Cherubim have four faces: ox, lion, eagle, man. As James Jordan has argued, those four faces are associated with different offices of Israel and phases of Israel’s history: the ox is sacrificial and priestly, the lion is royal, the eagle is prophetic, and Jesus is the man of the new covenant who incorporates all Israel’s history into His own. Each is also associated with a distinctive piece of tabernacle furniture: The ox is from the altar, the lion is enthroned... Read more
Shakespeare’s Richard III is a black-hearted hunchbacked murderer. But there has been another legend of Richard III, as a gallant ruler, the victim of Tudor propaganda. Over the past century, the white legend has often prevailed over the black. Desmond Seward’s Richard III is mostly black, and that’s because he takes Thomas More’s portrait as a basis for his account of Richard’s life: “however unreliable, Sir Thomas More remains the fullest source of information about Richard III. . . . Undeniably... Read more
In a National Geographic interview, Marcus Rediker explains how ships provided the setting for developing some of the distinctive institutions and ideas of the modern world: “Large northern European seagoing vessels, which emerge in the 16th and 17th centuries, become by the 18th century the most important technology in the world. They can be seen as a precursor of the factory, in the sense that they required large numbers of wage workers to come together and operate machinery to make the... Read more
Four angels at the four corners of the land hold back the winds that destroy (Revelation 7:1-3). Altars have corners, and at each corner is a “horn” that “stands” at attention. In the purification offering, blood is smeared on the four horns of the altar, turning the altar into a doorway covered with the blood of Passover. Because blood is at the corners of the altar, the angel of death doesn’t sweep through to destroy. Blood at the corners restrains... Read more
The angels at the corners of the land hold back the winds that could harm the earth, sea, and trees. But they actually have authority to harm only over the first two: earth and sea (Revelation 7:2). The trees won’t be harmed by the wind in any case. When the first trumpet trumpets, some trees are harmed – a third of them (8:7). But when the locust-scorpions are released from the abyss, they aren’t allowed to harm grass, green things,... Read more
Jesus prays that His disciples “might be matured into one” (osin teteleiomenoi eis hen, John 17:23). It’s a pregnant phrase. Unity requires maturity, the willingness to deal with those who differ, the willingness to face conflict without anxiety. Think of marriage. Maturity is nurtured by the difficult work of unity. When we face conflict without fear, we grow, most especially in faith. Think of marriage. Division is childish. It’s childish to retreat into our safe places, where everyone is like... Read more
I explore the links between unity and glory in Jesus’ prayer (John 17) at the Trinity House site. Read more
David Reynolds’s The Serpent in the Cup is a study of the role of temperance in American literature. Hawthorne, for instance, drew on themes and images from temperance reform in his story. In the short story, “A Rill from the Town Pump,” which Reynolds describes as an “ur-source of some of the main concerns of Hawthorne’s later fiction,” features a monologue from a town’s water pump. Water, the pump argues, is the great reformed of the age, quenching thirst and tearing... Read more
In his Copyrights and Copywrongs, Siva Vaidhyanathan traces the history of copyright legislation in Britain and America. In the US, Mark Twain’s advocacy was important, but the US lagged behind Britain, where writers in the Romantic mold played a crucial role: “As the British author rose in status, British publishers noticed that they benefited as well from the emerging ‘star system.’ Authors and publishers ceased fighting as they realized that they both benefited from a strong copyright system and the rising... Read more
Several factors need to be put back into the standard account of the Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, says Robert Hoyland in his forthcoming In God’s Path. The first is process. Speed plays such a large role in the standard accounts that we miss the variability, and the variability of pace, in the conquests. The second is to restore the voices of the vanquished and of the conquerors who were not Muslims. Muslim histories suppress or marginalize pre-... Read more
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