Something to check: Is Moses the first “horned man” in the Bible? He comes down from the mountain, having seen the glory of God, with “horns” on his head, rays of glory radiating out. This may be the source of the horned man image used elsewhere, in the Psalms for instance: He has raised up my horn like a wild ox and God has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. It... Read more
Douglas A. Campbell argues forcefully for interpreting the phrase ek pisteos (from faith) in Romans 1:17 as a reference to the faithfulness of Christ in his obedience to death. This, in turn, suggests strongly that Paul’s later use of pistis Christou (faith of Christ) as Christ’s own faithfulness rather than our human faith in Jesus. Several of Campbell’s arguments are worth noting: 1) He argues that the phrase ek pisteos is controlled by the use of the phrase in Habakkuk... Read more
Douglas A. Campbell argues forcefully for interpreting the phrase ek pisteos (from faith) in Romans 1:17 as a reference to the faithfulness of Christ in his obedience to death. This, in turn, suggests strongly that Paul’s later use of pistis Christou (faith of Christ) as Christ’s own faithfulness rather than our human faith in Jesus. Several of Campbell’s arguments are worth noting: 1) He argues that the phrase ek pisteos is controlled by the use of the phrase in Habakkuk... Read more
In a footnote to the aforementioned article, Muller briefly discusses the medieval debates about the atonement. He points out that the medieval doctors stressed the passive obedience almost to the exclusion of the active; the active obedience was merely preparatory, making Christ acceptable or meritorious as a sacrifice. So, the Reformed introduction of the active obedience was actually a move in favor of biblical theology and the gospels. Fair enough. But I stand by my suggestion in the previous post... Read more
I came across this from Mark Twain today: “History does not repeat itself but it does rhyme.” Read more
I finally got my mitts on Richard Muller’s article on the Christology of Jacob Arminius (published in the Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiendenis , 1988). Here is a summary of some of the salient points. In the years leading up to Dordt, Arminius debated the Reformed theologians on both predestination and christology, and in various documents of the period it is apparent that “the christological debate appears as a topic equal in importance to the predestinarian debate, both in Arminius’ estimation... Read more
I finally got my mitts on Richard Muller’s article on the Christology of Jacob Arminius (published in the Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiendenis , 1988). Here is a summary of some of the salient points. In the years leading up to Dordt, Arminius debated the Reformed theologians on both predestination and christology, and in various documents of the period it is apparent that “the christological debate appears as a topic equal in importance to the predestinarian debate, both in Arminius’ estimation... Read more
Early in his book, Sound and Symbol: Music and the External World , Victor Zuckerkandl is contrasting the phenomenology of sight and sound, and says this about the Greek emphasis on the visual: “It seems more than mere change that it was among a people so deeply anchored in the visible as a classic Greeks that the idea should be conceived of a supreme being which, in absolute immobility, intangibility, and uniformity, represented the direct opposite of everything living. The... Read more
In his brief story, “Ragnarok,” Borges tells a dream of an election taking place in the School of Philosophy and Letters that was interrupted by the coming of the gods. His description of the gods is wonderful: “A voice shouted ‘Here they come!’ and then ‘The Gods! The Gods!’ Four or five individuals emerged from the mob and occupied the platform of the main lecture hall. We all applauded, tearfully; theses were the Gods returning after a centuries-long exile. Made... Read more
James Smith’s conclusions regarding Derrida express more clearly than I’ve been able to do my own sense of Derrida. These are scattered quotations from The Fall of Interpretation , pp. 127-129: “Derrida is honest about not challenging for a moment Rousseau’s and Levi-Strauss’s reading of violence; his own analysis is only a ‘radicalization’ of their thesis . . . . But as I have attempted to argue above, intersubjectivity is violent only if one maintains something of a latent Cartesian... Read more
Leithart
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