Peter J. Leithart

INTRODUCTION In the “burden” of Babel, Isaiah sketched the big picture of political history. In the burdens concerning Philistia and Moab, he prophesies that Yahweh will be faithful to His promise to David and will make Zion a refuge, not only for Israel but for the Gentiles. THE TEXT . . . . Continue Reading »

Back to Witherington, and I discern that nuance and subtlety are not Witherington’s style, at least not in these posts. He writes, “Gen. 3.15 is not in any way shape or form a messianic prophecy about a warrior messiah. The ‘he’ in question is the descendants of Eve of . . . . Continue Reading »

Who is the angel in Revelation 22:6, 16? Both of the verses echo the opening verse of Revelation, especially 22:6. The opening verse says that Jesus send and signified by His angel to His slave John, and earlier used the verb “show.” 22:6 states that the Lord sent His angel to show His . . . . Continue Reading »

A student, Leta Sundet, wrote a quite brilliant paper on Romans 7. The entire paper is posted below. “I do not understand my own actions,” Paul says helplessly. “I do the things I hate. Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Christians have . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend sent me a link to a Wall Street Journal column by William Deresiewicz describing how studying Jane Austen taught him the meaning of manhood. Reading about Elizabeth Bennet’s failures and her resulting humiliating, Deresiewicz learned what real manhood, and real education, was all . . . . Continue Reading »

I skip over Witherington’s second complaint for a moment and move to #3. For this one, he uses two exclamation points!! More than once!! Witherington writes, “the enmity set between humans and ‘the serpent’ has nothing to do with an endorsement of war, it has to do with a . . . . Continue Reading »

Isaiah famously prophesies about the Branch ( netzer ) that will spring from Jesse’s root, life from the dead tree of the Davidic line. There is another branch in Isaiah: The king of Babel who tries to climb above the clouds but then falls to earth is never going to find a glorious resting . . . . Continue Reading »

Over on his blog (I can see it in the distance), Ben Witherington has been working through my book on Constantine. His latest post criticizes my biblical arguments at the end of that book. I hope to address some of his criticisms over the next few days, and I’ll start with his charge that my . . . . Continue Reading »

When the king of Babel falls to Sheol, he will be covered with worms and worms will spread out beneath him (Isaiah 14:11). Two words are used for “worm,” and the most commonly used of them is most often used not to describe worms per se but the scarlet coloring that comes from the . . . . Continue Reading »

Isaiah 14 moves forward by a series of puns on the Hebrew mashal . The noun form means “proverb” or “parable,” and describes the poem that Israel will take up on the day when Babel is overthrow (14:4). The mashal is about the fall of those with rods and scepters of rule. The . . . . Continue Reading »