N. T. Wright and Mark Kinzer: A Debate on the Meaning of Israel

good evening and welcome to the final event of sanford university's first Provost's distinguished lecture series featuring NT right and for those of you who did not attend electro Monday evening I'm Mike Hardin Sanford University Provost and I'm so glad that you're here tonight part of my role as Provost at Sanford is to work to achieve the integration of academic and spiritual concerns and to maximize the impact of Christian faith on our educational programs and related campus groups here at Sanford thus the idea for this lecture series was born an attempt to fulfill this directive given to me by the University and our university trustees if you miss the excellent Monday evening lecture space time and history Jesus and the challenge of God you can find it on our YouTube channel YouTube dot slash excuse me youtube.com slash Sanford Communications look it up on our website but we will enjoy we would appreciate you doing that if you have time tonight's event however is the fondle in this series tonight we have a dialogue on the meaning of Israel this topic is hotly contested subject in the history of the church and one that deserves the respectful dialogue such as what will happen here tonight it's my honor to introduce our two guests who will help us think more deeply about the place of Israel in its relation to the church our first guess is if he has the featured lecture of this series of right Reverend professor NT Wright dr. Wright has served as a research professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of st. Andrews Scotland since 2010 and as quickly nearing his retirement at the end of this year in his retirement dr. Wright will serve as senior research fellow at Wickliffe hall at Oxford a political Arthur dr. Wright has published more than 80 books our second guest is rabbi mark cancer senior scholar and president emeritus of the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute a graduate school preparing leaders for service and Messianic Jewish movement dr. Kinser is a co-chair of the Helsinki consultation on Jewish community in the body of Christ and one of the founding rabbis of the Messianic Jewish rabbinical council he is author of several books including most recently the book searching our own mystery published in 2015 Jerusalem crucified Jerusalem risen in 2018 dr. Kinser is ordained in the Union of Messianic Jewish congregations I would ask that you refer to your program for the fuller biographies of our guests and instead of just my short brief was here but please look there now before I give the final introduction I do not want this evening to pass without us acknowledging the significance of today's date as we all remember and probably remember where we were 18 years ago on September 11th our country was attacked and many Americans lost their lives I would like first just to take a moment of silence to remember those who God and those who sacrifice their lives to save others can we have a moment of silence please amen finally allow me to introduce one of my esteemed colleagues he's really more than that to me he's a close friend and someone who I very much enjoy being around dr. Jerry McDermott he is going to serve as tonight's moderator Jerry is the Anglican chair of divinity and director of the Institute of Anglican studies at Sanford's Beeson Divinity School he's a prolific scholar writing on subjects such as 18th century American Protestant theologian Jonathan Edwards world religions and tonight's topic Israel I'm personally grateful to dr. McDermott's help with inviting both dr. ride and dr. Kinser on my behalf to Sanford University for the event tonight please help me welcome dr. Jerry McDermott to the stage well thank you dr. Hardin let me apologize first on behalf of all of us organizers we put on the web that this was going to be over at 8:30 it probably won't be over until near 9 o'clock we're just telling you that ahead of time if you have to leave at 8:30 don't feel bashful we will understand now let me try to explain the format tonight we worked out ahead of time two questions on which dr. Wright and dr. Kinsler agreed and the two questions are as follows are non Messianic Jews members of God's covenant 'add people and number two if so do they as a people have a unique covenantal calling that distinguishes they're calling from that of every other society or nation so the dialog is going to go as follows dr. Kinser first is going to spend 20 minutes giving his answer to those two questions and then dr. Wright is gonna spend 20 minutes giving his answer to those two questions then dr. Kinser will take 10 minutes to respond to dr. Wright and dr. Wright will take 10 minutes to respond to dr. Kinser and then after that we'll have roughly 30 minutes of Q&A with questions from you out in the audience and here's how we're gonna do that in the brochure that you were given when you came in there's a little index card and if you'd like to ask a question right the question down on here during the 20 and 20 and at the end of the 20 and 20 pass your question or during the 20 and 20 after you're finished writing the question pass your question down to the aisle and then at the end of the 20 and 20 I'm gonna ask the person at the end of the aisle to raise your hand if you have some cards with questions on them and we have some ushers who are going to who are going to come and collect the questions and bring them down to our our two beasts and Bible professors to sort through and and ask the ones that they think are most interesting and most provocative we have dr. Osvaldo padilla who's a New Testament professor at Beeson Divinity School and dr. Ken Matthews who's an Old Testament professor at Beeson Divinity School who will be culling the questions and reading the ones that they think will be most helpful for this dialogue so let me first ask dr. Kinser to come and give his answer to the two questions a recent visitor to the Messianic Jewish congregation that I am part of in Ann Arbor Michigan told me why she had come to our congregation she had been reading NT right and he had convinced her that the New Testament is a Jewish book and that was enough to spark her interest in Messianic Judaism her experience was not unique professor Wright has helped many to see that the story of Jesus is incomprehensible apart from the story of Israel tonight's conversation is inspired by dr. Wright's Israel centered rethinking of the New Testament and for that reason I am profoundly grateful dr. Wright's magnum opus is entitled Paul and the faithfulness of God my focus tonight is on Israel and the faithfulness of God God remains faithful to the genealogical descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob that is the Jewish people even when Israel is unfaithful and this eternal fidelity grounds the church's assurance that she and the world will not be abandoned despite their own infidelity as dr. Wright has stressed the New Testament describes the Jesus community in Israel like terms the 12 apostles correspond to the 12 sons of Jacob and their destined role involves judging or governing the 12 tribes of Israel Paul tells his Gentile converts that they are chosen holy and beloved all biblical words associated with Israel's election Peter is even more explicit calling his here's a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation God's own people in their former manner of life they had done what the Gentiles like to do but now they are full members of the people of God shares of the promise bestowed on Israel but surprisingly this fact is not reflected in how the authors of the New Testament normally use the name Israel the word appears 69 times in only two of those appearances is there the slightest possibility that the name refers to any group other than the Jewish people likewise the term Israelite appears nine times and all nine instances refer to Jews some of these 78 texts speak critically of Israel's spiritual condition the proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah has produced a split within Israel the remnant has embraced the message the remainder have been in Paul's words hardened in one verse Paul even seems to imply that the Israelites who are hardened forfeit their right to the name Israel when he says not all who are from Israel are Israel yet in what follows that verse Paul defies the expectations that his own provocative assertion has generated the next three chapters of Romans employ the name Israel over and over again to speak of those Jews in particular so the Jesus community of Jews and Gentiles is described in Israel like terms and on one or two occasions may even be called Israel but the general practice of the authors of the New Testament is to reserve that special name for the genealogical descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is this merely an unfortunate linguistic habit carried over from their Jewish past I think not if the New Testament is inspired Scripture such a consistent pattern must have theological significance the simplest explanation is that genealogical Israel is called Israel in the New Testament because it remains Israel though all its members may not live in a way that honors the name and though Gentile followers of Jesus now share in their covenant Ulrich's but how how can genealogical Israel remain Israel despite its failure to receive its king and what does it mean for it to retain that name and why does God ordained that it be so I'll take up these three questions how what and why in order first the ha Paul offers three answers to this question in Romans 9 through 11 all three answers converge in one crucial verse if the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy then the whole batch is holy if the root is holy then the branches are holy the tante context makes clear that the whole batch in the first half of the verse and the branches in the second half refer to the same group of people namely the partially hardened remainder of Israel despite their incapacity to recognize Jesus as their king they remain wholly holiness is the mark of the people of God and thus they remain as members of the community of the Covenant the second half of the verse says that they do so because they are branches which remain related to their root the root is holy and it imparts holiness to its branches but what is the root the context offers