The Seventh Day

Here is a fascinating insight from John H. Walton's book entitled The Lost World of Genesis One:

"In the traditional view that Genesis 1 is an account of material origins, day seven is mystifying. It appears to be nothing more than an afterthought with theological concerns about Israelites observing the sabbath - an appendix, a postscript, a tack on.

"In contrast, a reader from the ancient world would know immediately what was going on and recognize the role of day seven. Without hesitation the ancient reader would conclude that this is a temple text and that day seven is the most important of the seven days. In a material account day seven would have little role, but in a functional account, as we will see, it is the true climax without which nothing else would make any sense or have any meaning.

"How could reactions be so different? The difference is the piece of information that everyone knew in the ancient world and to which most modern readers are totally oblivious: Deity rests in a temple, and only in a temple. This is what temples were built for. We might even say that this is what a temple is - a place for divine rest. Perhaps even more significant, in some texts the construction of a temple is associated with cosmic creation.

"What does divine rest entail? Most of us think of rest as disengagement from the cares, worries and tasks of life. What comes to mind is sleeping in or taking an afternoon nap. But in the ancient world rest is what results when a crisis has been resolved or when stability has been acieved, when things have 'settled down.' Consequently normal routines can be established and enjoyed. For deity this means that the normal operations of the cosmos can be undertaken, This is more a matter of engagement without obstacles rather than disengagement without responsibilities."

In light of what Walton outlines in his book it is interesting to examine Jesus' statement in Matthew 8:20:

"And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."

Jesus' intent may have been to condemn the second temple and to declare his divine identity. In any event Walton's statement regarding the seventh day of creation is super interesting. I have not read the book in its entirety yet but it is certainly on my "to-read" list.

The Menorah

In a couple of my previous posts I have made the assertion that the Menorah in the Jerusalem temple probably represented Moses' burning bush from Exodus 3. This afternoon I have come across a source that agrees that was probably the case. For my own benefit I am posting it here so that I can look it up quickly if the need ever arises.

The source is Jeffrey M. Bradshaw's commentary on the book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price entitled: In God's Image and Likeness: Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Book of Moses and is found in volume 1 page 163. It reads:

"It should be emphasized that the Tree of Life does not represent eternal life merely in an abstract sense, but rather as a symbol of embodied deity. Thomas explains that 'most often in scripture... the tree is an anthropomorphic symbol. A tree serves well as such a symbol because it has, after all, limbs, a circulatory system, the bearing of fruit, and so forth. Specifically, scriptural trees stand for Christ and his attributes.' Wyatt concurs, noting that: 'The trees are... messianic symbols. The Menorah is probably what Moses is understood to have seen as the burning bush in Exodus 3.' Thus, Jehovah, the pre mortal Jesus Christ, was represented to Moses as one who dwells in the midst of the burning glory of the Tree of Life."

Here are the references Bradshaw cites in the excerpt:

M. Catherine Thomas: Jacob's Allegory: The Mystery of Christ
Nicolas Wyatt: Space and Time in the Religious Life of the Near East

Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood

Today marks 185 years since the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood - one of the most significant and important events of modern times.



Read more here.

The Creation

"The creation scene from the movie "Noah" was released on YouTube Saturday by Protozoa Pictures, the production company owned by writer and director Darren Aronofsky.

 "The scene consists of Russell Crowe as Noah telling his children the story of the creation. While the narration follows the biblical account, Aronofsky's animation depicts a process that incorporates aspects of evolution and creationism, beginning with The Big Bang and making its way to Adam and Eve."

From Deseret News (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865602990/Creation-scene-from-Noah-released-on-YouTube.html)

Jerusalem: Link to the past

For those of you who missed it here is the video on Jerusalem KSL showed between sessions during this past conference:

Jesus Christ on the Tree of Life

Burne-Jones' mosaic of the Crucifixion was unveiled in November 1894. It shows Christ on the Tree between Adam and Eve, for by his death on the Cross he undid their death from the Tree of Eden.

Acts 5

29 ¶Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to ^aobey God rather than men.

30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and ^ahanged on a tree.

31 Him hath God exalted ^awith his right hand to be a ^bPrince and a ^cSaviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and ^dforgiveness of sins.

32 And we are his ^awitnesses of these things; and so is also the ^bHoly Ghost, whom God hath ^cgiven to them that obey him.

