Derrida is perhaps best known for his assault on self-presence, but in The Gift of Death he is eager to find out some place where the self is in absolute possession of something. Following Heidegger, for instance, he insists that death is always my death and no one else. Even if I am murdered, my death is my experience: “The sameness of the self, what remains irreplaceable in dying, only becomes what it is, in the sense of an identity... Read more
Jeremy Narby writes, “pigeons appear to be brighter than many people suspect. One recent experiment demonstrated that pigeons can tell the difference between paintings by Van Gogh and Chagall. The birds received training in which they were rewarded for pecking at paintings by Van Gogh but discouraged from choosing Chagalls. Then they were shown previously unseen works by both painters. The pigeons as a whole performed almost as well as a parallel group of university students majoring in psychology.” That... Read more
Seamus Cooney, ed. The Poems of Charles Reznikoff, 1918-1975 . Boston: David R. Godine, 2005. 445 p. I had not heard of Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976) when I picked up this volume, but his poetry is a find. Born to Russian Jews in New York City, Reznikoff wrote and published poetry, over many decades, that captures both the tang of urban America and the urgency of American Judaism. His styles are various: He writes sparely haunting haiku (“We heard no step... Read more
Gabriel Josipovici summarizes the story of Palti in 1-2 Samuel, the man to whom Saul gives Michal after David is driven into outlawry, and who follows Michal weeping when David demands his first wife back. What is this guy doing here, introduced only to weep and disappear from the text? Josipovici points out: “No self-respecting creative-writing teacher today would allow a student to bring in a character like Phalti only to drop him again for ever. We want him either... Read more
A TLS reviewer examines what sounds like a fascinating book on Plato and Aristotle’s appropriation of “theoria” (originally referring to spectators who watch the Olympics and other festivals in a kind of “sacralized spectating”). Along the way, the reviewer comments on recent criticisms of the “spectator theory of knowledge” often attributed to the ancients and finds Plato and Aristotle “wholly innocent.” More fully: “In both Plato and Aristotle abstract philosophical ‘sacralized spectating’ involves human beings in lots of hard thought... Read more
2 Kings 14:25: Jeroboam restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-Hepher. Not too long ago, Israel was dying. During the reign of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, the Lord reduced the army of Israel to fifty horsemen, ten chariots, 10,000 footmen,... Read more
What is the cross? Originally a Persian invention, crucifixion became a Roman method of execution, reserved for slaves and for the most dangerous political criminals. Josephus described it as the “most wretched of deaths,” as a victim slowly suffocated with the weight of his own body. One writer describes crucified victims as “evil food for birds of prey and grim pickings for dogs.” (more…) Read more
A man went searching for the beginning of the road he was traveling. He traced his footsteps back the way he had come, until he came to where he started. But the beginning of the road was not a beginning. Something lay on the far side of the road’s beginning, a beginning before the beginning. And the road had no sooner begun than the beginning was over, and the road itself appeared. There was a man who sought a spring.... Read more
Another discarded fragment. Perhaps the best-known of the postmodern theories of the self is that of Michel Foucault. According to Foucault, “man” is an invention of the recent past, of the modern world. Contrary to popular opinion, “man” has not been the subject of investigation since the time of the Greeks. Rather, human nature is a construct of the eighteenth century, which achieved the “anthropologization” of science and of reality. This period of the human is over, and Foucault is... Read more
Bultmann says that we moderns who can flick on electric lights cannot believe in the dichotomous anthropology of the New Testament, which distinguishes absolutely between the spiritual core of the self and the physical body. Problem is, that’s not the New Testament anthropology. In fact, it’s ironically the product of the modern worldview to which Bultmann wants to adhere. Bultmann has become sooo modern that he can no longer believe in modernity’s man, the ghost in the machine. Read more
Leithart
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