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CERN-Our Generation’s Tower of Babel?

For my next blog-post, I thought that I would go back to the roots of this thing, and write something about the Tower of Babel again. I turned to social media with this question: What is our generation’s “Tower of Babel”? The results have been … interesting. I’ll soon be posting another couple of articles about everything else folks had to say to me. But a number of people suggested something that took me off guard: CERN.

What is CERN?

CERN (an abbreviation for Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire) is a multi-national nuclear research organization. They are probably most famous for running the “Large Hadron Collider,” the largest machine in the world. (Can you see where some of this might be heading yet?). The LHC collides particles into one another at incredible speeds. It helped to measure the properties of the “Higgs boson.” In fact, the LHC produced a subatomic particle that matched the proposed properties of the Higgs boson back in 2012.

All of this is pretty heady science. When dealing with quantum particle physics, there is lots of room for misunderstanding and sensationalism. Because the press popularly referred to the Higgs boson as the “God particle,” the sensationalism just grew and grew. And because Dan Brown (of DaVinci Code infamy) had already made particle research at CERN a big part of the plot of his Angels and Demons (later made into a film in 2009) I suppose that all of the ingredients were sitting right there for a spiritual conspiracy theory involving CERN.

CERN: Conspiracy Element 1

CERN Is Going to Blow Up the Universe!!!

Someone directed me to an article that they had written detailing their version of the theory. Some of what they have to say sounds a bit like Dan Brown’s convoluted ideas in Angels and Demons. So Dan Brown used the supposed threat of CERN developing anti-matter as a plot device. (As I understand it, to actually develop enough anti-matter for such purposes, and then to keep it stable up to the moment of deployment, is so incredibly cost-prohibitive as to render the entire plot of Brown’s novel farcical).

This individual with whom I have been having correspondence invokes Stephen Hawking. Somewhere Hawking supposedly said that the LHC “could pose grave dangers to our planet…the God Particle (also known as the Higgs Boson Particle) found by CERN could destroy the universe.” My correspondent summarizes the rest of Hawking’s explanation as to why this could happen. Supposedly, Hawking said that the energy generated in the LHC might create a “vacuum bubble” that would ripple through the delicate fabric of space and time, causing them to collapse in on themselves. This is what Hawking refers to as “vacuum decay.”

What Stephen Hawking Really Said

Except that Hawking never said just those words in just that order. As far as I can determine, the basis for this claim is something that Hawking wrote in the preface to a book called Starmus. This is what he actually said, “The Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become metastable at energies above 100 [billion] gigaelectronvolts (GeV). This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay, with a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light. This could happen at any time and we wouldn’t see it coming.”

Notice, Hawking is not talking about the Higgs boson in that quote, but the Higgs potential. These are two completely different things. Basically, he is suggesting that our universe is actually somewhat fragile. Because one bug of our universe is this Higgs potential trait, if something managed to generate 100 billion GeV of energy, it could instigate vacuum decay. And please note: Hawking does not suppose that the source of this energy might come from CERN. If it happens, it will be random. It “could happen at any time and we wouldn’t see it coming.”

By the way, a machine capable of generating that much GeV of energy would be larger than our planet. CERN is not really a threat on that front, at least.

Supposedly Neil de Grasse Tyson has also warned us of the dangers of what CERN is doing, but I can’t find any trace of these warnings.

CERN: Conspiracy Element 2

One of the things that bothers Christian CERN conspiracy theorists is the presence of a large statue of Shiva on the premises. My correspondent asks, “Why does a science facility have this on their lawn?”

Actually, there seems to be a fairly innocuous explanation. CERN is an international research facility. One of the member nations is India. Evidently India donated the statue as a gift in 2004. You can read about it here.

Photo of the ceremony in which the statue of Shiva was donated to CERN by the government of India. Some conspiracy theorists think that CERN is our generation's "tower of Babel."
Photo from “Lord Shiva Statue Unveiled,” https://cds.cern.ch/record/745737. Pictured are the Director General of CERN, Dr. Robert Aymar, His Excellency Mr K. M. Chandrasekhar, Ambassador (WTO-Geneva) and Dr Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Dept of Atomic Energy, India.

CERN: Conspiracy Element 3

Another element of the CERN conspiracy theory has to do with it’s logo.

The logo for CERN. Do you see "666"? Some people do. They think that CERN is our generation's "Tower of Babel."

Do you see it? This helpful drawing might help you out:

An attempt to demonstrate that CERN's logo has "666" embedded into it. Some people think that CERN is our generation's "Tower of Babel."
Image by Vincent Robleto on https://www.deviantart.com/kerblotto/art/CERN-is-666-97906513.

I don’t see it. No matter how I squint, I can’t get “666” out of CERN’s logo. I can only find two circles for two sixes, not three. And there are two too many stems!

In any case, the number of the beast is not what most people think it is.

CERN: Conspiracy Element 4

But the most perplexing thing to me about this conspiracy theory is the claim that CERN is using the LHC to open portals through which demons will invade our planet.

Sorry, but demons and super-villains do not use the same means of travel.

Supposedly this was the original function of the Tower of Babel, and CERN is trying to accomplish what the folks in Genesis 11 could not.

Here is one example that someone sent to me, from the Jim Bakker Show. (You do remember him, don’t you?).

Zach Drew on “The Jim Bakker Show,” making the case for CERN creating demon-portals. Comic-book interpretation of Scripture like this is a new thing for me.

Strangely, I have had a few Catholic correspondents tell me the same things this video argues.

Why CERN Can’t Build a Demon-Portal (Even if They Wanted to Do So)

How Angels Can Be in a Place

I cannot stress how absurd this is, especially for certain Catholic conspiracy theorists. The reason is this: angelic beings do not have material bodies that require physical portals for their movement. Who better to explain angelic movement than the angelic doctor? St. Thomas Aquinas explains, beginning with what it means for an angel to be in a place:

It is befitting an angel to be in a place; yet an angel and a body are said to be in a place in quite a different sense. A body is said to be in a place in such a way that it is applied to such place according to the contact of dimensive quantity; but there is no such quantity in the angels, for theirs is a virtual one. Consequently an angel is said to be in a corporeal place by application of the angelic power in any manner whatever to any place.

Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Q. 52, 1

A Further Explanation

Serge-Thomas Bonino, OP, has offered a helpful commentary on this difficult passage in his Angels and Demons: A Catholic Introduction.

An angel, being incorporeal, cannot be situated in a place in the same way as a body is localized. However, as St. Thomas already explained in reference to God, an incorporeal being is present, by dint of a virtual contact, wherever it acts. Thus an angel (or a demon) is present to the corporeal substance to which he applies his causality, not as though he were contained in that corporeal reality but rather as that which somehow contains it.

Bonino, Angels and Demons, pg. 123.

How Angels Travel

The consequences of this for angelic movement should be readily apparent, but let us hear what Aquinas has to say, anyhow:

An angel can successively quit the divisible place in which he was before, and so his movement will be continuous. And he can all at once quit the whole place, and in the same instant apply himself to the whole of another place, and thus his movement will not be continuous.

Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Q. 53, 1

In the next article, Thomas explicitly states that angels do not have to move through “mid-space” because they do not have bodies.

The actual passing from one extreme to the other, without going through the mid-space, is quite in keeping with an angel’s nature; but not with that of a body, because a body is measured by and contained under a place; hence it is bound to follow the laws of place in its movement. But an angel’s substance is not subject to place as contained thereby, but is above it as containing it: hence it is under his control to apply himself to a place just as he wills, either through or without the intervening place.

Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Q. 53, 2

Bonino’s Explanation

Bonino is again helpful on this point.

Since an angel is not in a place in the same manner as a body is, his displacement—his passage from one place to another—is not of the same type as that of a body. In particular, the translation of a body is continuous, in the sense that a moving thing must pass through all the points between A and B, whereas the displacement of an angel is discontinuous, discrete.

Bonino, Angels and Demons, pg. 124.

I was talking with a good friend about this the other day, and he shared a nice perspective on this. We might say that angels travel to us by shifting their attention to us.

Conclusion

To sum up, demons are not supervillians that depend on portals to enter our world. Unfortunately, they are already here.

Of course, it is hardly surprising that conspiracy theories run wild when folks at CERN do stunts like this one.

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Faulty Old Testament Texts and the New Testament

Saint Paul, as painted by Diego Velázquez. Paul quotes a faulty Old Testament text in Romans 12:19.

The New Testament cites the Old Testament on its every page. My critical edition of the Greek New Testament has an appendix. In it, there are over thirty pages taking note of all of these citations and allusions. But biblical researchers who believe that the Bible is divinely inspired eventually run into a problem. Many of these citations do not strictly follow their Old Testament sources. Sometimes it is apparent that they are using a free translation of their own. At other times they engage in a sort of midrash that produces a composite text from numerous sources. But there are instances where the authors seem to use a text that is deficient in terms of textual criticism. Could the New Testament authors actually have quoted faulty Old Testament texts?

