Understanding the “Trinity” of the Bible’s Garden, Land, World architecture is one of the most helpful keys to making sense of the prophets, Matthew 24 and the Revelation. [1] James Jordan writes:

“The Bible repeatedly speaks of the ‘ends’ of the earth. Sometimes the word in Hebrew is ephes, which means ‘end, extreme limits, nothingness.’ Other times it is qatsah or qetsev, which means, again, ‘end, extremity.’ Deuteronomy 13:7, for instance, uses the expression ‘from one end of the earth to the other end.’  The same expression, or a reference to the ‘end of the earth,’ occurs in Deuteronomy 28:49, 64; 33:17; I Samuel 2:10; Psalm 19:4; 22:27; 46:9; 48:10; 59:13; 65:5; 67:7; 98:3; 135:7; Proverbs 17:24; 30:4; Job 28:24; 37:3; Isaiah 5:36; 24:16; 40:28; 41:5; 42:10; 45:22; 48:20; 49:6; 52:10; 62:11; Jeremiah 10:13; 16:19; 25:33; Micah 5:4.

Moreover, not only does the Bible indicate that the earth is flat and has ends, but it also teaches that the earth is square and has corners. Isaiah 11:12 says that God will ‘gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.’ Ezekiel 7:2 says that ‘the end is coming on the four corners of the earth.’ See also Revelation 20:8…

…now, how are we to understand the Biblical language at these points? Well, some references to the ‘ends of the earth’ actually refer to the ends of the land, the holy land (Jeremiah 12:12; Isaiah 26:15), because the Hebrew word for ‘earth’ and for ‘land’ is the same. Similarly, some references to the fixity of the earth actually refer to the fixity of the holy land, that it would not be subject to earthquakes.

But beyond this, the phrase is used figuratively. In Job 38:13, God says He will take hold of the ends and shake, as one shakes a rug. In Psalm 61:2, David, apparently praying in his palace, for he speaks of himself as the king, says that he is calling from the ends of the earth, a figurative usage. Isaiah 43:6 refers to the lands surrounding Israel as the ‘ends of the earth.’

How about the corners of the earth? To understand this, we have to realise that the Bible pictures the earth as a house, as in Job 38:4-6. Moreover, the Bible pictures the earth as an altar, with four corners, in Revelation 7:1; 9:13-21. All of this goes back to the Garden of Eden, which had four rivers flowing out of it to water the whole earth, headed for the ‘four corners.’ The word for ‘corner’ in Hebrew is kanaf, which literally means ‘wings.’ The cherubim have four wings (Ezekiel 1). The garment worn by each Hebrew male was to have four wings or corners, so that his garment was analogous to a house or tent that he carried with him at all times (Numbers 15:38; Deuteronomy 22:12; Haggai 2:12).

What this gives us is a series of analogous models: The Garden of Eden is like a house, and they are like an altar, and they are analogous to the human person (who is the temple of the Spirit), etc…

So, when the Bible uses language that indicates that the earth is flat, that it has ends, and that it has corners, we are to understand such language in its Biblical context. And that Biblical context is the house-model of the world, seen in the glory cloud, the Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the holy land, the entire earth, the human body, the clothing of the human body, the cherubim, etc. We are not to try to stretch this language to answer cosmological questions that it was not intended to address.”

Now, read the Revelation and every time you come across the word “earth,” replace it with “Land.” Puts a real different spin on things, doesn’t it? [3]

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[1] See also How To Read the Prophets and Jesus in the Theatre of God.
[2] James B. Jordan, The Geocentricity Question, Open Book Newsletter No. 46, www.biblicalhorizons.com. For an extended treatment of this subject, see the discussions in Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World [PDF].
[3] See also Trinitarian Judgments.

“It often seems to me that the night is much more
alive and richly colored than the day.”
—Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo in 1888

Last week I had the privilege of viewing seven Van Goghs, all in one room, including Starry Night Over the Rhone, the depth and texture of which has to be seen to be believed.

The impressionists went out of their way not to paint what they saw. They stretched and strained the norms to communicate how it made them feel. They were expounding—explaining—reality. As Jordan writes, made in the image of God, man is the only symbol which is also a symbol-maker. [1]

Our impressions, whether musical, literary or artistic, also portray how we wish to see the world. One of the reasons I find postmillennialism so agreeable (besides the irrefutable biblical evidence!) is that it is optimistic about the work of God in human lives and cultures. That is the world I want. That is the life I want. I’m hungry and thirsty and I am being, and will be, filled. Jesus promised. Now we speak as witnesses and create a new world by our Word.

