These authors are biblical scholars whose primary works are commentaries and reference tools to help those intent on deeper biblical study. Many are experts in Hebrew and Greek, or in church history and interpretation.
Elwell's encyclopedias and dictionaries, Metzger on the New Testament text, Wallace on Greek, and Guthrie, Harrison, Köstenberger, and Morris for Bible interpretation. Also, Harris has the best biblical defense of the deity of Christ.
Kurt Aland (1915-1994) - fairly conservative German editor of the Greek New Testament used for almost all English Bible translations, the Novum Testamentum Graece (also known as the Nestle-Aland text, based on the work of Eberhard Nestle). One of the world's most renowned textual critics from the 1940s onward, he also helped establish the text for the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament. His wife Barbara was director the Institute for New Testament Textual Research. Other titles: A History of Christianity; A Synopsis of the Four Gospels; The Text of the New Testament (w/ Barbara Aland).
Peter Balla - Edinburgh-trained New Testament scholar (now in Budapest) who argues for an orthodox, canonical theology on the basis that the Bible is a unified document that can be interpreted objectively. He is critical of liberal scholars for their belief in biblical contradictions but is more optimistic than most conservatives in his belief that believers and unbelievers alike can approach the Bible from a neutral perspective, which he regards as the key to understanding it. His primary work is Challenges to New Testament Theology: An Attempt to Justify the Enterprise.
Kenneth Barker - until 1996, the conservative executive director of the translation committee that produced the NIV and NIrV Bible translations. Currently dean and Old Testament professor at Capital Baptist Seminary. Also led the writing of the study notes that appear in Zondervan's NIV, NASB, and KJV Study Bibles. Barker is a proponent of the free translation style on which the NIV is based (although he also helped produce the more literal NASB). Titles: The Balance of the NIV: What Makes a Good Translation; The Making of the NIV; NIV Bible Commentary (Ed. w/ John Kohlenberger); and commentaries on Micah and Zechariah. He also helped edit the Reflecting God Study Bible.
Daniel Block (b. 1943) - Old Testament professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and prominent figure in the Evangelical Theological Society. Generally Reformed evangelical, but with hints of a pietistic heritage common among Canadian Baptists. He emphasizes the importance of knowing Ancient Near Eastern culture when interpreting the Bible and focuses on the meaning of the text for its original audience. Block also helped produce the NLT and ESV Bible versions. Titles: The Gods of the Nations and important commentaries on Judges, Ruth, and Ezekiel.
Darrell L. Bock - Progressive dispensational evangelical Bible scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary and past president of the Evangelical Theological Society. Specializes in the New Testament use of Old Testament texts, Bible interpretation, and Christian leadership. He also serves as an elder at Trinity Fellowship Church, is one of the editors of Christianity Today, helped produce the ESV, and has contributed to many journals and compilations. Titles: The Bible Knowledge Key Word Study; Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism; Breaking the The Da Vinci Code; Jesus According to Scripture; Proclamation from Prophecy and Pattern; Progressive Dispensationalism (w/ Craig Blaising); Purpose-Directed Theology; Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals; Studying the Historical Jesus (w/ William J. Webb); and a two-volume commentary on Luke.
Harold O. J. Brown (b. 1933) - conservative Reformed evangelical chairman and co-founder of the Christian Action Council, a leading pro-life action group. Also an editor for Christianity Today and former professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Brown has degrees in the Germanic languages, biochemical science, theology, and his specialty, church history. He also served on the Advisory Council for the ESV. Titles: Christianity and the Class Struggle; Death Before Birth; Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church; The Protest of a Troubled Protestant; The Reconstruction of the Republic; The Sensate Culture.
Brevard Childs (b. 1928) - Presbyterian Old Testament professor at Yale, 1958-2000. While not quite evangelical, he had a major positive influence in biblical theology by insisting that interpreters should be Christians who view the text as Scripture and regard the final form of the canon as the norm for interpretation. But he held to many liberal views about Scripture, denying that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and seeing elements of pagan mythology in the Bible. Titles: Biblical Theology: A Proposal; Biblical Theology in Crisis; A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments; Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture; The New Testament as Canon; Old Testament Books for Pastor and Teacher; Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context; and the OTL commentary on Exodus.
