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The Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet with Scott Stripling

Recently, I sat down with Scott Stripling to talk about the publication of his team’s work on the discovery of the Curse Table from Mt. Ebal. It was an episode of “The Stone Chapel Podcast.” eHere’s a transcript of my conversation.

Scott Stripling  

Hi, I’m Scott Stripling, Provost at the Bible Seminary and VP of Donor Relations

David Capes

Dr. Scott Stripling, Scott. Good to see you. Welcome back to the Lanier Theological Library.

Scott Stripling  

Oh, David, it’s always a joy to come see you here, my friend. It’s a beautiful place and I think I might just move in.

David Capes  

For those who don’t know Scott Stripling, tell us about yourslef. Who is Scott Stripling?

Scott Stripling  

Well, I’m 60 years old. I’ve been married for 40 years. I have a PhD in ancient near eastern archaeology and a couple of master’s degrees. I’m a sports fanatic. I love my family and love the Lord. I’m addicted to reading the Bible and all the material culture and references that illuminate that background for us.

David Capes  

Well, you’ve been digging up a number of really interesting places in Israel over the last few years. I’d love to at some point, to talk about that. But today, we’re going to talk specifically about an announcement that you made last year at a press conference here at the Lanier Theological Library, about a find that has gotten a lot of attention. What did you announce last year?

Scott Stripling  

Yeah, it was March of last year [2022]. So just a little over 12 months ago we had a press conference here. Believe it or not, over 25 million people watched that press conference. There was a lot of interest and the reason is because it was a small folded lead tablet from Mt. Ebal. And it had what we believe is the oldest Hebrew script in a proto-alphabetic script. So the oldest Hebrew writing ever found in Israel and it included the name of Israel’s God.

David Capes  

Where was it found? 

Scott Stripling  

Okay, let me give you some landmarks. Abram cut covenant with God at Elon Moreh, Moses told the Israelites when you come back into the land and you gain a foothold, you’re going to go to Mt. Gerizim, which is right next to Elon Moreh, and you’re going to renew covenant with me there, pronouncing blessings from Gerizim and curses from Ebal. Joshua built an altar on Mt. Ebal to the Lord: Joshua 8:30. Adam Zertal excavated that altar in the 1980s. We went back and sifted through [the rubble] using a new technology of wet sifting. And that’s where we found this jewel.

David Capes  

So a dig was conducted in the 1980s. There was some refuse from that, because they were digging down and they just didn’t see this [artifact], right? They missed it. 

Scott Stripling  

No, in fact, archaeologists throw away about 75% of the evidence from the small finds. And that was the goal of my project to write a methodological paper and say, we can’t keep doing it the way we’ve been doing it. Because here’s what we’re missing. I had no idea that we were going to find this tablet of great significance.

David Capes  

It seems like everybody wants to find something big and monumental. But in fact, a lot of things over time that were larger, become a bit smaller, with the wear and tear of nature and erosion. But this lead tablet is a fascinating discovery. It was folded, right? 

Scott Stripling  

Yeah, it’s about the size of a business card folded in half, if you can picture that. Made out of lead, which kind of reminds us of Job 19:24. “Oh, that my words were written on lead tablets with an iron pen.” Okay, so it’s a very ancient way of thinking. They’re just gonna write down these words and seal them up.

David Capes  

And once the words were written down and sealed up, what kind of things are on the inside? What does it say? I know you [and your team] have been working on deciphering that. You’re trying to figure that out because you can’t open it up [the folded tablet].

Scott Stripling  

No, we tried and it’s impossible. The lead is now brittle. We had to go to Prague, Czechoslovakia, and use tomographic scanning in a lab there. And using those scans, we were able to recover text on the inside, which then was reinforced by bulges on the outside. So in other words, what we were seeing with the naked eye on the inside of the tablet was confirmed by bulges on the outside of the tablet as well. The first word we got was the word “arrur”, which is the Hebrew word for curse. And at that point, I thought you’ve got to be kidding me. 

David Capes  

So you’re on the mount of cursing. And this [account] goes back to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 26:27. And certain curses are to be pronounced and certain blessings are to be pronounced in this covenant renewal. And this is a particularly important moment in the history of the people.

