Kerygmatic Burden – Smoking a Ziggurat

December 31, 2020December 31, 2020

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.

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

²And he made the ephod of gold, blue and purple and scarlet stuff, and fine twined linen. ³And 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 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, ³⁸the 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.”
³⁹So 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, ⁴⁰to 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

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 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. 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 Founded	Day 2: Firmament Founded	Day 3: Water Founded
Day 3: Earth populated with Trees	Day 4: Firmament populated with Sun	Day 5: Water produces Birds
Day 3: Earth populated with Grass	Day 4: Firmament populated with Moon	Day 5: Water populated with Fishes
Day 3: Earth finished with Garden of Eden	Day 4: Firmament populated with Constellations	Day 5: Water populated with Leviathan (“tanninim“)

The House of Hillel’s schema for the literary structure of Genesis One

Day 1: Firmament Founded	Day 3: Earth Founded
Day 4: Firmament completed with luminaries	Day 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.

November 15, 2020November 15, 2020

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!

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.

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

³As 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.

October 16, 2020October 16, 2020

“A Virgin Shall Conceive, and Bear a Son”: A Kerygmatic Burden Lab

In a previous post I explained how important the kerygmatic burden is for interpreting the Old Testament. The kerygmatic burden is the prophetic message that the author of the biblical text had for his specific, contemporary audience. In that post, I promised to revisit this topic, giving special attention to the implications for those Old Testament texts that we see fulfilled in the New Testament. So that’s what we will do here, using Isaiah 7:14 as a case study: “A virgin shall conceive.”

Raphael's painting of the Madonna and Child, depicting Isaiah 7:14: "a virgin shall conceive." — “Madonna and Child” by Raphael

The Traditional, Christian Interpretation of Isaiah 7:14

Just taking a look at several translations reveals different ways of interpreting Isaiah 7:14. The title of this post comes from the Douay translation, made from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.” This is the traditional, Christian understanding of the text. In fact, the first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew explicitly quotes this verse as a prophecy of the virgin birth:

¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus Christtook place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; ¹⁹and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ²⁰But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; ²¹she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²²All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
²³“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and his name shall be called Emman′u-el”
(which means, God with us). ²⁴When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, ²⁵but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

Isaiah 7:14 in the RSV

I took that translation of Matthew 1:18-25 from the Revised Standard Version (my preferred English translation). But look at how the RSV translates the source text in Isaiah 7:14: “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son.” Obviously, though a “virgin” and a “young woman” can be the same person, they are not exactly synonyms. Not every virgin is a young woman, and not every young woman is a virgin.

Isaiah 7:14 in Modern Translations

You might suppose that this is just clumsy translation work, but scanning other translations demonstrates that the RSV is in good company. Plently of translations have something besides “the virgin shall conceive.” The New Jerusalem Bible, for instance, says, “the young woman is with child and will give birth to a son.” The 1917 Jewish Publication Society version has, “the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son.” (The reason that this is so close to the RSV has to do with their common history as revisions of the King James Version).

The 2011 Revised Edition of the New American Bible, the official Bible translation of the Catholic Church in the United States, really grabs our attention. “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; the young woman, pregnant and about to bear a son, shall name him Emmanuel.” (The NABRE really over-translates, and creates more problems). So, let’s talk about what is going on in the original, Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14.

The Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14

We’ll start with verse 14, and then telescope out to the broader context. The word that is causing all of the fuss is the Hebrew word “almah.” An almah, strictly speaking, is a young woman. For instance, it’s used to refer to Miriam, the young girl who watches over her baby brother Moses when he is placed in the basket on the Nile. An almah is probably a virgin, but this is not its technical sense. In fact, there is another Hebrew word that really does mean “virgin” that could easily have been used here if that had really been Isaiah’s intention, “betulah.” So, on points of technicality, these modern translations that use “young woman” or an equivalent thereof to translate almah really are more precise than “a virgin shall conceive.”

Context Is King

I’ll explain the fascinating steps that the Holy Spirit took to get us to Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14, with “a virgin shall conceive,” in a bit. But first, I think that it is important to properly receive Isaiah’s kerygmatic burden. If Isaiah is not prophesying the virgin birth of the Messiah, what is he prophesying?

In my biblical interpretation courses at Ozark Christian College, Mark Scott taught us that “context is king.” Most of the time that we misunderstand a text of Scripture it is because we have not given due consideration to that text’s broader context. Most of the time this is fairly innocuous. The throw pillows at Hobby Lobby or the motivational posters at your local Christian bookstore are examples of this.

Throw pillow with Exodus 14:14 on it. — Source: https://img0.etsystatic.com/076/0/7390958/il_570xN.804174718_ag2s.jpg

Philippians 4:13 on bodybuilding poster.

But sometimes taking a verse out of context is the premise for a dangerous cult.

