The Evangelical Universalist Forum

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Now this one if for everyone -

Just a quickie here about C.S. Lewis – as his fundamentalist critic says in the article I posted above, Jack Lewis once famously stated that Jesus was either mad, bad or God – and since the first two alternatives are highly improbable the only reasonable conclusion we can make is that he was/is God. Many have commented that, OK, Jack Lewis was communicating in the vernacular here rather than speaking the technical language of theologians – or the language of imaginative symbol and story in which he excelled most; but this argument is too simplistic in my view. To say that Jesus is simply ‘God’ is not orthodox teaching. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity united with human nature – true God and true Man. So sometimes Jack did oversimplify, as he did when he compared God’s self emptying in the Incarnation to being a bit like if you and I were to voluntarily to become slugs in order to redeem the slugs. Obviously Jack Lewis found slugs revolting – which not everyone does. But even if we buy into his view of slugs, and especially if we do so, this is not an adequate image of the Incarnation. Orthodox teaching is that human beings are made in the image of God – and Christ in becoming man took on human nature in its un-fallen magnificence; and through his life, death and resurrection restored the image of God in all humanity. Well it’s something like this anyway.

The fundamentalist critic wonders why – if Jack Lewis could make the mad, bad or God argument about Jesus’ claims, why not make a similar argument to support the Bible’s claims about itself as being without error. Well, we all know the two passages that fundamentalists cite in order to press this argument – but neither claims the Bible is without errors of detail; they simply claim scripture is inspired by God and authoritative. And both passages are not speaking of the Christian Bible we have today – which did not exist at the time. They are actually speaking about the Jewish Testament. So I always find this food for thought.

Blessings

Dick

And here’s something a friend of mine (a very close friend) wrote about the Bible and progressive revelation :wink:

When people say ‘But the Bible says’ it usually means that they have chosen particular sets of texts that confirm their own prejudices and ignored other texts. The answer to moral questions is different in different books and in different parts of the Bible. For example, ‘love your neighbour’ in Leviticus is bound up with treating your own ethnic cultural group with justice – but not outsiders; for they are abomination. However, in the latter prophets the vision of neighbour is becoming universalized (Amos, for example, attacks this exclusivist stance head on) and Jesus completely universalizes it. So the Bible actually corrects itself.

The Bible is not consistent – it is a text in travail in which the Truth revealed in Jesus of God’s inclusive love only comes slowly into focus. It is on this Truth that we need to base our ethics – ethics that will be rooted in justice, compassion, and recognition of human frailty. Each generation has to rethink ethics for changing times and circumstances. The Bible is an important resource for this – in its general principles – but for specifics we also need the help of tradition (what we can learn from the experience of the history of the Church – both in terms of what we can discard and what we should hold fast to), reason (critical reflection - a good thing since we must love God also with our minds) and reflection on experience (both our direct personal experience and our experience as people of a certain time in history). It is only if we balance the witness of the Bible with these other factors that we can be open to the spirit that gives life against the letter that kills.
Nowhere does the Bible say that it is inerrant or ‘the answer’ – rather it bears witness to Gods’ enduring love for humanity and creation A couple of books in the New Testament say the Bible is inspired by God and that scripture cannot be broken, but these passages refer to the Old Testament – not the Bible that we have today (and for at least one New Testament writer – Jude – the Jewish Scriptures were slightly different to the ones in the Christina Bible because he cites the Book of Enoch as authoritative).The New Testament radically reframes much of the Hebrew Testament, and so I take it that these passages already refer to the spirit rather than the letter of scripture.

I’d say that the Bible was never meant to be the answer to life’s questions. The Bible bears witness to the Truth as experienced in the sacred history of the people of Israel that, for Christians, is fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, to the Truth as it is in Jesus, and to the impact of the Truth of Jesus on the early Church. It bears witness to the Truth – but the Truth is an incarnate Truth; and it is a Truth that needs to be incarnated in our own time.
I find consistency in the gradual revelation of the God of Love in the Bible – but this is a process rather than a set of answers/propositions/logical deductions. We have to live the Truth rather than‘have it’ as a possession in a book.

