J. Richard Middleton is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan University in Rochester, NY.
He has been President of the Canadian-American Theological Association (2011–2014) and President of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (2019–2021).
Middleton has a Ph.D. from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, in a joint-degree program with the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto. His other degrees include: M.A. in Philosophy, University of Guelph (Canada), and B.Th., Jamaica Theological Seminary. He has done additional graduate studies in the Old Testament at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, and in religious studies and philosophy at Syracuse University.
His most recent book is Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Baker Academic, 2021). It is being translated into Korean.
He has authored The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos Press, 2005), which is translated into Korean, and A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), which won the 2014 Word Guild Award — Biblical Studies Category. It has been translated into Korean and Spanish.
While in Canada he coauthored (with Brian Walsh) The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview (InterVarsity,1984) and Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (InterVarsity/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.
Middleton has co-edited two volumes of essays, A Kairos Moment for Caribbean Theology (Pickwick, 2013) and Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis (Pickwick, 2020).
He is currently working on three writing projects: Portrait of a Disgruntled Prophet: Samuel’s Resistance to God and the Undoing of Saul (Eerdmans); a rewrite of The Transforming Vision tentatively titled Shaped by God’s Story: Christian Worldview in a Global Key (IVP Academic); and God’s Prism: The Imago Dei in the Biblical Story (Baker Academic). He will then work on two books for Cascade: Life and Death in the Garden of Eden: A Theological Reading of Genesis 2–3 and 1 Samuel (in the Cascade Companions series).
Before beginning at Northeastern Seminary in 2011, Middleton taught at Roberts Wesleyan University for ten years, and before that at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (Rochester, NY), the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston, Jamaica, Redeemer University (Ancaster, ON), and the Institute for Christian Studies (Toronto, ON). He has also served as campus minister at two universities in Canada (the University of Guelph and Brock University) and two in the United States (Syracuse University and the University of Rochester).
Richard is married to Marcia, his teenage sweetheart, and they have two sons, Andrew and Kevin. Due to their mixed cultural and national heritage, they consider themselves “Jamericadians.”
Hi! Thank you for the illuminating thesis. I’m in a bible study class called Precept on Precept. in a non-denominational Christian Church. We’re in Romans 8 now. I made the comment that I thought it was significant that Paul said (KJV) 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” I wanted to know why and what Paul meant when he used the term “our spirit” – is it the Holy Spirit God used to create us with, is it a separate spirit, is it the soul – what is our spirit. This led to a rather heated discussion, as I suggested maybe we did have the Holy Spirit within us. The outcome of the discussion is my “assignment” to research and present my findings for what “our spirit” means exactly, according to Paul’s intent.
What I’ve found so far is leading to more questions and no answers.
I maintain that in the Fall, there is no specific text that says the Holy Spirit is no longer dwelling within us or a part of man – mankind (or any of creation for that matter). The Spirit hovered over the waters. God created Man in his own image, (the Trinity). He said (presumably to the Holy Spirit and Jesus) that lest (means “for fear that” if I have defined correctly) he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever.” If I have the meaning of “lest” correctly, it doesn’t seem to me Adam and Eve had ever been given the promise of eternal life (although perhaps as God’s creation it is inherent that they would live forever, in which case, why would it have mattered that they ate another bite of the Tree of Life?). God protected the Tree from them and punished them to die into dust again because they were disobedient; lied and hid from him it seems to me.
Eve and Adam were souls (out of their minds literally; thinking about what the serpent was saying, using logic) when they ate the fruit and disobeyed God.
I don’t see where the “Holy Spirit” was removed from them in any text, only that now the condition placed on them was that their flesh would die and they’d turn to dust. We’re told that eternal life was taken away from them for sin, eating of the tree of life. In fact, I think Paul indicated that when he said, [Paul, Corinthians 3: 16: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?] But then, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into his disciples – shouldn’t they have already had it by then? Maybe in sorrow over Christ’s awful conviction and death the Holy Spirit left them. Maybe they didn’t truly believe Christ would return to them. Maybe the Holy Spirit comes and goes from man? This verse blows my theory that our spirit is the Holy Spirit. So, what then? Did we have the Holy Spirit or our own spirit that was separated from God in the fall?
If our soul is a separate, unique part of us, (“God made man a living soul”) was it the soul that prompted Eve to believe the Serpent over God’s own word? Did we lose the ability to hear (commune) with God after that? We have no idea how Adam and Eve felt after God separated from them. We are told they were “spiritually dead”. Did their spirit fade away in survival mode or did they call out and God ignored them? Is this even relevant – I don’t know. Yet Enoch knew how to walk and walked with God -and he didn’t die. Who taught him this? He was “taken up” by God and we don’t know anything more about it. What is your view as a theological scholar: Where does the Bible indicate we do or don’t have the Holy Spirit inside of us? I looked and can’t find a meaningful (Christian Non-Catholic) explanation as to the difference between “our soul” and “our spirit”? I almost have convinced myself that this is the human “trinity”: spirit, body, and soul. Are we ever connected to God but now only by denying our worldly desires and dedicating ourselves to following Christ to death are we able to obtain an eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. Am I conflating too many ideas? I sure need an expert’s opinion! Thank you.
PS My name is Zan and I’m female, 72, and have a Graduate Degree, retired from Federal Service. I lived in Syracuse (Liverpool, Grandparents lived on Garfield Ave) until I was 12 or so. My Dad worked for GE in those days and we traveled the country with his work. They became Mormon. I started taking spirituality seriously at about 33 years old and have studied the Bible (and most other texts) mostly on my own until recently. My email is: zannie88@verizon.net.
