Peter J. Leithart

David Dorsey points out that Song of Songs 2:11-13 contains seven descriptions of spring and seven imperatives.  Sevens make me think of the creation week: Spring is new creation.  But can we fill that out in more detail? Verse 11a says that winter is past.  Winter is darkness. . . . . Continue Reading »

God is identified “by” and “with” temporal events, Jenson argues.  What can we make of that? Perhaps this: Yahweh is compassionate, slow to anger, in the Hebrew idiom “long of nose.”  He is kind to the weak, generous to the needy.  These are all . . . . Continue Reading »

As you’ll notice in the icon to the right, my commentary on 1-3 John is now available on Amazon. . . . . Continue Reading »

Yahweh’s nose burns a lot.  You can’t see it in English translation, but that’s what the Hebrew says whenever Yahweh’s “anger” burns: What’s actually burning is His nose. His nose burns first, though, not at Israel but at Moses.  Exodus 4:14 is . . . . Continue Reading »

Human beings are clay shaped by the Almighty Potter. So are events.  Isaiah says that long before the events happened the Lord “fashioned-like-a-potter” the Assyrian invasion and devastation of city and country in Israel and Judah (Isaiah 37:26). If the Lord is a potter fashioning . . . . Continue Reading »

Isaiah 2:12-22 warns of a day when Yahweh will cast down the tall trees and high mountains, the proud men, and the idols.  The passage ends with a warning not to esteem man who has breath in his nose.  This last is often taken as a reference to the frailty and weakness of man, who should . . . . Continue Reading »

Nietzsche nails the issue in the section of Twilight of the Idols on “reason” in philosophy.  Philosophy kills and mummifies in order to analyze.  Philosophy especially wants to rid itself of the body: “You ask me which of the philosophers’ traits are most . . . . Continue Reading »

Descartes (Second Meditation) considers a piece of wax that, when heated, changes its properties yet remains wax. He concludes that the “wax” must not be accessible to the senses, since sensible properties all change but the wax remains: “what was there in the wax that was so . . . . Continue Reading »

Margaret Visser has done it again. Author of The Rituals of Dinner , and The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church , she has now added The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude , an anthropological and philosophical study of gratitude, an examination . . . . Continue Reading »

Robert Jenson writes, “In that an eternity is always some union of past and future, every possible eternity will be of one of two broad kinds:  a Persistence of the Beginning, or an Anticipation of the End.  Moreover, essential time is future time.  It is because we face a . . . . Continue Reading »