David Bell has an illuminating article on France in the November 28/December 5 issue of TNR. Contrary to many commentators, he argues, France has a long history of assimilating minorities: “France has been a multiethnic country for a very long time, and, for decades, it did as well as any other Western country – including the United States – at integrating large numbers of immigrants into its society.” France’s problem is not that it cannot integrate but that its historical... Read more
A few further thoughts on the genealogy of Jesus: 1) Twice in Matthew’s genealogy, “brothers” are mentioned: Judah (1:2) and Jeconiah (1:11). David Garland suggests that this sets up the theme of Jesus’ brothers that runs through the gospel (cf. eg. Matthew 25); like Judah and Jeconiah has His own brothers, His disciples. 2) RT France suggests that one reason for dividing the genealogy into sets of 14 generations is that the Hebrew name “David” (DWD) is numerically fourteen. The... Read more
A few further thoughts on the genealogy of Jesus: 1) Twice in Matthew’s genealogy, “brothers” are mentioned: Judah (1:2) and Jeconiah (1:11). David Garland suggests that this sets up the theme of Jesus’ brothers that runs through the gospel (cf. eg. Matthew 25); like Judah and Jeconiah has His own brothers, His disciples. 2) RT France suggests that one reason for dividing the genealogy into sets of 14 generations is that the Hebrew name “David” (DWD) is numerically fourteen. The... Read more
Gerard O’Collins points out that Arian and modern neo-Arian Christologies have significant implications for our understanding of the extent of God’s favor toward us. According to traditional Christologies, “God so valued us and our historical, space-time world that the Son of God entered it in person. By assuming a human existence, the second person of the Trinity showed what we mean and meant to God.” On the other hand, Arian Christologies give us “a Jesus who is not truly divine,... Read more
One day, Henry just quit. He had soldered wires for he didn’t know what in the back room of the Magnavox plant for thirteen years, and enough was enough. His eyes itched, the watery coffee from the machine was bitter, the pinups in the maintenance room never changed, and he had grown to hate the Chinese woman who sat next to him at the table chattering in quasi-English about everything that crossed her minimalist brain with a fervor usually reserved... Read more
INTRODUCTION When Christians speak of the “holy family,” they normally have in mind Jesus’ “nuclear family,” Joseph and Mary and his siblings. But Matthew begins with Jesus’ larger family, tracing his descent from Abraham and David. THE TEXT “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham: Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot... Read more
Jonathan McIntosh, a student at the University of Dallas, challenges Vanhoozer’s (and Radical Orthodoxy’s) reading of Scotus that I summarized in a previous post, arguing that Scotus does not deny analogy. He has a point. The following discussion of Scotus’ understanding of the univocity of being is taken largely from Broadie’s essay in Evans’ The Medieval Theologians . I’m not sure that Scotus entirely escapes the problems attributed to him, but it seemed fair to give a fuller account of... Read more
Ian Robinson’s The Establishment of Modern English Prose in the Reformation and the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1998) is a fascinating discussion of the history of the sentence and of English punctuation, and, despite its heavy-handed title, is a delight to read. Does the sentence have a history? Robinson shows that it does. Even in our day, when the well-formed sentence is described as the key to prose writing, there are many intelligible uses of language that do not employ well-formed sentences... Read more
Kevin Vanhoozer has done a great service by editing the Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology (2003). Though the authors of the various articles differ among themselves, they are all well-informed about postmodern thought and culture and are making an effort to respond from the stance of Christian theology. In his introductory essay, for instance, Vanhoozer provides a helpful summary of certain postmodern tendencies, and adds “an alternative genealogy” that sees nihilistic postmodernism as the “logical culmination of basic modern tendencies.”... Read more
In the Summa theologiae (1.1.9), Thomas argues that “it is more fitting that divine matters should be conveyed under the figure of lowly bodies than of noble bodies.” Rocks are better figures for God than ideal forms. Thomas gives three reasons for this preference: First, if “lowly” bodies provide the figures for God, no one will be tempted to think that the figure is a literal description of God. Second, because lowly bodies are more fitting as means for knowledge... Read more
Leithart
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