A Faulty Old Testament Text

I follow Drew Longacre’s good work over at OTTC: A Blog for Old Testament Textual Criticism. Several years ago he posted a really nice paper there on Deuteronomy 32:35-37. He makes a strong argument for the background of the Septuagint’s translation of these verses, especially in verse 35. The Revised Standard Version, like almost every other translation, follows the standard, Masoretic Hebrew text:

35 Vengeance is mine, and recompense,

    for the time when their foot shall slip;

for the day of their calamity is at hand,

    and their doom comes swiftly.

Deuteronomy 32:35, RSV

Longacre, for all sorts of reasons, argues that the Greek Septuagint is probably closer to the original sense of the Hebrew:

In the day of vengeance I will recompense, whensoever their foot shall be tripped up; for the day of their destruction is near to them, and the judgments at hand are close upon you.

Deuteronomy 32:35, from the Sir Lancelot Brenton translation of the Septuagint.

There are a few differences, but I’ve put the important ones for our purposes here in bold.

Longacre’s strongest argument for preferring the Septuagint here is that it offers a tighter, Hebraic parallelism than the Masoretic text. If you go back and read both of the versions above, I think that you will quickly see what he is talking about. In the Hebrew text, it is really simple to account for the shift from “in the day of vengeance” to “vengeance is mine.” It is the difference of only a few letters. And it makes more sense for the letters to fall away and render the current Masoretic text than for a scribe to supply more letters in a pre-Septuagint Hebrew text.

Deuteronomy 32:35 in the New Testament

But this is just where we have our problem. Usually, when the New Testament cites the Old, it does so with the Septuagint. But in the two places where the New Testament quotes Deuteronomy 32:35, it does not. The first is Romans 12:19, where Paul writes,

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

Saint Paul, as painted by Diego Velázquez. Paul quotes a faulty Old Testament text in Romans 12:19.
Saint Paul, as painted by Diego Velázquez. Paul quotes a faulty Old Testament text in Romans 12:19.

The other is Hebrews 10:30:

We know him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”

The Implications: Faulty Old Testament Texts in the New Testament

There are several things that are interesting about these two verses. First of all, they demonstrate that the proto-Masoretic text at Deuteronomy 32 had already in the pre-Christian period crystallized into the text-form that rabbinic Judaism preserved into modern times. (When you consider that the space between these citations and the oldest Torah manuscript is nearly 1000 years, that’s pretty significant). This also means that many of the faulty Old Testament texts also become an integral part of this manuscript family.

Secondly, apparently both Paul and the author of Hebrews intentionally chose a text that was closer to the proto-Masoretic text than the Septuagint. This is significant because both of these books have numerous citations from the Septuagint. But they either re-translated Deuteronomy 32:35, or made use of another Greek translation that was closer to the proto-Masoretic text with which they were familiar.

And this is the big problem. If scribes corrupted the proto-Masoretic text of Deuteronomy 32:35, then isn’t the fact that these New Testament authors directly cite it a mark against the divine inspiration of the texts they are composing? Isn’t this a manifest error in the Bible? Could inspired authors really cite faulty Old Testament texts?

Should It Bother Us that the New Testament Cites Faulty Old Testament Texts?

This is the sort of thing that brought on my faith crisis so many years ago. But today, this doesn’t really bother me. I do think that this is probably a corruption in the proto-Masoretic manuscript family, and that these New Testament authors did perpetuate this corruption in their citations of Deuteronomy 32:35. Paul was a brilliant rhetorician. He wasn’t a textual critic.

But I think we should take this one step further. I would argue that the quoting of this manuscript error in the New Testament also took place under the providential inspiration of the Holy Spirit, just as everything else that the biblical authors and editors wrote.

Perhaps I feel this way because I have been reading too much midrash. The rabbinic sages were aware of textual irregularities in their biblical manuscripts, and instead of worrying so much about how this could happen to their sacred texts, they considered that God allowed this as part of His plan. So, the scribal mistakes are inspired, too.

Midrash Provides a Way Out

A classic example is 1 Samuel 13:1. “Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign.” That’s how the RSV renders the faulty Hebrew text. But in the Hebrew, it literally seems to say that Saul was one year old when he became king. That’s obviously not the case. Saul’s age has disappeared from the text.

Enter midrash. In Yoma 22b of the Babylonian Talmud, there is a delightful explanation for this scribal error.

It is written: “Saul was one year old when he began to reign” (1 Samuel 13:1), which cannot be understood literally, as Saul was appointed king when he was a young man. Rav Huna said: The verse means that when he began to reign he was like a one-year–old, in that he had never tasted the taste of sin but was wholly innocent and upright.

So, the Talmud provides a spiritual explanation for the obvious fault in the manuscripts. Saul was not literally a year old, but he was innocent of sin like babies are.

The Talmud’s Response to Midrashic Skeptics

Now, you might just be skeptical about the validity of this interpretation, especially if you have studied the historical-critical exegetical methods of our day. And if that is the case, you’re in good company. Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak felt just the same as you. In fact, this was his response: “You could just as well say that he was like a one-year-old in that he was always filthy with mud and excrement.” But be careful before you reject the interpretations of the rabbis of old! Just look at what happened to poor Rav Naḥman after he said this:

Rav Naḥman was shown a frightful dream that night, and he understood it as a punishment for having disparaged Saul. He said: I humbly submit myself to you, O bones of Saul, son of Kish, and beg your forgiveness. But once again he was shown a frightful dream, and he understood that he had not shown enough deference in his first apology. He therefore said this time: I humbly submit myself to you, O bones of Saul, son of Kish, king of Israel, and beg your forgiveness. Subsequently, the nightmares ceased.

Relax: The Holy Spirit Is in Control

I think that we can do with the New Testament citations of Deuteronomy 32:35 something like what the rabbinic sages do with 1 Samuel 13:1. Paul and the author of Hebrews assumed wrongly that the proto-Masoretic text of this verse with which they were familiar was correct. It was an honest-to-goodness human error. But the Holy Spirit allowed this because you and I needed to hear what Paul has to say in Romans 12:19.

And we need to hear, specifically, what he has to say from that faulty text. Vengeance is God’s alone. You and I have no right to pursue revenge when we suffer even the greatest of outrages. Instead, we are called to trust the God of justice to call everyone to account in His own providential working in history. This is a difficult, but necessary aspect of the Christian life. And this is not a message that was originally a part of the Book of Deuteronomy. But thanks to the New Testament perpetuating and enshrining this manuscript error, it is a message that is now an integral part of Christian ethics.

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Prophetic Zionism

A picture of the author praying at the Western Wall during his last visit to Jerusalem. In this article he argues for prophetic Zionism.
Praying at the Western Wall during my last visit to Jerusalem.

The Personal Context for “Prophetic Zionism”

If you know me or have read much of anything on this blog, you know that I am very fond of Judaism and Jewish culture. In fact, I am Catholic today largely in part to exposure to Jewish culture and liturgy. My wife and I lived in Beer-Sheva, Israel for nine years while I completed my graduate studies in the Hebrew Bible at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. This was a great privilege. Some of our closest friends are still in Israel. All of this is the background for what I have to share here about “prophetic Zionism.”

And we also have close friends who are Palestinian. Needless to say, with friends like these, we have had numerous interesting discussions about the current political situation between the state of Israel and the Palestinians!

I remember one day in particular on which I visited a friend in Bethlehem. We had met a few years earlier when he was studying in the US. I had deeply offended him because I was now studying in an Israeli university, learning Hebrew, and living among “the enemy.” Nothing I said could mitigate his disappointment in me. It was an uncomfortable conversation that has never come to resolution between us. But that evening my wife and I invited another friend to have dinner with us. He is a passionate Zionist. In our small talk, I mentioned that I had been to Bethlehem to visit a friend. I thought that he was going to leave immediately!

Wisdom Measured by Weeks, Months, Years, and Decades

A Picture of My Friend, Fr. Paul Collin, Who Helped Me Develop My Thoughts About Prophetic Zionism
Image from https://www.catholic.co.il/?cat=&view=article&id=17932&m=

Some time later I was sitting and discussing these things with our parish priest at St. Abraham’s Church in Beer-Sheva, Fr. Paul Collin. (Just last spring he went to his reward, and I miss him dearly; may his memory be for a blessing). I wanted to know how Catholics are to approach these problems with the mind of the Church.

Fr. Paul’s response has helped me more than anything else. “When a person visits Israel for a week, they go back and write an article for a travel magazine. If they stay for a month, they return home and produce a travel book. If they stay here for a year, they can manage to write an entire book about the political crises here. But if you have lived here for more than ten years, you realize that the wisest thing you can do is keep your mouth shut, because you don’t really understand what is going on, and you certainly don’t know how to solve the problems here.” (As I recall, he confessed that he had heard this somewhere else, but I can’t track down the source. Perhaps someone can help me?).

An Alternative to Conventional Perspectives: Prophetic Zionism

I did not quite make it to the ten year mark, and so I suppose that I did not acquire the wisdom to keep my mouth shut. But I want to confess with all humility that I do not really understand the Arab-Israeli problem. The more I learn about it, the more bewildering it is. I know people who have suffered tragedies on both sides. In this article, I am going to do my best to avoid particular, contemporary issues like the two-state solution and Israeli settlements. I would like to think that this is because on these things, at least, I have taken Fr. Paul’s advice to heart. More likely it is because I am a coward.

