An Interview with Ben Witherington III

by Justus Hunter

[Listen to the Podcast version]

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary and award-winning author. We chatted in a sitting room in his Lexington home, surrounded by the music and literature which plays such an important role in his life. Our conversation wandered from his time at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, his career and forthcoming publications, film, and The Beatles. Here are some highlights:

Ben: I went to college at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1970, and of course it was a major State, secular University. But, it did offer courses in Bible, Ancient Greek and Roman History, Biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew), and it offered Latin. So, I found there was a way to piece together some educational components. There wasn’t a Christian Studies program, there wasn’t a Jewish Studies program, there certainly wasn’t an Islamic Studies program. There was just sort of a generic Religious Studies program. But, there were ways to piece that together with the help of specific instructors on campus. I found that enormously helpful. In terms of my own spiritual life, I went to church and I was involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, but it was important that there be an educational component of what I was doing as an undergrad[uate] while I was there…. [but] even at that point I could see that one of the major gaps at secular universities is [in the area of] Christian Studies…I saw a need for further Christian Studies, of an academic sort, on the campus, because the students who were Christians didn’t need to just nourish their souls, they needed to feed their heads. They needed to grow their faith intellectually as well as affectively and otherwise. So, I’m very pleased to see that something is going to be done at the University of Kentucky…

Following this response, I asked Dr. Witherington to discuss his own unique contribution to the area of Christian Studies:

Ben: Now, in regard to my own contribution to the academic study of the Christian faith, I think most people would say that mainly I’m a Jesus and Paul scholar… But, what I have done the most of, which seems to have most widely effected Christian Studies, are my commentaries on the New Testament. I’ve written a commentary on every book in the New Testament at one time or another in my career, and they’re still coming out… What I was concerned about, and am concerned about, was the growing Biblical illiteracy–in the culture in general and in the Church in specific. The Church has kind of become a Jesus haunted place that is Biblically illiterate, and those two things don’t necessarily go together. Because what happens when Biblical illiteracy takes hold is that anything can take hold as knowledge of the historical Jesus or the historical Paul or what the early church was like and those kinds of things. Well, I’ve tried to be a general practitioner right across the New Testament spectrum…

Ben then discussed his particular approach to New Testament Studies – Socio-Rhetorical criticism (visit the Podcast at www.thechristianstudiescenter.org for his explanation of the meaning and importance of Socio-Rhetorical crticism). We discussed his insights into Christian Studies at the University in light of his study of the early church:

Ben: The leaders of the early Christian movement were not illiterate peasants. They were some of the most educated and socially elite people in their culture and a person like Paul or the author of Hebrews would have been in the upper one percent of education in the ancient world. Now that immediately takes away some of the myths and stereotypes about early Christianity, “Oh well, this was a religion of women, slaves and miners, fishermen and farmers. It doesn’t have much of an intellectual challenge to it. This is pabulum for the masses.” Absolute rubbish. That’s false. Christianity was engaging with it’s culture at the highest level of discourse possible, and some of the greatest minds of antiquity were some of the earliest Christians! That’s the truth. They were intellectually respectable in their own day, and they’re still challenging today. I love what John Donne, the great Christian Cleric and writer of the 18th Century said:
“Wheresoever I open the letters of Paul I hear thunder. A thunder that still rolls throughout the earth.” Well, he’s right about that. The writings of Paul stand right up there with Seneca, Caesar, Plato and Aristotle in terms of the intellectual challenge that they present.

[Ben Witherington III is Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 30 books and six commentaries, including The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth and The Paul Quest: The Renewed Search for the Jew of Tarsus, both Christianity Today award winners.]

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