Ethnic Transformation and Israel's Resurrection in the Pauline Epistles and Beyond

PAUL AND THE RESURRECTION OF ISRAEL: JEWS, FORMER GENTILES, AND ISRAELITES. By Jason A. Staples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Pp. 435. Hardcover, $39.99. It is an honor and a privilege to have had four outstanding scholars of the New Testament engage with Paul and the Resurrection of Israel in such detail, and I want to begin by thanking the reviewers for their incredibly generous and thoughtful reviews.1 I am delighted for the opportunity to carry the conversation forward beyond the pages of the book. Of course, responding in full to such thorough comments would require more space than is feasible here. Therefore, I will try to combine responses to common threads brought up by multiple reviewers while also addressing the most significant individual responses on a more case-by-case basis, necessarily focusing on points of difference or critique rather than commonality. Paul does not suggest that there are “disguised” Israelites among the nations who have simply forgotten their true ethnic heritage and are now being restored through recognition of their Israelite lineage. The nations/gentiles are not unknown Israelites. On the contrary ... the point is that the bulk of northern Israel has actually become “not my people” (=gentiles). ... Israel's redemption is therefore not a matter of finding and identifying unknown Israelites among the nations ... but rather involves recreating Israel from the gentiles through the transformative work of the spirit. (286). I was initially puzzled about the source of such a misunderstanding, but it likely stems from a single paragraph in the book, where I observe that the unnatural branches being grafted into the olive tree of Rom 11 “are not branches of other types of trees, a practice also known in antiquity, but wild olive branches” (296). On closer examination, I concede that this paragraph, in isolation, could be read as though these unnatural branches were already Israelites, though the book as a whole argues against such a conclusion. This accounts for why Joshua Garroway's review similarly inquires how this section squares with the rest of the book's argument. It is, therefore, imperative that I further clarify to ensure that future readers are not misled on this important point. Rather than being a matter of mistaken or hidden Israelite identity, my argument is that Paul understood the bulk of Israel as having been thoroughly assimilated within the nations through centuries of intermarriage. The result was not unknown or hidden Israelites but rather ethnic death. From an ethnic perspective, the descendants of the scattered northern Israelites melted into other ethnic groups without remaining ethnically Israelite in any fashion. Paul's conclusion is, therefore, in keeping with a tradition ascribed to R. Joshua in the Mishnah, “Are there Ammonites and Moabites in this place? Sennacherib, king of Assyria, already came up and mixed up all the nations” (m. Yad. 4:4). All those descended from Reubenite stock, for example, were assimilated into other nations and have long since ceased to be Israelites. The tribe of Reuben is effectively dead and gone. But Paul does not think that death supersedes God's promises—here, the metaphor of death and resurrection is for Paul more than a mere metaphor but applies to Israel as a whole. It is not the case that the Gentiles coming into Christ previously “mistakenly thought they were ethne”. On the contrary, they really were gentiles and have now been transformed and incorporated into another ethnos, just as those who had once been Israelites had been assimilated among the nations and really became “not my people.” As such, this is not a situation in which, if these gentiles look far enough into their past via “endless genealogies” (1 Tim 1:4), they would find some unknown Israelite ancestor that validates their status, but rather a situation in which Israel has been so dispersed among and assimilated within the nations as to have died. Israel's restoration, therefore, requires divinely initiated restoration through resurrection and ethnic transformation. Though unnatural, these newly engrafted branches do become full members of the same olive tree as the remaining natural branches rather than being established as a separate and parallel tree. Ehrensperger also objects to the idea that “there is a group which at least risks being cut off from Israel” and insists, following Mark Nanos, that the natural branches of the olive tree in Rom 11 are broken but not removed, still remaining in the tree (Nanos 2010). But this reading becomes incoherent in Rom 11:23 (a verse Nanos conveniently does not discuss in his analysis), where Paul refers to the natural branches being “grafted in again.” Why would branches that have not been removed need to be grafted in again? I understand Nanos' and Ehrensperger's desire to shield the text from implications unpalatable to our modern context, but sometimes the text says something other than what we may wish it did. Paul was not a tame apostle. In this case, Paul's argument