Scott Stripling  

Well, that’s right. And they build an altar, Joshua 8:30. He says he built an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal, which is not what we would expect. We would expect the altar to be on Mount Gerizim, the place of the blessing, but it’s on the place of the curse. And I think that’s so beautiful that it’s through the expiation, through the shedding of blood that there’s forgiveness of sin, Leviticus 17:11. And that’s where this tablet came from, was from the altar. So the picture is, here’s these curses first, by God, Yahweh, not by Satan, right? Yeah, you could deal with that. Now this is by Yahweh Himself. You’re cursed, and you will surely die. Now that curse is placed on the altar, and then the shedding of innocent blood covers it. And so the man who will come to the altar then is not held accountable for those curses. It’s the one who won’t own up to his action. So the symbolism is really beautiful.

David Capes  

Interesting. So is there any way to date this? Is there any way to say with any kind of certainty that this is from the 14th century BC or 8th century AD? 

Scott Stripling  

Well, fortunately, our academic peer reviewed article has just been released by Heritage Science. And so if you’re having trouble sleeping at night, just download that and you can read all about it. Yes, there are three ways that we can date this. Number one is from the archaeological context. There were only two strata at Mount Ebal that Adam Zertal excavated, late Bronze Age II and Iron Age I. So there’s only two choices. So either way, it’s older than any previous inscription that had been found in Israel. 

Any Hebrew inscription. Because we’ve got older Canaanite inscriptions. If it’s Late Bronze Age, which is what we argue in the article, then it’s several hundred years older. If it’s Iron Age, it’s still older. The existing ones say the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracan.  

David Capes  

So for people who don’t know the Bronze Age from the Iron Age. The Bronze Age was first. And then the Iron Age comes later.

David Capes  

Yes, with the transition around the year 1200 from one to the other.

David Capes  

Okay. So you’re arguing [the tablet] is [from] Bronze Age? So 1200, or before.

Scott Stripling  

Yes, 1400 to 1200. It’s in that range. Peter VanderVeen and I believe that it was closer to 1400, Gershon Galil, one of our co authors, feels like it’s closer to 1200. So what we’re saying is, LBII, Late Bronze Age II. And then there’s reasons why one might think it’s slightly older or not. But it’s not only that, we also have the source of the lead, because we were able to chemically test the lead at Hebrew University. And the lead derives from a mine in Greece at a place called Laurion.

David Capes  

Well, that implies imports.

Scott Stripling  

Yes and here’s the thing. We don’t all agree on very much in archaeology, but we all agree that around 1200, the imports stopped. Okay. So what does that tell us? If the lead came from a mine that we know was in use in Greece in the Late Bronze Age and imports to Israel stopped around 1200, ergo, it had to be earlier than 1200. So that’s the second way we have a date. And then thirdly, it’s the epigraphy. The style of writing is unique, and it’s a well known style of writing. It’s just been called proto-Canaanite normally, or proto-Sinaitic. Because they’re using the same alphabet, and Canaanites and Israelites have the same alphabet.

David Capes

It’s like Spanish and English. We use the same basic alphabet. 

Scott Stripling  

Yeah or maybe here’s another analogy. Let’s say I have a Muslim neighbor, and I’m a Christian. We’re still writing in English, right? You can’t tell one religion from another unless we have unique words. So if there was a prayer to Allah or something like that, within the script, then you might know my neighbor was a Muslim. And that’s what we have here. We have the name of God, Yahweh, or YHWH, the three letter spelling, twice. And there’s only one group of people in the ancient world worshipping this God, and those are the Israelites. So three ways: the epigraphy, archaeological context and the source of the lead.

David Capes  

This may well be the earliest evidence for the name of God.

Scott Stripling  

That’s right, in Israel. Now we have an older reference outside of, no I”m sorry, it’s not older. But we have a contemporary reference in Egypt of the Solep hieroglyph in the temple of Amenhotep III. He writes of the land of the nomads of Yahoo, or of Yahweh. So apparently there are nomads who worship Yahweh who have their own land by the year 1360.

David Capes 

And of course, Abraham is a nomad. “A wandering Aramean was my father” as the text says. Well, this is probably changed your life in the last twelve months.

Scott Stripling

Yeah, thanks a lot. I have lost a lot of sleep over this.

David Capes  

So 25 million times it’s been seen.

