Episode: When the Spirit blows over the bones, flesh forms, and they rattle back to life. But the bones are Israel, all twelve tribes. Did the partial return of several tribes from Babylon satisfy God's promises for all Israel? Or was a broader return expected? In his important and influential new book, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel, Jason Staples shows that Paul believed God was raising the nation of Israel from the dead in an unexpected way. Cohosted by Matt Bates and Erin Heim.

The Book: Jason A. Staples, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites (Cambridge University Press, 2024). 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. (Publisher’s description).

Guest: Jason A. Staples (Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill) is an author, historian, speaker, journalist, voice actor, and former American football coach. He is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at NC State University. In additon to Paul and the Resurrection of Israel, he is also the author of The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism: A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), as well as numerous journal articles. You can connect with him on X/Twitter (@JasonStaples).

OnScript’s Review: Enormously important and theologically productive. In Paul and the Resurrection of Israel, Jason Staples shows--again and again--how seemingly isolated puzzles in Paul's letters can be explained coherently within a Second Temple framework of restoration. As the Holy Spirit transforms individuals amid the nations, the twelve tribes of Israel are being raised from the dead. An astonishing contribution. — Matthew W. Bates, author of Salvation by Allegiance Alone; professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary.

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Episode: What might Scripture have to contribute to contemporary discussions about criminal justice (esp. as practiced in the United States)? In this episode, Matt Lynch speaks with trial lawyer and author Matthew T. Martens about ways that the Bible can shape our thinking about criminal justice today. Topics range from biblical-theological principles to plea bargaining, jury selection, judges, witnesses, sentencing, the death penalty, and more, all related to his recent book Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal (Crossway, 2023).

Guest: Matthew Martens is a trial lawyer and partner at an international law firm in D.C., and has spent most of his 25+-year legal career practicing criminal law as a federal prosecutor and defense attorney. He was a law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the U.S. Supreme court and was a political appointee in the criminal division of the US Justice Department. At his law practice website for Wilmer Hale, it says that “He is one of the few lawyers who has appeared—and won—at trial at “all four tables”: civil plaintiff, civil defendant, criminal prosecution and criminal defendant.” He’s the author of the book we’re discussing today, entitled, Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal (Crossway, 2023).

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Episode: Has the quest for the historical Jesus been plagued by an anti-liturgical sentiment? Michael Barber joins OnScript to discuss the historical Jesus, best method, and Jesus's mysterious engagement with the temple and its system. Cohosted by Matthew Bates and Chris Tilling.

The Book: Michael Patrick Barber, The Historical Jesus and the Temple: Memory, Methodology, and the Gospel of Matthew (Cambridge University Press, 2024). In this book, Michael Patrick Barber examines the role of the Jerusalem temple in the teaching of the historical Jesus. Drawing on recent discussions about and memory research in Jesus studies, he advances a fresh approach to reconstructing Jesus' teaching. Barber argues that Jesus did not reject the temple's validity but that he likely participated in and endorsed its rites. Moreover, he locates Jesus' teaching within Jewish apocalyptic eschatology, showing that Jesus' message about the coming kingdom and his disciples' place in it likely involved important temple and priestly traditions that have been ignored by the quest. Barber also highlights new developments in scholarship on the Gospel of Matthew to show that its Jewish perspective offers valuable but overlooked clues about the kinds of concerns that would have likely shaped Jesus' outlook. A bold approach to a key topic in biblical studies, Barber's book is a pioneering contribution to Jesus scholarship. (Publisher's description).

Guest: Michael Patrick Barber (PhD Fuller Theological Seminary) is Professor of Sacred Scripture and Theology at the Augustine Institute. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and publications, including Paul, A New Covenant Jew: Rethinking Pauline Theology (Eerdmans, 2019), co-written with Brant Pitre and John Kincaid. In addition to his academic research, Dr. Barber has written public-facing works, most recently, The True Meaning of Christmas: The Birth of Jesus and the Origins of the Season. He also writes for the website, TheSacredPage.com, and can be found on Twitter (@MichaelPBarber).

OnScript's Review: In this important contribution to the quest for the historical Jesus, Michael Barber shows the deree to which previous attempts have been hampered by an anti-liturgical bias. What emerges is a more thoroughly Jewish Jesus who had a complex relationship with the temple and its system. -- Matthew W. Bates, author of The Birth of the Trinity; professor of theology at Quincy University.

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