New Books in Biblical Studies

For generations, Pauline scholars have responded in different ways to the Apostle’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7), our clearest indication that Paul was disabled—some with clinical diagnoses along biomedical lines, more with reticence and agnosticism as to the specifics of Paul’s disability, and others with doubts that Paul could have accomplished his apostolic work had he been physically impaired. On this episode, Isaac T. Soon joined the New Books Network to discuss his paradigm-pushing study A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul (Oxford UP, 2023), a revision of his recent Durham Ph.D. dissertation with the same title, which employs the insights of disability studies and “biographical criticism” not simply to exegete Paul’s enigmatic “thorn in the flesh” but to reflect more broadly on the Apostle’s rhetoric of disability and impairment in its ancient context. Simultaneously, Soon contends that by an awareness of embodied language in Paul’s letters and concepts of bodily normativity contemporaneous to him, we can know three of Paul’s disabilities: (1) inhabitation by a demonic/malevolent force, (2) penile circumcision, and (3) short stature. Meticulously researched, methodologically grounded, and robustly argued, this study offers thought-provoking resources for adherents of Paul, students of the ancient world, and Neutestamentlers alike to consider the impact of Paul’s physical body on the message that he was compelled to share among the first-century Gentile world.Isaac T. Soon (Ph.D., Durham University, 2021) is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Dr. Soon’s research focuses on the intersection of New Testament and early Christian texts with disability studies, including a current project on conceptions of bodily normativity and the portrayal of early Christian figures in ancient literature. Previous work of Isaac’s has been published in forums such as the Journal of Biblical Literature, New Testament Studies, Novum Testamentum, Vigiliae Christianae, the Journal for the Study of Judaism, Religions, Early Christianity, the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, and the Journal for the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting.Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

A transformative spiritual companion and deep dive into disability politics that reimagines disability in the Bible and contemporary culture."What's wrong with you?"Scholar, activist, and rabbi Julia Watts Belser is all too familiar with this question. What's wrong isn't her wheelchair, though--it's exclusion, objectification, pity, and disdain.Our attitudes about disability have such deep cultural roots that we almost forget their sources. But open the Bible and disability is everywhere. Moses believes his stutter renders him unable to answer God's call. Jacob's encounter with an angel leaves him changed not just spiritually but physically: he gains a limp. For centuries, these stories have been told and retold in ways that treat disability as a metaphor for spiritual incapacity or as a challenge to be overcome.Through fresh and unexpected readings of the Bible, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023) instead paints a luminous portrait of what it means to be disabled and one of God's beloved. Belser delves deep into sacred literature, braiding the insights of disabled, feminist, Black, and queer thinkers with her own experiences as a queer disabled Jewish feminist. She talks back to biblical commentators who traffic in disability stigma and shame. What unfolds is a profound gift of disability wisdom, a radical act of spiritual imagination that can guide us all toward a powerful reckoning with each other and with our bodies.Loving Our Own Bones invites readers to claim the power and promise of spiritual dissent, and to nourish their own souls through the revolutionary art of radical self-love.Ilana Maymind is a lecturer at the Religious Studies Department at Chapman University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

The Tabernacle Narrative comprises passages in Exodus and Leviticus that detail the construction, furnishing, and liturgical use of the tabernacle. Given its genre and style, the narrative is often passed over by those reading Scripture for theological insight. What does Israel’s tabernacle mean for Christians today?Join us as Gary Anderson shows how these passages shed light on incarnation and atonement both in ancient Israel’s theology and in Christian theology. Anderson is the author of That I May Dwell Among Them: Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative (Eerdmans, 2023)Gary A. Anderson is Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Thought at the University of Notre Dame. His previous books include Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition; Sin: A History; and Christian Doctrine and the Old Testament: Theology in the Service of Biblical Exegesis.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

In his book Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2023), J. Christopher Edwards explores the early Christian teachings regarding who actually killed Jesus. Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers. This consensus extends to members of the general population who have seen a Jesus movie or an Easter play and remember Roman soldiers hammering the nails. However, for early Christians, the detail that Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers under the direction of a Roman governor threatened their desire for a stable existence in the Roman world. Beginning with the writings found in the New Testament, early Christians sought to rewrite their history and shift the blame for Jesus's crucifixion away from Pilate and his soldiers and onto Jews. During the second century, a narrative of the crucifixion with Jewish executioners predominated. During the fourth century, this narrative functioned to encourage anti-Judaism within the newly established Christian empire. Yet, in the modern world, there exists a significant degree of ignorance regarding the pervasiveness--or sometimes even the existence!--of the claim among ancient Christians that Jesus was executed by Jews.J. Christopher Edwards is professor of religious studies at St. Francis College, Brooklyn.Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Joshua Skarf's book ArchitecTorah: Architectural Ideas in Judaism and the Weekly Torah Portion (Urim, 2023) is a collection of 178 short essays that investigate the Torah through the lens of architecture. Each essay briefly introduces a piece of architectural theory, a building, or a section of building code and then reexamines a well-known topic in the Torah to uncover new and insightful interpretations.Matthew Miller is a graduate of Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah. He studied Jewish Studies and Linguistics at McGill for his BA and completed an MA in Hebrew Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London. He works with Jewish organizations in media and content distribution, such as TheHabura.com and RabbiEfremGoldberg.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