I just wanted to throw in a few more bits on my take on myth. If I’m derailing the conversation at hand let me know and we can redirect this to another thread. I’ll admit something to you. I have the attention span of a gnat. So if there are long posts I can rarely read the whole thing, and reading the other posts most recently I really have no clue how the bit on Lewis, that prompted me to write my first post, and now what I’m talking about really have to do with the topic at hand. :blush:

But I will continue on with my ramblings. :confused:

I think that myth is used because it is really about every person. Not that those events way back didn’t actually happen, but that the story that God tells, (the magicians story etc, which from henceforth I will call The Framework) is so written in the fabric of our lives (and this is likely because it is written in the Spirit, which has no time) that we place people into the story. Now this is all divinely inspired because its true in Spirit, and the Lord directs our steps. And those events occurred, the question is did they occur as exactly as we understand them? We are all in the grand story. We are all the thing the myths are about. Thats why people love myth and romance and adventure, because thats what they want for their lives, because they know The Framework exists, they just may not know it. The phrase “their’s a God shaped hole in all of us”, would maybe be another way to word The Framework.

Where the author writing about Lewis said that things like the gospels and epistles are more like history, I would agree with that. Probably because the culture had developed to a more “civilized” one. If those people way back were more like children, having not reached yet the rising tide to bring them to that awareness, then you would understand that kids like to watch fairy tales more than the history channel. Its not that Jonah didn’t happen, but what the writer saw as “the story” in the events that did occur. Take Noah. Every culture has a flood story that is remarkably similar. Something did occur IMO. I don’t care in this regard if the entire world was flooded, or a river valley, or a region there was likely something that happened. The pagan versions are much more carnal, and base. That would make sense because they are at a lower level of revelation than Moses. Its not necessarily that they were like teenagers in their mentality, but in their level of revelation of God, the world, science.
[digression] Interestingly Moses would have been brought up in the top scientific household in the world. The priests of Egypt, and all the other pagan nations were the doctors, scholars, scientists etc, and Egypt was said to have the sum of all knowledge that had been passed down from the time of Noah. He was raised in the household of the priesthood. He was well indoctrinated into the Egyptian/Pagan understanding of sacrifice and burnt offerings. This lends weight to what I’ve been sharing on another thread that Charlie Slagle started on the god of the OT, vs Jesus. My view is that God did not tell Israel to literally kill babies. That He never was the God of vengeance. Jesus is the exact imprint of the Father. The entire “law of Moses” is just that, the law of Moses. His mind understood the necessity for sacrifice and burnt offerings and a temple. But later we hear “sacrifice and burnt offerings I did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me”, and “God does not dwell in temples built with human hands”. God told Moses something. He did say make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain. Every other place we see God interfacing with people its in symbols. Abraham was to look at the stars, probably at the zodiac, which is The Framework written in the sky. Our minds cannot comprehend the infinite, so we are given icons of those spiritual truths, to lead us away from our earthly understanding. Unfortunately, we still have that filter called the carnal mind. And those truths have to be translated through that filter. So Moses is looking at something that is hard to put into words, but does anyway. He “knows” that God means they need to literally go kill those women and children, because he has been raised in Egypt and thats what civilized people do. Moses may have been highly “evolved” but was still heavily veiled. And the carnal mind is death. The law is called the law of sin and death. Its called the shadow, which is the same word used in this:
Mat 4:16 KJV - The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow[4639] of death light is sprung up .
(That word shadow is related to the word skene, which is the word for tabernacle!)

What did the light come to do? Set men free from sin and death, what is the power of sin? The law. What is the true law? LOVE. But Moses couldn’t understand it fully, even though he was the representative for the next level of elevation, he still wasn’t crystallized enough to get the full meaning, if he was his name would have been Yeshua. This is what we see with him having to wear a veil to cover the glory. There was a filter that the truth had to go through. Now it is said that a veil lies over their minds when they read Moses to this day. To me that says that the problem in understanding comes not from Moses but from the people reading Moses. But I think Moses is a type of the carnal mind, and his mind filtered the truth of The Framework that Moses saw on the mountain.

