Peter J. Leithart

“Knowledge is a gift,” writes Esther Lightcap Meek (A Little Manual for Knowing, 8).She continues, “Epiphany comes as a surprising encounter equal parts knowing and being known. It could never have been achieved in a systematic or linear fashion. It transforms knower and known. . . . . Continue Reading »

I offer some reflections on the theology of festivityin the Hebrew Bible, focused on Leviticus . . . . Continue Reading »

Thomas Mallon offers some qualified praise to Grace Metalious’s Peyton Place in the NYTBR. He thinks it is several cuts above today’s romance novels.He writes, “Metalious’s writing is mostly undemanding, but it’s also, often . . . not bad. Compared with . . . . Continue Reading »

In his Natural History of Religion, David Hume proposes an evolutionary progress from natural polytheism to more developed monotheism.  This, he thinks, is the natural and virtually inevitable progress: “As far as writing or history reaches, mankind, in ancient times, appears universally . . . . Continue Reading »

Protestant problematics about sacraments still run in the background of early modern debates about religion. In response to evidence of similarities between Jewish and “savage” Indian religion, some early modern thinkers argued that the ritual similarities were marginal to . . . . Continue Reading »

Many scholars have concluded that the Jubilee legislation of Leviticus 25 is an idealized portrait of an institution that Israel never practiced. In a 2003 essay in Vetus Testamentum, Lee Casperson takes issue with this viewpoint: “There are extensive parallels in the ancient Near East, . . . . Continue Reading »

Leigh Trevaskis tries to suss out the rationale for sticking Leviticus 24 (menorah, showbread, blasphemy) between Leviticus 23 (Israel’s festival calendar) and Leviticus 25 (Jubilee). He proposes a symbolic solution to the puzzle.He observes that chapter 24 begins with a reverence to . . . . Continue Reading »

Esther Lightcap Meek presents the most devastating little critiques of epistemological dualism I’ve ever read near the beginning of A Little Manual for Knowing.Epistemological dualism describes the way we “distinguish knowledge from beliefs, facts from values, reason from faith, . . . . Continue Reading »

Halbertal (On Sacrifice, 72-3) offers this fine analysis of the self-justificating moves of aggressors:“The mind can play complicated games, and among them is the accusation that an aggressor directs toward his victim for causing him to become violent, which all too easily turns into a . . . . Continue Reading »

Self-transcendence is in various forms an essential part of modern moral theory. To be truly good, in a Kantian framework, is to transcend personal self-interest, self-love, in order to conform one’s actions to the categorical imperative.Halbertal (On Sacrifice) observes that this note of . . . . Continue Reading »