Perhaps it’s the JPS Tanakh translation, but it struck me that the Samson narratives manifest the broad comedy of a Babylonian myth or the legends compiled by Levi-Strauss. He goes about tearing lions like lambs, posing riddles, lighting foxes on fire, and so on and on. Only moralistic Christians could rob these stories of their inherent humor and interest. Frowning and finger-wagging only makes the critics of Samson look tinier. Read more
Leviticus 10 is often cited in support of the Reformed “Regulative Principle of Worship.” It does support that principle, but not if the principle is formulated, as it often is, as “whatever is not commanded is forbidden.” The sin of Nadab and Abihu was offering “strange” or “unauthorized” fire on the altar. But there is no command anywhere about what fire was to be used for burning incense. Yet, the priests had to make some determination of what fire to... Read more
Frank Gorman says that ritual in Bible is means of maintaining order of world against chaos: “ritual must function as a means of ‘manipulating’ the orders of creation. It is the means by which the categories of ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ can be negotiated. Ritual thus must be seen as the enactment of the world — it is the bringing into being and the continuation of the order of creation.” And, “Rituals are thus means of holding back social confusion, indeterminacy,... Read more
In his stimulating Clark Lectures (recently published as Grace and Necessity ), Rowan Williams suggests, following David Jones, that there are certain ontological conditions for the possibility of poetry: “the ontology, if we can use that forbidding word here, of a universe that is inextricably both material and significative, where things matter intensely, but matter in ways that breach boundaries and carry significance beyond what they tangible are. Words are material communication; things are material words. And the distinctive fact... Read more
At the end of his wonderful essay on “Art and Sacrament,” the Welsh poet and painter David Jones included a fragment that he wrote and rewrote over several decades. Here is wisdom: I said, ah! what shall I write? I inquired up and down (he’s tricked before with his manifold lurking places). I looked for his symbol at the door. I have looked for a long while at the textures and contours I have run a hand over the trivial... Read more
In a 2003 TNR review of Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning film, The Pianist , Michael Oren gives information about Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who assists Szpilman: “while scrounging in an abandoned house for food, Szpilman comes face-to-face with a German officer. Instead of drawing his revolver, the officer asks Szpilman what he does for a living, and then leads him to a piano. Stiff and unpracticed, Szpilman manages to perform Chopin’s Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor, whereupon the officer steeves him... Read more
Here are a couple of selections from a September 2004 New Yorker interview with Marilynne Robinson: Q. “In your nonfiction collection, ‘The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought,’ you wrote about the sixteenth-century theologian John Calvin, and about his strong sense of humanism and tolerance and his importance to modern thought. He is clearly a presence in the novel.” A. “John Calvin (Jean Calvin) is one of those surprisingly numerous figures whose importance for weal or woe is always... Read more
Charles Segal argues in his Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey that Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is a return to himself. This works in several dimensions. Through the second half of the epic, various characters reconstruct the story of Odysseus’ life – the story of his naming and the origin of the scar are told in the famous scene where his nursemaid Eurycleia washes his feet; Penelope talks about the early married life with Odysseus; finally, he returns to... Read more
Charles Segal argues in his Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey that Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is a return to himself. This works in several dimensions. Through the second half of the epic, various characters reconstruct the story of Odysseus’ life – the story of his naming and the origin of the scar are told in the famous scene where his nursemaid Eurycleia washes his feet; Penelope talks about the early married life with Odysseus; finally, he returns to... Read more
Discussing the question of the corporeality of angels, Herman Bavinck argues that angels cannot have bodies because that would imply they are material and “matter and spirit are mutually exclusive.” He charges that “it is a form of pantheistic identity philosophy to mix the two and to erase the distinction between them. And Scripture always maintains the distinction between heaven and earth, angels and humans, the spiritual and the material, invisible and visible things.” This approach, however, gives far too... Read more
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