One of the things that led me to this conclusion is that Moses died on Mt. Nebo. Nebo is the Babylonian scribe god. Nebo held the books of the law, and was the mediator between the gods and men. He died there right before Israel entered the promised land. He went up on that mountain to view the promised land. Is this coincidence that Moses dies on the mountain of the pagan version of himself? He is even called an elohim. And we know that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Carnal=Flesh (its the word sarx). Moses could not inherit the kingdom, the promised land. The veiled man cannot enter. Yeshua(Joshua) had to take them in.

Now the greek version of Nebo is Hermes. And there is good evidence that Yeshua was transfigured on Mt. Hermon, which happens to be named for Hermes. So Moses dies on the same mountain in type that Christ first is made alive on (as in
adam-moses all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive). He was pre-resurrected. Shown what the true promised land is. Now this is sort of what seals it for me, that Jesus walked right into, or was placed right in the middle of the pagan framework, and the jewish framework, which btw they were quite similar in imagery, like the cherubim, and temple design, rituals etc. He fulfilled the Jewish and Pagan. Mt. Hermon was known as the mountain of the gods. It was where the gods came down to men. Or where the sons of God came down to men. Its is also called Sion in the Bible. Jesus is the Son of God, and Adam’s family were the sons of God. All of the pagan myth was intertwined and derived from the same truths that the Bible shares. Its just different levels of revelation. For instance Cronus is very likely in part Abraham. He sacrificed his son, but he was saved by a ram. He was circumcised, and that was his “sign”. His other name is Saturn. Which happens to be the name of the day that corresponds to the Sabbath. When the pharisees say we have Abraham for our father, I think its quite ironic that they who were the holy ones separated from all that pagan filth, were basically deifying their patriarch by claiming him over Christ, the exact image of the Father. Abraham was their father. They were so proud of their outward rituals like circumcision, which was never the true form anyway, but a shadow, they were no better than the pagans, for their god was Saturn/Abraham. They had created god in their image, just as Moses had created the law in his own image. Thats what the flesh does. Thats what the religious mind does (remember Moses was raised in the priestly house). It takes the true form, and processes it, and spits it back out in its own image. The Framework is eternal, those symbols like the cherubim, fire, the lamb, the branch, light, Father, Son, Bride; they are always there. The same story is told to all, God sends rain on the just and the unjust. Those who attempt to peer into that invisible world, will always see the same thing, there is One Lord, One God and Father of all. The issue is not the message, but the messenger,

1Cr 13:9 for in part we know, and in part we prophecy;
1Cr 13:10 and when that which is perfect may come, then that which [is] in part shall become useless. (just like the law had become useless, why? They had reached the next level of clarity of the message, they could grasp more clearly what The Framework meant)
1Cr 13:11 When I was a babe, as a babe I was speaking, as a babe I was thinking, as a babe I was reasoning, and when I have become a man, I have made useless the things of the babe;
1Cr 13:12 for we see now through a mirror obscurely, and then face to face; now I know in part, and then I shall fully know, as also I was known;

That word obscurely, in the KJV translated darkly, is the word enigma. Now that is a very loaded word in the culture of that day. Just like Logos is. It carries a weight with it, because of all the attachment, and history associated with it. The enigma of the sphinx.

So when Paul writes of us trying to peer into that invisible world how do we look? Through a mirror. And when we do we see an enigma (a riddle, who are we? Are we the sphinx, are we the cherubim woven on the veil, are we the person living in the matrix?). That word mirror is esoptron, which is eis(into)+optanomai(to behold something remarkable, which that word is almost exclusively used of seeing the risen Lord!). There is one other use of esoptron in the NT, and its in James, where he says, they peer at their natural face in a mirror and forget what their origin is. The only other use of the word mirror is a derivative word of esoptron and its used when Paul says “and we all with unveiled faces are reflecting the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, we are being transfigured from glory to glory”. Where did the transfiguration take place? Mt. Hermon. The unveiling of our faces (our minds) is what brings us into the full glory, and we reflect the glory of the Lord. We can only reflect the true glory as far as we’ve been crystalized. Jesus was the exact imprint. He was the pure crystal clear mirror, with no veil. The unveiling of Christ in You the hope of glory is what the story was always about. It took place on the mountain of the gods, it is written ye are all gods.

