Ruth 2:10: Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, Since I am a foreigner? As Toby pointed out last week, the book of Ruth appears in the “writings” section of the Hebrew Bible, right after Proverbs. If you were reading the Old Testament in the order of the Hebrew Bible, you would end with Proverbs 31’s description of the “excellent woman,” and then start reading the story of the “excellent woman,” Ruth.... Read more
We who believe the Bible is God’s word hear this slander all the time: How can you believe a Bible that permits slavery? How can you worship a God who gave Israel the harsh, dehumanizing, bloodthirsty law of Moses? Our response should be to show them the actual Torah. The Torah is not harsh and bloody. It’s a law of charity, given to Israel by the same God of love who sent Jesus, His living Word. (more…) Read more
Fenn again, reflecting on the serpent’s temptation: “The Word of God is ‘solid,’ whereas all other words are slippery at best and may be downright empty or misleading. But one only knows the word as solid if one is in a solid relationship to the author: a relationship of trust and obedience. That relationship authenticates the promises of God; it is the proof that eludes philosophical syllogisms and a search for empirical results. Only those in the proper relationship of... Read more
Richard Fenn ( Liturgies and Trials ) notes that serious, absolutely binding speech – promises, for instance – is comparatively rare in normal conversation. When we do make binding promises, we give ad receive “signs and symbols that something out of the ordinary is occurring” – an oath, an exchange of rings, witnesses. He sums up, “The liturgical language of religion is therefore the last human defense against the slipperiness, ambiguity, and uncertainty of all human acts of speech; and... Read more
The key thing about Obama’s skin is not its color, but its thickness. I have rarely seen such a thin-skinned, touchy politician. When Clinton said that Obama has the “political instincts of a Chicago thug,” that’s what he was talking about – he takes offense quickly and has a long memory. Perhaps he’ll outgrow it. In the meantime, he can do a terrible amount of damage settling scores with people who have offended. If he doesn’t outgrow, we’re in even... Read more
James Rogers of Texas A&M writes with some notes on the charity of the law, which I reflected on earlier this week with a post on Matthew Levering’s book on Aquinas: “For this age, I suspect that we have most difficulty thinking of the Mosaic laws on sex as having any charitable telos, but consider the following. (I should add that I think the OT laws regulating sex need to be taken just as Christologically as the laws on sacrifice... Read more
Carroll’s chief argument is that the cross takes on a centrality after Constantine that it never had in earlier Christianity, which focused instead on the incarnation and resurrection. The cross was comparatively rare in the earliest Christian iconography, but the notion that Christianity, and Christian salvation, is focused on the cross (as well as the resurrection) of Jesus, predates Constantine and the Nicene Council by a century and a half. (more…) Read more
Oh, my. I said earlier that Carroll is better than Dan Brown. I’m revising that estimate. He describes the Council of Nicea in a paragraph, implying that it was all Constantine’s doing. The bishops came up with a creed “in response to the emperor’s mandate.” He notes that it was “almost” unanimous (which is correct), but doesn’t indicate that there were only two dissenters – stating only that “those who dissented were exiled by Constantine,” which makes it sound like... Read more
Yesterday I recorded James Carroll’s claim that Constantine introduced the notion of a “unified” church into Christianity, but if I had read the next sentence I would have found a topper. Carroll says that Paul composed a “hymn to diversity” in “Corinth in Greece,” citing 1 Corinthians 12 in an endnote. Where to start? For starters, Paul’s wrote to Corinth not from Corinth. Plus the chapter hammers as much on unity as on diversity. “Same Spirit” and “same God” and... Read more
Matthew Levering has a couple of brilliant pages on Aquinas’s discussion of how Christ’s sacrificial obedience to the Father restores justice in the world ( Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple ). First, Thomas emphasizes the uniqueness of Israel’s law, which don’t simply aim, as human law order does, at maintaining “temporal tranquility of the state” but instead aims at charity. He points to gleaning laws, rules concerning debt cancellation, and so on to shows that (in Levering’s words) the... Read more
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