Mark Scarlata - Wine, Soil, and Salvation in Scripture

Mark Scarlata’s new book Wine, Soil, and Salvation in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament (CUP, 2025) explores the intricate dance between earth and sustenance. Scarlata argues that wine becomes the unique vessel that contains the culmination of God’s blessings on Israel and Israel’s responsibilities to the earth, each other, and neighbors. The terroir of wine acts as a kind of metaphor for this nexus and Scarlata shows how wine appears in surprising ways across the biblical literature with this paradigm in mind. Mark also managed to almost sway Dru into becoming a wine drinker. Erin Heim and Dru Johnson hosted this live interview at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.