Peter J. Leithart

Protestants have often been charged with promoting an individualist reading of Scripture, what with our confession of sola scriptura. That charge, I submit, arises from a misunderstanding of what the Bible is.In Psalm 119:24, the Psalmist declares his delight in the “testimonies” of . . . . Continue Reading »

Greeks have a reputation for Apollonian rationality and calm, but that’s at best only part of the story. In the NYTBR, Caroline Alexander describes the Dionysian underside of classical Greece:“On Mount Lykaion (‘wolf mountain” in Arcadia, annual traditions honoring Zeus . . . . Continue Reading »

Richard Beck responds to my review of his Slavery of Death at the Trinity House . . . . Continue Reading »

Mark W. Elliott’s Engaging Leviticus is a compendium of historical commentary on the book of Leviticus. Organized chapter-by-chapter, Elliott draws together patristic, medieval, and modern commentators, mostly Christian but including some Jewish commentators along the way.That . . . . Continue Reading »

Origen interpreted the instructions about leprosy (Leviticus 13-14) as an “anatomy of spiritual disease” (Elliott, Engaging Leviticus, 132):“There are six types of spiritual plague, which can be taken as three pairs of types - each pair composed of disease that is curable (in . . . . Continue Reading »

I want to talk about death. No, the flowers haven’t confused me. I’m aware that this is a wedding and not a funeral, but still: I intend to talk about death. What I want to talk about is real death. I’m not using the word metaphorically. I want to talk about the end of life on . . . . Continue Reading »

In his recent Our American: A Hispanic History of the United States, Felipe Fernández-Armesto attempts to re-orient the history of the US. As the Economist reviewer explains,“The book takes aim at the founding myths of America that run exclusively from east to west. Those myths . . . . Continue Reading »

Scott Mandelbrote reviews Jed Z. Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold’s Newton and the Origin of Civilization in the TLS, a study of Newton’s efforts to reconstruct the history of the ancient world and his use of historical astronomy to buttress his biblical chronology.Mandelbrote . . . . Continue Reading »

Oliver Ready offers an insightful analysis of Crime and Punishment in the latest TLS.As Ready says, the book’s title creates expectations about its contents: “A ready-made title, Crime and Punishment suggests a ready-made plot. A man will commit a crime. He will be caught. He . . . . Continue Reading »

A new zombie apocalypse game, DayZ, departs from conventional gaming by introducing permadeath, which is a lot like real death in that it is permanent:Evie Nagy reports, permadeath means “that players have only one life in the game and lose everything if they are killed—as well as a . . . . Continue Reading »