In a day when pop-culture presents real people as airbrushed angels with smooth and/or sparkly faces, and computer generated aliens have skin pores you can almost smell, one has to ask what reality it is we actually want. Perhaps we desire both the twisted “ascetic” ideal of the modern vampire elite as well as the blue flesh-and-blood-and-grime adventure of the warrior planet. Either way, we seem to want to escape this world for something—anything—different. Sounds like a lot of Christianity. It’s in our heads, our hearts or in heaven—anywhere but here.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, understood real life. He appreciated both its lights and shades. The picture he paints for us with words causes us, like any good book or movie, to appreciate the real world and reflect on it in a new way. The Bible opens our eyes to the world as it really is. Like Starry Night Over the Rhone, the promotional collateral for the world, plastered around us as pop-culture, completely fails to do it justice. Modernity—and modern Christianity—is so narrow. Creation is far deeper and richer than we could have imagined, but we need The Book to show us. Jeffrey Meyers writes:

…what better way for a Christian to rediscover the spiritual power in honest evaluations of our twisted world and life than to read and meditate on Solomon’s Ecclesiastes? In Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451, the reclusive Professor Faber explains to the curious Guy Montag the “magic” of books. He is holding a very rare copy of the Bible brought to him by Montag.

Do you know why books such as this are important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more “literary” you are. That’s my definition, anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 [New York: Ballantine, 1953], 83)

I can’t help but think of the book of Ecclesiastes when I read Faber’s description of a good book. Of course, he is holding the Bible as he makes this little speech. and Ecclesiastes is quoted in the story more than once. Solomon’s book is the perfect example of literature that shows the “pores in the face of life.” The son of David is so honest about the difficulties in life that it scares many Christians, and he trusts God so much he has a bit too much fun—he drinks wine and actually enjoys sex with his wife! This is way too much “fresh detail” for some Christians.

I am convinced that this is one of the reasons why so many commentaries and sermon series are, in effect, massive efforts to domesticate Solomon’s wisdom. His observations, maxims, and advice, we are sometimes told by pious commentators, are the desperate ramblings of a hopeless pagan soul, not the wisdom of a faithful believer. How could a believer be so pessimistic? How could a believer condone such pleasure? So the mantle of a pagan sage is forced on Solomon and the book then becomes simply an apologetic tool to show us that life apart from God is meaningless…

But this is a lot like modern escapist Christmas celebrations. It ignores reality. It is a childish and immature way of handling the harsh realities of life… The mature king invites us to a feast at a table in the mist. At that table we are called to enjoy wine, woman, and song—all gracious gifts of God to be enjoyed by faith. [2]

Doesn’t all this lead us right back to the Garden of Eden? The Knowledge of Good and Evil was not something to be avoided at all costs. It was something to be obtained eventually by obedience. The serpent’s wool threw the Law of God into rich relief. The blood of animals demonstrated the love of God. The loss of paradise created an even greater hunger for the forbidden tree.

We thirst for the colours of both the light and the night; the glorious unknown, the world beyond the veil, a world where we are truly gods. There is a deeper world built deeply into us. We sculpt it, paint it, pointillise it, poem it and pixel it but it ever remains just out of reach.

I don’t believe we will grasp the meaning of Solomon’s writings fully until the end of time. Their strangeness is, like the apostolic hermeneutic, due to our ignorance. The Paradise we lost and are regaining wasn’t and isn’t a Pollyanna world of flowers growing out of flowers. It was a world to be viewed, tasted, inhaled, chewed and heard with sound judgment. It was a world that already knew darkness as night and compost and the sleep of Adam. But that life-giving darkness is now a Holy Place to which we have full access. Redeemed by blood, earth’s blacker hues are no longer a threat. The lie is exposed. We don’t have to save our lives. It is safe to die, to obey His command and commend our spirits to God.

The night now is more richly coloured than the day because it is more blessed to give than to receive; because those who mourn are blessed; because the greatest love is demonstrated in death. Like Moses, we consider the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.

The darknesses and lights we find in the Bible reveal the flatness of the spectres of Hollywood and the synthetic fragrances of Christian pop-culture. The evil hide in the dark and the good run to what they perceive as light. But for the mature, the error of dualism is corrected in the conquest of Death. Now there actually is Yin and Yang. Adam holds the full reality of good and evil in perfect balance, perfect judgment.

Greater Solomon has passed through the veil and come back to tell about it. Now He beckons us to do the same, to be as deep and rich as He is in both the mundane and the crisis. That other world we desire is now well within our reach. At Pentecost, He exalted us as new lights to rule both the Day and the Night.

Wisdom and maturity, like good wine and fine cigars, are well-rounded, bittersweet tastes to be acquired over time. All history is about man gaining good judgment, individually and corporately, Adam and Eve. [3]

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:1-3)

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[1] James B. Jordan, Symbolism: A Manifesto. [PDF]
[2] Jeffrey Meyers, A Table in the Mist: Ecclesiastes Through New Eyes, pp. ix-x.
[3] See Sanctification: What It Isn’t.