Philip W. Comfort (b. 1950) - conservative Anglican New Testament scholar at All Saints Institute for Christian Leadership. As Tyndale's senior editor for Bible reference materials, he coordinated the New Testament of the New Living Translation. Comfort adamantly defends the NLT's use of free and gender-neutral translation. Titles: Essential Guide to Bible Versions; Opening the Gospel of John; The Origin of the Bible (Ed.); The Quest for the Original Text of the New Testament; The Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts; Who's Who in Christian History.
Jack Cottrell (b. 1938) - Arminian associated with the Christian church. A theology professor at Cincinnati Bible Seminary since 1967. Opposes Calvinism and feminism as threats to the church, but does so with more biblically-focused arguments than most. He is also highly insistent that baptism is necessary for salvation, and that original sin is a non-biblical doctrine. Cottrell was recently on the Advisory Council for the ESv. Titles: Baptism: A Biblical Study; Faith's Fundamentals; The Faith Once for All; The Gender of Jesus and the Incarnation; Gender Roles and the Bible; His Truth; 13 Lessons on Grace; Tough Questions, Biblical Answers; What the Bible Says about God the Ruler; and a commentary on Romans.
Walter Elwell (b. 1937) - dispensationalism evangelical professor at Wheaton College since 1975. Elwell does most of his work for Baker Book House. A major area of Elwell's own research involves the historicity of the Gospels, and he has edited some of evangelicalism's standard reference works. Titles (all Ed.): Baker Bible Handbook; Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible; Bible Interpreters of the Twentieth Century (w/ J. D. Weaver); Encountering the New Testament; Evangelical Commentary on the Bible; Evangelical Dictionary of Theology; Readings from the First-Century World; The Shaw Pocket Bible Handbook; Topical Analysis of the Bible; Tyndale Bible Dictionary. Stanley Gundry - dispensational evangelical executive director of Zondervan, one of the largest Christian publishers. Also a former professor at Moody Bible Institute. As a leading member of Christians for Biblical Equality, Gundry has egalitarian views of women's roles in church and family. Titles: Love Them In: The Life and Theology of D. L. Moody; NIV Harmony of the Gospels; Tensions in Contemporary Theology (Ed.). He also edits Zondervan's issue-oriented debate books (2 Views on..., 3 Views, 4 Views, etc.). Not to be confused with his more liberal brother, Robert Horton Gundry.Donald Guthrie (1916-1992) - conservative evangelical professor at London Bible College from 1949 to 1982. A prolific writer, his work is clear and ordered (though massive), making it accessible to lay readers. Titles: The Apostles; Jesus the Messiah; Living as God's People; The New Bible Commentary (Ed.); The Apostles; New Testament Introduction; New Testament Theology; The Relevance of John's Apocalypse; A Shorter Life of Christ; The Teaching of the New Testament; the Exploring God's Word series; and commentaries on Galatians and the Pastoral letters. Not to be confused with Donald C. Guthrie, the Vice President of Academics at Covenant Theological Seminary.
Murray Harris - conservative evangelical from New Zealand who studied under F.F. Bruce. He taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School until 1997 and helped produce the NIV. He is an expert on the writings of Paul, but his most valuable work is in defending and exploring the doctrines related to Christ, particularly His deity and bodily resurrection (despite a long-standing false charge that he denied the latter doctrine in two of his books). He is currently working on a 21-volume guide to biblical interpretation. Titles: From Grave to Glory; Jesus as God; Pauline Studies (Ed.); Raised Immortal; Three Crucial Questions About Jesus; and commentaries on 2 Corinthians, Colossians, and Philemon.R. K. Harrison (1920-1993) - conservative evangelical and world-renowned Hebrew scholar at Wycliffe College in Toronto. His numerous commentaries uphold the historicity of the Bible. Harrison opposed liberal approaches to Scripture and also wrote extensively on the subject of medicine in the Old Testament. Primarily an article writer and translator, he helped produce the NKJV, NIV, and NLT and has also produced numerous books. Titles: Archaeology of the New Testament; Archaeology of the Old Testament; The Encyclopedia of Biblical Ethics; Introduction to the Old Testament; Major Cities of the Biblical World; Old Testament Times; Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew; and several commentaries. He also edited the early Old Testament volumes of the New International Commentary.