The apostle Peter in this passage refers to the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified as a tree. Perhaps Peter's purpose in doing this was to equate the cross with the tree of life. When Nephi was shown his father's vision of the fruit bearing tree of life he asked to know the meaning of the tree. In response Nephi was shown a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus, bearing the Christ-child in her arms. Ancient Judea had a tradition of an ancient mother goddess who was known as Asherah, Astarte and Wisdom among other names and who was the mother of the son of God. Her symbol was a tree. Nephi, who was a product of this culture, instantly recognized the symbolism and saw that the tree in his dream was a symbol of Mary (who was the earthly embodiment of the archetypical heavenly mother) and the fruit of the tree was a symbol of the son of God. Jesus, being depicted as hanging on a tree during his crucifixion draws upon this mother-goddess symbolism. He is the fruit of the tree of life. (For more on this I highly recommend a fascinating article by Daniel C. Peterson entitled "Nephi and His Asherah" published in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.)

In Proverbs 8 this divine mother (Wisdom) speaks in the first person as the tree of life and teaches about her fruit:

19 My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver.

The name Asherah is the feminine Hebrew form of the word asher which means "happy" and Lehi in the account of his dream may have been engaging in word play when he said the following (1 Nephi 8:10):

10 And it came to pass that I beheld a ^atree, whose ^bfruit was desirable to make one ^chappy. (emphasis added)

Just as the fruit was partaken by Nephi and his faithful followers in his dream we as Latter-Day Saints also partake of emblems of Jesus Christ every week in our sacrament service. When we eat food we assimilate it and it becomes part of us (you are what you eat). Metaphorically the Lord intends for us to partake of the Savior's divine nature and take upon ourselves his identity.

Judean terracotta figurine

Additionally, it is interesting to note that anciently the mother-goddess was also associated with bread. Archaeologist in the Holy Land have found hundreds of terracotta figurines depicting females which scholars have identified with Asherah. They all date roughly to the time of Nephi and before and some have been found clasping a round object to their breast. This object is sometimes interpreted as a tambourine but William Dever has interpreted the objects as loaves of bread (see here for his statement regarding this. The discussion begins at about 17:45). Jeremiah 44 mentions that the people of his day were baking cakes to the queen of heaven and that they attributed their good fortune to this practice.

During the Savior's mortal ministry he associated himself with bread and identified himself as the "bread of life" in John 6 and associated the sacramental bread with his body during the Last Supper (Matthew 26:26). Likewise, its easy to see an analogy between bread baking in an oven and an infant in his mother's womb and this may have been part of the divine mother/son iconography.

Tree of Life = the Mother = the Cross

Plan of Salvation

Every missionary of my generation was at least aware of and probably used the familiar diagram which laid out in visual form the Church's teachings regarding our premortal, mortal and post mortal existence. The diagram is an attempt to simplify the Church's teachings and help investigators understand these new ideas.

While the diagram is very useful, especially in missionary work and when teaching children, and not inaccurate per se I do believe there is another way the diagram could be presented that is more consistent with the plan as it is presented in the temple. I have put together a diagram illustrating this alternative but I really want to emphasize that this is all very tentative and subject to revision. I do believe, however, that this diagram is consistent with the teachings of the Church and the teachings found in ancient and modern temples, so here is the diagram, let me know what you think:

You'll notice that the diagram is chiastic which I believe is significant and that it is consistent with this diagram which is fairly well known:

The Divine Mother

I came across the photograph to the left recently of a really intriguing mosaic located at the Collegio San Lorenzo da Brindisi in Rome. Created by Friar Marko Ivan Rupnik it depicts the very well known event found in Exodus 3 of when Yahweh (aka Jehovah) appeared to Moses in the burning bush.

The mosaic depicts Moses with a veil over his face conversing with Jesus Christ (Yahweh) who is in the embrace of his mother Mary. Jesus and his mother are both seated within the burning bush. The presence of the veil on Moses evidently refers to the veil he wore when he returned to the camp of Israel after speaking with God as recorded in Exodus 34:29-35.

The presence of Mary or a divine mother figure in this depiction may be puzzling as Exodus fails to mention any other persons in Moses's encounter with the burning bush. However, one of the more curious qualities of the burning bush is that it is an unambiguously feminine symbol. The golden lampstand (aka menorah) in the temple was almost certainly a stylized representation of the burning bush. It was adorned with golden almond blossoms and contained bowls at the end of each arm containing olive oil into which the wicks were placed (see Exodus 25:31-35). Trees in general and the almond tree in particular were closely associated with the divine mother known as Asherah who was considered in early Israelite religion to be the mother of Yahweh and consort to the father god El. In the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament) this divine mother figure was sometimes referred to as "Wisdom" and was associated with Mary the mother of Jesus by the early Christians.

