David gives Solomon the “plan” (Heb. tabnit) for the temple. Unlike Moses, David doesn’t have to climb a mountain to get it (cf. Exodus 25:9, 40). It comes from “the spirit (ruach) with him” (1 Chronicles 28:12), and from a “writing” from the Lord that comes “by His hand upon me” (1 Chronicles 28:19). Apparently, we are to understand the ruach as Yahweh’s own who inspires David to produce a written plan (Mark Boda, 1-2 Chronicles). David’s tabnit comes from... Read more
Robert Provine (Curious Behavior) notes that we can’t laugh on command, and that tells a lot about our laughter and ourselves. In his experiments, he found that it took longer for people to laugh on command than to say “ha, ha.” That “indicates that laughter is not spoken, and that different neurobehavioral mechanisms are involved.” More generally: “none of us can accurately explain why we laugh. We are stubborn, arrogant beasts, unwilling to cede the illusion of self-control. Our explanations... Read more
Stephen Halliwell begins his Greek Laughter by calling attention to the difference between philosophical and poetic notions of divine laughter. Most Greeks had no doubt that “laughter (and smiles) had an important place in the divine realm; a deity incapable of laughter was the exception, not the rule.” Homer expresses this popular view: “The remarkable Homeric images, in both the Iliad and Odyssey, of collectively ‘unquenchable’ or irrepressible laughter among the Olympians—laughter, what’s more, directed by gods against other gods—are... Read more
In an old Paris Review interview with Robert Frost, the interviewer mentions a poet who writes from six to nine every morning. Frost responds with, “I don’t know what that would be like, myself,” and then adds about writing couplets: Very first one I wrote I was walking home from school and I began to make it—a March day—and I was making it all afternoon and making it so I was late at my grandmother’s for dinner. I finished it,... Read more
David and Solomon traded in gold from “Ophir.” Later Jehoshaphat attempted to revive the trade route, but failed when his ships sank. Ophir—now where might that be? Truth is, nobody knows. In Seafaring Lore and Legend, Peter Jeans summarizes some of the tantalizing possibilities: “The ancient ruins discovered in Zimbabwe have been put forward as a possible site for Ophir, but they don’t seem to be old enough. Zanzibar on the east coast of Africa has also been mentioned, but... Read more
“As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion” (Proverbs 11:22). During his courtship with his future wife, a friend of mine wrote a note and cited a Proverb at the end. He meant Proverbs 22:11. He put Proverbs 11:22. They laugh about it when they tell the story, after some decades of marriage. The Proverb is not merely about incongruence. The direction of the comparison is critical. Solomon doesn’t say that... Read more
What is “the Gothic”? Answers vary, and that is, Catherine Spooner argues (in Post-Millennial Gothic), because Gothic bears “multivalent meanings” and “has adapted and changed with the times” (9–10). This isn’t a recent development: “After Gothic’s initial phase of popularity fizzled out around 1820, it quickly renewed itself in the form of penny dreadfuls, the ghost story and the sensation novel. Many of these forms were, significantly, derided as weakened, recycled versions of more vigorous originals.” That was unfair: “Gothic... Read more
In his 1971 study of Modernist architecture, The Golden City, Henry Hope Reed observed that Modernists transferred moral categories to architecture. Buildings could be “honest” (if they revealed their structure on the surface) or “false” (if they hid structure under ornamentation). Purity was invoked regularly as a positive standard of architectural achievement: “‘Pure’ was an early favorite to describe something devoid of ornament, and the Franco-Swiss Modernist, Le Corbusier, has gone to the length of inventing an abstract movement called... Read more
In an essay in the journal European Legacy, Norman Fiering summarizes the thought of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy on biography. Fiering asks whether there are recurring patterns in the lives of significant individuals, and, relying on Rosenstock-Huessy, calls attention to moments of “conversion” (not necessarily religious) and “grace” (unexpected encounters that open new possibilities). A significant life is one that forges new pathways, opens new possibilities for being human. Rosenstock-Huessy sees this in the life of Nietzsche: “In the heart of the... Read more
Popular cliche is that Lutherans and Anglicans are high-church, Reformed lower. Lutherans and Anglicans are sacramentally-minded, Reformed less so. Lutherans and Anglicans take liturgy serious; Reformed do not. There’s reason to think this isn’t right. In fact, there are reasons to think that the opposite is the case. Consider the “second reformation” struggles between Lutheran and Reformed in post-Reformation Brandenburg. On Christmas Day 1613, John Sigismund, the Elector of Brandenburg, communed in a Reformed church in a Reformed manner, a... Read more
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