H. Wayne House (b. 1948) - dispensational Bible and apologetics professor at Faith Seminary in Tacoma; also a law professor at Trinity International University, who frequently leads tours to Bible lands. Former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, and also a complementarian active in the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Titles: Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine; Charts of Cults, Sects, and Religious Movements; Christian Ministries and the Law (Ed.); Chronological and Background Charts on the New Testmaent; Divorce and Remarriage (Ed.); Israel: The Land and the People; Living Wisely in a Foolish World; Restoring the Constitution. He also helped edit the Nelson Study Bible.
Clarence Jordan (1912-1969) - conservative evangelical founder of the Koinonia Farm, a self-sustaining interracial community in Georgia from the days of segregation. A scholarly expert on the culture of the New Testament, he translated most of the New Testament into the vernacular of the American South as the Cotton Patch Version. In this retelling, Jesus is from Valdosta, Georgia, most characters have contemporary names, and Jews and Gentiles are recast as whites and blacks. Other titles: Sermon on the Mount; The Substance of Faith and Other Cotton Patch Sermons.
John Kohlenberger (b. 1951) - evangelical freelance Bible reference writer and editor. Formerly a professor at Multnomah School of the Bible and Western Seminary. As one of the TNIV translators and a leading member of Christians for Biblical Equality, supports gender-neutral Bible translation and egalitarian. Titles (all Ed.): All About Bibles; The Concise Concordance to the NRSV; The Contemporary Parallel New Testament; The Exhaustive Concordance to the Greek New Testament; Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament; NIV Bible Commentary (w/ Ken Barker); The NIV Compact Concordance; The NIV Exhaustive Concordance; The Precise Parallel New Testament; Words About the Word; and commentaries on Jonah and Nahum. Not to be confused with Andreas Köstenberger.
Andreas Köstenberger - conservative evangelical New Testament professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is known for his rigorous scholarship and broad interaction with other writers. Though primarily a reference writer, he also addresses family issues from a complementarian perspective. Köstenberger helped produce the ESV and HCSB. Titles: The Book Study Concordance of the Greek New Testament; God, Marriage, and Family (w/ David W. Jones); The Missions of Jesus and the Disciples According to the Fourth Gospel; Salvation to the Ends of the Earth (w/ Peter O'Brien); Studies on John and Gender: Women in the Church; and several commentaries on New Testament books, most recently John. He has also translated several of Adolf Schlatter's works into English. Not to be confused with John Kohlenberger.
I. Howard Marshall (b. 1934) - Arminian evangelical Methodist professor of New Testament Exegesis at University of Aberdeen in Scotland since 1964. Also president of the British New Testament Society, member of the Committee on Bible Translation, and chair of the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research. Marshall's teaching that salvation can be lost was instrumental in Clark Pinnock's departure from Calvinism. Titles: Beyond the Bible; Biblical Inspiration; Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Ed., w/ Joel Green and Scot McKnight); Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (w/ David Peterson); I Believe in the Historical Jesus; Jesus the Savior; Kept by the Power of God; Last Supper and Lord's Supper; Luke: Historian and Theologian; New Testament Interpretation; Pocket Guide to Christian Beliefs; Theology of the Shorter Pauline Letters; Witness to the Gospel; and commentaries on Luke, Acts, Philippians, 1-2 Thessalonians, the Pastorals, 1 Peter, and John's letters.
Bruce Metzger (b. 1914) - the world's foremost Greek scholar, broadly evangelical though not an inerrantist. Professor at Princeton who helped prepare the critical Greek text of the New Testament in use today. He also helped oversee the production of the Revised Standard Version that is the basis for the NRSV and ESV in common use today. Titles: The Bible in Translation; Breaking the Code; The Canon of the New Testament; The Early Versions of the New Testament; Introduction to the Apocrypha; Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek; The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content; The Text of the New Testament; A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament; Oxford Essential Guides (Ed., w/ Michael D. Coogan); Word Biblical Commentary series (Ed.).
Leon Morris (b. 1914) - conservative evangelical New Testament scholar with a generally Reformed approach to interpretation. Retired as principal of Ridley College in Australia in 1979, founder of the Evangelical Alliance of Victoria, and author of 51 books. His works center on Christ's atonement, and he is known for focusing on the concerns of pastors and laymen regardless of the trends of academia. Morris also helped produce the NIV and ESV Bible versions. Titles: The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross; The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance; The Cross in the New Testament; New Testament Theology; Tyndale New Testament Commentary series (Ed.); and commentaries on Matthew, Luke, John, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, 1-2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, and Revelation. Not to be confused with creationist Henry Morris.