two possible meanings and these options point to two of the answers that Paul gives to the question we are now asking how by what means does genealogical Israel retain its identity as Israel the first possible explanation of the root is that it refers to Jesus himself Isiah calls the Messiah the root of Jesse in a passage that Paul actually cites later on in Romans so it's not far-fetched that Paul might apply the image to Jesus Paul has already said of Israel that from them according to the flesh comes the Messiah in this verse the genealogical bond tying all Jews to Jesus is the climax of Paul's impressive list of Israel's irrevocable privileges this messianic interpretation of the root fits doctor Wright's understanding of Jesus Messiahship dr. right views Jesus Israel's King as a one man Israel the king represents and embodies his people that is what enables Gentiles who are united to Jesus to share in the inheritance of Israel but that is also what establishes a bond with his fellow Jews a bond which confirms their covenant 'el status even when they prove unfaithful the root of Jesse sanctifies even those branches who seek to distance themselves from him the second possible interpretation of the root is that it refers to the patriarchs in Paul's list of Israel's privileges the next-to-last just before the Messiah is their connection to their ancestors who first received the Covenant paw underlines the enduring power of the connection two chapters later when he says as regards election they are beloved for the sake of the patriarchs in the final analysis it's of little consequence whether the root in Romans 1116 is Jesus or the patriarchs the wider context in Romans demonstrates that the Jewish people remains connected to them both and that and that this dual connection assures its enduring covenantal status the root is holy and so the branches are holy the third answer to our how question how by what means does Israel remain Israel is found in the first half of Romans 11 16 if the part of the doll offered as firstfruits is holy then the whole batch is holy the context suggests that firstfruits here refers to the remnant that is the Jewish disciples of Jesus once again Paul ascribes spiritual significance to a relationship of genealogical kinship but this time it is a relationship to among flesh and blood Jews who are face to face contemporaries it's not a relationship to deceased ancestors or to a resurrected and transfigured Messiah Paul asserts here that those known today as Messianic Jews or Jewish Christians mediate the sanctifying blessing of God to the rest of the Jewish people so Israel remains Israel despite its faulty response to its Messiah because the Messiah is joined to his people and remains faithful to them because his faithfulness embodies God's unflinching commitment to their ancestors and because a remnant of Israel has embraced the Messiah and stands in union with him before God on behalf of their brothers and sisters these are the means by which God preserves Israel's holy identity after the death and the resurrection of the Messiah the king which most of Israel still does not acknowledge the new testament offers less material to help us to answer our next question what does it mean for Israel to still be Israel what is genealogical Israel's role in this stage of history between the Messiah's resurrection and return while the New Testament does not answer this question directly there are several texts which emphasize Israel's role in preparing the way for the return of Jesus these texts shed light backwards on Israel's significance in the era between the Messiah's two comings in Luke 13 Jesus grieves over Jerusalem in the past the city opposed the divine messengers sent to her and she will soon oppose the Messiah himself Jerusalem Jerusalem the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it see your house is left to you and I tell you you will not see me until the time comes when you say blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord this is primarily a lament which anticipates the destruction of the city forty years later however the passage ends with a ray of hope God will return to the city and its people when they are ready to welcome the one whom he sends this is what one scholar has called a conditional prophecy it anticipates a future coming of God to Jerusalem after the destruction of the city in the year 70 but a condition must be fulfilled for the prophecy to be realized that condition requires that Jerusalem welcome the one who comes with the reception equivalent to that given to Jesus by his own disciples when he entered the city on Sunday in other words the return of Jesus is contingent upon Israel's proper response to him this way of reading Luke 13 is confirmed by Peters temple speech in acts 3 where he addresses the people of Jerusalem and their leaders repent therefore and return so your sins might be blotted out and he might send Jesus the Messiah appointed for you heaven must receive him until the time of the restoration of all the things that God spoke about long ago through the mouth of his holy prophets the word translated here as restoration is found commonly in Jewish Greek of the day to speak of Israel's national restoration here that restoration is made contingent on Jerusalem's repentance embrace of Jesus as Israel's Messiah since the restoration was promised through the mouth of his holy prophets it is certain to occur but something must happen first and that something is the repentant response of Israel so Peters temple speech confirms our reading of Luke 13 as a conditional prophecy it also challenges us to take seriously the question posed to Jesus by his apostles before his ascension Lord is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel traditionally Christians have interpreted this question as a sign that the Apostles have failed to grasped the spiritual nature of Jesus kingdom just as they have failed to understand that genealogical Israel is no longer truly Israel but the Greek word translated here as restore is the verbal form of the Greek noun translated in acts 3 as restoration so the restoration and Peter's speech is focused on Jerusalem in Israel it appears as though the experience of Pentecost after the Ascension has not eliminated Peters hope that God would restore the kingdom to Israel these passages from Luke and acts provide a helpful context for interpreting the teaching of Paul in Romans 11 he writes there that Israel has stumbled but God will never let it fall moreover Israel's stumbling has had beneficial effects by their false step salvation has come to the Gentiles what result might then follow when Israel receives its balance recovers its balance excuse me Paul answers this question immediately now if their transgression leads to riches for the world and they're lost to riches for the Gentiles then how much more their fullness what riches does he have in mind what could be greater than the salvation of the Gentiles he answers that question three verses later for if their rejection leads to the reconciliation of the world what will their acceptance be but life from the dead should this phrase life from the Dead be taken literally does it refer to the general resurrection which follows the return of Jesus interpreted in the light of Luke and acts the answer is yes Israel's fullness implies national repentance in relation to Jesus which then triggers the events leading to the return of Israel's Messiah and the renewal of the cosmos Paul's point here is not merely the fact that the Jewish people will believe in Jesus before or at his return that proposition has been a staple of much Christian theology for centuries but it is not usually led Christians to appreciate the enduring covenantal significance of the Jewish people the conversion of the Jews has simply been treated as one of a series of events to occur at the end of the age alongside the emergence of the Antichrist the persecution of the Saints the convulsions of the natural order in saving the Jews it appears as though God were merely tying up loose ends in contrast the texts we have examined suggest that the actions of genealogical Israel are central to the unfolding drama from beginning to end it is their stumbling which enables the fullness of the nations to taste salvation and it is their own fullness which triggers the renewal of the cosmos Israel remains Israel and God's actions in the world remain linked to his relationship to Israel for the father of Jesus remains the God of Israel thank you [Applause] thank you very much for the chance to address these huge and complex and often contentious questions in such a warm atmosphere I am grateful for a new friend who have made today and for the chance we've had to chat beforehand although we didn't actually discuss the subject matter for tonight I'm sorry I have not had a chance to read all dr. Kinsey's works in fact hardly any of it but it's been really good to sense that he and I are in several ways on the same page even though within that page there are then significant divergences and I'm grateful for the kind remarks about my own work and I should say as a Gentile Christian I grew up in the fifties and sixties very conscious of the horrors that had been perpetrated on world Jewry European Jewry immediately in the decade before I was born and the first movie at which I ever shared tears was the movie Exodus and I have always all my life really since first being aware of it had that sort of sense that we as Gentile Christians shudder when we think of all of that in addressing the two questions which I've been asked to address are non Messianic Jews members of God's covenant 'add people interesting phraseology and do they as a people have a unique covenant it calling etc I want to make some distinctions the trouble with phrases like this is that they're very ambiguous and quite slippery and I think that's always a danger when we're interpreting the New Testament and trying to summarize what's going on and the most slippery of the modern words which are used in this debate which dr. Kinser has not used is a well-known word supersessionism which is regularly applied sometimes to people like me on the grounds that we supposedly take the church to be in some sense or other the new Israel in some sense which would make ethnic genealogical Israel either redundant or less relevant in my book I have tried