Some early modern thinkers saw the American Indians as exemplars of natural man, but JQ Adams believed the opposite: “Shall [Indians] doom an immense region of the globe to perpetual desolation, and to hear the howlings of the tiger and the wolf, silence forever the voice of human gladness? Shall the fields and the vallies which a beneficent God has framed to teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness? Shall the mighty rivers poured out... Read more
My volume on Athanasius, a contribution to the Baker series on Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality, is now available from Amazon. Click the link to the right. Read more
Richard Wolin has an extended review of several books by Tzvetan Todorov in a recent issue of TNR that provides a neat window into the workings of French theory in the middle of the twentieth century. Todorov came to Paris from Bulgaria in 1963 at the age of 24, already trained in Slavic theory by his reading of Shklovsky, Jakobson, and Propp. He was told at the Sorbonne that nobody in Franch was doing literary study of the kind Todorov... Read more
Isaiah 19:14: The Lord has mixed her a spirit of distortion; they have led Egypt astray in all that it does, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit. When Yahweh comes to Egypt, Isaiah says, He is going to throw Egypt’s advisors, wise men, sages, and prognosticators into confusion. The princes are fools, and Pharaoh’s cabinet has become stupid. As often in the prophets, Isaiah describes this confusion as drunkenness. (more…) Read more
“Do not cast me from your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me,” David prayed after Nathan exposed his sin with Bathsheba. David understood what was at stake. He had watched Saul’s terrifying decline – Saul, who received the Spirit, became a new man, joined the prophets, but resisted and grieved the Spirit until the Spirit left him. In place of the Spirit, the Lord sent an evil spirit to torment Saul, and it drove Saul mad.... Read more
Jesus broke down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles, uniting them into one new man. And not only in the church: Jews and Gentile who did not accept Jesus also joined into one unit, defending the old ways, especially sacrifice. For instance, this from the Martyrdom of Polycarp 12:2: “When this was proclaimed by the herald, the whole multitude both of Gentiles and of Jews who dwelt in Smyrna cried out with ungovernable wrath and with a loud shout,... Read more
When John first sees the harlot, she is in the wilderness (17:3). The only other references to the wilderness in Revelation are in chapter 12, where the mother of the heavenly King flees to the wilderness to escape from the dragon (12:6, 14). The mother of Revelation 12, protected and nourished in the wilderness is a Hagar/Israel figure. And that suggests that the other woman in the wilderness, who doesn’t flee the beast but rides on it, is a false... Read more
Like many other words in Revelation, the word “sharp” ( oxus ) is used seven times. The uses divided neatly into a 3/4 pattern. Three times the word describes the sword that extends from Jesus’ mouth (1:16; 2:12; 19:15), while four times it refers to the sickle wielded by “one like the Son of Man” harvesting grapes (14:14, 17, 18 [2x]). The four refereces to the sharp sickle are embedded in the middle of the three references to the sharp... Read more
A Pentecost meditation of mine is published this morning on the First Things web site: http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/06/epiphany-to-pentecost Read more
Isaiah prophesies that Egypt will have oppressors, but that the Lord will remove them (19:20). An altar in the center of Egypt, and a pillar of Yahweh at the boundary (v. 19) will mark Egypt as Yahweh’s land, and when they cry out the Lord will save. It is entirely an exodus story: Egyptians will cry out for relief from taskmasters, as the officers of Israel and Moses cried out for relief (Exodus 5:8, 15; 8:12). The same word “oppress”... Read more
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