“The explorer, duly trained in safety, now has his eye on the horizon, and no interest in safety.”

If you are the only person in the world doing a particular something, you are either a madman or a pioneer. As it was with the prophets, only time will tell whether it is the former or the latter. Pursuing a vision that no one else shares can seem like arrogance when it is in fact simple certainty. The future that is home to Noah understandably alienates everyone else. The only way to bring new comfort to the many—in both sacred and secular endeavors—is to step outside of one’s own comfort zone…

The work of systematic typology is not out in the wilderness, nor even outside the camp, but it is certainly out on a limb. Is it a maverick voice from beyond the status quo, sent from left of field to change the game? Only time will tell. Count me a fool, but advent never comes without prior adventure.

Schema Volume 2 is available here.

“The seven days of Genesis 1 are a chiasm, and therefore these sections are a chiasm. The Adam who doesn’t come to rule at the beginning is answered by the Adam who does come to rule at the end.”

Adapted from James B. Jordan, “The Life of Jacob,” Biblical Horizons No. 258, July 2017.

Genesis has a sevenfold structure. Many books of the Bible, including Revelation, have the same structure. The book is marked out in sections by a phrase that is found about ten times in the book: these are the generations of. Chapter 5:1: “These are the generations of Adam.” Chapter 6:9: “These are the generations of Noah.” The word “generations” in Hebrew is toledot. The “ot” is a feminine plural ending. “Sabbaot”—Lord of sabbaoth—Lord of hosts—armies. “Im” is masculine plural—“Elohim”—plural of “El” or God—majestic God, or many gods. Toledot is the plural of generation—toledah, and the reason I mention that is that these sections of Genesis are called toledah sections.

There are ten of these sections, but if you look at it more carefully you notice that some of the sections are grouped so that we come up with seven sections. The structure of Genesis consists of an introduction and then seven sections that correspond to the seven days of Genesis 1…

This sequence of seven speech actions is the way God always works with the world… That is why Genesis has seven sections, and why the first seven books of the Bible follow the same format. Genesis is the book of the first day. Exodus is where the firmament is made—the firmament people—that is the Tabernacle. Leviticus has to do with flesh and blood, plants and seeds. Numbers has to do with stars. Deuteronomy has to do with the organisation of a group of people. Joshua has to do with planting of a people int he land. Judges has to do with sin bringing a time to its fulfillment on the Sabbath Day. The Spirit works that way, and that is why the Bible is written as it is.

Now, the first section we have is the generations of the heaven and earth, what the heaven and earth brought forth. The heaven and earth bring forth—they marry—and bring forth humanity. What is generated by the heavens and the earth? Genesis 2:4, “This is the generation of the heaven and the earth after they were created in the day Yahweh God made earth and heaven.” Verse 7, “Then Yahweh God formed man of dust (not clay) of the ground,”—that’s the earthy part—“and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”—that’s the heavenly part. The Spirit comes from heaven into dust, the marriage of earth and heaven, and man is formed. That is what the heavens and the earth generate. They generate Adam. And Adam generates Eve, and Adam and Eve generate Cain and Abel and Seth. That’s the generation of the heaven and earth, and what the heavens and earth bring forth is Adam.

This corresponds to day one—the creation of heaven and earth out of formlessness corresponds to the creation of man. The earth was formless and the Spirit of God moved in. Dust is about as formless as you can get. A brick has form. A rock has form. Clay has form. Dust has no form. Man wasn’t made of clay, but of dust. It is formless, and then God’s Spirit comes into it as a parallel to day one. In Genesis 2 the creation of man corresponds to the creation of light on day one. Genesis 2 has the same sevenfold fold outline as Genesis 1. In Genesis 2 the phrase “The Lord God did” follow the same sequence as in Genesis 1, and forming man is parallel to making light on the first day, which is followed throughout Bible. Human beings are lights, stars, etc.

The comes the separation of light and darkness on day one. “God separated the light from the darkness, he saw the light was good. He called the light day, and the darkness he called night.” That separation theme is carried through in this section of Genesis by the judgment on man where he is separated from the Garden, and then primarily the separation of Cain and Abel into a darkened and light kind of people. This second section goes down to the end of Genesis 4.

The next section is the generations of Adam. Chapter 5 says, “This is the book of the generations of Adam,” and then it talks about Adam. Adam had a son in is likeness named Seth, so Adam generates Seth, and then Enosh, Kenan, Mehalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah.

This corresponds to the establishment on the second day of the firmament to separate waters above from waters below. The godly line of Seth is the human form of that firmament, and the corruption of that line is answered by the removal of the firmament and the re-coalescence of the waters in the flood.

The godly line stands between, as Adam was supposed to do from the beginning, heaven and earth. There was a mountain rising up out of the earth, and on the mountain stood the priest who mediated between God and man. Symbolically speaking, this was Adam’s position in the firmament—below God and above the world. That is the position of the godly line that comes from Adam, the Sethites. The creation of the Sethite race, as opposed to the Cainite race, is equivalent to the formation of the firmament, linked with that aspect of creation week. This is the second toledot section in Genesis and it relates to the firmament. All of the things made in the first week have a human equivalent now in this story. This group of human beings is placed between heaven and earth.

Noah brings forth Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and the whole “table of nations” comes from them. Just as in Day 3 of Genesis 1 there are two section where land and sea are separated, and then the plants are put on the earth—two actions on the third day. So here, the separation of land and sea is answered by the flood, and then the fact that as the flood receded we have a new separation of land and sea. This is very much the same language as in Genesis 1.

