How Not to Interpret the Bible. Part Ten. What about the Trinity?
Last updated on: July 14, 2022 at 8:52 am By Ben Witherington
Here is a summary by Claude.ai of Witherington’s position as laid out in that article:
Progressive Revelation as the Framework
Witherington’s central organizing principle is progressive revelation — God disclosed truth gradually, in ways appropriate to each audience. He draws on Hebrews to argue that pre-Christ revelation was inherently partial and incomplete. He sketches a rough canonical map: the Old Testament is primarily about the Father, the Gospels about the Son, and the rest of the New Testament largely about the Holy Spirit.
The Trinity Is a New Testament Doctrine
Witherington is emphatic that genuine Trinitarian thinking does not begin until the New Testament, and really not until after the Christ event itself. He argues that the earliest Christians — Paul chief among them — were driven to rethink monotheism when they came to recognize Jesus as divine: equal with God before creation, yet genuinely human in the incarnation. Jesus’ own self-identification with the Son of Man figure in Daniel 7:13–14 further accelerated this theological development, as did his exaltation and the conferral of the divine title Lord (not the human name Jesus).
Cautions Against Over-Reading the Old Testament
He pushes back on the tendency to find the Trinity lurking in Old Testament texts. The “let us” in Genesis, for example, should be read as Yahweh addressing his heavenly angelic council — as in Job 1–2 — not as an implicit reference to the Triune persons. Early Christians, he notes, did not immediately jump to Trinitarian readings of such passages.
The Holy Spirit as a Particular Case
Witherington acknowledges a specific challenge with the Spirit: in the Old Testament, references to a “Holy Spirit” are rare, and most references to God’s spirit simply denote the Father’s living presence — not a distinct, personal member of a Trinity. It is only in the New Testament, especially in Jesus’ own teaching in John 14–17, that the Spirit is described in fully personal terms — as an advocate, an agent, one who can be grieved, who guides and sanctifies.
Types vs. Incarnations
He draws a firm line between Old Testament types (such as Melchizedek) and any notion that the pre-incarnate Son was appearing in the flesh throughout the OT. Those figures are foreshadowings, not pre-incarnate appearances. The one exception he grants is the identification of Christ with the Wisdom/Word figure found in Proverbs 3, 8–9 and reflected in hymnic passages like Colossians 1 and John 1 — the very Wisdom of God who, in the fullness of time, became flesh.
Overall Stance
Witherington is a convinced Trinitarian, but his Trinitarianism is exegetically grounded and historically sensitive. He insists the doctrine must be built from what the New Testament actually says in its own context, not by reading it back into the Old Testament anachronistically. The Trinity is, in his view, the culmination of a long arc of revelation that God’s people were simply not ready to receive until the God-man himself appeared.
Found in Translation – Part One – Volume 27, Number 14 (3/30/2025, to 4/5/2025)
Topics: Interpretation God Biblical Theology
Found in Translation – Part Two – Volume 27, Number 16 (4/13/2025, to 4/19/2025)
Topics: Biblical Theology God Interpretation
Found in Translation – Part Three – Volume 27, Number 20 (5/11/2025, to 5/17/2025)
Topics: Interpretation God Biblical Theology
Found in Translation – Part Four – Volume 27, Number 30 (7/20/2025, to 7/26/2025)
Topics: Interpretation God Biblical Theology
Found in Translation – Part Five – Volume 27, Number 37 (9/7/2025, to 9/13/2025)
Topics: Biblical Theology God Pentateuch
