There are so many legitimate resources available on the web, in addition to opinion-mongers such as myself, that I can’t begin to cite them here, but by the same token, I’d like to share with you a few of the ‘hard copy’ sources from which I draw most of my ideas.

First and all-surpassing, of course, is the Holy Bible – the Scriptures. At last count, I have around twenty Bibles laying about the house in various languages, translations, and editions, but these are the three I make the most use of:

My preferred English edition is the Cambridge Bible, AV (“King James” Version).

Although the Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia is the standard edition of Tanakh for Western readers, for just plain ol’ communing with Dodi v’Go’ali first thing in the morning with that first cup of coffee, I love my Parallel Bible Hebrew-English Old Testament from Hendriksen Publishers. No apparatus, just sweet Word.

For reading the Greek Scriptures or comparing them to the English, my favorite is the Interlinear Greek-English New Testament published by Baker Book House.

Why, you may ask, do I prefer a parallel Tanakh and an interlinear Kaine Diatheke? Well frankly, I am really not past the ‘training wheels’ stage in my Hebrew and Greek studies. Also, I’m not always trying to study, but more often just want my Savior to speak to me in whatever language is presently most suited to my hearing what He has to say. My first language is American English, and for some unexplained reason, that doesn’t seem to bother Him a bit. But sometimes He speaks with an accent.

Although I’ll often quote Scriptures in this blog using various English editions, my mainstay version is the AV. If a person can get past the antiquated forms, it has an unsurpassed clarity, simplicity, and beauty compared to the “modern English” versions. That is, if you can get past the antiquated forms. It’s not really hard – try it sometime.

But I have a far more serious reason for being cautious about using the NIV, NLT, BLT, or other proliferating new editions, and that is with regard to differences in the underlying Greek manuscript traditions. If you begin to study textual criticism, one of the first things you’ll notice is that no one has, or even claims to have, “the original Greek.” I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard great teachers say that “the original says” this, or that when they really need to look up a word, they “go to the original.” Guess what — the original manuscripts wore out long ago, and what we have now are copies of copies of copies & so forth. Now that should be all right, and for the most part it is, and it is my understanding that the thousands of carefully preserved Greek manuscripts underlying the AV are so greatly consistent as to make one marvel at how God has kept His written Word available to us unharmed through the centuries. But – warning, big “but” coming here – there are about four “newly discovered” manuscripts that appeared out of nowhere in the 19th century, that became the basis, through the nefarious machinations of two wolves dressed up as sheep, Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, of the English Revised Version in the 1880s, and through that, nearly all of the “modern” versions. If you take a look, a significant number of the revisions that were made in this manner are devastating to an understanding of the teachings of Yeshua – yet most of us don’t even catch a whiff of what’s going on. This is a huge, deep subject, and maybe I’ll devote more space to it here later on, but for now I just thought it would fit in with the topic of which written resources you’ll find me using. If I’ve at all piqued your curiosity, or perhaps ruffled your feathers, here is as good a place as any to start: The Dean Burgon Society.

The Hebrew Scriptures, on the other hand, have not suffered a similar fate. Faithful, faithful scribes have given their very lives to transmit to us the Oracles of Heaven. I still prefer the AV for my English reading of Torah, Naviim, v’Katavim, but I weep when I think of the men of God who have given their entire being to preserving the written Word breathed into prophets, priests, and kings by Ruach H’Kodesh. Hodu l’YHWH, ki tov, ki l’olam chasdo! Praise YHWH, because He is good, and because His mercy goes on forever!

Ok – now back down to earth. There are a few other written works that, although not claiming inspiration, have also helped me to see things in ways that I had not seen them before.

At the top of the list is an astounding treatise entitled Copernicus and the Jews by Daniel Gruber. Check out Gruber’s book at the Elijahnet Bookstore. It’s not for the faint of heart–but why should our hearts be faint?

Gruber has also produced his own translation of The Messianic Writings (more commonly–and erroneously, as he explains in his foregoing work–called the New Testament). His extensive notes and cross references document many of the intersections, as I’ve called them, between Rabbinic literature and the Apocrypha, and the Gospels, Acts, Letters and Revelation. Who knew?

On a more personal level, one man’s journey away from replacement theology can be followed in Don Finto’s Your People Shall Be My People, Regal Books.

Sandra Tepllinsky’s Why Care about Israel? from Chosen Books comes at it from another angle – that of a Jewish believer gripped with God’s heart toward His people, and with the need for the Christian community to come to grips with it.

A friend recently gave me Dr. David Friedman’s They Loved the Torah from Messianic Jewish Sources International. It’s a good deal more scholarly than those last two, but if you can overcome that hurdle, and if you don’t mind having your cage rattled a little, you just may discover how very, very Jewish not only Yeshua is, but how very much so also were the Apostles of the Lamb and even crusty old Paul. Did you know that Paul never stopped being a Pharisee? Read it.

A friend recently lent me a copy of Dan Juster’s The Irrevocable Calling – Israel’s Role as a Light to the Nations. This book details some of the ways in which the ancient nation of Israel has been a living priesthood that not only brought forth the Savior of the world roughly 2000 years ago, but also provided a sacrificial covering for the sins of the world for a millennium or two before that time, and continues to be a living witness of the reality of God.

The first book I picked up consisting completely of rabbinical, non-Messianic content was Dr. A. Cohen’s Everyman’s Talmud, E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1949. Dr. Cohen writes from an educated Conservative Jewish perspective, not from a Christian or Messianic Jewish one.

I’ve also become especially fond of the Stone Editions of the Pentateuch (Chumash) and Hebrew Scriptures (Tanach) from the Orthodox Jewish ArtScroll Mesorah publication series.

I’ll try to post more references as they come to mind. Chesed Rachamim v’Shalom, me’et Elohim Avinu, u’me’et Yeshua h’Mashiach Adonenu. Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father, and from Jesus Christ our Lord.