But in broader terms, it seems to me that Christian support or opposition to the return of the Jewish people to their homeland polarizes around the legitimacy of the Jewish state of Israel. In this article, I am intentionally attempting to move these goal posts. Instead of the traditional Zionism that we immediately think of, I want to propose an alternative to help Christians consider what the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel might mean for them. I am calling this alternative “prophetic Zionism.”

An Outline of Prophetic Zionism

By “prophetic Zionism” I intend the following:

Israel’s Covenant Status the Basis of Prophetic Zionism

The Jewish people remain God’s chosen people even now. St. Paul says,

As regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:28-29).

God has confirmed this special status with an indelible covenant. Actually, He has confirmed it with multiple covenants. The first of these covenants was with Abraham. Genesis 17:7-8 is explicit in stating that this covenant is both everlasting, and involves the bestowal of land.

7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. 8 And I will give to you, and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

The Return of the Covenant People to Their Covenant Land

The return of the Jewish people to their inheritance is indeed a prophetic sign. (Thus the term “prophetic Zionism”). Jesus Himself seems to predict that His people will come back to Israel.

Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:24).

That phrase “times of the Gentiles” is interesting, and we will have to deal more with that below.

Ezekiel 36

This return is not predicated by the virtue of the Jewish people returning to their homeland. One of the most vivid predictions of the return is found in Ezekiel 36. When we read this text carefully, we see that God will pour out His grace of conversion on Israel after they return to the Land.

24 For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.

28 You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29 And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses; and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. 30 I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominable deeds.

What Makes Prophetic Zionism Different: Disentangling the Promise of Restoration from the Secular Jewish State of Israel

Nota bene: None of this has anything to do with a secular Jewish state. I think it is a serious mistake to understand these covenant promises in a strictly nationalistic manner. The prophets never envision anything like the modern state of Israel. Instead, they foretell the restoration of the Davidic dynasty in its ideal state. As a Catholic Christian, I heartily confess my faith that this prophesied government subsists in the Church as ruled over by Jesus the Messiah. Like all human systems of government, including our own, the state of Israel stands in opposition to the reign of Jesus in numerous ways.

The Government of Israel Has Been Instituted by God … Like Every Other Government

Even if the state of Israel is not an ideal political system, in His providence God has been using it to achieve His righteous purposes, as He does with all human governments. What Paul says of the Roman government in Romans 13 applies to Israel’s government, as well:

1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.

5 Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

The Government of Israel Can Serve God’s Purposes and Still Not Be Ideal

It seems to me that the particular purpose for which God has used Israel is to encourage His people to return to their inheritance.

But remember: Paul is writing this in regards to the very government that will eventually behead him for his subversive activities! Revelation 13 describes this same government as a satanically inspired monster! And make no mistake, as with all human governments, there is plenty about the state of Israel that bears the odor of the beast of Revelation 13.

Romans 11

For Catholic Christians, any discussion about the future destiny of the Jewish people has to include St. Paul’s prophecy in Romans 11.

25 Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, 26 and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; 27 “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”

The reference to the “full number of the Gentiles” reminds us of Jesus’ words in Luke 21:24. Considering the connection between Luke and Paul, this parallel seems to be intentional. It seems very likely that Paul believed that the return of Israel to their homeland would accompany an even more dramatic spiritual restoration.

The Land Belongs to … God!!!

Technically, according to the Scriptures, the Land of Israel does not belong to the Jews, (or any other people!), but to God alone. “The land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Leviticus 25:23). The use of “strangers and sojourners” here is key, because these words usually designate foreigners. So, though God has given Israel an explicit legal right to dwell in this land, their legal status is not terribly different from that of aliens.

Finally, according to Ezekiel 47, foreign peoples living in Israel are to be granted equal rights with the Jewish people!!!!

21 So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel. 22 You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as native-born sons of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. 23 In whatever tribe the alien resides, there you shall assign him his inheritance, says the Lord God.

Prophetic Zionism and Catholic Dogma

These statements, taken together, constitute what I intend by “prophetic Zionism.” It is distinct from what usually falls under the titles of “Christian Zionism” or “biblical Zionism” in that it is intentionally aloof towards classical, secular Zionism as enshrined in the modern state of Israel.

I must confess that “prophetic Zionism” is not part of the defined dogma of the Catholic Church. It is merely my attempt to take seriously the things about Israel that I find written in the Scriptures. But the Catholic Catechism does explicitly anticipate the spiritual restoration of Israel as a necessary eschatological development:

The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by “all Israel”, for “a hardening has come upon part of Israel” in their “unbelief” toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.”

St. Paul echoes him: “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” The “full inclusion” of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation, in the wake of “the full number of the Gentiles”, will enable the People of God to achieve “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”, in which “God may be all in all”.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 674

Conclusion

This “‘full inclusion’ of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation” does not require the return of the Jewish people to their homeland. But I think the fact that Paul’s words in Romans 11 about the “full number of the Gentiles” echo what Jesus says in Luke 24:21 about Jerusalem being trodden down by the Gentiles until their time is fulfilled strongly suggests that they are connected.

For excellent commentary from a different perspective, check out what Jimmy Akin had to say about this several years back. He focuses on the legal ownership of the land and the legitimacy of the Jewish state, however. As stated above, Torah is pretty clear in its assertion that the land does not belong to any particular nation, but to God alone. And part of what I am trying to do here is demonstrate that the covenant-right of the Jewish people to live in the land of Israel is not essentially dependent upon a Jewish state exerting sovereignty over this territory.

But I do anticipate some objections, and I will try to deal with a few of these below.

Anticipated Objections

Didn’t the death of Jesus put an end to the Law of Moses and the Old Covenant?

No. We have to take Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:17-18 seriously:

17 Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. 18 For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Some commentators have attempted to identify the crucifixion with “all” being accomplished. But this is not a natural reading of the text. Surely Jesus is simply saying that Torah remains in force until the end of time. Here I appeal to my principle of the kerygmatic burden. Does it really make sense that the Gospel author would include three extensive chapters of Jesus’ exposition of Torah if everything that He had to say there was now defunct? Likewise, in regards to the covenant with Israel, there is ample testimony in both the Old and New Testament that this covenant will never be repealed. We already saw that God promised Abraham an everlasting covenant in Genesis 17:7. Paul confirms that this covenant is irrevocable in Romans 11:29.

Wasn’t God’s covenant with Israel conditional?

No. But this will require a bit of explanation. First of all, there is undeniably a conditional aspect to all of God’s covenants. He does not force us to remain in relationship with Him. So, yes, we can remove ourselves from the benefits of the covenant. Deuteronomy 28 offers a vivid illustration of this conditional aspect.

1And if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments which I command you this day, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

In the verses that follow, He describes these blessings in detail, and he describes the curses that attend disobedience in even more detail. But the entire testimony of the Bible demonstrates that even when Israel is unfaithful, God is faithful to His covenant. One example is Hosea 11:

8 How can I give you up, O E′phraim!
    How can I hand you over, O Israel!
How can I make you like Admah!
    How can I treat you like Zeboi′im!
My heart recoils within me,
    my compassion grows warm and tender.
9 I will not execute my fierce anger,
    I will not again destroy E′phraim;
for I am God and not man,
    the Holy One in your midst,
    and I will not come to destroy.

The New Testament confirms this in 2 Timothy 2:13:

If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

So, God never repeals His covenants, but we can remove ourselves from the benefits of covenant blessing.

Isn’t the Church the new Israel?

No. This supposition is often supported with a misuse of a statement from the Vatican II document Ad Gentes section 5 (later cited in paragraph 877 of the Catechism): “The Apostles were the first budding-forth of the New Israel.” But of course the Apostles were all a part of Old Israel, as well, so the intent here probably has to do more with the correspondence of the Twelve Apostles to the Twelve Patriarchs of the Tribes of Israel. It is a renewal of Israel, but not a replacement of Israel with something else. And this is abundantly clear in Romans 11.

17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree, 18 do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. … 24 For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.

So, there is one tree, Israel. God didn’t uproot Israel and replace it with another tree, the Church. No, Gentile Christians have simply been grafted onto the ancient trunk of Israel.

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Epiphany and the Nobility of Humankind

The Adoration of the Magi by Botticelli. Depicts the Epiphany of the Nobility of Humankind in the Christ Child
“Earth and Stars Hymn” by Jack Korbel

This is one of my favorite Christmas songs, written and performed by my good friend, Jack Korbel. (I really need to ask Jack whether he considers this to be a Christmas song). If I were to try and describe its message in one phrase, I think it is about epiphany and the nobility of humankind.

Oh, the wondrous light of a guiding star

serves to remind us of what we are.

Be humble for you are made of earth.

Be noble for you are made of stars.

Earth and Stars Hymn by Jack Korbel
The Adoration of the Magi by Botticelli. Depicts the Epiphany of the Nobility of Humankind in the Christ Child
“The Adoration of the Magi” by Botticelli

The Creation of Adam

I thought of this song the other night as I was reading Midrash Bereshit Rabbah on the creation of Adam.

