Bible v. Myth

Last updated on: December 7, 2017 at 9:01 am By Peter Leithart

Considering the roots of contemporary “new nationalism,” David Goldman contrasts the biblical roots of Anglo-American nationalism with the mythical roots of German nationalism. He suggests that Christianity faces a “conundrum,” since, unlike Judaism, its spiritual and ethnic origins are not identical: Christianity “sees its spiritual origin at Golgotha but its ethnic origin in the impenetrable mists of the distant past. To be a whole person, the Christian must find a way to reconcile these two demarcations of memory.” As Goldman... Read more

Drama of God

Last updated on: December 7, 2017 at 4:50 am By Peter Leithart

John Frame is engaged in a battle over “classical theism” or “scholasticism” as articulated by James Dolezal (about whom I’ve written here). Leave the terminology aside. Frame gets to the heart of the question, and gets it right: “The main content of Scripture is not that God is simple or changeless (though I think these concepts can be derived from Scripture), but that God has dealt with his creation through history, particularly with human beings, in a thrilling historical drama.... Read more

Fifth Gospel

Last updated on: December 14, 2017 at 12:52 am By Peter Leithart

Did you know there is a fifth Gospel in the Bible? Read more

What Is Prophecy?

Last updated on: December 12, 2017 at 6:09 pm By Peter Leithart

Christian conceptions of prophecy are sometimes a mish-mash of ancient and modern conceptions. Read more

God Speaks in Flesh

Last updated on: December 7, 2017 at 7:29 pm By Peter Leithart

At the climax of John’s prologue he announces the beginning of the gospel: The Word became flesh. Read more

The Power of Procreation

Last updated on: December 1, 2017 at 7:53 pm By Peter Leithart

“The power of procreation and the power of conviction together confer on us, thanks to marriage, the combine strength of making epochs.” So writes Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (In the Cross of Reality, 212). Marriage infuses new life into society, the possibility of peace. Without marriage, societies “cool down” into rigidity. Rosenstock expounds on this theme from several angles. Love, he argues, takes an external form: “These external features of love were once called in German Hochzeit [high time – that is,... Read more

Jotham and Solomon

Last updated on: December 1, 2017 at 7:01 pm By Peter Leithart

The Chronicler’s brief, undetailed account of the reign of Jotham begins and ends formulaically. “Jotham was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem,” we learn in 2 Chronicles 27:1. Seven verses later, in case we have forgotten, the same is repeated: “He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem” (27:8). If nothing else, this sets up a neatly symmetrical structure for the entire... Read more

Yah Saves

Last updated on: December 12, 2017 at 1:50 am By Peter Leithart

Isaiah’s name contains a form of the verb yasha, “save,” like the names Joshua and Jesus. Isaiah means “Yah saves.” Isaiah’s name is a clue to one of the key themes of the book. Again and again, Isaiah repeats the ringing declaration that Yahweh is Savior, and each time he is expounding on the meaning of his own name. *12:2: When Judah is saved, Judah will sing: God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid; for Master... Read more

Toying With Time

Last updated on: December 1, 2017 at 7:20 pm By Peter Leithart

Armen Avanessian’s Present Tense: A Poetics is an intricate, illuminating study of the uses of tenses in fiction, and the changes in the uses of the past and present tense in the novels of high modernists. Käte Hamburger’s work sets the terms for Avanaessian’s discussion. On Hamburger’s account, the past tense in fiction is never really a past tense. Fiction “presentizes” the past tense, using it as a mark of “entry into a timeless present of fiction” (17). Tenses don’t have... Read more

Sell It With A Song

Last updated on: November 30, 2017 at 6:42 am By Peter Leithart

Nicholas Cook (Music: A Very Short Introduction) observes that “Advertisers use music to communicate meanings that would take too long to put into words, or that would carry no conviction in them.” To illustrate, he cites a 1992 Prudential commercial that begins with a young man listening to music and dreamily tapping his toe, moves forward in time to show the same young man playing in a band, and ends with a scene of the man, now older, playing requests for... Read more