“With this theory of the joke in mind, the final chapter of Nehemiah is holy and hysterical.”

In his book, Deep Exegesis, Peter Leithart speaks of the biblical text as many things, but none is more confronting than his viewing the text as a “joke.” His explanation, however, makes perfect sense. What makes a joke funny? It is either prior knowledge to which not everyone is privy, or a confounding of expectations (which are also based on prior knowledge to some degree). The Bible is full of such jokes, and realizing one is in on the joke is immensely satisfying.

The great thing about the Bible is that, if we read from the beginning, and we are paying attention, we are the in crowd, and the Author expects us to pick up on His subtleties. In the Scriptures, these are repetitions of certain words (such as “shatter,” for example, which ties a cursed Israel to the plagues upon Egypt) and repetitions of structure, which are entirely overlooked by modern commentators, who can’t seem to fit more than a single Hebrew or Greek word into their heads at one time for serious observation.

With this theory of the joke in mind, the final chapter of Nehemiah is holy and hysterical. We sit around in Bible study and commend him for dealing with the sins of old Jerusalem which are starting to sprout once again like weeds in his new Jerusalem. But I believe the Author has structured the chapter (and thus the events) so that those in on the joke might laugh and cheer his every move.

Firstly, here is the “matrix” structure of the chapter (to support some of the offensive and crazy things I have written lately). Since Nehemiah is cleaning house, it makes sense that the chapter is Tabernacle-shaped. And as this is a final cycle, the overall subject is Glorification and Covenant Succession, or Temple, Jew-Gentile relations (Booths), marriage and offspring, and the future.

While we are at it, we should also notice that the first stanza (represented in line 1 above) deliberately foreshadows the content of the entire chapter:

Now, before we get to the joke, we should also notice that the passage begins with the words of Moses and ends with the triune obedience of Nehemiah as the “bridal man.” He has remembered the Word of God and now asks God to remember him.

So, what is the joke here? It is a reference to Genesis 1-9, and its three-level Tabernacle architecture, the Garden, the Land and the World. Without this knowledge, we won’t get the joke. With this knowledge, based on a reading of the Bible as a book by a single Author (who is actually smarter than we are, likes to drop hints and deliberately obscures things for us to discover), the structure itself is a threefold architectural allusion. The text does not state this explicitly, and many would argue that this is eisegesis, but the events follow a pattern repeated so many times in previous Scripture that we have no excuse to ignore it. Being so deliberately obtuse when it comes to the Bible is only possible through an unnatural literary “dissection.” It is to treat the Bible like no other literature, and thus, not like literature at all. Masked as “conservative” and “cautious”, the stupidity is mind-boggling, and the arrogance outstrips even mine.

GARDEN

Firstly, Tobiah the Ammonite, who had previously opposed the reconstruction (Nehemiah 2, 4), and is now living in the Sanctuary. He is a snake in the Garden, squatting in God’s domain, “sitting (enthroned) in the Temple of God.” Notice that this creeping thing is living in a large room which had previous contained the priestly food, that is, the Tree of Life. As with the sin in Eden, this was related to a greater sin in the next domain.

LAND

Secondly, we can see that the refusal to give the Levites their portions and the trading with Tyrians on the Sabbath are a sort of “corporate” version of the sin of Cain, who presented his kingly firstfruits offering before Abel’s priestly offering, thus putting kingdom (the Tree of Knowledge) before priestly obedience (the Tree of Life). Cain went and built a “fortress” to protect himself from vengeance. Here, Nehemiah protects the “Abels” from the influence of the Cainites.

WORLD

Finally, we can see that the intermarriage of the men of Israel with unconverted women, and the resulting godless offspring, would eventually destroy Israel as it had done under the kings, and this corresponds to the sin of the sons of Seth in Genesis 6. (Note that this is not, nor is ever, racial but Covenantal.)

Why would the reader be cheering? Because Nehemiah is a man filled with the Spirit of God, plaiting a whip, cleansing the Temple (Leviticus 14:33-57), the holy city and the people of God in righteous indignation, offering a firstfruits in all three domains and allowing God to fill all three domains once again as a mighty, rushing wind.