Everything that you see is generated from heaven and earth, as it is said, “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). On the second day He created from on high, as it is said, “And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament'” (Genesis 1:6). On the third day He created from below, “And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass'” (Genesis 1:11). On the fourth day He created from on high, “And God said, ‘Let there be lights'” (Genesis 1:14). On the fifth day He created from below, “And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm'” (Genesis 1:20). On the sixth day He came to create Adam. He said, “If I create him from on high now, the heights will lord it over the lowly things by one creation, and there will be no peace in the cosmos. And if I create him from the lowly things now, the lowly things will lord it over the heights by one creation, and there will be no peace in the cosmos. But, behold! I will create him from both the heights and the lowly things for the sake of peace.” Thus it is written, “And the LORD God fashioned the man, etc.” (Genesis 2:7). [He was made from] the dust of the earth, from the lowly things. “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). This is from the heights. As Rabbi Simeon Ben Laqish said, “‘Sovereignty and fear are with Him. He makes peace in His heights’ (Job 25:2). ‘Sovereignty’ is Gabriel. ‘Fear’ is Michael.”

My translation of Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 12:8

Rivalry Between Heaven and Earth

So, human beings actually, by their very composite nature, are mediators between the material creation and spiritual realities. Consequently, our existence establishes peace (the Hebrew uses the richer word, shalom) between heaven and earth. Of course, the midrash above conveys this as though heaven and earth were engaging in a not-so-friendly rivalry. Depending on how God created Adam, either faction would be able to claim him. (This reminds me of my school days, when we learned about Kansas state history, and how the pro-slave and abolitionist parties violently quarreled over this territory in the days following the Kansas-Nebraska Act, hoping to build their respective representation in the federal government). God intentionally created Adam in such a way that both sides would be able to claim him as belonging with them. Thus, he is a bridge between heaven and earth. And being a mediator is one of the important jobs of priests. This further illustrates what I recently said about Adam’s priesthood.

St. Thomas Aquinas on the Composite Nature of Human Beings

This is actually very similar to what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say about human nature. You can read a great example of this in Summa Theologiae I:76:5:

The Philosopher [Aristotle] says (De Anima ii, 1), that “the soul is the act of a physical organic body having life potentially.”

… Since the form is not for the matter, but rather the matter for the form, we must gather from the form the reason why the matter is such as it is; and not conversely. Now the intellectual soul, as we have seen above (1:55:2) in the order of nature, holds the lowest place among intellectual substances; inasmuch as it is not naturally gifted with the knowledge of truth, as the angels are; but has to gather knowledge from individual things by way of the senses, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii). But nature never fails in necessary things: therefore the intellectual soul had to be endowed not only with the power of understanding, but also with the power of feeling. Now the action of the senses is not performed without a corporeal instrument. Therefore it behooved the intellectual soul to be united to a body fitted to be a convenient organ of sense.

Now all the other senses are based on the sense of touch. But the organ of touch requires to be a medium between contraries, such as hot and cold, wet and dry, and the like, of which the sense of touch has the perception; thus it is in potentiality with regard to contraries, and is able to perceive them. Therefore the more the organ of touch is reduced to an equable complexion, the more sensitive will be the touch. But the intellectual soul has the power of sense in all its completeness; because what belongs to the inferior nature pre-exists more perfectly in the superior, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. v). Therefore the body to which the intellectual soul is united should be a mixed body, above others reduced to the most equable complexion. For this reason among animals, man has the best sense of touch. And among men, those who have the best sense of touch have the best intelligence. A sign of which is that we observe “those who are refined in body are well endowed in mind,” as stated in De Anima ii, 9.

“Stuck In the Middle With You”

You might have to read that a few times before you really understand what St. Aquinas has to say there. In fact, it will help to read this whole section, including the preceding and following questions. What is important for our purposes here is that Thomas contrasts human beings with angels in that we have a much less perfect intellect, and with other animals in that our spiritual soul “has the power of sense in all its completeness.” So, you and I hold a middle position in creation. Another way of saying this is like this: in the human person, God really has established shalom between corporal and spiritual realities. We have a material body. But we bear the “image and likeness” of God. This is because Our Creator breathed our soul into us directly. He made us to rule over nature as His vassal lords and ladies. “I have said that ye are gods” (Psalm 82:6).

What Happened to Our Nobility?

Of course, the biblical narrative quickly moves away from this ideal picture of shalom between heaven and earth. In the Fall, our parents revolted against their Creator. The consequence is that nature now revolts against us. That includes our own personal natures. We easily fall prey to our bodily desires. Every broken New Year’s resolution is a reminder that you and I all too often behave more like earthly, brutish beasts than spiritual intellects. What we really need is an epiphany of the nobility of humankind.

If that’s where the story ended, the lowly things really would be able to take home a win in their struggle against the heights. Our debased and debauched identities would never be able to lay claim to our shared heritage with the denizens of heaven. We would never realize our crucial role as mediators between heaven and earth. There would be no shalom between these rival factions.

Epiphany Restores the Nobility of Humankind

Enter Epiphany.

Christmas is the great festal season of the Mystery of the Incarnation. On the Twelfth Day of Christmas we celebrate the manifestation of this mystery. In the modern West, we focus on the story of the Magi, and the manifestation of this mystery to the Gentiles. In the East, the focus is more on the Baptism of Our Lord. (But note: in the modern Catholic Church we still celebrate the Feast of the Lord’s Baptism on the Sunday following Epiphany).

In any case, both of these Gospel events are all about helping us enter into the wonder of the Mystery of the Incarnation. The Eternal Word of God has entered into Time and Space and taken on our very humanity. The Creator Himself now has a created body, crafted from the same dust that we are. He whom the heavens cannot contain has come down among the lowly things. A new mediator, a new Adam, bridges heaven and earth once again. Shalom returns to the picture. The visit of the Magi and the Baptism of Our Lord both bring us face to face with the epiphany of the nobility of humankind as uniquely embodied in Jesus.

More Epiphany of the Nobility of Humankind to Come!

This tips the balance of human nature towards the heights to an astonishing degree. What St. Thomas Aquinas says about our status in relation to the angels is, strictly speaking, true of our created nature. But the supernature of the Incarnation has done something to all of this that is beyond our comprehension. St. Paul says that we will judge the angels! (1 Corinthians 6:3). St. John says that what we are going to be has not yet been revealed, but we will be like Jesus (1 John 3:2). Whatever we are going to be, this revelation will be an epiphany of the nobility of humankind.

The Epiphany of the Nobility of Humankind and the Transfiguration

Perhaps this is why the third stanza of Jack Korbel’s sweet song is about the Transfiguration, another manifestation of our Lord’s identity. It is in the Transfiguration that we really see what humanity ennobled by divinity looks like. Following the star to Bethlehem, entering into the waters of Baptism with Jesus, and climbing up the path of Mt. Tabor all result in encounters with Jesus that wind up telling us something about ourselves. We recognize our frailty and earthiness.

The only proper response to such an epiphany is to bend the knee in reverent worship. To really see Jesus is to be humbled in an excruciatingly delicious way. But it is also to see the nobility that God has conferred upon our race. In Jesus, we once again reign with God over the cosmos. We can finally experience what it is to fulfill our Creator’s purpose of building shalom between the things on high and the lowly things within our particular domain. At last we can recognize the epiphany of the nobility of humankind.

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The Cosmos Is a Temple

The Tabernacle: The cosmos is a temple.

I recently provided a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 based on the Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish. In that post, I focused on the author’s intention to create a counter-myth to Enuma Elish. But that was not all that the author was trying to do in Genesis 1. Perhaps his biggest message is that the entire cosmos is a temple.

The Tabernacle: The cosmos is a temple.

This idea that the cosmos is a temple appears explicitly in the second chapter of Midrash Tadshe, a short rabbinic commentary on Genesis: “The Tabernacle was made in parallel to [God’s] creation of the cosmos.” It goes on to say that the Holy of Holies corresponds to the highest heaven (the abode of God) and the outer courts correspond to the material world.

Gottwald Agrees: The Cosmos Is a Temple

But I first encountered this notion of the cosmos as temple in Norman Gottwald’s book, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-literary Introduction. My dear professor, Wilbur Fields assigned this book in our Introduction to the Old Testament course as a kind of foil to the fundamentalist readings of the Old Testament for which he was arguing. I remember harboring guilty feelings because I found a whole lot that Gottwald said to be compelling. The thing that most enchanted me was his approach to Genesis 1. This makes up a relatively small portion of his book, but it was the first time that I became aware of the riches of inter-textual interpretation.

The Construction of the Tabernacle Reflects the Construction of the Cosmos

What Gottwald points out is that the recurring phrase “and it was so” in Genesis 1 looks an awful lot like the phrase “as the Lord had commanded, so had they done it” that appears in Exodus 39:43. This passage in Exodus is about the construction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. At every stage of the completion of the Tabernacle, a phrase very similar to that one appears. For instance, at the beginning of Exodus 39 it says, “they made the holy garments for Aaron; as the Lord had commanded Moses.” The correspondence is especially tight when considering that everything in Genesis 1 “was so” as a direct result of a verbal command from God. The same holds true of the Tabernacle. The Lord gives a verbal command to Moses as to how to construct the furniture of the Tabernacle, and the artisans do it just so.

That’s as much as Gottwald says. But this opens up more considerations for these passages. Consider the order of the days of creation and the furniture of the Tabernacle.

