Peter J. Leithart

Without American missionaries, no Transcendentalism, says Mead (almost): “Missionary endeavors to translate the sacred writings of other faiths into English may have been for the purposes of arming Westerners for religious controversy with the heathens, but the ideas of those texts quickly . . . . Continue Reading »

Mead again: “After [World War II], General MacArthur’s reconstruction of Japan was essentially an implementation of the missionary program at the point of bayonets. The traditional ruler gave up his claim to divinity; freedom of religion was established; feudalism was abolished and land . . . . Continue Reading »

In a Mars Hill Audio interview, Ellen Charry observes that the Protestant theologians of the seventeenth century, even before the Enlightenment, had a tendency to detach truth from historical reference. The truth of theology was seen in the coherence of the system of truth found in Scripture, . . . . Continue Reading »

In a Mars Hill Audio interview, Victor Lee Austin talks about his recent book, Up With Authority: Why We Need Authority to Flourish as Human Beings . He uses the analogy of an orchestra to indicate how fundamental authority is to certain forms of human flourishing. Orchestral music is one of many . . . . Continue Reading »

Exodus 20:3: You shall have no other gods before Me. In the explanation of the Second Word, God declares that He is a jealous God, but His jealousy is already implicit in the First Word. Among the gods of the ancient world, Yahweh alone is jealous. Ancient temples teemed with images of gods. Baal . . . . Continue Reading »

All of the Ten Words assume one basic commandment, summarized in the shema , Israel’s confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God.” The prophets echo the shema again and again: “Hear the Word of Yahweh.” So does Solomon: “Listen, my son, . . . . Continue Reading »

Mead highlights the role of American missionaries not only in hte formation of a moral Wilsonian foreign policy, but in the creation of “global civil society.” He goes so far as to suggest that the “very concept of a global civil society comes to us out of the missionary . . . . Continue Reading »

Peter Ackroyd notes that the poem of Isaiah 12 uses the noun yeshuah three times (vv. 2-3). This is especially significant when we consider the distribution of the yasha root in Isaiah, which is “entirely absent from i-xii apart from xii 2-3 and the prophet’s name.” Isaiah 1 . . . . Continue Reading »

In an essay on the beginning and end of Isaiah, David Carr points out a series of significant shifts. In chapter 1, Yahweh charges Israel with unnaturally rebelling against his father (1:2), and in the “communal supplication” of chapters 63-64, Israel appeals to Yahweh on the basis of . . . . Continue Reading »

It is often said that silent reading was virtually unknown in antiquity. Not quite true argued Bernard Knox. According to another scholar’s summary of his argument: “Knox adduced two examples from fifth-century Attic drama in which silent reading actually takes place on stage before the . . . . Continue Reading »