And then the multiplication of plants on the land is answered by the table of nations in Chapter 10. “These are the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth…” This is another subsection of toledot. The 70 nations grow up, which are the plants on the earth. Does the book of Genesis symbolize humans as plants? Yes, it does, and that is clear from the very first chapters when God says that the earth will bring forth thorns and thistles. Man is made of earth, and what is the next thing that happens after God says the earth will bring forth thorns and good things? First there is Cain, then Abel. But that isn’t where it starts. It starts when God says that the seed of the woman will defeat the seed of the serpent. Women don’t have seeds in a biological sense. In Genesis 1 the plants are said to have seeds about 8 or 9 times and establishes what is meant. In vs. 11 God says, “Let the earth sprout forth vegetation, plants seeding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit with seed in them on the earth.” And the earth brought forth vegetation, verbs seeding seeds after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them after their kind. On and on the word “seed” goes. I have given you every plant seeding seed, and every tree having fruit yielding seed.

The seed of a plant comes when it blooms and has seed to become the next generation. The seed of the woman comes when she blooms by getting pregnant and has the next generation. The seed of the woman is the child, but this is plant language. So to make people analogous to plants is right there in Genesis. We are in the third section of Genesis, and we read about all these nations, which are plants growing and spreading all over the earth.

Then for the fourth day section we have the generations of Shem—just a short section. The fourth day is when the lights are put in the heavens, and the Shemites are the new light bearers to rule the heavens. Genesis 9:26 says, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave.” Shem has the responsibility for worship. Japheth needs to dwell in the tents of Shem, which means to come to worship. Shem is designated as the line of the covenant seed, and that will later be specified to be Weber, and then Abram, then Isaac, and then Jacob. This is a series of narrowing specification. This is the firmament line of light bearers who maintain God’s truth in the firmament position between heaven and earth.

The fifth section in Genesis is the generations of Terah. What did Terah bring forth? He brought forth Abraham, so this is the Abraham narrative (Genesis 11:27). Terah brought forth Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Corresponding to Day 5 when great swarming creatures were made and God gave his first command to any creature, these themes of multiplication and law are highlighted in the story of Abram, which Genesis 11:27-25:11 delineate. In fact, this theme of multiplication and swarms of people is greatly emphasized here. God says to Abraham, “Your seed will be like the stars of the heavens, like the sand of the sea,” and not only that, Abraham’s brother, Nahor, has twelve children (Genesis 22:20-24). The whole theme of having twelve children starts here, which is multiplication. If you have twelve children you haven’t just reproduced, you have multiplied.

It is part of the “patience” theme that is one of the major themes of Genesis. Abraham has to look over at his brother and say, “He has twelve children,” and then Isaac has to look over at Ishmael and say the same thing while his wife is barren. Abraham has to say the same thing, finally he has just one child. At every point the believers are being told to wait and be patient, while God is giving numerous children to all the unbelievers, or at least those not marked by Divine election to service.

The next section is the generations of Ishmael and Isaac, two section that need to be grouped together as one. In Genesis 25:12 are the twelve sons of Ishmael who are twelve princes, and then vs. 10 gives the generations of Isaac.

We have the generations of Terah, which is the Abraham narrative, and then we have the generations of Isaac, which is the Jacob narrative. You will notice there is no section called the generations of Abraham. There is no Isaac section. There is an Abraham section, a Jacob section, and the ones ones are the generations of Jacob which is the Joseph/Judah section. The Jacob section is a very carefully constructed chiasm, as is the Abraham section. These are very carefully constructed literary units. The first part of Isaac’s life is in the Abraham section when he is a son, and the second half is in the Jacob section where he is a father.

The generations of Ishmael and Isaac correspond to Day 6. Just as Day 6 had two sections—the creation of animals and the creation of man—the toledoth of Ishmael corresponds to the creation of helpful animals because the Ishaelistes are not enemies of Israel Ishmael is regenerated, and is in heaven. The Bible tells us so. They are helpers to Israel. And then the seance half of Day 6 is the creation of man, which corresponds to the generations of Isaac, and is concerned with Jacob, the man who is able to wrestle with God and prevail. This is what it means to be a real, true godly man.

And then the last section is the generations of Esau and Jacob. Genesis 36 is the generation of Esau. That is Cain, the bad thorny plant. The generation of Jacob is the story of Joseph and Judah that has to do with sabbath rest—coming into rest, enthronement, feeding the entire world, and living in the best part of the land. Trace it through in Genesis. It says that the area of the city of Sodom was like the circle of the Jordan, like the Garden of Eden. Then it says that the land of Goshen was the best part of Egypt, and it was like the circle of the Jordan. Being put in Goshen was the equivalent to being put back in the Garden of Eden. Genesis ends with a return to full redemption and Sabbath rest in the story of Joseph. Everything broken has been fixed, at least partially. When we get to Exodus we find that it falls apart. It is Jesus who has to bring the full and final restoration. The generations of Esau in chapter 36 point to the fall of man, which happened on the Sabbath. A false Sabbath rest is given to Esau as he multiplies and takes control, while true Sabbath rest is given to the godly in the land of Goshen.

This is a general chiastic structure. The seven days of Genesis 1 are a chiasm, and therefore these sections are a chiasm. The Adam who doesn’t come to rule at the beginning is answered by the Adam who does come to rule at the end. Adam was supposed to mature and rule, but he didn’t. Joseph does. Adam makes his own clothes. Joseph is given robes by those who honor him. Adam is not honored and not given robes—just bloody animal skins.

It still seems a bit odd for the title of the Abraham narrative to be called the generations of Terah, since it turns out to be all about Abraham. The reason for that is that it is the seed of the woman, the second Adam, who is going to accomplish everything. At every point in Genesis it is the son, the next person in line who is going to accomplish tings, who is going to save the world and be the Messiah. That is the first thing Eve says when she gives birth to Cain. That is why the book is laid out the way it is—the book of generations—the father isn’t adequate, so the son has to come and accomplish the mission. That son turns out to be inadequate, so his son has to come and do it until the coming of Jesus who is the fully capable Son.

If you are not familiar with the Bible Matrix, you must put this book down at once!

Introduction from Schema Volume 1

Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew 13:51-52)

If you are not familiar with the Bible Matrix, you must put this book down at once! Clearly, you are literate, but unfortunately not in the way that this particular book requires.

Schema assumes that the reader is familiar with “systematic typology,” the study of the historical and literary fractal pattern that governs the composition of the Bible, revealing not only its beauty but also its internal logic and depth of meaning. It also assumes that the reader has some level of proficiency in the symbolic language of the Bible, as explained by James B. Jordan in his groundbreaking work Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World. If this is not you, then you have some catching up to do. However, if you delight in the Bible as I do, this work will be a labor of love. The discovery of its musical poetry and miraculous integration is food for the soul of the saint far beyond the standard fare, a feast of kingly delicacies and top shelf liquor to which you are heartily invited.

The analyses that follow vary in complexity but each reveals another facet of the Bible as a literary wonder. Since every part of the Scriptures bears the same image and plays upon the same pattern, each text sheds light on every other text. The number of possible combinations and comparisons is practically infinite, so centuries of rewarding work in this fresh field of study lie ahead of us.

If my warnings fail to discourage you and you are tempted to steal a taste of this royal fruit, perhaps venture into the first few chapters. It is a steep path but there is scenery enough from the mountain peaks in Chapter One to give you a glimpse of the implications of this method and the adventures that await you. From the lofty heights of even these elementary points, your primary discovery might just be the schooled myopia of the uninspired scribes who currently govern Christian academia.

Since more can be said about every passage than is recorded here, I exhort you to meditate upon each one for yourself. You will observe things never previously noticed by mortal eyes, Easter eggs hidden in the text by our Father for those with the faith of a child. My personal finds are now prized possessions and dear literary companions, but most of all they are revelations of the nature of miracles—beautiful, inexplicable, and fully formed from the beginning, just like the Creation itself.

Since I am not the author of these works, merely the one who is unearthing ancient treasures from the depths of the mind of God, I hope these discoveries bring as much joy, wonder, and bolstering of faith to you as they have to me.

Is it possible for a book of contemplative theology to be neo noir?

INTRODUCTION to Dark Sayings: Essays for the Eyes of the Heart

In some ways, this collection of essays does resemble a detective novel: there are mysteries to solve, it always seems to be night-time, conventional methods are ignored, and nothing is what it appears to be.

The Bible demonstrates that all good theology is not only a story, it is a movie, and not only a movie, but a movie deliberately designed to perplex, surprise, and unsettle us.

We can easily identify classic film noir by the constant opposition of light and shadow, its oblique camera angles, and its disruptive compositional balance of frames and scenes, the way characters are placed in awkward and unconventional positions within a particular shot, for example. But besides these technical cinematic characteristics, there are a number of themes that characterize film noir, such as the inversion of traditional values and the corresponding moral ambivalence… the feeling of alienation, paranoia, and cynicism; the presence of crime and violence; and the disorientation of the viewer, which is in large part accomplished by the filming techniques mentioned above.¹1 Mark T. Conrad (editor), The Philosophy of Film Noir, 2.

However, while the anxiety, alienation, romance, and dark wit (hopefully) remain, this book reserves noir’s hard-boiled cynicism and nihilism for the foibles of those who rebel against God. For the Christian writer-director, the darkness is only a device employed to bring the reader to the light. The deliberate ambiguities are only temporary cowls that eventually will be stripped away. Like the Bible, which, if we are honest, is a very dark book, these dark sayings, in their fundamental mindset and ultimate trajectory, are unshakably optimistic.

The “shadow” is a psychological term for everything we cannot see in ourselves. Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson tells us that, in light of the Jungian practice of shadow work, growing in maturity includes developing a consciousness of one’s “inner psychopath.”²Jordan Peterson, 2017 Maps of Meaning 11: The Flood and the Tower and 2017 Personality 08: Carl Jung and the Lion King (lectures). As the testing of Adam teaches us, a truly good person is not one who is harmless, but one who, like Solomon, has learned to bear the sword in the cause of righteousness. Each individual must come to terms with his own Adamic “blind spot” (Matthew 7:3-5), his personal capacity for evil.

A commitment to truth is always a fight, which is why cowards often disguise their cowardice as morality. Shadow work strips away the personas, the veils of hypocrisy which we wear to dissociate ourselves from primitive desires, the “monsters from the Id.” According to Peterson, a persona is “the mask you wear to convince yourself and the world that you’re not a terrible monster so that when you face the mirror you don’t have to run away screaming.”³Jordan Peterson, August 2017 Patreon Q&A.

The problem with Jung and Peterson is that the mirrors of modern psychology are only broken shards, fragments of a moral framework bequeathed to us by our Christian heritage. The Word of God is the only true mirror.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (James 1:23-24).

Thus, reading the Bible is itself a form of shadow work, and a good work of theology should be a house of mirrors. The architectural aspect of this process is almost always understated, by academics and laypeople alike. The features of God’s Temple are expressions of His character, but God works in iterations, in fractals.⁴See “The Bible is a Fractal” in Michael Bull, Reading the Bible in 3D. The cruciform shape and interactive elements of the Sanctuary of God inform every sphere of being. The cubic Holy of Holies behind the Temple veil was a golden tesseract,⁵In geometry, the tesseract is the four-dimensional analog of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eight cubical cells. The tesseract is one of the six convex regular 4-polytopes. a construct of parallel “mirrors” in which every side is exposed, a multi-layered dream, the spring of boundless possibilities, a symbol of the hidden mind of God, an eternal light that was quite literally dressed in an ephemeral darkness. Welcome to The Infinite Room.

So much for the exploration of the arcane. What makes this book neo-noir? It is the fact that the claustrophobic corridors and stairwells, the smoky offices with drawn blinds, and the rain-washed streets of the Dark City of our current theological zeitgeist might suddenly dissolve, leaving you dangling in space above the earth, or deposited in the primeval past or far distant future. The present writer is an imp who deals with shadows internal and external, from the hidden things of the human heart to the hidden things of God. Let him take you from the valley of the shadow of death to the court of heaven, from a dark desert highway to a wing of the Temple, from the unfathomable shades of the ego to the outer reaches of the universe. After all, what could go wrong?

