Leigh Trevaskis tries to suss out the rationale for sticking Leviticus 24 (menorah, showbread, blasphemy) between Leviticus 23 (Israel’s festival calendar) and Leviticus 25 (Jubilee). He proposes a symbolic solution to the puzzle.He observes that chapter 24 begins with a reverence to . . . . Continue Reading »
Esther Lightcap Meek presents the most devastating little critiques of epistemological dualism I’ve ever read near the beginning of A Little Manual for Knowing.Epistemological dualism describes the way we “distinguish knowledge from beliefs, facts from values, reason from faith, . . . . Continue Reading »
Halbertal (On Sacrifice, 72-3) offers this fine analysis of the self-justificating moves of aggressors:“The mind can play complicated games, and among them is the accusation that an aggressor directs toward his victim for causing him to become violent, which all too easily turns into a . . . . Continue Reading »
Self-transcendence is in various forms an essential part of modern moral theory. To be truly good, in a Kantian framework, is to transcend personal self-interest, self-love, in order to conform one’s actions to the categorical imperative.Halbertal (On Sacrifice) observes that this note of . . . . Continue Reading »
In both Christian and Jewish theology, charity was one of the forms of post-sacrificial sacrifice. Halbertal (On Sacrifice, 40-1) observes that this is not merely a matter of substitution but of fulfillment.Sacrifice, he points out, always exists under the possibility of failure. A worshiper brings . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s a central thesis of John B. Judis’s new Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict that there was a moment when the Arab-Israeli conflict could have been averted, but, under pressure from the Zionist lobby, the great powers, especially the US under . . . . Continue Reading »
The Economist review of The Great Prostate Hoax by Richard Ablin observes that opposition to prostate testing has moved in from the margins.Ablin, who claims to have identified the protein widely associated with prostate cancer, questions whether it gives any useful information. As the review . . . . Continue Reading »
Drawing on Howard Eilberg-Schwartz’s The Savage in Judaism, I argue that the ills of modern theology can be cured only by re-savaging Judaism. And . . . . Continue Reading »
The notion that American Indians are the ten lost tribes of Israel is quaint today, but during the age of exploration, Europeans thought they had plenty of proof.Thomas Thorowgood’s Iewes in America laid out dozens of resemblances between Judaism and Indian customs. As summarized by . . . . Continue Reading »
It is well known that Greeks rarely offered holocaust sacrifices - sacrifices in which the entire animal is offered to the gods by being consumed in the fire. the most common sacrifice was the thysia, which always culminated with a meal.Alongside the rare holocausts were the equally rare . . . . Continue Reading »
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