@article{staples_2024, title={Ethnic Transformation and Israel's Resurrection in the Pauline Epistles and Beyond: In Grateful Dialogue with Reviewers}, url={https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.17452}, DOI={10.1111/rsr.17452}, journal={Religious Studies Review}, author={Staples, Jason A.}, year={2024}, month={Sep} } @article{staples_2024, title={The Boundaries of Jewishness in the Southern Levant 200 BCE–132 CE: Power, Strategies, and Ethnic Configurations, by John Van Maaren}, url={https://doi.org/10.1163/15700631-tat00024}, DOI={10.1163/15700631-tat00024}, journal={Journal for the Study of Judaism}, author={Staples, Jason A.}, year={2024}, month={Oct} } @inbook{_gupta_cohick_2023, place={Downers Grove}, title={Body of Christ}, url={https://www.ivpress.com/dictionary-of-paul-and-his-letters}, booktitle={The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters}, publisher={IVP Academic}, year={2023}, month={Apr}, pages={83–85} } @inbook{staples_2023, place={Downers Grove}, title={Empire}, url={https://www.ivpress.com/dictionary-of-paul-and-his-letters}, booktitle={The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters}, publisher={IVP Academic}, author={Staples, Jason A.}, editor={Ed. and Gupta, Nijay K. and Cohick, Lynn H.Editors}, year={2023}, month={Apr}, pages={242–50} } @article{staples_2023, title={František Ábel, Ed. Israel and the Nations: Paul’s Gospel in the Context of Jewish Expectation}, volume={18}, url={https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/scjr/article/view/16477}, DOI={10.6017/scjr.v18i1.16477}, abstractNote={No abstract is available.}, number={1}, journal={Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations}, author={Staples, Jason}, year={2023}, month={Jan} } @book{staples_2023, title={Paul and the Resurrection of Israel}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781009376785}, DOI={10.1017/9781009376785}, abstractNote={The gospel promoted by Paul has for many generations stirred passionate debate. That gospel proclaimed equal salvific access to Jews and gentiles alike. But on what basis? In making sense of such a remarkable step forward in religious history, Jason Staples reexamines texts that have proven thoroughly resistant to easy comprehension. He traces Paul's inclusive theology to a hidden strand of thinking in the earlier story of Israel. Postexilic southern Judah, he argues, did not simply appropriate the identity of the fallen northern kingdom of Israel. Instead, Judah maintained a notion of 'Israel' as referring both to the north and the ongoing reality of a broad, pan-Israelite sensibility to which the descendants of both ancient kingdoms belonged. Paul's concomitant belief was that northern Israel's exile meant assimilation among the nations – effectively a people's death – and that its restoration paradoxically required gentile inclusion to resurrect a greater 'Israel' from the dead.}, journal={Cambridge University Press}, author={Staples, Jason A.}, year={2023}, month={Nov} } @article{staples_2022, title={Vessels of Wrath and God's Pathos: Potter/Clay Imagery in Rom 9:20-23}, volume={115}, ISSN={["1475-4517"]}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017816022000116}, DOI={10.1017/S0017816022000116}, abstractNote={AbstractStarting from the concept of divine patience in Rom 9:22, this article argues that Paul employs the potter/clay metaphor not (as often interpreted) to defend God’s right to arbitrary choice but rather as an appeal to what Abraham Heschel called divine pathos—the idea that God’s choices are impacted by human actions. The potter/clay imagery in Rom 9:20–23 thus serves to highlight the dynamic and improvisational way the God of Israel interacts with Israel and, by extension, all of creation.}, number={2}, journal={HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW}, publisher={Cambridge University Press (CUP)}, author={Staples, Jason A.}, year={2022}, month={Apr} } @book{staples_2021, title={The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108906524}, DOI={10.1017/9781108906524}, abstractNote={In this book, Jason A. Staples proposes a new paradigm for how the biblical concept of Israel developed in Early Judaism and how that concept impacted Jewish apocalyptic hopes for restoration after the Babylonian Exile. Challenging conventional assumptions about Israelite identity in antiquity, his argument is based on a close analysis of a vast corpus of biblical and other early Jewish literature and material evidence. Staples demonstrates that continued aspirations for Israel's restoration in the context of diaspora and imperial domination remained central to Jewish conceptions of Israelite identity throughout the final centuries before Christianity and even into the early part of the Common Era. He also shows that Israelite identity was more diverse in antiquity than is typically appreciated in modern scholarship. His book lays the groundwork for a better understanding of the so-called 'parting of the ways' between Judaism and Christianity and how earliest Christianity itself grew out of hopes for Israel's restoration.