The Depths: The Face of God

Jack Baumgartner: Moses in the Cleft of the Rock (2012)

Would that every heart should reply with David: "You have said, 'Seek my face.' My heart says to you, 'Your face, LORD, do I seek'" (Psalm 27:8). 

Scripture records manifestations of the presence of God that so overawed people that they feared for their lives, one particularly evocative instance being that experienced by the elders of Israel as they banqueted before the Mountain of God (see Exodus 24:9-11); but David surely seeks a more intimate knowledge of God than an overawing manifestation for he pleads: 'Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path […]' (Psalm 27:11). 

David seeks to know the heart of God in accordance with God's own desire; and we should follow his example, for the injunction 'Seek my face' uses the plural form of address. God calls not just David but all who hear the call to seek the face of God that we might have communion with him. And how might we come to know the heart of God? 'Teach me your way' would imply that we come to know the heart of God and as such behold the face of God in scripture as we are transformed through the resurrection power of the Spirit by the renewal of our minds that we might discern and concur with the will of God:

Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? 
Let him who walks in darkness and has no light  
Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.  

Behold, you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches!
Walk by the light of your fire and by the torches you have kindled.
This you have from my hand: you will lie down in torment.

(Isaiah 50:10-11)

Testify: The Christian Life

Francis Newton Souza: The Agony of Christ (1958)

Surely the death of Jesus on the cross was not merely to free us from worrying about our sins so we might enjoy our lives to the fullest. How would such a trivial purpose pertain to the great majority of people in this world who never attain even rudimentary physical security?  There must be more to this life than completing a bucket list of experiences, and there must be some point to human suffering in this life as it relates to the life to come. How exactly this might be requires some unpacking.

Let’s begin with the Ten Commandments. The first five have to do with honoring God, and the second five have to do with honoring one other. Jesus and the rabbis of his day thus held that the Law and the Prophets in their entirety are summed up in two injunctions: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). What underlies the first injunction is a profound trust in God, and what underlies the second injunction is a profound empathy for others. These are precisely the two qualities notably absent in the account of the fall of Adam and Eve as well as in all subsequent human history. 

Suffering (whether personal or vicarious) is the only effective means by which we can meaningfully grow in either respect because suffering tests us to the core. My suspicion is that, in addition to our serving as priests of the Gospel to this world—which includes contributions to truth, community, health, and beauty—we are to be growing with respect to trust in God and empathy for others for the purpose of some unspecified service that awaits us in the world to come. We meanwhile need to trust that God has greater empathy than we do and that there is some justification for the misery daily visited on the helpless. 

And to anyone who reports rarely experiencing any suffering, I recommend living sacrificially for others and investing everything but what it takes to get by in the spread of the Gospel.

Testify: Sharing the Gospel

 Josefa de Ayala (c. 1670)

The first thing to understand is that some people don't believe in God simply because the notion has never really occurred to them. This was the case with me. Supposed proofs of the existence of God might as well be spoken in an unknown tongue to such a person. Much better would be to probe the implications of a person's unbelief with questions rather than directly challenging people as if trying to score points in a debate. The only real audience for conventional apologetics appears to be professed believers who need some reassurance or at least some way of accounting for how they came to believe the things they now profess. I have also found that a less antagonistic approach will sometimes even invite people to seek me out and ask me what exactly I believe and why. The following is how I respond:

We might suppose that there is no God or general organizing principle, but then what is the basis of principles as Justice and Mercy? An act of self-sacrificial kindness and an act of gleeful cruelty might be equally be judged good or bad regardless of context if nothing bears testimony to our existence. Indeed, one might argue (as do devotees of Ayne Rand) that Good is entirely based on what is gainful to the Self and that Evil is any focus away from the Self that might lead to loss of advantage. One similarly conversely argue that Good and Evil are a function of what benefits the community as a whole, but that is merely the previous option writ large and as such would validate brutality against other communities as easily as co-existence depending on the mood of the community. From there we might extend the frame to Humanity, Earth, the Cosmos, or even simply immutability--at which point we enter a metaphysical realm that differs from religion only in having no authoritative basis apart from that which any individual or community might propose, which brings us back to where we began. 