Scott Stripling  

At least. Maybe as many as 50 million because once things go into secondary media and it gets on Tiktok, I don’t even know how to count things on Tik Tok, but it’s like millions there. And plus the original press conference that we were counting. So we estimate at least 25 million views.

David Capes  

That’s incredible. Well, first of all, congratulations. Second is how do you follow it up? 

Scott Stripling  

Well, you know, now the academic debate begins, okay. And people can look at our research and agree or disagree, give alternate readings. But at least they’ve got good clean research in front of them that they can use as a basis for that. We now want to investigate the outside because we have writing on the outside as well. And so there will be a second academic article. And spoiler alert, it says pretty much on the outside what it says on the inside, but we do need to publish that also. 

David Capes  

Okay. So when you say it’s the same, is it a brief version of the same? Or is it the same length? Is it the same words?

Scott Stripling  

That’s a nice try David, to get that informtion out of me but it’s not gonna work! 

David Capes  

No, okay.

Scott Stripling  

But I will tell you this. On the inside, not only do you have Yahweh Yahu, but you also have El side by side. So the two names for the Hebrew God are side by side, which is very problematic for those who are advocating the Documentary Hypothesis. Because supposedly, those two are hundreds of years apart, right. And we have them side by side. So there’s going to be some theological argumentation, archaeological argumentation on a different levels at which we have to think about this. 

David Capes  

Where do you think the biggest pushback is going to be in relationship to this find and this interpretation?

Scott Stripling  

I think from two areas. Number one is the one I just mentioned. So seminaries that have been teaching the Documentary Hypothesis as a basis for understanding, kind of a paradigm through which people understand the ancient world. This is problematic, and so not everybody’s gonna be quick to say, oh, golly, we were wrong all these years. 

David Capes  

Nobody wants to admit that after teaching, and writing books on it for 40 years. Nobody wants to do that.

Scott Stripling  

And I can understand that. So I think we will get some pushback there. And then from the epigraphic community. It’s a very narrow, you know, people who have this unique skill set of being able to translate these ancient inscriptions. There’s always a variety, take the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracan, when it came out. I mean, there’s 100 different research angles, well, maybe it doesn’t say this, or it could say that. So we expect that type of thing as well.

Scott Stripling  

No that’s the thing, you’d have to say that it was a forgery. Either we did it or somebody else, you know, left this, this tablet there and it was a forgery or something like that. I laughed when someone suggested that like I’m smart enough to write in proto alphabetic script on lead from Laurion Greece on the planet.

David Capes

So is anybody quibbling over the date of the find at this point, anybody saying no, it really is later.

Scott Striping

No that’s the thing, you’d have to say that it was a forgery. Either we did it or somebody else, you know, left this tablet there and it was a forgery or something like that. I laughed when someone suggested that like I’m smart enough to write in proto-alphabetic script on lead from Laurion Greece on the planet.

David Capes  

A lead that is so brittle that you can’t write on it!

Scott Stripling  

I know! So where there’s two archeologist there are three opinions. And so there will be plenty of opinions. But we just felt like we wanted to be intellectually honest, do our very best research, presented in a highly reputable journal, so that everybody would have it as a historical record.

David Capes  

So has anybody pointed out the fact, that this was not found in situ, this was found in a heap of rubble that was moved off to the side and not seen? That seems like to me to be something somebody would say. Well, we don’t know exactly what level it was.

Scott Stripling  

Yeah, and that’s, a good point, I used to work on the Temple Mount. And for two years, I was a supervisor on the Temple Mount Sifting Project. And so we have multiple time periods from the earliest Paleolithic periods, all the way down to the Mamluk  and even later Islamic periods. Well, that’s problematic. If you’re wet sifting that material. At Ebal, we only have two choices, Late Bronze Age II, or Iron Age I, even though it was found out of context.

David Capes  

You’re already narrow. You’re already a bit narrow compared to what you just described, which could be 1000 years, right?

Scott Stripling  

Right. If that were the case, then that criticism would have more validity. But even if it were Iron Age I, and the script no longer continues into Iron Age I, it would be like saying that Chaucer’s English is still being used in our time or something like that. So, you know, there’s already been a change of script. But even if that were the case, it’s still older than the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracan by at least a couple of 100 years.

