Ben Witherington III, another Beliefnet blogger and who writes more books than most people read in a lifetime, has put his mind to a big project and volume one is now out: The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical World of the New Testament, Vol. 1: The Individual Witnesses
. It is a two-volume work on theological ethics in the New Testament, and when he’s done with volume two he will write a one-volume shorter version.
This book examines the New Testament texts themselves, for which Ben is now qualified since he’s done writing a commentary on each book of the NT! So, he has a chp on Jesus and Paul and Peter and every other author in the NT. The distinctive contribution of this project is that Ben, instead of starting out with a synthesis, lets the particular theology of each author give rise to the particular ethic of each author. In other words, we have distinct voices in a choir where each voice is singing the same cantata. Volume two will imagine what they sound like when all the voices are brought into an ensemble. (His metaphor.)