Thanks to friends Michael and Celia for rescuing me from the office for a trip to the National Gallery.

or Playing Poison with Genesis 1

You know how it is when you read one of your favourite theologians and they come up with a real clanger? It’s yes, wow, yes, I’m with you, and then the train of thought jumps the tracks—at least as far as you, the reader, are concerned. It’s like me reading a good Presbyterian who without any warning flies off the wall and marries chalk and cheese to prove the Bible teaches infant baptism. Or it’s you reading this blog watching me fly off the wall every now and then (but it’s all completely logical in my mind—believe me! Bully is never wrong!)

Anyhow, J. L. Vaughan, a “Covenant Creationist” on the AV forum pointed out this article by Brian Godawa, who is both a theologian and a screenwriter. I have featured Brian’s articles on the Abrahamic Covenant, Matthew 24 and Daniel 9 on my old The Last Days page. He is logical and easy to understand. And he’s a preterist. But then he jumps the tracks (as far as I’m concerned) and goes and parrots this drivel:

The literary conventions employed in Genesis chapter 1 mark it out, not as a scientific document describing material origins, but as a literary polemic against surrounding ancient Near Eastern pagan religions. This interpretation divests the text from any obligation to communicate “accurate science” to the modern reader. Genesis 1 is a theological-political document that has nothing to do with science as the modern reader understands it. Creation language here and elsewhere in Scripture is not about establishing scientific origins of material substance and structure but about covenantal establishment and worldview. [1]

Where is the textual or historical evidence for Genesis being a polemic against anything? Is it addressed to the Hebrews in the wilderness? Or does it instead show signs that it was recorded generation by generation from the beginning?

I am not a scientist. I am a professional storyteller. My interests lie in understanding the literary genres and cultural contexts of the Bible as it existed within an ancient Near Eastern worldview that included common metaphors, images and concepts. As readers displaced from such an ancient world by time, space, and culture, we will misread the text through our own cultural prejudice if we do not seek to understand it through the eyes of its original writers and readers. Creation stories (cosmogonies) are particularly vulnerable to this kind of interpretive violence.

The literary conventions, the chiastic structures and the Covenant pattern, do not support this false dichotomy whatsoever. The Bible does not separate symbol and history. These factors actually demonstrate that the physical Creation itself is both Word and Covenant.

A literal reading is cultural prejudice? Basically, the readers of Genesis, until modern evolutionary fantasies, believed it recorded the Creation of the universe out of nothing. It’s the moderns who are guilty of the interpretive GBH. Their theories concerning the text’s origin and purpose have no support, either internal or external. Not a shred. They are just a convenient construction.

On the same site, Peter Enns shows where his faith lies when he lists reasons why Genesis can’t be taken literally, ie. he bows obediently to pop-science and pop-history, which are constantly in flux and based on a faulty paradigm manufactured to free science from Moses. [2]

The biblical depiction of human origins, if taken literally, presents Adam as the very first human being ever created. He was not the product of an evolutionary process, but a special creation of God a few thousand years before Jesus—roughly speaking, about 6000 years ago. Every single human being that has ever lived can trace his/her genetic history to that one person. This is a problem because it is at odds with everything else we know about the past from the natural sciences and cultural remains.

A strictly literal reading of the Adam story does not fit with what we know of the past. Some choose to ignore the data altogether. Others marginalize or interpret the data idiosyncratically to salvage some type of literal/historical reading. But, by and large, everyone—even including this latter group—has to do some creative thinking about how to handle the Adam story. A “just read it literally” mentality is not an available option. “What do I do with the Adam story?” is a real and pressing question for most people of faith. [3]

Perhaps these people should be taking a closer look at their faith? At least he’s honest about the text, and his reasons for misreading it. Enns goes on to discuss the problem of Paul’s extremely inconvenient belief in a literal Adam, and concludes, logically, that

The tensions between science and faith, specifically evolution and Christianity, center on the issue of Paul’s Adam. As such, I think this is where our theological energies need to be invested.

Yes, we must find a way to mix chalk and cheese. What he really means is that Paul disagrees with Peter Enns’ pitiable compromise on Genesis, and so we must now employ our capricious and schizophrenic hermeneutic to deconstruct Paul in the same manner. But then, according to Brian, God was just speaking through a man who was thoroughly “enculturated,” surely? Oh, sorry. We can’t apply the same criteria to the New Testament writers, can we.

James Jordan gets it right. He believes these gents have a twofold process to get to what they think Genesis is really about, since they refuse to acknowledge its actual clarity:

1. Filter the Bible through the baalism of modern science, which, very agreeably, dislodges it from history.
2. Filter it again through the “conflict with chaos” baalism of the ancients.

