Isaiah uses the phrase “in that day” far more than any other writer of the Bible. In the NASB, the phrase appears 40x, 39 of them in the first 31 chapters. Isaiah 1-31 is infused with expectation for the “day of the Lord.” The phrase occurs in clusters of 3 and 4 in the . . . . Continue Reading »
In a fascinating passage, Kahn draws links between early Christian martyrdom and the operation state power in the Western world. Start with martyrs: “The martyr [like Jesus] denies the state power, while yielding to its violence . . . . This is not a kind of quietism in the face of the state, . . . . Continue Reading »
Kahn again: “My most fundamental claim is that liberalism lacks an adequate conception of the will.” This is not because liberalism fails to talk about will. It does constantly, pointing to the will exercised in the formation of social contract and the will manifest in political and . . . . Continue Reading »
In his provocative 2005 study, Putting Liberalism in Its Place , Yale’s Paul W. Kahn argues that “we will never understand the character of the American rule of law without first understanding the way in which it is embedded in a conception of popular sovereignty. More importantly, we . . . . Continue Reading »
Jacob has gotten a bad rap over the centuries, not least because of the way his two wives have fared in the hands of the allegorists. For Philo, beautiful Rachel represents bodily beauty and Leah beauty of soul: “Rachel, who is comeliness of the body, is described as younger than Leah, that . . . . Continue Reading »
Let’s assume that the Eucharist makes a political difference. And let’s observe that the predominate Christian tradition of the US has been a-Eucharistic. Then we must ask, What political difference has that made? . . . . Continue Reading »
Talal Asad has argued, uncharacteristically, that “none of the criteria [of] the Islamic tradition” allows anyone to describe suicide bombers as “sacrifices.” Ivan Strenski ( Why Politics Can’t Be Freed From Religion (Blackwell Manifestos) ) demurs. He finds plenty of . . . . Continue Reading »
Forty years ago, Donovan Courville ( Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications (2 Volume Set) ) concisely summarized the slide of biblical scholarship from treating the Bible as history to treating it as a collection of “traditions” with an ever-diminishing historical core. Chronology was a . . . . Continue Reading »
In his 2002 Contesting Sacrifice: Religion, Nationalism, and Social Thought in France , Ivan Strenski examined the setting for French Enlightenment conceptions of sacrifice. He argued “that a lart portion of the Catholic assumptions about the nature of sacrifice were in their turn equally . . . . Continue Reading »
This quotation from Oyekan Owomoyela’s African Literatures: An Introduction , cited in a student paper, got me to wondering: “whatever was the official attitude to African cultures, the missionaries, in the British areas as well as in the French saw in everything African godless . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