That’s why I say it is we are all part of the grand story. We are all the word made flesh. Just as Christ is so are you in the world. He was the end of the law, the fulfillment of it, the true form of it, the crystal, and we are all being transformed into that glory. I believe He is the fulfillment of the pagan hopes too, which is why he was transformed on Mt. Hermon. Also possibly why the NT is in Greek, just the weight behind words like: Enigma, Logos, Ouranos (heaven), Aster(star). He was also called the morning star which was the name for Venus.

“Gilgamesh passes near Mount Hermon in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where it was called Saria by Sumerians, “Saria and Lebanon tremble at the felling of the cedars”.[5][6] In the Book of Enoch, Mount Hermon is the place where the Grigori (“Watcher”) class of fallen angels descended to Earth. They swore upon the mountain that they would take wives among the daughters of men and take mutual imprecation for their sin (Enoch 6). The mountain or summit is referred to as Saphon in Ugaritic texts where the palace of Baal is located in a myth about Attar.[7][8]
(Attar, also known as Athtar, Astar, and Ashtar is the god of the morning star in western Semitic mythology. In Canaanite legend he attempts to usurp the throne of the dead god Baal but proves inadequate. In semi-arid regions of western Asia he was sometimes worshipped as a rain god. His female counterpart is the Phoenician Astarte. In more southerly regions he is probably known as Dhu-Samani.)”
–Wikipedia–

Isa 14
You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zaphon;

Zaphon=Saphon=Mt. Hermes=the mountain of YHWH=the mountain of the gods

The man in Isa 14 many times called Lucifer is none other than a man, trying to set himself up as the high god. Creating god in his image. This is the image of the beast being installed in the temple, worshipping the graven image of the ark, the physical/shadow, instead of the true reality. In Ezekiel we see the guardian cherub who was cast down from the garden of God. IF the sons of God came down from Mt. Hermon, then Mt. Hermon is probably the location of the garden of God! Where do we see the cherubim? Stationed outside the garden. In Ezekiel, carrying the glory of the Lord. Stationed outside the garden in the temple, on the veil separating the Holy of Holies/aka the garden/aka the promised land. On the ark, which also carries the glory of the Lord. And in Revelation surrounding the throne. They are always seen right in the center of the action. We know that the tribes were set around the camp of Israel with the standards of the heads of the cherubim. Those correspond to the 4 poles of the zodiac, aka The Framework written in the sky. They are also likely the heiroglyph from which the main pagan gods are derived. What is a sphinx? Is it not a cherub? What was the answer to the riddle of the sphinx? (what has 4 legs, 2 legs, and 3 legs) A man is the answer.

When we peer into the mirror to try and see that invisible land, we see an enigma. We are not who we think we are. We see the image of who we are and not past that because we haven’t entered through that final veil(the cherubim woven on it), which is flesh. If we would go further we would see that we were one with Him since the foundation of the world. This is the final level of elevation that we know about now at least, the mystery that was hidden from ages past, the 2 shall become 1. Christ in you, the one new man.

Wow that was a whirlwind. When I said my attention span limited me from reading long posts, it also limits me from keeping to the point. I forgot what I was going to write about at first, and have no idea how I got to this point. :slight_smile:

I’d go back and try and clarify but this took me all day, having to start and stop. I’m sure I’ll remember what I was originally writing about later, then I’ll start to write another post, and take you on a wild goose chase.

Don’t apologise Jeremey - that’s really interesting. Give me a chance to absorb it… we are talking mythopoeia here. That’s a fascinating post… There’s a lot oging on in this thread - history, tholeogy, myth, biography - well it could act as a sorting house for more focussed threads. Let’s have a brainstorm! :smiley:

Well Dick, myth is my favorite subject. I’ve always been fascinated by it. I remember being probably around 12 and reading in my bible about the temple design, and the ark. I was reading some of the study material in my bible about it. There were comparisons between the law of moses and the hammurabi code, the imagery used in the temple, like the cherubim, the bulls, the altar etc. I’d wonder why God would tell them to build things that were pretty much the same as those “bad pagans”. And those cherubim really always got my imagination going, which I think is the point. This is obviously a creature of myth, and thats why myth because it takes you out of this shadow reality into the true reality. And again I don’t mean myth as in false stories, but those that are bigger than just a story, carrying The Framework.