Additionally, Margaret Barker in her book "The Mother of the Lord" asserts that the voice from the burning bush was originally the divine mother and states "'She that dwelt in the bush' is still remembered in the titles and ikons of Mary. Sometimes she is depicted as the bush itself and sometimes she is seated in the burning bush and holding her son." (185) It is important to point out that the early Christians probably did not believe Asherah/Wisdom and Mary were identical persons but that they both filled the role of divine mother. In an LDS context we might look at it in this way: Asherah is the mother of the Lord's spirit and Mary is the mother of his body - both can rightfully be viewed as his mother.

Whether this divine mother figure was in fact the primary agent in the burning bush theophany or played some other supportive role to her divine son Yahweh is unknown but for Latter-Day Saints who possess a doctrine of divinization this is an intriguing idea. It seems probable that both members of an exalted couple would play an active role in the lives of their mortal children. If this is the case it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the divine mother has in fact participated in at least some, if not all, of the great theophanies which are recorded in the scriptures.

Biblical scholars have successfully demonstrated (via the documentary hypothesis) that the Hebrew Bible has gone through a long process of redaction by various groups promoting their own particular agendas and that many "plain and precious truths" have been removed (see 1 Nephi 13:24-28). Beginning with Joseph Smith the Lord has restored some of these lost truths "line upon line; here a little and there a little" (Isaiah 28:10)  and we believe that God "will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God" (Articles of Faith 1:9).

It appears that one of the truths which Satan has been very eager to vanquish from the earth pertains to the existence of our divine mother. This may be part of his larger effort to denigrate women generally in order to cause them to forget their inherent divinity and nobility. The apostle John evidently witnessed the war that has been waged against her in his great apocalyptic vision in Revelation 12:1-6:

The Virgin Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse by Rubens.

1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

There has been some debate regarding the identity of the woman in John's vision with some arguing that she represents the Church. This seems unlikely when the identity of the child is established. Revelation 19:15-16 states that the Lord, like the man child, is to rule the nations with a rod of iron, therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that they are identical persons. If we assume that to be the case it is unclear how the Church would have given birth to the Lord when he is the one who brought it into existence. It seems more likely that the woman in John's revelation was intended to represent this divine mother figure. It's possible that when John describes the woman fleeing into the wilderness he is describing the world at large losing its knowledge of her.

The divine mother shows up in many, many other places in the scriptures in addition to the two examples that have been cited already. It's beyond the scope of this blog post to list many more but if you do want to read more about it here's a good place to start:

Nephi and His Asherah

Free M.A. in Biblical Studies

I came across a blog this morning where the author has put together a mock M.A. program in Biblical Studies using open courses offered on iTunes U and some other sites. Very cool. While it won't earn you a degree, reviewing the courses certainly would enrich your understanding of the Biblical world. Click on the link here to see the blog post.

Marriage - Gallup Historical Trends

Marriage | Gallup Historical Trends

The results of the poll brought this scripture to mind:

Helaman 5:2

For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted.

Most Excellent Theophilus

10th century Byzantine illustration of Luke the Evangelist.

In his gospel and in the book of Acts, Luke addresses his words to a unknown figure by the name of Theophilus. The identity of Theophilus has been debated over the centuries but the BYU New Testament Commentary website has an interesting post by Kent Brown, a portion of which deals with the identity of this figure.

Here are his comments regarding the identity of Theophilus (it can be viewed at its original source here):

"Within five years or so of Jesus’ death, a Jew named Theophilus was appointed High Priest by Vitellius, who was Prefect of Judaea from AD 35 to 39 (Emil Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. ed., 2:230). Nevertheless, in light of the thoroughly Greek cast of Luke’s Gospel and book of Acts, it is safe to see the Theophilus whom Luke addresses as an educated Roman official (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1). This observation is made more secure by the fact that the term translated “most excellent” in Luke 1:3 is applied to ranking Roman officials in more or less august situations in Acts 23:26, 24:3, and 26:25. In a different vein, in my opinion, it will not do to argue that the name Theophilus simply bears the meaning “friend of God” or the like, thus shedding it of any tie to the world of living Roman officials. An addition in the Joseph Smith Translation seemingly stands against this sort of reading of the name, making the name very personal in an interesting add-on to the text (see JST Luke 3:19)."