Day One: God Creates by Separating Things

The first day establishes things that will be given form later. All of these figure significantly in the function of the Tabernacle. First of all, these verses establish the basic pattern of creation. God creates by separation. This Hebrew verb (le-havdil) describes one of the roles of the priest, to distinguish between various things. Perhaps Leviticus 10:10 expresses this most explicitly. “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.” In a sense, the entire career of the Hebrew priest is bound up in this activity of separation. So, here the text depicts God as creating order in the cosmos by performing a priestly work. Inversely, this conveys that when the priests carry out their work of distinguishing properly, they maintain this cosmic order. The cosmos is a temple, and the Temple is cosmic.

The Liturgical Calendar in Genesis One: If the Cosmos Is a Temple, then It Needs a Calendar

The next thing that really grabs my attention is the fact that God establishes a calendar on the first day of creation. For the Hebrews, the main function of the calendar is liturgy. To really get a sense of just how liturgical Genesis One is, you should read Numbers 28-29, which lays out a detailed sketch of Israel’s festal calendar. If you do this right after having read Genesis 1, the parallels will be obvious. But, note that almost everything in Numbers 28-29 has to do with the sacrificial schedule in the Tabernacle. Again, that is a clue for us as to how to think about the story in Genesis 1, and how it depicts the cosmos as a temple. But it also suggests that the liturgical calendar and the sacrifices that are built into it are a means of participating in the original work of creation.

We’ll return to the waters and the light later on.

Day Two: The Firmament

On the second day, God creates the firmament. The purpose of the firmament is once again to separate, to distinguish between the waters above and below the firmament. There is no firmament in the Tabernacle. But the verbal root for the word translated “firmament,” rq”a’, does show up twice in association with the Tabernacle. Rq”a’ means “to hammer out into a sheet.” This is significant, because the verb only appears eleven times in the entire Hebrew Bible. First, Exodus 39 tells us how Bezalel hammered out gold leaf so that he could turn it into thread for the ephod.

The Ephod

2 And he made the ephod of gold, blue and purple and scarlet stuff, and fine twined linen. 3 And gold leaf was hammered out and cut into threads to work into the blue and purple and the scarlet stuff, and into the fine twined linen, in skilled design.

The Ephod. The cosmos is a temple.
The Ephod, a kind of breastplate worn by the high-priest.

The Bronze Covering for the Altar

Then, in a more grisly passage in Numbers 16, we hear about the censers that Korah and his company used to offer incense before the Lord. They challenged the Aaronic privilege to the priesthood, and as a consequence, fire came out from the ark of the covenant and consumed them, Raiders of the Lost Ark style. Because these men had consecrated these censers to God, they could not simply dispose of them. Instead, craftsmen hammered them out and turned them into a covering for the altar of sacrifice.

37 “Tell Elea′zar the son of Aaron the priest to take up the censers out of the blaze; then scatter the fire far and wide. For they are holy, 38 the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives; so let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar, for they offered them before the Lord; therefore they are holy. Thus they shall be a sign to the people of Israel.”

39 So Elea′zar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered; and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar, 40 to be a reminder to the people of Israel, so that no one who is not a priest, who is not of the decendants of Aaron, should draw near to burn incense before the Lord, lest he become as Korah and as his company—as the Lord said to Elea′zar through Moses.

Day Three: God Creates Seas

The bronze laver in the tabernacle.
The bronze laver, with which priests washed their hands and feet before offering sacrifice in the Tabernacle.

On the third day, God creates the seas. These correspond to the bronze laver in the Tabernacle, and the molten sea in Solomon’s Temple. (Midrash Tadshe states this unequivocally). Both the laver and the sea were round. Midrash Tadshe says that this was a reflection of the firmament that encircles the disc of the earth, surrounded by the seas. It was thirty cubits in circumference, in accord with the thirty days in a month. It measured ten cubits in diameter. This, too, has a cosmic significance according to Midrash Tadshe: Israel sustains the cosmos by performing the Ten Commandments. (Coincidentally, in the Hebrew text of Genesis, God also creates the universe with ten utterances).

The brazen sea from Solomon's Temple.

The priests in the Tabernacle and Temple used both of these vessels to ritually wash their hands and their feet before offering sacrifices. The sea, because of its size and height, probably had a pool surrounding it into which water from the sea was run for this purpose. (In the Mass, our priests do this very thing, with much less water, at the beginning of the Eucharistic liturgy, to signify that they are offering the supreme sacrifice that Jesus made at Calvary).

Midrash Tadshe also says that the vegetation that God creates on the third day find its correspondence on the Table of Showbread. It even says that there are six loaves for the six months of winter produce and six for the summer. (They grow produce all year round in Israel).

The Table of Showbread from the Tabernacle.
One conception of the Table of Showbread. The twelve loaves are at either side of the table. In the middle is an ark containing frankincense.

Day Four: God creates the Luminaries, the Menorah of the Cosmos as Temple

On the fourth day, God creates the luminaries of the heavens. Midrash Tadshe tells us that these the Menorah, the lampstand that illumined the Holy Place, mirrors these. Not only this, but the two bronze pillars, Boaz and Jachin, represent the sun and the moon, respectively.

The Menorah as depicted on the Arch of Titus.
The Menorah as depicted on the Arch of Titus. From http://cojs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/arch-temple-menorah.jpg.

Day Five: God Creates Birds and Sea Creatures

On the fifth day, God creates the creatures of the sea and the birds of the air. The cosmos begins to be populated. Priests will offer some of these creatures (pigeons and doves) in the Tabernacle as sacrifices in worship.

Day Six: God Creates Land Creatures for Sacrifice and Human Beings to Serve as Priests in the Cosmos Temple

The same is true of the land creatures God makes on the sixth day. Most of these are unclean, and consequently unsuitable for sacrifice. But Torah separates a select few for this purpose: cattle, sheep, and goats. And then, to crown the work of creation, God creates human beings in His image as the priests who will offer these gifts back to Him in sacrifice in the cosmos-temple.

The liturgical calendar of creation reaches its pinnacle on the seventh day, when God ceases from His labor, providing a model for His people to follow. To truly bear the image and likeness of God is to rest from our labors, as He does, and to reconnect with Him on the Sabbath, in the temple cosmos. All of the labors of the week are for the sake of enjoying the peaceful communion afforded by the Sabbath.

Midrash Bereshit Rabbah and the Literary Structure of Genesis One

Before wrapping this up, I’d like to draw attention to another aspect of the structure of Genesis One. The ancient collection of rabbinic commentary known as Midrash Bereshit Rabbah offers intriguing insight on this count. Although it doesn’t directly relate to the theme of cosmos as temple, it demonstrates that the ancient sages were not preoccupied with literalistic interpretations of Genesis One. They recognized it to be a carefully crafted literary work.

Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 12:5

Rabbi Nehemiah, a man from the village of Sihon, offered this midrash on Exodus 20:11, “Because in six days the LORD made the heaven and the earth, etc.”: These three things were the foundation of His creation of the cosmos, and they waited for three days, and brought forth three generations.

According to the house of Hillel: the earth was created on the first day, and waited three days, the first day, the second, and the third, and brought forth three generations, trees and grasses and the Garden of Eden. The firmament was created on the second day, and waited three days, the second day of creation, the third, and the fourth, and brought forth three generations, the sun and the moon and the constellations. And water was created on the third day, and waited three days, the third day of creation, the fourth, and the fifth, and brought forth three generations, birds and fishes and Leviathan.

Rabbi Azariah did not say the same thing. Instead, on the day that the LORD made heaven and earth there were two things that were the foundation of His creation of the cosmos, and they waited for three days, and their work was completed on the fourth.

According to the house of Shammai: The heavens were made on the first day, and waited three days, the first day of creation, the second, and the third, and their work was completed on the fourth. And what completed their work? The luminaries. The earth was made on the third day, “and the earth brought forth …” (Genesis 1:12). This was the foundation of His creation. And it waited three days, the third day of creation, the fourth day, and the fifth, and its work was completed on the sixth. And what completed its work? Adam, as it is said, “I made the earth, and created Adam upon it” (Isaiah 45:12).

Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 12:5, my personal translation

The Literary Structure of Genesis One in Tables

There are actually two different schemas for understanding Genesis 1 presented by two rival schools in that text. Both of them actually work, and perhaps both reflect the author’s intent. What Midrash Bereshit Rabbah is saying is that there is a structural correspondence between the first days of creation and the last ones.

Day 1: Earth FoundedDay 2: Firmament FoundedDay 3: Water Founded
Day 3: Earth populated with TreesDay 4: Firmament populated with SunDay 5: Water produces Birds
Day 3: Earth populated with GrassDay 4: Firmament populated with Moon Day 5: Water populated with Fishes
Day 3: Earth finished with Garden of EdenDay 4: Firmament populated with ConstellationsDay 5: Water populated with Leviathan (“tanninim“)
The House of Hillel’s schema for the literary structure of Genesis One
Day 1: Firmament FoundedDay 3: Earth Founded
Day 4: Firmament completed with luminariesDay 6: Earth completed with Adam
The House of Shammai’s schema for the literary structure of Genesis One

The Cosmos Is a Temple

The cosmos, then, is a temple. And the temple is a microcosm, i.e., a miniature universe. Sacred spaces like the Tabernacle sanctify the common places outside of their bounds. Animals that are sacred, like pigeons and bullocks, when the priest offers them in sacrifice, sanctify the common creatures who are not destined for the altar. Sacred times like the Sabbath sanctify the common days of the workweek. The priests of the Tabernacle and the priests ministering at our Eucharistic altars sanctify us common folk. All of this provides a means for every aspect of creation to actually be turned back to the glory of God in worship. God made you in His image to participate in this cosmic liturgy.

