Category Archives: Moses

The Gnostic Moses

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“The Gnostic Moses does not circumscribe within space Him [YHWH] that cannot be circumscribed, he said up no image in the temple to be worshiped; showing that God was invisible and incapable of being circumscribed; and somehow leading the Hebrews to the conception of God by the honor for His [sic] name in the temple. Further, the Word, prohibiting the constructing of temples and all sacrifices intimate that the Almighty is not contained in anything[.] “- Clement of Alexandria, The Carpets [my translation for the work, Miscellanies], Book 5, Chapter 11

Last night this quote came to me as I was reading a blog post on theology and the human experience. It made a lot of positive claims, but how much of our experience can become an idol itself? My other thought was for latest Patristics Carnival, a lot of posts dealt with “the New Gnosticism” as if history is circular (a reactionary posture for sure), and Gnosticism means what it says we mean. The use of the term is far more complex than we realize. In this context, Moses is a Gnostic in that he has a close relationship with YHWH. Clement’s use of the term just isn’t as partisan as others would like.

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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Blogging Leviticus: Chapter 3

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Continuing a series.

Chapter 3: 1 If the

offering is a sacrifice of well-being, if you offer an animal of

the herd, whether male or female, you shall offer one without

blemish before the Lord. The first thing I

noticed here is that the language has changed slightly from the

previous two chapters. In the previous two chapters, the

descriptions of both sacrifices begin with “when.” When you bring

this offering, here is how you should do it. The first two

sacrifices, while not commanded for this time or that, still carry

with them a mandate that the people of God would be offering them.

This one is different. It says “if.” The second thing is that the

Hebrew word that is translated as “well-being” or “peace” offering

in many Bibles is the word “selamim”, which has “shalom” (SLM) as

its root. The idea of this sacrifice is not that you draw near to

God, not to remember the covenant with God or to help God remember

you, but to get shalom. In Hebrew, Shalom can mean peace, but also

carries with it the larger idea of wholeness. So perhaps this is

the sacrifice you make if you have made the others already, and

yet, like Bono, you still haven’t found what you are looking for…

2 You shall lay your hand on the head of the

offering and slaughter it at the entrance of the tent of meeting;

and Aaron’s sons the priests shall dash the blood against all sides

of the altar. 3 You shall offer from the sacrifice of

well-being, as an offering by fire to the Lord, the fat that

covers the entrails and all the fat that is around the

entrails; 4the two kidneys with the fat

that is on them at the loins, and the appendage of the liver, which

he shall remove with the kidneys. 5Then

Aaron’s sons shall turn these into smoke on the altar, with the

burnt offering that is on the wood on the fire, as an offering by

fire of pleasing odor to the Lord. This

sacrifice, is somewhat like the grain offering, in that not all of

the sacrifice itself is burned completely. In the grain offering,

the majority of the bread goes to Aaron’s sons, to feed them. In

this case, the fat and entrails go to God (actually, the whole

sacrifice goes to God, but God gives back the majority as we will

see later). This begs the question, where does the rest of the

sacrifice end up? In Deuteronomy 12 and 16, we see how this

sacrifice played itself out in the ancient community. When the

animal is given to God, God, rather than being invited to a meal,

as was the custom in the other ancient near east sacrificial meals,

instead receives the offering and sets the meal out for

others and invites them to dine with him. God is the host, not us.

Once the fat and entrails have been offered, the person offering

the sacrifice, along with his family, Levites, any servants, AND

the stranger/outcasts, orphans, and widows were invited to the

meal. And in both references, the word “rejoice” is commanded.

So the idea behind the “well-being” offering is that if you want to

be “made whole” or find “peace,” then you need to take what you

have, give it back to God, and then find your place at the table

which is set by God, and have a party, all along, bringing with you

and blessing your family, those who serve God, those who serve you,

those who are the “other” to you, and those who can’t help

themselves. Sounds like Shalom to me…

6If your offering for a

sacrifice of well-being to the Lord is from the flock,

male or female, you shall offer one without

blemish. 7If you present a sheep as

your offering, you shall bring it before

the Lord 8and lay your hand on the

head of the offering. It shall be slaughtered before the tent of

meeting, and Aaron’s sons shall dash its blood against all sides of

the altar. 9You shall present its fat

from the sacrifice of well-being, as an offering by fire to

the Lord: the whole broad tail, which shall be removed close

to the backbone, the fat that covers the entrails, and all the fat

that is around the entrails; 10the two

kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the

appendage of the liver, which you shall remove with the

kidneys. 11Then the priest shall turn

these into smoke on the altar as a food offering by fire to

the Lord. The first section details an offering

from the herd. This section details, essentially the same customs,

but using an offering from a flock.

