Theoria

The women of Matthew 27 are the only ones in Matthew’s gospel to behold ( theoreo ) anything (27:55 and 28:1 are the only uses of the verb). Women theorists.  What will Matthew think of next? . . . . Continue Reading »

Mary the Tower

Magdalene has plausibly been linked with Migdal-el (Joshua 19:38), one of the fortified cities in the tribal area of Naphtali.  Migdal-el means “Fortress” of God.  Mary from Magdala is a tower of God. What does that mean?  Perhaps many things, but it puts one in mind of . . . . Continue Reading »

Women from Galilee

Where’d the Galilean women of Matthew 27:55 come from?  The only other references to a group of women, the only uses of the plural of gune occur in Matthew 14:21 and 15:38.  They are the women included among the 5000 and 4000 who are fed in the “desolate place” near the . . . . Continue Reading »

Replacing Peter

A group of women from Galilee suddenly appears in Matthew 27:55.  They are “beholding from a distance” ( makrothen ), having “followed” Jesus ( eklouthesan ). This is precisely the description given of Peter in 26:58: When Jesus is arrested, he too “follows Him at . . . . Continue Reading »

Wonder

Near the beginning of the Metaphysics , Aristotle notes that “it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about greater matters . . . . A . . . . Continue Reading »

Desire and knowledge

“All men by nature desire to know.  An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses.”  So Aristotle.  Jonathan Lear glosses: “That we take pleasure in the sheer exercise of our sensory faculties is a sign that we do have a desire for knowledge.” . . . . Continue Reading »

Learning to Read

Frank Smith ( Insult to Intelligence: The Bureaucratic Invasion of Our Classrooms ) says that authors teach children to read: “Not just any authors, but the authors of the stories that children love to read, that children often know by heart before they begin to read the story.  This . . . . Continue Reading »

Song of Israel

The Targum on the Song of Songs, deftly translated and annotated by Philip Alexander ( The Targum of Canticles: Translated, With a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes (Aramaic Bible) ), has its amusing oddities.  The bride in the cleft of the rock in 2:14 is Israel at the Red Sea, . . . . Continue Reading »

Need for allegory

In an 1837 exchange on the interpretation of the Song of Songs in The Congregational Magazine , one James Bennett argued that the Song had to be interpreted allegorically because a literal interpretation made the woman sound immodest: “What writer, with the feelings, or the reason, of a man, . . . . Continue Reading »

Turn from allegory

Stephen D. Moore (in an essay on “The Song of Songs in the History of Sexuality”) notes that the shift from allegorical to literal/sexual interpretations of the Song is connected to shifts in understanding of male love.  Patristic and medieval commentators on the Song easily took . . . . Continue Reading »