my big book on Paul I have tried to discuss that phrase that word supersessionism and the other words that go with it I find it singularly unhelpful although I am reminded that Professor John Levinson from Harvard has said famously that the most Jewish thing about early Christianity is its supersessionism which kind of turns the thing round a bit because when we look at the history of different Jewish movements in the two hundred years either side of Jesus we see many Jewish movements which were saying quite definitely this is where our God is finally doing what he's promised and if you don't join in you are not really part of God's people effectively that's what Qumran said it's certainly what Bar Kochba and his followers said in the last great revolt 132 to 35 and in a sense it is precisely what the Mishnah said in roughly two hundred saying this is what being a loyal Jew now looks like certainly not therefore the Sadducees and the others who deny certain things and go different routes but that's perhaps a question we can park with just this initial gesture my starting point for all of this and I know that dr. Kinser agrees firmly with this of course is that whatever else we're going to say about Jews and Christians Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was and is Israel's Messiah there has been a great tradition of people saying well there was a Christian Messiah but then there was possible Jewish Messiah and the Christian Messiah was inaugurating a spiritual reality whereas we know that the Jewish Messiah was going to inaugurate a worldly reign of justice and peace and I want to say as a Christian that is a Christian misunderstand being egged on by platonism in the Middle Ages particularly to ignore the biblical indeed the New Testament agenda for the reign of justice and peace which the early church did implement in various ways through their care for the poor and so on and that the idea that Jesus might be one sort of Messiah but there might be another I suspect is one that both dr. Kinser and I would reject but as we're then going to say what did early Christianity say about Jesus as Messiah what did that mean I think again we both accept the New Testament as the primary and authoritative witness and it's on the basis of the New Testament that we make such case as we can Jesus first followers saw him as the embodiment of Israel's returning God as well as the embodiment of Israel itself he was Israel in person as I believe and I believe the New Testament says he was Israel's God in bodily form so that the Gospel writers tell the story of Jesus life and death and resurrection as the proper fulfillment of Israel's scriptures they are not as in many Christian would be Christian readings a way of saying this was the mechanism by which you go to heaven they were saying this is where that whole story the Tanakh the the law the prophets and the writings this is where that narrative was all going this is fulfillment and therefore if Jesus is Israel in person where he is there is true Israel and I believe that is then validated for the early Christians in Jesus resurrection because resurrection was never something that people thought would happen to the Messiah because the Messiah was not supposed to die but resurrection was what was promised in various Jewish traditions to all God's faithful people at the end and so when one person was raised from the dead in the middle of history that was seen by many in very early Christianity as saying Jesus is somehow strangely the embodiment in one person of Israel so where he is there is true Israel and the early Christians drew on scriptural sources from the Hebrew Scriptures to amplify and fill out this point 2nd Samuel 7 was a favorite text where God promises to David that he will build him a house which turns out to be a person which turns out to be David's son who will be God's Son but that is an answer to David's desire to build God a house so that the place where God will finally dwell on this earth is not a building of bricks and mortar but a person the house is Jesus himself and in Psalm 2 which the early Christians draw on regularly as they do on 2nd Samuel 7 in Psalm 2 we see the land-based Abrahamic promises extended not denied not nullified but extended so that the same language of territorial promise is now used when God says to the anointed king the Messiah ask of me and I will give you the nation's for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the world for your possession in other words lift up your eyes and see as Isaiah says don't confine yourself to this one territory there is a whole world and it's all going to belong to the Messiah and that of course is then amplified again in the eyes ionic servant passages particularly in chapter 49 when God says to the servant it is to light a thing that you should simply restore the tribes of Jacob I will give you as a light to the nations so that my glory may extend into the whole world and back to the earlier messianic promise in Isaiah chapter 11 that when the root of Jesse Rises rekts to rule the nations in him the nations will hope so it's no surprise when in Romans chapter 8 we've spent a bit of time in Romans 11 and I'm going to be responding to that later but in Romans 8 already Paul retells the story of the Exodus only now it is the new Exodus in the Messiah and by the spirit and for Paul the inheritance which is promised and the Greek word Klara Nemea is the regular word which would be used for the inheritance which was originally the holy land the inheritance is now the whole creation the whole world is now for Paul God's holy land so within that it's no surprise that in Galatians 3 and in Romans 4 Paul speaks of God's covenant with Abraham that's our first question about members of God's covenant people Paul speaks of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 being fulfilled in all who believe now of course in Galatians the emphasis there is to assure Gentile believers in Jesus that they are genuine members of the family of God and that's I'm sure something dr. Kinser and I totally agreed on but Paul expresses it in a number of interesting ways in Romans 4:16 he speaks about the members of the family of Abraham who are defined by Torah by the Jewish law but then he quickly adds not of Torah only but of faith of Messianic faith in other words he's making a distinction between those who simply are tore are based Jews and those who as well as that our Torah Plus Messianic faith Jews so that he can daringly in that little advance promised in Romans 2 25 to 29 he can talk not as some translations say about the true Jew but simply the Jew who is the one inwardly and when Paul uses that beloved word you die us how you die us the Jew and redefines it like that there ought to be a sharp intake of breath many commentators seem in my view to fail to see that and so again it's no surprise that in poll we find reference as in Hebrews as in revelation to a new sort of city to which people belong a heavenly City and again the problem with that Galatians 4 Hebrews 11 and 12 revelation 21 is that we have tended in the Christian West to think platonically and we think of a heavenly City as a non spatio-temporal reality up in the sky or metaphorically up in the sky a place where God's people go when they die that is not in Jewish tradition or in early Christian tradition what the heavenly Jerusalem means the heavenly Jerusalem is the city which as some eighty-seven drawn on by Paul in Galatians 4 says is the city to which all God's people from whichever nation already belong and which will come to be a reality as Jesus taught us to pray on earth as in heaven and that is for Paul the very root of his doctrine of the unity of the church so that when he says at the end of Philippians chapter 3 that we are citizens of heaven this does not mean as generations of expositors have said that oh well like Philippians being Roman citizens they will one day retire and go back to the mother city that's not how the language of citizenship works Rome was already overcrowded and haveth had a food shortage and the reason they founded colonies was to keep those people away from Rome and to make them agents of Roman civilization where they were so Philippians 3 joins Galatians 4 in those other passages speaking of the heavenly City not as a Platonic heavenly city but as the promised New Jerusalem which will come on earth as in heaven so yes it all does come down eventually to how we read Romans nine ten and eleven and I've spent maybe half of my professional career coming back to those chapters again and again and we could have week-long seminars easily on that on those passages those chapters and one verse which is really striking in Romans 11 is Romans 11 23 and I remember discussing this with Lloyd gastrin who was a famous Canadian scholar who would argue that for poor Jews had to stay Jews and Christians had to stay Gentile Christians could be Christians that was fine but Lloyd gastrin said to me once but I wish Paul hadn't written verse 23 because that's where Paul says if they do not remain in unbelief then they can be grafted back in again and here's the point why is Paul grieving in Romans 9 what is he praying for in Romans 10 my prayer is that they may be saved and he answers his own question when he says if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved so where is the idea coming from that this will happen but at the last minute immediately before Jesus returns you've heard an elegant exposition and I'm going to answer that later but it seems to me we have to take seriously what Paul is really arguing in Romans 11 he is facing and he could see it with prophetic prescience he is facing the early version of what became masih anism in Rome Rome had a strong tradition of being anti-jewish at the time and Paul could see that if things went on as they were when the RET when the the Jews had been expelled from Rome under Claudius but now that Claudius has died they were going to come back under Nero there was going to be anti-jewish sentiment in Rome in general and perhaps in the Gentile church in Rome in particular and Paul could see only too clearly that some Gentile Christians would say well this movements hearted offers a Jewish thing but now it's over to us and those Jews happily have been written out of all this and Paul is saying absolutely not when you walk past your local synagogue