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A Cognate to Eden’s Serpent

I just read this funky story in Aelian’s On the Nature of Animals 6.51, and I had to share it really quickly. The translation is that of Scholfield.

The name of the Dipsas {thirst-provoker} declares to us what it does. It is smaller than the viper, but kills more swiftly, for persons who chance to be bitten burn with thirst and are on fire to drink and imbibe without stopping and in a little while burst. Sostratus declares that the Dipsas is white, though it has two black stripes on its tail. And I have heard that some people call these snakes presteres {inflaters}; others, kausones {burners}. In fact they deluge this creature with a host of names. It has also been called melanūrus {black-tail}, so they say, and by others ammobates {sand-crawler}; and should you also hear it also called kentris {stinger}, you may take it from me that the same snake is meant.

I must repeat a story (which I know from having heard it) regarding this creature, so that I may not appear to be ignorant of it. It is said that Prometheus stole fire, and the story goes that Zeus was angered and bestowed upon those who laid information of the theft a drug to ward off old age. So they took it, as I am informed, and placed it upon an ass. The ass proceeded with the load on its back; and it was summer time, and the ass came thirsting to a spring in its need for a drink. Now the snake which was guarding the spring tried to prevent it and force it back, and the ass in torment gave it as the price of the loving-cup the drug that it happened to be carrying. And so there was an exchange of gifts: the ass got his drink and the snake sloughed his old age, receiving in addition, so the story goes, the ass’s thirst.

This idea that a snake has cheated us out of eternal life is widespread over the ancient world. It appears in Genesis 3, of course, but it also shows up in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Lots of our ancestors were convinced that snakes lived forever. (Think about it; how many snakes that have died of natural causes have you ever come across?).

A snake shedding its skin.
From https://www.snakesforpets.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/how-long-does-it-take-for-a-snake-to-shed-its-skin.jpg

The snake’s uncanny ability to shed its old skin, revealing new youth underneath contributed to this idea. But what is interesting is the conviction that somehow snakes had stolen this from us.

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Reading Genesis 1 Literally

Genesis 1 in a 1620 edition of the King James Bible. Reading Genesis 1 today is much more contentious than it was in 1620!
Genesis 1 in a 1620 edition of the King James Bible. Reading Genesis 1 today is much more contentious than it was in 1620!
Genesis 1 from a 1620 edition of the King James Bible

I recently received feedback to my post on my crisis of faith from a good friend. This post wasn’t really about reading Genesis 1. But it did address that obliquely. My faith crisis was brought on by a realization that some of the evidence that I had received for young earth creationism as a child was bogus. My friend points out that he had nearly the opposite experience. He was taught as a child that “the creation story was not literal and had to be ‘interpreted.'” Later, he adopted belief in young earth creationism.

In this post, I’d like to focus on this very wide-spread notion among Christians of a more progressive or mainstream bent that reading Genesis 1 literally is not appropriate. Many of them would say that it has to be interpreted symbolically. Sometimes well-meaning believers attempt to make their faith look respectable. Thus, they try to make Genesis 1 square with modern evolutionary science. Even if they don’t take this approach, it is very common for Bible interpreters to reduce the entire text down to pure symbol. They completely abandon any shred of a literal, primary sense.

Reading Genesis 1 Literally, not Scientifically or Symbolically

I think that both of these approaches are a mistake. Personally, I have no problems at all with evolution. But you just can’t find anything evocative of modern scientific theory in the biblical text. (That goes for the pseudo-science of young earth creationism, too, however). But that doesn’t mean that reading Genesis 1 isn’t legitimate. So, in this post, I am going to argue that Genesis 1 is an inspired text with authentic, divine revelation. I am also going to argue that as such, it has a literal sense to which biblical interpreters have to give proper attention. They must do this before proceeding forward to any spiritual senses the text might have. In so doing, it will become evident that this literal sense has nothing to do with any of the distracting concerns of the evolution/intelligent design debate.

The Literal Sense

To begin with, we have to define what we really mean by “reading Genesis 1 literally.” Then we have to distinguish it from strictly literalistic interpretations of the Scriptures. Although they sound very similar, these are not the same thing. By “literal sense,” I am mostly referring to the “Author’s Intended Meaning.” I’ve already discussed this a bit elsewhere.

The truth is, even texts whose authors never intended for them to be read in a woodenly literal manner have a literal sense. Just consider this example from Song of Songs 2:

1I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.

2 As a lily among brambles,
    so is my love among maidens.

3 As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
    so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
    and his fruit was sweet to my taste

Now, obviously the author of these lines did not intend for us to actually believe that this is all about a botanical love affair between a rose and an apple tree! This text has a rather clear literal sense. Simply put, it is erotic poetry. It uses abundant metaphors to convey its celebration of romantic love. But those symbols convey the author’s intended meaning. Of course, both Jewish and Christian interpreters have reveled in deeper, spiritual interpretations hidden in these words. But those spiritual interpretations depend upon the literal, erotic sense.

How Should We Go about Reading Genesis 1?

Returning to reading Genesis 1, the first thing that we have to acknowledge is that the author’s intended meaning cannot possibly have anything to do with the modern scientific method. This is because he just wasn’t familiar with it. So, there can’t be any kind of evolutionary process described in symbolic terms there. On the other hand, the author isn’t using his own, particular scientific terminology in ancient Hebrew, either. (Baraminology is a particularly egregious attempt to say this sort of thing). No, whatever the author’s intended meaning is, it has nothing to do with science as we conceive of it today.

If the author of Genesis 1 is not intending to say something scientific, what is he trying to say? How would we ever determine that? How should we go about reading Genesis 1?

Clues from Enuma Elish

Our first clue is the fact that Genesis 1 evokes another creation story in unmistakable ways. This story is from ancient Babylon. It is known by its opening line, Enuma Elish, “When on High.”

Now, before I proceed any further, I need to dispense with two widespread misconceptions about Enuma Elish. The first is the very popular idea among skeptics that Genesis 1 is simply a cheap “knock-off” of the Babylonian story. Ever since George Smith widely disseminated a version of Enuma Elish in the nineteenth century under the title Babylonian Genesis this idea has enjoyed popular appeal. But anyone who has carefully read both of the texts will tell you that the differences between them are far more striking than their similarities. No, the author of Genesis 1 is aware of Enuma Elish, and intentionally uses some of the vocabulary and even the cosmology of the text, but all with a mind to subvert its ideology. The result is a piece of literature that transcends its source material in breathtaking ways.

Dispelling Weird, Fundamentalist Ideas about Enuma Elish and Reading Genesis 1

Fundamentalists have also perpetuated some weird ideas about Enuma Elish. I don’t hear this as much as I used to, but some Bible teachers have said that the Babylonian author of Enuma Elish actually had been reading Genesis 1, or maybe was familiar with the traditions that lay behind Genesis 1. I think that it will become apparent why that cannot be the case as I proceed. But let me say here that it is extremely unlikely that anyone in Mesopotamia would want to bother with the religious traditions of the Hebrews.

First of all, there is a serious language divide. Although Hebrew and Akkadian are both Semitic languages, it’s not as though someone from Babylon could pick up a Hebrew text and read it without much difficulty. The differences are substantial. But apart from that, from the perspective of the empires of Assyria and Babylon, Israel was merely a backwater people who posed the annoying problem of occupying some of the most strategic territory in the Levant. There is simply no evidence that anyone from Mesopotamia exhibited any curiosity about the traditions of Israel until the Christian era. If they copied Genesis 1, this would be a remarkably singular incident in ancient history.

All of the evidence points to the influence going in the other direction. Enuma Elish was probably written long before Genesis 1. The author of Genesis 1 seems to have been well-acquainted with it.

Enuma Elish

Utter Chaos

Let me offer a brief summary of Enuma Elish. It begins with utter chaos. Nothing existed in the beginning, not even the gods. Somehow, from the midst of this nothingness the two primeval waters emerged. Abzu, the fresh waters, mingled his waters with Tiamat, the sea. Their union engendered the first gods. These gods had their own children, and so on. Eventually the cosmos was chock-full of rowdy, juvenile deities carrying on and having raucous parties.

The Demise of Abzu

Abzu got irate. He couldn’t get any sleep because his progeny were too noisy. So he and his vizier Mummu conspired to kill all of the gods. Tiamat tried to talk them out of it, but they were too committed to their plan.

Unfortunately for Abzu, one of the gods, named Ea, learned of his plot. He created a counter-plot. With his magic, he slew Abzu. Then he poured him into the well of the earth. He used Mummu as a cork to keep him imprisoned there.