CREATION to ESCHATON 
J. RICHARD MIDDLETON
J. Richard Middleton is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan University in Rochester, NY.
He has been President of the Canadian-American Theological Association (2011–2014) and President of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (2019–2021).
Middleton has a Ph.D. from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, in a joint-degree program with the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto. His other degrees include: M.A. in Philosophy, University of Guelph (Canada), and B.Th., Jamaica Theological Seminary. He has done additional graduate studies in the Old Testament at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, and in religious studies and philosophy at Syracuse University.
His most recent book is Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Baker Academic, 2021). It is being translated into Korean.
He has authored The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos Press, 2005), which is translated into Korean, and A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), which won the 2014 Word Guild Award — Biblical Studies Category. It has been translated into Korean and Spanish.
While in Canada he coauthored (with Brian Walsh) The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview (InterVarsity,1984) and Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (InterVarsity/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.
Middleton has co-edited two volumes of essays, A Kairos Moment for Caribbean Theology (Pickwick, 2013) and Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis (Pickwick, 2020).
He is currently working on three writing projects: Portrait of a Disgruntled Prophet: Samuel’s Resistance to God and the Undoing of Saul (Eerdmans); a rewrite of The Transforming Vision tentatively titled Shaped by God’s Story: Christian Worldview in a Global Key (IVP Academic); and God’s Prism: The Imago Dei in the Biblical Story (Baker Academic). He will then work on two books for Cascade: Life and Death in the Garden of Eden: A Theological Reading of Genesis 2–3 and 1 Samuel (in the Cascade Companions series).
Before beginning at Northeastern Seminary in 2011, Middleton taught at Roberts Wesleyan University for ten years, and before that at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (Rochester, NY), the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston, Jamaica, Redeemer University (Ancaster, ON), and the Institute for Christian Studies (Toronto, ON). He has also served as campus minister at two universities in Canada (the University of Guelph and Brock University) and two in the United States (Syracuse University and the University of Rochester).
Richard is married to Marcia, his teenage sweetheart, and they have two sons, Andrew and Kevin. Due to their mixed cultural and national heritage, they consider themselves “Jamericadians.”
Hi! Thank you for the illuminating thesis. I’m in a bible study class called Precept on Precept. in a non-denominational Christian Church. We’re in Romans 8 now. I made the comment that I thought it was significant that Paul said (KJV) 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” I wanted to know why and what Paul meant when he used the term “our spirit” – is it the Holy Spirit God used to create us with, is it a separate spirit, is it the soul – what is our spirit. This led to a rather heated discussion, as I suggested maybe we did have the Holy Spirit within us. The outcome of the discussion is my “assignment” to research and present my findings for what “our spirit” means exactly, according to Paul’s intent.
What I’ve found so far is leading to more questions and no answers.
I maintain that in the Fall, there is no specific text that says the Holy Spirit is no longer dwelling within us or a part of man – mankind (or any of creation for that matter). The Spirit hovered over the waters. God created Man in his own image, (the Trinity). He said (presumably to the Holy Spirit and Jesus) that lest (means “for fear that” if I have defined correctly) he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever.” If I have the meaning of “lest” correctly, it doesn’t seem to me Adam and Eve had ever been given the promise of eternal life (although perhaps as God’s creation it is inherent that they would live forever, in which case, why would it have mattered that they ate another bite of the Tree of Life?). God protected the Tree from them and punished them to die into dust again because they were disobedient; lied and hid from him it seems to me.
Eve and Adam were souls (out of their minds literally; thinking about what the serpent was saying, using logic) when they ate the fruit and disobeyed God.
I don’t see where the “Holy Spirit” was removed from them in any text, only that now the condition placed on them was that their flesh would die and they’d turn to dust. We’re told that eternal life was taken away from them for sin, eating of the tree of life. In fact, I think Paul indicated that when he said, [Paul, Corinthians 3: 16: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?] But then, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into his disciples – shouldn’t they have already had it by then? Maybe in sorrow over Christ’s awful conviction and death the Holy Spirit left them. Maybe they didn’t truly believe Christ would return to them. Maybe the Holy Spirit comes and goes from man? This verse blows my theory that our spirit is the Holy Spirit. So, what then? Did we have the Holy Spirit or our own spirit that was separated from God in the fall?
If our soul is a separate, unique part of us, (“God made man a living soul”) was it the soul that prompted Eve to believe the Serpent over God’s own word? Did we lose the ability to hear (commune) with God after that? We have no idea how Adam and Eve felt after God separated from them. We are told they were “spiritually dead”. Did their spirit fade away in survival mode or did they call out and God ignored them? Is this even relevant – I don’t know. Yet Enoch knew how to walk and walked with God -and he didn’t die. Who taught him this? He was “taken up” by God and we don’t know anything more about it. What is your view as a theological scholar: Where does the Bible indicate we do or don’t have the Holy Spirit inside of us? I looked and can’t find a meaningful (Christian Non-Catholic) explanation as to the difference between “our soul” and “our spirit”? I almost have convinced myself that this is the human “trinity”: spirit, body, and soul. Are we ever connected to God but now only by denying our worldly desires and dedicating ourselves to following Christ to death are we able to obtain an eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. Am I conflating too many ideas? I sure need an expert’s opinion! Thank you.
PS My name is Zan and I’m female, 72, and have a Graduate Degree, retired from Federal Service. I lived in Syracuse (Liverpool, Grandparents lived on Garfield Ave) until I was 12 or so. My Dad worked for GE in those days and we traveled the country with his work. They became Mormon. I started taking spirituality seriously at about 33 years old and have studied the Bible (and most other texts) mostly on my own until recently. My email is: zannie88@verizon.net.