Worship and Pop Culture

Last updated on: January 26, 2012 at 12:07 pm By Peter Leithart

In Selling Worship , Pete Ward’s thoughtful assessment of “how what we sing has changed the Church,” Ward notes that certain aspects of contemporary culture “will fit well with what we are doing while some other characteristics of the culture will be problematic.” He provides a superb illustration of the latter by highlighting the “rate of change that the use of popular culture in worship has introduced into evangelical life.” One writers describes how the church has been “invaded by... Read more

Structure in Isaiah 31-32

Last updated on: January 26, 2012 at 10:48 am By Peter Leithart

Isaiah 31-32 constitute a single passage, a single “woe” pronounced against those in Judah who rely on Egypt for help. The passage is structured in a simple chiasm: A. Weak flesh of Egypt v. strength of Spirit, 31:1-3 B. Yahweh defends Zion and turns away Assyrians, 31:4-9 C. Yahweh establishes a just king and princes in Zion, 32:1-8 B’. Women of the city are captured and stripped as slaves, 32:9-14 A’. The Spirit poured out to renew the land, 32:15-20... Read more

Rock that followed

Last updated on: January 26, 2012 at 10:07 am By Peter Leithart

Many commentators suggest that Paul borrows his notion of a Christological Rock that follows Israel through the wilderness from intertestamental commentary on the OT. That may be, but the notion of is already evident in the OT itself. Yahweh after all is the Rock of Israel, and both leads and serves as rear guard for the people. Isaiah 32:2 hints at the connection between Yahweh the Rock and Yahweh the glory-pillar. Describing the princes who will rule Zion in justice,... Read more

River in Zion

Last updated on: January 26, 2012 at 9:58 am By Peter Leithart

Zion, like Eden, is a well-watered place: There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God (Psalm 46:4). Yahweh Himself is teh river of delights that refreshes Jerusalem’s inhabitants and nourishes its life. In Isaiah 32:4, the prophet foresees a new Davidic king surrounded by princes who, like Yahweh, are “streams of water” to their subjects. The parallel between Yahweh and the princes is strengthen by Isaiah’s word play on “Zion.” The princes are rivers “in a... Read more

Leaving Paul Behind

Last updated on: January 25, 2012 at 5:21 pm By Peter Leithart

Enns again: He admits that Paul, given the culturally assumed and conditioned conceptual framework he inherited from Judahism, believed that Adam was a primordial man whose disobedience was the cause of sin. Enns doesn’t believe that Adam is a historical first man, and acknowledges that he is leaving Paul behind: “my suggestion here leaves behind the truly historical Adam of Paul’s thinking.” He argues, accurately I think, that anyone who wants to “bring evolutionary and Christianity together” will have to... Read more

Creation Myths

Last updated on: January 25, 2012 at 4:56 pm By Peter Leithart

There’s something to object to on nearly every page of Peter Enns’s Evolution of Adam, The: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins , but let me limit myself to this one. After a comparison highlighting the similarities between Genesis 1 and the creation myth of Enuma Elish , he asks what bearing this has on the evolution issue, and answers: “It means that any thought of Genesis 1 providing a scientifically or historically accurate account of... Read more

Horace on Gratitude

Last updated on: January 25, 2012 at 4:11 pm By Peter Leithart

Epicurus wrote an essay, now lost, on gifts and graces ( peri doron kai charitos ), and Norman DeWitt calls Horace’s epistle 1.7 to Maecenas a “sermon” on the theme of Epicurus’ essay. He commends the generosity of Maecenas, contrasting him with a proverbial “Calabrian host” who urged a guest to take as many pears as he pleased. “I’m as grateful as if I’d been sent away weighed down,” says the recipient, to which the hose replies, “As you wish:... Read more

Carpe Diem

Last updated on: January 25, 2012 at 3:34 pm By Peter Leithart

This is the doctrine of Epicurus, but in a 1937 article in the American Journal of Philology , Norman DeWitt places this slogan in the context of that slogan in the context of the Epicurean doctrine of gratitude. He cites Seneca’s summary of the Epicurean view that “The life that lacks wisdom is void of gratitude and filled with apprehension; its outlook is entirely toward the future.” (Stulta vita ingrata est et trpida; tota in futurum fertur.) DeWitt explains that... Read more

Krishna in love

Last updated on: January 24, 2012 at 11:31 am By Peter Leithart

In the aforementioned article, Rabin suggests that the poet of the Song lived in a time of extensive trade between Judea and the east, and that this fits the time of Solomon. He also suggests that the poem was likely written as an allegory: The poet “had in mind a contribution to religious or wisdom literature, in other words that he planned his work as an allegory for the pining of the people of Israel, or perhaps of the human... Read more

Dating the Song

Last updated on: January 24, 2012 at 11:19 am By Peter Leithart

In a 1973 article comparing the Song of Songs to Tamil poetry, Chaim Rabin points to evidence of contacts between the Indus Valley and lower Mesopotamia during the time of Solomon. On the spices listed in Song 4:12-14, he writes that these verses evoke the “atmosphere of a period when Indian goods like spikenard, curcuma, and cinnamon, as well as South Arabian goods like incense and myrrh, passed through Judaea in a steady flow of trade. This can hardly related... Read more