My top 10 reads in 2015 (Timothy Raymond)

Once again, it’s time to opine on the best books we’ve read in the past year.  Like previous years, this is not a list of best books written in 2015, but best books I read in 2015.  And I consider them “best” in the rather arbitrary sense that I enjoyed them more than others.  Here they are in ascending order. (For previous years’ lists, here are 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011.)

10. Five Festal Garments: Christian Reflections on the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther, by Esther by Barry Webb

The first of three volumes I read this year in my favorite series, New Studies in Biblical Theology, this one expounding what are probably the least well-known books in the Bible. I mostly found it helpful because (I hate to admit it) I previously knew almost nothing about Lamentations.

9. Toward Old Testament Ethics (Ethics – Old Testament Studies), by Walter Kaiser

As the title suggests this is a study of the ethics of the first 77.2% of the Bible. While parts of it are rather dry, it’s a great resource to have on the shelf as a one-stop comprehensive exposition of all the ethical texts in the Old Testament.  I only wish it were stronger on contemporary application.

8. Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible by Stephen Dempster

My good friend Richard Lucas gave me this volume in the New Studies in Biblical Theology series ten years ago, but for some reason I never got around to reading it until this fall. Believe it or not but so much of the theology of the Old Testament is intimately related to how the books are ordered in the canon.  It’s shockingly insightful, thoroughly helpful, astonishing in its learning, and something I should read again in five years.

7. The Old Country: The Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem by Sholom Aleichem

Sholom Aleichem (1859-1916) was the author of the novel behind the much-beloved movie and musical Fiddler on the Roof. Sometimes called the “Jewish Mark Twain”, he was a Yiddish literary juggernaut and wrote hundreds of short stories and novels.  This collection of a couple dozen of his short stories is gut-bustingly hilarious and so similar to many of the ridiculous situations found in the TV show Seinfeld that I really suspect that Jerry Seinfield borrowed some of his material from Sholom Alechem.  If my wife heard me suddenly hyperventilating with laughter late at night, it was because I was reading this book.

6. The Auschwitz Escape, by Joel Rosenberg

I only read a few fictional books this year, but this one was a true page-turner. Imagine a combination of Schinder’s List, Escape from Alcatraz, and The A-Team in the form of a gripping thriller, and that’s this book.  Based on true stories of those who escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp and those who helped them escape, it is truly harrowing and keeps you mentally sprinting at break-neck speed till the very (and ultimately uplifting) end.

5. The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus by W. Ross Blackburn

One more volume in the New Studies in Biblical Theology and of the three I read this year, this was the most compelling. It examines the theme of global evangelism in Exodus and makes a surprisingly strong case that saving a people from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation has always been God’s plan.  Here’s Matthew Claridge’s interview with the author.

4. Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism, by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin

This fascinating, brief history and explanation of antisemitism was actually rather frightening in that most of the same reasons people have despised, harassed, and not infrequently murdered the Jews also apply to Christians. Once Christians become a tiny minority in America, I fear we’ll meet a similar fate.

3. Has the Church Replaced Israel?: A Theological Evaluation, by Michael Vlach

I realize many of my amillennialist brothers will probably reject this book out-of-hand, but I’d encourage them to give it an honest hearing. I found the argument clear, thoughtful, cogently-reasoned, exegetically-careful, and, to my mind, persuasive.  For Fred Zaspel’s longer review, go here.

2. Recovering the Unity of the Bible: One Continuous Story, Plan, and Purpose, by Walter Kaiser

A really fascinating collection of lectures considering the Bible’s unity from about two dozen perspectives (e.g., the Bible’s unified ethic, the Bible’s unified portrait of God, the Bible’s unified plan, etc.). It’s truly captivating and deeply persuades one see the Bible as one tightly-united, coherent book as opposed to a random collection of unrelated flannel-graph stories.  Here’s something I wrote inspired by this book which gives you a taste of its content.  Get it now while it’s 50% off at CBD.

1. Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Song Ethically (Studies in Theological Interpretation), by Gordon Wenham

No other book affected me this year as deeply as this one. It’s all about how long-term immersion in the Psalms radically reforms and reshapes one’s behavior.  It moved me to treasure the Psalms all the more and to begin singing them daily.  I wrote How Singing the Psalms Changed My Life as an indirect testimony to how this book impacted me.

Now it’s your turn.  What were some of your favorite reads from 2015? Point us to them in the comments section below and we’ll have a conversation.

Timothy Raymond is an editor for Credo Magazine and has been the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Muncie, Indiana since April 2006. He received his MDiv from the Baptist Bible Seminary of Pennsylvania in 2004 and has pursued further education through the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation.