See this site and this site.

Dr. McCabe of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary has a post about the DBTS Basic Library Booklist. It looks like the list was updated in 2008.

Oswalt’s commentary on Isaiah is masterful. Furthermore, not only is Oswalt helpful in elucidating the text, he is also unafraid to challenge unbelieving scholarship.

On Isaiah 36:20

It is hard to understand how those who can assert that the theological function of this passage is to claim that God acts in history can then assert with equal force that God did not act in this event (cf. Clements). If they do so to demonstrate that biblical theology is self-discredited, that is one thing. But to speak of the worth of the theology while denying its evidence is very odd indeed. [1:638, n. 21]

On Isaiah 42:20

The change from second person to third in the middle of the verse has been troublesome to translators since the time of the LXX . . . But none of these stratagems seems necessary given the well-documented tendencies for this kind of shift in Hebrew writing. [2:131-32]

On Isaiah 45:18ff.

These verses show a rather profound understanding of paganism. Because paganism refuses to admit of a God who stands outside the cosmos, it must posit that the beginning of all things was matter in chaos. Out of this chaos the gods emerged. The ordering of the chaos was something of an afterthought on the part of the gods to protect themselves from the ever-present danger of its reemergence. Humans are even more of an afterthought, created primarily to take care of the gods. Since the gods have no commitment to and accept no responsibility for humans, they have no interest in communicating with them. If humans wish to divine the future, they must resort to mediums, wizards, and necromancers (cf. 8:19). To all of this Isaiah says a resounding no! Chaos did not exist before God, and God did not bring a meaningless chaos into existence. Rather, the preexistent God created the cosmos specifically for human habitation. [2:218]

On Isaiah 49:6

Some modern translations (e.g., NRSV [ESV, NASB]) render the final phrase of the verse as ‘that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ While this is not impossible, it is not the obvious sense of the grammar. The plain sense is: ‘I appointed you . . . to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.’ The former translation obscures the point that the Servant is not merely to be the means of God’s salvation coming to the world, he is to be that salvation. All the versions confirm this understanding.” [2:294]

R. Scott Clark of Westminster California is editing a new series that will put into print, often through new translations, the writings of the Reformed Orthodox. This is exciting news for those interested in historical theology and/or Reformed theology.

For Clark’s introduction to the series, see here.

But, it will be said, Christianity is a life, not a doctrine. This assertion is often made, and it has the appearance of godliness. But it is radically false, and to detect its falsity one does not even need to be a Christian. For to say that ‘Christianity is a life’ is to make an assertion in the sphere of history.

. . . . . . . . . .

About the early stages of this movement [that is, Christianity] definite historical information has been preserved in the Epistles of Paul, which are regarded by all serious historians as genuine products of the first Christian generation. The writer of the Epistles had been in direct communication with those intimate friends of Jesus who had begun the Christian movement in Jerusalem, and in the Epistles he makes it abundantly plain what the fundamental character of the movement was.

But if any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words, it was based upon doctrine.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Eerdmans, 1923), 19, 21.

Machen on why liberal concessions to naturalism were wrongheaded:

In trying to remove from Christianity everything that could possibly be objected to in the name of science, in trying to bribe off the enemy by those concessions which the enemy most desires, the apologist has really abandoned what he started out to defend.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, (Eerdmans, 1923), 7-8

Westminster bookstore is offering J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism for 6.50 (+S&H). This is a must read book.

Machen’s thesis is reflected in the title. Liberalism is not Christiainty; it is another religion. This gets at the root of the Fundamentalist objection to ecumenical endeavors with with liberals.

For further Machen resources, see John Piper’s biographical sermon and the biographies by Hart and Nichols (Hart’s is the more detailed, but I profited more from Nichols).

Douglas Stuart’s commentary on Exodus is a welcome contribution. His exegetical comments are helpful and to the point. For example:

When Jesus said, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’ (Mark 2:27), he summarized the point of these two laws, as well as other relating to the Sabbath. Both of them emphasize that the Sabbath, whether of years or days, was intended by God to provide restoration and well-being for God’s people, not merely a cessation of all activity. [p. 530]

In addition to this, Stuart strongly defends Mosaic authorship (something can’t be taken for granted even among evangelical commentators). Another example:

It was once popular in many circles and is still popular in some to theorize that true, full monotheism emerged only during and after the exile, i.e., in hte sixth century BC at the earlist, as reflected in ‘Second Isaiah.’ By this theory the first commandment of Exod 20:3 was merely intended to make Yahweh the main God of the Israelites and to require them to worship other gods only secondarily. Since some of the scholars who have held that view actually date the Covenant Code earlier than the Ten Commandments and few date it as late as the exile, the present verse, properly understood, functions as a sharp piece of metal in the balloon of such a developmental theory about Israelite monotheism. [p. 533, n. 239]

Stuart also includes helpful contemporary applications. A final example:

Thus [based on the principle of the Sabbath command, that "the person who works endlessly and/or makes others do so oppresses himself and/or others"] the family that expects a wife/mother to prepare twenty-one meals per week without respite and serve the needs of the family equally on all days violates the command as would the dairy farmer who never takes a break from the twice-daily milking, or the policeman who does special-duty sifts on days off from reqular shifts, or the pastor who never sets for himself or herself a day off or its equavalent. [p. 533, n. 237]  [Unfortunately, though as would be expected from a Gordon-Conwell professor, Stuart is egalitarian]