Here is the JST translation of Luke 3:19-20 that he refers to:

19 For it is well known unto you, Theophilus, that after the manner of the Jews, and according to the custom of their law in receiving money into the treasury, that out of the abundance which was received, was appointed unto the poor, every man his portion;

20 And after this manner did the publicans also, wherefore John said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.

John 21 - Miraculous Draught of Fish

"The Miraculous Draught of Fishes" by Sebiastiano Ricci, circa 1695-1697, 

oil on canvas, The Detroit Institute of Arts

In John 21:1-14 the apostle John relates his experience of  when he, Peter, James, Thomas and Nathaniel spent a night of fruitless fishing along the shore of the Sea of Galilee following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Toward morning the apostles saw a man standing on shore who called to them asking if they had caught any fish. After answering in the negative the man then instructed them to cast their net one more time on the right side of their boat. After doing so the fishermen caught a "multitude of fishes".

It was at this point that John and the other disciples realized that the man onshore was the Savior and after dragging the net to land they proceed to count the number of fish which turned out to be 153. John also points out that despite the large number of fish the net was not broken.

Stained glass depiction

 of St. John at St. Matthew's

 German Evangelical 

Lutheran Church in 

Charleston, 

South Carolina.

The question as to why John would include the exact number of fish in the net has been debated for centuries and no consensus has ever been found. Some have asserted that he included the number to show just how large the haul was to emphasize the miraculous nature of the occurrence. Jerome cites the Roman teacher Oppian who wrote that there were 153 species of fish in the world and contends that John included this number to teach that the gospel was for all the world and to illustrate the inclusivity of Christianity. He makes this argument despite the fact that Oppian lived and wrote more than a century after the time of Jesus, and thus could not have been an influence on the apostle.

An additional explanation has been proposed which looks at Hebrew gematria relationships, especially the phrase "sons of God" (בני האלהים - beni ha-elohim) whose numerical value is 153. The proponents of this idea theorize that John included the fish count to show that the chosen sons of God were to be gathered into the gospel net through the preaching of John and his fellow apostles. This explanation seems plausible and if true it would be helpful to discover what the phrase may have meant to John and his contemporaries.

The Yale Anchor Bible Dictionary (hereafter YABD) explains under the entry "Sons of God" that "The designation 'sons (son) of God' occurs in the OT in three clearly definable categories depending on whether it refers (1) to divine or angelic beings; (2) to Israelites or Israel as a whole; or (3) individually to the king." 

Following the exile and during the intertestamental period the term began to be used mostly to denote chosen Israel. The YABD entry contains a fascinating discussion of how the "sons of God" phrase was utilized in the sacred literature of the period:

“Son(s) of God” (or its equivalent) becomes virtually a synonym for “people of God” (= Israel), while the OT associations of election, closeness to God, and special protection continue. The ethical aspect of the sonship metaphor also continues (Add Esth 16:14–16; Pss. Sol. 17:30; L.A.B. 16:5), often associated with the idea of disciplinary chastisement (Wis 12:20–21; 16:10–11; Pss. Sol. 18:4).
 
A fresh development, however, is the considerable frequency with which the motif occurs in eschatological contexts. This suggests that it was an epithet felt to be particularly apt to describe the ideal Israel of the end time, the holy and purified people of God, destined to possess or actually in possession of the blessings of salvation (Jub. 1:25–28; Pss. Sol. 17:30; Sib. Or. 3:702–4; 5:248–50). Frequently, acknowledgment of sonship suggests the idea of rescue from or immunity to death. Connected with this is a widespread tendency in the intertestamental period to characterize the future awaiting the righteous as a restoration of the angel-like immunity to death enjoyed by human beings before the fall (1 En. 69:11; 2 En. 30:11; Wis 1:13–14), along with other angelic characteristics and privileges such as a shining countenance, vision of God, and presence at the heavenly liturgy (Wis 5:5; 2 Bar. 51:3–12; Pr. Jos. A). The combination of these motifs in the eschatology of several texts suggests a conflation in the later period of the formerly separate categories of “Israelite” and “heavenly being (angelic)” divine sonship (Byrne 1979). (linked added)

During the New Testament era the YABD states that the phrase "sons of God" was used by the early Christians to refer to the community of believers who followed the fledgling Christian movement while also retaining the eschatological context which was a distinguishing characteristic of the post exile period. 

Whether John was utilizing gematria or not will probably never be known for sure but in the absence of a better explanation it seems like the most likely possibility.