Ryan

So I just picked up "The Authentic Gospel of Jesus" by Geza Vermes", and "Jesus, Iterrupted" by Bart Ehrman (found them at half price books).Thanks for the recommendations! I'll keep my eye out for more of the ones you suggested:)

Thanks for all the recomendations! I'm still trying to find more progressive scholars and theologians, I'm fairly new to the progressive christian side of christianity (a lot of my library is hard to read now, there seems to be so much written from the "infallible" camp that I struggle to get much out of it). I too like N.T. Wright, Dunn, Dale Allison, and Luke Timothy Johnson. I've not read anything from Bart Ehrman but have definately heard of him. The others are all new to me and I'll have to check them out:) Have you heard of Peter Enns? If so do you have any thoughts on his stuff? Thanks again:)

Gregory Boyd's "Crucifixion of the Warrior God" and other works; Brian D. McLaren's "A Generous Orthodoxy", "A New Kind of Christianity" and "The Secret Message of Jesus"; "The God-Shaped Brain" and "The God-Shaped Heart" by Timothy Jennings; some Wes Howard-Brook, Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim (The Suffering of God An Old Testament Perspective), John Cobb, Walter Wink, Douglas John Hall, Richard Rohr, Marcus J. Borg, Brennan Manning, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Keating, Frank Viola, Jean Vanier, Jurgen Moltmann, Charles H. Talbert (I really like his take on divine and human agency in "Getting 'Saved': The Whole Story of Salvation in the New Testament") and others less applicable to progressive christianity. I'm currently looking into liberation theology and am reading the new book by Bob Eckblad called "Guerrilla Gospel: Reading the Bible for Liberation in the Power of the Spirit". It's really good so far. Any recommendations? (I'm also really enjoying Literary, Historical, and Theological commentaries, like those of Thomas L. Brodie and Charles H. Talbert.)

I too have moved away from an apples to apples take on God that transposes the view much of the Old Testament takes over how we interact with and view God today. Based on your comment, you may be interested in checking out Keith Giles' "Jesus Unbound: Liberating the Word of God from the Bible". If you research Keith himself, he seems like a really stand up guy (not that that makes his stance more accurate, but I think character goes a long way in assesing one's exposure to a loving God.)

In regard to these two topics, you might be interested in checking out Michael Heiser's book "The Unseen Realm". I found it incredibly enlightening:). He talks about the various ways the word "elohim" was used in scripture (for God, other heavenly beings, and even Samuel's ghost) and suggests that it was used as a term for what realm a being inhabited more so than a specific being. He showed how what we call angels were often called elohim and gets into how God assigned different elohim to different nations but chose Israel as His own and how He called them out for not acting justly in judging the nations in Psalm 82. Really very interesting and great read. I could hardly put it down:) (Check out Psalm 82 in the ESV to see a closer reading to the Hebrew. Heiser was on the team who put together that translation, if I'm not mistaken).

I've also been going through a lot of Richard Rohr's stuff (especially his lectures on Audible.com) and I really like how he puts a spiritual/devotional flavor to progressive christianity that I haven't found in very many places yet.

Yeah, I've been really enjoying "Come Out My People" by Wes Howard-Brook (as well as the rest of his works). Something he introduced me to is the idea of two conflicting voices in the Bible (and extra Biblical writtings) , one in support of empire (the David/Solomon story in Samuel-1 Kings 11, Ezra/Nehemiah, Deuteronomy and Joshua, First Isaiah and others), and the other against it (the Exodus story, Genesis, Second and Third Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Daniel, Paul's letters, the Gospels, Acts, Hebrews, James, 1-2 John and Revelation). Ever since I came across the idea of Genesis being written as a polemic against Enuma Elish, and the flood story being set against things like the Gilgamesh Epic (and other ancient near east parallels) I didn't know what to do with that. I used to be super fundamentalist. Reading a lot of the old testament in it's historical setting, as Howard-Brook suggests being composed in Babalonian exile, makes so much sense. Looking at scripture through the lens of the two voices, one he calls "the religion of creation", the other "the religion of empire", also sheds light on why there was so much opposition from "the religion of empire" to Jesus and His message, in the tradition of the prophets, in support of "the religion of creation".

Check out "Genesis As Dialogue: A Literary, Historical, and Theological Commentary", and "The Gospel According to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary" by Thomas L. Brodie. The best I've found though are the works by Wes Howard-Brook, such as ""Come Out, My People!" God's Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond", "Becoming Children of God: John's Gospel and Radical Discipleship", "John's Gospel & the Renewal of the Church", "Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now", and "The New Testament: Introducing the Way of Discipleship".