you can never say God has finished with them they are beloved for the sake of the father's but does that mean that he is Apes Oh facto arguing for a large scale last-minute conversion of all Israel I don't see it in Romans 11 in my early days I wanted to see it in Romans 11 and as I've done the exegesis over the years I find it less and less plausible he is arguing against the idea that the Jews who do not currently believe are automatically excluded rather they remain among those who are in some sense or other to be explored and I think Paul is being cautious here doesn't want to be too deafened of definitive they are beloved in that sense like he says in 1st Corinthians 7 that when an unbelieving spouse is with a believing spouse are the children holy or not yes he says the children are holy they are sanctified by the believer does that mean they are saved does that mean they're automatically Christians I don't think so the holy means that God is reaching out in their direction God has not rejected them but it doesn't automatically mean that they will one day come to faith so crucially does the New Testament say that the Abrahamic covenant has been fulfilled in Jesus and by the spirit absolutely yes does the New Testament say that Jeremiah's promised new covenant has been inaugurated absolutely yes in Jesus and by the spirit so what if I take this line do I give as my answer to the second question do the Jewish people who currently do not believe in Jesus as Messiah have a unique covenant it calling I don't see that calling as such in Scripture I see a possibility and with that possibility I see something whose analogue I is sacred space the first time I went to the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Good Friday in 1989 and prayed there I had a strong sense of this being sacred space which I as a Christian have learned over many years to recognize and I don't think I'm fooling myself does that mean that the Western war as it is now is the permanent residence of the God of Israel no I don't think so I believe God resides in and as Jesus and the spirit and is the triune God who is Lord of the whole creation but as with sacred space so with chosen people there is a memory there is a holiness there is something which as Christians we respect and which we honor and we long to see coming to whatever fulfillment God has I cherished one of the great Jewish songwriters who died a year or two ago Leonard Cohen even though it all went wrong he wrote I'll stand before my Lord in song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah that it seems to me is a wonderful expression of faith even though it's all gone wrong one minute thank you do they therefore have a unique calling this brings into play we haven't discussed this the multiple theories both of Christian Zionism and of Jewish Zionists those are very complicated stories and there is no automatic one sighs this is Jewish Zionism this is Christian Zionism there they are complicated than they've shifted over time and there are different views in different parts of the Jewish and Christian world do they mean that therefore the present unbelieving Jewish people have a distinctive role in current geopolitical affairs I do not see evidence for that in the New Testament that doesn't mean that present Middle Eastern politics are irrelevant to the Christian gospel quite far from that but I wouldn't end on a negative let me and by reminding you what Romans 15 says and dr. Kinser referred to this already rejoice o Gentiles with his people and that rejoicing which I think dr. Kinser and I just sense a little bit in each other's company we may not agree about everything but the point is that God has fulfilled in Jesus his covenant in purpose and we in faith and hope and with a proper reverence before a mystery which may ultimately be insoluble in the present age we celebrate what God has done and whatever in the future God will do thank you [Applause] in my response I thought it might be best to focus on text I wasn't unable to address in my presentation but which dr. Wright said something about which is the Romans 11:26 text 25 and 26 which is been so controversial and dr. Wright has written extensively about this and I don't know that I'm going to be saying anything new but I think it is it's actually a crucial text for our discussion here and I wanted to make clear how I would address it and doctor Wright's thinking on the passage in in the RSV excuse me yes I actually have the text there excuse me for I do not want you brothers and sisters to be ignorant of this mystery that a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and then this way all Israel will be saved and so the question there is what or who is all Israel there and I would contend that all Israel there is actually a reference corporately to the Jewish people that's a reading that dr. Wright doesn't doesn't take and I think that that doctor writes reading of the text can make sense if you take the overall approach to Romans 11 which he takes and which he actually articulated and I think the fundamental question is what is the issue that Paul is addressing in Romans 11 at the very beginning in Romans 11:1 he says he asked the question has God rejected his people and he says of course by no means and then in verse 11 he says as Israel stumbled so as to fall and then he says of course god forbid by no means now doctor what dr. Wright understands this question these questions as as meaning is that Paul is affirming that Jews can still be saved that the issue he's addressing in Rome is that there are people saying that Jews can no longer be saved and that therefore all of these arguments in Romans 11 are attempts to argue against that premise now I think I think it's highly unlikely that that was the issue that Paul was addressing I think it's highly unlikely because I own I know of almost no time in the history of the church where that's been an issue that's even been discussed dr. Wright did refer to the Marcion ISM but to my knowledge Marcy Knights never said that Jews could no longer be saved if if if a Jew became a marcia night then they could be saved in in some of his other writings he has cited a second century a text called the Epistle of Barnabas as putting forward this position but I don't think that's actually what the Epistle of Barnabas is saying in fact in Christian history other and then maybe under the Nazis I know of no time where Christians simply said a Jew could not be baptized and be saved as long as they changed their thinking and gave up all of these Jewish practices etc etc etc and so I think it hi given the fact that I don't see evidence of it in Christian history as a whole I think it's highly unlikely that 20 years after the death and the resurrection of Jesus when almost all the Jewish apostles and first followers of Jesus who were Jews are still alive that this was the issue I think the question of Paul is addressing in Romans 11 has to do with the corporate destiny of the Jewish people he's saying has God forsaken his people genealogical Israel as a nation people as a corporate entity as Israel stumbled so as to fall as a nation and I think when he says no then he picks it up later on in the text and then he says all Israel will be saved is his answer to ultimately to that question I don't think that precludes Paul grieving over his people he he sees that many of them are in a in a bad way spiritually at the time and he's not convinced that every individual Jew is going to be inheriting the life of the world to come I don't think all Israel means every individual Jew I think it's a statement about the corporate destiny of the Jewish people as a people and it's something that Paul sees as a as a miss a mystery of something that will happen in connection with the Messiah's return the final point on this is I think it I don't see it as something happening just when Jesus returns I set this in the context of those texts in Acts and in Luke and I see it in fact as a part of the process that ultimately leads to the return of Jesus that it is Israel's affirmation of saying blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord fulfilling the conditional prophecy of of Luke chapter 13 responding to the appeal of Peter in in Acts chapter 3 that ultimately triggers leads to the out working of the the of the fullness of the coming of God's kingdom in the world that kingdom I see much as dr. Wright does as something that is cosmic involves the whole world but I believe it also continues to have a center point which is in the city of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel and I think that's that's very much the way Jews of the first century actually saw things the general view was the promise of the land referred to the world as a whole not just to the Land of Israel but that did not preclude there being a center to that renewed world and that center being the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem [Applause] thank you there aren't many many many things we could take up and dr. Kinser is being very gracious in giving a quick sketch there I have taken for many years the saying in Romans 11:26 about all Israel in the same sense which I think ought to be though it isn't incontrovertible for Galatians 6:16 where Paul talks about the Israel of God now Galatians as you will know is a passionate plea for the unity of Jew and Gentile in the Messiah the end of Galatians 3 Paul says if you belong to the Messiah you are Abraham's seed heirs according to the promise and the point is neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free no male and female you are all one this is Abraham's family that's how the whole argument of Galatians goes and if in chapter 6 verse 16 his phrase the Israel of God was a surreptitious way of saying but actually here are here is a Jewish group either the Jewish Christians or Jews yet to be converted then he would actually have subverted his entire argument in the letter so far that is probably just about the majority opinion of exegetes although it is controverted but I think it's very clear and I see Romans nine to eleven and I've argued this out in chapter 11 of my book Paul and the faithfulness of God I see Romans 9 to 11 has a very very carefully constructed whole it's one of the most careful constructs in all of Paul's writings and sometimes I have to say scholars seemed to think that Paul was