Further Reading

Resources

The books, scholars, and primary sources cited across the essays on this site — gathered here for ease of reference.

This page is updated each time a new article is published. Sources are organised thematically rather than by article, since many works appear across multiple essays. Primary texts are listed separately from secondary literature.

Scripture and Primary Texts

Ancient Sources

  • The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. Citations throughout use the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) translation.
  • The New Testament. Multiple translations referenced across essays.
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls — War Scroll (1QM). Second Temple apocalyptic literature on cosmic warfare and the Angel of Darkness.
  • Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b. On chevlei mashiach — the birth pangs of the Messiah.
  • Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 16a. On Satan as heavenly accuser and prosecutor.
  • Plato. The Republic. Books VIII–IX on the democratic and tyrannical soul; Book VII on the allegory of the cave.
  • Plato. Meno and Phaedo. On learning as anamnesis — recollection rather than instruction.
  • Augustine of Hippo. The City of God. On the libido dominandi — the lust for domination — as the root of imperial evil.
  • Origen of Alexandria. Homilies on Joshua. Allegorical reading of the conquest as the soul's purification.
  • Luzzatto, Moshe Chaim (Ramchal). Mesillat Yesharim (The Path of the Just). 18th century. On the danger of familiarity and the necessity of examined virtue.
Political Philosophy and Intellectual History

Modern Thinkers

  • Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, 1951. On atomization, the banality of evil, and the structural nature of totalitarian power.
  • Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1942. On demonic strategy, the corruption of attention, and the bureaucratization of evil.
  • Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949. On Newspeak, the corruption of language, and the totalitarian destruction of the self.
  • Wink, Walter. Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. On the Pauline principalities and powers as structural spiritual forces.
Revelation and Apocalyptic Literature

Scholarship on the Book of Revelation

  • Aune, David E. Revelation. 3 vols. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas: Word, 1997–1998. The standard critical reference commentary.
  • Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
  • Boxall, Ian. The Revelation of Saint John. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006.
  • Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016. The essential introduction to Jewish apocalyptic literature.
  • Koester, Craig R. Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
  • Osborne, Grant R. Revelation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002.
  • Wright, N. T. Revelation for Everyone. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011.
Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Studies

Scholarship on the Hebrew Scriptures

  • Davis, Ellen F. Opening Israel's Scriptures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. On Deuteronomy's land theology and its relationship to Joshua.
  • Finkelstein, Israel and Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press, 2001.
  • Niditch, Susan. War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. On the ritual and literary patterns of biblical warfare.
  • Warrior, Robert Allen. "Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians." Christianity and Crisis 49 (1989): 261–265. The foundational Indigenous critique of the conquest narratives.
  • Younger, K. Lawson. Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990. On hyperbolic destruction language as ANE rhetorical convention.
Jewish Background and Second Temple Studies

Judaism, Rabbinic Tradition, and the World of Jesus

  • Chilton, Bruce. The Jewish World of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.
  • Neusner, Jacob. The Talmud: What It Is and What It Says. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006.
  • Schiffman, Lawrence H. From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism. Hoboken: KTAV, 1991.
  • Steinsaltz, Adin. The Essential Talmud. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
Patristic and Early Church

The Church Fathers

  • Evagrius Ponticus. The Praktikos. 4th century. On acedia as the midday demon and the erosion of the will to attend.
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on Exodus. On the progressive hardening of Pharaoh's heart as a pattern of moral atrophy.
  • Origen of Alexandria. On First Principles (De Principiis). On the demonic as parasitic on logos — unable to create, only to distort.

If you are a researcher or theologian and wish to suggest an addition or correction to this list, write to contact@rootsandrecord.com. Please include your name, affiliation, and field.

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The resources listed here span traditions, institutions, and centuries. That is the point. No single community holds the whole inheritance, and restricting one's reading to a single confessional tradition is as limiting as restricting it to a single century. Roots & Record has no affiliation with any organisation, publisher, or institution linked on this page — the selection reflects only the judgment that these resources repay serious engagement.