“Passion for your house has consumed me,
and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”
(Psalm 69:9 NLT)

One final note. Nehemiah beats (Deuteronomy 25:2) and tears out the hair (or shaves) the Covenant breakers. Wesley says, “The hair was an ensign of liberty among the eastern nations; and baldness was a disgrace, and token of slavery and sorrow.”

“I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.”
(Isaiah 50:6)

The books of Nehemiah follows the Bible Matrix, but so do Ezra and Nehemiah as a unit. With that in mind, Ezra tears his robe and tears out (or shaves) his own hair as a priestly Covenant head (Ezra 9:3; ), and Nehemiah calls the people to mourn (as Covenant body) because they had previously vowed to break off these marriages (Nehemiah 10:29). All Israel was now called to be like a Nazirite, a priestly warrior bride working within the Gentile empire. Together, Ezra/Nehemiah is totus Christus, bald, naked and cruciform at the inauguration of a new Jerusalem.

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See also Exploiting Nehemiah.
PHOTO: If you don’t get the joke, just to make a point, I’m not going to tell you.

The Restoration era Scriptures are the most misunderstood texts in the Bible. Our failure to recognise their recapitulation of patterns from the Torah — and the fact that they are not presented in chronological order but by genre — makes it hard for us to put the pieces together. [1] Very often, we miss great ironies because we don’t get the joke.

One of the greatest “jokes” is the usurping of the throne of Judah’s kings by Nebuchadnezzar. The five point Covenant structure introduces the Great King in its preamble, then delegates power to a vassal. All of God’s Covenants follow this pattern, as well as the books of Moses, the structure of Deuteronomy, Psalms and the Revelation just to name a few.

Israel desired a king like the Gentiles, but this was impossible. An Israelite king would always be subject to a higher power. (This is exactly the debate going on in Western culture, isn’t it?) Saul failed to be a vassal under God, and was disqualified. The later kings of Israel and Judah also failed to be vassals, so the Covenant scroll, the mediating firmament, would be torn apart, a garment rolled in blood.

Nebuchadnezzar is referred to by God as His “servant.” This must have been terrifying for the kings of Judah, but they did not repent. Ironically, it was Nebuchadnezzar, a real Gentile king who brought rest to the Land—the 70 years of Sabbaths that were overdue. The number 70 is also ironic. It is the number of bulls sacrificed for the nations at the Feast of Tabernacles, the heart of Israel’s ministry to the nations. God and His prophets can be extremely sarcastic. But it is sarcasm with tears.

Jeremiah’s call for Judah’s king to become willingly subject to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was actually a call to a New Covenant, a Covenant of priesthood. [2] Yes, it was a call to national death, but it was also a call to national resurrection.

The death was to release the grasp on forbidden kingdom, that is, kingdom without subjection to God. It was exactly the sin of Adam, the sin with which Satan tempted Christ. The kings refused, and death came anyway, with a much greater devastation for the people of the Land.

But it was still a New Covenant. God set up new worship outside the “camp”, in Babylon, before He destroyed the old worship. Just as the prophets had substituted as mediators before God because the Covenant kings would not listen, Daniel and Ezekiel mediated for the people of God in a higher court. In fact, part of Daniel’s mediation was possibly the destruction of Jerusalem. [3]

Of course, all of this was replayed in the first century. The Jews were invited to submit to a new ruler, the Christ. He, too, called His servants to refrain from fighting, to die and to be resurrected as a new kingdom, the Church.

Some application: We are all kingly vassals in this New Covenant. Being a servant in the king’s house takes a lot of pressure off me as a Christian. Yes, I am to be faithful with everyone and everything over which God has made me a steward. This is the death of being a living sacrifice. But there is nothing to fear, for at the end of the day, if I am faithful, the buck doesn’t stop with me. It stops with the Son of God, my Conqueror, the One Who promised to protect me in a scroll rolled in His blood.

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[1] You must read James Jordan’s The Handwriting on the Wall.
[2] See Jeremiah was a Bullfrog?
[3] See Daniel the Destroyer.

Literary agent Peter Rubie would undoubtedly have read many story synopses, both fiction and non-fiction. His colleague Janet Reid advises that anyone wishing to write a bestseller should read at least two thousand novels before attempting to write their own. Peter gives some helpful advice:

My friend Gary Provost and I created what we teasingly called the Gary Provost Sentence (with some help from Aristotle). Here it is:

Once upon a time… something happened to someone, and he decided that he would pursue a goal. So he devised a plan of action, and even though there were forces trying to stop him, he moved forward because there was a lot at stake. And just as things seemed as bad as they could get, he learned an important lesson, and when offered the prize he had sought so strenuously he had to decide whether or not to take it, and in making that decision he satisfied a need that had been created by something in his past.

