The New Testament Story

Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, has been an amazingly productive scholar of top level New Testament studies over the years. Here he synthesizes much of his earlier work in a way that is highly readable and quite scholarly, with excellent hand-drawn illustrations by Rick Danielson and very useful charts. Each chapter is followed by a series of Exercises and Questions for Study and Reflection, whic h should prove quite helpful to individual and group students. The title is deliberately enigmatic, as it refers not only to the stories within the New Testament, and its major story line, but also to the story of the New Testament itself (e.g., how it came into being, who wrote it, how the books were selected and canonized). The first half (The Story of the New Testam ent) has five chapters: The Tools and the Text; The Pedagogy and the Passion; Lette rs and Homilies for Converts; All the Good News That Was Fit to Print; and T he Selection, Collection, and Rejection of Texts. The second half (The Stories in th e New Testament) has also five chapters: Borrowed Tales from the Earlier Testament; Stories of Paul and Peter; Tales of the Holy Family; Stories of Jesus outside the Gospels; and Stories of Jesus inside the Gospels. [Full Review]

Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, is widely known for his work in the field of New Testament studies. Witherington notes in the preface of this volume that the title is deliberately enigmatic. It could refer to the stories within (or storyline of) the New Testament or the story of how the New Testament came into existence. Witherington addresses both issues in a distinctive approach that attempts to do both more and less than standard New Testament introductions. The book is divided into two slightly unequal parts: The Story of the New Testament (1105) and The Stories in the New Testament (109270). Given the popular nature of the presentation, notes are kept to a minimum throughout. Affixed to the text proper are two appendices dealing with chronological issues, a table of weights and measures, and three maps (the Roman Empire, Palestine, and Pauls journeys). There are no indices. Part 1, The Story of the New Testament, consists of five chapters. Witherington begins with a general chapter on The Tools and the Text (c h. 1) in which he surveys the importance of orality in the world of the New Testament, the process and tools of ancient writing, and some of the liturgical forms of the tradition (e.g. [Full Review]