just dictating on the fly and making it up as he went along and suddenly this idea occurred to him so he put it in but when you study it closely Romans 9 to 11 really works as a whole as a kind of a circle comes back to where it began and I see all Israel in 11:26 answering exactly to what he says in chapter 9 verse 6 which dr. Kinsey quoted in his first address where Paul says not all those who are of Israel are Israel that's his opening line of the actual argument after the initial prayer and by the way the way Romans 11 work romans 9 to 11 works is a wonderfully Jewish piece of writing because it starts with a lament it ends with praise and it centers on intercession with the history of Israel in between what does that sound like it sounds like a psalm and I think that's quite deliberate moving from lament through intercession to praise reflecting on on God's story with his people on route it's an amazing piece of writing but the way that it works is that 9:6 goes with 11:26 where there is a redefinition of Israel and Paul knows perfectly well that he is polemically redefining just as he does as I said in Romans 2 25 to 29 haven't got time to look at all of that but you could check it out or in Philippians chapter 3 verses 2 to 11 where he is in again engaged in polemical definition he says we are the circumcision hey miss garrison hey pirata may we who worship God in spirit and boast in the Messiah Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh he is taking these precious words you Dyess Perry to me and I think Israel as well and daringly saying they belong to the Messiah and therefore they belong to all the Messiah's people this is not a transference from Jewish people to Christian people or perish the thought to Gentiles who happen to be Christians it is the saying that Jesus himself is where all the promises find their yes that's what he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 all the promises of God find their yes all the promises find their yes in him and therefore all those who are in him inherit those promises so in dr. Kinsey's opening remarks I sensed something of the slipperiness of which I was sorry it's not going to be a rude word it's just linguistically where there isn't time in 20 minutes to say everything spelled out but when dr. Kinser said that this confirms the jews covenantal status i wanted to say well yes they are genealogical descendants of abraham paul says they are beloved for the sake of the of the patriarchs and yes in Romans 11 he is saying very clearly don't you despise them don't you write them off I'll come back to that in just a second that is a sort of covenantal status but you can't argue from that to saying that they're automatically saved and dr. Kinser agrees with me on that and i don't think you can argue either to say that because of what he says there therefore there must be either a final last-minute return to the land or a final sudden large-scale conversion I should say by the way some colleagues of mine in the guild very kindly last year gave me a Festschrift a volume of essays in honour of my 70th birthday towards the end of that collection of two essays one by richard hayes who substantially agrees with me on all israel and the other by my own brother Stephen who is also a New Testament scholar who disagrees with me on that point so you can go and read those essays and make up your mind I haven't yet had the conversation with my brother but one of these days I shall these things happen and so the idea that very very appealing idea that dr. Kinser has that Messianic Jews mediate the sanctifying grace I think that's the phrase he used of God to the rest the currently unbelieving Jews I can see something of that in theory I'm not sure how that works in practice and I'm still not sure whether that actually means anything other than God always holding open the prospect that if any Jew turns to Messiah Jesus then of course that Jew can and will be saved and I would love to spend more time discussing Luke 13 and acts 3 I'm not sure that they can bear the weight and it is a very considerable weight that dr. Kinser puts on them that prophetic saying at the end of Luke 13 has been interpreted in many different ways of which dr. Kinsey's though interesting is only one and going back to Romans 11 I was surprised by what Mark said just now because it seems to me that even though there may be not very much evidence for later gentiles rejecting the possibility of jews being saved romans 11 17 following really does look like that to me where paul is addressing the the the roman christians are saying you will say verse 19 branches were broken off so that i could be grafted in in other words he's imagining Gentile Christians in Rome saying they've been cut out so that I could come in in their place that is classic supersessionism and Paul's saying no absolutely not if you start talking like that you'll show that you haven't got real faith yourself and you might be cut off there's a severe warning so I think we need to do that bit of exegesis much more carefully there and back to Acts chapter 1 verse 6 when the disciples say Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel I have a good friend who is a colleague in San Andres Scott hey Thurman he's retired now just recently and we frequently came across this in seminars and I used to say to the students do you think the answer that Jesus gives is yes but or no but and Scott Hoffman would say no but we're not restoring the kingdom to Israel that comes later but you've got a job to do in the meantime I am convinced that Jesus answer to the question is yes but yes this is the kingdom being restored to Israel because Israel's Messiah Jesus is enthroned as Lord of the world and sends out his messengers into all the world to announce he is Lord and that is what restoring the kingdom is all about but it doesn't look like they thought it would it doesn't look like a kingdom set up in a geographic present geographical Jerusalem with Jesus and/or his followers ruling the world from there it looks like them going out in the way that Jesus did where the son of man has nowhere to lay his head and in sharing the suffering of the world bringing the message of God's love to that world so this show well undone this show will run this show will run and run and we're looking forward to your questions but I'm really grateful to open the discussion up in such a I hope a friendly way and no doubt there are more insights to come but I suspect that dr. Kinser and I will have this conversation again either by email or in person and it's very good to have begun it here thank you [Applause] well I messed up I forgot to have you pass your questions and have them be collected at the end of the first 20 and 20 so so please the ushers will come down now and get them from the people on the ends and bring them to dr. Padilla and dr. Matthews I apologize dr. Padilla Matthews for not giving you time to sort them out but but maybe while you're looking them through we can ask and see if dr. Kinser and dr. Wright would like to come up for a little two minutes of each to to respond now dr. Kendra would you like to Wow Wow they're taking the time to sort out the question is just going to take them some time sure yeah one of the one of the texts I think that's love to see dr. Wright do more with is the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 and dr. Wright focuses a lot on Deuteronomy 30 and this text that speaks about Israel's restoration and return and repentance as background to Roman's 9 through 11 but the text that's especially cited is this song of Moses and the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 tells the story of Israel and it begins with God showing this great favor to Israel and then Israel makes God jealous by going after gods that are no gods and so God then decides that he is going to make Israel jealous by showing his favor to nations that are nations and in the original context of Deuteronomy 32 this is like God showing favor to these nations by raising them up in a military sense to to conquer Israel for periods of time and to rule over Israel and then at the end of the song of Moses what happens is that God exercises his judgment on those nations and God gives ultimately victory to Israel but in the the Greek translation of of Deuteronomy 32 the very last verse is the summons to the nation's to worship God worship God with his people meaning with with Israel so that in in that version the conclusion are the nations and Israel together worshiping God these nations that were no nations that God used to make Israel jealous Paul takes that and works with it throughout Romans 9 through 11 and what I would see going on there is well and then Paul cites that final verse of Deuteronomy 32 in his closing lists of these but key biblical texts in in Romans 15 and so what I see happening there is again Paul telling the story of Israel and the nation's and God making Israel jealous through his showing favor to these nations in order to ultimately see all of Israel be saved and then Israel and the nations together coming arm and arm before God in the praise of God which is the picture of Romans 15 it so I would like to it's just if you could say a little more about Deuteronomy 32 and of course in a very short spiel there's no time to say and if you know my books you'll know that I have actually expanded on this and slightly more length and Deuteronomy 32 the Jewish historian Josephus refers to Deuteronomy 32 very into Stingley in his antiquities of the Jews and says that Moses wrote this great poem as a prophecy of things that would come to pass and Josephus says and that are coming to pass in our own day which is an extraordinary thing so that Josephus is saying that the Pentateuch the five books of Moses is not just the backstory of Israel it contains the whole story of Israel and I think Paul would agree because I've just got Deuteronomy 30 to open in front of me and verse after verse crops up somewhere in Romans including vengeance is mine which comes in Chapter 12 and prays rejoice o Gentiles with his people that comes in 15 as you said what I don't see there is the the the use that has been made of that jealousy motif in by some interpreters of Romans 11 where the idea of making Israel jealous Paul says that he is magnifying his men ministry to the Gentiles to make he says to make my flesh jealous which is