Holy Cities for Holy People

Last updated on: June 2, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

First Chronicles begins with nine long chapters of genealogy. Little is said about where these multitudes live. There are scattered hints of territory, but no elaborate description of the borders and boundaries of the tribes, as we find in the latter chapters of Joshua. The Chronicler attends only to the settlements of the tribe of Levi, the Levitical cities and cities of refuge that are assigned to the priests and the priestly tribe (6:54-81), their “dwellings according to their fenced/walled... Read more

Surviving Apocalypse

Last updated on: June 2, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Robert Joustra and Alissa Wilkinson want to help readers learn How to Survive the Apocalypse that seems to be looming. They see signs of apocalyptic agitation everywhere in popular culture—in Battlestar Galactica, a technological apocalypse in the film Her, a zombie apocalypse in The Walking Dead, the dread of the onset of winter in the Westeros of Game of Thrones. Their entire analysis is guided by Charles Taylor’s analysis of the secular, and especially of the “malaise” of the secular... Read more

17 and 26

Last updated on: June 1, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

CJ Labuschagne (Numerical Secrets of the Bible) discovers repeated numero-literary uses of the numbers 17 and 26 in the Old Testament. Texts are comprised of multiples of one or the other of these numbers. Why? 26 is relatively easy: It’s the gematria of Yahweh, the sum of the numerical values of the letters. 17 is also a gematria. It’s “the numerical value of . . . aahweh, which is analogous to the archaized form . . . yahweh. The normal... Read more

Biblical Truth

Last updated on: June 1, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Dru Johnson’s Knowledge By Ritual defends the thesis that we come to know—to recognize and to discern, to see rightly—through ritualized action. In the course of defending this thesis, Johnson devotes a few pages to explaining the biblical notion of truth. He points out that truth can apply to actions, such as treatment of a servant, anointing, or walking; to statements; and to things like tent pegs, roads, and seeds (73). A concept that covers so much diverges from our... Read more

Hodge-Nevin

Last updated on: June 1, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In the mid-19th century, Princeton’s Charles Hodge engaged in a public debate with the Mercersburg theologian John Williamson Nevin about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It was sparked by Nevin’s book on The Mystical Presence, published in 1846, which Hodge reviewed in the Princeton Theological Journal in 1848. Like all debates about the Eucharist, this one involved far more than the Eucharist. Divergent ecclesiologies were deeply entangled in the debate. Hodge’s Systematic Theology contains no section on... Read more

Approaching God

Last updated on: May 31, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In his contribution to Ritual and Metaphor: Sacrifice in the Bible, Christian Eberhart points out that the term qorban is Leviticus’s generic term for the variety of offerings used in tabernacle worship. The terminology “captures the dynamic movement of sacrificial material toward the sanctuary and ultimately toward God who, according to the priestly concepts, resides there” (23). These connotations “permeate the regulations on sacrifice in Lev 1–7. Such an approach was actualized, for example, during regular pilgrimages to regional cult... Read more

John Williamson Nevin, Public Theologian

Last updated on: May 31, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

John Williamson Nevin is remembered, when he is remembered at all, for his anti-revivalist and pro-sacramental writings. Those more familiar with his work know of his catholicity and his emphasis on the centrality of the Incarnation to the Christian vision of reality. On of the great virtues of Richard Wentz’s John Williamson Nevin is to place Nevin in his American context and to demonstrate his persistent concern for American public life. He presents Nevin as a public theologian. In contrast... Read more

Handles

Last updated on: May 31, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

During Wittgenstein’s hiatus from philosophy in the 1920s, he worked for an architect to build a home for his sister Margarete. His task was to design the door and window handles. As Christopher Benfey points out in a splendid essay on handles at the NYRB, this was no menial task: “it is precisely these details that lend what is otherwise a rather plain, even ugly, house its distinctive beauty. The complete lack of any external decoration gives a stark appearance,... Read more

Handles

Last updated on: May 31, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Simon, Son of John

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

After sharing a breakfast of fish at the shore of Tiberius with his disciples, Jesus speaks directly to Peter (John 21). Peter had denied Jesus three times; now Jesus confirms his love three times. Peter denied Jesus at a charcoal fire in the high priest’s court; now he’s restored to fellowship at another charcoal fire, at the altar-table where Jesus prepares breakfast. Each time Jesus speaks to Peter, he calls him “Simon, son of Joannes.” Through most of John’s gospel,... Read more

How many New Testament books were written by John?