David Capes  

Let’s talk about context. Why did people write these curses on lead texts like this, and then fold them up? What were they trying to do with?

Scott Stripling  

Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it was a titular document, summarizing the curses of Deuteronomy 28 and 29. And there it’s really self inpregnatory. “Cursed are you by the God Yahweh.” In other words, that’s exactly what Deuteronomy 28 says. If you don’t keep my covenant, all these curses will come upon you. So I think it’s a self imprenatory type of a curse.

David Capes  

So a person has, in a sense owned up to that. To being cursed?

Scott Stripling  

Binding himself, saying these are the consequences. I accept those consequences if I don’t keep the terms of the covenant. Which you find the exact same thing in the Abrahamic covenant. So blessings and curses. That’s how Late Bronze Age covenants were cut. There were always blessings and curses. We know of hundreds of these tablets.  They’re called defixios, that is the technical term. But I had never seen them from that earlier time period. I only knew them from later periods. So it’s not like we hadn’t seen it. As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was.

David Capes  

So you knew as a lead tablet and it was some sort of curse tablet.

Scott Stripling  

I knew it was a curse tablet. And I thought, oh, my goodness, it’s a curse tablet from the mountain of the curses. But I’m not aware of them from earlier time periods. So I was as surprised as anyone when the text that we recovered on the inside was a proto-alphabetic script.

David Capes  

Have other curse tablets been discovered from that period?

Scott Stripling  

No. In Israel, no. But in Egypt, yes. But not of the exact style with the folded lead tablet that you have the Execration texts from Egypt. We’ve got curses written on clay tablets. But you have to understand David, Adam’s team missed this. And they were good when they dry sift through everything. And they missed it. My team is also very good. We dry sifted everything again and we missed it. It was only with the new technology of wet sifting, that we were able to then see it and it popped. So, I think there may be a lot of them in dump piles sitting around Isreal.

David Capes  

So you just have to go back and wet sift all those piles.

Scott Stripling  

And that’s my contention to my colleagues. Let’s wet sift before we dump it into the piles, okay, so that we know the context that it’s coming from. Again, that was my motivation for the project. I wouldn’t try to start any controversy other than to say methodologically we can’t keep doing it the way we’ve been doing it because we’re throwing away the majority of the evidence.

David Capes  

So what’s the difference between dry sifting and wet sifting. How do you proceed to do that? What do you mean wet sifting exactly?

Scott Stripling  

So, we set up a portable station that has water that we’re recycling at Shiloh. We have our own water tower, and it’s quite fancy. At Mount Ebal, we just set up a portable tank that had a pump that was cycling water so that we had pressure and hoses. So the matrix, after it’s been dry sifted, then goes and it’s washed like with a pressure hose and cleaned and washed again. And now once the dirt is off of it, all of a sudden, what looked like a rock, is a scarab. See for every one scarab we used to find we’re now finding five and for every one bulla we used to find we’re now finding five. A bulla is a clay impression. So it’s clay that’s been impressed with a scarab or a sealed impression of some kind that has been thrown away. Because when they’re covered with dirt, how’s a volunteer supposed to know what that is? But when it’s washed all the sudden those things pop.

David Capes  

Good role for water out in the desert.

Scott Stripling  

I know. The washing of the water of the word. It brings a lot of things to life. 

David Capes  

That is terrific. Well, there’s an academic discussion now that is beginning. And will continue for a number of years. Is there ever going to be consensus you think, on what this text is and what it means.

Scott Stripling  

I think the person, in this case me, the lead archaeologist and the lead author on the article, always has the advantage, the home court advantage. Because we’re the ones who set out what it is. And even those who disagree, the majority will always go back to either agree with, or disagree with, or cite our original research. You had Yossi Garfinkel here at the Lanier Theological Library, here a couple of years ago. Well he’s the one who excavated the Khirbet Qeiyafa. I think it’ll be exactly like that. You’ll have Yossi as the first one who published it. So people will always go back to his original reading but say maybe it could also mean this or mean that. But they’ll have to refer to his research. I think it’ll be the same thing with this.

David Capes  

So you’re team is the starting point. And you had a team, not just you. You have a team from Israel, from Eastern Europe, as well in Germany.

