Ben Witherington III > Quotes

“We live in a Jesus haunted culture that is Biblically illiterate, and so unfortunately at this point in time, almost anything can pass for knowledge of the historical Jesus from notions that he was a a Cynic sage to ideas that he was a Gnostic guru to fantasies that he didn't exist, to Dan Browne's Jesus of hysterical (rather than historical) fiction.”
― Ben Witherington

“We have seen some gatekeeping or fencing-the-table language already beginning to rear its head in this context. One needed to be baptized to take the meal; one needed to repent to take the meal; one needed a bishop or his subordinate to serve the meal. This was to become especially problematic when the church began to suggest that grace was primarily, if not exclusively, available through the hands of the priest and by means of the sacrament. One wonders what Jesus, dining with sinners and tax collectors and then eating his modified Passover meal with disciples whom he knew were going to deny, desert, and betray him, would say about all this. There needs to be a balance between proper teaching so the sacrament is partaken of in a worthy manner and overly zealous policing of the table or clerical control of it.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“Is the Lord’s Supper only for Christians? Whenever I ask this question I immediately remember the character of those that partook of the Last Supper with Jesus. They were certainly Jews, some better Jews than others, but Jesus shared this meal knowingly even with Judas. Or again consider the Emmaus Road encounter. Jesus shares this meal with those who had given up on his being the One to redeem Israel, who were leaving Jerusalem downcast and disappointed, and who were oblivious to the fact that it was Jesus who was speaking and sharing with them! There has to be a balance in the liturgy to help the congregation make a decision if they themselves are ready to partake of this Meal in a worthy manner (hence the 'ye who do truly and earnestly repent' clause), while at the same time joyfully welcoming all who are willing and ready and able to do so.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“One of the things that happened when the church moved from meetings in homes to having purpose-built buildings beginning before, but accelerated during, the Constantinian era, is that while the church itself was becoming less Jewish in character, it began to apply a more and more Old Testament hermeneutic to its discussions about church, ministry, and sacraments. The church began to be seen as a temple or basilica, the Lord’s Supper began to be seen as a sacrifice, and naturally enough the ones offering the sacrifices, just as in Leviticus, were seen to be priests. There was the further move in this direction when Sunday began to be seen as the Sabbath, another example of this same sort of hermeneutic. There were considerable problems with this whole hermeneutic from the start, since nowhere in the New Testament is there set up a class of priests or clerics to administer any sacraments. Indeed, nowhere was there a clear separation between life in the home and life in church. What has often been missed in the discussions of the effects of all this is that it ruled women out of ministry in the larger church and indeed ruled them out of celebrating the Lord’s Supper as well, since in the Old Testament only males were priests and only priests could offer sacrifices.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“When one gets to Clement or Hippolytus, we are clearly a long way from what we find in Paul and the Gospels, where the influence of the Passover is still strongly present and the meal is seen as a family meal, taken in the home, a memorial meal to remember Jesus’ death until his return...Here then is a cautionary reminder — the less Jewish the approach one takes to the Lord’s Supper, the more likely one is to be wrong about one’s assessment of what is the case about the elements.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“Sometimes silences are pregnant and sometimes not. It is hard to know what to make of the silence of much of the New Testament about the Lord’s Supper. Perhaps it is simply an accident of time and circumstance. There was not a felt need to address the matter. What we should not likely conclude is that it was not seen as an important matter in the latter part of the first century A.D. What we can observe is that the Lord’s Supper continued to be an in-home ceremony taken in the context of a fellowship meal. We also now know it was important in both Gentile and Jewish contexts in the church in the second half of the first century, and beyond. We see no evidence anywhere in this material that clerics of any kind are in charge of the meal and its distribution. Even in the Didache, prophets, who were mouthpieces for God, are only allowed to say the thanksgiving prayer as often as they like. The low ecclesiology, coupled with the ever-present eschatology, suggest that the Didache does indeed go back to the end of the first century A.D. But one precedent in the Didache does stand out: the Lord’s Supper is for baptized Christians, and in particular for those who repent of their sins. We are on the way to the church of the Middle Ages in some respects, but we have not begun to localize or confine grace to the elements of the Lord’s Supper itself and then have it controlled by clerics.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“Who should serve the Lord’s Supper? Well in the early church, considering Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 11, the host of the home presumably was the host of the meal, and as I have said, really, the Lord is the host at his own table, not any of us. We are all just participants, we are all celebrants. I don’t think there is any biblical warrant for the serving of the Lord’s Supper to be confined to ministers, but I do think that anyone who undertakes such a sacred task should be trained to do it in a respectful manner.