He concludes that this is just the same as 19th century liberalism. Not that we would want to call anyone names.

Godawa summarises his paper with a paragraph that can be boiled down thusly:

1. Genesis 1 follows a pattern that occurs later in Scripture.
2. The later patterns are not ex nihilo Creation, so neither is Genesis 1, ie. God is just moving stuff around that was already old, and giving it new Covenantal meaning by naming it.

This is the same logic one would use to prove that the real Mona Lisa is a forgery because it looks like the paintings in a room full of confiscated fake Mona Lisas. Mind-numbingly brilliant logic, I must say.

There’s also a video of N. T. Wright on the BioLogos website in which he states that Americans are wrong to link the fight over Creationism with social issues. [4] Now that is a real hall-of-fame, win-the-teddy clanger. It’s amazing how very bright people often overlook the obvious. I bet he baptizes babies, too.

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[1] Brian Godawa, Biblical Creation and Storytelling: Cosmogony, Combat and Covenant [PDF]  Brian quotes John Sailhamer a lot. See Jordan on Sailhamer beginning here.
[2] See Tas Walker’s review of The Dating Game for how the establishment of the earth’s age really was a game. Spin the wheel.
[3] Peter Enns, Paul’s Adam Part I
[4] See Tas Walker’s Peace with Evolution for some clear thinking on this.

or Understanding Apostolic Wine Science

Scholars talk about identifying the “apostolic hermeneutic,” which sounds intimidating. The reason for this phrase is that according to the commonsense rules of interpretation, the apostles are merrily delinquent. They quote many Old Testament texts, rip them out of their historical contexts and claim they are fulfilled in Christ.

Our problem is that the apostles are neither hacks nor mystics. They are authoritative. Some rightly explain that the apostles are just seeing Christ prefigured in the Old Testament Scriptures, which they are, but this explanation is too vague. God’s Word is meticulous.

The apostles lived and breathed the Old Testament. They were familiar with its historical and literary patterns and Jesus’ allusions to it. We can deduce this because they themselves employ these throughout the New Testament. Thus, it was no big deal to refer to an Old Testament event and see its fulfilment in the work of Christ because Jesus deliberately followed the same patterns, not only in the structure of His ministry but also in His carefully prepared sermons.

Although the Bible’s literature often appears disorganised to us, it has in fact been extremely carefully crafted. Yet, for the last hundred years or so, many scholars have treated the Scriptures as a shoddy, primitive jumble. Analysis of the Bible’s literary structures has proven these scholars wrong. It has shown that this Book is infinitely smarter than we are. 

The apostles—like their Lord—had acquired a taste for the deep things of Scripture. [1] They had moved from the milk and bread to the wine. The apostles seem to us to be breaking the rules because we have never seen this game played before!

We have been harsh critics of an art we neither understand nor appreciate. These men of God quoted the Bible in the way C. S. Lewis constantly and deftly alluded to ancient literatures. It was in their blood and at their  fingertips.

So, our pathetic JEDPs are like adolescent beer swillers jeering at the studied subtleties of the full-bodied gents at the wine fair. Unlike Matthew, Peter, Paul and John, we have no interest in clarity, nose or finish. [2]

“and how from childhood you have been acquainted
with the sacred writings” –2 Timothy 3:15

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[1] See also The Perils of Deep Structure.
[2] See also So You Think You Know the Bible. 

“God’s Cloud over the people forms a Great Booth, within which they live. That Cloud over them is like the glorious canopy of a leafy tree, and thus the reproduction of such an arboreal canopy is a symbol of God’s Cloud.”

An important thread of God’s methodology is His process of bringing us from slavery to Sabbath, from childhood to maturity. It begins with Creation and ends with Glorification.

The Lord speaks the Word from His glory cloud—like the Light created on Day 1—and a stagnant history begins to move forward once again. At the end of the process the Lord returns in His cloud, but it is now made of something even better. The Lord’s robe is no longer a covering of Angels but a covering of redeemed, glorified Men.

In the Tabernacle, the housebuilding process begins with the Ark as “Light” and ends with God’s Cloud—the Shekinah—resting upon it. In the Feasts, it begins with the regular Sabbath as the Creation week and ends with the Feast of Tabernacles, the greater rest.

If you are a regular reader here, or have read Totus Christus, you may remember that the pattern of Feasts is used as a common literary structure. Vines, vineyards, branches and leaves are images often employed at this step. (I noticed that even Mary Karr used this at the end of one of the poems I quoted last week).

But this final feast is misnamed. These “Tabernacles” are not tents at all. The word is literally either “booths” or “clouds.” James Jordan writes:

The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is a tent, and tents are precisely what are not in view here.