There is also the question of whether any of this matters in the long run after the sun explodes or burns itself out. Most people would accept that nothing would "matter" absent someone to whom something might matter, but most people probably also aspire to leave behind some sort of legacy (if only a memory or two) of there having passed this way, which is qualitatively like hoping for an afterlife--at which point we once again enter a metaphysical realm that differs little from religion. There might be some for whom no sort of afterlife matters, not even a bit of graffiti, but even they likely bristle at injustice, however odd their conception of justice, and feel compelled to respond appropriately according to their considered or momentary standards. None of this makes any real sense apart from evolutionary adaptation, but that is hardly a sound basis for establishing anything approaching universal principles. Some creatures are known to risk their own well being for the sake of entirely unrelated creatures (and sometimes even erstwhile prey) for whom they display empathy, but others are known for extreme violence against even their own mates or offspring. 

The point is that insistence on meaning, justice, and mercy presuppose something (or someone) transcendent. On a less philosophical level, many find it difficult to gaze up at the heavens at night (especially in regions far from artificial light) or at some towering formation or tropical extravagance of exquisite beauty without intuiting a vital and personal presence as the source of these wonders. One might of course dismiss such fancies with the assertion that a transcendent God who truly desired that we know him would do better to make himself known to us, but to this I reply that such would not make any difference as will indeed be conclusively demonstrated one day. The fact of the matter is that those who come to faith either imbibe the habit from their parents at an early age or to later choose to believe as a way of reconciling disparate realities. In my case, I provisionally committed myself to belief in God on a dare to see if that would actually make any difference to how I made sense of the world. As it turns out, I found it impossible to reverse course for long.

However, two things have caused me to have serious doubts at one time or another: the first being incongruity of a cognizant and loving God with the observation of unspeakable human suffering and cruelty; and the second being the incongruity of the conduct of professing Christians with their purported commitment to and communion with a just and loving God. For me the latter was somehow far more disturbing than the first and has taken me much longer to process, but I have come to think of Christians as works in various stages of progress and the pace of their transformation a reflection of their degree of surrender to God. I think of the transforming work of the Spirit of God as so many dandelions in various stages of development stretching over hills and valleys with a cumulative certainty of establishment and fruition.* My understanding of the mystery of suffering and cruelty is that (bear with me) their function is to instill a profound sense of empathy for others and a profound sense of trust in God, which correspond to the two great commandments that underlie the two tablets of Mosaic Law. The more counterintuitive of the two functions is trust in God, which has two aspects: the main one being that this will somehow make sense and the second being that everyone will be somehow adequately compensated or recompensed.

Should a person come to believe in God after one fashion or another, one might ask whether God is any more just and loving than we ourselves. Any God so feeble as to barely exceed our own capacities surely could not have accomplished the wonders we daily observe even despite their degraded state. On the other hand, the proposition that God not only exists but is moreover truly just, truly loving, and intimately familiar with us would raise several thorny questions. Would not Justice imply Judgement, and would not Judgement imply Condemnation unless a significant degree of fudging were involved? Conversely, would not Love imply Mercy and would not Mercy imply Forgiveness? The resulting circle seemingly cannot be squared without compromising Justice or Mercy or both at once, which is exactly the rock on which religion founders. However this is also precisely what lies behind the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and glorification of the Son of Man.

God prepared the way for his coming by raising up a nation of priests charged with proclaiming God to the world and bearing testimony over centuries of just how humanly impossible it is to meet even a modest semblance of God's standards of purity (the Mosaic Law) and just how seriously the consequences of any defilement, namely being cut off from the community and even from life itself. The Law decreed that transgressions could not be expunged except by death of the transgressor because only death dissolves all bonds, which of itself is not particularly good news because no one is innocent of transgression and therefore marked for permanent death or worse. Against this stark backdrop, God promised to take upon himself the task of judging and punishing our sin while also showing mercy and redeeming us in the person of an anointed one, the eternal God (beyond time) embodied in human form (eternal but within time) who plainly declared and literally embodied the heart and mind of God but was condemned to death as an enemy of the very God he proclaimed.

