Peter J. Leithart

Why do so many bad guys and sinister places have names using the syllable “mor”? James Harbeck mentionsMoriarty, Voldemort, Mordor, and Piers Morgan, though he ultimately dismisses the last.The answer that immediately occurs is etymological: mor- is linked to death in Romance . . . . Continue Reading »

In the prim and sanitized West, we think of purity rules as superstitious and primitive. We have transcended such nonsense. Mary Douglas and other anthropologists have tried to convince us that we’re self-deluded, but leave that to the side. As Rose George reports, there are places . . . . Continue Reading »

Novelist Amin Malouf was born in Lebanon, and now lives in Paris. He’s a Melchite Christian. As he points out at the beginning of In the Name of Identity, those few markers only begin to spell out his complex of allegiances and loyalties.Malouf is not claiming to be unique. On the . . . . Continue Reading »

Responding to a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that Indian men spend only 19 minutes a day on housework, Chandrahas Choudhury rises up in witty defense of the Indian male.“Millions of Indian men do huge amounts of housework — but in single-man . . . . Continue Reading »

John Smart’s Tarantula’s Web, on the circle of intellectuals around John Hayward and TS Eliot is, according to Lachlan Mackinnon, an unrivaled “demonstration” of “just how ‘unpleasant’ it might have been ‘to meet Mr Eliot.”Hayward and . . . . Continue Reading »

Over many decades and in voluminous writings, René Girard has elaborated a theory of sacrifice, scapegoating, and violence that purports to unveil things hidden from the foundations of the world. He has become a guru, not least to Christian theologians eager to formulate non-violent versions of . . . . Continue Reading »

Slash me with a glanceand purge me with your gaze.Consume me in your flaming eyes,and set my heart . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend and former student, Pastor C.J. Bowen, writes in response to my recent discussion of Jesus as “new Phinehas.”The remainder of this post is from C.J.Having recently preached through the early chapters of Acts, I was bothered by the interpretation that the early church was . . . . Continue Reading »

How can Yahweh’s name be profaned? Can holiness leak out?In a recent Princeton dissertation (This Is the Thing that the Lord Commanded You To Do) Bryan Bibb notes that some qualities depend on the response of a community; they are socially constructed qualities:“personal qualities (like . . . . Continue Reading »

As many commentators have pointed out, Leviticus 25-26 form a single literary unit. John Bergsma (The Jubilee from Leviticus to Quram, 82-3) calls attention to the inclusio on “Mount Sinai” (25:1; 26:46), and lists eight literary links between the two chapters, including a common . . . . Continue Reading »