Scott Stripling  

Germany, Czechoslovakia and Israel. So two epigraphers, I didn’t want just one. You know, I’m sticking my neck out pretty far on this thing. I don’t want just one epigrapher to tell me what he’s seen here. I want two different ones. One’s Christian, one’s Jewish. One’s European, one’s Israeli. I want them both to tell me that they’re seeing this and then I have to agree with them before we’re gonna move forward on it. So that was helpful to have two good epigraphers,. And then of course, the scientist in Prague where we were counting on them to give us high quality scans. Because I mean, what were we going to do without the scans?

David Capes  

Without being able to see inside because it is folded?

Scott Stripling  

Don’t we live in an interesting time to be able to do that? Yeah. even if Adam Zertal’s team had found this, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything with it.

David Capes  

Back in the 1980s exactly. So if people want to learn more about this particular find, how can they do that?

Scott Stripling  

Okay, Heritage Science is the journal, and so they can go to the Heritage Science site. It’s one of the Springer Journals and it’s open access. So anybody can download the article there for free. Doesn’t cost them anything. And then we will have a number of other more popular level articles that are coming out in the near future as well.

David Capes  

Very good. Dr. Scott Stripling. Thanks for being with us today on The Stone Chapel.

David Capes  

It’s a real joy to be with you. Thank you David.

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Adoption? in Hosea with Andrew King

In the NIV of Hosea 1:2, the prophet is told to “marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her.” The Hebrew wording arguably intends the idea, “and adopt her [already born] children.” The larger concern is less with marriage than with household. Dr. Andrew M. King is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Spurgeon College, and co-director of Every Voice: A Center for Kingdom Diversity in Christian Theological Education. In addition to other things he has published Social Identity and the Book of Amos and he is currently writing a commentary on Hosea in the Pillar Old Testament Commentary series (Eerdmans, forthcoming).

To hear the podcast (10 min) click here.

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In the Form of (a) God, Pt 2

With Andrew Perriman

To hear the podcast click here.

This discussion is more technical than most we get into, but hang in there and think a few new thoughts today.

In the Form of a God is a new book by Dr. Andrew Perriman.  It is part of series edited by Mike Bird, David Capes, and Scott Harrower called Studies in Early Christology (Cascade). 

Perriman  joined David Capes by Zoom from his home in London for two episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcasts.”  Here is part 2.  If you haven’t heard part 1, go back and listen to that episode here.

Who is Andrew Perriman?

Andrew Perriman is a researcher and writer on topics related to eschatology and Christology. He is Associate Research Professor, London School of Theology, and spends part of his time in pastoral work around the world.

He also works with a mission organization, Communitas.  As he says, he inhabits two worlds.

Details about “In the Form of A God”

The subtitle of the book narrows the subject of the book The Preexistence of the Exalted Christ in Paul.

Many scholars believe that Paul, our earliest Christian theologian, already held to the notion that before Jesus was “born of a woman” (Gal 4:4-6), he existed in heaven as a divine being “in the form of God” or as Perriman prefers “in the form of a god” (Phil 2:6). 

His book asks the question: did Paul believe in the pre-existence of Christ?  And if so, to what extent?

The Philippian Hymn (Phil 2:6-11)

Perriman has an interpretation of Phil 2:6-7 that is at variance from many scholars. First, he does not regard it as a hymn. He considers it an encomium, that is, rhetoric designed to praise a human being. 

Second, he thinks it unlikely that Paul wrote it.  Rather, Paul approves of it because he incorporates it into his letter.

Third, he focuses upon the phrase “in the form of (a) god” to demonstrate that the backdrop of this passage—at least the first verses of it—comes from a pagan background that is accustomed to god’s appearing in human form. 

Jesus appeared in his ministry as a godlike figure.  It is generally agreed that morphe, that is, “form” refers to an outward appearance not the essence of a person or thing.

Seize the Opportunity

The other key word in this passage is harpagmos, which Perriman regards as an opportunity to be seized. Perriman follows the case made by Roy Hoover in 1971 (see details below). He believes, the most likely reference goes back to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. The godlike man was presented with an opportunity to have the kingdoms of the world, and he turned it down.

Essentially, the passage (Phil 2:6-11) poses the question: how should a Gentile, a pagan understand Jesus? 

The second half of the hymn or encomium is thoroughly Jewish because ultimately everything, every creature will bow down to the Jewish God, Creator of the heavens and earth. This is a strong allusion to a passage from Isaiah 45.

