Ben Witherington's Top Five NT Books from the Last 25 Years

You can read his annotated list here. it is a pretty a good list.

Witherington on Adam and the Genome

I have been enjoying Ben Witherington's interaction with the book Adam and the Genome by Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight. I am not sure how many posts Witherington will do but the first five are here, here, here, here, and here.

Ben Witherington on Isaiah and Brevard Childs

Check out Ben Witherington's series interacting with Brevard Child's book, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture. Witherington is already up to five posts. Go here and access all five.

Witherington on Preaching

Ben Witherington provides some interesting observations related to what the New Testament does and does not state about preaching here.

Witherington on PhD's

  
Those who might be considering a Ph.D. might want to read Ben Witherington's post here.
 

Witherington on Philippians

  
See this post with Ben Witherington discussing writing the final volume of his socio-rhetorical commentary series and the book of Philippians.
 

Witherington on a Biblical Theology of Work

  
See this post with Ben Witherington on a biblical theology of work.
  

Witherington on Readers and Literacy in the Ancient World

  
See this post by Ben Witherington on readers and literacy in the ancient world.
  

Ben Witherington on the Dogs of Philippians 3:2

See Ben Witherington's post on the dogs of Philippians 3:2 here.

Witherington on Jesus' Narrative Thought World and Message

See this post from Ben Witherington III on Jesus' Narrative Thought World and Message here.

Witherington on the Nature of New Testament Worship

See Ben Witherington's post on the nature of New Testament worship here.

Witherington on Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read

You can see Ben Witherington III's recommendations for "Ten 2009 Books on the New Testament You Should have Read" here.

Theology and Ethics in Hebrews

“A careful reading of Hebrews shows why it is that separating theology and ethics in the New Testament is an exercise in futility rather than fertility. It is true that one can talk about the two separately with profit, but if one actually wants to describe the New Testament thought world in some reasonably holistic way, such a way of parsing things out is inadequate. The two things are so intertwined that even one as exalted as Christ, one as divine as the Son is believed to be in Hebrews, one as appropriately worshiped as the Son of Man is asserted to be, can nevertheless become the ethical paradigm of faith and faithfulness for the audience of this magnificent sermon. Going back and forth between exposition and exhortation, we find Christ in both sorts of materials and in both theological and ethical categories.”

Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, Volume One: The Individual Witnesses (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 461.

Witherington on the First Recognition of Jesus as the Messiah

Ben Witherington III has an article posted at the Biblical Archaeology Review website entitled, "Mary, Simeon or Anna: Who First Recognized Jesus as Messiah?" You can access the article here.

Witherington on James and the Law

"Based on what we see in Acts and in the Letter of James, we can conclude that James was no hard-line Judaizer either, though probably he believed that all Jewish-Christians should continue to keep the Mosaic covenant, especially in the Jerusalem community. Nevertheless, he says nary a word in his homily about circumcision, Sabbath observance, or food laws. Were these really not the subject of some discussion in Jewish Christian churches in the Diaspora? It is hard to tell, but neither 1 John nor 1 Peter suggests that these subjects were discussed in their communities either and Paul's fulminations in Galatians and elsewhere pertain almost entirely to Gentile Christians and others who are part of his congregations. There is a great deal more that could be said about James, but one more remark must suffice. He is the one person who held together the teachings of Jesus and early Judaism and the Jewish Christian churches with one hand and at the same time extended the other hand in fellowship to Paul and his mission of salvation by faith. For this, he deserves our eternal praise and admiration."

Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, Volume One: The Individual Witnesses (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 281.

Paul, Theology, and Ethics,

“Theology and ethics are intertwined in Paul’s thought for good reason: salvation involves both, not just one or the other, and Christology provides a pattern for Christian behavior, and righteousness and holiness define both the character of God and the intended character of his people. To be an image bearer, one must clothe oneself with Christlike behavior and become an image wearer.”

Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, Volume One: The Individual Witnesses (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 241–2.

