Royal Epistles

Last updated on: August 4, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Paul writes letters. Letter-writing—or mail electronically composed and delivered—has become so commonplace that we don’t immediately grasp the significance of Paul’s activity. Noting the Old Testament background will shake us from our privatized assumptions about epistle-writing. There are two main words for “letter” in the Old Testament. The first, sepher, has a broad meaning, referring to various forms of writing. Moses has a sepher of the law, and prophets write “books” of Chronicles of kings of Israel and Judah. When... Read more

Austen Updated

Last updated on: August 4, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

At the New Yorker, Blythe Roberson is having fun imagining futuristic updates of Jane Austen’s novels. Real-life efforts to update Austen aren’t nearly as much fun. Paula Hollingsworth ends her The Spirituality of Jane Austen by summarizing the plots of the novels in the “Jane Austen Project,” a HarperCollins attempt to “set the stories of Jane Austen’s novels in the present day” (173). They all sound dreadful, but the update of Pride and Prejudice is especially so: Curtis Sittenfeld sets... Read more

Saying Thanks

Last updated on: August 3, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Robert Emmons’s study of the “new science of gratitude” (Thanks!) begins with a discussion of what gratitude is and implies. To say thanks is to say “yes to life. We affirm that all things taken together, life is good and has elements that make it worth living. The acknowledgment that we have received something gratifies us, either by its presence or by the effort the giver went into choosing it” (4). Saying thanks is also an acknowledgement that “the source(s) of... Read more

Rebuilding the Temple

Last updated on: August 3, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Ahaz of Judah didn’t dismantle the temple, but he might as well have done. He cut up the utensils of temple worship, perhaps including the musical instruments used by the Levites (2 Chronicles 28:24). He closed the doors (28:24), which meant that the various rites of the temple ceased—lamps went out, incense wasn’t offered, showbread wasn’t replaced, offerings did not ascend in smoke from the altar (29:7). When Ahaz’s son Hezekiah comes to the throne, the whole temple system needs... Read more

Triune Will and Triune Decree

Last updated on: August 2, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Many Reformed theologians have taught that redemption in history unfolds from a “covenant of redemption” (pactum salutis) between the Father and Son. As Francis Turretin defined it, the pact between the Father and the Son contains the will of the Father giving the Son as lytroten (Redeemer and head of his mystical body) and the will of the Son offering himself as sponsor for his members to work out redemption. . . . For thus the Scriptures represent to us... Read more

Acts of Knowing

Last updated on: August 1, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Esther Meek (Longing to Know) uses Magic Eye 3-D pictures to probe what it means to know. Following the instructions, you hold the picture to your face until you can see the picture past/through the surface details. For Meek, the process of seeing the dolphins in the page highlights several key features of all acts of knowing. For starters, “we don’t leave the particulars of the picture’s surface behind; we rely on them to focus beyond them.” Instead of being... Read more

Contentions and Trials

Last updated on: August 1, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Lutheran Pastor James Prothro generously allowed me to see an advance manuscript of his forthcoming Both Judge and Justifier: Biblical Legal Language and the Act of Justifying in Paul (WUNT II; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), a revision of his Cambridge doctoral dissertation (see my summary of one of his articles here). Save your pennies and keep an eye out for this book. It’s a blockbuster. Protestants insist that in Paul’s letters justification is a forensic, legal, or judicial concept and action, but there is... Read more

Oded and Ahaz

Last updated on: July 31, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The Chronicler is a generous judge of Judah’s kings. King Joash “did what was right” (2 Chronicles 24:2), even though he murders Zechariah the prophet, son of Joash’s savior, Jehoiada (24:20–21). Amaziah “did right” (25:2), even though he worshiped Edomite gods for a time (25:14–15). Uzziah “did right” (26:4), although he spent the latter part of his reign as a leper because of his sacrilegious attempt to offer incense (26:16–21). Alone among the kings of Judah, Ahaz merits the negative... Read more

Triune Perfections

Last updated on: July 28, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In an essay on God’s attributes (Christian Dogmatics, 65-6) argues, rightly, that God’s attributes are “shaped by God’s triune nature.” Aseity, for instance, “must be teased out in a trinitarian fashion It is not the case that God is Stoic needlessness, or that God is self-causal force. Rather, God is life in and of himself – Father, Son, and Spirit – sharing that life one with the others.” Each person is, Allen argues, “a se in essence,” but only the Father is “a... Read more

Eternity after Nietzsche

Last updated on: July 28, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

A decade ago, self-proclaimed “born-again pagan” and New Yorker-proclaimed “Sage of Yale Law” Anthony Kronman responded to critics in Comment with this: What did Nietzsche mean when he said, “God is dead?” He meant that the idea of a world beyond this one, from whose vantage point everything here “down below” is to be judged, is no longer a credible idea—even though many people continue to believe it. . . . Nihilism is what results from the separation of time and... Read more