Peter J. Leithart

In a few places, Leviticus uses the Hebrew word adam to refer to “any person.” Why adam? Most commentators suggest that it’s to emphasize sexual inclusiveness. Trevaskis (Holiness, Ethics, and Ritual in Leviticus) thinks there’s more. He points out that the tabernacle is . . . . Continue Reading »

In his masterful study of ancient Greek Miasma, Robert Parker notes death was intensely defiling: “Extramural burial was the norm in almost all classical Greek cities. It would be shocking to mingle the dwellings of the dead with those of the living, still more with those of the . . . . Continue Reading »

A.A. van Ruler argues that “Israel is the great disturbing factor in the paganism of the world’s nations,” and the church follows Israel’s path (Calvinist Trinitarianism and Theocentric Politics, 152-3).This is partly because Christianity “is wholly and completely . . . . Continue Reading »

Brian Mattson of the Center for Cultural Leadership offers a lively, compelling analysis of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah. He shows that the film is consistent and sticks close to its sources.The only problem is that Aronofsky’s sources are Kabbalic and Gnostic. Mattson . . . . Continue Reading »

I state a thesis: Dostoevsky is a polyphonic hedgehog. The subthesis is that Tolstoy is a monologic fox.The second part of that comparison comes from Isaiah Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox. Berlin cites the Greek poet Archilochus’s dictum, “A fox knows many things; a . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the most amusing contributions to the early modern debate on the origins of language came from Francis Mercury van Helmont. Like many others, he insisted that Noah spoke Hebrew, but his way of defending and explication that was uniquely his own.In his 1667 Very Short delination of the Natural . . . . Continue Reading »

You wouldn’t know as you slogged through his impenetrable prose, but Husserl’s turn to phenomenology was, Jonathan Ree argues, a “belated return to plain healthy common sense” (I See A Voice, 343).All knowledge comes initially through the senses, the scholastics had said, and . . . . Continue Reading »

Last week at Slate, Mike Pesca assured us that,  Montgomery Burns notwithstanding, steeplers aren’t necessarily evil. Steepling is what you do when you form a tent with your fingers. Touching fingers in succession while steepling is optional.Pesca cites the Definitive Book of . . . . Continue Reading »

Historically, “aesthetics” has had an accidental relationship to art. Aesthetics, from aesthesis, referred to perception through senses. In this sense, an “aesthetic” theory of art is a theory with a particular focus on the sensory experience of art.If we put aside the . . . . Continue Reading »

John is so subtle that we nearly miss it. Jesus says, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:4), implying that at some time he might not be in the world. Then he heals a blind man with clay and tells him to go wash (9:5). When the blind man comes back seeing, . . . . Continue Reading »