This is classic dramatic structure. It works because it’s story telling that is most satisfying to the reader. Aristotle defined good drama as storytelling that defined character, created atmosphere, and advanced the action of the plot. No one has ever really substantively improved on this beautifully simple yet profound definition, though I think Norman Mailer came close when he said in a TV  interview “The best fiction is where art, philosophy, and adventure all meet.”

Let’s go through Gary’s paragraph again. This time we’ll stop along the way and I’ll talk about the elements of plotting. Once you understand these elements whether you’re a literary novelist or a writer of non-fiction, or a genre writer you’ll be able to plot any story you like… [1]

Perhaps one of the reasons Mr Rubie understands the rhythm of good storytelling is the fact that besides having been a journalist on Fleet Street, Radio and TV, he is also a jazz musician. He has a sense of the melody, harmony and rhythm that all good literature possesses.

The Gary Provost sentence describes the Bible Matrix perfectly, although mainly the Dominion element of it. There are three heptamerous elements: Creation, Feasts and Dominion, or Word, Sacrament and Government. The shape of Biblical history, like music, is triune. It is more than just a good story.

In An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis describes the “literary few” as those whose literary taste matures beyond the desire for mere “Events” (ie. wanting to find out what happens next) and are able to appreciate the texts as works of art; those who are able to move beyond delight in a picture because it is a reminder of pleasant or stimulating things that are in fact elsewhere, to the place where they can open themselves to be changed by the picture (or the text). [2]

The Bible offers us both. It is no wonder the narrative sections are more well-known and popular. People want to know what happens next! Will Abraham slay his promised son? Will Peter betray Jesus as He predicted? The Bible contains the most gripping stories in all of literature, and has arguably inspired the best of literature throughout history. But even in its translations, by its form, the Bible’s books are literary works of art. Moreover, the literary structure is, I would say, a major method of communication for the authors.

The beauty is that, in the Bible’s DNA, the Events thread of this matrix is fully compatible with both the architecture of the Creation and the annual harvest festivals of Israel. Since there are around 40 human authors, this integration of event, community and architecture in bookform makes the Bible an organic objet-d’art far beyond the skill of mere mortals; beyond even our ability to conceive of such a project. Every “story” resonates in triune form from deep within the heart the One who said “Let there be light.”

We analyse the language of popular culture to death. We pride ourselves on being able to identify TV tropes. We are so saturated with dramas and sitcoms that writers no longer need explain every point of the story. [3] We have seen it all before. Beyond “Events”, we analyse the artistry of the director and the composer of the soundtrack.

Do we have ears willing to hear the Scriptures at this level, to be Bible-saturated to the point where Ezekiel or Jesus uses an irony based on the Torah, without explaining it, and we are an audience au fait? Or when it comes to the Bible, as Lewis says, are we those of the “many” who are content to leave the performance of a symphony with only the memory of a simple tune to whistle?

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[1] Peter Rubie, The Peter Rubie-Gary Provost Dramatic Sentence.
[2] On the abuse of Scripture by many modern preachers as an opaque sounding board for their own agendas, see Why Johnny Can’t Preach and Exploiting Nehemiah.
[3] “Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means ‘stereotyped and trite.’ In other words, dull and uninteresting.” TV Tropes

Understanding the Two Tables

Another thought on Jesus’ “joke” in Matthew 24. In Menu for the the Dirty Birds, I wrote:

“For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.” Matthew 24:28

Tabernacles, as the final harvest of the year (grapes and olives), was also called “Ingathering.” Matthew 24 also follows the feast structure (twice), and Jesus uses this factor to make a terrifying joke.

As a holy priesthood, we are to be eaten by the world. But there are two Tables and we often confuse them.

The Aaronic priesthood was authorised to make sacrifices and to be sacrifices, standing face-to-face as mediators, as Facebread, the broken Adam, in the very presence of God. They were then to be bread to the nations. Mostly, they horded the bread.