12If your offering is a goat,

you shall bring it before

the Lord 13and lay your hand on

its head; it shall be slaughtered before the tent of meeting; and

the sons of Aaron shall dash its blood against all sides of the

altar. 14You shall present as your

offering from it, as an offering by fire to the Lord, the fat

that covers the entrails, and all the fat that is around the

entrails; 15the two kidneys with the

fat that is on them at the loins, and the appendage of the liver,

which you shall remove with the

kidneys. 16Then the priest shall turn

these into smoke on the altar as a food offering by fire for a

pleasing odor. All fat is the Lord’s. This

last section details the same offerings as above, but with specific

rules concerning offering goats. After these sections, there is one

thing that struck me. The first two kinds of offerings in Leviticus

both had allowances for the poor to bring offerings, a lesser

offering if needed. This offering does not. However, it gets back

to the word used at the very beginning, not when, but “if.” The

Bible assumes that when the peace offering is made, it is not the

poor that will be giving it, but those who have an abundance and

the poor will be invited to participate. Nice. Doesn’t Jesus say

something about throwing parties and inviting the poor?

17It shall be a perpetual

statute throughout your generations, in all your settlements: you

must not eat any fat or any blood. Fat was allowed

to be eaten at other times, just not for any sacrificial purpose.

And blood was never ok. And still isn’t. Gross…

Optimistic Chad

Chad really really hopes things are going to turn out ok. He loves his wife - with the passion of 1000 exploding suns, and is a diligent, but surely mediocre father to his brilliant and subversive children. He likes Chinese food.

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Clement of Alexandria’s Influence On The Cappadocians

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Last week, Roland Boer wrote on From Transcendence To Transgression and once more thinking about Transcendence, I got to thinking about my friend Clement of Alexandria. I think I am the only person alive who’s a fanboy of his, his writings as they are. On the Theology Studio Facebook group, we had a short discussion on what was transcendence, where can one find it, especially in Christian thought. I still see transcendence as praxis, God’s doing better than us in the world, going before us, fighting our battles like in the Old Testament imagery of the Angel YHWH. With Clement and James Cone, I maintain that transcendence has the restart button set on history as we as humans are enlightened to reimagine what transcendence looks like when it is reconciled with immanence.

One of my pet peeves is when scholars tie Clement and Origen together, if they weren’t 2 separate people living in 2 separate times. If Origen believes this, than so must Clement. This could not be further from the truth. I maintain my resistance I made everyone aware in Liberating Clement: No Origen does not perfect Clement’s teaching. It was Clement’s own fault that he was not a systematic think, really random and practical at times, and very Greek and Platonist at others. Apparently, I am not alone in my assessment of CoA and OoA. I am re-reading Henny Fisk Hagg’s Clement of Alexandria and the beginnings of Christian apophaticism. Hagg regrets the reception of Clement in modern studies, much like I, and unlike me who believes hesitantly that Clement exiled himself to Athens, Hagg claims that CoA wound up somewhere in modern-day Turkey (Cappodocia). There’s very little evidence for either of our positions, but Hagg contends that Clement’s, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Philo’s shared exegesis of Exodus 19, YHWH wrapping Godself in darkness with God displaying divine inapproachableness and universality. Origen, on the other hand, believes quite the opposite, that the darkness refers to human ignorance, and that we only need to be enlightened to see God ever-present.

Jesus as the Light takes on a different meaning, then, in John 1. With Origen’s interpretation lies a history of colonial enlightenment being brought from the colonizer to the colonial subject. With Clement, Jesus, who is the Power of this God of Cloudy Darkness who becomes like light. God is everywhere, and can choose to appear anywhere God wishes, as well as to choose to depart from any place, and this is why human language is unable to capture fully this Most Moved Mover. I don’t think it’s a stretch that the writer of John’s Gospel namedrops Moses, in the passages following the Word not being overcome by the darkness. Is the darkness human sinfulness, or is it divine transcendence, YHWH as Moses encountered? I am starting to believe the latter.