David and Modya complete their four episode exploration of patience by looking at the Torah portion of VaYishlach. The focus in this episode is on the role of patience in managing internally-motivated desires and external temptations. They explore how using patience can lead to healthier decisions made from a place of love rather than fear.Modya Silver is an author and psychotherapist based in Toronto. David Gottlieb is Director of Jewish Studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Exploring the stories of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, the hosts discuss the lessons on patience. They examine Jacob's pursuit of Rachel and his deceitful actions. Leah is presented as the paradigm of patience. The significance of Leah as a mother and the theme of patience in life are explored. The relationship between love and patience is discussed through the story of Jacob and Rachel. The importance of balance in waiting patiently and actively working towards goals is highlighted.

The Jewish nation begins with a collection of twelve brothers and half-brothers, linked through their father, Jacob. From these close familiar beginnings, each develops into a distinct tribe, with unique characteristics and destinies that have indelible imprints on the rest of Tanakh. Tribal Blueprints: Twelve Brothers and the Destiny of Israel (Maggid, 2020) examines each of Jacob's sons, revealing their individual stories in Genesis and the impact of their shifting places within the family. How do these individuals evolve? What is the role of each of the four mothers? How does each brother's placement in the birth order of the family influence his behavior? How are the brothers' personalities reflected in future generations? In this volume, Dr. Nechama Price takes the reader on a journey through the biblical narrative, looking anew at the ancient stories of Genesis to uncover a new appreciation for the special role of each of the twelve tribes, who together form the nation of Israel.Matthew Miller is a graduate of Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah. He studied Jewish Studies and Linguistics at McGill for his BA and completed an MA in Hebrew Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London. He works with Jewish organizations in media and content distribution, such as TheHabura.com and RabbiEfremGoldberg.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

In her book Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature (Yale University Press, 2021), Meghan Henning illuminates how the bodies that populate hell in early Christian literature are punished after death in spaces that mirror real carceral spaces, effectually criminalizing those bodies on Earth. Contextualizing the apocalypses alongside ancient medical texts, inscriptions, philosophy, and patristic writings, this book demonstrates the ways that Christian depictions of hell intensified and preserved ancient notions of gender and bodily normativity that continue to inform Christian identity.Meghan R. Henning is associate professor of Christian origins at the University of Dayton.Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Exegetes have long relied on the framework of the Acts of the Apostles to understand the behavior and organization of Paul’s various ekklēsiai (assemblies), or church communities, from which Christ-groups have often been conceptualized as extensions from practices of diasporic Jewish synagogues. However, Richard S. Ascough’s work has been at the forefront of a scholarly movement emphasizing the relevance of data from Greco-Roman associations—occupational, cultic, ethnic, and otherwise—not only as a preferable model for understanding the constitution of early Christ-following communities, but also as fruitful comparanda for interpreting Paul’s letters, such as 1 Thessalonians and Philippians. On this episode, Dr. Ascough joined the New Books Network to discuss Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations: Organizational Models and Social Practices (Cascade Books, 2022), a collection of his articles and essays on associations from the last 25 years detailing the road to the acceptance of association data within scholarship as well as the recruitment, self-promotion, socializing, and memorializing practices that these recoveries from antiquity reveal. Ascough discusses how he carved his own niche within biblical studies, from starting as a master’s student with a small group to translate previously unpublished inscriptions and papyri to ultimately showcasing the applicability of association behavior to early Christ-groups, Pauline and otherwise.Richard S. Ascough (Ph.D., Toronto School of Theology, 1997) is a Professor at the School of Religion at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He has written extensively on the formation of early Christ groups and Greco-Roman religious culture, with particular attention to various types of associations. He has published widely in the field with more than fifty articles or essays and thirteen books, including Christ Groups & Associations: Foundational Essays(Baylor U. Press, 2022), Associations in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook (Baylor U. Press, 2012), and Paul’s Macedonian Associations (Mohr Siebeck, 2003). He has been recognized for his innovative and effective teaching in many ways, including the two top teaching awards at Queen’s University and a 3M National Teaching Fellowship (2018).Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies