Allison again, commending on Hebrews 9:15-22 and the phrase “this is the blood of the covenant” that the writer of Hebrews quotes from Moses: “There is no ‘this is’ . . . in Exod. 24:8. The MT prefaces ‘the blood’ with HINNEH, the LXX with IDOU. Why the modification? The commentators who address the question usually return the obvious answer: we are to detect assimilation to the tradition of the Lord’s supper . . . . But if this is... Read more
Allison notes the frequent ancient association of Moses with asses. According to Diodorus Siculus, “When Antiochus . . . made war against the Jews he entered the sacred shrine of the god, where only the priest is allowed to go. In it he found a stone image of a thick bearded man seated on an ass and holding a book in his hand. He assumed it was a statue of Moses who founded Jerusalem.” And Tacitus claims that Moses discovered... Read more
Waters also says, “Leithart also forthrightly rejects the Reformed doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer.” I don’t do that either. What I have questioned, however, is whether we have exegetical grounds for distinguishing “imputation” as an act of reckoning from “justification” as a distinct declarative act. The picture often assumed is that in justification God engages in a double action: First, borrowing a common and Scriptural image, He “clothes us” in Christ’s righteousness; second, He views... Read more
In his new book on the Federal Vision, Guy Waters claims, “It appears, then, that Leithart has called into question the historic Reformed doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity.” I don’t. But Waters is right to sense that I’m interested in ways of formulating the doctrine that stick close to the narrative of Genesis and Paul’s commentary on that narrative in Romans 5. My question is something like, What could we conclude about how Adam’s sin... Read more
Allison offers a series of interesting connections between the early chapters of Gen and the early chapters of Ex: 1) Israel is “multiplying” (Ex 2:2) in the way that God commanded the human race to multiply (Gen 1:26-28), concluding, with some help from Samaritan texts, that MOses is another Adam. 2) Citing James Ackerman, he notes parallels between Babel and Ex. Constructing storage cities like the men of Babel, Pharaoh is going to fall. (more…) Read more
In his book on Mosaic typology in Matthew, commenting on Matt 5:1-2 in particular, Allison reviews some of the Jewish literature that suggests that Moses sat enthroned on Sinai. The idea was based on Deut 9:9, where Moses says “I remained (YASHAB) on the mountain forty days and forty nights,” using a verb that can “sit” as well as “dwell” or “remain.” This text was debated by the rabbis, especially in conjunction with Deut 10:10, where Moses said he “stood”... Read more
Interpretation is, we’re often told, a matter of explaining what’s in the text. Only eisegetes talk about what’s not already there. Discussing Matthew 1:1, Dale Allison offers this, much more accurate, alternative: “The interpretation of this line can be nothing other than the unfolding of what it not stated.” More expansively: (more…) Read more
In a recent book on Roman images, Tonio Holscher notes that Roman artists borrowed from every phase of Greek art because all phases of Greek art were available simultaneously. According to the TLS reviewer of his book (May 12), “In Greece, these styles had evolved over time, from the stiff Archaism of the sixth century BC, through the restrained naturalism of the high Classical era in the fifth century, to the pathos of Hellenistic art in the fourth and third... Read more
Given the importance of figures like Durkheim, Mauss, and Levi-Strauss in anthropology, it’s surprising to learn that “the French kept anthropology long under the umbrella of sociology, with the first degree in anthropology being awarded in 1968 and the first professional association of anthropologists founded in 1979.” By contrast, “The American Anthropological Association was founded in 1903.” (Emilie Bickerton, TLS, May 12). Read more
William St Clair (TLS May 12) makes the commonsensical point that a history of ideas requires an accompanying social history of reading, which is a history of the publishing trade: “When we read a book or essay called, say, ‘The Age of Wordsworth,’ should we not be concerned that, in his lifetime, most of Wordsworth’s books were produced in editions of 500 or 1,000 copies, many of which were remaindered or wasted several years after publication? Could that amount of... Read more
Leithart
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