Bully’s Blog

From Peter Leithart’s blog:

Jay McInerny reviews First Chapter: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard in the NYT. He says in part:

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or Smells Like Holy Spirit

A friend recently gave me a unique gift. With some difficulty and great expense, he sourced the ingredients for the anointing oil of the Aaronic priesthood and I was the grateful recipient of a small, blue vial.

The scent of the oil is intoxicating. You breathe it in and in some strange way you can “taste” it as it goes down. It is extremely complex and yet a single fragrance. Continue reading

Dr Leithart has very kindly written a foreword for Bible Matrix, which is a bare-bones-basic version of Totus Christus. It was a big ask, considering we have never met, but he has written the following. I hope his brave endorsement encourages you to look out for it when it becomes available. Stay tuned for updates.

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Peter Leithart writes:

Solomon’s temple had windows, but they are mentioned only once, in 1 Kings 6:4. Ezekiel’s description of the visionary temple uses the word “window” twelve times.

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Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”  Exodus 3:5

A sacrifice is literally a nearbringing. James Jordan suggests that instead of sacrifice or offering, a better translation of the word qorban would be “nearbringing”:

“The English “sacrifice” tends to connote the idea of giving something up for someone else. That has little if anything to do with qorban. “Offering” tends to connote a gift, which again has nothing to do with qorban. The word means to draw near, to get into close relationship with someone, and it is used only in relationship to God. We do not worship God by giving Him anything, for He needs nothing. We do not worship God by giving up anything good, for He is the one who has given us all good things. We worship God by drawing near to Him.” [1]

The first nearbringing was the marriage Covenant between Adam and Eve. There was blood when Adam was “divided” so that Eve might be “constructed.” [2] And we can assume that when Adam and Eve were first physically united there was also blood.

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6. Jesus Christ was not judge of the quick and the dead, because (according to preterists) He only judged the dead.

Jesus judged between the living and the dead in AD70. The true bride and the false bride were bodies of living people. Of course, part of the true bride was the Old Covenant saints (those “under the Altar”) who were dead.

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or Being a Truly Impure Thinker

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15

Peter Leithart wrote this week:

How do we know things? Experimentation, deduction, observation?

In Genesis, knowledge is first associated with two things – with food and with sex. There is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, whose fruit opens the eyes of Adam and Eve so that they perceive that they are naked. Then Adam knows his wife and she conceives Cain.

If we want a strictly biblical answer: Knowledge is eating. Knowledge is sex.

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[Link to parts 1 and 2.]

In Revelation 4-5, Jesus ascends and opens the New Covenant scroll (Firstfruits). As Moses, He then opens the Law to Israel (Pentecost). These open seals lead into the partial judgments of the Trumpets. They summon a new generation of Israel and warn the old. The last trumpet, as in Joshua, is itself “seven thunders” (John’s “Little Book”) that bring total destruction to the defiant city, in this case, Herod’s Babylon (Atonement). This is the last trumpet Paul referred to.[1]

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or Collision II

In the movie Collision, Christopher Hitchens relies a lot on the idea of a moral consensus, the idea that humanity has an innate sense of what’s right and what’s wrong and that we all agree on the basics. Is there any merit in this assumption? Or is Hitchens assuming that the benefits of Christianity are the result of human reason? Peter Leithart argues that Calvin, as an heir of 1200 years of Christendom, made exactly this mistake.

(I present below just the head and tail of Dr Leithart’s argument. I highly recommend getting a hold of the essay and reading his full argument and evidences.)

Excerpts from Did Plato Read Moses?

Peter Leithart on Middle Grace and Moral Consensus

The Bible presents a bleak view of the moral potential of the natural man. In this respect it seems to fly in the face of the facts. What are we to make of the empirical phenomenon of the “good pagan”?

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or Drive-By Typology

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Rome has this whole nutty Oedipus thing going. They want the infantile security of Mary’s breast when God calls them to grow up, to be as individuals men worthy of a bride’s affections, and corporately a bride who adores only her Husband!
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Verifying typological connections is a tricky business. Like driving, it is not a skill but an art. This means that although there are certain rules to follow, above all of that there are situations where being steeped in the types and structures of the Bible is the only way to proceed with wisdom. James Jordan recently commented that any such exegesis should be carried out within the conversation of the church, and:

“The popular notion that everyone should be able to read and exegete the Bible equally, as a result of learning some so-called “science” of hermeneutics, is about as stupid as thinking everyone can write music like Bach and Beethoven by studying the rules of harmony and counterpoint; or that anyone can be a Shakespeare.”

I’m no Shakespeare, but James Jordan’s identification of the biblical “universals” and an explanation of biblical types has helped me enormously. The Bible matrix structure has also helped me enormously. They are typological “systematics.” It is this kind of grounding, like practising scales on a piano, that enables us to more easily identify abuses of typology — such as the claim that Mary is a “New Eve.” Dischordant notes can be used to great effect in great music, but it takes a practised musician to know when it is within a greater “harmony” and when it is not. This is beyond the basic scales.

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