Vernon Wayne Howell, better known as David Koresh, took Revelation 5:2 out of context and identified himself as the Lamb who opens the seals of Revelation. This had tragic consequences for himself and his followers in Waco, Texas.

Context Is King in Isaiah 7:14

Isaiah 7:14 has a specific textual context that does not directly have to do with the birth of the Messiah at all. Christians often forget this because of Matthew’s use of verse fourteen in isolation. If we want to know what the prophet Isaiah’s original kerygmatic burden was, we have to give due consideration to the entire chapter.

7 In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzzi′ah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remali′ah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but they could not conquer it. ²When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with E′phraim,” his heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.
³And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go forth to meet Ahaz, you and She′ar-jash′ub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, ⁴and say to him, ‘Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remali′ah. ⁵Because Syria, with E′phraim and the son of Remali′ah, has devised evil against you, saying, ⁶‘Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Ta′be-el as king in the midst of it,’ ⁷thus says the Lord God:
It shall not stand,
    and it shall not come to pass.
⁸For the head of Syria is Damascus,
    and the head of Damascus is Rezin.
(Within sixty-five years E′phraim will be broken to pieces so that it will no longer be a people.)
⁹And the head of E′phraim is Samar′ia,
    and the head of Samar′ia is the son of Remali′ah.
If you will not believe,
    surely you shall not be established.’”
¹⁰Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, ¹¹“Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” ¹²But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” ¹³And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? ¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman′u-el. ¹⁵He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. ¹⁶For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.”

Ahaz’s Crisis

Isaiah 7 is about a crisis facing Ahaz, the king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. He has just found out about a conspiracy between two of his most dangerous enemies, Syria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Usually these two powers were too occupied with their own personal feuds to bother with Judah. Ahaz had real cause for concern. These were not empty threats. He desperately needed encouragement, so God sent Isaiah to him with just that.

There are two messages in this portion of Isaiah 7. The first is recorded in verses 3-9. It is very clear: Ahaz has no cause to worry. Their conspiracy will not come to pass. Evidently Ahaz was not very reassured by this message, because God sends Isaiah back to him with another one, and this one is accompanied by a prophetic sign.

Isaiah’s Kerygmatic Burden

Pay attention to the meaning of the sign of the birth of this “Immanuel.” “Before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.” In other words, the birth of this child establishes a timeline for Ahaz. Before the child in question has reached the age of moral accountability, these foreign powers will have suffered their own disasters, and will no longer pose a threat to Judah. It is easier to exercise the virtue of hope when their is an end in sight. The prophetic sign is not that a virgin shall conceive, but that the child of this young woman will still be quite young when Rezin and Pekah will meet their demise.

So, this is the kerygmatic burden of Isaiah: Ahaz, have hope in God’s managing of this difficult political situation! And here is a sign to build hope on, a child named Immanuel, “God is with us.”

The Problem

Here’s the problem for traditional Christian readings of this text. Isaiah had to have delivered these messages before 715 BC, the year that King Ahaz died. How could the promise that a virgin shall conceive the Messiah 700 years later possibly provide any perceptible hope for doubtful Ahaz’s immediate situation? (NB: I am not saying that the promise of the Messiah’s birth is irrelevant to Ahaz. More on that in a bit). If the only proper interpretation of Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy is the Christian one, it raises difficult questions. Sure, 700 years after the prophecy, Rezin and Pekah were no longer troubling Ahaz! But Ahaz wasn’t worried about them anymore for quite other reasons!

The point is, the birth of Jesus 700 years in the future couldn’t possibly bear any kerygmatic burden for Ahaz.

Isaiah’s Intent-Not “A Virgin Shall Conceive”

So, if Isaiah is not intending to predict that a virgin shall conceive the Messiah in Isaiah 7:14, what is his intent? It really does seem as though he is predicting the conception and birth of a child in months immediately following his message to Ahaz. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly who the young woman in verse fourteen is. Some commentators have suggested that it is Isaiah’s own wife, or perhaps a wife or concubine of Ahaz. Personally, I think that Isaiah is pointing to a young woman serving in the palace of Ahaz when he says these words.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. At this stage in the prophetic message, the real point of the sign has little to do with the identity and career of little Immanuel. His name is the most important thing about him. “God is with” Ahaz and the people of Judah. Before Immanuel is old enough to eat solid food and be held accountable for wrong choices, Rezin and Pekah will disappear.

What Isaiah’s Kerygmatic Burden Means for Us Today

The Holy Spirit has a whole lot more to say here. But let’s pause and resist the temptation to rush on to greater things. Because the Holy Spirit has plenty to say in this original, literal sense of the text as Isaiah originally conceived of it. Let’s consider what Isaiah’s kerygmatic burden has to teach us today.