interesting there's echoes of Romans seven and eight there and he says and so save some of them now as with 1 Corinthians 9 where Paul says I've become all things to all people that I might save and he really ought to say all but Paul is a missionary he knows perfectly well not everyone is going to believe he's had lots of experience so he says that I might save some and here I think he's explicitly not saying all he's saying I'm constantly looking and hoping and praying that some of my fellow Jews will come to faith and I think Paul sees that as an ongoing process in his ministry and as long as the world lasts until Jesus comes again I don't see in there or in in here any sign that this must include a sudden restoration of all Israel still less that this might have a geographical focus which is obviously one of the back questions which we haven't really got into so anyway we've that's that's a quick flip around one particular yes issue yes okay thank you dr. Matthews can you ask the first question overwhelming number of questions which is I think a tribute to our participants and encouraging such questions this question is for each of you in terms of eschatology if at all I think it's obvious that some the theological premises that I have and that dr. Wright would have would lead to different conclusions on this question my own approach to it is one in which I see the enduring significance of the land as I said not as as the inheritance but as the center of a redeemed world the IIC Jerusalem as retaining this unique significance as the center of of that renewed cosmos and so when there is this dramatic event in the 20th century where the Jewish people in large numbers return to the land reestablish their corporate presence in in the land I think that has to be taken as having some kind of theological significance if if one accepts my premise of the enduring covenantal status of the Jewish people and the end and the continuing significance of the land and of the relationship between the two between the Jewish people and and the land and if one is expecting some kind of particular events at the end of the age preceding the return of Jesus that are related to the land and related to the Jewish people and the City of Jerusalem but for me that does not translate into seeing the State of Israel as somehow some kind of special sanctified reality I think sometimes Christian Zionists can take that leap from the recognition of the importance of the land and the importance of the people and the the the eschatological significance of the return of the Jewish people to land and make the leap immediately into seeing the State of Israel as being as having this unique significance I see it as much more an instrument of the life of the people rather than as being so significant in itself I would I I put less emphasis on the state and the possession of sovereignty in the land and and see more significance in just the the presence of the Jewish people as a people living again in the land and governing their own affairs and and having this presence within the city of Jerusalem that they do have so I see this as all of eschatological significance I just think we should be cautious in in developing scenarios of what exactly is going to happen or in drawing certain kind of political implications from these theological convictions about for example the how the the israeli-palestinian conflict should be resolved and I think there has to be a great a much greater measure of flexibility in how that area is approached and one could do that and still hold to the view that I hold of the eschatological meaning and significance of the return of the Jewish people to the land have obviously been smoldering under what we've said or around what we said that many times when almost in a romantic sense I wish I could believe something like what dr. Kinsey has said there I I simply the more I've looked at it over the last 50 years the less plausible it seems to me and that's not to say that I wish the Jews hadn't returned to the land in the way they did etc but there are many different strands of Jewish Zionist theology and indeed Jewish anti-zionist theology and some of the most strident opponents of the founding of the modern State of Israel and certainly some of the most strident denounces of it as an act of God are certain parts of the Orthodox Jewish community as we both know partly on the ancient grounds which have a Christian analogue interestingly that one ought not to quote force the redemption unquote that's there's many Jewish teachers who would say only God can do the redemption and if this is a human work then that cannot be right and some people have tried to say well God is using human means to do it fine we Christians have that same problem what's the relation of good works to ultimate salvation is it just God going to do it or do we have to do some of it so the these are the sorts of questions that you run into from many different angles and likewise there are many different Christian readings of different types of Zionism but this is a very new situation I mean it's hard for us perhaps to realize that a hundred years ago 150 years ago the great majority of Jews in the world would not have thought that actually a return Ilia whatever was either an imperative or an eschatological thing and it's particularly in America with American dispensationalism but it's become a huge bit of the Christian scene which again was quite new and the earlier restorationist Christian Zionists would have seen it quite differently to how the dispensation is you say all this is by way of saying it isn't a question of dr. Kunze are representing one point of view me representing another and that's it there is a wide variety of positions both Jewish and Christian for myself I do not see the present the twentieth and twenty-first century Middle Eastern political events as really in any direct way a fulfillment of either Daniel or Ezekiel or act 3 or any such thing I see them as part of the ongoing extraordinary geopolitical events which have unfolded which particularly highlighted of course the acosta show and the return or the re-establishment of some kind of state as a reaction to that perhaps a necessary reaction and I can give a Christian account of that in terms of a general Christian political theology but I do not believe we can do a biblically based eschatological reading of that as though these are highly significant events I should say this debate too has taken place in my own family my wife grew up as an Olympic coastal and her late and lamented father was a local preacher who was a passionate Scofield reference Bible dispensationalist who could prove the whole thing from Daniel and Ezekiel and Zechariah and everything else and I loved listening to him but I never actually believed it so sorry that's where I am and it did deserve some unpacking dr. pitty is gonna ask the next question and and I'm hoping the we can get a lot of questions asked and and so maybe I'll ask our our speakers if they could try to be as economical as possible so that we can get a good number of questions in dr. Padilla it's actually two questions but I think they're related the question is the following has God always related to people through Jesus Christ or does Israel always come first even in the eternal decree or as in a different way is the promise of Jesus a priori to God's covenant to Israel or a posteriori to God's covenant with Israel there are two ways into this when we're thinking about Jesus were thinking about the historical Jesus of Nazareth it seems initially odd to talk about God doing everything through Jesus of Nazareth before the conception and birth of Jesus however in the Christian Church from very very early on as I said Jesus followers recognized that the Living God of Israel had come to be human the word became flesh and dwelt among us and that precipitated a fresh reading of Israel scriptures which to cut a very long story short results for instance in a reading of Genesis 1 which would say that God made humans in his own image so that it would be utterly appropriate and natural for him to become the ruler of his own world by becoming human and if the sovereign God is high and lifted up and inhabits eternity etc then were already talking in Trinitarian language that God from the beginning there was something about God if you like which was pre-incarnate which was going to become incarnate in Jesus and then I would say with second Samuel 7 God called David and his family to be the focal point of Israel so that he could himself become the world's Redeemer by becoming Israel's Messiah so that I want to say theologically speaking this is all to do with a triune reading I could put the Holy Spirit in there as well actually of both Genesis and the call of Abraham and the call of David but of course it appears historically the other way around but I believe that when God called Abraham God already had in mind that he would himself come and be the Redeemer of the world by becoming Israel's representative that's the way I would tell the story I suspect we're quite close on that yeah actually I would agree very much with with dr. Wright another text that points in in this direction is Ephesians chapter 1 and you know this is a text I mean I take perhaps a somewhat eccentric view of Ephesians 1 in that I I see the this blessing that Paul has as as focusing especially on Israel and then expanding to to include the the nations who are joined to Israel but regardless what what Paul what Paul writes his blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah who has blessed us in the Messiah with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him and holiness blamelessness election being chosen these are again the words of the Covenant and and the picture it's being given is that election from the very beginning from before the beginning is something that is in in Jesus the Messiah the one who is ultimately will be the the incarnation of the Eternal Word yeah yeah good doctor 25 what does fullness of Gentiles mean and how does this relate to all Israel will be saved try to summarize and I think Paul is being quite cautious in Romans 11 I don't think he's saying that he knows exactly either what ultimately will happen or how it will happen but he sees that in the purpose of God there is a plan to save a vast number of Gentiles and the phrase the fullness