Clearly the most famous Buddhist temple complex in the entire vicinity of Thailand, is Angor Wat which is in neighboring Cambodia. Since the King could not incorporate the real temple into his reign, instead there is a full scale model in the Palace complex, and here it is….. This model stands out from all its surrounding due to its plain color. Even the ancient wall paintings of scenes from Buddhist mythology are more ornate…. Of course one of the main... Read more

The Grand Palace in Bangkok is far and away its most visited site, and the day I was visiting it was sizzling hot. There is no shade in the walled-off palace and temple complex, and all the metallic gold reflects the heat as well. No wonder there were so many people with umbrellas with no rain in sight. First of all, there is the traditional king’s residence, though in fact he has many residences (and in fact he spends a... Read more

Bangkok Thailand is a city of over 8 million people, out of a total of some 40 million in the whole country. It is the capital. The history of Thailand is interesting not least because it avoided the plague called colonialism, unlike Vietnam and Java and other southeast Asian countries. It has always been the kingdom of Siam, and it still has a King today, although he mainly has ceremonial duties and privilege to exhort the people these days. His... Read more

I went to Bangkok to teach a two week intensive on Biblical Theology. There were about 40 students in the class who came from Singapore, the Philippines and of course Thailand proper for the class. The Christian population of Thailand is only about 1 percent, and so there are not many churches of long standing. Here are pictures of two of them. The first is the Anglican Church in Bangkok, founded 1908, with a very traditional structure and worship service…..... Read more

(N.B. Once again some of the pictures could not be righted in Word Press, so just click on the picture and it will turn up right if it’s side ways) The first stop on my Australia swing was in Brisbane to give the keynote address on Biblical Theology (a lecture to be published in a T+T Clark volume in due course). Brisbane is yet another coastal city (this one on the northeastern coast of Australia) with a population of several... Read more

Among it’s various virtues, which include nice folks like my old friends, Alan and Allison Chapple who are natives there (Alan did his PhD at the same time as me in Durham with CKB) , there are nice hotels like the Aloft, a brand new one in the Marriot chain. There is also an excellent and beautiful university built in the old style (looks rather like a Catholic institution in the states) called the University of West Australia—-That’s a jackaranda... Read more

This summer’s big teaching trip between July 14th and August 6th involved a 2 week intensive in Bangkok, Thailand for ABTS (Asia Biblical Theo. Seminary— related to Cornerstone U. in Grand Rapids Mich.) and then a barnstorming tour of three Aussie cities— Brisbane, Perth, and Sydney, where I lectured at Trinity Sem., Vose Sem. and Macquarrie U. respectively. These first few posts will be about Perth, which I had never visited before, not least because it’s on the Back of... Read more

Here is a rather complete list of all my books (plus a few I wrote essays for), in case you are wondering, since I keep getting asked how many I’ve written….. https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/ben-witherington-iii/218076/ But whose counting anyway? I thought about stopping when I reached one book for each year of life……. Read more

Dan Brown, of Da Vinci Code fame, a while back (2017) published the fifth installment in the Robert Langdon series, and this one is a whopper— over 500 pages. It may be remembered that his first really famous book, the Da Vinci Code led to all sorts of fact checks and critiques for there were some 150+ historical, religious, etc. errors in the novel, and that novel, like this one began with the pronouncement that all statements about religious, art,... Read more

Robert Harris is writer of great skill, with a penchant for writing compelling page turns about historical persons and events— Pompeii and the Cicero trio of novels come to mind. In Conclave, he turns his hands to the complex subject of Papal elections. Conclave, from the Latin ‘with the key’, refers to the locking of the cardinals into the Sistine Chapel to vote for a new Pope, the old one having died. For about 400 pages this novel keeps you... Read more