Jesus was himself not a transgressor but became one by receiving into himself those who surrender themselves to him as their Lord. Jesus thereby became responsible for the sins past and future for those who entrust themselves to him, and his death expiated our transgressions by taking them unto himself--something so profoundly disturbing that Jesus bled from anguish at the prospect. However, his death would avail us of nothing if he remained dead because death dissolves all bonds--including Lordship over anyone--which is why our justification before God and our resurrection in glory are entirely dependent on the resurrection and glorification of Jesus. We meanwhile continue to transgress and die, but our justification in Jesus renders that death as it were unlawful. We aren't simply immediately transported to heaven though because we have work here as ambassadors of the word of hope, and we are also learning through suffering (whether our own or that of others) to trust God and have empathy for others, thereby equipping us for an unspecified purpose in the world to come that will likely resemble our original purpose of promoting abundant life with a place of honor for each creature, plant, and even terrain.

There was a time that I listened to various tellings of these matters with bafflement; but, as I studied the Gospels for myself, the words of Jesus struck me as words of Life; and, believing him indeed raised from the dead by the same divine power that brought forth the cosmos, I entrusted myself to him as my Lord and my Savior. I have since diligently sought the face of God in scripture to lead me through this present darkness.

[* Americans are notoriously averse to dandelions, but they are beautiful to behold (especially in large numbers) and they are both edible and nutritious in all their parts excepting the seeds.] More importantly as an image of Hope, they are impossible to eradicate.

Testify: A Personal Journey

Sadao Watanabe: Conversion of St. Paul (1967)

I thought that I might share how I came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior. The external circumstances were that I grew up in the tropics in the midst of the Green Revolution in Agriculture, and I came to the U.S. to study Fisheries at Auburn University to study Marine Aquaculture. The internal circumstances, however, were that God was drawing me to himself.

My journey went through three stages: (a) Is there a God? (b) How can I know God? and (c) How can I have communion with God? The first stage was a journey of many years through exposure to animism in the Philippines and church in backwoods Alabama. My parents were generally hostile to religion, except in an anthropological sense, but had us attend church while visiting family so as not to antagonize my grandmother and perhaps even inoculate us against Christianity by exposing us to a particularly colorful variant of the sort that might be of interest to National Geographic. 

During my high-school years in Colombia, my childhood animism gradually transformed into a kind of agnosticism that contemplated the existence of a transcendent Spirit in whom I eventually placed my faith. This happened towards the end of my senior year in high school (during a sabbatical in Louisiana) on a dare by my next-door neighbor, a thorough-going theist of otherwise eclectic beliefs. This unexpected development left me disoriented, and I consulted scriptures from various traditions for guidance. I found the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao Te Ching inspirational but not compelling, whereas the Gospels struck me as very direct but deeply puzzling. 

Spring of my freshman year in the United States found me struggling to understand the meaning of Romans 10:9. I felt that I this must certainly be God’s own testimony of himself, but I could not understand what it meant. I nevertheless pledged myself to Jesus but asked God to send someone around to explain everything. Sometime later, I was talking with an acquaintance who observed that I didn’t seem to have any real idea who Jesus is and offered to tell me. There followed a very involved explanation of the Fall and Salvation that spanned Genesis, Isaiah, John, and Revelation. One key moment was Isaiah 9:6, which is when I first understood that Jesus is in fact God. The second key moment was the account of the death of Jesus in John 19:28-37. At that point, I was a blubbering mess and don’t really remember much of what was said afterward. I was baptized in a public fountain on campus a few days later after learning about baptism. 

Now my focus was to pour over the Bible to bask in the magnificence of God as revealed in scripture and to begin to familiarize myself with the overall compendium of scripture. This was aided by spending the Summer in Austin, along with others in my house church, being intensively mentored in scripture, scripture memory, prayer, and personal evangelism. I dropped out of school for a semester—to my parents’ great dismay—to concentrate on processing all this, but my father convinced me to return to college, even if only to study Spanish Literature, so that I might at least have a decent education. 

