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(More customer reviews)Anyone interested in biblical studies and ancient history would find these essays fascinating reading.
Witherington insists it is time for a "paradigm shift" in NT studies. Various disciplines have shown that "ancient texts are not really texts in the modern sense at all--they are surrogates for oral communication" (p 3). All documents in antiquity were expected to be read aloud. Ambrose famously was regarded as singular in that he actually read without moving his lips.
Witherington also points out forcefully that it is long past time to reassess the social background of the NT writers. Their very literacy argues that they were part of the social elite, not the poor. The documents they left behind "reflect a considerable knowledge of Greek, rhetoric, and general Greco-Roman culture" (p 9). Among the types of rhetoric employed by the NT writers were "rhetorical questions, dramatic hyperbole, personification, amplification, irony, enthymemes, and the like...for example...the chereia" (p 13).
In his essay on 'Canonical Pseudepigrapha' he points out that by the second and third century we see that the early Christians had clear objections to any sort of forging or misnaming documents. "Furthermore, we find evidence that when falsification was discovered, there were moves to correct the problem" (p 19).
I also found Witherington's essay on the Beloved Disciple, whom he identifies with Lazarus, to be well thought out and interesting, even though, ultimately, I find Hengel and Bauchkham's arguments more persuasive.
Witherington is at his best on his essay on porneia. He points out that "neither Mark nor Paul think that Jesus allowed any exceptions to his prohibition of divorce" and if Jesus had meant adultery he would have used the word moixeia. Divorce was allowed for Second Temple Jews, although those following Shammaite teachers allowed divorce only for adultery. Witherington concludes that "the social context strongly favors the idea that porneia in Mattthew 5 and 19, as in 1 Corinthians 5:1, refers to incest and thus...not divinely sanctioned relationship" (p 111).
A rich, thoughtful collection.
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