Grant Osborne (b. 1942) - Arminian * evangelical New Testament professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Osborne is highly supportive of gender-neutral Bible translation and is at the forefront of the debate over whether to tolerate moderate evangelicals (opposing them but speaking in favor of toleration). His main contribution is through journal articles, and he also helped produce the NLT. Titles: The Hermeneutical Spiral; 3 Crucial Questions about the Bible; and commentaries on Romans and Revelation.
Eugene Peterson (b. 1932) - Reformed evangelical pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church and former professor at Regent College. Peterson is best known for his recently completed paraphrase of the Bible, titled The Message. Peterson is essentially a storyteller who gains inspiration from novels and secular poetry. He is also a thinker critical of religious movements that denigrate the use of the intellect. Titles: The Contemplative Pastor; Leap Over a Wall: Earthly Spirituality for Everyday Christians; A Long Obedience in the Same Direction; The Message.
Bob Stein (b. 1935) - evangelical New Testament professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, formerly of the Baptist General Conference. Stein is a recognized expert on biblical interpretation, insisting that it must be in accord with the intent of the biblical authors. His method has much in common with Reformed scholars, although some have identified his theology of salvation as being closer to Arminianism. He also did translation work for the NLT and HCSB. Titles: A Basic Guide to Interpeting the Bible: Playing by the Rules; Difficult Passages in the New Testament; An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus; Jesus the Mesiah; The Method and Message of Jesus' Teachings; Studying the Synoptic Gospels; The Synoptic Problem; and a commentary on Luke.
Kenneth N. Taylor (1918-2005) - Arminianism evangelical Baptist whose desire to have a Bible his children could understand led him to paraphrase the American Standard Version into The Living Bible. It was the best-selling Bible version for several years in the 1970s and led to the founding of Tyndale House, now one of the largest Christian publishers. Taylor was a special reviewer for the Living Bible's revision (the NLT) and has also written several works for children. Titles: The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes; Devotions for the Children's Hour; Junior Devotions for Campers; Small Talks about God.. Not to be confused with missionary Hudson Taylor.Merrill Tenney (1904-1985) - conservative evangelical Wheaton professor who was one of the original translators of the New American Standard Bible and the New International Version. One of the first new evangelicals to break into true biblical scholarship, Tenney's focus was on the New Testament and biblical reference materials. Titles: New International Bible Dictionary (w/ J. D. Douglas); New Testament Survey (Ed.); New Testament Times; and commentaries on John and Galatians. Not related to revivalists T. F. and Tommy Tenney, nor is he to be confused with scholars Eugene Merrill and Merrill Unger, or the Pokémon Marrill.
Dan Wallace - conservative evangelical New Testament professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. Wallace's aim is to encourage interesting and accurate exegesis of the biblical text based on the syntax of the original languages, and to refute common misconceptions and overgeneralizations about Greek. He is also one of the driving forces behind the NET Bible. Titles: The Basics of New Testament Syntax; Greek Gramar Beyond the Basics. Childhood friend of fellow Greek scholar William D. Mounce.
Bruce Waltke - Reformed Baptist Old Testament professor at Regent College, with Ph.D.'s from Dallas Theological Seminary and Harvard. Waltke is a world-renowned expert on Hebrew and textual criticism, and once served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society. He helped translate the NASB and NIV and was the Old Testament editor for the New Geneva Study Bible. Other titles: Finding the Will of God; An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax; Knowing the Will of God; Old Testament Theology; Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Ed., w/ Gleason Archer and R. Laird Harris); Understanding the Will of God; and commentaries on Genesis and Proverbs.
Spiros Zodhiates - Reformed evangelical Greek scholar, elder at Woodland Park Baptist Church, and president of AMG International from 1946 to 1997. His ministry produces Bibles and Bible reference materials, including software. Zodhiates has also hosted the radio show New Testament Light and has written books on nearly every imaginable subject. Titles: The Beatitudes; A Christian View of War and Peace; Conquering the Fear of Death; Did Jesus Teach Capitalism?; Discipleship; Immorality in the Church; Jesus and the Demon World; Life After Death; The Lord's Prayer; Loving Correction; Sickness: Why Healing Now?; Speaking in Tongues and Public Worship; Was Christ God?; What About Divorce?; Who Really Has the Answer?. He also edited The Complete Word Study Bible and The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible.
For a statement of my beliefs, see my Declaration of Faith.
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