Peter J. Leithart

Fir and cedar were among the materials for the temple (1 Kings 5:8, 10; 6:15), as well as Solomon’s other building projects (1 Kings 9:11). Elsewhere in Kings these trees refer to the great and mighty of the land, the ones that Assyria intends to cut down (2 Kings 19:23). The two uses are . . . . Continue Reading »

The Hebrew word for parable/proverb/allegory ( mashal ) is first used Numbers 23-24 for the “parables” of Balaam. The word is used seven times in that passage, and the verb associated with it in every case is nasa , “lift up” or “carry.” A proverb is a burden . . . . Continue Reading »

Isaiah predicts a day of judgment against Babel (13:6, 9, 13; cf. 13:22)l but that same day will be rest for the people of God (14:3). When Yahweh judges Babel, Israel will enjoy Sabbath ( shabat , “cease,” is used twice in v. 4); they will be Noahs, resting ( noach , 14:3) after the . . . . Continue Reading »

Pickstock still: Plato notes the sensory associations of various arts. Painting renders the visual, music the sound. But language is synaesthetic. A word or combination of words combines the senses, and engenders thought and so, Plato says, gets to the “essence” iof a things that is . . . . Continue Reading »

Pickstock points to this passage on the Cratylus, where Socrates connects heroes with desire through an etymological connection with Eros: “All of them sprang either from the love of a God for a mortal woman, or of a mortal man for a Goddess; think of the word in the old Attic, and you will . . . . Continue Reading »

Pickstock, same article, arguing that the linguistic turn requires Cratylism: “If the signifier is arbitrary, then the stable element of language is excarnated and language is reduced to thought after all, because its essence consists in a series of abstract relations, combined according to a . . . . Continue Reading »

Pickstock again, same article. She examines Socrates’ use of etymologies, and argues that this is not a crude effort to take words back to some fixed starting point. Rather, Socrates “analyzes words by supplementing, removing, exchanging or bending letters or syllables according to . . . . Continue Reading »

In an article on the Cratylus in the current issue of Modern Theology , Catherine Pickstock asks whether Socrates/Plato is/are Cratylists, whether they believe that words are linked, perhaps onomatopoetically, to the things they signify, or if they argue for a purely conventional understanding of . . . . Continue Reading »

A student, Kaleb Trotter, points out numerically significant lists and structures in Philippians. Paul, for instance, lists seven bases for his confidence in flesh (3:4-6). Paul is a full, sevenfold Israelite, as he says, a Hebrew of Hebrews. Yet he gives up that fullness for the sake of Christ, . . . . Continue Reading »

A student’s (Tyler Abens) paper on the theme of imitation in Paul begins with a description of experiments comparing how children learn to how monkey’s learn. The experiment indicates that, contrary to the monkey-see, monkey-do mythology, humans learn by imitation and monkeys do not. . . . . Continue Reading »