of of the Gentiles is a way of saying the total number that God has in mind identikit means all Gentiles at any Paul is a Universalist but it clearly means a lot more than are saved at the moment I would think um and so I think he's saying that God has made a breathing space the translation which mark put on this on the screen which was I think the NRSV perhaps whatever it was it's quite tricky because the phrase there Paul uses is that a hardening has come upon Israel and the Greek phrase is upon which could mean a partial hardening or it could mean a temporal a temporary hardening and indeed Paul uses the same phrase in a temporary sense in in Romans 15 and I think Paul is saying very much in line with how many Jewish apocalyptic writers were thinking at the time why has God not closed the deal finished the job sorted the whole thing out and many writers were saying God is staying his hand staying judgment in order to allow a breathing space so that more people may repent and be saved and the hardening looks as though Paul is saying that the rejection of the Messiah might have incurred instant judgment but no God has said no instead they will be remaining there and be hardened as in Romans 9 in order that there is time and space for the Gentiles to come in as a very mysterious thing but so I don't think it's that then that will suddenly be reversed anyway that's that's the basic answer and I could expand it further question for both how does the occasional nature of the letter to the Romans affect your reading of chapters 9 to 11 and the question of Israel salvation well I think it actually showed up in our responses to the text because we were what dr. Wright and I were doing in our in the district in the disagreement we have in exegesis is actually a disagreement over the occasion or the issue that Paul is actually addressing you know is he addressing one of the terms that dr. Wright uses in his writings is he addressing the question of the save ability of Jews or is he addressing the question of the corporate destiny of the Jewish people and and so the whatever the question is he's addressing it's related to the issues that Paul sees as significant for for for something on the ground in the in the Roman Church so at least to that extent I think the the occasion and the circumstances are are actually crucial for for being able to understand what Paul is is actually trying to say and again I find this notion of the save ability of Jews as that Paul is arguing for the save ability of Jews all that would mean is that he is arguing that Jews are no worse off than Gentiles and whereas it seems like he's making a much bolder argument here about the the sacred status of Jews that they are holy meat in a way in which in which just the other nations are not at that gives them some kind of special cut governmental connection rather than simply they're no worse off than Gentiles they can be saved just as much as Gentiles can yeah it's interesting because the question rather implies that if this was not an occasional piece then would be kind of Scripture set in stone but the occasional nature would somehow relativize it I want to say all scripture from Genesis to Revelation is occasional somebody has written it and edited and the theology of the inspiration of scripture which I have lifelong embraced and cherish is not that this stuff is not occasional but that God the Holy Spirit is working precisely in and through those occasions to bring about the god-given response to an address to those occasions which we call Holy Scripture and that always the church at its best has done the exegesis trying to figure out why this writer wants to emphasize this in order to be sure that we are hearing as best we can what God wants to say to us through it otherwise scripture just becomes in the famous phrase a nose of wax which you can bend this way or that now I think I think in a sense I want to say both what I say and what dr. Kinsey says but nuances slightly differently and I do see in Romans 11 11 and then in Romans 11 13 and then in Romans 11 17 following I see a definite address that Paul thinks that there are some in Rome who want to say they have stumbled so as to fall in other words they are now unsavable and I think it's partly to do with as I said the Jews coming back to Rome having been banished and in 1854 in when Nero comes to the throne the Jews come back and we know what that's like in a community in a tight community when a particular ethnic group has gone and suddenly they're back think of the problems of immigration that we have certainly in my country at the moment huge resentment and if the Roman Church has become a Gentile organization then Paul sees a real danger there anyway we could argue that but I want to say again and again in Scripture we need to pay attention to the occasion Galatians is arguing with very similar texts that Gentiles really are true members of the family of Abraham so the argument has to run that way for the inclusion of Gentiles Romans here is arguing if you like with the same text against the opposite danger of Gentiles who are saying we're it now and those Jews can go and do their own thing and this is the irony actually of the Messianic Jewish position that there are many Jews non miss non-christian Jews in today's world who don't want to be told that Jesus is their Messiah as well and I think Paul would say that's the real letdown because if Jesus is Messiah he is Messiah for Israel and the world that and Paul would see that refusal by some liberal Christians to evangelize Jews as the real form of anti Judaism that she's opposing here so my friends there are many different wrinkles to this and many oddities about it and and it behooves us to to pay attention to the text and it's occasion very very carefully also I think and be addressed by both of you do not Christians sometimes forget that Jesus is a Jew and therefore should we not follow him in observing the holy days eating kosher food and so forth and would this not be more attractive to Jews who might be more willing to accept Christ if Christians have reflected this in their worship and practice wow that's very very interesting I don't know that you can ever tell what's going to be attractive to people the whole time in my world in the church world people are always saying if only when we went back to the original prayer book then people would love that and come back well if only we could have saxophones instead of organs then people would come to yeah you you just can't second-guess what people are going to find attractive however however I have often when thinking about this question visa view Jews and Christians used a version my own midrashic version of the parable of the prodigal son seeing the prodigal who back from his wild lifestyle as the Gentiles coming in and the older brother seeing this crazy party going on says that's not for me and there are many times when Gentile Christians have celebrated the party in such a way as you cannot blame the older brother for not wanting to join in and I take her very very seriously and with with shame as a Christian and that if the Christian Church had done the Messianic agenda from Psalm 72 looking after the poor and helpless and and and getting all that stuff done on the ground then all sorts of perceptions would have been different however it's very clear in the New Testament that in Romans itself that the is the issue of kosher food and special days is something that Christians oughtn't to differ over so that if my brother wants to celebrate certain aspects of Torah and I don't that this shouldn't stop us sharing the Lord's meal and his faith together Romans that's what Romans 14 is all about the attempt to say that we ought the Christians ought to keep kosher runs afoul of mark 7 where Jesus says he's making all foods clean and certainly Paul's attitude to the food laws in 1st Corinthians 9 for instance which is a passage we haven't discussed to the Jews I became as a Jew to win Jews that's a extraordinary to those under the law I became as one under the law not being myself under the law but and nor most Christian in the law of the Messiah what does that mean come on Paul we want some footnotes I mean and and and there's many passages like that which mean that I think Mandir stand why the questioner would say that I don't think that's actually the answer but mark you might disagree and I know I don't exactly disagree my reading of particularly a text like Galatians is that it is next addressed to two Gentiles who are who have come to faith in Jesus who are being drawn to take on Jewish life in it in a full sense to be circumcised to observe observe Torah Paul seems to think that this is a very serious problem and I think one of the reasons that it is he sees it as a problem is in some ways it's not recognizing the the work of Jesus that Jesus which is is doing for the nations of the world that in his death and in his resurrection of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that God is coming to the nations of the world and not seeking to make them Jews but seeking to bring them into relationship with Jews and I think when one can already see this in also in Acts of the Apostles and the Jerusalem Council and again my understanding here of what's going on in the Jerusalem Council is that there is this recognition that the Torah is something that has application to all the followers of Jesus but in different ways and that there are there are laws of the Torah that apply to the the priestly tribe there are laws of the Torah that apply specifically to two Levites and there are laws that apply to Israel and there are laws who apply to non Israelites who are living in the midst of Israel and there are laws that apply simply to humanity and I think that I I don't actually think it would be particularly persuasive to Jews to simply have all Christians trying to kind of pretend that they're Jews that's very very interesting that's a very interesting way of putting it yeah and I there's footnote I dad but we must move on to another question yeah this is for Professor Wright in light of the fact that in the Acts of the Apostles after every missionary trip there is a return to Jerusalem wouldn't this go in the favor of dr. cancer in view in Jerusalem as the center of worship that's a very interesting idea I don't think so I mean Paul's missionary strategy is is very