corresponds closely with numerous contemporary prophetic and sectarian declarations of the same sort, which see Israel being pared down to the faithful while the rest are pruned away. It is difficult to imagine anyone concluding from Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, or Jeremiah that all Israelites are secure regardless of behavior or covenant fidelity. That is not the traditional Jewish theology of Paul's contemporaries, and I do not think the apostle differs from his contemporaries in this respect. Much of the rest of Ehrensperger's review argues against my observation that the term Israel/Israelite was not synonymous with the term Ioudaioi/Jews in Paul's day, an important foundation stone for the larger argument of the book. It is, therefore, a pity that Ehrensperger apparently did not read The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism, where that case is thoroughly made, and instead works only from the short summary of that book's argument provided in the first chapter of this book. Since the bulk of her critiques were already answered in that volume, I need only clarify a few points here. First, with respect to Josephus' Antiquities 11.131–133, I do not argue that “the whole people of Israel” is “a restrictive identity label for those from the Northern Kingdom”. Quite the opposite! Instead, that phrase refers to the whole people of Israel, including but not restricted to Ioudaioi. The point is that Israel is a more inclusive label than Ioudaioi, which is a more restrictive label limited to Israelites from Judahite tribes. In this passage and its surrounding context, Josephus explains that whereas many Jews returned from Babylon, this return did not involve “the whole people of Israel” precisely because the returnees involved only the limited subset of Judah and Benjamin (and Levi), while the rest of Israel (including those from other tribes as well as many other Jews) remained “beyond Euphrates until now” (11.133). Nevertheless, Ehrensperger is surely right that the rhetorical drive of this passage serves to undermine Roman domination; indeed, that is exactly what I argue in a full chapter of The Idea of Israel (Staples 2021, 210–32). She is, however, mistaken when she states (with no supporting evidence) that “in Josephus we do find reference to Israel and Ioudaioi with regard to this [Hasmonean] period and later”. Instead, the term “Israel” and its cognates only appear in th Book 11 of Antiquities or anywhere else in the Josephan corpus. Second, I nowhere argue that Jews “would need to be labelled Ioudaioi” as opposed to being called Israelites. This again misunderstands and misrepresents my argument. I do not argue that Jews cannot be labeled Israelites or that first-century Jews refrained from referring to themselves as Israelites but rather that not all Israelites are Jews and that “Israel” was consistently understood as a category including but not limited to Jews. Indeed, since Israel includes Jews, Jews of this period are often called “Israelites” in much the same way that Floridians today are often called Americans. But not all Americans are Floridians, and it would be a mistake to identify “Americans” solely with Floridians since “American” refers to a superordinate category including but larger than Floridians. A significant portion of Ehrensperger's review thus critiques arguments the book does not make. Ehrensperger also emphasizes that only eighth-day circumcision is sufficient for inclusion in the Abrahamic covenant, asserting “nobody else is called out of Egypt”.2 But this claim ignores that Moses' own son had not been circumcised on the eighth day (Exod 4:24–26), that those who came out of Egypt were, in fact, a “mixed multitude” (Exod 12:38), and that none of those born in the wilderness were circumcised on the eighth day (Josh 5:7), meaning all Israel had at that point “broken [YHWH's] covenant” (Gen 17:14). Paul also explicitly refers to his addressees as descendants of the Israelites in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:1), which only makes sense if they are understood as covenantal members. Ehrensperger's concluding assertion that “the only real and identifiable people of the name Israel that walked on earth at the time of Paul was the Jewish people” is also remarkable for its straightforward dismissal of Samaritan claims to Israelite status. Ehrensperger begins her review by asking for a clarification of my hermeneutical presuppositions and the perspective from which “other approaches are judged as right, wrong, or faulty”. My presuppositions are rather straightforward: I agree with Meir Sternberg that “communication presupposes a speaker who resorts to certain linguistic and structural tools in order to produce certain effects on the addressee; the discourse accordingly supplies a network of clues to the speaker's [objectified or embodied] intention” (Sternberg 1985, 9). As such, readings that most coherently decode those clues in accord with the linguistic, rhetorical, and structural grammar employed in the text(s) are superior to alternatives that do not. That is, readings that fit better within the