Ruminations on biblical studies, technology, economics, and sports from Jason A. Staples
I know I’m a bit late to the party here (teaching a summer course and doing home renovations have had me busy), but Timothy Gombis’ “The Paul We Think We Know” in Christianity Today is worth the read. Gombis does an excellent job highlighting the differences between the popular Evangelical/Protestant images of Paul and the [...] Read more »
I am pleased to report that my article, “What Do the Gentiles Have to Do with ‘All Israel’? A Fresh Look at Rom 11:25–27″ has (finally!) been published in the summer edition of the Journal of Biblical Literature. This article is a piece of a project that began in the spring of 2003 and is [...] Read more »
I stumbled across a post on TheGospelCoalition site the other day that left me shaking my head at how modern theological perspectives are capable of completely inverting the New Testament message they’re ostensibly based upon. The post is “The Pitfall of Perfectionism,” by Tullan Tchividjian, in which he begins with several poignant anecdotes borrowed from [...] Read more »
During my reading for preliminary exams (generally a frustrating exercise, given that I was forced to read lots of infuriating scholarship without the ability to respond to it anytime soon), one mistake came up surprisingly often in the literature: Pauline scholars—who of all people should know better—referencing the “Pauline” doctrine of “salvation/justification by faith alone.” [...] Read more »
Paul begins his letter to the Romans by introducing himself: Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς ἀπόστολος ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ, “Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, a called apostle set apart for the gospel of God ….” One would think that this would be a rather difficult verse to misinterpret, but nearly anything is possible [...] Read more »
