Peter J. Leithart

Andrew Solomon begins his NYTBR review of Jennifer Senior’s All Joy and No Fun with the arresting claim that “parenting as we know it—predicated on the unconditional exaltation of our children—is no more than 70 years old.”The key shift in the past century has been, . . . . Continue Reading »

When Jeroboam I split the northern tribes from the house of David, he secured the unity of his area by establishing shrines for golden calf worship at the northern and southern borders of his territory—at Dan and Bethel respectively.Both were obvious choices. Bethel had been a holy place since . . . . Continue Reading »

Memoria passionis is a central feature of Johann Baptist Metz’s “postidealist theology,” a theology that is founded in practice and knows its own historical embeddedness. For Metz, this doesn’t just involve memory of Christ. For moderns, it’s equally the memory of . . . . Continue Reading »

Metz (A Passion for God, 49-53) suggests that the “sickness unto death of religion is not naivete, but banality.” Banality arises from some of the deep seeds of modernity. Our “cult of possibility,” our confidence that “everything is possible” has an . . . . Continue Reading »

Noah is named as the rest-bringer for the human race. And he does just that, not simply by enduring the flood but by offering righteous worship on the holy mountain after the flood. Yahweh initially repents that He made “the man”; in the end, He has a change of heart and promises . . . . Continue Reading »

Richard Hays proposes the follow explanation of the title “faithful witness,” applied to Jesus in Revelation 1:5 (Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation, 78-79):“‘the testimony of Jesus’ must include the memory or message of Jesus’ own faithful . . . . Continue Reading »

Who is the one who “is, was, and coming”? In Revelation 1:4, it’s the Father. In verse 8, it seems to be the Triune God.Who is “Alpha and Omega”? In Revelation 1:8, it’s the Triune God. In 22:13, it’s Jesus. As Joseph Mangina has put it, John indicates . . . . Continue Reading »

Revelation 1 describes Jesus with three titles: faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, ruler of the kings of the earth. Revelation 1 describes Jesus work with another triad: He loved us, loosed us from our sins, made us a kingdom of priests.The two triads match: Jesus loves us as a faithful . . . . Continue Reading »

In a previous post, I noted how the testimony of John the Seer parallels the testimony of John the Baptist. But there’s more to it. There’s something structural going on.In that post, part of my evidence was the unusual (though not unique) doubling of martur- words in both John 1:7 . . . . Continue Reading »

In an essay in the Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora, Edrel Arie explains the dramatic effects of the fall of the second temple on Jews outside Judea. “Diaspora communities naturally vacillate between the desire to preserve all three: their unique identity, their connection to . . . . Continue Reading »