Peter J. Leithart

In an essay on “The Government of the Tongue,” the late Seamus Heaney drew on the incident of the woman caught in adultery to explain the purpose of poetry: “The drawing of those characters [by Jesus] is like poetry, a break with the usual life but not an absconding from it. . . . . Continue Reading »

Even after extensive research, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham hasn’t quite cracked Egypt’s secretive Muslim Brotherhood . But the TLS reviewer gives enough to leave us worried. The Brotherhood’s emphasis on the status and dignity of Muslims alone was a break with Egyptian . . . . Continue Reading »

From the Economist ‘s review of Vic Gatrell’s The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London’s Golden Age , the book sounds like a colorful read. Gatrell focuses on 18th-century London and finds it a merry old place: “At general elections in Westminster hecklers threw dead or . . . . Continue Reading »

According to the Economist ‘s review of Paul Collier’s Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World , we can’t answer the question about whether migration is good or bad without asking for whom it is good or bad. Most of the discussion concentrates on the countries receiving . . . . Continue Reading »

As “Breaking Bad” winds down, the Economist suggests that the show offers as much insight into business as a Harvard MBA at a fraction of the cost. What makes high-school-teacher-turned-meth-producer Walter White’s business successful? There are three ingredients: “The first . . . . Continue Reading »

Older brothers get bad press in the Bible. Cain was the first, and the first fratricide. There’s Ishmael and Esau and the older brothers of Joseph. Aaron was older than Moses; he wasn’t a villain, but he did make a calf at Sinai. The prodigal had an older brother too. It’s all . . . . Continue Reading »

In the course of examining various approaches to religious pluralism in Ways of Meeting and the Theology of Religions , David Cheetham cites Colin Gunton’s criticisms of Augustine’s Trinitarian theology. While he agrees with Gunton that human beings are “dialogic” he . . . . Continue Reading »

The title of Mark Edwards’s Origen Against Plato bluntly gives the gist of the book. Contrary to the popular wisdom, Origen was not a Platonist, denying all of the premises of the Platonism of his time - that objects are defined because they participate in forms that dwell in an incorporeal . . . . Continue Reading »

In his study of Image, Word and God in the Early Christian Centuries , Mark Edwards contrasts the place of text and language in early Christianity and Platonism. For Christians, Scripture is “an archive of salvific truths that could not have been known otherwise,” while for Platonism . . . . Continue Reading »

Sun, moon and stars are created to rule. Abram is told that his children will be like stars. That means, they will be raised up to rule. Abram’s children are kings. We can be more specific. Sun, moon, and stars are created to rule day and night, to be the governors of time. Abram’s . . . . Continue Reading »