Peter J. Leithart

Philippians 3:1-11 has been seen as a key anti-NPP text, emphasizing as it does the contrast between Paul’s zeal and his righteousness by law (v. 6) with the righteousness not of his own not derived from the law but a righteousness from God on the basis of faith (v. 9). Watson suggests that . . . . Continue Reading »

As Watson goes on, he notes Dunn’s early and fundamental attacks on Sanders’s reading of Paul. Dunn argues that Sanders treats Paul as an un-Jewish theologian, rejecting not only covenant nomism but the whole apparatus of covenantal, biblical theology that the Jews built from. Dunn . . . . Continue Reading »

In the introduction to his book, Watson summarizes the thesis of his unpublished doctoral thesis, on which the published book is based. His initiating observation is that “in virtually every passage where the Reformation tradition has found an attack on ‘earning salvation,’ there . . . . Continue Reading »

In his recently revised Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles , Francis Watson offers a pithy summary of the agenda of the New Perspective. Sanders, he says, extended the critique that G. F. Moore mounted in 1921 against German Lutheran scholarship on Judaism; Moore basically argued that German . . . . Continue Reading »

Micah 4:9-10: Now, why do you cry loudly? Is there no king among you, or has your counselor perished, that agony has gripped you like a woman in childbirth? Writhe and labor to give birth, Daughter Zion, like a woman in childbirth. Micah 4-5 is a prophecy about the restoration of Jerusalem through . . . . Continue Reading »

Doctrine matters, and no doctrine matters more than the doctrine concerning Jesus Christ. Nestorius was the last of the major Christological heretics in the early church. He objected to the church’s declaration that Mary was the “God-bearer,” the “theotokos.” No human . . . . Continue Reading »

Sweeney says that “to little to be among the thousands of Judah” (Micah 5:2) means “too young,” and alludes to the “younger son” theme of the Old Testament. This specifically refers to David, the younger son of Jesse. But why “too young to be among the . . . . Continue Reading »

The following notes summarize M. A. Sweeney’s marvelous exegesis of Micah 4-5 (in the Berit Olam) series. In 4:8 and again in 5:2, Micah addresses particular places. The first, 4:8, is an address to “Daughter Zion” which is also identified as “Migdal-eder,” a phrase . . . . Continue Reading »

Commenting on Micah 4:6-8, M.A. Sweeney notes, “the return of the blind and lame remnant of Jacob to Jerusalem (Jer 31:8) points to the lame (solea) figure of Jacob in Gen 32:32. Jacob’s exile from the land of Israel to Aram in order to find a bride and to escape the wrath of his . . . . Continue Reading »

There are 12 minor prophets, but these 12 individual books also make up a single book, the “Book of the Twelve.” Like Israel, the minor prophets are both one and many, 12 books and one book. Not only do these prophets form a single book, but the book is neatly arranged, like the other . . . . Continue Reading »