J. Richard Middleton - A New Heaven and A New Earth

Episode: J Richard Middleton discusses biblical eschatology, creation, heaven, hell, Elijah's escape of death, theology in Jamaica, whether our pets go to heaven, and much more in The Boston Tea Party, Cheltenham, during Richard's tour through the UK.

Guest: J. Richard Middleton is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary, on the campus of Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY. He also serves as adjunct Professor of Theology at Roberts Wesleyan College and adjunct Professor of Old Testament at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston, Jamaica. He has been President of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association, 2011-2014.

While in Canada he coauthored (with Brian Walsh) The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview (IVP Academic 1984) and Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (IVP Academic/SPCK, 1995). The former book has been published in Korean, French, Indonesian, Spanish, and Portuguese. The latter book received a Book-of-the-Year award (1996) from Christianity Today magazine and has been published in Korean.

He has authored The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos Press, 2005), which is translated into Korean, and has co-edited a volume of essays, A Kairos Moment for Caribbean Theology (Pickwick, 2013). Both are available as e-books.

His most recent book on eschatology, entitled A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), is published in paperback and e-book formats and won the 2014 Word Guild Award — Biblical Studies Category. It has been translated into Korean.

He is currently working on a new book, entitled The Silence of Abraham, The Passion of Job: Explorations in the Theology of Lament (to be published by Baker Academic). His next project after that is a short volume, tentatively called Portrait of a Disgruntled Prophet: Samuel’s Resistance to God and the Undoing of Saul (to be published by Eerdmans). (from Richard's Blog Site)

The OnScript Quip (Our Review): In his A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014) Middleton leads an expert tour of the Bible's creation theology. He presents the facets and implications of a this-worldly biblical eschatology. Middleton shows that this worldly eschatology derives from a ground-ed biblical protology, or story of first things in Genesis 1-2 (all creation) and the exodus (the people of Israel). Along the way, the reader meets none less than the creation-loving, matter-embracing, world-liberating God of Scripture. Middleton doesn't shy away from texts that pose potential challenges to his thesis, and offers convincing evidence that humans, and yes, this world, are destined for physical renewal. - Matt Lynch (The OnScript Podcast)