Lend yourself to this holy terror, and he will endeavor — though will not guarantee — to have you delivered safely home before dawn.

Michael Bull
Katoomba, January 2018

I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
(Psalm 78:2)

ART: Not to be reproduced, Rene Magritte (1937)

“What makes Michael Bull’s books both brilliant and maddening is their conciseness.”

What makes Michael Bull’s books both brilliant and maddening is their conciseness. Writing as a graphic-artist, he lays out the text, and in fact the whole book, in a form that takes the shape of his subject. On one hand, this book on the Revelation is easy to read. In fact, the first half of the book is a summary of the whole Bible and how the shape of creation in Genesis shapes the rest of the text. This is called the “Matrix” pattern. He explains how these themes are repeated and applied to different circumstances. The second half of the book applies this “Matrix” to the book of Revelation. This means he has expertly condensed a monumental amount of information into those last a hundred pages or so! In many ways, this book is much more like brilliant lecture notes that allow you to explore a topic more fully on your own… after you have been introduced to the topic.

This book can be maddening to read, so you have to know that it is worth it. And it is worth it. Beside the format, another aspect that can make this book maddening is that you have to suspend all your preconceived notions about “End Times.” Debates such as those about “Post-Trib” or “Pre-Trib” that are so divisive, yet they are not easily avoided. While I agree with most of Michael’s points in the book, some of his statements struck me as cryptic and sent me searching for substantiation. Sometimes I could make the connections, sometimes I couldn’t. This could fuel his critics.

The book is maddening, but it is brilliant. Even if you don’t understand or agree with much in Michael’s premises, the connections he makes with the texts is rewarding. Any one of his outlines can yield a wealth of biblical insight… and I find that more valuable than having someone confirm what I might already think. While I agree with most of the conclusions of this book, I am sure these “Matrix” outlines (“T.H.E.O.S.”) will be valuable even to those who hold a different dispensational view of history. I think Michael is really onto something by seeing Moses as Revelation’s major interpreter.

For me, I found the book more rewarding and understandable read in light of where it is going. It may have been helpful to have included a section titled, “How to use this book.” I suggest reading chapter 5 and then the last two chapters (13 & 14) right after the introduction, before reading the rest of the book. This will clear your mind of how he sees the big picture fitting together. The rest of the book backs up that vision. I highly recommend this book. It is a much needed word that brings a fruitful simplicity to the text and answers many critics’ complaints about the Bible.

You can read the introduction to Moses and the Revelation here.

The book of Revelation polarises Christians. Some become obsessed with ‘cracking its code’ while others throw it into the too hard basket. Thankfully, recent advances in biblical theology enable us to liberate this enigmatic book from both mistreatment and obscurity.

The prophecy is attractive to some because of its mystery, its beauty and its terror, and also because interpreting it promises access to divine knowledge about future events. But when it comes to its application in everyday life, most pastors are unwilling to venture beyond the letters to the seven churches in their preaching, since these offer some easily identifiable and practical moral advice.

Continue reading at ethos.org.au.

Why do serious theologians persist with a story that reads like third-rate fan fiction?

This is a response to Andrew Wilson’s recent thinktheology post, “Nephilim, Anakim, and Why We Care.”

As the proponents of paedobaptism and full preterism doggedly continue to demonstrate, even the brightest theologians are susceptible to crazy ideas. Unsurprisingly, both of these erroneous doctrines – along with the “fallen angels” reading of Genesis 6 – are the result of a common flaw, and that flaw is a failure to put a finger on the pulse of the actual story.

Substandard fan fiction suffers from the same deficiency: while it is enthralled by the features of the original narratives, it mistakenly identifies these facets as the heart of the story rather than merely elements through which its genius is expressed. While paedobaptism, full preterism, and the “fallen angel” reading of Genesis 6 all manage to scrape together some semblance of support from the Scriptures, they seem oblivious to how “out-of-character” their stories are as intended explanations (or perhaps more correctly, adoring extensions) of the Bible. Many of the trappings of the sacred texts are present, which gives them a veneer of authenticity, but the internal logic – the unseen principle which governs the originals and makes them so captivating – is missing. As with the authors of substandard fan fiction, the driving force of the biblical narrative has not been comprehended by some of its most committed fans.

Ignorance of Covenant Structure

Wilson writes:

I take it as read that the Nephilim (Gen 6:1-4) were the results of sexual relations between angels and women. Many don’t, and I used not to, but I now find the Jewish and early Christian witness compelling, the alternatives (Sethites and Cainites? Kings and harems?) quite unconvincing, and the best counterargument something of a tangent. (For those who are counting, the best counterargument is that Jesus says in Matthew 22:30 that it is impossible for angels to have sex. The obvious response to which is simply: no, he doesn’t.)

Despite the fact that angels are never mentioned in Genesis 6, Wilson has mistakenly written off the intermarriage of Sethites and Cainites as being the best explanation of the story. This is because not only have modern theologians atomised the Bible, they have failed to comprehend the text as repeated iterations of the same sacred architecture. We do not have the freedom to treat the interpretation of Genesis 6 as a multiple choice question in an exam because all the questions in this exam have the same answer. Let me explain.

The history from Adam to Noah is a “macrocosmic” recapitulation of the testing of Adam. The step in the narrative where Adam and Eve grasp equality with God corresponds to the rise of these “god-like” mighty men in Genesis 6, the ultimate outcome of the “seed of the serpent.” This most likely explains the word nephilim which is derived from the word for fallen. These men were no more the offspring of angels than was Cain, who failed to “rule over sin” and instead established his own rival kingdom. Even more significantly, the step where the Lord covered Adam’s sin in Genesis 3 corresponds to the point where God revoked the Edenic atonement through animal blood and covered the entire world. The sin of Adam was “the one,” that is, the cultus, and the sin of the sons of God was “the many,” that is, the outcome of the same sin in the culture. The “fruit” that was stolen was the daughters of men, and they were not stolen by angels but by those, like Adam, who had access to the Sanctuary.

