Ben Witherington III

Dr. Ben Witherington received his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1977 and his Ph.D. from the University of Durham, England in 1981. Dr. Witherington taught at High Point College, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. In 1995 he joined the Asbury Seminary faculty after teaching at Ashland Theological Seminary for more than a decade. A prolific author, Dr. Witherington has written more than 40 books and six commentaries, including The Gospel Code: Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Da Vinci (2004), The Problem With Evangelical Theory: Testing the Exegetical Foundations of Calvinism, Dispensationalism, and Wesleyanism (2005), and The New Testament Story (2004). One of his works, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (InterVarsity Press, 1995), was selected as the top biblical studies book of 1995 by Christianity Today and the Academy of Parish Clergy. In The Jesus Quest, Dr. Witherington surveys the contemporary Christological landscape in New Testament scholarship, offering a helpful perspective on one of the most significant and controversial religious debates of the past decade. In 1999 he again won the Christianity Today book award, this time for The Paul Quest: The Renewed Search for the Jew of Tarsus. He was recently featured in the BBC and PBS special entitled 'The Story of Jesus'. Dr. Witherington, who has led numerous study tours through the lands of the Bible, is known for bringing the text to life through incisive historical and cultural analysis. He is a John Wesley Fellow for Life, a research fellow at Cambridge University and a member of numerous professional organizations, including the Society of Biblical Literature, Society for the Study of the New Testament and the Institute for Biblical Research. Dr. Witherington has also spoken to many groups about his topics of expertise, and even had the opportunity to preach at the National Chapel in May of 2006. He and his wife, Ann, have two children.