Passover was a Table for Jews only. The Gentiles could only look on. [1] Tabernacles, however, was a Table for the nations. 70 bulls were sacrificed for the Gentiles (picturing the original 70 nations listed in Genesis 10)[2]. Gentiles were invited to join in the celebrations, picturing the body unified in the process leading up to AD70.

The Jewish leaders abused the “talent” God had given them. The very purpose of their nation from the beginning, besides carrying the promised “seed”, was to be a witness to Gentiles, a priesthood to the human race. Every year was to end in a combined Jew-Gentile “Godfest.”

However, the Herods had turned this on its head, just as the kings did before the exile. In Jesus’ time, the satanic Jewish leadership forbad eating with Gentiles (the same way the Closed Brethren will not even eat with other Christians today, let alone unbelievers). In their twisted thinking, they thought the very ministry God had given them would defile them. Instead, their refusal to eat with Gentiles was the outflow of what truly defiled them.

The defining feast for Herod’s “renewed” Judaism and finished Temple was “the biggest Passover ever” in AD 65. Millions of lambs were sacrificed. It should have been the biggest Tabernacles ever, so Jesus brought that about in AD70, turned on its head…

Bursting the elitist bubble

This other aspect of Jesus’ Tabernacles irony in Matthew 24 concerns the nature of this Holy Table that had become “a snare.” Since the Jews would not invite Gentiles to eat at this Table that God had prepared, God brought Gentiles to the Table anyway. The walls of Jerusalem held them at bay for three and a half years, during which Jews starved and some even resorted to cannibalism. Finally, the Gentiles broke in and totally consumed the city. The Old Covenant curses fell for the last time and brought about its end—forever. There is no longer Jew nor Gentile.

How does this apply to us? The Lord’s Table is exclusive. All are invited to eat on His terms. Repentance, baptism and membership of a church (accountability) are required. It is a call for judgment upon us, for fire to fall upon us as sacrifices. We are slain and resurrected for the world every week. This is not the time or place to sit around informally at cafe tables. “Cafe church” brings confusion and invites destruction. Church, liturgy and church music are supposed to be different from the world.

But outside of this, we must be eating with unbelievers. We eat with them in their houses and ours “on their terms”. That’s the place for “Cafe Church.” As the Lord is food on our Table, we are the food on the godless tables of the world. This age is leading us to the final great Tabernacles, the end of the believer/unbeliever division, just as AD70 was the end of the Jew/Gentile bipolarity. [3] We are the bridge. But the two Tables must not be confused.

Even in their proselytising, the Jews got their two Tables mixed up, and very often we do too. Jewish exclusivism always brought barrenness, scarcity. It left the righteous begging for bread, so God “injected” believing Gentiles as new blood, epitomised in Caleb, Rahab, Ruth and others. When Israel was faithful, the kings of the world brought their glory into the kingdom. (Note this exact scenario in Acts 11:28-30).

Either way, we are eaten

If we insist on a policy of “Eat Local”, and confuse the Lord’s Table with the Love Feast, the Gentiles eventually come not as guests but as scavengers. They tear up the Temple stones looking for melted gold. Our church buildings become cafes, B&Bs and hair salons.

We are not to be simply sheltered (Passover), but to be a shelter (Tabernacles). Snobbery never attracted anyone humble, did it? [4]

Comments invited.

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[1] See Looking in Faith.
[2] This followed the single bull sacrificed for the priesthood at Atonement.
Bull – High Priest /  Goats – Israel / Bulls – nations. Again perhaps this is Word, Sacrament, Government.
[3] See Three Babylons.
[4] For a fantastic illustration of this principle applied to commerce, see Ben Merckle’s Buy Local.

“Come, gather for the great supper of God,
…..to eat the flesh of kings,
……….the flesh of captains,
……………the flesh of mighty men,
……….the flesh of horses and their riders,
…..and the flesh of all men,
both free and slave, both small and great.”

It’s only subtle, but after observing this pattern so many times it gets easier to see. The first line is the Ark/Word [Sabbath], the kings rule in the firmament [Passover][1], the captains are the “Firstfruits” head of the body; the mighty men/giants always appear in the Pentecost wilderness (always! beginning in Genesis 6. They are the children of compromise); point 5 is always the body/army [Trumpets]; at six we have the High Priest/Adam [Atonement]. In Revelation, “men” refers to the mediating Jews; and finally Tabernacles refers to Sabbath rest, a Jew-Gentile feast where all are welcome, but in this case it is Herod’s Jew-Gentile kingdom as fare on the table.