The immediate message of Isaiah 7 to Ahaz and Judah has a lot to say to us today. In texts like this, the literal sense is not aimed directly to us. Instead, it invites us to overhear it, and the indirect message has immense benefit. God is telling Judah that no matter what the political circumstances seem to indicate, He is with them. He is directing history to a certain goal. Ahaz and his people can trust God to accompany them through this crisis and protect them from every threat. Paranoia and despair are not an option for God’s people.

Now would be a good time to pause. Go back to the beginning of Isaiah 7 and read through the text again. Then read my brief interpretation of the literal sense of that text. Does that original sense of Isaiah 7 bear any relevance to our own life in the midst of today?

A Virgin Shall Conceive

This would be a gift on its own, but the Holy Spirit had more to say. About 200 years before the birth of Jesus, Greek-speaking Jews living in Alexandria produced a translation of Isaiah. This was later incorporated into the Greek version of the Old Testament. We call this translation the “Septuagint.” When those translators came to verse fourteen, they made an interesting choice. They translated almah with the Greek word parthenos. Unlike almah, parthenos technically does mean “virgin.” “A virgin shall conceive” is properly a translation of the Septuagint text of Isaiah 7:14.

What “A Virgin Shall Conceive” Meant for the Early Church

It is difficult to conceive of what the human translators had in mind when they did this. But for Matthew and the rest of the Christian community, the Holy Spirit’s intent is obvious. Beyond the political context of Ahaz’s day, God is sending another Child as a sign. This Child really is Immanuel, “God with us,” and not just named Immanuel. And this child, born miraculously of the Virgin Mary, in fact is the goal of history. He is the One who delivers God’s people through every crisis and from every threat. And yet again, paranoia and despair are not an option for God’s people. How can they be, when “God is with us” in Jesus?

Isaiah’s Kerygmatic Burden: “A Virgin Shall Conceive” and Its Ultimate Fulfillment in Jesus

Though Ahaz and Isaiah could not possibly know it, Jesus is the answer to the crises of their own day. The real problem with human history is that bullies like Rezin and Pekah keep showing up. One generation of political threats moves on only to have another, even more threatening one replace it. Our human existence is fraught with this recurring trope of conflict and anxiety. Peace is hard-won and ephemeral. This is true of the cheaper version of peace that our political commentators refer to. Think of all of the reporting on “peace talks” between warring factions. The more substantial peace referred to in the Hebrew word shalom is even more elusive. This is the real flourishing of a culture and the individuals who live in it,

A Virgin Shall Conceive “God with Us”

All of this is the result of sin, our rebellion and alienation from God. That is the real problem that Jesus comes to solve. But Christians know that just because we experience redemption does not mean that suddenly we become impervious to bullying. From the very beginning the Church has produced an army of martyrs. The machinery of coercion and violence has mutilated and mangled their bodies. Still, they have triumphed spiritually over these political forces. Rezin and Pekah are always with us. And yet, Christians know a “peace that passes understanding” because of Immanuel. God, in Jesus, is also always with us. And this is never so true as when we suffer, taking our place of fellowship with Jesus on His cross.

Somehow, the peace that Isaiah proclaims to Ahaz draws mysteriously from the peace offered by the second Immanuel. The Immanuel born of the Virgin truly is “God with Us.” Isaiah’s kerygmatic burden is blind to the greater intent of the Holy Spirit. And yet, it depends upon it for its full force. Christians can read the story of Ahaz and Immanuel with the eyes of faith. We can thank God that in our current political anxieties, Jesus is still “God with us.”

September 27, 2020October 18, 2020

The Kerygmatic Burden of Old Testament Texts

Old Testament interpretation is difficult. Something that has helped me has been the recognition of the “kerygmatic burden of the Old Testament.” In this article, I will share this concept with you, so that you can use it in your own biblical study.

When reading any text, it is important to establish as nearly as possible what the author’s intent with that text is. It is very true that the text may bear more personal meanings for you that the author could never have imagined, but if you completely disregard what she was trying to say and what motivated her to write in the first place, you have not honored her as the author who has gifted you with the text. A great deal of the authorial intent is dictated by the audience to whom the text is addressed. The author has a message which she wishes a particular set of people in a particular time and a particular place to receive. This is true of poems, novels, newspaper stories … and the Bible.

For Old Testament texts, I call this dynamic relationship of author, message, and original audience the “kerygmatic burden of Old Testament texts.”

“Kerygma”

“Kerygma” is a Greek word meaning “proclamation.” It only shows up a few times in the Septuagint. An important example is Proverbs 9:3-4, where Lady Wisdom sends out a proclamation to the simple: “She has sent out her maids to call from the highest places in the town, ‘Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!'”

