If you only picked 10 books to study for the rest of your life...
This was a little exercise brought on by our sponsor J Dub through my friend and bandmate Clifton Stringer.
It goes as follows:
"Since there are too many books in the world, too many great scholars to study, too many things to know and acquire, it is better to know 10 books really really well than to have a cursory knowledge of a thousand."
It helped to pass the time on the 20 hour drive to Texas, but I enjoyed it mostly because it showed me how little interest I have to study theology. I bet the King and Craig will see this soonest and hopefully will begin to formulate lists. I have mine, but I'll save it to see if anyone has interest in this sort of activity. I wouldn't call it a mere self-awareness exercise because though I won't limit myself to those books on my list, I will begin a study of each text on my list for at least a month once a year. You can take it seriously or just use it however you wish. &c.
It goes as follows:
"Since there are too many books in the world, too many great scholars to study, too many things to know and acquire, it is better to know 10 books really really well than to have a cursory knowledge of a thousand."
It helped to pass the time on the 20 hour drive to Texas, but I enjoyed it mostly because it showed me how little interest I have to study theology. I bet the King and Craig will see this soonest and hopefully will begin to formulate lists. I have mine, but I'll save it to see if anyone has interest in this sort of activity. I wouldn't call it a mere self-awareness exercise because though I won't limit myself to those books on my list, I will begin a study of each text on my list for at least a month once a year. You can take it seriously or just use it however you wish. &c.
posted by Unknown at 11:36 AM
13 Comments:
OK...
1. Wesley's Sermons
2. The Chronicles of Narnia
3. A Testament of Devotion - Thomas Kelly
4. A Serious Call to A Devout and Holy Life - William Law
5. Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis
6. Celebration of Discipilne - Richard Foster
7. The Hiding Place - Corrie Ten Boom
8. The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross
9. Anything from the Classics of Western Spirituality published by Paulist Press (this is my sneaky way of including about 50 books all in one swoop)
10. The Lord of the Rings
11. Anything by Sarah Arthur (I had to put that in).
Wilson, good topic. I'll be curious to see what others say.
Obviously my list shows my significant tilt toward spiritual formation over theology. One thing I really enjoyed about a lot of the early Christianity stuff we read was the blurred lines between these two disciplines. Nyssa, et al., are just as concerned with spiritual formation as they are theology and their writings are constantly going back and forth between the two. But I didn't read enough of any of that to know what book to add to my list. But I suspect it would be something by Nyssa.
Tom
Why don't you pray a little, and read your bible.
Craig. Below the belt, man. Below the belt.
Craig,
Where's your list man?
Wilson,
Is it time for your list?
Chickens, you're all chickens. I know there are people you check this, I could even tell you your IP addresses if I needed (remember, I am the Master)
since I don't want to leave the King hanging, here is my list, composed after 15 hours in a Toyota Matrix somewhere in Arkansas.
1. The Iliad, Homer
2. Hecuba/The Trojan Women, Euripides
3. City of God, Augustine
4. King Lear, Billy the Bard
5. Paradise Lost, Milton
6. 4 Quartets, Eliot
7. Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky
8. Job, God
9. Piers Plowman, Langland
10. Hebrews, God again
Take it as you will, but remember there are no rules to this list, so I yes, I included individual books of the bible.
Dude. Wilson just dropped the gauntlet. He even snuck a little IP address in there on us. Big Brother is watching!
Master Wilson, did you go watch Trojan Women at the Bryan Center? Sarah and I went. It rocked. We especially liked Cassandra. She had a set of lungs on her (it was a musical).
Comparing our lists is quite revealing about our personalities.
Ok, King. Here goes:
1. Isaiah
2. All four Gospels
3. The Pentateuch
4. The Psalter
5. Paul's Epistle to the Romans
6. Church Dogmatics (Barth)
7. History of Christian Doctrine (Tillich)
8. Complete Works of Hauerwas
9. (a) Theology of Culture & (b) Political Expectation (Tillich)
10. (tie) Novels of Anthony Trollope and novels of Dostoevsky
I guess the expansiveness of Craig's list (cue applause) is an apt foil to my minimalist poetry and prose.
We've got four so far, and I know others have read this. Come on, this isn't about judgment but about autodidactism (stilling coining along) and whom I should call if i need an expert on a particular work. Like in twenty years, I plan on calling Craig if I have a question on Tillich, or the King if I have a question on the enourmous corpus of Sarah Arthur...
And so remember, the more books you sneak, the more for which you are responsible.
I think that was the least snarky post Phil has ever written here, and I hope you tbd before the first fight club...
Martin is having some technical difficulties so I am posting his list for him.
Mark
Isaiah
The Politics of Jesus-Yoder
The Cost of Discipleship-Bonhoeffer
The Brothers Karamazov-Dostoevsky
The collected essays-Wendell Berry
The collected short stories-Flannery O'Conner
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed-Philip Hallie/The Plague-Camus (same event)
The Prophetic Imagination-Walter Brueggemann
Desert Solitaire-Edward Abbey
The Brothers K is getting some big play on this list. I have tried to read that four times. When I finally got to the Grand Inquistor chapter and realized that it was a chapter entirely self-contained, I gave up on the fourth try. Is there a movie out there I can watch?
Tom
1. OT/NT
2. Packer-Knowing God
3. Plato-Republic
4. Aristotle-The Nicomachean Ethics
5. Bishop of Hippo- City of God
6. Aquinas-Summa Theologica
7. Dosotoyevsky-Brothers Karamazov
8. Tolstoy-War and Peace
9. Shedd-Systematics
10.Tozer-Knowledge of The Holy
Optional: Dallas Willard-Divine Conspiracy, C.S.Lewis-Works, Bonhoeffer-Cost & Life Together
Brothers Karasmov is great, but have your read The Idiot? Crime and Punishment? How can determine the criteria that allows you to pick just one? I guess I'm not one of those people who can discriminate so finely when it comes to greatness. Is Hamlet better than King Lear or Merchant of Venice? That's why I like the volumes that have multiple works. I just bought John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom series - all four in one volume. I tend to read in streaks, reading everying I can get from an author until I feel I know him/her. Hence my "expansiveness."
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