}, journal={Cambridge University Press}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, author={Staples, Jason A.}, year={2021}, month={May} } @article{staples_2019, title={'Rise, Kill, and Eat': Animals as Nations in Early Jewish Visionary Literature and Acts 10}, volume={42}, ISSN={["1745-5294"]}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0142064x19855564}, DOI={10.1177/0142064X19855564}, abstractNote={Peter’s vision in Acts 10 ostensibly concerns dietary laws but is interpreted within the narrative as a revelation of God’s mercy towards the Gentiles, culminating in the baptism of Cornelius’ household. How this vision pertains to the immediately following events has remained a problem in scholarship on Acts. This article argues that the vision depends on earlier apocalyptic Jewish depictions of various nations as animals (and empires as hybrid beasts) and allegorical explanations of the food laws familiar in the Second Temple period in which the forbidden animals are understood as representing those peoples with whom Israel must not mix. What seems on the surface to refer to food is therefore naturally understood within this genre as a reference to nations and peoples. Acts 10 thus makes use of standard Jewish apocalyptic tropes familiar to its audience but less familiar to modern readers.}, number={1}, journal={JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT}, author={Staples, Jason A.}, year={2019}, month={Sep}, pages={3–17} } @article{‘lord, lord’: jesus as yhwh in matthew and luke_2018, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0028688517000273}, DOI={10.1017/s0028688517000273}, abstractNote={Despite numerous studies of the word κύριος (‘Lord’) in the New Testament, the significance of the double form κύριε κύριε occurring in Matthew and Luke has been overlooked, with most assuming the doubling merely communicates heightened emotion or special reverence. By contrast, this article argues that whereas a single κύριος might be ambiguous, the double κύριος formula outside the Gospels always serves as a distinctive way to represent the Tetragrammaton and that its use in Matthew and Luke is therefore best understood as a way to represent Jesus as applying the name of the God of Israel to himself.}, journal={New Testament Studies}, year={2018}, month={Jan} } @article{staples_2016, title={Reading Romans in Context: Paul and Second Temple Judaism . Edited by Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston.}, volume={11}, DOI={10.1093/jts/flw195}, abstractNote={This volume is a collection of 20 non-technical essays by David Lincicum, Wesley Hill, Jonathan Linebaugh, Sarah Whittle, Jason Maston, Aaron Sherwood, Mariam Kamell, Mark Matthews, Jonathan Worthington, Joseph Dodson, Kyle Wells, Ben Blackwell, Orrey McFarland, Ben Dunson, John Goodrich, Dean Pinter, Nijay Gupta, David Briones, Susan Matthew. Each essay pairs a major unit of Romans with a thematically related early Jewish text to show how understanding Paul’s Jewish context through such texts helps illuminate Romans while also emphasizing Paul’s distinctiveness relative to other early Jewish thinkers. The volume begins with a brief introduction (pp. 15–29) to the Second Temple Period and its literature in which the editors engage with the potential scepticism of many modern Christians regarding the value of extra-canonical Jewish literature, arguing that this material has an important role in aiding biblical (New Testament) interpretation. The essays that follow cover a wide variety of early Jewish material, including the Psalms of Solomon, Wisdom of Solomon (twice), Sirach (twice), Jubilees, 4QMMT, Community Rule, the Epistle of Enoch, Philo (thrice), 4 Ezra, the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (Apocalypse of Moses), Tobit, 4 Maccabees, Josephus, 1 Maccabees, and evidence from synagogue inscriptions. Each chapter is followed by suggested primary and secondary sources for further study.}, journal={The Journal of Theological Studies}, publisher={Oxford University Press (OUP)}, author={Staples, Jason A.