This raises another point: every biblical Covenant is a tour of duty, with a mission, a prize, and accountability. Adam faced blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. The fivefold pattern of the commission in Genesis 2 establishes the sevenfold shape of the entire Edenic narrative.

Although an angel was involved in the temptation, it was only its “bestial” earthly counterpart which suffered a humiliating curse, since it was part of the world which God had promised to put under Adam’s feet. The angel was actually exalted to a place in the heavenly court, not as an advocate for mankind but as an accuser, an office he held until the ascension of Christ. Thus, the flood was the curse upon those who had broken the “new covenant” established by God in the shedding of sacrificial blood. The angels were not under any Covenant obligation which is why, for angels, who are mere servants and not sons, there is no redemption.

This micro/macro relationship between Eden and the world is the reason why both narratives work through the pattern established in Genesis 1. To help us to understand it, this pattern is later expressed not only in the elements of the Tabernacle, but also in Israel’s annual festal calendar (Leviticus 23):

Noah, whose name means rest, becomes the “Day 7” of the process, the first man to bear the sword on God’s behalf as the legal representative of heaven upon the earth. He entered into God’s rest and brought Sabbath to the entire world. Since Noah qualified, the word “covenant” is mentioned for the first time in the Bible.

This point concerning Covenant structure might seem obscure or perhaps even irrelevant to some but it is in fact the most potent argument against the “sons-of-God-were-angels” theory.¹If you care to study the fundamentals of the Bible’s fractal “Covenant-literary” structure, there are some helpful links here. The purpose of this sevenfold process is spiritual maturity. The Lord calls all men to submit to Him that He might exalt us. Priesthood must precede kingdom, just as it did in the history of Israel, and in the ministry of Christ. This is the core of the entire Bible. If we are humble, we will be lifted up. Adam was promised a kingdom but he would only qualify for government if he first submitted to God. It was the same for Jesus, of course, who now possesses all authority in heaven and on earth. What Adam seized, Jesus was given as a gift.

Following Adam’s sin, this rivalry between priesthood and kingdom became incarnate in Cain and Abel. The result was the division of humanity into a priestly line (the Sethites) and a kingly line (the Cainites). The priestly line continued to shed the blood of sacrifices on behalf of sinful people, but the kingly line rejected the mercy of God and instead shed the blood of human beings in unmitigated vengeance. Thus, the intermarriage between priests and kings led to the end of God’s mercy and long-suffering. The ultimate irony is that God once again gathered animals, as He had in Eden, but He destroyed all those who rejected the ministry of substitutionary atonement via the blood of “priestly” domestic beasts.

This revoking of mercy explains the reference to there being “no more sacrifice for sins” in Hebrews 10:26. Almost all mankind had trampled underfoot the blood of the Covenant established in Eden, just as the Jews rejected the offering of Christ for the sins of the world. That is why this exact Adam-to-Noah pattern can be overlaid upon the history of the Apostolic Church. Jesus, as Abel, was slain, which led to the prophetic warnings of the Apostles, as Noah, and finally a judgment which Jesus warned would not only be as sudden as the flood in the days of Noah, but would also bring an end to the “kingly” sins of the Herods, including intermarriage for political gain:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-40)

This rejection by Wilson of the Sethite/Cainite solution is due to an ignorance of the Bible’s consistency, which is governed by its Covenant-literary structure. However, it is also an outcome of a failure to understand the reason for the establishment of the Circumcision and the Law, which founded and set apart an entire nation as a priesthood which was prevented from intermarriage with the other “kingly” nations. This act by God was necessary to avoid another global judgment, and to maintain a faithful shedding of substitutionary blood on behalf of all nations. This gives us the context of the downfall of Solomon through intermarriage with idolaters, the destruction of the Temple, and of Ezra’s blunt condemnation of the Israelites’ marriages with pagans during the exile. This theme of the confusion of priestly and kingly offices through intermarriage runs throughout the Bible, and is an expression of the fundamental core: man’s unwillingness to humble himself before heaven and his theft of the promised dominion over the earth. If this were understood by most theologians, bogus theories like sex with angels would be relegated to the dust bin where they belong.

Fruit of Land and Womb

Wilson continues:

I also take it as read that the Anakim, the sons of Anak whom we meet in the book of Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua, are descended from the Nephilim: “And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” (Numbers 13:33). Which is to say that, when Israel first spied out and then conquered the Land, there were very large individuals milling around, who could trace their lineage back to sexual relations between angels and women. Bizarre, admittedly. But biblical.

This claim by the Israelite spies looks like solid evidence only if we ignore the greater Covenant context. Firstly, it must be noted that the spies were executed for their “evil report,” so its veracity must be questioned. It is possible that they were exaggerating in an attempt to deceive their fellows, and simply threw in “of the nephilim” to terrify the Israelites. But does the word refer to an actual tribe whom everyone knew could trace their descent from the antediluvians, or does the Hebrew phrase simply mean “from among the giants”? After all, there were other over-sized warriors in and around the Land of Canaan.

Secondly, the notion that the nephilim as Nephilim, a separate people which somehow managed to survive interbreeding and was able to pass on its genetic attributes through the many centuries following the flood, is not only highly improbable, it also fails to explain how this people evaded inclusion in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, which contains no mention of Anak or Nephilim. Moreover, where were these Nephilim when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sojourned in the Land? The giant Goliath was a Philistine, and we know that the Philistines shared a common descent with the Egyptians as sons of Mizraim, a son of Ham (Genesis 10:6). It seems far more likely that the stature of these people was due more to the abundance of food now available in Canaan than merely genetic factors, just as the average height of various races throughout recent history has increased as diet has improved.

