Jason A. Staples

North Carolina State University | NCSU · Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies

In Rom 11:25–27, Paul triumphantly concludes his discussion of Israel’s fate: I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery (lest you become highminded yourselves)1 that a hardening has come upon a part of Israel2 until the fullness of the nations [τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν] has come in—and thus [καὶοὕτως]3 all Israel will be saved, just a...

Despite numerous studies of the word κύριος (‘Lord’) in the New Testament, the significance of the double form κύριε κύριε occurring in Matthew and Luke has been overlooked, with most assuming the doubling merely communicates heightened emotion or special reverence. By contrast, this article argues that whereas a single κύριος might be ambiguous, t...

Peter’s vision in Acts 10 ostensibly concerns dietary laws but is interpreted within the narrative as a revelation of God’s mercy towards the Gentiles, culminating in the baptism of Cornelius’ household. How this vision pertains to the immediately following events has remained a problem in scholarship on Acts. This article argues that the vision de...

In this book, Jason Staples proposes a new paradigm regarding the biblical concept of Israel and how it shaped Jewish apocalyptic hopes for restoration after the Babylonian Exile. Challenging conventional assumptions about Israelite identity in antiquity, his argument is based on a close analysis of a vast corpus of biblical and other early Jewish...

Starting from the concept of divine patience in Rom 9:22, this article argues that Paul employs the potter/clay metaphor not (as often interpreted) to defend God’s right to arbitrary choice but rather as an appeal to what Abraham Heschel called divine pathos—the idea that God’s choices are impacted by human actions. The potter/clay imagery in Rom 9...