I remembered a couple of the points I was going to make originally in the last post :slight_smile:

The gospel of John is a somewhat mythological account of Jesus’ life. Not that it was untrue, but that it was idealized to do what its purpose was, which was to show that Christ was the fullfillment of the Jewish Myth, and the Pagan Myth. It starts with the logos. Which like I said was a very loaded word. It was already in use in Greek philosophy, and carried very deep meaning with it. Then its the light. Of course this is the overriding theme of all myth, which is light vs. dark, Anakin vs. Vader. Just that alone puts Christ within the realm of pagan myth. But then He’s the lamb. Then He’s the serpent in the wilderness: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;

The timing given of His crucifixion differs between John and the synoptics. The reason being is that He needed time to die on the cross, but that time 6:00 would be too close to sundown and everyone would have to go back to their families. 6:00 was the time that the lambs were slaughtered (for the most part, I mean they didn’t have clocks, but you get the point). So Jesus likely was put on the cross at the time in the synoptics 3:00 in literal time. But to fit The Framework, John put it at the ideal time. I believe the order of events was idealized also. Ernest Martin has a great article on this subject. Askelm.com. This isn’t wrong from the mind of the beloved disciple, he was closest to Jesus, he was given Love as his subject, which is the ultimate structure of The Framework, he had his ear on Jesus’ heart. He I believe understood greater than the others what the true reality is. He is also the writer of Revelation, the unveiling of Jesus the Christ. The book of Revelation is all symbols, it is the key IMO to understanding the rest of the bible. It is the cypher. It is the legend for navigating The Framework. So for John to move some minor details around its no big whoop because the point wasn’t to stick to the letter, but to reveal who Jesus really was. He placed Him into the myth. Not that Jesus didn’t really fulfill all those things, I think He did, but that the bigger picture mattered more than some tiny details. AND I think that the contemporary readers would understand this when he starts his letter with the Logos, and the Light. Their ears would perk up, and they would be expecting to read something that wasn’t on the literal level.

I’m going to nerd out on Mt. Hermon just a little bit more mmm kay? So its named for Hermes the messenger god. Hermes had the Caduceus. Which was a pole with serpents wrapped around it. Isn’t it a coincidence that bronze serpent was made in the wilderness, and Jesus likened himself to it? I think not. There was a common symbol that they were derived from, or one was a copy of the other. Obviously I think that they were derived from The Framework.

The cross itself is the symbol of Baal, and of all the sungods. Jesus is likened to the sun. He’s not just another sungod, He is the SonGod. He is the true source of light. Those men that were called gods may have had traits of the Messiah, but they could never be the true Form. They were a shadow, just like the Jewish understanding of the messiah was wrong (and God for that matter), and was a shadow. They saw in The Framework that the messiah would come and kill their enemies. But they didn’t understand He came to kill only one man…adam. And they didn’t realize that their enemy is their ego. They tried to place men into the form, like Barabbas, or other men that were deemed the messiah. These warring men that would save them. But their mind saw death, when He came to give life and that abundantly.