What happened next left a deep and lasting impression on me. My first real introduction to the study of literature was a class in Spanish Golden Age Literature, which the professor began by describing the era as a time when a man-centered worldview had emerged from within a God-centered worldview that it increasingly challenged for supremacy. Moreover, the largely analogical mode of the God-centered worldview was giving way to the largely analytical mode that would dominate subsequent centuries. He thus cautioned us that we would not be able to grasp the literature of this period without becoming thoroughly conversant in both scripture and analogical thinking. To explain, he led us through 1 Peter 3:18-22.  

He pointed out that the image of the ark floating over the waters of the flood recalls the image of the Spirit hovering over the waters at Creation, and the ark therefore represents a promise of new creation, which corresponds to the circumcised heart of the believer buried with Christ in the waters of baptism, which symbolize death followed by resurrection in glory. There’s much more to the passage than the mere taste he gave us, but it was enough for me want to study literature instead of going to seminary because I wanted to understand the anthropology of language and literature, how they function in the world at large and what the implications might be for understanding scripture.  

The major difference between studying ordinary literature and studying scripture, of course, is that the very same Spirit who spoke to the writers of scripture speaks to us as well, and he is perfectly capable of using even a bad translation of a flawed manuscript to communicate basic points, which are validated to the extent that the meaning of all scripture becomes increasingly straightforward and coherent. 

Some Advice: Spiritual Maturity

 

Sadao Watanabe: The Twelve Disciples (197x)

When pondering what it means to be spiritually mature, and how such maturity might be achieved, it’s important to consider the purpose of spiritual maturity.

Israel was established by a covenant with God to be a nation of priests to the world (Exodus 19:5-6). The Law consecrated Israel as a people apart from all the rest. Anyone who joined themself to Israel would become bound by the covenant. Caleb, a descendent of Abraham through Midian, thus becomes reckoned as a descendent of Judah. Aliens who lived “in the Land” (i.e. under the jurisdiction of Israel) were not bound by the Law (apart from four specific injunctions enumerated in Acts 15:19-20) but were only bound by the so-called Noahide Laws common to all nations. [Contrary to popular belief, the Sabbath was considered the one law most definitive of Israel―not circumcision, which was observed by all other descendants of Abraham such as the Edomites, the Midianites, and the Ishmaelites.]

Jesus has now reconciled the world to himself, thereby accomplishing the priestly ministry for which Israel was established, and we who are in Jesus constitute a spiritual nation of priests charged with extending his ministry to the ends of the Earth (Luke 24:45-48). Just as Israel served as a long-term repository of the accumulated knowledge of God, the twelve apostles (like the twelve tribes) served as a repository of the knowledge of what Jesus said and did during his public ministry (Acts 1:21-26). The apostles were more a collective repository of the knowledge of Jesus than individual repositories of this knowledge, and only after a general consensus had taken root among the twelve over a period of two decades do we see them begin to venture away from Jerusalem in various directions.

One might wonder about the purpose of sending the apostles out in pairs to preach the coming of the Kingdom of God. The first disciples joined themselves to Jesus after he returned from fasting in the wilderness following his baptism (John 1:29-51). They traveled with him to Galilee and back to Judea for Passover, after which they spent several weeks announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God and baptizing people in the Jordan. They then returned to their homes in Galilee until Jesus recalled them to follow him as he preached the Kingdom of God throughout Galilee from early June through late August. This message (the Sermon on the Mount) is what he then sent them out to preach (from September to March) so that it would be indelibly impressed upon their hearts.

Even as millenia separate us from the earliest disciples, we do well to meditate on their witness so that we ourselves might be transformed by the renewal of our minds to serve as living repositories of the gospel and living testimony of its power, which is primarily a matter of following Jesus as he reveals himself to us through the testimony of the apostles by the power of his Spirit (Romans 12:1-2; Hebrews 4:12). Hearing words of life that come from God will make those whom the Spirit draws desire more; and as each is gradually transformed, so each will manifest the will of God just as surely as water flows downward without any predetermined plan. Those who wish to see the face of God will ponder the scriptures; those who see others in need will help; those who worry will pray; and those who burn inside will speak.

