The fraternal conflicts between Israel and Judah foreshadow later conflicts between Israel and the true Jew, Jesus. And so, when the Northern Kingdom allies with Aram (its traditional enemy) against Ahaz of Judah, it foreshadows the alliance of Jew and Gentile against the great Son of God. Pilate and Herod become friends. Ahaz, of course, does not entrust himself to the one who judges justly, but instead seeks a Gentile alliance of his own – with the even more threatening... Read more
The late Gillian Rose characterized the postmodern rejection of metaphysics as a triumph of social theory over philosophy, a triumphy that “re-enacts the earlier reaction, coterminous with the founding of modernity, according to which philosophy after Kant was ‘superseded’ by social theory . . . . It resulted in the fateful diremption between the conceiving of law as regularity, as positive, and the conceiving of ethics, the ought and the good. The social theory and the philosophy which emerge from... Read more
Coleridge wrote, “Shakespeare knew the human mind; and its most minute and intimate workings, and he never introduces a word, or a thought, in vain or out of place: if we do not understand him, it is our own fault or the fault of copyists and typographers; but study, and the possession of some small stock of the knowledge by which he worked, will enable us often to detect and explain his meaning. He never wrote at random, or hit... Read more
If Pascal were alive today, he would have a blog. Jonathan Edwards too. Read more
A thesis, which may prove, when the actual evidence is examined, to be wholly wrong: The thesis: Psychology and its related disciplines do not arise from clinical study or laboratory research, but as a branch of literary criticism. Evidence (extremely thin): Coleridge was the first to use the phrase “psycho-analytic.” Further evidence (a tad thicker): The Romantics, including of course German Romantics, were probing the soul almost a century before Freud. Coda: It is wholly appropriate that, in the last... Read more
INTRODUCTION How are we to live in this world of vapor? Solomon tells us again and again to rejoice (e.g., 5:19-20), and implies that this joy comes in community with others. That theme of community is explicit in chapter 4, as Solomon reflects on the evils that destroy neighborliness and the benefits of friendship. THE TEXT “Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun: And look! The tears of the oppressed, but they have... Read more
James Smith offers this summary of one strand of Derrida’s essay, “Violence and Metaphysics”: “since philosophy is ‘primarily Greek,’ ‘it would not be possible to philosophize, or to speak philosophically, outside this medium.’ . . . But could one conceive philosophy otherwise? This, Derrida will show, is precisely what Levinas suggests – and he outlines the possibility of another philosophy by exposing philosophy to its other: the Hebrew. The Hebraic thought of the prophetic ‘summons us to a dislocation of... Read more
Questioning the “self-present” ego did not begin with postmodern skeptics. Pascal already raised the question, what is the ego? and answered, “Suppose a man puts himself at a window to see those who pass by. If I pass by, can I say that he placed himself there to see me? No; for he does not think of me in particular. But does he who loves someone on account of beauty really love that person? No; for the small-pox, which will... Read more
Analyzing Rodney Stark’s treatment of the virgin birth of Jesus in his review of Stark’s latest book, The Victory of Reason (TNR January 6, 2006), Alan Wolfe writes, “Mary’s virgin birth has what [Charles] Freeman calls a ‘shaky’ scriptural basis, given that the Gospels mention her siblings and that one of them, John, does not mention her at all.” (more…) Read more
INTRODUCTION Christians usually think of the book of 1-2 Kings as “historical,” and Jews have long classified it as “prophetic.” For Christians, 1-2 Kings is above all about the gospel. FORMER PROPHET Because the Jewish classification of Kings may be unfamiliar, we should spend a bit of time examining it. Kings is prophetic, first, in the sense that prophets play a large role in the story. There are 10 named prophets, lots of unnamed ones, and the careers of Elijah... Read more
Leithart
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