The booths are prescribed in Leviticus 23:40-42, “Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the growth of beautiful trees – palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook – and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God for seven days.  . . . You shall dwell in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall dwell in booths.” An example of obedience to this command is found in Nehemiah 8:15, “Go out to the hills and bring olive branches, and oil-tree branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.”

These are not tents. They are shelters or lean-tos, made of leafy branches. After a week, such shelters would be wearing thin as the leaves decayed.

This seems an odd command, and it becomes odder when we read the reason for it: “So that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt” (Lev. 23:43).

What is odd about this rationale is that it seems certain that the Israelites did not live in leafy booths when they came out of Egypt. Rubenstein comments: “First, sukkot are generally not found in the desert. They are built in fields for the protection of watchmen, workers, or animals, and constructed from the products of the field – leaves, branches, reeds, foliage, wood, and hay. Where would the Israelites have found such materials in the desert wasteland? Desert travelers stay in tents, not booths.” To which I may add, where would they have found enough foliage for booths for 600,000 men and their families?

Rubenstein continues: “Second, outside of this lone verse in Leviticus, the Bible never claims that the Israelites stayed in booths. There are several descriptions of the camp of the Israelites in the desert, but not one pictures the tribes dwelling in sukkot. Tents are occasionally mentioned, but never booths. Why does Leviticus 23:43 suddenly assume that the Israelites dwelled in sukkot, while the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy know nothing about it?” (See Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, “The Symbolism of the Sukkah,” Judaism 43 [1994], pp. 371ff.)

The answer of the rabbis to this problem, which Rubenstein accepts, begins with noticing that right after leaving Egypt, the Israelites dwelt at a place called Sukkoth. Sukkoth was, in fact, the first place the people went after leaving Egypt: “Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth, about 600,000 men on foot, aside from children” (Ex. 12:37).

It seems, then, that the Feast of Sukkoth (Booths) memorialized the dwelling of the people at Sukkoth – but why? The rabbis suggest further that “Sukkoth” might not be a place name at all, but a description of an environment in which the people dwelled. And what was that environment? It was an environment of clouds.

This seems to me exactly correct, and the burden of this essay is to unfold the correctness of this suggestion, and show its meaning and fulfillment.

Booths pictures our final home. The Father’s house has many rooms. I recommend reading the rest of Jordan’s essay here.

Illustrations by Simon Smith. Music by Explosions in the Sky.

It’s a temptation to water down the Bible to make it palatable for “normal” people (let alone watering it down for ourselves!). Problem is, before we know it, what we are teaching bears little resemblance to the actual Bible. The Bible has odd corners where we think it should be smooth, and it says nothing about many things we moderns deem crucial. So let the hungry eat cake.

Many youth leaders, and even pastors, present the Almighty as being desperate for our company. Although He is not needy, what He desires is more than relationship. He wants “friends,” but His definition of this word is not ours. Even if we don’t go down the track of using the actual phrase “heavenly buddy” in our teaching, we are still further off the biblical mark concerning friendship with God than we might have thought possible.

The Bible’s idea of friendship revolves around government. David had Jonathan, and then his three mighty men. Daniel had his three friends. Jesus had James, Peter and John. The idea is brotherhood by Covenant. Brotherhood in the Bible is most often about conquest, about a sort of “military” unity through the Spirit. Sometimes it is a false unity through an evil spirit, such as the “covenanting” of Joseph’s brothers against him, or the attempted scapegoating of Job by his three “loyal” advisors.

James Jordan presents the process of maturity of God’s man from Priest to King to Great Prophet. So, when we think about Abraham becoming the friend of God, we only understand half the picture. The other half is Abraham becoming God’s man on the ground, mediating between the ready-to-burst dam of Wrath and the cities of the plain. Like Jesus looking down upon Jerusalem—like Noah, Daniel and Job—Abraham knew what it was to be the “door of flesh” between the Law and the lawless.

Jesus’ words to His disciples concerning friendship begin to make more sense to us:

“You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” John 15:14-16

Because Jesus shared with them His Father’s plans, in a very real sense they were equals, brothers. It was the brotherhood of Covenant. It was the kinship of eldership. Yahweh was again including men in his council, as His governmental “robe.” The best picture I can think of is a galaxy, a bright centre surrounded by numberless lights all held in orbit (”constrained”) by His love. They were brothers, confidants and ministers of His will. That is the flavour of the Divine Friendship that Christians are called to, and it is a taste that is in truth far more palatable to men than the “looking for relationship” cake-eating God so often presented by the western church. Real men want a serious, roudy, challenging banquet and we serve up a delightful morning tea.

