The chronology of the later kings of Israel is confusing. Hoshea, the last king of Israel, seized power from Pekah, who had reigned fro 20 years (2 Kings 15:17). That was in the third (perhaps fourth) year of Ahaz of Judah, since Ahaz began to reign in Pekah’s seventeenth year (16:1). Yet, Hoshea is said to have seized power in the twelfth year of Ahaz (17:1). Add to that the discrepancy between 15:30 and 15:33: The first claims that Hoshea... Read more
King Ahaz’s name tells it all. His name means “possessor,” and the verb means “grasp” or “seize” and in nominal uses means “possession” or “portion.” As King of Judah, Ahaz has his portion and his realm. But in Isaiah the verb is normally used in threatening contexts. Isaiah 5:29 contains a pun on Ahaz’s name: An army is coming, roaring and growling like a lion that “seizes” ( ahaz ) its prey. In two other places in Isaiah, the verb... Read more
In his Discourses on Livy , Machiavelli notes that a great empire requires people to inhabit it, and goes on to explain the two methods for increasing populations: “This may be effected in two ways, by gentleness or by force. By gentleness, when you offer a safe and open path to all strangers who may wish to come and dwell in your city, so as to encourage them to come there of their own accord; by force, when after destroying... Read more
In the thirteenth-century Nestorian work, The Book of the Bee , we find an account of Alexander’s battle with, among others, Gog and Magog. A nineteenth-century translation by Earnest Budge is available online, and the relevant section reads: “When Alexander was king and had subdued countries and cities, and had arrived in the East, he saw on the confines of the East those men who are of the children of Japhet. They were more wicked and unclean than all (other)... Read more
According to Plutarch’s Fortunes of Alexander (329b-d), Alexander wisely rejected the advice of Aristotle, which was “to treat the Greeks as if he were their leader, and other peoples as if he were their master; to have regard for the Greeks as for friends and kindred, but to conduct himself toward other peoples as though they were plants or animals.” Aristotle’s advice would have been disastrous: “to do so would have been to cumber his leadership with numerous battles and... Read more
According to Plutarch’s Fortunes of Alexander (329b-d), Alexander wisely rejected the advice of Aristotle, which was “to treat the Greeks as if he were their leader, and other peoples as if he were their master; to have regard for the Greeks as for friends and kindred, but to conduct himself toward other peoples as though they were plants or animals.” Aristotle’s advice would have been disastrous: “to do so would have been to cumber his leadership with numerous battles and... Read more
In exploring the privation view of evil, Barth says this: “If God’s reality and revelation are known in His presence and action in Jesus Christ, he is also known as the God who is confronted by nothingness, for whom it constitutes a problem, who takes it seriously, who does not deal with it incidentally but in the fullness of the glory of His deity, who is not engaged indirectly or mediately but which His whole being, involving Himself to the... Read more
Timothy Gray’s monograph on Temple in the Gospel of Mark, The: A Study in Its Narrative Role (now happily published in an affordable edition by Baker) is excellent. Gray pays close attention to intertextual and intratextual echoes as he examines Mark’s account of Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem and His temple action, the Olivet Discourse, and the role of the temple in Jesus’ trial and death. What follows is not a review but rather some fairly disconnected notes on parts that... Read more
In a story on the Chinese obsession with Strauss and Karl Schmitt ( TNR , 12/30), Mark Lilla gives this neat precis of Schmitt’s critique of liberal politics: “Schmitt was by far the most intellectually challenging anti-liberal statist of the twentieth century. His deepest objections to liberalism were anthropological. Classical liberalism assumes the autonomy of self-sufficient individuals and treats conflict as a function of faulty social and institutional arrangements; rearrange those arrangements, and peace, prosperity, learning, and refinement will follow.... Read more
Another paper from Warren Gage, “The Typology of the Word,” is available here. Just click on “Downloads” and look for the paper. Read more
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