Peter J. Leithart

Sean McDonough’s YHWH at Patmos (1999) is a 250+ page book about a single verse, Revelation 1:4. Really, only one phrase of that verse: “He who is and who was and who is coming.”McDonough traces the pre-history of the phrase to the name Yahweh. More surprisingly, he finds . . . . Continue Reading »

Phyz.org reports that clothing still makes the man, but it may not be the most expensive of fashionable clothing that makes the best status statement.Harvard University researchers found that students attributed higher status to the more slovenly: “In one study, students were asked to . . . . Continue Reading »

Exhaustion has become a popular topic in Germany, many complaining “We are the most exhausted age.”Wolfgang Martynkewicz provides some contrary evidence, though he doesn’t appear to know it. In Das Zeitalter der Erschopfung, he examines German bourgeois and bohemians of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Jesus’ declaration to the prostrate John (Revelation 1:17-18a) is a neat little, rich little chiasm:A. I am (ego eimi)B. First C. LastD. Living OneC’. Became deadB’. Behold! AliveA’. I am (eimi) to ages of agesSeveral observations: First, the whole statement is . . . . Continue Reading »

In addition to heaven, earth, sea, and underworld, Mesopotamian cosmology believes in an intermediate region between the earth and the underworld, belonging to the god Ea.Though not entirely consistent in mythologies, and the relationship between the Apsu and the sea and the Apsu and the underworld . . . . Continue Reading »

David Biale observes in Blood and Belief that “the ancient Israelites were the only Near Easterners to make blood a central element in their religious rituals” (10).He fills out the picture: “There were, to be sure, magical and medical rituals mentioned in Akkadian, Sumerian, . . . . Continue Reading »

Drawing on the work of Jonathan Klawans (Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism) and others, David Biale (Blood and Belief) points to the difficulty of reconciling the “Priestly” and “Holiness” sections of Leviticus.In the “Priestly” code, found in Leviticus 11-15 . . . . Continue Reading »

What hath Jerusalem to do with Athens? The worship of Greece with the worship of the temple?Quite a lot, in fact, argues David Biale in Blood and Belief (26): “Greek and Israelite sacrificial customs turn out to have been more similar to each other than the Israelite was to other ancient . . . . Continue Reading »

David Biale (Blood and Belief) argues that menstrual blood is not defiling because it is associated with death (as Jacob Milgrom, among others, argues). After all, menstrual blood doesn’t mean a woman is dying but that she is fertile. On the other hand, the sorts of bleeding that lead to death . . . . Continue Reading »

Durkheim said that “society” was the god to whom primitive peoples sacrificed, the totem standing in for the clan for which it served as totem.We might say, But of course. As FS Naiden (Smoke Signals for the Gods, 277) has recently pointed out, by the time of Durkheim and Robertson . . . . Continue Reading »