Peter J. Leithart

In a TLS review of Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files, Edward Luttwak traces things back to dynamics within the post-9/11 intelligence bureaucracy. In Luttwak’s telling, it’s a case study of bureaucratic expansion.He argues that “Only a few hundred were really justified of . . . . Continue Reading »

Joan Cadden’s Nothing Natural is Shameful is many things: A careful study of the medieval reception and use of various Aristotelian texts; an analysis of medieval natural philosophy and ethics and the relation between the two; a contribution to research about Western views of sodomy; a . . . . Continue Reading »

Pastor Arthur Kay offers these thoughts on the symbolism of Palm Sunday:“Palms are associated with covering clouds (Feast of Booths, Leviticus 23:40). They are also associated with the nations (Exodus 15:27; Revelation 7:9). Therefore, on Palm Sunday, Jesus is already coming on the . . . . Continue Reading »

No other mythology, writes Eva Kuels in The Reign of the Phallus, gives rape a more prominent role than that of Greece (49). In our expurgated handbooks of mythology, it’s called “dalliance” or somesuch, but Kuels argues that the artifacts show that what’s happening is . . . . Continue Reading »

Ancient Greeks sacrificed and ate pigs and dogs. Israelites were forbidden to do so.Ancient Greeks made blood pudding from sacrifices. Israelites were not supposed to eat blood.Ancient Greeks sometimes sacrificed pregnant sows. Israelites were commanded not to take both the eggs and the . . . . Continue Reading »

Was sacrificial meat distributed equally or hierarchically in ancient Greece? Some have resolved the question diachronically: Archaic Greece had a more democratic sacrificial distribution that democratic classical Athens.Gunnel Ekroth concludes that the two systems lived side-by-side. Choice pieces . . . . Continue Reading »

Jesus charges the Laodicean angel with being lukewarm, neither hot nor cold (Revelation 3). This is understandably and rightly taken as a symbol of their indecisiveness and lethargic piety.But there’s a whole lot more going on.Hot and cold match day and night (Genesis 8:22). “Heat of the . . . . Continue Reading »

A few scattered thoughts on 1 Samuel 17.Saul offers David his armor for battle, but David refuses (v. 39). After the battle, though, David accepts the armor of Jonathan, signifying David’s elevation to crown prince (18:1-4).David kills Goliath with a rock, trusting in Yahweh the Rock. There is . . . . Continue Reading »

Years ago, members of a Boulder, Colorado, ministers’ association determined that they were responsible for Boulder’s civic health. Taking a cue from the early chapters of John’s Apocalypse, they resolved to serve as the guardian angels of the city.They began to invite civil . . . . Continue Reading »

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 »