Finally

In the end Perriman regards this passage not so much as a hymn with a preexistence Christology. Rather it is rhetoric designed to make Jesus an example of humility and wisdom, a person worthy of imitation.

Agree or disagree? Leave a comment below.

See Roy Hoover, “The Harpagmos Enigma: A Philological Solution,” Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971) 95-11.

Here are more resources for you.

Check out more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics here.

What’s more, you can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library. Just click here.

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The Akedah and Job with John Walton

The Akedah refers to the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22). How does Gen. 22:12 in its context of God’s promises to Abraham answer the question of why God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Hint: There are parallels with Job. Dr. John Walton, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton Graduate School, is a frequent contributor to this podcast. His many publications concentrate especially in the backgrounds, language, and thought of the Old Testament world.

To hear the podcast (9 min.) click here.

“Exegetically Speaking” is a weekly podcast of the friends and faculty of Wheaton College, IL and The Lanier Theological Library. Hosted by Dr. David Capes, it features language experts who discuss the importance of learning the biblical languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—and show how reading the Bible in the original languages “pays off.” Each podcast lasts between seven and eleven minutes and covers a different topic for those who want to read the Bible for all it is worth.

If you’re interested in going deeper, learn more about Wheaton’s undergraduate degree in Classical Languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Latin) and our MA in Biblical Exegesis. 

You can hear Exegetically Speaking on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. If you have questions or comments, please contact us at exegetically.speaking@wheaton.edu. And keep listening. 

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“In the Form of a God” with Andrew Perriman

Here is a transcript of a conversation I had with Andrew Perriman recently about his book, In the Form of a God: The Pre- Existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul.

David Capes

Dr. Andrew Perriman, it is so good to see you. Thanks for being with us today on The Stone Chapel Podcasts.

Andrew Perriman

Oh, thank you for the invitation. It’s a pleasure, David.

David Capes

For those who don’t know Andrew Perriman, who is Andrew Perriman?

Andrew Perriman

Yeah, it’s a good question. Thank you. I think I’m primarily a writer, rather than a teacher. I do a fair bit with the London School of Theology now. But we’ve moved around the world with overlaps of my career, our careers, my wife and her work. So, the opportunities for teaching are limited, but I certainly had a pastoral work in various parts of the world. And I’ve done quite a lot, you alluded to, with a mission organization called Communitas, mainly in Europe. But that’s interesting to have these sort of two worlds to inhabit, and then try and work out what happens between them. Trying to do mission, particularly in the European context, after centuries, millennia of Christian Europe, how do we do mission now?

David Capes

Well, you have contributed greatly to our understanding and are contributing to that of Christology. The title of the book is In the Form of a God: The Pre-Existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul. It is part of a series that I edit along with Mike Bird and Scott Harrower called Studies and Early Christology. You’re looking at things in fresh ways and interesting ways. And ways that might go against the grain of where some scholars are, in terms of our understanding of Paul. If there is truly pre-existence of Christ in Paul, in what sense, would that mean, and you ask a lot of the right questions in the opening chapter. So, if you could summarize it, what is the big idea of your book In the Form of a God?

Andrew Perriman

Yes, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Because if you set out to address the question of, did Paul think that Jesus pre-existed, that’s not so much a big idea. That’s just asking a question. And what sort of answer do we get out of it? You can get to the answer. Obviously, some people get there very quickly. You can take a long time to get there. I didn’t want it just to be about this question of pre-existence. I come at this from a particular interest. Nobody mentioned that, that very big narrative that we tell about the life and the mission of the church over the centuries.

But more particularly much of what I’ve done in the past has been on New Testament eschatology. So, it’s thinking, what is the story that Jesus thought he was part of? What has brought them to that point? And where is it going next? The same for Paul and the same for Revelation, the whole of the New Testament. So that’s where I come from. So then, I mean, I think if there is a big idea, it has to do with the relationship between Christology and eschatology, and somewhat turning that on its head and giving eschatology the priority in this. Whereas from the perspective of the traditions, the various sort of theological traditions, we are more likely to begin with Christology. And assume that somehow eschatology is an account over time of the implications of the Christology. As you know, this is my personal approach to the thing and I think for good New Testament reasons, good, biblical studies reasons. It makes sense to ask well, what is Paul saying about Jesus with an overarching storyline in view? I made that point in the introduction of my book that Gordon Fee begins with the person and work of Christ. And if you do that, then the first thing you think about is salvation. That is what the person of Jesus, the mission of Jesus was all about. My approach, my core presupposition would not be that. It would be that Paul expected something to happen in the future that would dramatically radically change the shape of his world. So, if that’s so, let’s approach this question more from that point of view.