}, year={2016}, month={Nov}, pages={flw195} } @article{altered because of transgressions? the ‘law of deeds’ in gal 3,19a_2015, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/znw-2015-0007}, DOI={10.1515/znw-2015-0007}, journal={Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft}, year={2015}, month={Jan} } @article{what do the gentiles have to do with "all israel"? a fresh look at romans 11:25-27_2011, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/41304206}, DOI={10.2307/41304206}, abstractNote={(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) In Rom 11:25-27, Paul triumphantly concludes his discussion of Israel's fate: I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery (lest you become highminded yourselves)1 that a hardening has come upon a part of Israel2 until the fullness of the nations [...] has come in-and thus [...]3 all Israel will be saved, just as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will remove ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins." Most commentators have found Paul's confident assertion that "all Israel will be saved" impenetrable; ironically, Paul's explanation has been found to be as cryptic as the mystery, his cure worse than the disease. Four major interpretations have been put forward: (1) the "ecclesiastical" interpretation, (2) the "total national elect" view, (3) the "two-covenant" perspective, and (4) the "eschatological miracle" position.4 The "ecclesiastical" interpretation was the majority position in the patristic period.5 This view equates Israel and the church, arguing against defining Israel on ethnic grounds-based largely on Paul's apparent redefinition of Israel in 9:6. This view has largely fallen out of favor, with most modern interpreters resisting such a radical redefinition of Israel.6 A "strong consensus" now insists that "Israel" must mean all "ethnic" or "empirical" Israel (i.e., all Jews), instead focusing the debate on what Paul means by "all" and on the timing and modality of the Jews' salvation.7 The "total national elect" interpretation argues that "the complete number of elect from the historical/empirical nation" (i.e., all "elect" Jews) will be saved in the same manner as the Gentiles (i.e., through Christ).8 Though it retains coherence with Paul's statements about salvation elsewhere, this view seems to make what appears to be a climax of Paul's argument into a mere truism.9 A small contingent of scholars holding to a "two-covenant" perspective has argued that both the "all" and "Israel" should be taken at face value. In this view, every individual Jew will be saved by membership in the Jewish covenant-regardless of their reception of the Gospel.10 Thus, when Paul says, "all Israel will be saved," he means all Jews will be saved throughout history, regardless of their response to the gospel proclamation and Gentile mission.11 Though appealing, this interpretation does not seem to cohere with Paul's statements elsewhere (e.g., Rom 9:1-5; 11:17-24) and remains in the minority.12 The "eschatological miracle" interpretation, in which Paul envisions a future salvation of all Jews at or immediately prior to the eschaton, presently holds the majority.13 After the "fullness of the Gentiles" (11:25) has come in, the Jews will finally be saved all at once,14 probably through a mass conversion of all Jews to Christ, perhaps brought on by the jealousy sparked by the Gentile mission,15 though there is some debate as to whether "all Israel" means every individual Jew will be saved or idiomatically represents ethnic Israel as a collective. The majority of scholars hold the latter view.16 A minority advocate a larger, diachronic view of "all Israel" in which all Jews throughout history will be miraculously redeemed at the eschaton.17 It is therefore clear that to solve this passage one must satisfactorily answer three primary interpretive questions: (1) how Paul defines "all Israel," (2) what Paul means by "the fullness of the nations," and (3) how the salvation of "all Israel" is related to (...) the ingathering of "the fullness of the nations." In short, the essential question can be framed as follows: What does the ingathering of "the fullness of the Gentiles" have to do with the salvation of "all Israel"? This article seeks to answer this question in a way that not only coheres with and illuminates Paul's statements elsewhere but also confirms this passage as the climax of the central argument of Romans itself, concluding with a wholly new interpretive option. …}, journal={Journal of Biblical Literature}, year={2011} }