Professor Larry Hurtado, a prominent New Testament scholar, passed away on Monday [1]. He was highly respected in his field, as the tribute at Christianity Today and others posted by his colleagues and students can attest. Although a stranger living on another continent, he had a significant impact on me. Until about three years ago, I didn’t know that New Testament study was a serious scholarly discipline. I think it […]
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What is Humility: In Praise of Offense
You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. –Psalm 66:11-12 A Personal Story Let me preface this story by saying that I’ve lived a mostly sheltered life, and therefore am the least justified to take offence at anyone. I […]
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I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one’s self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one’s own powers.” –Sherlock Holmes “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter Although I was raised in a culture which ranks humility as a virtue, I never understood why it is a virtue, […]
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David Bentley Hart: That All Shall Be Saved
Preface In his new book That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation, David Bentley Hart argues, among other things, that the traditional doctrine of eternal punishment, of which Augustine is a main expounder, is immoral and unjust. As an armchair Augustinian, I’m sorely tempted to respond to this charge, to meet my accuser face to face, so to speak, and, if I know anything about Augustine, he […]
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Aeschines: Speeches
The Law of Audit In this city, so ancient and so great, no man is free from the audit who has held any public trust. For example, the law directs that priests and priestesses be subject to audit, all collectively, and each severally and individually—persons who receive perquisites only, and whose occupation is to pray to heaven for you ; and they are made accountable not only separately, but whole […]
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Demosthenes: On the False Embassy
On the False Embassy and On the Crown are Demosthenes’ two most important speeches, both on a personal and political level. In the former, he accused his political enemy Aeschines of treason deserving the death penalty; in the latter, he defended his own political career against the accusations of Aeschines. Suffice to say, there was no love lost between these two gentlemen. Of all the legal and political battles Demosthenes […]
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Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Brave New World is a first-class essay written as a third-class novel. It is intellectually stimulating, but emotionally and imaginatively barren, not to mention spiritually uninspiring — curiously similar to the world it envisions. I had known about it for a long time, but had not read it firsthand, and would probably never read it, if the philosopher Dr. Peter Kreeft hadn’t recommended it as one of twenty-six books people […]
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