Some commentators on Revelation give the Parthian empire a major role in the book. The Parthian empire stretched from the Euphrates to Iran; the Silk Road passed through, making it crucial to trade routes from the Roman empire to the far east. Romans and Parthians fought several times during the first century BC. Brutus and Cassius tried to use the Parthians for their own purposes. Mark Antony, better known for other exploits, led a Roman pushback a few years before... Read more
In his freshly published Triune God, Fred Sanders emphasizes that God’s self-revelation is a communicative act, and that the communication doesn’t come only in act but also in speech: “Revelatory words are not epiphenomenal to revelatory acts. Rather they are equiprimordial and unavoidable. The missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit are irreducibly verbal, though not exclusively verbal.” That last qualification is essential. A “merely verbal-propositional” treatment of God’s triune revelation is “very bad,” a perfect way “to strip... Read more
David wants to build Yahweh a house, and Nathan the prophet approves (1 Chronicles 17:1-2). That night, the word of Yahweh comes to Nathan to correct him. When Nathan delivers the oracle, David is a new Abraham, to whom the “Word of the Lord came” to promise the land (Genesis 15:1, 4). Nathan is a Samuel, who was also given a word to correct a king (1 Samuel 15:10). Nathan is the first to be designated a “prophet” within Chronicles,... Read more
In a scintillating poem, “Late Apocalypse,” Scott Cairns (Slow Pilgrim, 214-5), Scott Cairns gives the sharpest, pithiest description of the contradictions of communications technology I’ve ever read. Cairns is playing off Revelation 1, where John “turned to see the voice.” Again and again the narrator of the poem turns – to see “seven bright convenience stores” and “seven military vehicles” and “seven Wal Marts.” Then: I turned and beheld seven rows of plasma screens, each bearingseven vivid scenes, each flickering,... Read more
In a scintillating poem, “Late Apocalypse,” Scott Cairns (Slow Pilgrim, 214-5), Scott Cairns gives the sharpest, pithiest description of the contradictions of communications technology I’ve ever read. Cairns is playing off Revelation 1, where John “turned to see the voice.” Again and again the narrator of the poem turns – to see “seven bright convenience stores” and “seven military vehicles” and “seven Wal Marts.” Then: I turned and beheld seven rows of plasma screens, each bearingseven vivid scenes, each flickering,... Read more
In a TLS review of James Sharpe’s history of violence in England (A Fiery & Furious People), David Horspool calls attention to Sharpe’s account of infanticide in the 18th and 19th centuries. He claims that it was “an all too common last resort” in an age “when rigid public morality over illegitimacy combined with a lack of contraception.” As if removing stigmas regarding illegitimacy and improving contraception has reduced the rate of baby-killing. Sharpe’s data is sobering: “The absence of... Read more
Nathaniel Rich reviews Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land in the NYRB. Hochschild, a Berkeley sociologist, examined theories about the rise of the Tea Party and Trumpism, but, she writes, “I found one thing missing in them all—a full understanding of emotion in politics. What, I wanted to know, did people want to feel, think they should or shouldn’t feel, and what do they feel about a range of issues? This is politics as advertising: emotion over common... Read more
Lamber Zuidervaart thinks that Christian scholars have a “modernity complex” (Religion, Truth, and Social Transformation, 222). He illustrates with quotations from writers from Groen van Prinsterer to Merold Westphal, and concludes that Christian scholars need “a nuanced sifting of what is intrinsically worthwhile and intrinsically problematic in supposedly ‘secular’ ideas. We also need equally careful judgments about the better or worse roles these ideas play in society” (223). He ends his essay with an exhortation to be “postmodern without being... Read more
Lambert Zuidervaart’s essay on “radical Augustinian social critique” is, of course, mainly about Radical Orthodoxy. He devotes several pages to Graham Ward and John Milbank, highlighting the power of their work but offering some criticisms. He disputes Milbank’s notion that the church is a “society,” claiming that this confuses church and kingdom. He also questions Milbank’s diagnosis of Western secularism as a failure of the church being church. He quotes Milbank’s claim that “Either the Church enacts the vision of... Read more
Lambert Zuidervaart’s essay on “radical Augustinian social critique” is, of course, mainly about Radical Orthodoxy. He devotes several pages to Graham Ward and John Milbank, highlighting the power of their work but offering some criticisms. He disputes Milbank’s notion that the church is a “society,” claiming that this confuses church and kingdom. He also questions Milbank’s diagnosis of Western secularism as a failure of the church being church. He quotes Milbank’s claim that “Either the Church enacts the vision of... Read more
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