By contrast, practicing spiritual disciplines to mold ourselves into the image of Jesus often becomes a burdensome trap that actually hinders spiritual growth. How many people even understand the meaning of fasting? Fasting as an exercise in mastery over oneself is a far cry from experiencing death (and purging) as a prelude to rebirth; mastery is indeed the very opposite of surrender. All this to say that drawing others along with us is different from leadership per se, and maturity is not something that we can accomplish mechanically but is something that the Spirit accomplishes as we surrender to the testimony of scripture. Stated this way, leadership is involves being a good follower. 

Scripture thus enjoins that elders (i.e. pastors) be chosen from among those who have followed for many years and who are known by their fruits. The lives of such men recommend them to the congregation as men worthy to follow, but they are chosen not by the congregation but by existing elders. Moreover, there should be a plurality of elders who serve the congregation in submission to one another―scripture does not envision anything like a lead or unitary pastor, but that is nonetheless the model we follow because we clearly do not regard scripture as a suitable authority on such matters. We are also warned that young men are not ideal candidates for elder, but that is our common practice. One thing on which we do concur with scripture is that deacons are to be put forward by the congregation as trusted men.

Beyond this, we each have gifts of various sorts that manifest themselves on their own over time, and these make up the muscles and sinews of the congregation to accomplish the works of God in our corner of the world. There’s necessary correspondence between giftedness and leadership, but something like a distribution of labor usually develops on its own. This is the milieu in which families merge to a greater or lesser extent to everyone’s general benefit in a healthy congregation. The point is that we need to think of spiritual growth as something organic that we accomplish together as opposed to something more formal that we accomplish individually.

Some Advice: Studying Scripture

Michel Keck Romans 12.2 (2021)

General advice about studying Scripture:

Those who submit to Scripture to be transformed by the Holy Spirit will gradually come to clearly understand every passage of scripture without recourse to commentaries, which at best tend to state the obvious while ignoring thorny details and at worst lead people astray. Some obscure passages of Scripture may require painstaking background investigation to unravel, but the explanation will usually only underscore what that person has already come to understand. The additional insight is nevertheless valuable as a non-falsifiable confirmation and may even fine tune one's perspective.

By contrast, those who seek to master Scripture will never understand what it teaches because God will not be mastered by anyone. Such people will not only miss the big picture but will also stumble over obscure passages that tempt them down fruitless paths of inquiry. As a counter-intuitive corollary to this point, one should avoid trying to read orthodox doctrine into scripture because a different (also orthodox) doctrine may be the actual subtext of the passage under consideration and because no doctrine should be considered orthodox that can only be defended by force.

The main focus should be to follow the argument developed in a given passage of Scripture on its own terms with no preconditions. For example, the opening chapters of Genesis should be read (however much suspension of disbelief is required) as literally as possible. Otherwise, the logic of events will be impossible to follow. One will need to develop a habit of profound trust in God that things somehow work themselves out, but that does not mean that things happened exactly as described because: (a) all of Scripture is a kind of genealogy, and (b) Semitic genealogies are notorious for "placeholders" of an invariably ideological nature.

Study Scripture for what it will yield for you in the long run (10-20 years) rather than for something with an expiration date of a few days. One approach undergirds spiritual maturity and the other guarantees life-long spiritual immaturity. One corollary to this point is that pastors should concentrate of studying Scripture for its own sake (i.e. for their own sake) independently of sermon preparation, and sermon preparation should rely on understandings of Scripture that are already part of the pastor's life. Otherwise, well... 

