Elephant Divine

Rachel Dwyer’s TLS review picks out some of the nuggets from R. Sukumar’s The Story of Asia’s Elephants . In a world where the boundaries between creatures and the gods are “extremely porous,” it’s not surprising that the majestic elephant is one of the forms the . . . . Continue Reading »

From Servant to Servants

Though the boundaries of the passage are disputed, many commentators see Isaiah 49-54 as a discrete unit of the prophecy. Chapter 49 starts off in a new voice - the first person of the Servant of Yahweh. Chapter 54 ends on a triumphant note, describing the construction of a new Zion and bringing to . . . . Continue Reading »

Set up

I heard a sermon yesterday in which it was suggested that Judas’s betrayal of Jesus was a failed set-up. The sermon followed the common idea that Judas was a disenchanted Jewish nationalist who betrayed Jesus when he saw that Jesus was not going to overthrow Rome. But it was suggested that . . . . Continue Reading »

Crushing Civil Society

In Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 , Anne Applebaum highlights how the Soviets focused their efforts in Eastern Europe on crushing civil society, more than on crushing capitalism. As TNR reviewer Christopher Caldwell summarizes, “Applebaum credits the historian Stuart . . . . Continue Reading »

Imagined science

Judith Shulevitz offers a novel (ha!) defense of the liberal arts in the latest TNR . Liberal arts should be supported because they produce science fiction and science fiction inspires scientific breaththroughs that make a lot of money. Shulevitz’s challenge: “Take any world-altering . . . . Continue Reading »

Reason and Faith

What’s the relationship between faith and reason? That should be answered with a question: Which reason are you talking about? Aza Goudriaan ( Reformed Orthodoxy And Philosophy, 16251750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht, And Anthonius Driessen , 56) notes that Petrus van Mastricht . . . . Continue Reading »

Vehicle, Mirror, Organ

Wilhelm von Humboldt set out on the ambitious project “to compare the languages of the world and the worlds that they permit us to enter into” (James Underhill, Humboldt, Worldview, and Language , 16). To do so, he had to formulate a novel view of language over against the available . . . . Continue Reading »

God of the Covenant

Adriaan C. Neele concludes his chapter on Petrus van Mastricht’s doctrine of the Trinity by highlighting the prominence that Mastricht gives to the covenant ( Petrus Van Mastricht (1630-1706): Reformed Orthodoxy: Method and Piety , 278): “Mastricht carefully exposited and formulated the . . . . Continue Reading »