ancient contextual framework and cultural encyclopedia of their authors and readers and are more internally coherent and consistent are to be favored. For example, if I were to suggest that the epistle to the Romans advocates the practice of child sacrifice to gain the power of interplanetary space travel, surely everyone—even Ehrensperger—would agree that such a reading is wrong to the point of absurdity. Once that is granted, to paraphrase the punch line of an old joke, we have already established how interpretation works; now, we are just haggling over details. Everyone ultimately agrees that some readings are wrong while others more closely approximate the meaning embedded in a text. We have no direct access to an author's mind, but communication a priori requires the ability to distinguish between better and worse interpretations of a given piece of communication. I am also not using these texts as windows “to the historical facts behind the texts” (Ehrensperger's word, but instead interpreting the texts themselves—a wholly different endeavor. Such a task is little different from contextually informed interpretation of Plato or Shakespeare or the Gettysburg Address. The belief that we cannot, with any sort of confidence, approximate another's meaning, whether through speech or written text, ultimately circumscribes the possibility of meaningful communication and rather rapidly approaches solipsism, and I cannot embrace such a view. Otherwise, there would be no reason to think the reader of this sentence should be able to ascertain my meaning, rendering the whole scholarly enterprise futile. It is true that our vision is always limited by our perspectives, but this is why it is so important to engage with other interpreters to help us see those blind spots and thus correct and expand our vision. Even the famous parable of the blind men and the elephant only works as told from the perspective of someone with enough information to put the pieces together and properly identify the object in question. It is, therefore, on future readers to help the blind spots in my and our of that much But focusing on my own does not that but rather only from that larger which is to understand something and from that is in fact, the at which point Ehrensperger and I are in wholly different In his to task for to as that Paul's of the term in Romans better corresponds with a theology of rather than It is also true that as Nevertheless, is also the of the which properly not but a sense closer to the meaning of this when Jewish authors Paul or the sense of could be from the word, and it is a mistake to regard as from for such Indeed, that is another of the of consistently with Such a in no way that when says Paul is always referring to the written of Indeed, I argue in the book that Paul and other Jewish authors from this the written as an of the as a of the to Israel and through In this I agree that Paul with what be called a theology that with that of Nevertheless, I think the of as the and the of Paul (and should be understood in keeping with the Jewish framework in which is a framework in which to the the written the or the of the all of which are closely In this I also agree that Romans a the of the The I is between the against gentiles in and Paul's of that argument in which the and the written are in in order to that Israel and the other nations are all The of critiques rest on the foundation of claim that much of Romans the of an theology Paul also from written the of was also my own does not on these but to that I am by the argument that these of Romans put forward a other than Paul's am I that Paul from the of and Instead, I think the off by an the apostle since circumcision would to be in keeping with these task of the restoration of Paul so to being if I Paul would not object to the circumcision of born to Jewish of This is a that to the of the over circumcision among the of it should also be that this only makes sense if it full Israelite and in the I think Paul's in down to the for Paul's is not to circumcision but rather to the idea that circumcision is to be and become a full of the Abrahamic this idea as a of the of the work in those and argues that such the power to I Paul's as by Paul's own that is and is (1 Cor also about the for my that Paul circumcision as a of his I am this from which that for In my this not only applies to the of but to the other in the This at the of is already up the of and in the with a through I agree with that many today would regard Paul's as Paul his is superior to the perspective of other contemporary Jews and who opposed so far as to a on those who But in that Paul is different from any of his sectarian the category of only becomes coherent the and a and likely in Paul's own I do not think the category of is when to these texts or That I do object to the idea that Paul to any of in no way that a is Israel or the Jews. Instead, argues that some Gentiles are being incorporated into the people of through the of and ethnic while some Jews are being removed for But the people the or his For his Joshua whether my reading of Romans much from as it requires “a