“There’s nothing in the Bible that says ‘thou shalt not wrestle’ says the wife of pastor Chris as he is struggling with whether to go back to wrestling to pay his family and church’s mounting bills. And believe it or not, this movie is based on the true story of the life of Rev. Chris Whaley, a Baptist pastor, now in Florida, but the movie only covers the period when he first became a pastor in Michigan of a down... Read more

Here is a very interesting article which demonstrates the importance of archaeological work for the understanding of the historical Jesus and his ministry. See what you think—- http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unearthing-world-jesus-180957515/ Read more

Tis the season for primaries, and since Evangelicals seem rather involved, I thought I would provide a voters guide, in regard to the kind of person one should vote for, based on the traits used to describe a follower of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount and in places like Rom. 12-13. I’m not interested in favoring one party or other, because the platform of neither is very Christian. 1) if the candidate regularly lies or deliberately exaggerates just... Read more

[This is a repost of one of blog posts from a decade ago. What I said then, I would still say today, perhaps even more emphatically. I’ve added a few new sprinkles to the post]. The chaplain ran to help the man lying on the beach of a South Pacific island, who had been hit by a shell. The young man was dying, and as the chaplain administered the morphine to him, the young many looked into the chaplain’s eyes... Read more

Here is an interview done with Shaun Tabbatt about my archaeological thrillers. Cut and paste this link into your browsers and listen—- http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/4/7/b/47b804fb505526a2/Author_Talks_With_Shaun_Tabatt_-_Episode_95_-_Ben_Witherington_-_Art_West_Adventure_Series.mp3?c_id=7127734&expiration=1452258006&hwt=86d96fd31024ad1a4f81394190852f39 Read more

We are off and running on Season 4 of the BBC Sherlock series with Cumberbatch and Freeman back at it again (with four episodes promised, the ‘Abominable Bride’ being the first). This first episode aired as a Christmas special in the U.K. What makes this particular episode unique is that it seems to be set at the end of the 19th century, unlike the previous episodes, or is it? Things are not as they seem, as you will soon discover.... Read more

Jennifer Lawrence, our home girl from Louisville, apparently can do no wrong. She is being given one interesting role after another, and not coincidentally she is on a roll. The girl can flat act. The movie ‘Joy’ is in fact a true story about one Joy Mangano who invented the Miracle Mop among other things. The story however is one of overcoming incredible adversity mostly caused by her hugely dysfunctional family. Granted that no family is perfect, and granted that... Read more

The second ‘true story’ film you may have missed during the holidays which is well worth the watch is ‘Concussion’. Will Smith gives an Oscar worthy performance, really the best performance of his life as a Nigerian doctor living in Pittsburgh who discovers CTE– the brain disease caused by repeated head trauma. Like ‘the Big Short’ this movie is an expose film, telling the true story that the NFL tried to bury, cover up, and deny, namely that the violent... Read more

The Christmas season has come and gone, and since we are now officially in the movie dead zone, I thought I would recommend to you several excellent movies that came out during the Holiday season but which you may have missed due to the Star Wars blitz. The first of these involves an all star cast (Pitt, Gosling, Carell, Tomei, and Bale, among others) and a creative technique to the story telling (e.g. sometimes the cast goes out of character... Read more

Caveat Emptor, or in this case Caveat Lector. I should have known better. There were some negative reviews of this first Flavia Albia detective story. One reviewer on Amazon complained that the writing didn’t seem like the writing of Lindsey Davis. Balogna and I don’t mean the city named that in Italia!! The writing in this novel is good, and displays the same style and wit as her other earlier novels. Another writer complained that Flavia Albia is portrayed as... Read more