Witherington on Doing New Testament Theology

"At the end of the day, it is not helpful to arrange New Testament proof texts into preexistent systematic theology categories and then construct a Testament theology or ethics or analyze New Testament theology or ethics on that basis. This puts the ‘dog’ back in dogma, and that dog won’t hunt if we are talking about being fair to the focus and thrusts of the New Testament itself, which are christocentric and christological to the core.”

Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, Volume One: The Individual Witnesses (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 54,

Witherington on Theological Ethics in James 1

"From the very first paragraph of the letter of James it becomes apparent how very wrong it is to suggest that this homily is simply an ethical miscellany. It would be better to call it ‘theological ethics,’ as it is grounded in a certain view of God and divine activity, as the opening paragraph makes apparent. God is the one who sends wisdom, gives every good gift, including perseverance, and is the model of rectitude—not a shadow of a doubt or of any behavior that could be called questionable. It becomes clear from the outset that by and large James is serving up not commonsense wisdom but rather revelatory wisdom, wisdom that comes by revelation and presupposes a particular view of God and the divine activity that enables human beings to be their best selves."

Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, Volume One: The Individual Witnesses (Downers Grove, IL, 2009), 299-30.

For a review of this book see here.

Review of Ben Witherington's Indelible Image, Volume One

Thanks to Adrianna Wright at InterVarsity Press for this review copy.

Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, Volume One: The Individual Witnesses (Downers Grove, IL, 2009), 856 pp.

Ben Witherington III has just published the first of two volumes on New Testament theology and ethics (which he sees as inseparably intertwined). The first volume, and the volume under review here, is analysis of the individual New Testament witnesses (i.e. Jesus and the NT authors). The second volume will apparently be a synthesis or a presentation of the collective witness of the New Testament. In a very real sense both volumes are or will be a culmination of sorts of Dr. Witherington’s prodigious literary output, including published commentaries on every book of the New Testament (p. 13). Witherington argues that a new comprehensive work on New Testament theology and ethics is needed for three reasons (p. 15). (1) The relationship between theology and ethics has not often been treated adequately. (2) Some key terms in the NT are both ethical and theological (e.g., love). (3) One unfortunate side effect of the Reformation was the subordination of ethics to theology. Whether one agrees with these three reasons are not, I suspect that these volumes will provide academic food for New Testament students to sample for years to come.

In general, The Indelible Image, is what one comes to expect from a book authored by Witherington. The book is academic and yet accessible; informative and yet interesting. Matter-of-fact assertions are juxtaposed with rhetorically effective and culturally current turns of phrases. As one might expect, there are echoes of Witherington’s earlier literary work (e.g. The Christology of Jesus, Paul’s Narrative Thought World, etc.). Furthermore, as I noted in a previous post (see here) I especially appreciated the equal time given to other, less well-known, voices in the New Testament (e.g., the General Epistles). Each chapter is concluded with a helpful “Short List” bibliography for those who need/want help for further study. The subject, name, and Scripture indexes in the back of the book appear to be thorough and complete. By the way, the reader may want to begin by reading the “Rewind” section (pp. 813-18) at the end of the book. This section deftly summarizes what the author has sought to argue in the volume as a whole and may help to provide helpful orientation for the reader.

Here is the table of contents for the book:
Foreword
The Overture: The Grand story in Miniature
Prologue: Blueprints and Bylaws
1 Jesus: The Alpha and Omega of New Testament Thought
2 Paul the Paradigm Setter
3 The Kinsmen and Their Redeemer; Peter and His Principles
4 The Anonymous Famous Preacher
5 Beloved Theology and Ethics
6 One-Eyed Gospels
7 The End of All Things and the Beginning of the Canon

Witherington on Social Identity and Diversity in Acts

Ben Witherington III has posted a paper he delivered on November 4, 2009 at Huntington University entitled "E Pluribus Unum: The One and theMany in Luke-Acts" on his blog here.