David Capes

Is there a sense in which that event or those events had already happened for Paul? Because he does talk about new creation. We’re living in this new creation. So, is that expectation future or is it present? And is there a realized eschatology in Paul?

Andrew Perriman

There’s a couple of things there. I mean, that’s big!

David Capes

Those are the big ideas!

Andrew Perriman

I think kingdom is more important, much more important to Paul than some scholars allow. He doesn’t use Kingdom of God language in the same way that Jesus does. Or to the same extent, clearly.

David Capes

But he does talk about life. And he talks about abundant life, life in the Spirit, those kinds of things. It seems to me he uses life language in kingdom ways. He talks a lot about life and entering into life. Not to the extent that John does with his language of eternal life phrases.

Andrew Perriman

From Paul’s point of view, everything that comes into that category is in anticipation of [the kingdom]. So, I have written on Romans and the book on the coming of the Son of Man. I take the view that Jesus’ horizon, if you like, is what’s going to happen to Jerusalem and the temple. So much of what Jesus has to say makes sense within that particular horizon. I think for Paul, he’s aware of that. But I think he’s looking beyond that to the impact of the resurrection and the exhortation of Jesus. To the impact that will have on the world that he sees when he takes that gospel message out into the Greek and Roman world, potentially as far as Spain. He programmatically begins with Jerusalem and extends his missionfrom one end of the empire to the other. There is very much in Paul’s mind this view that he is taking this proclamation about a future outworking of the implications and the significance of not just the resurrection, it’s not just about life, it’s life for the purpose of Kingdom. So that the one who is raised from the dead is seated at the right hand of the Father. And therefore, you know, the author has been given the authority to judge and rule over the nations. You know everything that has happened, and that is working itself out in the experience of the apostles, in the experience of the churches, is for the sake of some sort of future consummation. Paul’s thinking in more political terms than in final renewal of creation in the sense that we see that the end of Revelation.

So, I think he takes very seriously the circumstances of God’s people in the Greek and Roman world. And he’s looking for that whole situation to be turned on its head, a judgment on the pagan system, a judgment on idolatry. That’s there in the beginning of Romans. I think Luke picks up on it in Acts 17. And instead, the nations of the Greek and Roman world, the nations of the oikoumene, will confess Jesus as Lord. This is not a widely accepted view, and I recognize that, but I think we can be as realistic about Paul’s eschatology in that sort of historical sense as we can about Jesus. Not denying that there is something beyond in a final renewal of creation. But Paul, like Jesus, like the prophets, has his focus, his eyes on a somewhat near horizon.

David Capes

The theo-political horizon in a sense. So, it’s about God in politics, God and kingdom more so than politics.

Andrew Perriman

So, looking back on it from where we are, we might want to say, and you have to sort of approach this rather carefully, but the conversion of the Roman Empire in historical terms is a very messy reality. In that fulfillment of the recognition that the God of Israel, the God who created all things is given to his Son, that supreme authority over the nations.

David Capes

And that authority given, is that given at the resurrection, at the exaltation? Is that given at the eschaton, and in the final things?

Andrew Perriman

I think it’s there with the exhortation to the right hand of the Father. When Israel’s King is seated at the right hand of the Father (this is Psalm 110 or it’s Psalm 2), He receives the nations as an inheritance or sit at my right hand until there’s a future prospect there. Certain things will work out in the course of this reign as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15. Very clearly. So yeah, that’s the basic approach I take, then

come back and look at this question these quite key texts that have been used to demonstrate in an argument for the pre-existence of Jesus in Paul’s mind. And look at those texts again, and see if they look any differently in light of that type of narrative story. Because I think eschatology in Paul’s mind is more significant than the Christology almost. At least he’s doing other things with Christology than trying to sort of understand the relationship between the Son and the Father. What he’s concerned about is what does this relationship have to do? How is that going to play out in the future?

