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Welcome to the Evangelical Virtual Seminary Resource Center
The Evangelical Virtual Seminary Resource Center is a huge bibliography of books and articles that are useful for readers who approach Scripture from conservative perspectives. While few of these sources are available full text online, the Useful Books link and the Useful Articles link on this page discuss how and where the sources can be found. UNDERSTANDING THE EVS RESOURCE CENTER CLASSIFICATIONS The listed books and articles included in the Evangelical Virtual Seminary Resource Center will be classified as either conservative or mainstream studies. This is an inadequate distinction. Several of the authors listed as conservative are certainly important scholars in the broader academic world. For example, authors like Kitchen and Millard may be classified here as conservatives, but they are world class scholars who have earned the highest respect in their academic disciplines. Some of the authors listed as mainstream are also rather conservative, and the distinction between conservative and mainstream may in some cases be arbitrary and almost meaningless. Beyond that, I'll sometimes classify an author as mainstream just because I don't know what he or she believes beyond the content of the book or article. Many authors would rather be associated with the academic mainstream than with the conservative orbit. So if I don't know what an author believes more broadly, I'll just classify him or her as mainstream. There is no good classification system. The conservative/mainstream classification will be used here only to give readers with limited exposure to the academic orbit some idea how to understand the broad perspectives of the sources. However, it should always be remembered that authors in the field actually represent a vast variety of perspectives and assumptions. To understand any author, it is important to read all of his or her writings and place them within the broader context of movements in the field. Books and articles will also be classified as general, college level, masters level, and doctoral level. This distinction does not at all indicate the ability level of the authors. A source may be listed as college level while the author is a person with multiple doctorates and outstanding academic skills. This distinction attempts to indicate the ability level of the readers who may most profit from the books and articles. However, this is also an inadequate classification system. Some readers with little formal education may profit from doctoral level studies, while others with advanced degrees may find material at that level rather useless to their own ministry. The distinction between general, college, masters, and doctoral levels is also somewhat arbitrary. This classification system is only intended to give readers a rough guide to the kinds of literature that they may find most useful in their own life situation. SUGGESTING RESOURCES FOR THE EVS RESOURCE CENTER Feel free to recommend books and articles that have been meaningful to your life and ministry. If they have been meaningful to you, other people may profit from them as well. I will probably look at the work in a library here in the Twin Cities before I decide to add them to the study center. To make suggestions for books and articles, email me at RDalman@evangelicalvirtualseminary.org. Add a brief note about why you found the work useful. I may add your name and note (or part of it) to the description of the work. |
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Copyright © 2009 Dr. Rodger Dalman
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