Bonus advice about studying Scripture:

Consult monographs or articles by scholars in the relevant fields of language, anthropology, or history before relying on any second-hand information from Bible scholars. "Abba" does not mean "Daddy;" it is the Aramaic word for "Father" and is used as an honorary greeting denoting closeness and respect for benefactors. Hebrew vocabulary is not more nuanced than English; it simply has fewer words, which of necessity accommodate multiple related but distinct meanings. The Corinth of Paul's day was a Roman colony built on the ruins of the Greek city razed by Rome in 146 BCE, and the social and political nature of this city (capitol of the Roman province of Achaia) was entirely unlike that of the original city: homosexuality was punishable by death and adultery by exile. Many such examples of widely accepted but flawed understandings abound.

Artifacts: The Temple of Artemis

 

Remains of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus

Ephesians 3:18 may allude to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Eight Wonders of the Ancient World, which was roughly four times the size of the Parthenon of Athens and boasted the largest interior space of any building in the ancient world.  

Enterprises and wealthy individuals from across the Mediterranean world stored their wealth there where it was protected by the vengeful wrath of the goddess Artemis while accruing interest from loans made by temple officials, such that the temple treasury functioned as the largest banking institution of the Eastern Mediterranean in Paul's day.  

Travelers who had seen the Pyramids of Egypt, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Colossus of Rhodes were more impressed with the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus; but the glory of our riches in Christ greatly exceeds those of this now bygone temple, and precisely that implication is likely what provoked the riot that forced Paul to leave the city (Acts 19:23-31). 

Artifacts: The Greek Scriptures

 

Chester Beatty Biblical Papyrus BP II (P46) folios 13 & 92

Papyrus P46 is a partial codex (ca. 200 BCE) containing most of Romans, Hebrews, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, and 1 Thessalonians. Note that folio 13 (Romans 10.12-11.12) and folio 92 (Colossians 1.16-2.7) were part of a single sheet, which indicates that these folios form part of a codex. The folios containing the text of everything between Romans 11.12 and Colossians 2.7 was similarly matched and folded into nested leaves with folios 13 and 92 making up the outer pages of the surviving codex. The seven outermost leaves are missing and would had contained the first 5 chapters of Romans and presumably 2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Corinthians, Titus, and possibly Philemon. 

Note too the lack of spaces or punctuation between words, sentences, or paragraphs. This was the standard format for all writing in antiquity, which is why texts were always read aloud to hear what they said. The habit of silent reading only became commonplace in the early Middle Ages when Irish monks added spaces and punctuation to the manuscripts that they produced. This innovation allowed people to understand the text by sight without having to hear it sounded out by reading aloud. The advent of the printing press (which made books affordable) and public education (which created a broad demand for books) would have led to a cacophony of voices had not the invention of silent reading preceded them.

Artifacts: The Bronze Serpent

 

Canaanite Bronze Serpents (Eretz Israel Museum)

Many bronze serpents associated with temples dating to the period of Canaanite and Midianite occupation have been found in Israel. The significance of these cultic figures remains obscure, and it complicated by the fact that most surviving examples clearly represent cobras though the earliest examples are of snakes without hoods.

Nissim Amzallag proposes that earlier forms represent the painted carpet viper, a venomous species that invests the rocks and bushes of mountainous areas where copper was mined and smelted in ancient times. The most significant center of both mining and smelting of copper in the region was Punon, through which the Israelites passed in defiance of the the express prohibition of Edom (Numbers 20:14-21; 21:4-9; 33:5) and Yahweh's own warning: "Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession" (Deuteronomy 2:5). The Edomites likely regraded carpet vipers as guardians of the shamanistic art of metallurgy, but what are we to make of Numbers 21:8, which states: "And the Lord said to Moses: 'Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live'"? 

Leaving aside the regional connection of snakes with smelting and furnaces with Yahweh, the simplest explanation is that the bronze serpent forces an association of the people's transgression with their restoration by the one who punishes them for their transgression, which is tantamount to recognizing the one against whom they have transgressed is God. This would seem to be the sense in which Jesus applies the image to himself:

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes fin him may have eternal life. (John 3:13-15)

So Jesus said to them, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me." (John 8:28)

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John 12:32)

Artifacts: The Site of Golgotha

 

Photograph of the Bluffs of Northern Jerusalem

The cave-like opening at the top left, just north of the old city walls, is known as Jeremiah's Grotto. To the right are two smaller openings resembling eyes that presumably identify the site as Golgotha (meaning "Skull" in Aramaic). Christians call this place "Calvary" from the Latin word for skull, "Calvaria."

