In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, host Jean Geran sits down with biblical scholar Seth Whitaker to explore a question at the heart of Christianity's origins: how do Jews and Christians read Scripture differently—and what holds their interpretive traditions together?

Drawing on his doctoral research at the University of St Andrews on the use of the Psalms in the book of Hebrews, Seth argues that the earliest followers of Jesus were Jews wrestling with their own religious heritage in light of the Messiah. Rather than a clean break, he traces a story of deep continuity — one in which the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the same God who raised Jesus from the dead.

Jean and Seth examine why the Old Testament can feel “more vengeful” than the New, and why that contrast is more caricature than reality. Seth offers a striking image: Scripture is not a flat plain where every verse carries equal weight, but a landscape of mountains and valleys, with high peaks of revelation — like God revealing himself as “abounding in steadfast love” at Sinai — that give us a vantage point on the harder passages.

The conversation also draws on a previous UpWords episode with AJ Levine to consider what Christians might learn from Jewish interpretive practices: the “70 faces” of Scripture, a comfort with multiple readings, and the practice of reading sacred texts in community as a guard against going off the rails. Seth closes by tracing how rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity gradually defined themselves over and against one another — shaped by events like the expulsion of Jews from Rome, the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, and the Bar Kokhba revolt — and why he encourages readers to approach the Hebrew Bible less like a prophecy-fulfillment checklist and more like an ongoing dialogue.

Whether you've wondered how Christianity emerged from Judaism, struggled with the difficult passages of the Old Testament, or simply want a richer way to read sacred texts, this conversation offers thoughtful insight and plenty to ponder.

YOU WILL LEARN

· Why every New Testament author was a Jew making sense of an inherited tradition — and why that changes how we read Christian origins

· Eschatology as a central interpretive lens: how “the last things” reshaped the way early believers read their Scriptures

· The same God, not two: pushing back on the ancient Marcionite split between the God of the Old and New Testaments

· Sinai as a “mountain peak” — God's mercy to the thousandth generation versus judgment to the third and fourth

· Scripture as mountains and valleys, not a flat plain of equal-weight proof texts

· Love and judgment appear in both Testaments — including in the Psalms and in the teaching of Jesus

· The “70 faces” of Scripture and what Christians can learn from Jewish interpretation in community

· How the early church's patience, love, and care across class lines set it apart in Rome

· Three historical turning points that drove Judaism and Christianity apart: the expulsion of Jews from Rome (49 CE), the destruction of the Temple (70 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (135 CE)

· The Septuagint, Isaiah 7:14, and how competing authoritative texts shaped competing interpretations

· Reading the Hebrew Bible as a dance and dialogue rather than a prophecy-fulfillment checklist

ABOUT THE GUEST

Seth Whitaker is a New Testament scholar who completed his PhD at the University of St Andrews, where he worked with David Moffitt on the Epistle to the Hebrews. His research focuses on Christian origins and how the New Testament authors interpreted the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint. His book, Eschatology and the Use of Psalms in Hebrews: Songs for the Last Days, is published by Bloomsbury T&T Clark in the Library of Second Temple Studies.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

· Eschatology and the Use of Psalms in Hebrews: Songs for the Last Days — Seth Whitaker (Bloomsbury T&T Clark)

· The Patient Ferment of the Early Church — Alan Kreider

· Previous episode of The UpWords Podcast with AJ Levine on Jewish and Christian readings of Scripture