(Larry Hurtado) Clearly, the “top 10″ lists demanded of us by our PhD students have generated some comments (see the posting and comments). It is a devilishly difficult thing to itemize any such list, so I pray a bit of sympathy for us all who responded in the midst of other duties!
There was no collusion and so any overlaps on our lists are interesting. The differences reflect the fact that selectivity of such a short list from a field in which there have been so many important publications, and in which now there is such diversity, will always be difficult and reflective of the viewpoints of those asked to make the lists. But I think also that we may have drawn up somewhat different kinds of lists. My own was a highly selective list of works that have been highly influential, and I could easily have included another ten and still felt things were missing.
A few years ago, I was asked by an Italian encyclopaedia project to write a survey of 20th-century NT studies (which the editors translated for me). I was allowed to publish the English version separately:
Larry W. Hurtado, “New Testament Studies in the Twentieth Century,” Religion 39 (2009): 43-57. The pre-publication version appears on my own blog site: http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/essays-etc/. (Scroll down to the “20th Century NT Studies” item.)
This may actually be of much more use to serious students of NT, as it allowed me to give a much richer picture of things. It’s still selective, of course, as I had a word-limit (though more generous than usually the case).