Marduk

Tiamat grieved over Abzu, but soon settled into a new life. That was, until Marduk came along. Marduk, the grandson of Ea, was a precocious young god. Ea doted on him, and gifted him with his very own bag of winds. Marduk loved to take it to the beach and let the winds toss dirt into Tiamat’s waters and whip them into frothy whitecaps. Eventually, she too became irate, and decided to create an army to destroy the gods.

Tiamat Strikes Back

First, she married another monster like herself, a consort named Kingu. And then she proceeded to create one brood of warriors after another. There were scorpion-men and fish-headed men and bull-headed men and mushmahhu dragons. (With venom for blood! Shudder!).

Marduk with a cute, little mushmahhu dragon.
Marduk, with a cute, little mushmahhu dragon.

The Beer Party Counsel of the Gods

Once again, Ea and the gods found out about Tiamat’s plan. But this time, they were genuinely scared. They convened a council. (The description sounds a lot more like a beer party, to be honest). And then they selected Marduk as their champion to march out against Tiamat. Marduk happily volunteered on the condition that the gods would bequeath upon him the power of divine fiat. They did so, and then he tried it out by speaking a star into existence, and then speaking it out of existence. Then he rode forth in his chariot to meet Tiamat.

The Battle Between Tiamat and Marduk

The battle was a bit anticlimactic, actually. With all of her monster-troop behind her, and with Kingu at her side, Tiamat swooped upon Marduk with her maw gaping wide. He released his winds into her jaws, and then, when they had blown her up like a balloon, he shot her with his arrows. Her army immediately surrendered. (He subsequently pressed them into his own service).

Marduk Creates the World

It is at this point that Enuma Elish begins to sound especially familiar to those of us who have read Genesis 1 carefully. Marduk, after slaying his ancestress, considered and decided to construct a cosmos from her corpse. He began by cutting her in half. The top half he took and made the waters that appear above the earth, the sky. The bottom half he poured into the basins of the earth, and they became the sea. And then he proceeded to mold the land that peeked above the waters into the great land masses.

When he had completed his work of creating the earth, he conceived another project. He imagined a life of luxury, with slaves to build things for him whenever he wanted, and to bring him good things to eat. The thing to do was to craft such slaves. And so he took Kingu, Tiamat’s consort, and slit his throat. As his black blood poured out of the gaping wound, he collected it into a bowl. Then, he shaped the blood into lumpy, black-headed people. And that, according to Enuma Elish, is the origin of human beings.

Marduk Enthroned

Enuma Elish concludes with a hymn. The black-head people built Bab-ilani, the “gate of the gods,” and began to worship the deities there. (You have heard of Bab-ilani. You call it “Babylon”). And then they chant the fifty names of Marduk in his temple. This is the real theme of Enuma Elish. It’s all about how Marduk emerged as the great god of Babylon.

Parallels and Differences Between Enuma Elish and Genesis 1

Parallels

There are a huge number of parallels between Enuma Elish and Genesis 1. Let’s list a few of them.

  • Both stories begin with chaos, and conclude with an established order.
  • “Tiamat” is from the same Semitic root as the Hebrew word for “deep,” tehom.
  • A divine wind/spirit blows over the deep in both stories.
  • Both creation stories feature dragons. (In Genesis, the “great sea monsters” of verse 21 are obviously related to Tiamat and her mushmahhu dragons).
  • In both stories, the heavenly waters and seas are sundered from one another and placed in their respective domains in the cosmos.
  • Like Marduk, God has the power of divine fiat.
  • Both stories culminate in liturgy. (Enuma Elish ends with the hymn to Marduk. The creation story in Genesis concludes with the Sabbath.

Differences

The differences between these stories are immediately apparent, as well. By focusing on the differences between Genesis 1 and Enuma Elish, it begins to become evident what the author’s intended meaning was, and how we should go about reading Genesis 1.

The Minor Differences

  • In Genesis, unlike Enuma Elish, the chaos is not primeval. “In the beginning God ….” And God doesn’t have any grandparents, either.
  • The deep and the chaos do not pose any real threat to God. There is no combat. The sea monsters are created by God’s hand.
  • The tehom has been “demythologized.” It is not a deity, but the primary building material for creation. When God divides the waters into sea and sky, it is not a violent act at all.
  • This is somewhat controversial in Old Testament research right now, but I am convinced that the “divine wind” in Genesis 1:2 (Ruach Elohim) is already setting the stage for the fuller revelation of the Holy Spirit. In any case, it is not just a natural wind like the ones in Marduk’s bag. The God of Genesis 1 is not a storm god, but the transcendent and unique Creator God Who reveals Himself to Moses as Being.
  • Marduk has the power of divine fiat, but he doesn’t actually use it to create a dang thing! In contrast, Genesis 1 proclaims that everything is created by the Word of the Lord.

The Major Differences

  • Perhaps the biggest difference in the stories has to do with the creation of humankind. In Genesis, God creates us in His own image and likeness. In Enuma Elish, humans are made from monster blood. Moreover, God does not create humans to be his slaves, as Marduk does. Instead, we are made to be his vassal rulers over the earth.
  • Enuma Elish depicts worship as slavery. The gods are hungry, and it is our duty to feed them. The gods are powerful and fickle, so we lavish praise on them to appease them and keep them happy with us. In contrast, Genesis 1 depicts worship as rest.
  • The purpose of creation in Enuma Elish is a bit of a mystery. It feels a bit as though Marduk does it because he is looking for something to do. But in Genesis, God creates the world as a Temple in which humanity will worship Him. (More on this to come).

Reading Genesis 1 in Light of the Author’s Intended Meaning

So, why would the author intentionally echo so much of Enuma Elish if he ultimately rejects its world-view? I am convinced that the echoes are intentional. He knows that his audience knows the Babylonian account of creation. So he has chosen to subvert it in dramatic ways. His vocabulary and the sweep of the story have just enough in common with Enuma Elish to force us to come to grips with what is wrong with that story. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he has produced a counter-myth that infinitely transcends its “source material” and contradicts it at its most salient points.

I suppose that Genesis 1 was written by a priest exiled to Babylon. We know that Nebuchadnezzar pressed the elite members of Judaean society into his personal college of scribes. (The first chapter of Daniel preserves memories of this indoctrination process). So, this young priest had been forced to learn the very difficult language of Akkadian, probably by copying and re-copying Enuma Elish day in and day out. Eventually, he said, “Enough! This is a lie!” And then he wrote the most beautiful creation account ever composed in protest.

The Unique Revelation in the Literal Reading Genesis 1

Just consider the number of things that God revealed through this anonymous priest and his story of creation.

  • Creation ex nihilo.
  • God’s eternal existence.
  • The very beginnings of Trinitarian theology: God creates everything by the power of His Word and the mysterious participation of the “Spirit of God” blowing over the primeval waters.
  • The astonishing dignity of human beings created in God’s image and likeness.
  • The goodness and purpose of material creation.
  • The identification of worship with rest in and with God.

So, yes, Genesis ought to be interpreted literally. Its authentic message is unparalleled. But that message has nothing to do with science as we conduct it today, and very little to do with history. No, the literal sense of Genesis is a theological statement, and a supreme challenge to the pagan worldview of ancient Babylon … and the pagan worldview of the 21st century.

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The Free-Throw Contest: A Miracle Story

In a previous post, I shared how past experiences of Jesus’ personal care and concern for me had pulled me through a terrible crisis of faith. Here I will share how one particular childhood event imprinted my heart with faith in Jesus. God demonstrated His love for me at the 1988 Thayer Booster Club Fifth Grade Free-Throw Contest.

Leading Up to the Free-Throw Contest: Awkward and Bullied

In the early part of 1988, I was an awkward and annoying eleven-year old boy. I attended this school.

The front of Thayer Schools, where the Miraculous Free-Throw Contest occurred
Thayer Schools, where I attended K-12.

I was a chubby kid who had already chosen to become a religious zealot. Plus, I had something of a martyr-complex that I lovingly nurtured. My Bible was situated proudly on the corner of my desk at school. And I was the self-designated guardian of my classmates’ souls. So, if I thought they were doing something to put themselves in danger of the fires of hell, I let them know about it with pompous self-importance.

They despised me.

And the more despicable I became, the more my martyr-complex blossomed, and the more they despised me.

There were other reasons. I was one of the only children in my class to come from a farm out of town. Also, the eighties were difficult for farmers, so my lower economic status was an obvious target. Moreover, I was not athletic, but bookish and fat, and I did not keep up with the products of popular culture that they were all consuming. I also had weird rituals that I used as coping mechanisms.

But the Bible on the corner of my desk was an unmistakable target.

Bully 1 and Bully 2

There were two classmates (henceforth designated Bully 1 and Bully 2) who could be especially cruel, and who served as ringleaders for the rest of the classroom. In pop culture bullies are usually depicted as social outcasts. This was not the case in my class. My nemeses were the most popular kids in my class. Everyone else fawned over them and basked in whatever positive attention they might shine their direction.

Bully 1 and Bully 2 were, among other things, especially good at sports, especially basketball. They played basketball with each other every afternoon, and often during recess. They were also funny, especially when it came to thinking up a cutting put-down. And I was usually the one on the receiving end for those. For some reason, an aptly timed Bible verse failed to land with as much finesse!