If Haag is right (and my guesstimations are wrong, which I am open) and Gregory of Nazianzus read Clement’s work at Caesarea Maritima, with us not knowing the extent of Clement’s reach in the 3rd century C.E., then the fact of Gregory of Nanzianus and his opposition to slavery become a little more relevant to Clementine studies. Just as Gregory’s understanding of the darkness of the LORD, the Owner of all things, a concept he may have learned from Clement is a subversive theology, transcendence remains a divine praxis, something that Christians gain greater understanding of in the Incarnation.

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RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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A Covenant of Peace: Ezekiel’s Use Of Numbers

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Tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton (Photo credit: nathanleveck)

Zeal, the Knowledge of YHWH and Radicalism

“YHWH spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by manifesting such zeal among them on my behalf that in my jealousy I did not consume the Israelites. Therefore say, “I hereby grant him my covenant of peace. 13It shall be for him and for his descendants after him a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the Israelites.”- Numbers 25: 10-13 NRSV

And

” I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild animals from the land, so that they may live in the wild and sleep in the woods securely. I will make them and the region around my hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. [...] They shall no more be plunder for the nations, nor shall the animals of the land devour them; they shall live in safety, and no one shall make them afraid. I will provide for them splendid vegetation, so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the insults of the nations.”- Ezekiel 34:25-26, 28-29

When I was in seminary and taking a class on Ezekiel, one of the questions that haunted the class at the end of the semester is what happened to the language of God’s “Covenant of Peace”? Where did it come from? One of the problems I believes starts with the commentary we depended on, by Katherine Pfisterer Darr, who is rightfully hesitant to explain Ezekiel as a prophet who used the Torah, specifically Deuteronomy (unlike Jeremiah, Paul, and Christ Jesus, for example). I think there was an opportunity missed to talk about Israel’s role in the Ancient Near East, as well as Ezekiel’s role as PRIEST and prophet. The notion of a covenant of peace, as Darr points out, is part of the ANE tradition whereby the gods end their hostilities towards humanity and creation at large. The god’s pledge to be peaceable was signed and sealed with a visible sign. Darr rejects the idea that Ezekiel borrows this idea from any of the Torah writers since he has a theology that deals more with the ritual and ceremonial laws of Israel (a priestly theology if you will). Ezekiel cannot simply be put in a box, I tried that once, and utterly failed.

Ezekiel is more of a hybrid thinker, using the language of the Law and the priesthood. Ezekiel and his disciples were zealous for YHWH, much like Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron (the head of the Priesthood). Phinehas was given a covenant of peace with YHWH because he saw one of his fellow Israelites sinning right in front of the Moses and the congregation, and in the First covenant manner, since blood had to be shed, Phinehas used a spear to sacrifice the man and his lover. Once YHWH saw that one of the priests was concerned, the plague that Israel was suffering ended, but not before thousands had died of the sickness. This plays out as an example of the scapegoat mechanism. A few persons must die for the rest of society to be “saved.” If the spearing and priesthood are the visible sign for Aaron’s family and the covenant of peace, then the destruction of the first Temple (along with the people in it Ezekiel 9 & 10) as well as the raising of Ezekiel’s 2nd temple Ezekiel 39:21 through chapter 48) is the sign of YHWH’s latest covenant of peace with Israel.

When we get to the New Testament, the death of the Son of YHWH, Christ Jesus, is the visible sign of the covenant of peace, that God makes with humanity, creation, and between Jew and Gentile, who are engrafted into the covenant life. The finality of Jesus’ sacrifice is the sacrifice that ends all sacrifices, making all other sacrifices and scapegoating unnecessary.

This makes the old traditional hymn from Black churches, “Showers of Blessing” (inspired by Ezekiel 34) all that more interesting. “There shall be seasons of refeshing, Sent from the Savior above.” Written in the first decade of the 20th century, the peak period when thousands of Negro women and men were victims of lynching, “Showers of Blessing” is a theological interpretation of Ezekiel 34 that protests Jim & Jane Crow Law, and the lynching parties that were its scapegoating mechanism.

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RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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Praise the Lord For Higher Taxes!

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“A proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem to bring in for [YHWH] the tax that Moses the servant of God laid on Israel in the wilderness. All the leaders and the people rejoiced and brought their tax and dropped it into the chest until it was full.” 2nd Chronicles 24:9-10

As I read the above passage today, I was imagining groups of church folk dancing in the aisles, singing and clapping as they paid more taxes. Not complaining either. Just something to think about. Someone should seriously consider a stewardship sermon series based on the Book of Chronicles.

“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess …. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”

-Adam Smith in “The Wealth of Nations,” 1776

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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