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“When exactly did this all change, and what were the social and theological factors that led to the change? The answer seems to be in the second century and: (1) because of the consolidation of ecclesial power in the hands of monarchial bishops and others; (2) in response to the rise of heretical movements such as the Gnostics; (3) in regard to the social context of the Lord’s Supper, namely, the agape, or thanksgiving, meal, due to the rise to prominence of asceticism in the church; and (4) because the increasingly Gentile majority in the church was to change how second-century Christian thinkers would reflect on the meal. Thus, issues of power and purity and even ethnicity were to change the views of the Lord’s Supper and the way it would be practiced.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“The ritual of the blood on the lintel of the door, which protected the Israelites from the angel of death, is an apotropaic (avoidance) ritual, such that the family in question would be 'passed over' by the aforementioned denizen of death. Later Jewish and Christian ideas that amalgamated this story with ideas about the scapegoat’s providing a substitutionary remedy should not be read into the original tale. The scapegoat symbolized the removal of sin from the nation and perhaps the judging of a substitute. The blood of the Passover lamb on the door symbolized not a sacrifice for sin but rather protection from divine judgment. There is a difference.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“At this juncture it is important to say something about Exodus 12:7. This verse implies that we are dealing with a ritual that did not involve atoning for sin, but rather was a rite of protection for God’s people, a different though not unrelated matter. It involved a blood ritual to avoid God’s last blow against the firstborn. Thus Passover and atonement were not originally associated, though apparently by Jesus’ day there were some such associations. Notice that nothing at all is said or suggested here about Israel’s sin, or about forgiveness. This ceremony is more like an insurance policy. Yes, the blood is to avert divine wrath, but it is not wrath against Israel’s particular sins. In this case they simply happened to be too close to the danger zone, or in the line of fire. We must assume that this blood ritual arose before there even was a fully formed priesthood, for it is highly unusual to have such a ritual without any mention of involvement of priests.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“Too often scholars have thought and even suggested that what happened during and after Constantine was that the church sought to replace the pagan temples, priests, and sacrifices with their own. This is at best a half truth. If this had been primarily what was going on, we would have expected to find priestesses showing up in the mainstream church in and after the time of Constantine, since there were certainly priestesses in the pagan temples. But this we do not find in the historical record. This is because the church of that period was not merely trying to supplant pagan religion with Christian religion, though some of that was going on. More to the point, there was a rising tide of anti-Judaism, and one of its manifestations was this Old Testament hermeneutic. The Torah had been claimed as the church’s book, Jews were being ostracized and then later ghettoized, and a hermeneutic of ministry was being adopted which co-opted the Old Testament for church use when it came to priests, temples, and sacrifices, and indeed sacraments in general. Thus ironically enough while the structure of the ecclesial church was becoming more Old Testamental, the church hierarchy was not only becoming less tolerant of Jews, it was forgetting altogether the Jewish character of Jesus’ ministry and his modifications of the Passover that led to the Lord’s Supper celebration of the early church in the first place.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“The reference in 1 Corinthians 11:27 is to Christ’s actual body, which was crucified, as the reference to blood makes evident. Anaziõs has been translated 'in an unworthy manner,' and sometimes incorrectly thought to modify not the way of partaking but the character of the persons partaking. But Paul refers to those who are partaking in an unworthy manner, not those who in themselves are unworthy, which presumably Paul would see as including any and all believers. No one is worthy of partaking of the Lord’s Supper; it’s not a matter of personal worth. Paul is rather concerned with the abuse in the actions of the participants, or at least some of them. Paul says that those who partake in an unworthy manner, abusing the privilege, are liable or guilty in some sense of the body and blood of Jesus. They are, in addition, partaking without discerning or distinguishing 'the body.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“Verse 12 [of Ex. 12) tells us that the judgment of Yahweh is not only on the Egyptians but also on their deities. This is probably an allusion to the fact that Egyptians would often pray for the safety of their firstborn, particularly firstborn sons, as was the custom in many ancient patriarchal cultures. The death of the firstborn would be seen as a sign of the anger or perhaps the impotence of their gods. This is worth pondering when it comes to the death of Jesus as God’s only begotten, or beloved, Son. Would Jesus’ contemporaries have assumed his death was a manifestation of God’s wrath? Probably so. In any event, Yahweh is showing his superiority over the spirits behind the pagan deities, and thus we should not overlook the supernatural struggle that is implied to be behind the contest of wills between Moses and Pharaoh.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“Humans do not die simply because of Adam’s sin, but because of Adam’s and their own sin.”
― Ben Witherington III, The Problem with Evangelical Theology: Testing the Exegetical Foundations of Calvinism, Dispensationalism, Wesleyanism, and Pentecostalism, Revised and Expanded Edition

