Best christian bible handbooks according to redditors

I think the '600+ page book' answering bible contradictions and Bible difficulties he mentions is 'The Big Book of Bible Difficulties' by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe. It's literally sitting on my bookshelf a meter behind me. I had more or less the same feeling reading it at the time of my faith - it's well down the list of quality apologetics books I've ever read, even though it is one of the few that attempts to address specific textual and exegetical issues head on.

Glancing through it now, it seems to miss the point. There are foundational issues with the text that are mostly glossed over (although it does acknowledge some of the blazingly obvious copying errors in the Masoretic Text that lead to contradictions between e.g Samuel and Chronicles, it mostly ignores not only the implications of that but also how that creates issues with the Chronicler's reliance on the older sources like, probably, Samuel and proto-texts), it doesn't even discuss slavery stuff, skirts over Mosaic authorship with arguments from within the text itself (i.e. the text says it was by Moses, and then a priori excludes the possibility of pseudepigraphs or just people lying), and, of course, nowhere gets to the point of dealing with the central issue "So, EVEN IF we admitted all these contradictions were reconcilable, how does that demonstrate God wrote it?" And that's just the OT!

As a Christian, I never read Geisler's book much, because it didn't seem to answer the most important questions, and most of the time all it ever did for the rest was admit the possibility of a solution, without actually making it likely. When a true-believing Christian, that's enough. When you're doubting, it's really not.

And some of the difficulties are just dumb. Like, referring to Ecclesiastes: is laughter good or bad? Is that really the battlefield of Bible contradictions? These sorts of things barely scratch the surface of the unease many of us, and many Christians, have when trying to justify belief in this as an inerrant, harmonious text of divine writ.

Congratulations! That's fantastic.

I've not been to seminary myself (although maybe in a few years . . . . ), but I did major in Biblical languages as an undergrad, teach in a joint program with my local seminary and have a number of freinds who are seminary faculty. My recommendations based on that:

• Academically, I think the best thing you can do is learn the Greek alphabet before you start Greek I. Both writing and pronunciation.
  That alone will give you a big head start. I'd also encourage you to get started on the languages right away.
  
• My college roommate now teaches theology at one of the RTS campuses. When my brother-in-law started seminary, I asked him for a recommendation for a gift. He recommended Kelly Kapic's A Little Book for New Theologians: Why and How to Study Theology
  
• From what I gather, many seminarians struggle with maintaining personaly devotion/piety in seminary. A book about spiritual discipline, such as Kent Hugh's Disciplines of a Godly Man could be beneficial.

I honestly think the your husband needs to read more books, on theology, church administration, history, everything.

He is stuck at that Dunning-Kruger sweetspot where he thinks he knows everything and that he is literally the first person in history to have thought what he thought. Well, he's not.

Make him read a basic theology textbook and do not let him touch his bank account until he has literally read it cover to cover.

This book covers the major world religions, without bias.
World Religions Book

Also, here’s some historical reading on the Bible, if you want a good companion to understanding it, apart from any misconceptions your family may have.
The Complete Guide to the Bible

There is no contradiction here. To my knowledge, Matthew never says that they lived in Bethlehem all along. If you are referring to the verses on skepticsannotaedbible, Matthew never says that they lived there all along. Luke says that prior to Jesus's birth, they lived in Nazareth, but went to Bethlehem when Jesus was born. Matthew continues on from this, saying that after Bethlehem, they fled to avoid Herod, and then to Nazareth. The skepticsannotatedbible is full of stuff like this, where at first glance it looks like a contradiction, but that is because there is very little attention to detail. Its like if I picked up a textbook on differential equations and read through it, and in one part of the book it defines homogenous solutions as one thing, but, in a different context, homogenous solutions are something different. Not a contradiction, just lack of knowledge and context. Theologians have gone through and explained every apparent contradiction, you should check out The big book of Bible difficulties

Specifically to the gospels, check out Mike Liconas talk on this

New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties

The Big Book of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation

My two go to books are my Bible college textbooks. Moody Handbook of theology
and Basic Theology by Charles Riley. both available on Kindle.

> I guess I'm just looking for an accompanying book that can help guide me through?

"What The Bible Is All About" by Henrietta Mears is quite popular

Yes, the Good News Bible is a good beginner's translation. You should also check out the Contemporary English Version (CEV) which is even simpler than the Good News Bible. I think either one of these will help you.

A good beginner's introduction to the Bible is this one from Stephen Miller.

Dumb chart is dumb (though it is visually appealing).

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Book-Bible-Difficulties-Revelation/dp/0801071585/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289580537&sr=1-2

Seriously though, do you honestly believe that in 2000 years of the Church being around, no one has bothered to answer these? Are you just like the supah-enlightened one bringing da troof to the idiotic, slobbering masses? Or just someone who hasn't bothered to do his homework?

I'm actually surprised that you think we'll take anything Sam Harris has written on religion seriously. The man's profoundly out of his depth on the matter, and wouldn't be able to differentiate an exegesis from the Exodus.