What's in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament

Written in clear, and at times colorful, prose, Ben Witherington's What's in the Word explains how the recognition of the oral and socio-rhetorical character of the New Testament and its environment necessitates a change in how the New Testament literature is read. Expanding on the work in which he has been fruitfully engaged for over a quarter century, Witherington challenges the previously assured results of historical criticism and demonstrates chapter by chapter how the socio-rhetorical study shifts the paradigm.

Taken together, the chapters in What's in the Word coalesce around three of Witherington's ongoing academic concerns: orality and rhetoric; New Testament history, including issues of authenticity and canonicity; and the exegesis of given words in their canonical and socio-cultural contexts. Always unpredictable, this book never fails to pique interest and proffer instruction.

Ben Witherington III is Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary. His publications includeTroubled Waters: Rethinking the Theology of Baptism (2007), Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper (2007),The Living Word of God: Rethinking the Theology of the Bible (2007), and The Problem with Evangelical Theology: Testing the Exegetical Foundations of Calvinism, Dispensationalism, Wesleyanism, and Pentecostalism, Revised and Expanded Edition (2015).