Peter J. Leithart

James Miller reviews John Yates’s  The Spirit and Creation in Paul (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe) in the latest Review of Biblical Literature .  Like John Levison, Yates places Paul in the context of Judaism; on Paul himself, Miller summarizes . . . . Continue Reading »

Pierre Bourdieu defined ” doxa ” (originally, “opinion” or in the NT, “glory”) in a variety of ways, but a couple are illuminating.   Doxa is “the world of tradition experienced as a ‘natural world’ and taken for granted,” the set of . . . . Continue Reading »

Traditionally, “Arian” was believed to apply to a homogenous and well-organized heretical movement that arose in the fourth century, which took its theological cues from Arius. Recent scholars doubt most of that.  Arius was a conservative, not a deviant.  Arius was a lesser . . . . Continue Reading »

In the aforementioned book, Burrus several times cites Nancy Jay’s ( Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity ) arresting observation that “birth by itself can never provide sure evidence” of paternity, yet evidence of paternity provides the . . . . Continue Reading »

Virginia Burrus offers a challenging feminist reading of the first of Athanasius’ Orations against the Arians in ‘Begotten, Not Made’: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture) .  Her attention to Athanasius’ sexually charged rhetoric . . . . Continue Reading »

PROVERBS 29:1 This proverb deals with a man with a hardened neck.  The combination of terms is often translated as “stiffnecked” and typically described Israel.  They display their stiff necks when they erect the golden calf (Exodus 32:9; 33:3, 5; 34:9), and their stiffnecked . . . . Continue Reading »

Dostoevsky is not usually thought of as a comic writer, but he was a great comedian and satirist.  When Grandma shows up unexpectedly at the casino in The Gambler , the novel takes a sudden Woodhousean turn.  Feodor Karamzov is disgusting, but hilariously so.  His greatest comic . . . . Continue Reading »

Lee Martin McDonald (in the afore-cited article) suggests that intimidation was one factor in sharpening Christian polemics against Judaism.  Jews were, after all, vastly more numerous than Christians: “By the turn of the first century, those who counted themselves among the Christians . . . . Continue Reading »

Christians often operate on the assumption that the New Testament marked the end of interaction between Christians and Jews.  Paul shakes the dust off his feet at Rome, quotes Isaiah 6, and that’s that.  The danger that Christians might deconvert to Judaism was over as soon as the . . . . Continue Reading »

From Acts on through the church fathers, it was a commonplace among writers that the Jews were involved - sometimes leading, sometimes following - in persecuting the church.   Judith Lieu ( Neither Jew Nor Greek?: Constructing Early Christianity (Academic Paperback) ) doubts the evidence. . . . . Continue Reading »