Last month, I was initially pleased to learn of a second First Things article reviewing my book, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel. Though I was surprised to see that the title of the article is “Paul Against the Jews?,” I presumed that the article would explain how my book demonstrates that Paul was not, in fact, “against the Jews.”
I was instead startled to discover that the author of that article, Gerald McDermott, argued the opposite. Unfortunately, McDermott’s review misrepresents the arguments of the book so substantially that I felt it necessary to set the record straight with a response.
McDermott’s review begins by claiming that my book proposes “that the apostle thought of Gentiles as the predominant Israelites,” a statement for which McDermott provides no quotation or evidence. This absence of any specific reference to back up his claims sets a pattern observed throughout the rest of the review.
This summary is in fact at odds with the actual thesis of the book, which is that the apostle thought that because of the past scattering and assimilation of the bulk of northern Israel among the nations, the prophetically promised restoration of “all Israel” required the union of both Jews and non-Jews within the people of God (see page 20). Far from this meaning gentiles are “the predominant Israelites,” the book is clear that, according to the apostle, Jews/Judah are the preeminent (“the leading,” page 48) portion of the larger category of Israel.
McDermott also claims that I translate 1 Corinthians 12:2 as “when you were former gentiles,” protesting that “the word ‘former’ is not in the Greek but inserted by Staples” and complaining that “he reverts to this lone verse (and idiosyncratic translation) over and over throughout his book.” But the lone translation of that verse provided in the book is as follows: “You know that when you were gentiles (ἔθνη), you were led astray, being carried away to mute idols” (page 331).
Here McDermott fails to distinguish an argument from a translation. It is true that (along with many other Pauline scholars) I regard Paul’s use of the past (imperfect) tense in 1 Corinthians 12:2 as an indication that his addressees are no longer ἔθνη (ethnē), but have become something else—which would, by implication, make them former ethnē.
McDermott objects to this conclusion (which he misrepresents as a translation) on the grounds that “most English translations render the [verse] ‘when you were pagans’ or ‘heathens,’ because Paul immediately adds, ‘you were led astray to mute idols.’” But this begs the question. The reason these translations use “pagans” or “heathens” is the presumption that these persons cannot cease to be gentiles—despite the fact that Paul’s wording says exactly that. Had he meant otherwise, he could easily have said, “when you were idolaters” or “unbelievers” or used one of several other terms for worshipers of other deities. But Paul instead uses the term elsewhere translated “gentiles.” Why should we presume that in this one verse the word ethnē designates something other than what it means every other time Paul uses the word?
Instead, the apostle’s point in 1 Corinthians 12:2 is that when these people had been members of other nations/ethnic groups, they had worshiped and served the gods of their respective peoples. (As Paula Fredriksen has rightly pointed out, in the ancient world, “gods really did run in the blood.”) But this changed when they became followers of Jesus and were incorporated into the “commonwealth of Israel” (Eph. 2:12); they no longer serve the mute idols of their previous people, they now worship only the God of Israel.
The review then declares: “Staples claims that ‘Israelite’ is never used for Jews in the New Testament era,” again providing no quotation for this claim. This is patently false.
Instead, the book demonstrates that Jews are “a subset of the larger category of Israel” (page 52) and explicitly states that in the New Testament era, “‘Israel’ could refer to any of its subsets by synecdoche” (page 48) and “contemporary Jews could, as part of a subset of Israel, be referred to as ‘Israelites’” (page 66). It is as though McDermott read an explanation of how not all Americans are Floridians and then concluded that this meant Floridians can never be called Americans.
McDermott then builds on his misrepresentation of my argument by citing a variety of examples in which “Israel/Israelite” language is used of Jews in the New Testament. But not one of these examples contradicts the model actually put forward in the book, nor do any of them support McDermott’s conclusion that “‘Judeans/Jews’ and ‘Israelites’ are synonymous.”
McDermott closes his article by referring to “Staples’s suggestion that non-Messianic Jews no longer matter to God.” This statement surely qualifies as willful misreading. Pointing to Romans 11:28–29, he then claims, “Tellingly, this passage (which inspired Nostra Aetate at Vatican II) is buried in a single footnote.” This too is untrue.
Instead, Romans 11:28–32 appears in full as a block quote within the body text (page 320), immediately followed by the explanation that
contemporary unfaithful Israelites have in no way lost their election. They remain God’s chosen despite their opposition to the gospel, which (like historical Israel’s unfaithfulness) is itself being used for redemptive purposes (cf. 9:21–26). Paul thus argues that the covenantal promises to Israel are being fulfilled in the present—the redemption of the nations together with Jews witnesses to the fidelity of God to the whole people of Israel.
McDermott’s claim of the “virtual omission” of this passage in my book is false, as is his assertion that this book “implies that God has revoked the covenant promise” and “is standard supersessionism (the Gentile Church superseding and displacing Jewish Israel in God’s affections).”
All authors eventually must face the fact that some readers will inevitably misinterpret their writing. Fortunately, in this case I am able to correct the record.
