By the time a child is two, he or she has developed “narrative” memory, the ability to “store” and recall events in story form. This is essential to the development of thought and self-reflection, but it is, Daniel Siegel argues, a shared, social process (The Developing Mind, . . . . Continue Reading »
Millennials aren’t apathetic or lazy, argues Zachary Fine in the NYT. They are simply paralyzed, and pluralism is one of the causes.“The art critic Craig Owens once wrote that pluralism is not a ‘recognition, but a reduction of difference to absolute indifference, equivalence, . . . . Continue Reading »
Classic atonement theories have looked past the gospel narratives in an effort to uncover the underlying substructure, logic or mechanism of atonement.What if the gospel narratives are the atonement theory? What if, instead of God’s offended honor or God’s reputation for just rule, we . . . . Continue Reading »
Shakespeare’s Words bills itself as a “glossary” and it is that. David and Ben Crystal combed through all of Shakespeare’s works identifying potentially “difficult” words, and this handbook is the result. As you would expect, they give crisp definitions, . . . . Continue Reading »
Andrew Parker is no creationist, and he has little patience for intelligent design. Yet he thinks that Genesis 1’s account of the origin of the universe is scientifically accurate. He asks “Could it be that the creation account on page one of Genesis was written as it is because that is . . . . Continue Reading »
Emma Pierson studied “studied 1 million matches made by the online dating website eHarmony’s algorithm, which aims to pair people who will be attracted to one another and compatible over the long term; if the people agree, they can message each other to set up a meeting in real . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Blood and Belonging, Michael Ignatieff offers this remarkably frank assessment of liberalism:“If I had supposed, as the Cold War came to an end, that the new world might be ruled by philosophers and poets, it was because I believed, foolishly, that the precarious civility and order . . . . Continue Reading »
In his NYRB reviewof Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews, G. W. Bowersock claims that Schama doesn’t give enough attention to the role of the Septuagint in late antique efforts to reconcile Judaism and Hellenism. Bowerstock doesn’t seem impressed with the claim of . . . . Continue Reading »
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 »
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 »
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