Typology and Narrative

Last updated on: March 23, 2012 at 10:47 am By Peter Leithart

Wright writes that Paul’s “re-reading” of the OT is not “a matter merely of typology, picking a few earlier themes and watching the same patterns repeating themselves, though this also happens often enough.” Rather, “Paul had in mind an essentially historical and sequential reading of scripture, in which the death and resurrection of the Messiah formed the unexpected but always intended climax of God’s lengthy plan.” But what Wright describes as a “historical and sequential” reading is what typology at... Read more

Empire

Last updated on: March 23, 2012 at 6:31 am By Peter Leithart

Wise words from Wright ( Paul: In Fresh Perspective ) about the biblical assessment of empire: “Things are not straightforward, by our Procrustean standards, in any of these books [Amos, Isaiah, Daniel]. When God acts to rescue the three righteous Jews from the furnace, or Daniel from the den of lions, they are then given top jobs in the imperial civil service. Jeremiah tells the exiles to settle down and seek Babylon’s welfare as long as they live there. At... Read more

Tear Out That Page

Last updated on: March 23, 2012 at 5:09 am By Peter Leithart

As many dramatically-inclined Bible teachers have said, the page that separates Old and New Testaments shouldn’t be there. It’s theologically indefensible since it bewitches us into thinking that we have two Bibles instead of one. That page is a disaster for literary reasons too. Without it, you’d read straight from Malachi 4 to Matthew 1:1, and it would go something like this: A day of burning is coming, the chaff will be cleansed, Elijah is coming before that great day... Read more

Do this

Last updated on: March 23, 2012 at 3:59 am By Peter Leithart

I offer some thoughts on the cultural significance of the Eucharist on the First Things site today: http://www.firstthings.com/ Read more

TAW

Last updated on: March 22, 2012 at 12:50 pm By Peter Leithart

In his essay in A Broken Beauty , Gordon Fuglie offers this description of The Art World: It “is in truth a comparatively small and elite cultural entity. It takes itself very seriously, is adequately funded if not always wealthy, and is narrowly self-defined and, as a consequence, self-referential. It is therefore often oblivious to artists and artistic currents beyond its confines. And beaut its self-reinforcing ideology is also exclusive – often mysteriously so – it appears to function like... Read more

Perichoretic art

Last updated on: March 22, 2012 at 11:25 am By Peter Leithart

In his Rembrandt, Life and Work (Landmarks in Art History) , Jakob Rosenberg argued that Rembrandt rejected the classicist ideal that beauty had to be fully controlled with clearly bounded lines. He notes that “for Rembrandt the essence of truth about man and nature lies in the ultimate relationship of everything created to the Creator,” and also the relationship of everything to everything else. For this reason, the lines between things are blurred and indistinct: “Forms, in his composition, are... Read more

Beginning with the word

Last updated on: March 21, 2012 at 12:55 pm By Peter Leithart

God Himself is speech, language, Word. This is implicit in the opening pages of the Bible. God created heaven and earth, and when we see how that works in more detail we find that He does it by speech. The God revealed in Genesis 1 is a Creator, Maker, Actor, but He is all these things because He is a Speaker. His Word is a creative Word: When He speaks, things are that weren’t before. He speaks light into being,... Read more

From Bauhaus to Your Mac

Last updated on: March 21, 2012 at 12:36 pm By Peter Leithart

In an intriguing TNR review of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs , Evgeny Morozov says that the Apple “philosophy” – a form of pop-Platonism emphasizing the link between “essence” and function, purity, unornamented sleekness – cannot be understood except as an expression of a modernist design aesthetic most famously embodied in Bauhaus architecture. Morozov writes in part: “In addition to its minimalism, the Bauhaus also championed an obsession with functionalism—the idea, revolutionary in its time, that form follows function. The Bauhaus... Read more

Mark it with a T

Last updated on: March 21, 2012 at 10:30 am By Peter Leithart

In Ezekiel 9, the Lord tells the prophet to mark everyone who mounrs over Jerusalem with a “sign” on the forehead. The word “sign” is not the typical word for “sign,” but rather the name of the letter taw , the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Daniel Block ( The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1?24 (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) ) explains: (more…) Read more

Exegeting God

Last updated on: March 20, 2012 at 4:47 am By Peter Leithart

“No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He exegesato Him” (John 1:18). Meaning what? The verb contains the word hegemon , and means to “lead out.” The Father has been hidden, and the Begotten God “leads Him out” of hiding. The verb means to declare, and the Word declares the unknown Father. He unfolds hidden things. The verb means “to unfold in narrative” (cf. Luke 24:35; Acts... Read more