Artifacts: The Ketef Hinnom Scroll

 

The Ketef Hinnom Birkat Kohanim 22

The Ketef Hinnom Birkat Kohanim 22 scroll, found in a Jerusalem grave from the time of King Josiah, contains the oldest portion of scripture found to date. The scroll, which is only 2 cm long and was originally encased in an amulet, quotes the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26:

The LORD bless you and keep you.
The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Artifacts: The Baruch Bulla

 

The Baruch Bulla

The Baruch Bulla, purchased from a antiquities merchant, dates from the reign of Zedekiah, during which Jeremiah prophesied. The inscription reads: "[Belonging to] Berakhyahu / son of Neriyahu / the Scribe." The prophesies dictated to Baruch by Jeremiah would have borne such seals as this one: “So Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote down in the scroll, at Jeremiah’s dictation, all the words which the Lord had spoken to him.” (Jeremiah 36-4)

Artifacts: The Jeroboam Bulla

 

The Jeroboam Bulla (Ben Gurion University)

The Jeroboam Bulla, purchased from a antiquities merchant, dates from the reign of Jeroboam II, a godless king whose reign witnessed both the expansion of Israel's borders as far north as Hamath on the Orontes in central Syria and also a devastating earthquake, the largest ever recorded along the Dead Sea Transform (2 Kings 14:24; Zachariah 14:5; Amos 3:14, 6:11, 8:8, 9:1). The inscription reads: "Belonging to Shema the minister of Jeroboam."

Artifacts: The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon

 

The Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon

The Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon with ancient Hebrew writing from the time of King David. The inscription reads:

You shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord]. Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an] [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and] the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king. Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

Artifacts: Cherubim and Seraphim

 

Edomite Cherub from Horvat Qitmit

Ancient near-eastern peoples imagined Cherubim (blessed ones?) as lions or bulls with human heads and eagle wings. We see hints of this in Ezekiel 1:5–11 and Revelation 4:1-11. These were understood as guardians of thrones or sacred entrances who sometimes served as flying thrones for high gods. 

Bulla with Seraph from Jerusalem 

Ancient near-eastern peoples imagined seraphim (burning ones) as cobras whose hoods were reimagined as drooping wings, then lifted wings, then two pairs of wings, then three pairs of wings. These were understood as righteous persecutors.

Artifacts: The Canaanite God Ba'al

 

Sandstone Stele of Ba'al (Louvre Museum)

Ba'al is often called the "Son of Dagan," the latter being the equivalent of El in the Syrian pantheon, which implies that Ba'al ("Lord") was an imported deity, namely the Syrian storm god Hadad. Though El and his equivalents in other pantheons were prominent in the Early Bronze Age, during which time their primary function would have been to validate the authority of rulers of the early city states, Ba'al and other storm gods (Marduk, Zeus, etc.) were more directly associated with Justice (symbolized by the mace) and Fertility (symbolized by the lightning tree), which would have had more relevance for the daily lives of the general population and may explain the rise to prominence of the various storm gods in the Middle Bronze Age. 

By the end of the Bronze Age, only Israel and some Ishmaelite Kingdoms still venerated El—the Agur and Lemuel of Proverbs 30:1 and 31:1 are mentioned as being of the Ishmaelite kingdom of Massa in the northeastern Arabian Peninsula.

The (114 cm) stele of Ba'al from Ras Sharna shows Ba'al (Storm) standing victorious over Yam (Sea), whom he has defeated with a magical mace and lightning tree in a triumph of "water" (i.e. fresh fresh) over "the waters" (i.e. saltwater). The unusual headdress differs slightly from the one normally associated with Ba'al, which resembles the Hedjet or White Crown of Upper Egypt, which itself resembles a penis (specifically, an uncircumcised penis) that connotes virility. Much more unusual are the bull's horns, long hair and long beard, which are attributes of El. The smaller figure to the right of Ba'al's sword is Anat, the warrior queen of heaven, who contends for Ba'al in his conflicts with Yam (the Sea) and Mot (Sheol).

