Peter J. Leithart

The TLS reviewer of Natasha Walter’s recent Living Dolls notes how pornography “has entered mainstream culture to transform girls into animate versions of the sexist and sexy dolls they embrace in innocent delight.”  Walter points to the effect of Barbie dolls on American . . . . Continue Reading »

Simon Blackburn has a somewhat surprisingly admiring review of a biography of RG Collingwood in a recent issue of TNR .  Collingwood comes off as very contemporary, very stimulating.  In what Blackburn calls a “succinct and perspicuous . . . statement of the public nature of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Michael Stead ( The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1-8 (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) ) points to a number of intertexual connections between Ezekiel 1-11 and the vision of Zechariah 5:5-11.  He concludes that the vision of Zechariah is an inversion of the Ezekiel’s vision . . . . Continue Reading »

Zechariah uses the word “lord” or “master” ( adon ) seven times in the first six chapters of his prophecy (1:9, 4:4, 5, 13, 14; 6:4-5).  The word appears in the first, the fifth, and the eighth of Zechariah’s night visions, beginning, middle, end. Five of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Zechariah’s scroll brings curses to those who “steal” and “swear falsely in My name” (5:3-4).  Those same sins appear together in Leviticus 19, and also, significantly, in Jeremiah 7:9.  There, Jeremiah lists thieves and false swearers among the . . . . Continue Reading »

Zechariah’s flying scroll is written with curses.  Another place where curses are written down is Numbers 5, the jealousy test for a woman suspected of adultery.  The verb “cut off” or “purged” ( naqah ) in Zechariah 5:3 is also used in Numbers 5, to describe . . . . Continue Reading »

The woman Wickedness is carried from the land in an ephah covered with a lead weight (Zechariah 5:6-7).  It is a parodic ark of the covenant, containing a harlot instead of the tablets of the law. Why an ephah?  The Old testament regularly demands that Israel use accurate weights and . . . . Continue Reading »

In Zechariah 5:5-11, a woman named Wickedness is put into an ephah and removed to Shinar, where a temple is built for her.  This is a complex parody of the exodus. Yahweh brought Israel out of Egypt on eagles’ wings; here we have a picture of the wicked being born out of the land by . . . . Continue Reading »

In Zechariah 5, the prophet sees a scroll flying through the air and is told that it is the “curse that is going forth over the face of the whole land.”   That vision conjures several other passages and scenes in the Bible. The phrase “face of the land” is used . . . . Continue Reading »

Zbigniew Herbert’s “I Would Like To Describe” is about as good a refutation of subject-object dualisms as you’re going to find. I would like to describe the simplest emotion joy or sadness but not as others do reaching for shafts of rain or sun I would like to describe a . . . . Continue Reading »