More from @ZoharAtkins

Zohar Atkins

@ZoharAtkins

May 19

Today is Lag B'Omer, a folkloric Jewish holiday that celebrates two things: 1) the life of Shimon Bar Yochai, purported author of my namesake, the Zohar 2) the abatement of a plague that killed 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. How do these two relate to one another?
(THREAD)

Rabbi Akiva and Shimon Bar Yochai both opposed Rome. Rabbi Akiva opposed Rome by backing the failed Bar Kochba revolt. Shimon Bar Yochai opposed it by speaking out, but then running away and hiding in a cave for 13 years.

Rabbi Akiva ends up dying a martyr's death at hands of Romans. He was not only politically active, but arguably politically incorrect; his battle failed. Bar Yochai's quietism didn't succeed in fending off Rome, either, but there's a happy medium between the two.

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Zohar Atkins

@ZoharAtkins

May 12

https://twitter.com/ZoharAtkins/status/1524475103010037766

This is my most personal piece to date, explaining why I think art is a bridge, why I care about bridge building, and laying out my life-work. I'll excerpt some pieces here, so THREAD!

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/art-is-the-b…

https://twitter.com/ZoharAtkins/status/1524475103010037766

The point of a life thesis is not simply to be right, but also, and more importantly, to be devoted. Before making my argument, however, it is important to know a bit about my story, and why I care about being a bridge in the first place. 2

I was raised in two worlds and have always lived in two worlds: the world of religion, faith, spirituality, tradition, and the world of secularism, rationality, skepticism, materialism. 3

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Zohar Atkins

@ZoharAtkins

May 3

A lot is made of the difference between King Saul and King David as characters, but one of the most glaring differences is that Saul's kingship is not contested, while David's is constantly opposed. 1/4

If Bible wanted to make the point that legitimacy and authority are the same, it would have made Saul's kingship contested and David's consensus. 2/4

But the whole force of the contrast is to argue that political legitimacy and true authority are not always the same. Saul is the legitimate ruler, but not an authority. David is an authority even as his legitimacy is challenged. 3/4

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Zohar Atkins

@ZoharAtkins

Apr 20

It's easy to get caught up in questions of doctrine, belief, or law when reading the Bible, but the Bible is also a work of art. My thoughts on what this means for how we read the Bible, with help from the magisterial Jed Perl:

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/authority-an…

@zenahitz

Open invitation to @zenahitz @jennfrey @KSPrior who care about Bible, hermeneutics, and art, to weigh in.

I think one reason I love Perl is that he makes a Straussian argument for close reading of art works, not just texts, while also countering the philosophical prejudice that sees art as subordinate to theory.

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Zohar Atkins

@ZoharAtkins

Mar 31

@threadapalooza

Giorgio Agamben (1942-present), Italian philosopher and philologist, is one of the most original, wide-ranging, and virtuosic thinkers and writers alive. This @threadapalooza is my tribute to a mind who is so much more than his headline-making politics.

But for the uninitiated, let's get in a brief word about Agamben's politics. After 9/11 turned down a position at NYU because entering the US would require him to submit himself to biometric finger-printing. Distrustful of the surveillance state this was too much. 2

More recently, and to the chagrin of left-liberals, Agamben has been a voice from the anti-capitalist left critical of Covid lockdowns, seeing the pandemic largely as a pretext for the consolidation of governmental power. Agamben is more of an anarchist than a Marxist. 3

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