interesting to preach to the Jews first and also to the Greek how that works out in relation to the agreement in Galatians 2 where he and the Jerusalem pillar apostles agree that they will go to the Jews and he to the Gentiles is that a geographical or ethnic distinction did they stick to it looks as though they didn't because we have Peter showing up in Corinth and Paul having to navigate that it looks as though that was a temporary arrangement but then there's nothing much made of that regular return to Jerusalem and indeed the first missionary journey that doesn't happen paul and barnabas go with john mark to cyprus then they go up to what we call southern turkey mark leaves them then he goes back to jerusalem but then paul and barnabas continue their work and they go back to Antioch and it's an anti octant iakh trip later Paul does go back to Jerusalem in the midle journey but then nothing is made of that he says goes up and greets the church and then goes back north up to Antioch and then the final journey of course he's going to Rome and he says in Romans and and so on he wants to go to Spain and some people have speculated that he would have gone back to Jerusalem after that we have no particular reason to suppose he would so it is one of the really interesting things about Paul's missionary strategy that the role of Jerusalem in it and I don't myself see the force of that particular argument though I've never quite heard it put like that before and I have to contemplate well yeah this discussion of this point is actually part of my own recent work in the book Jerusalem crucified and I think actually the the Jerusalem Council in acts 15 is immediate is immediately after Paul's first so he's coming to Jerusalem after the first missionary journey that's very interesting because that's actually a very contentious point which on which we both agree because many people put the Jerusalem Council quite differently but I don't think that he's going with Barnabas to Jerusalem to finish off the journey I think they've come back to Antioch and then trouble is brewing we got to go and sort it out so that's not a strategic we always go back to Jerusalem business right my perspective on it those I'm looking at it less in terms of what what is the historical Paul doing and looking at it in terms of the the author of the book of Acts okay and the point that the author of the book of Acts is trying to make through the continual return to Jerusalem and my argument in in Acts is that the book ends in in Rome in an leaving the ark incomplete in other words that the can what happens in terms of the the movement the rhythm of Acts is always going further out and further out and then always coming back to Jerusalem that's very interesting that the book ends in Rome with the message being this story is not to be completed until the arc is completed in the return is to do I love incomplete talks but I'm not yet persuaded by that you know you know I think we run out of time for questions but but let me ask if each one of you wants to make a one-minute closing statement the one thing I would actually simply like to say is again to express my gratitude to to dr. Wright for all that he's done we we obviously disagree on some important matters but within the overall framework of theology and biblical scholarship we we agree on a lot more than we disagree with and this is actually the first time that the two of us have been able to get to know one another and I wanted to express my gratitude to Beeson and Sanford for providing this this opportunity for this event for many reasons but in part with the hope that our dialogue will continue yeah I would hope so too and I have to say that from my point of view I haven't been privileged to know that but to have this as part of the Provost Distinguished Lecture series which it is is just a real treat and I think congratulations to the local community for doing that but I want to say to mark particularly I'm very much aware and I hope this has come out that to be a self-confessed Messianic Jew is to put yourself in this very awkward position where there must be many other Jews including many Christian Jews who aren't quite so explicit as it were will look at you with anxiety and where many Gentile Christians really almost literally don't know what to do with you and it seems to me that that's where this proper sense as a Gentile Christian of being the younger brother and of needing to honor and embrace the older brother is is just so important and I hope we've modeled that a little bit tonight but also to say the task of exegesis and the discipline of hermeneutics of saying how do these texts actually mean what God wants them to mean and how do we instantiate that in actual communities and prayer and policy this is I think the task we would both want to bequeath to everyone here it's ongoing it's not a matter of a quick fix here's three texts from Daniel here's 1948 and then end of conversation by the way 1948 was a good year I say that for quite other reasons so let me turn this over to dr. Hardin Tom and mark thank you so much for delightful evening very stimulating I'd also like to thank dr. McDermott dr. Matthews our Kapadia dr. Dean Sweeney I think they earned their salaries tonight as I saw that stack of cards they were sorting through and trying to do in great haste thank you all for your hard work let's give all of them a round of [Applause] because one of the individuals that I would like to think think now wrote a lot of my script for me she did not put this in the script so I'm gonna go off script for just a second and say that the events over the last few days the organization the planning and all that goes on behind the scenes could not have happened absolutely would not have happened without the hard dedicated work of four ladies I do not know that I can see them but Nydia Spence kristin padilla kim Eckerd and susan cavil it's they have put in way more hours than they deserve that I deserve to ask to them they have been fantastic and working can we give them a round of applause I'll be again dreaming and praying about this lecture series really more than two years ago and tonight's event was the final realization of seeing those prayers answered in a world in which we live and watch on the evening news so often we see things done in tweets we see in civility at every turn we see the role of the University having really no place and it's today's society in questioned at every turn and in particular we see the role of the church and being a Christian as not having any value and certainly it's almost an oxymoron for a lot of people to think about having a Christian university that you can do both with integrity and to the highest standards my dream for these lectures was that that would be Illustrated and that we couldn't see embodied what I beliefs God calls us to do and what I believe in particular that God is called Sanford University to be and that as an embodiment of where those two things come together and Shawn into the world and our community and our students take what is learned here and go out into the world one of my favorite phrases of dr. right is he talks about Christians as being at the points of pain and suffering in the world what I hope that these lectures become is a place where we learn how to embody as you've seen tonight civility and conversation dedication love and that we as the Sanford community model that and go out and that we bring that balm of Gilead to those places where the world is at pain and bring out of it not the evil that normally comes but the good and the love that God has called us to bring forth and so I want to thank y'all for being that embodiment and showing us how to do that and especially Tom for all of your time here spent with us well I have three quick announcements first if you enjoy dr. Kinsler tonight he's coming back he will be back with us in be since divinity school's annual Anglican theological conference September the 24th and 25th on the theme the Jewish roots of Christianity dr. Kinsey will return as one of 12 conference speakers and you can purchase tickets at beasts and divinity schools website of course Beeson Divinity to.com the second announcement that I would like to let you know about is tonight's dialogue was recorded and will be posted on our YouTube channel so again if you will go to the Sanford website you can find directions on how to get to the Sanford YouTube channel and then last but not least as a thank-you gift from dr. Wright and his colleague dr. David seemeth at the NT right online Center for attending tonight they would like to give you free enrollment and one of his online courses let me say I can give a testimony here I think theirs is their 14 now something like that I have taken them all and they are wonderful don't watch TV watch these lectures they are much better than what you will find on TV so what I highly recommend them to you and the slide that you see up in front of you gives you a way of doing that it's real simple and if you have wanted a child with you below the age of 12 they can do this in a second for you just take out your phone type the word Sanford all lowercase to the number 4 4 2 2 2 then hit Send ok again if you brought any children with you below the age of 12 this will be no problem for them finally you will be asked to provide an email address submit your email address and our link will be sent to you to receive a coupon code to enroll in an online course for no cost this offer will expire in 30 days however once you enroll in the course you have lifetime access to the course so I hope you'll take advantage of that and as again I can highly recommend all of them to you before we depart tonight please allow me to offer up a prayer and all of our behalves let us pray Almighty God father of Abraham Isaac Jacob and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ whom you sent to die and be raised so that all tongues tribes and nations might worship you in unity we thank you for what we have heard this day and we ask for your wisdom and the reading of your word and the proclamation of your gospel please watch over us as we leave this place we humbly ask all of these things in the name of your son and our Savior Jesus Christ amen good evening

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Length: 114min 56sec (6896 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2020