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Snowden and Bureaucracy

Last updated on: April 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In a TLS review of Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files, Edward Luttwak traces things back to dynamics within the post-9/11 intelligence bureaucracy. In Luttwak’s telling, it’s a case study of bureaucratic expansion. He argues that “Only a few hundred were really justified of the many thousands employed to service collection antennae on land, at sea and in the air operated by the signals’ branches of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, and of the many thousands of translators, cryptologists,... Read more

Snowden and Bureaucracy

Last updated on: April 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In a TLS review of Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files, Edward Luttwak traces things back to dynamics within the post-9/11 intelligence bureaucracy. In Luttwak’s telling, it’s a case study of bureaucratic expansion. He argues that “Only a few hundred were really justified of the many thousands employed to service collection antennae on land, at sea and in the air operated by the signals’ branches of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, and of the many thousands of translators, cryptologists,... Read more

Portion

Last updated on: April 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Gunnel Ekroth considers the important role that decisions by lot played in Greek society: “This was not an infrequent phenomenon in Greek society and was encountered not only at sacrifices, but also when land was parcelled out at colonial undertakings as well as at the selection of political magistrates. The widespread use of division by lot can be said to form part of ancient Greek mentality, reflecting a conception of equality among the members of a certain level of society... Read more

Sacrificial and Sacred

Last updated on: April 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Did the Greeks sacrifice all the animals they ate? Gunnel Ekroth (“Meat in ancient Greece”) says No, though he also says that most of the meat they ate was “sacred,” even if not “sacrificial.” The distinction of the two is crucial. Drawing mainly from osteological evidence to supplement that from written sources and iconography, he argues that the Greek diet was much more varied than we might have thought, and we can tell from the bone evidence that many of... Read more

Thoughts on 1 Samuel 17

Last updated on: April 11, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

A few scattered thoughts on 1 Samuel 17. Saul offers David his armor for battle, but David refuses (v. 39). After the battle, though, David accepts the armor of Jonathan, signifying David’s elevation to crown prince (18:1-4). David kills Goliath with a rock, trusting in Yahweh the Rock. There is a cosmological and political dimension to this: David takes the stones from a brook (17:40), land from the water (cf. Day 3), and in killing the Philistine he restores the... Read more

Hold, Cold, Between

Last updated on: April 11, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Jesus charges the Laodicean angel with being lukewarm, neither hot nor cold (Revelation 3). This is understandably and rightly taken as a symbol of their indecisiveness and lethargic piety. But there’s a whole lot more going on. Hot and cold match day and night (Genesis 8:22). “Heat of the day” is a common expression, and the night is the time of cold (Job 24:7). The Laodiceans have come to the light, into the heat of the day. But they are... Read more

Equality and Privilege

Last updated on: April 11, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Was sacrificial meat distributed equally or hierarchically in ancient Greece? Some have resolved the question diachronically: Archaic Greece had a more democratic sacrificial distribution that democratic classical Athens. Gunnel Ekroth concludes that the two systems lived side-by-side. Choice pieces were given to dignitaries and priests, but the bulk of the meat was divided up equally among the participants. Yet the equality shouldn’t be exaggerated in a way that obscures “the intricate possibilities of this ritual to establish and mark the... Read more

Difference

Last updated on: April 11, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Ancient Greeks sacrificed and ate pigs and dogs. Israelites were forbidden to do so. Ancient Greeks made blood pudding from sacrifices. Israelites were not supposed to eat blood. Ancient Greeks sometimes sacrificed pregnant sows. Israelites were commanded not to take both the eggs and the hen. Greek sacrificial goats were often wethers, but Israelites couldn’t offer animals that were physically damaged. Greeks roasted and ate sphlanchna, the entrails of sacrifices. Israelites put the entrails into Yahweh’s fire. Maimonides was not,... Read more

Greek Rape

Last updated on: April 11, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

No other mythology, writes Eva Kuels in The Reign of the Phallus, gives rape a more prominent role than that of Greece (49). In our expurgated handbooks of mythology, it’s called “dalliance” or somesuch, but Kuels argues that the artifacts show that what’s happening is rape. In most cases, the rape is sublimated into something else. A god attacks a woman not with an erect phallus but with some weapon or instrument: “the rampaging gods and heroes wield their characteristic attributes... Read more

Riding on the Clouds

Last updated on: April 11, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Pastor Arthur Kay offers these thoughts on the symbolism of Palm Sunday: “Palms are associated with covering clouds (Feast of Booths, Leviticus 23:40). They are also associated with the nations (Exodus 15:27; Revelation 7:9). Therefore, on Palm Sunday, Jesus is already coming on the clouds – He rides on palm leaves and ‘winged’ garments. And His triumphant entrance to the doomed city is already, in type, supported and sponsored by Gentiles.” Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, and immediately heads to the temple, where... Read more

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