What Have They Done With Jesus? Ben Witherington

(Ben Witherington, good ol' North Carolina boy)
Ben Witherington began his speech by repeating almost word for word Stephen Prothero’s cry for Biblical literacy. We are, as Prothero writes, “A Nation of Biblical Illiterates” (Prothero, Religious Literacy, Course Anothology, 274). Witherington made it clear, as does Prothero, that it is not only non-Christians who know little about Christianity, but many Christians as well. When asked, Who is Joan of Ark, a response given several times was, Noah’s wife.

Witherington spoke about the need for fundamentalists (to use a blanket term) to “wake up and smell the coffee” because so many of them are still clinging to a pre-scientific worldview. “You don’t have to be Cro-Magnon man to be a Christian!” Many fundamentalist Christians don’t want to have the facts presented to them. Witherington said that he had encountered many such instances while touring through Texas. “I knows what I knows. Now don’t confuse me with none of them facts!” This attitude we must be wary of.


The audience was small, and most of the professors who asked questions appeared to be scientists, likely with Christian backgrounds. One question was about the suspensions of natural laws so that miracles might occur. How could this happen and why would God break his own laws, if they are indeed his? Witherington’s response is one that can never be refuted: We don’t know all the laws. He also said that he had seen miracles of healing in his own life. An interesting interpretation he added was that miracles might be the acceleration of natural processes that usually occur slowly, such as bodily healing. Another question challenged contemporary biblical scholarship. It seems like much biblical study today is merely a reinterpretation of old material so as to fit contemporary standards and better frustrate attacks on Christianity. Witherington spoke about the nature of today’s academic climate, that is postmodernism, in which there are no absolute truths, all interpretations are equally valid because that’s all there is – interpretation, and by which original sources and texts hold little weight because it is the reader who gives them meaning. I agree with Witherington on this point: most of that is self-inflating fluff, poor scholarship, and in most cases contradictory and self-defeating.

Witherington was adamant that none of the Gnostic texts, which have become so sensationally popular in the last several years, add anything to our understanding of Jesus. The best and most reliable accounts are the earliest, he said. “Stick with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and you can’t go wrong.” The Gnostic gospels are not new to biblical scholars and are indeed interesting for understanding the evolution of the Christian church, but add nothing to our knowledge of the historical (contrasted with the hysterical) Jesus. Their sensationalism is merely a marketing gimmick.

(Witherington received his PhD here at Durham University in England. Another old English Oxfordian institute of higher learning.)
He spoke at length about what Jesus thought of himself. Did he in fact consider himself the Son of God. He went on to show that his actions clearly indicate that he did, and that we have good reason to believe that this is the truth. I asked Witherington, How can we reconcile Jesus’ claim to divinity with claims made by mystics of Eastern contemplative traditions? Does Jesus ever say that he alone has access to this union with Godhead? Witherington didn’t address directly whether or not Jesus claimed to be the only such divinely imbued being, but he did say that Jesus claimed that faith in him was the only route to salvation. Jesus did not claim to be the only one to have profound insights – many other wisdom traditions do as well. The distinguishing feature of Jesus’ teachings is that he alone can provide salvation. I wish this meant more to me, but it seems as though if others have access to divine union, what would a savior provide? I wish I had reiterated my question: Does Jesus ever claim to be the only one who can have this divine identity? I do not recall that he ever does.