The Case For Christ

Theological Seminary, where I found Ben Witberington's office on
the
fourth floor of a colonial-style building off the rustic
community's main drag. With the gracious hospitality of a
Southern gentleman, the North Carolina native offered me a
comfortable chair and some coffee as we sat down to discuss who
Jesus of Nazareth thought he was. The topic is familiar territory
to Witherington, whose books include Jesus the Sage; The Many
Faces of the Christ; The Jesus Quest; Jesus, Paul, and the End of
the World; and Women in the Ministry of Jesus and whose articles
about Jesus have appeared in specialized dictionaries and
academic journals.
Educated at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (master of
divinity degree, summa cum laude) and the University of Durham in
England (doctorate in theology with a concentration in New
Testament), Witherington has taught at Asbury, Ashland
Theological Seminary, the Divinity School of Duke University,
and Gordon-Conwell. His memberships include the Society for the
Study of the New Testament, the Society of Biblical Literature,
and the Institute for Biblical Research.
Speaking distinctly and deliberately, weighing his words with
care, Witherington definitely sounded like a scholar, yet his
voice betrayed an unmistakable undercurrent of fascination-even
awefor his subject. This attitude emerged even further when he
took me on a tour of a high-tech studio where he had been mixing
images of Jesus with songs whose lyrics illuminate the
compassion, the sacrifice, the humanity, and the majesty of his
life and ministry.
For a scholar who writes heavily footnoted, cautiously nuanced,
and academically precise prose on the technical issues involving
Jesus, this artistic wedding of video and music is a poetic
outlet for exploring the side of Jesus that only the creative
arts can come close to capturing.
Back in Witherington's office, I decided to begin examining the
issue of Jesus' self-understanding with a question that often
springs to the minds of readers when they're exposed to the
gospels for the first time.
"The truth is that Jesus was a bit mysterious about his identity,
wasn't he?" I asked as Witherington pulled up a chair across from
me. "He tended to shy away from forthrightly proclaiming himself
to be the Messiah or Son of God. Was that because he didn't think