This short passage also works its way down from the throne of God to the average Joe Jew. No one would escape the judgment.

What is even more interesting is that the passage within which this heptamerous invitation occurs also follows the pattern, and this invitation occurs at “Firstfruits.” In the greater pattern of the Revelation, the Firstfruits is the Lamb slain who opens the seven-sealed scroll of the New Covenant Law. So this invitation to the scavengers who carry out the cleansing after the Covenant curse falls is the outcome of the rejection of the blood of the Lamb.[2] The menu itself is a seven-sealed Covenant scroll. It is a free pass to the meat market of Club Gehenna.

“For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.” Matthew 24:28

Tabernacles, as the final harvest of the year (grapes and olives), was also called “Ingathering.” Matthew 24 also follows the feast structure (twice), and Jesus uses this factor to make a terrifying joke. [3]

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[1] In Revelation’s big pattern, this spot is taken by the Lampstand churches ruling in the firmament as New Covenant governing lights.
[2] See also No More Sacrifice for Sins.
[3] This passage contains the “scroll” command to “gather” because it is “Tabernacles” within an even greater structure. In Revelation, Jesus often has this Dominion/Feasts structure going at 3 or 4 levels simultaneously. The Revelation is designed like a Swiss clock. See Totus Christus for a full commentary.

“My insight, if such it is, into the workings of humour was reinforced and generalised when I watched Shrek, a movie that I now tell my students is a gold mine of hermeneutical insight. All the funny parts of that film assume that the viewer has information the movie does not provide, information from three main sources: nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and popular culture, especially movies…”

Johannine Jokes

…How does all this apply to our reading of Scripture? Scripture has the same literary properties as the texts we have been examining. Just as Eliot read Dante who read Virgil who read Homer, so Matthew had read Jeremiah, who knew Kings (or wrote it), and the writer of Kings had read the Hexateuch. Let us look at some examples. Let me tell some biblical jokes, again taken from John 9.

The nearest intertextual echoes are the ones that John has built into his joyous, humourous gospel. First, John 9 records the story of Jesus healing a blind man, and already in John’s gospel, sight has become an important theme. “No one has seen God at any time,” John tells us toward the end of his prologue (1:18), but John’s comment that “the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained (v. 18) gives us some hope that with the Word’s arrival in flesh the unseen God will be seen. We are not disappointed: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (14:9). In contrast to the Synoptics, which use dunamis to refer to Jesus’ miracles, John uses semeion, “sign,” a word that emphasises their visibility. Many “behold” Jesus’ signs and believe (2:23, 6:2). To see the kingdom requires not just new eyes but a new birth by water and Spirit (3:3). Those who are not reborn may see the signs and the sign-giver, but do not believe (6:256; 36). Seeing and believing are closely linked in John (4:48; 6:30).

All this should be rumbling around in the reader’s mind as he comes to chapter 9 and watches Jesus pass by a man blind from birth, that is, a man whose physical condition mirrors the spiritual malady of unbelief that Jesus has challenged on several occasions. The rumblings return at the end of the chapter, when Jesus announces that he has come to bring judgment, which takes the form of giving sight to the blind and blinding the seeing (9:39). The Pharisees demand to know whether Jesus considers them blind, but Jesus will not give them that excuse. Because they claim to see, because they have seen Jesus’ works and refuse to believe, they are still in their sin (9:40-41). They see, but they are self-blinded, and, with the Pharisees standing in front of Him, Jesus goes on to describe the conduct of blind shepherds (10:1-18)…

…How Can We Know?

John 9 has taken us all over John’s gospel, chasing connections. And then it took us back to Genesis 1 and Genesis 3, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Who knows where else it maight take us if we had infinite time? But how can we be sure we have gotten the joke, and not read unintended humour in a serious text? How can we know we are laughing the right things?…

…Literary explanation functions the same way [as scientific theorising], and the proof of a literary hypothesis is similar to that in history and science. The data in a literary interpretation is the text itself, these particular words on the page in this particular arrangement. We assume that these words did not appear randomly on the page, but were placed there by some intelligent being. The goal of interpretation is to account for this data.