Thirdly, and related to the second point, are we also to assume that the size of the haul of grapes from the Valley of Eshcol is due to its lineage from antediluvian grapes? The point of these observations concerning size is that the barrenness of the land promised to Abraham had been reversed by God, along with the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. The Adamic curses (from Genesis 3) were placed upon Abraham on behalf of all nations that they might be reversed by faith, the kind of faith in God which Adam had not demonstrated. (For more discussion, see Stones and Fruit: Divination and Procreation.) After four centuries, not only would the numerous oak trees planted by Abraham now be fully grown, but the size of the fruit of the Land and the fruit of the womb in the Land (its people) showed that it was now ripe for the taking. The mighty people of the Land were to be crushed like grapes, and their houses and vineyards seized as an inheritance for the righteous. The strength and the possessions of these kingly usurpers would be possessed by a priestly people as a witness to the power of God. Israel would defeat the Canaanites just as David would later bring about the fall of Goliath, the one who had called down the Covenant curses upon the people of God, and ultimately (but indirectly) King Saul, who was also a giant bearing a spear. The mighty men (gibborim) of the earth (including its nephilim) would fall before the mighty men of heaven, those whose victories resulted not from the strength of their limbs but from their faith in God (Psalm 147:10). The grapes of Eshcol were a promise of the same kind of rest enjoyed by Noah, so it should be no surprise that the “heptateuch” (the narrative from Joshua to Judges) follows the sevenfold pattern above. Interestingly, just as the nephilim appear at the centre of the Adamic/Noahic narrative, so David and Solomon appear at the center of the Old Testament narrative (see Destroy This Temple).

Numbers 13:33 can only be regarded as evidence for angel-human sexual relations if we lose our grip on the metanarrative of the Torah, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy. Like many others, Wilson fails to interpret every text within the context of Covenant and thus misses the point of the story.

The End of all Flesh

The question is: why do we care? Besides being an intriguing sideshow that raises smirking questions on training courses, why does it matter? Let me suggest two reasons, both of them apologetic in nature.

The first is that they provide a biblical basis for biological continuity between antediluvians and postdiluvians. (Or, in English: they demonstrate that some people on earth, besides Noah’s family, survived the flood.) If everyone on earth apart from Noah’s family had died, then there would be nobody left who was descended from (min) the Nephilim—but the Anakim show that this is not the case. Therefore it is likely that, even from the perspective of Israelites in the Bronze Age, the cataclysmic flood did not wipe out every single person on planet earth outside the ark. Rather, it suggests that the scope of phrases like “the whole land” (qol erets) and “all mankind” (qol adam) is limited to the ancient Near East. Which, given that this was the entire world known to the writers at the time, is exactly what we would expect. It also indicates that attempts to demonstrate geologically that the flood covered the Himalayas are, at least, unnecessary.

I admire Wilson’s commitment to exegesis for the purpose of apologetics, but he fails on both counts.

Firstly, anyone who claims that the Great Flood was local has overlooked the fact that Adam was intended to be the legal representative of “all flesh.” Due to his failure, and the subsequent failure of the culture established by his offspring, “all flesh” was condemned to die “in him.” If anyone had survived the flood, then there were human beings who were outside of the jurisdiction of God. This also goes for those who claim (with a breathtaking cognitive dissonance and an even greater deficiency in basic logic) that the events in Genesis 2 are simply a “liturgical” description of Adam being chosen from among other human beings and given a special role or office before God. There were no “Adamites.” We are all Adamites. That is the foundation of Paul’s theology of the atonement. No one was outside the Noahic Covenant and no one is outside the jurisdiction of Christ. The separation of the human race came with the call of Abraham, not Adam. To claim otherwise is to pervert the narrative beyond recognition in a game of “kick the can.” Moreover, what was the “Covenantal” reason for the disinheritance of Adam’s contemporaries? Had they sinned in some way before Adam sinned? The miraculous integrity of the narrative exposes any tinkering for what it is: disingenuous theological posturing resulting from cowardice and unbelief. (For more discussion, see “Jenga Bible” in Michael Bull, Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.)

The real reason behind any toleration of the notion of a local flood is a desire to bow to the paganism which currently masquerades as science, the monkey religion which underpins every corruption in Western culture, and is quickly bringing about its end. As a friend once said, evolutionary theory – the unscientific assertion that chaos, sex and death somehow constitute a creative force – is just “Enuma Elish baptised in post-Enlightenment balloon juice.” Any attempt to harmonise the Bible with an old earth, let alone evolution, is an exercise in futility, and requires basic logic to be sacrificed on the altar of a misplaced faith.

However, what really concerns me here is the failure to understand the Promised Land of Canaan as a microcosm of the “dry land” of Genesis. That is the reason why the same word is used. These “lands” were not equivalent in size any more than the Canaanites constituted all the people of the globe. Canaan was to be a sacrificial substitute for the actual “dry land,” serving as its legal representative before God (see Cosmic Language), and this representation was an act of mercy for the peoples of the world. The story of Abraham’s qualification is a local recapitulation of the global narrative from Adam to Noah (see Microcosmic Abram). To claim that these were both local not only misses the point of the ministry of Israel as a nation among nations, but also demonstrates an utter ignorance of the layered construction of Covenant history: the Abrahamic Covenant was not established in place of the Noahic Covenant but within it (see The Myth of Covenant Membership). The “floods” of troops which invaded Israel under the judgment of God were the reason floods of waters could be averted. Indeed, the original “flooding” of Canaan was the armies of Israel come to claim the Land promised to their fathers, and importantly, to execute God’s judgment upon its inhabitants. This brings us to Wilson’s second failure.

Genesis Matters

If we allow an extraneous theory such as angel-human sexual relations to skew our take on the narrative, we find that scales eventually grow over our eyes and we are unable to interpret the text faithfully. This is evident in Wilson’s (and Michael Heiser’s) erroneous explanation of the kherem warfare in the book of Joshua.

