Wat’s Books

I am reminded that a seminary student’s main purchases are books on the languages: concordances, lexicons, and commentaries. I mentioned to Wat that I use Bullinger’s Companion Bible (KJV) and Alexander’s translations from the ancient Aramaic. I cross reference these with the Stone Tanach, Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible, and Herb Jahn’s Exegeses Parallel Bible. My shelves of other versions, commentaries, and lexicons generally go unused.

I find more useful now books on the context rather than the language of scripture. Gerald Massey’s Ancient Egypt, Light of the World, Thomas Thompson’s The Mythic Past, Rehnborg’s Jesus and the New Age of Faith, and Freke and Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries shed light on the people’s minds back then. My favorite books are listed in my blog’s Complete Profile, the button to the right and down a bit. Cooper’s God is a Verb is a must! Take everything with a grain of salt. You can do that, can’t you? Learn the history, learn the context, and then look at the language. Oh my! It is saying something different now, isn’t it? Now you read Neville Goddard and Joseph Murphy and Ernest Holmes, and they all make sense, for the whole Bible isn’t what you thought it was.

The books I use are now pretty expensive and in some cases not even available. I have been blessed to get them, but there are many others which cover the same ground, and now there is the Internet. Just don’t read gullible to what anyone says. My affection for Neville and Rehnborg has to do with personal history—I passed the Drake often while Neville was lecturing there, but never ventured to go inside; and I spent much time in the Whittier, Buena Park area and might have passed Rehnborg on the streets, in the market, at the beach. He looks very familiar. Missed opportunities. Learn what the authors were talking about, then read what they said. They were not talking about the words, but the real life they were in: the Milta. Keep it ever in your mind.