But like David’s friendship with a son of Saul, or Joseph’s affection for Benjamin, to lay a foundation for a brilliant new order, even this band of brothers would be torn apart by wrath and resurrected by mercy. Just as Jesus was surrounded by angels in the wilderness [1], an angelic “court”, so He was later surrounded by Spirit-filled men. He put an end to brotherhood by blood (circumcision) and established the brotherhood of the Spirit. It was the end of heredity, a Brotherhood of New Man. [2]

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[1] See Bloody Throne, Bloody Frontiers
[2] See An Atheist ‘Gets’ Baptism

[From last time] …Under this new Levitical Law, a new “Garden” would be constructed, and a great many animals would be slaughtered and offered within its insatiable boundary. It was a King’s Table. Yahweh was already Omega, already Solomon. But Israel, not yet humble, desired Omega food, the food of “ascension.” Not satisfied with the bread of “priestly” obedience, they lobbied for meat to eat.

“So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp.” —Exodus 16:13

We mentioned that bread is Alpha food. Wine, and sometimes meat, are Omega foods. Firstfruits and Pentecost are about grain. Tabernacles is about the grape and olive harvests. This final feast is also the one where the Lord says if you want to carve up an ox or feel like strong drink, knock yourself out (ie. spare no expense).

The Lord sent quail for Israel to eat in the wilderness twice. Once in Exodus 16, just before the manna began. Meat in the evening (Omega) and sweet bread in the morning (Alpha). [1] Evening and morning are a new creation. The quail meat was a celebration of the Red Sea victory. It was in itself a death and resurrection, but in the greater Egypt to Canaan cycle, it was only a death. It was a separation from the world, and there would be only bread from now on until the Hebrews were humbled.

Jordan observes (in various places) that it was the “mixed multitude” that caused trouble. In Numbers 11, it was they who began the whining. A number of those who left Egypt were Egyptians who had likely joined with the Hebrews after seeing Moses’ miracles. They believed and obeyed the Passover instructions, but they would not be humbled. (In the first century cycle, those who repeated this sin became the Judaisers.)

Travis observed that the chapter has “desired a desire” at the beginning and the end, and in both instances God’s wrath is poured out. But he asked what is the purpose of the inclusion of the passage in the middle, the Spirit being poured out and the elders prophesying. Good question. And the Bible does this sort of thing a lot, doesn’t it? Of course, being me, I want to try the matrix on it.

Ark/Light/Sabbath - The people complained, so the fire of the Lord burned up those at the edges of the camp (This introduction itself follows the heptamerous pattern, which seems to be a common practice.)

Veil/Firmament/Passover - The Egyptians crave the food they had in Egypt and the protest spreads. Israel “wept” instead of being a faithful witness to these Gentiles (Mourning is common at this step)

Altar&Table/Land&Grain&FruitPlants/Firstfruits - Their whole being is “dried up” and all they have before their eyes is this “manna.” Moses “ascends” to entreat the Lord about it. He wants to quit. (Again, as it common, the speech at Ascension also follows the matrix pattern. This is common in the New Testament, most noticeably in the Sermon on the Mount and in the speeches in Acts).

Lampstand/Governing Lights/Pentecost - The Lord will take some Spirit-fire from the ascended Moses (as Altar) and put it upon the 70 elders (as Lampstand). It is the replication of the singular “Adam-light” as “Eve-lights.” The head become a head-and-body. The Lord gives the “Law-Word” to Moses, ie. what He plans to do, and Moses shares it with these men as his council.

Incense/Swarms/Trumpets - Moses gives a “Deuteronomic” speech, telling the people what the Lord will do. As Day 5 of Creation (swarms), there is the mention of flocks and herds and schools of fish. The Spirit comes temporarily upon the elders, but two men remained and prophesied in the camp, Eldad and Medad. Joshua asks Moses to forbid them, but Moses makes that famous statement, “Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all the LORD’s people were prophets [and] that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!” At Step 5, we have the two witnesses, just as we do in the Revelation. [2] What is their purpose here? It seems they are summoned by God as a “new body” of legal witnesses against Israel. Their dual witness is required before the Lord can summon the birds (just as the Lord usually sends two dreams as a corroborated witness). Like the cherubim that flanked the Ark in Solomon’s Temple, they are “God’s bouncers.” When God is about to do something big, He calls men to prayer with an offer they can’t refuse. [3]

Laver/Mediators/Atonement - A wind from the sea (Laver) brings a “covering” of quails. Just as there are two goats at Atonement, and an open (divided) veil, the quails fall in two parts, one on either side of the camp, a Day’s journey each way.

