Jason A. Staples is a Ph.D. Candidate in Ancient Mediterranean Religions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a football analyst for NoleDigest.com (FoxSports/Scout.com), and a professional voice talent. He has a B.A. in Religion and an M.A. in Religions of Western Antiquity from Florida State University.
Jason’s doctoral research focuses on the intersections between Judaism and Christianity in the first century, particularly how each group uses and interprets the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament to make its own claim upon the heritage of ancient Israel. His dissertation, “Paul, the Gentiles, and the Restoration of Israel,” examines early Jewish expectations of Israelite restoration and how these expectations shaped the early Jesus movement, with special attention on how the apostle Paul understood his Gentile mission as a necessary component of Israel’s full restoration through the promised “new covenant.” Early returns from this research are presented in the article, “What Do the Gentiles Have to Do with ‘All Israel’? A Fresh Look at Romans 11:25–26,” JBL 130.2 (2011): 371–90. Jason’s academic work has also been published in The Journal of Religion and Film and Facts on File’s Encyclopedia of World History. His wider academic research interests include New Testament, Early Christian history, literature, and thought; Pauline Studies; Second Temple Judaism; the use of Scripture in the New Testament, the Gospels & the historical Jesus; Jewish-Christian relations; exile and restoration; apocalypticism; ancient rhetoric; Imperial Platonism; Hebrew Bible; Wisdom & Apocalyptic Literature; Apostolic Fathers; Dead Sea Scrolls; American Evangelicalism; and religion in popular culture.
Jason is also a member of the Football Writers’ Association of America, having served as a football analyst for NoleDigest (a subsidiary of FoxSports and Scout.com) since 2007.
Jason was homeschooled through grade school (other than part of third grade in a private school and fourth grade at a public school) and then attended Tabernacle Christian School in Martinsville, Indiana (an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist school—despite his being neither a fundamentalist nor a Baptist) for seventh and eighth grade. Jason moved to Toledo, Ohio, in 1996 to attend Toledo St. Francis de Sales high school, where he was vice-president of the African-American Club, ran track, and played chess, basketball, and football.
In 2000, Jason attended Florida State University on a National Merit Scholarship and walked on to the Seminoles’ nationally ranked football team. After several disappointments and injuries (and feedback from his coaches that he’d be better off as a coach than a player), Jason’s football career ended prematurely in 2002. As an undergraduate, Jason majored in Religion with minors in Classics and Economics, eventually choosing to continue his education with a Masters in Religions of Western Antiquity at Florida State, with two concentrations in Early Judaism and Early Christianity.
Jason matriculated into the Ph.D. program in Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill in 2007, where won the prestigious Jacob K. Javits Fellowship (a nationwide fellowship for the humanities and social sciences) in 2008.
This blog focuses primarily upon topics in biblical studies (i.e. New Testament, Paul, Early Christianity, translation issues, etc.), mainly from a critical/academic perspective, though the aim is to keep each post accessible to any interested reader. Other posts may involve news items or delve into more modern subjects like current religious trends and thought, sexuality, economics, football, and miscellaneous posts on pop culture.
The title of the blog arose from Jason’s realization that most of his scholarship (and teaching/blogging) amounts to pointing out the obvious. “Captain Obvious” was a consideration, but the multivalence of “professor” just made more sense.