Artifacts: The Tree of Life

 

Slab B-23 of the throne room of Ashurnasirpal II (British Museum)

The Asherah mentioned in scripture is generally understood to correspond to the Canaanite goddess Athirat (Goddess of the Depths) the consort of El (God of Time and Creation) by whom she bore the 70 sons of El who rule the 70 nations. Her cult was associated with the adoration of a stylized wooden pole representing a tree, perhaps the sacred tree of Assyrian iconography. These poles may originally have been cropped trunks which sprouted new growth, a phenomenon not uncommon with untreated lumber in the deep South. What is astonishing is that there was an Asherah pole in the Temple throughout most of Israel's history up until the exile to Babylon despite reforms by several kings of Judah.

Artifacts: The Canaanite God El

 

Limestone Figure of El from Ras Sharna (National Museum, Latakia)

The Canaanites had originally worshipped the collective heavens, whom they called Elohim (i.e. "Mighty Ones"), but they came to conceive of a single being, whom they referred to as El (i.e. "Mighty One"): an embodiment of Time, by whom all things are engendered and governed and sustained. The Canaanites envisioned El as having long white and beard, clothed in shinning white, and seated on a throne. Nothing could gaze directly at him.

El was said to dwell in the tent of the heavens, surrounded by a vast host of flaming chariots (i.e. the stars); and he was said to sometimes also frequent the mountains of Aratta in the Land of Eden "between the two seas" (i.e. the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea) in the northwest corner of present day Iran.

El (Time) brought forth the World from between Ashtaroth > Anat (Heavens) and Athirat > Ashera (Depths). Ashtaroth and Athirat bore him Shalim (Dawn) and Shahar (Dusk) respectively, such that there was light but no sun (Shapash), moon (Yarikh) or stars. Ashtaroth subsequently bore Ba'al (Sky, lord of mountains & storms); and Athirat bore Yam (Sea, lord where no human dwells), Mot (Earth, lord of the underworld), and the seventy sons of El, who rule over the seventy nations.

The above conception of the cosmos underlies many passages of scripture, which demythologize Canaanite religion by presenting elements of heaven and earth as purely material domains and objects created by God. Scripture in other cases demythologizes Canaanite religion by coopting mythological imagery for use as poetic metaphor.

7 Images: The New Jerusalem

Thetis Blacker: "The Holy City" (1982)

Scripture recounts that Jesus will return in person to judge the nations and establish a just and benevolent rule over all the earth.

Prophesy is generally only understood in hindsight (or as it unfolds) when it comes to the exact meaning of many particulars, but we can make out the general idea. The nations will ultimately reject the just and benevolent rule of Jesus, after which everyone who rejected God will be judged. There will follow a new Heaven and a New Earth—a kind of return to the Garden.

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:11-16)

Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light. On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter. And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and this name one. (Zechariah 14:5b-9)

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)

Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4-6)

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. (Zechariah 14:16-18)

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15)

7 Images: The Son of Man

 

Anastasiia Kulik: "Ascension of Christ" (2020)

Scripture recounts that God promised to send a prophet like Moses, "whom the LORD knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10), to speak the words of God to Israel. 

Jesus claimed to be the prophet spoken of by Moses and the prophets, and the people marveled at much of what he said and did, but they stumbled at his claims to be born of the earth also but descended from heaven.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the LORD said to me, "They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. (Deuteronomy 18:15-18)

“No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:13-18)

They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life." (John 6:42-48)

Perhaps equally perplexing were his statements about redeeming those who come to him by atoning for their sins with his death. Though prophesied in scripture, this was not understood by even his own disciples until after his death and resurrection.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:4-11; ref. 1 Peter 2:22-25)