The second is that they provide vital context for the kherem warfare that took place in Canaan under Joshua. This is a point I had never seen until I read Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm recently, and in particular his description of the “Deuteronomy 32 worldview,” in which Yahweh has disinherited the nations and assigned them to the rule of lesser gods (Deut 32:8 etc). Heiser explains:

Israel is Yahweh’s elect portion of humanity, and the land of Canaan is the geography that Yahweh, as owner, specifically allotted to his people. In the view of the biblical writers, Israel is at war with enemies spawned by rival divine beings. The Nephilim bloodlines were not like the peoples of the disinherited nations … the target of kherem was the Anakim.

Heiser offers a number of clues that he is right about this. (1) The emphasis on giantism in the initial spying mission (for all that this has since been domesticated in contemporary preaching, the point is not just that the people are large, but that they are descended from rival deities). (2) The explicit statement that the Israelite spies had seen the Nephilim in the Land (Numbers 13:33). The giant-like descriptions of enemies of God who live in the land, from Og (Deuteronomy 3:11) to Goliath (1 Samuel 17) and beyond (2 Samuel 21; 1 Chronicles 20). (4) The way in which the summary of Joshua’s kherem conquests (Joshua 11:21-23) focuses on the obliteration of the Anakim: “And Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities. There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel.” (5) The fact that the very next verse points forward to the ongoing presence of giants in the land of the Philistines, who of course will be the key enemy for Samson, Samuel, Saul and David for the next couple of centuries: “Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some [Anakim] remain. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses” (Josh 11:22b-23). If Heiser is right here, then the motive for kherem warfare in Joshua was not merely the cleansing of God’s dwelling place, as we know, but the removal of the giant-like offspring of specific divinities.

So why should we care about the Nephilim and the Anakim? Partly because they help us think through the question of the global/local flood, and partly because they provide crucial context for our understanding of kherem warfare, which is one of the most pressing biblical challenges of our generation. And, of course, we should care about things that are in the Bible. There’s always that.

Wilson’s/Heiser’s misinterpretation of Genesis 6 (or failure to interpret it within the context of the biblical Covenants) renders them utterly clueless concerning the reason for the conquest of Canaan. And when I say clueless, I am not being cruel. They really have no idea what is going on. Instead of taking note of what is actually mentioned in the texts leading up to the kherem warfare, they seem totally oblivious to it, focussing instead on evidence for their bogus doctrine of some fictitious angelic bloodline within humanity. Not only does this lead to them offering a stupid “angel sex” explanation for “one of the most pressing biblical challenges of our generation,” they miss a golden opportunity to truly demonstrate the brilliance and integrity of the book of Genesis, and indeed the entire Bible.

The first and most heinous problem is the switch from the moral accountability of the people in the Promised Land to something which is merely racial or genetic. Modern skeptics love to level the charge of genocide against the nation of Israel (and the one true God) but that can only be done if all the previous texts are ignored. Asserting that the necessary context is found in their errant reading of Genesis 6 does nothing to help matters. The warfare is still genocide, but now the targets are giants. They are not destroyed because they have sinned, what they have done, but because of who they are. Besides the incredible theory concerning their origin, this does nothing at all for Christian apologetics.

When Abraham sojourned in the Land, he did not “call upon” the name of the Lord. He “proclaimed” it. He was an evangelist. The people of Canaan were accountable to God, just as later Gentile nations surrounding Israel became accountable once they heard the way of salvation. The books of the prophets all begin with judgment at the house of God (Garden), work their way out into the disobedient tribes of Israel (Land), then out again into the local Gentiles (World). This pattern originated in the history of Adam-to-Noah. As with that history, the process is chiastic, working back into the Land and then into worship established in a new Garden (Noah’s vineyard). The New Testament, as a Covenant lawsuit against first century Israel does exactly the same thing, which is why the letters to the Gentile Churches are placed before the final warnings to Christian Jews, followed by the book of Revelation which begins with a glorified “son of Adam” surrounded by fiery trees and ends with a barrage of Joshua imagery. Jerusalem would be circumcised – “cut around” with a Roman trench – just as Jericho was marched around by a newly circumcised Israelite army. Jericho was a devoted (kherem) firstfruits of the Land, and Jerusalem was a devoted firstfruits of the World.

But to understand the giving of Canaan to the children of Abraham as an inheritance, we must look further back than Abraham. Noah had cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, pronouncing that he would serve as a slave to both of his brothers (see Out of His Belly). So when we reach the book of Exodus, the fact that the Hebrews were serving as slaves in Egypt, “the Land of Ham,” is intended to strike us with horror. But once again, we are clueless as to what is going on because modern theology – which does not take Genesis seriously – has carved the living Word up as if it were a corpse requiring an autopsy. The descendants of Shem not only destroyed the Land of Ham, they also inherited the Land of Canaan. The context is Noahic, and the conflict in Egypt and the conquest of Canaan are both examples of the rivalry between priesthood and kingdom, and the constant attempts to cut off – not corrupt or hijack – the seed of the Woman. This not only renders the angelic bloodline theory redundant, but it also serves as a witness to those who doubt the integrity of the Bible.

“No one makes it in the jump program on their first try, not even Neo.” Jacob Gucker’s review of Moses and the Revelation.

As a librarian at a theological seminary, I see books on Revelation and “End-times prophecy” frequently. Every time a pastor downsizes his personal library we get at least a few books in this vein and most of them are ephemeral and embarrassing. Michael Bull’s “Moses and the Revelation” is the sort of book I might overlook. It is self published. It lacks the marks of “scholarly” work, and it is filled with structural outlines that seem to make little sense as I peruse the book. Nevertheless, this book is both enriching and accessible for those who read in order to think.

