure I’d like it at first because it has more supernatural and fantasy elements than the novels I typically read, but it is truly stunning. Set in thirteenth-century Bohemia, it features Mouse, another badass heroine, trying to survive in a world filled with dark powers that threaten to destroy her. While this novel isn’t strictly a gothic novel, it has the requisite spooky atmosphere and a compelling heroine in deadly peril. The highest compliment I can pay this book is that when I was reading it I was nearly late for my own book launch because I was so caught up in the story!