In a Mars Hill Audio interview, Victor Lee Austin talks about his recent book, Up With Authority: Why We Need Authority to Flourish as Human Beings . He uses the analogy of an orchestra to indicate how fundamental authority is to certain forms of human flourishing. Orchestral music is one of many kinds of collective human activity that cannot be achieved without authority. The reason, Austin argues, is that there is no single right answer to the question “What shall... Read more
Exodus 20:3: You shall have no other gods before Me. In the explanation of the Second Word, God declares that He is a jealous God, but His jealousy is already implicit in the First Word. Among the gods of the ancient world, Yahweh alone is jealous. Ancient temples teemed with images of gods. Baal didn’t mind if you worshiped Molech and Ashtoreth, as long as you gave Baal his due. Not Yahweh: He demands exclusive worship. In Scripture, jealousy is... Read more
All of the Ten Words assume one basic commandment, summarized in the shema , Israel’s confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God.” The prophets echo the shema again and again: “Hear the Word of Yahweh.” So does Solomon: “Listen, my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way.” “Hear”: That is God’s fundamental demand. But we don’t listen. We have hearts of stone, like Pharaoh. “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he... Read more
Mead highlights the role of American missionaries not only in hte formation of a moral Wilsonian foreign policy, but in the creation of “global civil society.” He goes so far as to suggest that the “very concept of a global civil society comes to us out of the missionary movement.” He adds, “Certainly before the missionaries no large group of people set out to build just such a world. The concept that ‘backward’ countries could and should develop into Western-style... Read more
Peter Ackroyd notes that the poem of Isaiah 12 uses the noun yeshuah three times (vv. 2-3). This is especially significant when we consider the distribution of the yasha root in Isaiah, which is “entirely absent from i-xii apart from xii 2-3 and the prophet’s name.” Isaiah 1 begins by attributing the vision to yeshayahu ; the first section of the book ends with an assurance that Yahweh saves. Read more
In an essay on the beginning and end of Isaiah, David Carr points out a series of significant shifts. In chapter 1, Yahweh charges Israel with unnaturally rebelling against his father (1:2), and in the “communal supplication” of chapters 63-64, Israel appeals to Yahweh on the basis of His Fatherhood: “You are our Father” (63:16) and “You are our Father” (64:7). Strikingly, though, Yahweh never takes up that appeal in His response to the supplication (contained in chapters 65-66). Instead,... Read more
It is often said that silent reading was virtually unknown in antiquity. Not quite true argued Bernard Knox. According to another scholar’s summary of his argument: “Knox adduced two examples from fifth-century Attic drama in which silent reading actually takes place on stage before the audience. In Euripides’ Hippolytus , Theseus notices the letter which is tied to the hand of his now dead wife. He opens it, the chorus proceeds to sing several lines, and then Theseus bursts out... Read more
In a 1988 VT article, Craig Evans summarizes and assesses the work of WH Brownlee on the parallel structure of Isaiah. The book consists of two volumes, chs. 1-33 and 34-66, and the overall parallels are as follows: “In vol. 1 (1) chs. i-v (ruin and restoration of Judah) parallel chs. xxxiv-xxxv (paradise lost and regained) of vol. 2. (2) Chs. vi-viii (biography of Isaiah ad Ahaz) parallel chs. xxxvi-xl (biography of Isaiah and Hezekiah). (3) Chs. ix-xii (agents of... Read more
In a 1988 VT article, Craig Evans summarizes and assesses the work of WH Brownlee on the parallel structure of Isaiah. The book consists of two volumes, chs. 1-33 and 34-66, and the overall parallels are as follows: “In vol. 1 (1) chs. i-v (ruin and restoration of Judah) parallel chs. xxxiv-xxxv (paradise lost and regained) of vol. 2. (2) Chs. vi-viii (biography of Isaiah ad Ahaz) parallel chs. xxxvi-xl (biography of Isaiah and Hezekiah). (3) Chs. ix-xii (agents of... Read more
In a 1988 article in JSOT , Edgar Conrad points to the two royal narratives of Isaiah (chs. 7, 36-39) as the structural keys to the book. Drawing on his earlier study of “fear not” passages, he summarizes his thesis thus: “The close relationship between these two narratives extends to the larger contexts in which they occur, for each royal narrative is followed by a ‘Fear not’ oracle addressed to the community: the Ahaz narrative (Isa. 7) is followed by... Read more
Leithart
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In