A Bibliography of New Testament Bibliographies

Hurd’s guide illustrates the sheer volume of publication on the Bible in recent years, identifying as it does hundreds of books and articles that do nothing but list and evaluate thousands more; and all of this concerns basically the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, with most items listed appearing in the past two decades. Realizing that even scholars today cannot tell the players without a program, Hurd adds a valuable supplement of sixteen pages that itemizes sources of biographical information on major writers. Confrontation with this mass of scholarly production raises the question of its possible use. For one thing, it is vain to look for some professional consensus, which obviously does not exist in the century of overpublish. Perhaps the fact that Hurd features first of all bibliographies of tools of study will underline the point that no one is a Bible scholar who merely reads the opinions of Bible scholars. Only the mastery of languages and historical data gives anyone the independent judgment to be a significant voice.