Entrepreneurial State

Mariana Mazzucato argues in The Entrepreneurial Statethat government financing and research has been crucial to the technology booms of recent decades. Jeff Madrick summarizes part of her argument in his NYRB review:“private firms often invest after innovations have already come a . . . . Continue Reading »

Yahweh among the Gods

Shayne Cohen notes in his Beginnings of Jewishness that “many gentiles in antiquity recognized that the God of the Jews was a powerful God” (142).He cites the magical papyri that “routinely invoke the ‘God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,’ ‘Iao . . . . Continue Reading »

Deuteronomy among the Greeks

In a 1978 article on funeral maledictions among Greeks, Louis Robert records a curse from an inscription. Various sources have been suggested, but Robert concludes that the malediction is a word for word translation of Deuteronomy 28:22, 28.He quotes one scholar’s conclusion that an . . . . Continue Reading »

Jewish Sublime

“Longinus” describes the sublime as “the echo of a great soul” (de Sublimitate, 9.2)). The sublime can be expressed in silence or in speech, and it can be found the terrible, awe-inspiring acts of the gods.But Longinus worries that Homeric accounts of the gods “if they . . . . Continue Reading »

Pillar in the Temple

Jesus promises to make the overcomers in Philadelphia “pillars in the temple of My God” (Revelation 3:12).Yahweh was the original pillar. He led Israel to Sinai in a pillar of cloud, and then His cloudy pillar filled the tabernacle. Yahweh is the pillar in His own house, the load-bearing . . . . Continue Reading »

The Oikoumene and the Land

Those who keep (tereo) Jesus’ words will be kept (tereo) from the hour that is coming (Revelation 3:10).It’s a global hour, coming on the whole oikoumene. And it will test the ones who dwell on the earth (ge). Is that simply saying the same thing twice: The hour of testing will come on . . . . Continue Reading »

Diaspora in AD 70

Diaspora Jews “stood aside virtually completely” from the Jewish war of 66-70, writes Mary Smallwood in her Jews Under Roman Rule(356). By that, she means that Diaspora Jews didn’t send men or material to help their brothers in Judea,She admits that “Possibly rather more help . . . . Continue Reading »

Is God Needy?

God has no needs. He is independent of His creation, perfectly blissful before He created it.But that’s not the same thing as saying that neediness is in no way a feature of the life of God. God doesn’t need anything outside Himself, but God does need God.Unless we’re thinking . . . . Continue Reading »

Sevens and Threes

Jesus has a triple title in both the letter to Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13) and the one to Laodicea (3:14-22).To the Philadelphians, He is holy, true, the one-with-keys. To the Laodiceans, He is the Amen, the martyr, the beginning-of-creation.Those traids suggest the Trinity, perhaps in detail. . . . . Continue Reading »