Marcus shows that Daniel 7, cited in Mark 14:62, is lurking behind the trial narrative as a whole. Daniel 7 tells about judgment being passed against the bestial empires in favor of the people of the saints of the most high, with the result that all dominion and power is given to the latter. Mark characteristically inverts this by alluding to this passage in the midst of a scene where Jesus is on trial, and where the bestial empires look... Read more
According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, “The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.” But what counts as a “good and necessary consequence” and by what sort of logic may such consequences be “deduced”? I suspect that most would read “deduce” as endorsing syllogistic deductions from the text. (But whose logic... Read more
Marcus notes that Mark’s attention to Psalm 2 is not exhausted by quoting the words from heaven at Jesus’ baptism: “the whole series of pericopes in 1:9-11, 12-13, 14-15 reflects the basic ‘plot’ of the psalm, and its influence may extend further into Mark’s story. The enemy forces, concretizations of primeval chaos, array themselves against the Lord and against his anointed, shouting in defiance, ‘What have you to do with us?’ (see Mark 1:24) and throwing against them all their... Read more
Joel Marcus’ study of Mark’s use of Scripture ( The Way of the Lord , W/JK, 1992) begins with an illuminating discussion of the opening verses of the gospel. The quotation from Isaiah brings the whole of Isaiah’s second-exodus eschatology into play, with Jesus playing the role of the triumphant Yahweh leading His people on a conquest/procession toward Zion. The crucial twist comes later, when the way of the Lord is identified as the way to Jerusalem and to the... Read more
AC Bradley’s 1904 lectures on Shakespearean tragedy are deservedly regarded as classics of criticism. His analysis of Hamlet is deservedly famous, particularly his discussion of the famed problem of Hamlet’s delay. He classifies theories of the delay into several large categories. First are those that suggest that Hamlet delays mainly or primarily because of external circumstances – the risks of moving ahead with only the ghost’s word for it, the need to bring the King to public justice and therefore... Read more
AC Bradley’s 1904 lectures on Shakespearean tragedy are deservedly regarded as classics of criticism. His analysis of Hamlet is deservedly famous, particularly his discussion of the famed problem of Hamlet’s delay. He classifies theories of the delay into several large categories. First are those that suggest that Hamlet delays mainly or primarily because of external circumstances – the risks of moving ahead with only the ghost’s word for it, the need to bring the King to public justice and therefore... Read more
In Specters of Marxism, Derrida advocates a strongly eschatological Marxism but without committing himself to the specifics of a Marxist analysis of capitalism (must as he advocates a “messianism without messiah”). In both cases, he reaches for a formal structure without content, deliberately, because “content is always deconstructible.” Further, any time there’s flesh on dem bones, one has to make choices, which means excluding options. This, Derrida thinks, violates the fundamental principle of ethics, which is unconditional, infinite hospitality and... Read more
One man sits and does nothing; and eats himself up. Another labors alone without end; and eats himself up. One folds his hands and refuses to grab anything; and his hands are empty. Another grabs whatever comes near with both hands; and in the end his hands are empty too. One nation has the lowest per capita productivity on the UN charts, and life is miserable. Another has the highest per capita productivity, and everyone is dissatisfied with his portion.... Read more
Surely Solomon believed there were absolute goods, or One Absolute Good, but he spends most of Ecclesiastes talking about relative goods. The Hebrew idiom tob . . . min (“good/better . . . than”) is used throughout chapters 4 and 7 to express the relative advantage of certain situations in life over others. This is wisdom: Not merely to discern right and wrong, good and evil, but better and worse. Read more
Among all the books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes appears to come closest to the tragic wisdom of the ancients. But this is an illusion. Solomon warns that it is folly to say that the old days were better than the present (7:10), and encourages patience because “the end of the matter is better than its beginning” (7:8). According to Seow, this is the point of the obscure little parable at the end of chapter 4: “The young commoner (apparently a... Read more
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