In Ezekiel and Revelation, the unclean birds are the “cleaners.” Here, the ceremonially clean quails are unclean because it is Israel who is the scavenger. The Day 7 “rest” they desired, the kingdom food they obtained by tantrum, became a curse. As a “sea” of wings, they are symbols of a mediator people that has become demonic by demanding glory before time. Just as Adam was not ready to bear the burden of government, neither was Israel. Yet God did use this event to share Moses’ government with the seventy. Moses was a better Adam. And God uses such disastrous trials to refine His people—always. The glory of judgment here on Day 7 is, as it was in Genesis 3, only God’s. Instead of “Booths” they got, as the CEV renders it, “Graves for the Greedy.”

This is exactly what happened to the kingdom of the Herods. Their refusal to “eat” Gentiles whom God had declared clean actually defiled them. And their “clean” Passovers in the early 60s defiled them. Their table became a snare.

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[1] For more on sweet and bitter breads, see Is Jesus Leavened or Unleavened?
[2] See The Two Witnesses.
[3] See Revivals and Farming.

Ben Witherington comments on the unearthing of a huge temple complex and its relevance to Genesis:

This temple lies west of the Biblical plain called Haran and is only 20 miles from the Syrian border. This places it right in the fertile crescent which begins below modern day Iraq, includings the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and winds its way north through Syria and into eastern Turkey.  This is the world not only of Genesis, but of the great Anatolian civilization of the Hittites (yes those Hittites as in Uriah the Hittite—husband of Bathsheba)… Klaus Schmidt and his team of Kurdish diggers have uncovered an enormous temple complex that pre-dates the Great Pyramids by some 7,000 years and Stonehenge by at least 6,000 years!… After 12 years of hard work, Schmidt has found at least four temple complexes. The radar scans of the area indicate there is a huge amount more to uncover here. And Schmidt has a thesis about this temple complex—here is a short excerpt from the Newsweek article on this:

“Schmidt’s thesis is simple and bold: it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomerations. The need to build and maintain this temple, he says, drove the builders to seek stable food sources, like grains and animals that could be domesticated, and then to settle down to guard their new way of life. The temple begat the city.”

The importance of this find for Biblical thinking is this—the Bible says that from the outset, human beings were created in God’s image. Human beings were religious creatures from Day One. Archaeologists and sociologists have long dismissed this theory saying organized religion comes much later in the game than the beginning of civilization and city building. As Ian Holder director of Stanford’s prestigous archaeology program says— this is a game changer. Indeed, it changes everything experts in the Neolithic era have been thinking. Schmidt is saying that religion is the cause of civilization, not the result of it. Towns were built to be near the Temple complex. Agriculture was undertaken to feed those living there and supply the temple complex, and so on. The first instincts of humans were to put religion first. Maybe there is more to that Genesis story than some have been willing to think or admit. Maybe human beings are inherently homo religiosis.

Schmidt says that about half of the 50 stones thus far unearthed have carvings on them—half. This makes this site very different from Stonehenge. While we have lots of animal carvings on these stones, and a few abstract symbols what you also find is human hands and arms—the T shape stones seem in some cases to be representations of humans praying, “In the Bible it talks about how God created man in his image,” says Johns Hopkins archeologist Glenn Schwartz. Göbekli Tepe “is the first time you can see humans with that idea, that they resemble gods.” This site pre-dates the earliest Biblical ruins, of Jericho, by 1,000 years or more.

Why have we not heard of this before now?Several reasons. First, because it is so huge and so significant that it will change all the textbooks on such matters, and archaeologists have been wanting to be sure of the dating and significance and nature of the site.  The site was actually found by an American in the 1960s, but it was so huge he didn’t know what to make of it. Schmidt also almost walked away when he realized the enormity of what lay under the ground. He knew he would have to spend the rest of his life digging if he stayed. And he has done so. Only 5% of this site has thus far been dug. This will make the dig at Pompeii look tiny. Whatever civilization was founded here, it ended abruptly about 8,000 B.C. and in fact the site was deliberately buried then. Many of the massive stones have been found in place, still standing upright where they had been originally placed. The site was not destroyed, it was buried.  There is much more to be done here, but suffice it to say, that religion and art are at the very heart of this temple complex. And that tell us a lot about the nature of primitive humans—a lot like what Genesis tells us as well.

A commenter asked if it was possible that these temples were buried during the flood. Witherington replied: “Yes indeed. It is way, way underground, and this is one of those regions in which geologists have found evidence of a huge regional flood. The very fact that this whole thing is found in situ, with the stones standing shows it was not destroyed by human beings.”

I guess we will just have to disagree on the size of the “region.”

Some great quotes from an interview by Barbara Demarco-Barrett with author Mary Karr:

“[My young son] came flouncing in in his Power Ranger pyjamas and said “I wanna go to church.” I said “Why?” and he said, “To see if God’s there.” It was about the only sentence he could have said that would have gotten me to go. So we did this thing we called God-a-rama in which we went to various temples and mosques and zendos. I had no interest in going to church so I brought a latté and a paperback.

