The New Testament and the People of God

The first book in NT Wright’s Christian Origins and the Question of God series is a good foundation, covering the time period and culture of Second-Temple Judaism. Wright begins with describing the epistemological method he will be using, and then begins to use it. This is almost worth the price just to have the exhaustive list of primary sources that he cites at the end. Do not read this series out of order, as this book is heavily referenced and footnoted in the subsequent volumes.

Jesus and the Victory of God

Wright continues his series by laying out Jesus of Nazareth in the historical context he described in previous volume. Pulling primarily from the synoptic Gospels, he offers a convincing hypothesis of how Jesus remained loyal to his Jewish roots of creation and covenant theology, even while he was radically redefining them.

The Resurrection of the Son of God

The third volume in this ambitious series is dedicated to the question of the resurrection of Jesus. What did the apostles and early Christians mean when they used the word? What are the reasons they used it? This is a masterpiece of scholarship, offering a reasoned proof a bodily resurrection based solely on historical evidence. Even if you come to a different conclusion than Wright, his analysis and study of a broad range of sources from Homer to Plato to the Church Fathers is worth the price of admission alone.