“Testing of the spirits, then, amounts to critically evaluating the utterances of various human spirits to see if they are prompted by the Holy Spirit or by some other spirit.”
― Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John

“Christ did not exalt himself in a world full of self-promotion; rather he stepped down and served others, which most, especially the elite, in the Greco-Roman world would have seen as despicable, not admirable.”
― Ben Witherington III, The New Testament Story

“The 'factious person' ... is the one who insists on such divisive debates even when their consequences become obvious. Such a person would rather be right than righteous, would rather maintain theoretical integrity than the health of the community. ,264”
― Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John

“At the ninth hour, under a pitch-black sky, the women stood as close to the cross of Jesus as the soldiers would allow. Jesus’ mother had arrived, and when Jesus saw her with the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” Thus Jesus honored and provided for his mother with nearly his last breath. From that time on, Lazarus took her into his home.”
― Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Jesus: A True Story

“If a seminary or Christian college has a wise provost or dean or department chair, he or she will realize that they need some faculty who are master teachers but publish little, and some scholars who can both teach and publish, and some who would be better just being research professors. It takes a variety of faculty to make up a good school. But alas, even in schools that have such administrators, promotion and sabbaticals are often based on publications or planned publications, not just on reviews of one’s classroom performances. Thus, some scholars who find research and writing a huge cross to bear are forced to carry that cross all the way to Golgotha Publishing House in order to get promoted. It really ought not to be that way at a Christian school, where the main goal should be “training students or budding clergy in the way that they should go.”
― Ben Witherington III, Is there a Doctor in the House?: An Insider’s Story and Advice on becoming a Bible Scholar

“The idea of "sinlessness" as discussed in 1 John 3:1-10 has prompted enormous debate within the scholarly literature, with no end in sight and no consensus of opinion on the horizon. Some scholars have even thrown up their hands and resorted to arguing that the author has incorporated contradictory material in his sermon. I would caution from the outset that epideictic rhetoric is prone to involve dramatic statements and polar opposite contrasts with polemics, and we have already seen this in abundance in this sermon.'"` There is no reason to think that this discussion of sin and sinlessness is not following the same rhetorical rubrics.”
― Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John

“Faith is not the opposite of knowledge... Indeed, the mind is a gift from God, just as faith is.”
― Ben Witherington III, Invitation to the New Testament: First Things

“Our author warns us that inspiration, enthusiasm, earnestness, even honesty about what one believes is no guarantee of truth.”
― Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John

“It may be debated as to whether the antichrist is seen as a superhuman figure (in Revelation "Mr. 666" is seen as having divine pretensions but actually being quite human, being the emperor), but it is quite clear in 2 John that the antichrists are false teachers who are contemporaries of our author.”
― Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John

“Sin unto death" therefore, is not any act of sin however heinous, but a state or habit of sin wilfully chosen and persisted in: it is the constant and consummate opposition to God. In the phraseology of this Epistle we might say that it is the deliberate and persistent preference of darkness to light, of falsehood to truth, of sin to righteousness, of the world to the Father, of spiritual death to eternal life.i97”
― Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John

“Loving talk is cheap when costly deeds are required.”
― Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John

“It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. It might be better to say that experience is the mother of invention. It was the experience of seeing the risen Lord that created the inner circle of Jesus, and the coming of the Spirit that birthed the church. In other words, naturalistic historical explanations alone will never adequately explain the crucial events that led to the rise of the inner-circle leaders within the Christian movement and the rise of the movement itself.”
― Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? Beyond Strange Theories & Bad History-Why We Can Trust the Bible

“In other words, we have no basis at all to think that Paul was plagued by guilt feelings or self-doubt while a Jew and that this was what drove him to consider Christ and finally convert. This all-too-prevalent, all-too-modern psychological approach to Paul fails to reckon with the clear statements Paul makes in Philippians 3, where he states that his conversion involved a revelation and a miracle. There is no evidence of tortured spiritual turmoil that led to this conversion. As Fred Craddock sees it, “We do not have in this text a portrait of a man at war with himself, crucified between the sky of God’s expectation and the earth of his own paltry performance. Paul is not in this scene a poor soul standing with a grade of ninety-nine before a God who counts one hundred as the lowest passing grade.”294 We ought not to read Paul as an early example of the introspective conscience of the West.295”
― Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? Beyond Strange Theories & Bad History-Why We Can Trust the Bible

“Here we are able to reach a major conclusion of this study. None of these major figures who constituted the inner circle of Jesus would have become or remained followers of Jesus after the crucifixion if there was no resurrection and no resurrection appearances of Jesus. The church, in the persons of its earliest major leaders, was constituted by the event of the resurrection, coupled with the Pentecost event! The stories of these figures, especially their post-Easter stories, are the validation of this fact. There would be no church without the risen and appearing Jesus.”
― Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? Beyond Strange Theories & Bad History-Why We Can Trust the Bible

“William Penn would have been heartily endorsed by Paul as a description of the Christ-like life: “no pain, no palm, no thorns not throne, no gall, no glory, no cross, no crown,” and”
― Ben Witherington III, Biblical Theology: The Convergence of the Canon

“The exegetical foundations would appear to be weak, and one shouldn’t build huge theological edifices, no matter how splendid or consistent, on weak foundations.”
― Ben Witherington III