I found a bunch of books on the curb, and some of them are nice and academic - I even had some of them on my "to-read" list, - but some are unknown to me, and I'm not sure whether they are "scholarly" (well-researched and at least somewhat unbiased), or veer towards polemic sectarian fantasy. (I get it that no books are truly unbiased, but there's probably a threshold at which they become more a primary source for sociology / comparative religion studies, rather than a layperson-friendly introduction)

What do you think about books by Géza Vermes, for example? Are they considered "useful"? And if they are not completely "bad", what would be their main biases?

Thank you!