I was praying at the time. I was sober and the only way I seemed to be able to get sober was to pray. But I was praying to some kind of vague, I don’t know, what native Americans would call the Great Spirit but what Catholics would call the Holy Spirit; a force for good in the universe would be about all I could call it. So I was still a long way from conversion.”

“[At university] I went to every other church but the Catholic church due to its stance on choice for women, the fact that women can’t be priests… I guess I thought of it in very medieval terms. I thought of it solely in terms of the hierarchy and probably the Spanish inquisition! I had figured I would go for some free-wheeling, breezy hippy deal or something.

We went to a Midrash, a conservative temple, a zendo—which really wasn’t the place for an eight year old. But we ended up at the Catholic church. I don’t know what happened. I just stopped bringing a paperback. A couple of the Protestant churches I had gone to were so vague. It was kind of like, you know, “Today’s gospel is from Glamor magazine… It was like little hopeful things you might find in the Reader’s Digest, and I thought, well, there’s not much God here. And the episcopal church, which had women priests and so forth… the fact that they didn’t believe in evil, theologically… in a way that was more horrifying for me than the Spanish Inquisition! How can you not believe in evil? I knew I believed in evil long before I believed in any force for good.”

“What I loved about the Catholic church was the carnality. First off, the fact that there is an actual body on the cross. It’s so… meaty? You realise what a hunk of meat you are from the minute you walk in. And also (and I know this sounds incredibly nuts) but the way you kneel and stand up and pray. Everyone moves and says the same words the same way, you pray with other people in concert, breathing the prayers and saying them together. A lot of “cradle Catholics” complain about that stuff—you’re a sheep in a herd—but for me it was strangely comforting. Just going through the motions to be polite, kneeling and standing up—even with my cup of coffee and paperback—I realised, “My body bends the way these people’s bodies bend. I’m not so different than they are.” I found that when you read a poem that someone wrote a long time ago that you are breathing the way that person breathed. You are taking their words into your body. I guess it was a eucharistic quality even then that I was attracted to.

Also, it wasn’t the ritual. It was the faith of the people. When they would ask people to state their prayer intentions… I was very moved by people bringing their suffering and their hope together into this public place. I guess I really did think that when you spoke those things together, that it was something sacred.

Again, it was still very vague. I didn’t have much to do with Jesus at the beginning. When I stopped bringing the paperback and visited the peace and social justice committee, I noticed that the people who brought people over from El Salvador and did the prison ministry and ran the soup kitchen all talked about Jesus a lot. They were really into Jesus, and I thought, gosh, these are really nice people. They’re trying to get cribs for these people who don’t even speak English and trying to help them find jobs. They’re running an HIV hospice and bringing meals to people who are gay for God’s sake! I saw a lot of the lay tradition among the poor… which is not peculiar to Catholics, but I guess I just saw it first hand up close.”

You can hear the entire interview at the Pen on Fire podcast.

No, I’m not heading for Rome, ever. I have just found that Catholics often have a much healthier sense of the poetic “earthiness” of truth. Cerebral Protestants might understand sola fide better, but they don’t do mercy ministry like Rome does. There is much good in Rome despite its twisted doctrines and errant traditions that we must recover for Protestantism, or whatever this becomes. Much of it has been ditched by Protestantism since the Reformation, so I guess that is really what we should be drawing on. But who is living it out, in the flesh? This razor-humoured, delightful lady, who has been through some very tough times, experienced a miraculous work of God through some very godly people.

Disgraceland

BY MARY KARR

Before my first communion, I clung to doubt
as Satan spider-like stalked
the orb of dark surrounding Eden

for a wormhole into paradise.
God had formed me from gel in my mother’s womb,
injected by my dad’s smart shoot.

They swapped sighs until
I came, smaller than a bite of burger.
Quietly, I grew till my lungs were done

then the Lord sailed a soul
like a lit arrow to inhabit me.
Maybe that piercing

made me howl at birth,
or the masked creatures whose scalpel
cut a lightning bolt to free me.

I was hoisted by the heels and swatted, fed
and hauled around. Time-lapse photos show
my fingers grow past crayon outlines,

my feet come to fill spike heels.
Eventually, I lurched out
to kiss the wrong mouths, get stewed,

and sulk around. Christ always stood
to one side with a glass of water.
I swatted the sap away.

When my thirst got great enough to ask,
a clear stream welled up inside,
some jade wave buoyed me forward,

and I found myself upright
in the instant, with a garden
inside my own ribs aflourish.

There, the arbor leafs.
The vines push out plump grapes.
You are loved, someone said. Take that

and eat it.

Source: Poetry (January 2004).