The Most Significant Paul Book of 2024

Last year I posted about Jason Staples’  The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism: A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity, but he had a second, follow-up book already in the mix and I want to turn to it today.

But I want to give this a reminder of a major conclusion of Idea:

For me the defining section in Staples’ work is his study of Josephus where he shows that Israel is more expansive that “Judean.” Josephus uses Judean nearly 1200x but almost never before the 11th book of the Antiquities. For Josephus, “Israel” is a term for the monarchical period – not before not after. So, Josephus: “From the time they went up from Babylon they were called by this name [Ioudaios] after the tribe of Judah. As the tribe was the prominent one to come from those parts, both the people themselves and the country have taken their name from it (Ant. 11.173). His graphics prove this point without question. The terms Israel and Jew/Judean are not coextensive. Judean was for those in Judea but Israel was mostly still in exile. Judea then is a subset of Israel.

“Ioudaios is a term denoting a person descended from the southern kingdom of Judah or otherwise incorporated into that ethno-religious group.” Israel is then the “northern tribes or the twelve-tribe people as a whole” and thus the term is good for the past and the eschatological future when Judea is rejoined by the exiles.

Volume 2 is called Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, and Israelites. How to hold a moonbeam in your hand? I’ll try to manage some of it. OK, I maybe overstate in the title to this Substack, but at least I have not read a more significant book this year on Paul.

First, the theses of Staples – and he’s got loads of theoretical conclusions toppling out of his bag of exegesis in context – all hang on Jewish restoration eschatology. In some ways Staples’ theory challenges the fundamental narrative of NT Wright, who proposed an “end of exile” eschatology. I’m not persuaded Staples’ strong distinction between exile and death holds up, but that’s not a major issue here; it’s a terminological and eschatology framing issue.

Second, both Wright and Staples build on, or are descendants of Ben Meyers’ famous restoration of Israel eschatology that was interacting with EP Sanders’ own theory of restoration eschatology. That eschatology, which can be found in Deuteronomy 28-32 and then runs right through the historical books and prophets, is a covenant with God and Israel, a revelation of Torah and the requirement to observe/obey the Torah, Israel’s covenant infidelity, the consequences of curses or the wrath of God, and the promise that “God will redeem, reunify, and restore all twelve tribes of Israel to covenantal favor, including an inward ethical transformation of the people to ensure the restoration will be lasting, an eschatological miracle akin to resurrection from the dead.” And this miracle will be an inner transformation that makes obedience and fidelity possible for Israel. These are the features of the boilerplate eschatology of the Bible and Judaism at the time of Jesus and Paul.

Third, at the heart of this restoration is new covenant, which means Spirit, forgiveness, transformation of the heart, and the work of God in the people of God to covenant fidelity. Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Fourth, once again, Israel and Judean/Jew are not the same. The former is a larger circle inside of which Jew/Judean fit. (He translates Youdaioi as Jew throughout and, frankly, one can fail to catch the non-equation with Israel at times. I know I did, and I am aware of his argument.) The wideness of Israel will get a surprising clarification in Staples. Wait for it.

Fifth, Resurrection not only rehearses, updates, and reminds of the arguments made in the first book, which I summarized above, but this second book becomes a special exposition of Romans 2 and Romans 9-11, working out how Jewish restoration eschatology, and in particular the distinction between Israel and Jew/Judea and new covenant eschatology, come into play in these four chapters extensively. And that distinction, in which Israel especially emphasizes the northern tribes, illuminates these chapters and solves fundamental problems.

Sixth, a fundamental problem in Paul's letter to the Romans addresses how it is possible for Paul to incorporate gentiles into the covenant with Israel without requiring circumcision, et al.. Staples contends that the tribes of northern Israel have become mixed into the gentile world, and conversion to Jesus in the gentile mission is God’s way of awakening and resurrecting Israel. The gentile mission then is formed in the context of the mixing of the northern tribes into the gentile world. The gentiles become Israel by the gift of the Holy Spirit and the transformation of a human into fidelity to Christ, which becomes fidelity to the Torah. So the Torah is not obliterated. And neither is supersessionism in the picture. Rather, as Paul writes in the letter to the Romans, gentiles, who become part of Israel, do so by being grafted into the root stock of Israel. This can make Judea envious of the place of these gentiles in the people of God and awaken them to fidelity to the covenant. His words: “Where Israel had become gentilized, now gentiles are effectively being Israelitized, transformed from one ethnicity to another and integrated into the ethnic people of Israel.” I am not persuaded supersessionism can be separated from soteriology.

Seventh, this makes Israel an eschatological term, and Judea much more of a tribal term connected to geography and tradition. “All Israel” being saved in Romans 11:26 then has a completely renewed sense: it points to the covenantally faithful in Judea, in Israel as the ten and thus also the twelve tribes), and among gentiles who turn to Jesus. As he says it, “In this light, the epistle to the Romans is an extended argument for the inclusion of gentiles as a necessary component of Israel’s redemption and evidence of God's fidelity.” And, “Paul understands uncircumcised Jesus- followers as neither Jews nor gentiles but instead has restored, resurrected Israelites.” Which means Romans 2 and 9-11 are not insoluble puzzles; they are the heart of Paul’s theology!!!!! Why are gentiles then not in need of circumcision? They have been, in and by the Spirit.