David Capes

I see. Very interesting. So, you look at a number of texts here in the book. Early on, you look at the sending of the Son texts, and very quickly, what is your approach on that? When it says God in the fullness of time God sent forth his Son born of a woman, born of the law, etc? How do you look at those texts, the sending of the Son?

Andrew Perriman

Part of it is in the fullness of time. And so go back to the beginning of Galatians, you have that phrase in reference to the present evil age. Part of my argument, there’s a tendency to think that the present evil age is human history because humanity is subject to evil. We sin and everything else. I think Paul is thinking in much narrower terms of the present evil age that Israel is going through, under Roman occupation, perhaps since Antiochus Epiphanes. So, since the Europeans, the Greeks and the Romans have come in, and made life extremely difficult for his people, and his people have not done a particularly good job of dealing with that. That would be the focus so that in the fullness of time is partly bound up with what’s happening with the law. So that text doesn’t take a broad and universal framework. I think the time frame is quite narrow. He’s looking at, what has God done at this time? And then it just seems to me, you look at the use of the language there, the sending out language is so widely anticipated that there’s plenty of that in Scripture and elsewhere, in Greek texts, or Jewish Greek texts. You send out the prophets, you send out the Kings, to do something. You send out Moses in particular, using the same Gree word apostellein. So, I think the thought there is that Jesus has been sent to Israel at the right moment, to rescue Israel from the catastrophe that is coming upon it in this present evil age.

David Capes

So, the analogy would be closer to God sending Moses to do God’s will, rather than as a pre-existent being, who enters into the world, and has this mission that is very eschatologically, kingdom focused.

Andrew Perriman

That’s right. And it’s the argument in Galatians that’s relevant, obviously. Because he’s being sent out, he’s bringing to an end the rule of the law over His people, which began with the sending out of Moses. But the other point to make that David is one of the core ideas in the book is to keep in mind that Paul is saying these things in the context of the mission to the around the Aegean nations, Asia minor and around the genomic Greek cities. And he’s proclaiming to people as a resurrected Lord, a spirit figure, someone who exists, is invisible in heaven, or is a spirit body in heaven so that for Gentiles, especially, but also for Jews, they are coming to believe in someone who was a genuine human person. The Gentiles begin with the Spirit. And that’s what Galatians is all about. You begin with the Spirit. You worship a Lord who has been revealed to Paul himself from heaven. They encountered the same risen Lord. They experienced their relationship with the risen Christ is experienced through the Spirit.

There are reasons why I think, he needs to fill in the backstory to that. One is to connect it with the story of Israel, clearly, because it’s being challenged by whoever these Judaizers are. He needs to account for the fact that he is saying that all this is going to come about through a persecuted and executed Messiah figure. And he needs to talk about suffering, the apostles experience of suffering and the church’s experience of suffering and to tell them that Jesus went through this first. So, although you’re meeting him, you’re encountering him, you’re calling out to him, and perhaps even in some sense, worshipping Him. All this is a spirit figure who is now seated at the right hand of God. But he was born of a woman. He was born under the law. He started where you are. I think that’s part of it. And then the Romans passage where Christ comes in the likeness of sinful flesh. I think again, the contrast is slightly different in this case. But it’s still looking back from that perspective rather than trying to sort out what came before. And I argue in the book that Paul is reflecting on the fact that the Jews looked on him as a sinner, this likeness of sinful flesh. He’s not contrasting so much whether Christ had an ideal preexistence in heaven, but if you’re going to send a messiah, why is God sending one who has been executed as a sinner? I think that there are ideas in the wisdom literature that, help us understand that. The righteous man who suffers is persecuted and looks like is dismissed by everyone as a sinner.

David Capes

We’re talking to Dr. Andrew Perriman about his book In the Form of a God: The Pre-Existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul. We’re going to do another podcast. So, stick around for that. We’ve talked today about his approach, and about the language of the sending of the Son and where that fits in to Paul’s big story. But we’re going to look next at an important part of the book that is Philippians 2, what is sometimes referred to as the Christ hymn. He has a different perspective than many scholars on that. So, watch for that next. Dr. Perriman, thanks for being with us on part 1 of this interview on the Stone Chapel Podcasts.

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