Jason A. Staples's "Paul and the Resurrection of Israel"

Jason A. Staples 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.

Staples applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites, and reported the following:

Page 99 begins with the statement, “The close relationship between death and exile established in these passages warrants further clarification”; that paragraph then proceeds to explain how the sentence of exile amounted to a death sentence from the perspective of the community, as the banished person could be killed with impunity if found in the boundaries controlled by that community. The next paragraph continues:

Along the same lines, Hosea not only proclaims the impending exile but declares the death of Ephraim/northern Israel. “Through Baal,” the prophet declares, “Ephraim was guilty and died” (Hos 13:1). Israel has consequently been “swallowed up” (8:8; cf. Deut 7:16), “slain by the words of my [YHWH’s] mouth” (6:5), and stands in need of “resurrection” (LXX: ἀνίστημι) so that they “may live before him” (Hos 6:2). Similarly, 2 Kgs 17:15 laments the destruction of the northern kingdom, saying that Israel “became empty/ephemeral” (הבל; LXX: ἐματαιώθησαν) because they pursued emptiness/nothingness (הבל).

Ezekiel likewise portrays “the whole house of Israel” as not only dead in exile but as having been dead so long that their bones have become desiccated (Ezek 37:1–4, 11). The problem in this passage is not that the people have been exiled; the problem is that the exile has resulted in Israel’s death. Exile is not the ultimate curse—exile has been the means…

The sentence cuts off there, and thus ends page 99. This test does surprisingly well in connecting the reader with one of the foundational ideas of the book—indeed the very idea and passage underlying the book’s title and choice of cover art—though it only sets up the problem to be solved in the remainder of the book, which is about how the apostle Paul understands this problem of Israel’s death as being solved through the death and resurrection of Israel’s messiah and subsequent outpouring of the spirit on not only Jews but gentiles.

Paul’s solution takes the problem of Israel’s death through exile and assimilation seriously, concluding that the only way for much of Israel to be “resurrected” as the Torah and biblical prophets promised is for people from the nations—non-Jews among whom the people of Israel had been scattered and assimilated—to be incorporated in the people of God by receiving the spirit of God, being both ethically and ethnically transformed. Since Israel had been assimilated among them, the only way for Israel to be restored is for those people to be included through this transformative divine action, resulting not only in a restored Israel but eternal life for those included in this restored people.

Page 99 turns out to be a pretty good starting point for the reader to know the basic launching point for the book’s explanation of Paul’s gospel, though it doesn’t give much of a hint about the solution.

Visit Jason A. Staples's website.

--Marshal Zeringue