The book is more accessible to certain people. Anyone who has read and enjoyed James B. Jordan and Peter Leithart, among others who view the Bible through a maximalist lens, will gain something from this book. Click “buy” if this is you. People who tend to read the Bible in large chunks at a time over many years will also have a leg up here.

The trick to reading this book successfully is to avoid the temptation to classify it or backwards-engineer Bull’s structural outlines right away. Try to look at the forest first, and then the trees. As an academic with both a Master of Divinity degree and a Master of Library Science degree, this is my tendency, and the book will not blossom for anyone who is looking to stack this book up with the others in this or that school of thought. Was it Søren Kierkegaard or Wayne Campbell who said, “If you label me, you negate me?” At any rate, he says where he’s coming up front. Like the book of Revelation itself, Bull is all about unveiling, not obscuring.

If you have no idea what Bull’s “Bible Matrix” is all about, he tells you. If you still don’t know what it’s all about, keep reading. No one makes it in the jump program on their first try, not even Neo. You don’t even have to believe in it. I’m not sure I do yet and I approve of this book whole-heartedly. I will say that the book of Revelation is a wonderful choice for explaining the Bible Matrix hermeneutic. It was somehow easier to approach the Bible Matrix through this book than Bull’s initial Bible Matrix book, which I also tried to backwards engineer the first time I opened it. If the Bible does have DNA and it can be seen with human eyes, the book of Revelation is certainly a place where it ought to be found. Furthermore, anyone who asks you to consider the book of Revelation in light of the first five books of the Bible is a good shepherd.

Avoid the temptation to read this book without opening the Bible. Don’t even try. In fact, read or skim through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy and then read Revelation in a single sitting. Then, read this book with your Bible open and you will be richly rewarded.

If I have any complaints it is that the information in this book is worthy of being more thoroughly explained, but perhaps that’s just my tendency to revere massive tomes of theology. Nevertheless, may this sort of writing about the Bible increase.

“Mike Bull has, once again, provided us with a unique tool for assisting us with reading the Bible. This time it comes in the guise of what essentially amounts to a guidebook for what has been forever-branded as the most difficult part of the Bible to understand.”

Jared Leonard’s review of “Moses and the Revelation.”

Imagine stumbling across this book in your search for more books to help you study your way through Revelation. You know, from past studies, that Revelation is the most Old Testament book in the New Testament but your brow is furrowed anyway because Moses isn’t often brought up in this context, at least not with top billing. It’s true that there are some parallels between Genesis and Revelation, but beyond that what does Moses have to do with things at the end? Turns out, he has quite a few interpretive tricks tucked away in his writings. Here are a few tips to help you leverage this wonderful tool Mike has laid on the table for you:

First, put all your study books and commentaries on Revelation away; go stick ’em back on the bookshelf, you won’t need them for now and there’s a good chance that, after this book, more than half of your collection will be put in your next garage/yard sale or taken to the nearest used books store. Don’t put away your Bible though! You will need it. Alright? Alright. Now, the reason for this step will be clear once you make your way through the brief introduction, suffice it to say here that Moses, being channeled through Mr. Bull, will be your new teacher on how to read and understand the last prophecy of Jesus. Oh, and make sure the Bible you are using is a) not a study Bible (because the notes will lead you astray!) and b) not a Bible you have written in yourself (because your notes will lead you astray!).

Next, have a notebook and a pen (or their digital equivalents) handy, unless you are one of those strange folks who like to write in your books. Even if you are such a person, take notes on the notebook first! You will need to go through this book a few times and the notes from your first read may not be compatible with your notes from your second read, so if you’ve written them in your book (or in your Bible) then you may need to do some striking; I’m just trying to save you some trouble here. Also, there are a ton of charts throughout the book and writing some of them out yourself is a helpful way to begin visualizing the text of the Bible, seeing how the pieces fit and flow together.

Thirdly, the book is divided into two parts. The first part is your interpretive re-education and the second part is applying that new education to the Revelation itself. Don’t move on to the second part until you have a mostly coherent grasp of the first part. Jumping into Revelation without understanding the patterns is a lot like being told to explain how a tapestry was crafted without having any knowledge about weaving. Moses (part one) gives us the warp-and-weft process so we can really get the full experience of being exposed to (and by) the contents of Revelation.

Fourth, don’t get discouraged if you can’t immediately see what is so “obviously clear” to Mike. This book has to break through centuries of Western culture’s theological and philosophical rust (hence why I suggested putting your other books away). It’s a rust so thick and seemingly ever-present that we don’t even notice it anymore, it’s just the way things are. But rust is a hindrance to movement and the removal process is never easy, or gentle. The end result, however, is always a magnificent freedom and it’s a freedom that will allow you to continue pursuing the greater glories buried in the depths of the Bible.

Lastly, take this blueprint and use it everywhere else in the Bible and outside the Bible too. Moses not only gives us the keys to understanding Revelation and everything that leads up to it, but also to having a biblical perspective on everything that has happened since the close of the canon. Why are America and Europe on the cultural paths they are on now? Because that’s how God adds to his kingdom. Every major cultural failing has brought about the growth of the Church. And every rising of the cultural phoenix brings us closer to the last cycle, after which there are no more fiery deaths (or serpents).

Don’t miss out on this chance to revolutionize your reading of Revelation!

You can read the introduction to Moses and the Revelation here. You can purchase the book in paperback or for Kindle here.

If we want to understand the book of Revelation, we must remember that it is at the end of the Bible, not the beginning.

There are many conflicting ideas concerning what this intriguing and terrifying book is about, but the Revelation is in fact a denouement, a revelation, of the natural world, like the last act of a whodunit.

To solve the case, we are going to call on the testimony of an expert witness: the prophet Moses. The events, characters and patterns established in the Torah are not only the foundation of the Old Testament prophets but also the keys to this enigmatic final prophecy.

The last book of the Bible cannot be understood without the first books of the Bible.

Coming soon – Moses and the Revelation: Why the end of the world is not in your future.