Mike Bull offers this suggestive reply e to my earlier post on the Romans and the swine: Based on the structure of the early chapters in Matthew, the story of the Gadarene is a Day of Atonement ( http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/09/08/why-jesus-healed-some/ ). Matt 1 – Genesis Matt 2 – Exodus (Passed over by Herod’s sword, etc.) . . . Judgment begins at the house of God, so perhaps Jesus is not symbolically casting Romans out of Judea; He is casting the “intermarriage”... Read more
Was first-century Judaism in a condition of continuing exile? Wright says Yes. Many have questioned him. Perrin’s book, Jesus the Temple , offers an argument in support of Wright’s conclusion. Israel was driven from the land into exile because of a failure to keep Jubilee, a failure to release debt and restore property to the poor. In the first century, even though Israel was back in the land, the leaders were still refusing to keep Sabbath as required by the... Read more
In his intriguing interpretation of the exorcism in Mark 5, Nick Perrin notes that the allusions to the Roman occupation go beyond the demonic name “Legion.” The swine, he suggests, supplied the Roman garrison in nearby Hippos. By sending the pigs over the cliff into the sea, Jesus is depriving “the legionnaires of a staple delicacy. In this way, Jesus’ measures amounted, albeit in an indirect way, to an act of political sabotage.” Further, “the wild boar was the mascot... Read more
In my From Silence to Song , I highlight the fact that David sits in prayer before Yahweh at the ark-tent. David is enthroned along with Yahweh, a hint of what will come with David’s greater Son. Nehemiah provides another example. When he hears about Jerusalem’s ruins, he sits, weeps, and fasts “before the God of heaven” (1:4). He too has a position of authority before Yahweh. It is, moreover, a temple scene, implicitly at least. Nehemiah calls on Yahweh’s... Read more
Perrin again: He argues that Jesus announced and envisioned a Jubilee, not a spiritualized Jubilee but an actual restoration of property, tangible property, to the dispossessed poor. One mechanism, Perrin argues, was hospitality: “Jesus enjoins a collective but voluntary trickle-down or resources. Nor would this have necessarily been a small trickle. In a subsistence economy where surplus was unheard-of and the vast majority of the poor householder’s income was expended on food, any plan of providing meals to the poor... Read more
In his highly stimulating Jesus the Temple , Nick Perrin examines Jesus’ statements about “heavenly treasure” in the light of the “counter-temple” agenda that Perrin argues is central to Jesus’ work. The contrast that Jesus draws is not between a treasure room in a home (which few would have) v. a treasure room in heaven. Perrin points out that in Scripture “treasury” typically, almost invariably, refers to the temple treasury. Jesus is contrasting the practice of storing up treasures in... Read more
As a follow-up to my Un-Naked God post, friend and former student Josh Stevenson offers this summary of creation’s progression from glory to glory: God alone >> Created earth as glory of God Man (alone) as glory of earth >> Woman as glory of Man Christ as glory of Woman >> Church as glory of Christ Read more
Warren Gage, the always-stimulating Professor of Old Testament at Knox Seminary, sent along the following to post here. The remainder of this post is from Warren. The heart of the Christian gospel is the penal, substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. As we should expect, this most salvific of all doctrines is taught throughout the Scriptures. It is pervasive, stated both propositionally and illustrated through many types and figures. This note considers a few examples of this foundational jurisprudential doctrine that... Read more
INTRODUCTION Assyria threatened, and in response the kings of Israel and Aram formed an anti-Assyrian alliance and tried to force Ahaz of Judah to join them. But the real threat to Judah was her own unbelief.THE THE TEXT “Now it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war... Read more
Prof. John Nugent has published a detailed “Yoderian rejoinder” to my Defending Constantine here: http://erb.kingdomnow.org/featured-a-yoderian-rejoinder-to-leitharts-defending-constantine-vol-3-46/ My response will be published there, but for those who can’t wait I offer it here. It plays off Nugent’s review, so you should read that first. (more…) Read more
Leithart
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