Pentecost is a bread feast, a feast of leaven (Leviticus 23:17). Animals are brought as offerings, plenty of them, but these are brought “with the bread,” accompaniments to the bread rather than the other way round. It’s quite fitting, then, that after the leaven of the Spirit came upon the church at Pentecost, they went from house to house “breaking bread.” Read more
The presentation of the first sheaf (Leviticus 23:9-13) provides a neat little allegory of redemption. The first sheaf is presented on the day after the sabbath, the day of resurrection. It is the “beginning” of the harvest (v. 10), and Leviticus uses the same word as is used in Genesis 1:1. This eighth day is the beginning of a new creation. At the same time, a year-old lamb is brought as ascension to Yahweh, and that is followed by an... Read more
When Paul talks about the “fullness of time,” he’s likely alluding back to the calendar of Leviticus 23. Pentecost is calculated from the day of the first sheaf, and the time is described as a “complete” set of sabbaths. The word translated as “complete” is tamim , which describes perfect men and unblemished animals. A “perfect” time is a set of seven sevens, and this is the time that leads to Pentecost. Read more
Adorno neatly sums up the intention and result of Kant’s aesthetics in a cople of lines: “the significance of Kantian subjectivism as a whole lies in its objective intention, its attempt to salvage objectivity by means of an analysis of subjective moments.” And, noting that Kant “posits something as form as aesthetic satisfaction as the defining characteristic of art,” concludes that Kant offers “a castrated hedonism . . . a theory of pleasure without pleasure.” For all Kant’s formalism, though,... Read more
1 Peter 1:3: Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As Pastor Sumpter mentioned in the sermon this morning, Peter’s prayer is a “berakah,” a traditional type of Jewish thanksgiving named for the Hebrew word for “bless.” Berakah prayers begin with “Blessed be God.” (more…) Read more
“How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb?” Nicodemus’ way of putting the question sounds childish; but it’s a common question. My life is a mess, and what’s done cannot be undone. Then along comes Jesus mocking me with talk of a fresh start, incredible promises of being “born again.” Whatever. Can a man enter again into his mother’s womb? Jesus says we not only can but... Read more
Carroll again: He explains that much recent film criticism takes its cues from the effort to maximize aesthetic satisfaction. This is evident in the respect given to “transgressive” films that overturn “what are called the codes of Hollywood filmmaking”: “Within the context of recent film criticism, it is appropriate to regard disturbances of continuity editing, disorienting narrative ellipses, or disruptions of eyeline matches as subversions of a dominant and ideologically suspect form of filmmaking.” Once incoherence is valorized, it becomes easy... Read more
Noel Carroll argues that anti-intentionalist structuralist criticism aims to maximize aesthetic enjoyment, at the expense of all other purposes of art and literature. This, he argues, “has a very ‘consumerist’ ring to it. In Buberesque lingo, it reduces our relation to the text to an I/it relationship.” By contrast, Carroll attempts to “defend the idea that, with art works, we are also interested in an I/Thou relation to the author of the text.” The irony is fairly thick here: In... Read more
In case you got bogged down and missed the plot, Thornton Wilder helpfully summarizes what he describes as Joyce’s “Night Book”: “We overhear and oversee [the hero] in bed above his tavern at the edge of Dublin. His conscience is trying him for some obscure misdemeanors committed – or perhaps only partially envisaged – during the day. He is in disgrace. He identifies himself with Lucifer fallen from Heaven, Adam ejected from Paradise, Napoleon defeated at Waterloo, Finnegan of the... Read more
In his treatise Contra Gentiles , Athanasius reproduces an argument from the Phaedrus that provides the immortality of the soul. Anything that has to be moved by something else is mortal and finite; whatever moves of itself is immortal, and immortally mobile. What is most fully mobile is what is unoriginated and imperishable. Likewise, in the Sophistes , Plato says that the realm of being is the realm of life and movement. That is, the realm of ideas is not... Read more
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