Today I recognize that I was largely responsible for the bullying that I suffered. But at the time, I was simply overwhelmed by the injustice and outrage that I suffered from day to day.

The Announcement of the Free-Throw Contest

On one particularly bad day my classmates had played “Matthew-germs” all through recess. (This was a kind of game of tag based on the premise that someone had accidentally touched me and thus been infected.) This was not so odd, to tell you the truth, but it really hurt on this day. The teasing continued as we made our way into the classroom, because to go back into the building we had to line up. My classmates fought with each other over who had to stand next to me. They didn’t want Matthew-germs. Finally, we got back to our desks, and there was a bit of respite from the bullying. Before we started the next lesson, my teacher told us we had a special guest.

My youth minister, Jeff Davis, stepped into our classroom. He was carrying a box. Jeff put it on the teacher’s desk, and passed out flyers, the kind with the original clip-art that you did with a photocopying machine. He wanted us to know about an upcoming basketball tournament and free-throw contest that the Thayer Booster Club was sponsoring. He opened the box, and pulled out a trophy. To entice us to sign up, he had gotten real trophies!

Winning the Free-Throw Contest an Impossibility

Before he left, he made eye contact with me and nodded. I knew that he was encouraging me to sign up. Jeff had enthusiastically supported my Bible-to-school habit. He was impressed with how well I knew the Scriptures. He invested a lot of time in me, routinely inviting me to help with things at church or the local church camp. The first time that I ever got up in a pulpit was because of his prompting. Sometimes he asked me to write something for the church newsletter. Now he wanted me to represent Thayer Christian Church in the free-throw contest. He didn’t have to spell it out.

Unfortunately, I was terrible at basketball. Living in the country, I had very little opportunity to play with anyone. And I would have much preferred to sit down with a book than to go to the shed and shoot hoops into the basket my father had set up for me. I knew that winning that trophy was impossible.

My classmates knew it, as well. As Jeff walked out of the room, the ones who had desks around Bully 1 and Bully 2 high-fived them. We all knew that one of them would get the first place trophy, and the other would get the second place trophy.

The Prayer

On the bus-ride home, I began, for the first time ever in my life, to pray in a frank manner. I told God exactly how I felt. The conversation went something like this: “God, I’ve been doing all kinds of things for the sake of your name. I bring my Bible to school every day and try really hard not to sin. When I see my classmates sinning, I warn them of Your approaching judgement. I obey my parents. I take care of my sisters. And so far, I don’t see how this has gotten me one single thing. In fact, about the only thing that it has ever done for me is give my classmates something else to make fun of me for.”

“God, some days I wonder if You even exist. I read in Your Bible about all of these miraculous signs of Your care and concern for the children of Israel. But I’ve never seen anything like that in my own life. Sometimes I wonder if it’s not just all made up.”

I got off the bus, ran up the hill to my house, and ran downstairs to my room. I picked up my basketball. And then I offered God a challenge. “God, if you love me, I want you to prove it.” With tears streaming down my face, I prayed, “God, if you really love me, make me win that free-throw contest.”

And then, for a week, I didn’t think about it.

The Basketball Tournament

But then, on that horrible, gray, Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter, the hour of reckoning arrived. I was sick to my stomach. But I had signed up. There was no getting out of it. I was silent as my parents drove me to the gym.

My team got demolished in the basketball tournament. I had never played in an actual basketball game. Neither had anyone else on my team. The referee was quickly exasperated with us for walking with the ball and throwing it out of bounds. The only thing that I really remember is throwing the ball to the one classmate who was kind of like a friend to me in those days, another farm-kid like me. As soon as he saw the ball hurling towards him through the air, he threw his arms around his head and turned his back to it. So the ball bounced off of his back into the waiting arms of Bully 2. He passed it to Bully 1 for an easy lay-up.

The Basketball Tournament: The Aftermath

After the game, I heard the father of my friend screaming at him in the hallway. My own father just hung his head in shame, and could barely even look at me. It is hard to describe just how important local athletics were for small-town farming communities like mine in the eighties. A few years earlier, our high school basketball team had taken the 1A state championship. Thayer took basketball seriously. Our losing team could taste the searing disappointment.

But there was no time to wallow in our defeat. The free-throw contest would soon be underway.

The Free-Throw Contest

When the dreaded hour came, I took my place at the end of the line. I was not excited about participating in this contest. I remembered my prayer. But it all seemed so foolish and vain right now. Why should God be concerned about a fifth-grade free-throw contest in Thayer, Kansas?

In the first round, about half of my classmates fell out, and took a seat at the side of the gym. Bullies 1 and 2 nailed their shots, as expected. All too soon, it was time for me to take my own shot. Better to just get it over with, and wither under my father’s disapproval on the way home. But, once again, I remembered the prayer. And so, I did something really odd. If God was going to give me this victory to prove His love for me, I wanted it to be indisputable. So I closed my eyes.

I did not open them until I heard the “swoosh,” and then, to my deep surprise, cheering from the bleachers. Beyond all hope and expectation, I had made my first shot! With my eyes closed!

There is not much more to relate. The next two or three rounds eliminated almost all of my classmates. Each time, my shot hit home. Soon, it was just the two Bullies and me left to duke it out.

The Free-Throw Contest: Victory

Mainly, I remember two things about the conclusion of the contest. First, I remember that it took several more nerve-wracking rounds. My accuracy was astonishing. Second, I remember how thrilled I was when it was just Bully 1 and me left to compete for the gold trophy. I was honestly delighted at the thought that I would get a silver trophy at the very least. And had that happened, I probably would have still been convinced that it was a miracle.

Come to think of it, I do remember a few other things. I remember how excited the crowd was getting. People began to cheer for me by name. For someone who had resigned himself to being a “loser” for the rest of his days, this was remarkable … and weird. I didn’t exactly like it. Bully 2 also began crying when he missed his shot. I have to confess, I did like that quite a bit.

The miracle trophy that I won, by God's grace, in the 1988 Thayer Booster Club Free-Throw Contest.
Here it is: the free-throw trophy. Strange and tangible evidence of God’s grace in my life.

In a few more rounds, it was over. I was victorious. The crowd rushed the court. I got a shiny trophy. And then, I was given an opportunity to share the story of God’s love for me.

The Free-Throw Contest Miracle: Concrete Evidence of God’s Love for Me

There are many, many things about God and His dealings with us that I will never understand. I don’t know why He let’s bad things happen to good people. I’m not at all sure why I’ve received so many precious graces that I know have been denied others. And even in my own day to day life, I have plenty of experiences that cause me to pause and doubt God’s goodness, and even His existence. But there is no denying that in 1988, a strange, overweight kid put God to the test, and instead of smiting the son-of-a-gun right then and there for his overweening gall, God gave this little kid what he really needed, a miracle. He helped me win a free-throw contest.

On bad, bad days, I look at this free-throw contest trophy, and I remember God’s faithfulness to me as a child. And I know I can trust Him to remain faithful to the end of my adult-hood, as well.

Epilogue

The next year, I made myself sick with anxiety before that year’s free-throw contest. My farm-kid friend who got hit in the back with the basketball won that year. Bully 1 had to settle for a silver trophy again. Bully 2 still doesn’t have one.

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Korah and His Associates in Hell-A Spooky Tale from the Talmud

Korah and his associates go to hell.
Korah and his associates go to hell. An engraving by Gustave Doré.

In this final entry of “spooky midrash” (at least for 2020) we return to the Sinai desert for another adventure with our buddy Rabbah bar bar Hannah. In the last story, his trusty Arab guide showed him the desert dead. These were the gigantic corpses of the generation of Hebrews that died in the wilderness after rebelling against God and refusing to enter the Promised Land. Right after that story, in the Babylonian Talmud the guide offers to show Rabbah bar bar Hannah another group of Israelite rebels who suffer God’s vengeance, Korah and his associates.

BT Batra 74a (translation of Jacob Neusner)

“He said to me, ‘Come and I will show you those who were associated with Korah
who were swallowed up (Num. 16:32ff.). I saw two cracks that emitted smoke. I
took a piece of clipped wool and soaked it in water, put it on the point of a spear,
and pushed it in there. When I took it out, it was singed. He said to me, ‘Listen
closely to what you will hear,’ and I heard them say, ‘Moses and his Torah are
truth, and we are liars.’ He said to me, ‘Every thirty days Gehenna causes them to
turn over as one rotates meat in a pot, and this is what they say: “Moses and his
Torah are truth and we are liars.’’

Korah and His Associates in Hell

The desert dead were granted a kind of grace from God. The Babylonian Talmud depicted them clutching their prayer shawls until the day of resurrection. In contrast, Korah and his associates enjoy no such mercy. To understand why they are punished so severely, you really have to read about their rebellion in Numbers 16.

Even so, this story probably actually is about grace in its original Jewish context. In Judaism, Gehenna is usually purgative, not punitive. That may be why we hear Korah and his associates confessing their sin against “Moses and his Torah.” That is not the bitter cry of someone confirmed in their rebellion and wickedness, but the moan of anguish expressed by a broken heart.

Perhaps there is hope even for Korah and his associates. And if so, perhaps there is hope for me, as well.