New Testament scholar Ben Witherington has excellent reviews of Velvet Elvis, Sex God and the first ten Nooma DVDs. His main criticism of Bell is some sloppy exegesis and some misunderstandings of the New Testament context. Witherington is very convincing! Overall, he is extremely positive about Bell. Witherington’s comments on Bell on homosexuality attracted 75 comments; I didn’t read them all but the conversation seems intelligent and well mannered. (Probably a lot of moderating went on.)
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/search?q=Velvet+Elvis
For a standard Reformed kneejerk reaction against the Nooma videos, visit Ed’s Fallible Thoughts. His basic contention: he doesn’t talk about the Bible or Jesus enough. (Not true!) I like one of the responses to this – ‘You mean he doesn’t talk about substitutionary atonement’.
http://edsfalliblethoughts.blogspot.com/2007/06/nooma.html
BTW, this blog is not going to be about Rob Bell forever! I’m just very excited by his work.
