Unclassifiable

Last updated on: March 20, 2013 at 8:36 am By Peter Leithart

Jody Bottum nicely captures the unclassifiability of the new Pope: “He is an advocate of the poor who has consistently opposed the Argentinian government’s ostensible programs for the poor. A social activist who rejects most social reform. A churchman who refused many of the elaborate trappings of his office while promoting the power of the church. A populist who denies almost every request for an interview. A leftist who denounces the state power and cultural changes demanded by the left.... Read more

Law and History

Last updated on: March 20, 2013 at 3:52 am By Peter Leithart

The second installment of Pastor Ralph Smith’s series of studies in Deuteronomy is up on the Trinity House site this morning. Read more

Rule of the Old

Last updated on: March 20, 2013 at 3:17 am By Peter Leithart

What other institution on the planet produces as many impressive old men as the Catholic church? Francis is 76. Joseph Ratzinger was nearly 80 when he became Benedict XVI. Not yet 60, John Paul II was a kid when he started the second-longest Papacy in history, but he was 85 when he died. It doesn’t seem to cost the Catholic church their youth. John Paul electrified young people well into his 80s. What 70-year-old other than Francis gets headlines about... Read more

Restoration of Israel

Last updated on: March 19, 2013 at 5:07 pm By Peter Leithart

Even the inattentive see that Jesus’ ministry focused on what He described as the coming of the “reign of God.” In his recently republished The Aims of Jesus , Ben F. Meyer puts some concreteness to that by emphasizing “that the reign of God as imminent meant the imminent restoration of Israel, and the reign of God as already overtaking Israel in Jesus’ words and acts meant that Israel was already in the process of being restored” (221). Meyer sees... Read more

Humanizing the end

Last updated on: March 19, 2013 at 4:52 pm By Peter Leithart

In his contribution to The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature , Joseph Wittreich examines the apocalyptic elements of King Lear . Shakespeare doesn’t hold, he thinks, to traditionally Christian views of the end, nor does he want to turn the apocalyptic framework into a fixed law of history. His solution is to “humanize” the apocalypse by turning responsibility for the shaping of history over to man” so as to “secularize the Christian prophecy.” In Lear’s horrors, Shakespeare pushes... Read more

Chaucerian apocalypse

Last updated on: March 19, 2013 at 4:38 pm By Peter Leithart

In their The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature , Richard Emmerson and Ronald Herzman find apocalypse in unexpected places. Like Chaucer. For the medieval mind, any pilgrimage evoked the pilgrimage of the soul toward heaven, and The Canterbury Tales is no different: “For the individual pilgrims, the pilgrimage suggests the journey of life, a full cycle from morning . . . to evening. It is a movement from birth, suggested by the imagery of procreation in the opening lines of... Read more

Stephen’s Sermon in Luke-Acts

Last updated on: March 19, 2013 at 12:04 pm By Peter Leithart

Someone recently referred me to Delbert L. Wiens’s Stephen’s Sermon and the Structure of Luke-Acts . It looks wonderful. He has a triple thesis: First, that Stephen’s speech is “a politike in the broadest sense, a sociological and political account of the levels and developmental stages of the Kingdom of God”; it is “the constitution for the formation of a new people of God for Jews and Gentiles” (ix). Second, that the sermon’s structure is a microcosm of the structure... Read more

It’s Coming

Last updated on: March 19, 2013 at 11:07 am By Peter Leithart

In his wonderful Jesus and the Victory of God , NT Wright compiles all the passages where Jesus warns of an impending catastrophe, within “this generation.” It’s a long list. Someone needs to do the same with the rest of the New Testament. (Andrew Perriman’s The Future of the People of God: Reading Romans Before and After Western Christendom is a good start.) Here’s my contribution: (more…) Read more

Prodigals and older brothers

Last updated on: March 19, 2013 at 10:35 am By Peter Leithart

Matthew doesn’t tell the parable of the Prodigal Son, but he might has well have. He records the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, which has the same structure and point. Some laborers work through the heat of the day, some come at the 11th hour and work only one hour. But each receives the same daily wage. Like the older brother, the ones who were hired first “grumbled at the landowner” (Matthew 20:11). “Is your eye envious because... Read more

Cup-bearer

Last updated on: March 19, 2013 at 10:29 am By Peter Leithart

Jeremiah tells the exiles that they will be conquered by Yahweh’s “servant” Nebuchadnezzar and will be under Babylon for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:8-11). When the time’s up, Yahweh will punish Babylon and recompense them for their deeds (vv. 12-14). In preparation for this eventual judgment, Yahweh hands a cup to Jeremiah and tells him to serve it to the nations to make them “stagger and go mad.” Jeremiah dutifully takes the cup and makes all the nations drink (vv. 15-17).... Read more