Top Five Publishers

by Mitch Lewis

I always look at the bookshelves of the pastors I visit. You can tell a lot about a pastor’s thinking by the books he/she reads. Even if I’m not familiar with the book, the identity of the publisher tells me a lot. Starting with the name that most frequently appears on the dust jacket, here are the publishers whose books you would find in my office:

1. Intervarsity Press (by far my favorite publisher)
2. Harper Collins (and its predecessors and subsidiaries)
3. Abingdon (no duh, for a United Methodist pastor)
4. Eerdmans
5. Fortress Press

Up & Coming: Smyth & Helwys

Who publishes the books on your bookshelf?

July 30, 2008

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3 comments

1 GH { 07.30.08 at 1552 }

What is one book you would recommend from each of these publishers, including the up & comer?

2 Mitch Lewis { 08.01.08 at 0459 }

@GH: Great question. Lots of good books from each, but here is what I’ve been reading lately that I’ve found significant:

• Intervarsity: In the Shadow of the Temple, Oskar Skarsaune
• Harper One: The Misunderstood Jew, Amy Jill-Levine
• Abingdon: The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, Robert Gagnon
• Eerdmans: Christ and Culture Revisited, D. A. Carson
• Eerdmans: Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, Larry Hurtado
• Eerdmans: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Richard Bauckham
• Fortress: Jesus the Sage, Ben Witherington III
• Baker Academic: Inspiration and Incarnation, Peter Enns

Yes, I know I gave you three from Eerdmans - I couldn’t make up my mind. And I threw in one great book from Baker Academic.

As for Smyth & Helwys, I like the new Smyth & Helwys commentary series - its content, layout and companion CD are all terrific. So far, I have volumes by Ben Witherington and C. H Talbert. Their Reading the New Testament Series is also very good. I have most of the volumes in this series which was formerly published by Crossroad.

I’d also probably add the Dictionary of the New Testament series from Intervarsity. Now I’m way over the “one book from each” that you requested.

3 Amy Maxwell { 08.02.08 at 0124 }

Goodness this was a greater task than I first expected. I’ve got well over 50 publishers represented on one side of the room.

The Top 5:

HarperCollins
Zondervan
Baker Academic
InterVarsity Press
Nelson

Eerdmans shows up a lot too. And of course, Gospel Publishing House… a must for an Assemblies of God minister.

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