It’s the Theology, Stupid

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Thomas Small doesn’t think Hugh Kennedy’s Caliphate gives enough attention to the theological roots of the Caliphate. In his TLS review, he writes wryly: “Reading Kennedy’s account of the Caliphate, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that there’s anything particularly religious about it.” According to Small, the Caliphate is a thoroughly religious institution and idea, part of the “political theology” that was early Islam, a political theology that “sacralized” war precisely by sacrilizing the caliph. “An early caliph didn’t need a... Read more

God With Us

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Everyone who has sung a Christmas carol knows that “Immanuel” means “God with us,” but centuries of singing about Immanuel have domesticated and sentimentalized the word. The concept of “Immanuel” has a long history before Isaiah applied it to a child Messiah (Isaiah 7). It arises, in part, from Yahweh’s covenant with David. In 1 Chronicles 17, the Lord reminds David that “I have been with you wherever you walk,” and then specifies how He has been with David: “I... Read more

Origins of Islam

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Once upon a time, everyone knew how Islam came into existence. As Tom Holland says (In the Shadow of the Sword), “Whole centuries’ worth of scholarship have been founded on the presumption that the sources for early Islam can be trusted. To this day, they continue to be recycled endlessly, whether in popular biographies of Muhammad or in academic texts. It still tends to be taken for granted that they remain, for anyone wishing to construct a narrative of Islam’s... Read more

Rooting out Burrowers

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Several weeks ago, I devoted my FT column to examining the Obama administration’s effort to consolidate its gender-equality gains by hiring attorneys to investigate and prosecute civil rights violations. Obama appointees will burrow in and continue the Obama agenda after he leaves office. Evan Osnos’s attempt to imagine Trump’s first term turns to this theme. Osnos spoke to Newt Gingrich who “told me that he is urging Trump to give priority to an obscure but contentious conservative issue—ending lifetime tenure... Read more

Jane Jacobs at 100

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

To celebrate the centenary of Jane Jacobs’s birth, Adam Gopnik devotes a New Yorker piece to the lyricist of the American city. Gopnik finds that her classic, Death and Life of Great American Cities “is still astonishing to read, a masterpiece not of prose—the writing is workmanlike, lucid—but of American maverick philosophizing, in an empirical style that descends from her beloved Franklin. It makes connections among things which are like sudden illuminations, so that you exclaim in delight at not... Read more

Jesus v. Hercules

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In The Clash of Gods (6-8), Thomas Mathewes describes the “staggering” revolution that took place in late antiquity when Christianity overthrew pagan art: In effect, a highly nuanced visual language that had been developed over the course of a thousand years to express man’s sense of cosmic order, to deal with the forces beyond his control, to carry his aspirations and frustrations, to organize the seasons of his life and the patterns of his social intercourse, was suddenly discarded. The... Read more

Levitical Genealogy

Last updated on: September 29, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The genealogy of the Levites (ch. 6) is at the center of the genealogical section of 1 Chronicles (chs. 1–9). It’s a long and complexly organized passage. In general, it divides into two sections: The genealogies of the priests and Levites (vv. 1–53) and the cities assigned to priests and Levites (vv. 54–81). The first section is organized chiastically (see the slightly different analysis in Mark Boda’s 1 Chronicles, 73): A. Genealogy of the priests, vv. 1–15 B. Genealogy of... Read more

Law in Flatland

Last updated on: September 29, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Thomas Friedman announced over a decade ago that The World Is Flat. It’s gotten flatter since. Friedman focused on how technology had dismantled hierarchies in politics, business, production, and distribution. More recently, Gillian Hadfield argues, “Digitization on a global scale converts objects and actions and ideas into glimmers of magnetism or electricity— where they remain until brought to life in some place, some time, some context that possibly no-one contemplated or could conceive.” With information technologies worming into everyday life... Read more

Covenant with Strangers

Last updated on: September 28, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The Psalm recorded in 1 Chronicles 16 (Psalm 105) exhorts the singers to “remember forever His covenant, the Word He commanded to a thousand generations” (v. 15). The covenant with Abraham and Isaac, confirmed to Jacob and Israel, has to do with the land: “To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion of your inheritance” (v. 18). The Psalm spells out the social circumstances of the original recipients of the promise. Yahweh swore to give them... Read more

Who baptizes Jesus?