In his first book, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, Jonathan Klawans explores the complex relations of sin and impurity in biblical law and later Jewish thought. He distinguishes between “ritual defilement” that arises from unavoidable natural processes and “moral . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Taboo, Fritz Steiner observed that the discovery of Polynesian taboo customs was a “Protestant discovery” (50). Admitting that this was a historical accident, he still thought it worth remarking, and thought it contained a clue to 19th-century obsessions with taboo:“The . . . . Continue Reading »
Beard envy is rampant, Serena Solomon reports, and some men are taking action:“The thick, flowing beards adorning hipsters from Williamsburg to Park Slope are driving follicly-challenged New Yorkers to a little-known but growing field of plastic surgery - facial hair . . . . Continue Reading »
FJA Hort offered a concise summary of the argument against dating Revelation in the reign of Domitian and for a Neronian date in his 1908 study of The Apocalypse of St John I-III.First, the negative case rests on a sense of the limits of the persecution of Domitian: “The last few months . . . . Continue Reading »
“What do all these typographical high jinks signify?” asks Paul Muldoon about e. e. cummings’s poem about Buffalo Bill in a New Yorker review of Susan Cheever’s E. E. Cummings: A Life.Muldoon suggests several answers: “Perhaps the disregard for punctuation allows . . . . Continue Reading »
Marshall Poe notes in his TLS review that Catherine Merridale’s Red Fortress challenges the traditional statist interpretation of Russian history:“According to her, weak Russian leaders and their cronies concocted the statist theory - in various guises, at various times - simply to . . . . Continue Reading »
Jonathan Klawans charges (Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple) that Girard’s Violence and the Sacred is “nothing short of an indictment of sacrificial rituals” (22), which Girard finds “abhorrent” (23).Klawans thinks that Girard’s theory suffers from the same . . . . Continue Reading »
When the Philistines capture the ark, they think Dagon has defeated Yahweh. Yet Yahweh is a power worth deploying as a subordinate to Dagon, so that put the ark in Dagon’s temple (1 Samuel 5).Dagon apparently knows that he’s in the presence of the High God. Every morning, He bows in . . . . Continue Reading »
Baylor University Press is hosting a reception to celebrate the release of my Gratitude: An Intellectual History.It will take place at the First Things offices in Manhattan on Thursday, March 6, at 6 PM. For details, . . . . Continue Reading »
Jesus addresses seven letters to seven “angels” of the churches (Revelation 2-3). Commentators differ on whether the angels are spiritual beings, ecclesial guardian angels, or human beings, “messengers.”The letter to Ephesus seems decisive. There, Jesus charges that the angel . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