In the New Testament, “kerygma” was used to describe the act of heralding the Gospel message that God’s Kingdom had been established by the coming of Jesus the Messiah. Romans 16 is a beautiful example, where Paul says this:

²⁵Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages ²⁶but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— ²⁷to the only wise God be glory for evermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Some New Testament theologians over the course of the last century proposed that the Gospel was itself a new genre, which they labeled “kerygma.” They said that before the Gospels were written down, their contents were formalized in the oral presentation of Jesus’ ministry and teachings. The distilled core of this Gospel message is also referred to as kerygma.

The Kerygmatic Burden of the Old Testament

The kerygma is rightly associated with the New Testament. But I believe that a similar phenomenon already occurred in the Old Testament. These texts, after all, formed the basis for the revelation that came in Jesus. Even texts that do not formally fall into the category of “prophecy” assume a prophetic character. This is by virtue of their inclusion in the Old Testament Canon. That prophetic character is the message that the authors and editors of the Old Testament were struggling to convey. This strikes close to what I mean by “kerygmatic burden.”

Another approach is to consider something my Bible college professor Mark Scott taught me to look for. This is the “A.I.M.” of the text. A.I.M. stands for the “Author’s Intended Meaning.” The kerygmatic burden of the Old Testament also considers the original audience. This is particular to a specific time and place.

Last week I shared my interpretation of the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. An old friend of mine, Jason Shaver, chimed in with some excellent questions in the comments. He asked why most scholars no longer accept the traditional view that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Personally, I am partial to those traditional perspectives. But the biggest reason that I believe someone else composed Genesis 11 is this kerygmatic burden of the Old Testament. Genesis 11 makes most sense as a prophetic message to the Jewish people in exile under Nebuchadnezzar.

Cyrus the Great in Isaiah 40-55

I began to think this way years ago. I was desperately trying as a Fundamentalist to defend the original authorship of Isaiah the Prophet for Isaiah 40-55. Biblical scholars call these chapters “Deutero-Isaiah.” This is because they mention Cyrus the Great by name. He lived more than a century after the original Prophet Isaiah. Here is one example, from chapter 45:

¹Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
    whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him
    and ungird the loins of kings,
to open doors before him
    that gates may not be closed:
²“I will go before you
    and level the mountains,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
    and cut asunder the bars of iron,
³I will give you the treasures of darkness
    and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
    the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
⁴For the sake of my servant Jacob,
    and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
    I surname you, though you do not know me.’

In Sunday School and Bible college, I was taught that this was an amazing prediction on the part of Isaiah. Consequently, it was a manifest demonstration of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Any argument for later authorship was part of a nefarious effort to chip away at faith in the Bible. Unfortunately, the original arguments for Deutero-Isaiah do have roots in a post-Enlightenment dismissal of the possibility of predictive prophecy.

The Kerygmatic Burden of Deutero-Isaiah

I studied these chapters of Isaiah in graduate school. There I became aware that the arguments for Deutero-Isaiah were much more sophisticated than I had been led to believe. This greatly contributed to a crisis of faith that I was suffering through at the time. (I will probably write about that later. Suffice it to say that personal experience of Jesus and His mercies in my life secured me in my faith). And that’s when, by God’s grace, the kerygmatic burden of Deutero-Isaiah came in to save the day.

Consider. Isaiah receives a prophetic word about Cyrus in 700 BC, let’s say. (That’s exactly 100 years before the birth of Cyrus the Great!). He comes before King Hezekiah with this word of encouragement. What could Hezekiah’s response be other than, “Who the @#$ is Cyrus?” In other words, this message would have absolutely no kerygmatic burden for Isaiah and the people to whom he ministered.

Prophecy, Not Prediction

The Holy Spirit could have predicted Cyrus the Great by name a full 100 years before he was born. After all, I joyfully attempt from day to day to be a faithful, practicing Catholic. Catholics believe in far greater miracles of Grace than a simple bit of predictive prophecy. (Come to Mass with me sometime, and you can see for yourself). The real question is why the Holy Spirit would have predicted Cyrus the Great by name to that audience. They could derive absolutely no spiritual benefit from this revelation. That’s what I mean by the kerygmatic burden of the Old Testament.

The Holy Spirit does not do the Nostradamus shtick. He speaks clearly to His people in ways that will challenge and comfort them where they are. He directly addresses the trials and temptations of their particular experience. Today I recognize that another author besides Isaiah wrote these chapters about Cyrus the Great. But that does not mean that God did not inspire these texts. On the contrary, this has actually helped me contemplate how God speaks to His people in an even more profound manner.

Of course, the Scriptures speak beyond their original audience. Often they do so in amazing ways that the original authors could never have imagined. Isaiah 7:14 and Psalm 22 immediately come to mind. In these texts, the original kerygmatic burden has developed into an even greater message, precisely because these are inspired Scriptures. Those texts can indeed speak to us at a deeper level. But first we must see what they originally meant for their human authors and the audiences that received them. I hope to write more about that in the future.