Further Thoughts on Ben Witherington's New Book, "The Living Word of God:" Preface
The Preface of The Living Word of God is meant as an overarching introduction to the central question to be tackled in the book, which is "What does it mean to say that the Bible is both fully human and fully divine. Witherington makes clear that he will emphasize the "fully human" portion to the extent that it has been marginalized by much Christian doctrinal thought throughout history. He summarizes his position as follows: "The Bible, including the New Testament--our primary concern in this study--has always been seen as the word of God in the words of human beings, and the contribution of the latter has normally been recognized as considerable." And as Witherington develops that position, it becomes clear that the involvement of human beings will introduce a level of "humanness" to the text, which can also be called a level of messiness or instability or (that blasphemous word) subjectivity , not as much personal as cultural/historical. To that e...