Distance and Decision-Making

Last updated on: January 5, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Michael Lewis is the writer every writer wants to be. Every book since Liar’s Poker has been a best-seller (30 years on, Liar’s Poker is still a best-seller), several have been made into movies, and he writes clean, amusing, vivid, highly informative prose about some of the coolest things in the world—sports, finance, the finance of sport, the housing crash and the people who predicted and profited from it, statistics and probabilities. He has a novelist’s gift for characterization and... Read more

Kantian Eschatology

Last updated on: January 4, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In his essay on “The End of All Things,” Kant analyzes the “pious language” that speaks of “a person who is dying as going out of time into eternity.” Kant finds no comfort in the thought. On the contrary there is “something horrifying” about it. The end of time must mean the end of all experience. We cannot conceive a life that does not involve temporal succession; we doubt whether it counts as life at all: “that at some point... Read more

He Did Not Know Her

Last updated on: January 4, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Joseph did not know his wife until she gave birth to a Son (Matthew 1:25). Why not? In Matthew’s account, the conception of Jesus is attributed to the “Holy Spirit” (1:20), and Luke makes it explicit that the one conceived by the Holy Spirit is Himself holy: “the holy thing begotten shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Joseph might have reasoned: Since Mary was inhabited by the Spirit, and by the Holy One conceived by the Spirit,... Read more

Watchers

Last updated on: January 3, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The angelic “guards” at the gates of the new Jerusalem are, argues Margaret Barker (Revelation of Jesus Christ, 323), “probably a memory of the ancient guardians of the city known to Isaiah, ‘the watchmen set on the walls’ (Isa. 62.6).” Barker claims that “These ‘watchers’ are concealed in many places in the Hebrew Scriptures, because the heirs of Josiah’s temple purge were responsible for transmitting many ancient texts and when they removed the host of heaven from temple worship (2... Read more

Urban Utopia

Last updated on: January 3, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Eric Gilchrest (Revelation 21-22 in the Light of Jewish and Greco-Roman Utopianism) suggests that the conclusion vision of Revelation would receive a quite different reaction from its original readers, depending on whether they had been schooled in Jewish or in Greco-Roman Utopian traditions. For a Jewish reader, the urban setting wouldn’t occasion surprise: “to the Jewish-minded auditor, John’s utopian setting would be expected, both its urban and rural aspects. certainly Jerusalem plays a key role in Jewish eschatological visions, and... Read more

Merry Christmas

Last updated on: December 19, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

I‘m taking a break from blogging over the Christmas holidays. For daily seasonal musings and meditations, see the Theopolis blog. Read more

Merry Christmas

Last updated on: December 19, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

I‘m taking a break from blogging over the Christmas holidays. For daily seasonal musings and meditations, see the Theopolis blog. Read more

Entering Rest, Entering Song

Last updated on: December 16, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

1 Chronicles 23:24-27 is arranged chiastically: A. Levites numbered from 20 years and up. B. David said. C. Yahweh rests and dwells. C’. Levites no longer carry tent and implements. B’. Words of David. A’. Levites numbered from 20 years and up. C’ is disputable, but the structure nearly forces us to make a connection between David’s declaration about Yahweh and the change in the Levites’ responsibilities. The import is: Yahweh has entered rest and given rest to His people;... Read more

Entering Rest, Entering Song

Last updated on: December 16, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Novel-Reading and Enlightenment

Last updated on: December 16, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Allison Coudert (Religion, Magic, and Science in Early Modern Europe and America) speaks of an “anthropological revolution” taking place in the eighteenth century, as Europeans became optimistic about the future prospects of human evolution and improvement. This was partly the result of assaults on the doctrine of original sin, but some of the impetus came from internal changes within Christianity: “The Protestant elimination of Purgatory severed the close ties previously existing between the living and the dead, and this, together... Read more

What happened to Jonah?