Peter J. Leithart

Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (The Savage in Judaism) traces most every form of impurity in ancient Israel back to issues of fertility. I don’t buy that overall, and he recognizes that it can’t cover everything (see his discussion of menstruation. 177-94, where he uncovers several overlapping . . . . Continue Reading »

Jesus has the key of David (Revelation 3:7), which allows him to open and shut. The statement is chiastic:A. who opensB. and no one shutsB’. and shutsA’. and no one opens.The sentence’s structure mimics the sentence’s content: It speaks of “opening” at the . . . . Continue Reading »

In a dense paragraph, Milbank (“Theology Without Substance, Part 1,” Journal of Literature and Theology, 1988) draws on Paolo Rossi’s Dark Abyss of Time describes how English and Neopolitan writers put Spinoza, Hobbes, and de Lapeyrere to work in defense of orthodoxy - . . . . Continue Reading »

Drawing from Robertson Smith, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz lists numerous biblical characters with animal names (The Savage in Judaism, 116): Eglon means calf, Nahash is a serpent, Oreb is Raven and Ze’eb is a wolf. Seir the Horite has Shobal (young lion), Zibeon (hyena), Anah (wild ass), . . . . Continue Reading »

Judaism and Christianity are often contrasted as an opposition between “ritualistic” and “nonritualistic” systems. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (The Savage in Judaism, 140) argues that this is a mistake. The real difference is a difference of “root metaphor.”This is . . . . Continue Reading »

Tercio Bretanha Junker’s Prophetic Liturgyhas much to commend it. Junker aims to show how the church is trained for “prophetic praxis” through the liturgy. Liturgy “should facilitate the community’s awareness of its biblical foundations, the Christian . . . . Continue Reading »

Stepan Trofimovich, the vain Francophone liberal in Dostoevsky’s Demons, claims to know the gospels well from reading Renan, but in fact hasn’t read the Bible itself in a long time. During an illness, he comes to see himself as the liar he is and asks Sophia to read the . . . . Continue Reading »

Jesus comes like a thief to the unsuspecting, the sleepy (Revelation 3:3). That doesn’t simply mean that His coming is a surprise. It means that He comes to take. That’s what thieves do.To prevent this, the angel of the church at Sardis has to “keep” (tereo) or guard . . . . Continue Reading »

George Pattison’s closing essay in Dostoevsky and the Christian Traditionexplores the similarities between Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky.It’s been common to read both as “prophets revealing to `modern man’ the abyssal freedom, the wild frontiers and the midnight cries that . . . . Continue Reading »

In her contribution to Dostoevsky and the Christian Tradition, Diane Thompson offers a brilliant analysis of Marmeladov’s speech to Raskolnikov at the beginning of Crime and Punishment.Everything he says is seasoned with grandiloquent references to the gospels, and especially to the . . . . Continue Reading »