for and a of that many contemporary scholars But I whether there is any reading of Romans that could this of Indeed, we for about Paul's is that they had a for being as as which that they that are to the point of in my reading is exactly the sort of should for such need for with in other Jewish but by modern readers and is at the and of the or other which consistently an of multiple (and for and the ability to We should not be to Paul on a of in to with many members. Indeed, the of the authors of or that there were, in fact, readers in these of up what Paul was it should be that there is an between the of a and the and that may be from the Paul is also to with could a situation more to communication in which with the is to decode the readers to these as not the of of the was rather than from The Nevertheless, I that Paul did the of most of his in much the same way a modern may well the of all but of the while all the other in the are on and It to that the and at likely result from exactly this sort of as Paul's that for the by the is (1 Cor was by some as a to do Cor the apostle to clarify his All that to that the of much of readers is by of it applies to the rather than my reading and is in any interpretation of these Nevertheless, I think my reading of Romans is, in fact, than the alternatives to It more time to on the because from other initially where my reading But once the of the are and these together much more and much of their away. and about how this with texts and how I for the of Israel as “the for a First, I do not the all the space of interpretation of the effectively the and such as when the may be though it could no be in their own day because of the of the The are not about their contemporaries or “Israel” as “the for a they are Israel as a As such, I agree with that “a of the of Israel in the of the claim that a and not a ethnic Nevertheless, I also agree with many that the of Israel by likely the way that term was in further that where the term does it only in to a the for a in a contemporary rather than the of the also a in the as the whether the are really Israelites or whether Israelite is limited only to Jews the in and The also up the of the of the northern with R. “the tribes will not and R. the (m. In the R. and R. Judah agree with with the that in this his with the reference to up the (m. Yad. it is that the that Israel ultimately includes will those the contemporary Jewish with some to a framework that to my reading of further why its claim that gentiles are now in the of Israel, to no reference to the restoration of the northern tribes of But I think the in fact, to exactly claim that Christ has into through the the is of will the of Israel from the of the nations ... and I will ... and they will no be nations and will no be into when says Christ to who were far and those who were that is a from which is a of restoration to the of scattered That also closely to which God's his people they against ... they are to a far off and (1 The reference to that people being a for further which says will be the and people themselves I think all this and more is embedded in which again the of gentiles with the of the and restoration of I think these are just as in where to the of now the to Israel” is that the be in and as far as the of the Why those and and to the tribes. But why “the of the This phrase is with Israel's and restoration, in Deuteronomy, which will among all the from of the earth as far as the of the when Israel is it will be again from all the where has scattered It is thus no that of Israel's restoration will from the of the when Second Israel's restoration, it is precisely “to the of the But also is a ... to up the tribes of I will also a of so that my may the of the is with that of the in are “to the nations ... to the to my among the the the result that will from all the again the nations with restored to the in is thus to his to precisely the where Israel may be with the most and to those who were most This is a to what the had out to how this is in a precisely by of from all the nations” as In the about on a from A closer look at the of those in further on the the as the to northern “the of Israel will be in all nations in a with the result that “the of my people will which will and out and the nations who are called by my It is no that the passage by in to the inclusion of gentiles by the is a passage about northern Israel's restoration from the nations by God's an much parallel to Paul's own The of applies the for from to without circumcision for full in the This makes sense in of which that in the restoration, “the who in and in be to as born among the of they be an with among the tribes of Israel, and it be in the tribe which the there his The of the with of the and ethnic of the within Israel more explains the of than any other As for other in which this between Israel's restoration and may be some of the most the the “other that are not of this of the to the tribes of the in the of “not my people” in and from “the of the of Israel” to nations” But these my only the and much work to be

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