This is one of the foundational reasons I am anti-church hierarchy. People are yearning to be saved from something. They will deify their pastor, their priest, their church leadership etc, unknowingly because thats what people do they mythologize their lives and the lives of others. JFK’s regime is called camelot. Actors are called stars. We have american idols. Doctors. Teachers. Athletes are Hercules, and Mars, and Demeter. Any position of power, or elevation above another man can easily head towards corruption, not always from the leader, but from the “awe” given to that person on that pedestal. We are told to call no man father. I think it has to do with the power that is given to that “father” can cause pride, and the next thing you know that man can become Lucifer, exalting himself above the heights of God. If you keep getting told you are infallible, you may start to believe it. I can tell you this from personal experience. I’m a chiropractor in a small town. I’m kind of like a minor celebrity, on par with a city council member or something like that. I also get to facilitate miraculous changes in peoples health in mere minutes. I literally get called a miracle worker daily. And I have people telling their friends and family about me, most people know me, or have at least heard of me. This can go to your head quickly. I’d like to say that I’ve fulfilled the role thats placed on me by my patients and community all the time, but that is far from the truth. I am so fallible its stupid. I could probably punch some of my patients kids in the face for no reason right in front of them, and they would yell at their kids for hurting my hand :laughing: I don’t deserve that kind of respect. I am just a guy, who is a vessel, who makes too many mistakes. Thankfully God has been working on me and has done a good job of keeping my ego in check. But that beast is still there, thanks be to God through Christ that we have victory though. I’ve really even stopped calling myself doctor to most people, because I don’t want to elevate myself above them, and facilitate that unhealthy relationship. Unfortunately many people really want their doctor to be a god, because of the need for security, which comes from their feeling of fear.

Ok thats enough, I really meant to just write a couple bits, but this whole topic has really allowed me to put pen to paper The Framework I’ve been seeing. And all of this informs my recent decision to dramatically change my lifestyle, as I am trying to walk in the steps of the True Form (not that I think everyone is called to sell everything they own, and go about literally healing the sick and feeding the poor). And be refined and crystalized so that my life reflects His. I think I’m placing myself in the myth. I am trying to answer the call of who I am called to be. BTW I don’t think I am The Savior, but a savior. Just as Christ is so are you in the world.

One final word, seriously this time :wink: with what I’ve said in the past few posts, I want to state that I still hold to the entire Bible (or most of it besides minor additions) being reliable, and useful for correction, reproof, and teaching. I believe God uses our understanding of The Framework for good. Even though I don’t think He really wanted all 613 literal laws,(sacrifice and burnt offering I did not desire) He told something to Moses and what we have written is a shadow of the reality. But it still points to the reality. The true form is the point, and God can work with Moses’ limited understanding.
–the letter kills, but the spirit gives life–

Jeremy

Greetings !

    Since it would take much more time, effort and trying to learn how to put applause smileys here...

  I will take a more convenient way   <applause>  <many people applause>   
   Jeremy and Dick ...  Your posts make this topic a marvelous adventure while climbing up 
     the side of the mountain ( in this case ...  Mount Ali or in pinyin Ali Shan )
   really early in the morning before even the crack of dawn to view the Sunrise in all 
       of its splendor and awe inspiring radiant brilliant light from the Sun 
    While I was living in Taiwan ... this was one of the tourist attractions that attracted lots of people...
     Drive to Ali Shan which was located in middle of the island but on the southern side instead of 
   in the middle on the northern side ...   :stuck_out_tongue: 
     Stay in a really cold cold Hotel room without any central heating at all... 
   -- that is IF the tourist did this during the Winter season or during the Chinese New Year time..
   which usually falls at the end of January or the beginning of February ...

    Most places in Taiwan do not have any central heating at all ... neither the k-12 schools
       nor the Universities either --- especially the classrooms including kindergartens as well..
     even McDonalds will have their darn A/C blowing during the Winter season ...   :exclamation: 
     so once I put on a Parka and went and sat inside ... with it on .. just to look foolish and strange
      so that the Manager or Asst Manager would come over to me and ask ... 
     Are you cold ?   ( actually they would most likely ask what the puck are ya doing wearin that in here?)
     but my American sarcasm was never understood ...  :wink:  :wink: 

    So during University class time ... The students and teachers needed to wear enough to keep
      from shivering -- and during the break times .. the Foreigners (us English teachers ) would 
    try to prohibit the students from opening all of the windows ... but these students stubbornly
     insisted on "letting "fresh air" inside so that they would not perish due to the "stale air" within the room
    of course we ( the English teachers ) could never fathom how the 'polluted' air outside was 'fresh'   :laughing: 

    Thus traveling to Ali Shan and arriving at late evening ... then checking into the Hotel rooms 
       which had all of the windows open ... letting in the "freezing cold air " which was supposed to be
     "fresh"   -- if you look at the World Map and find Taiwan it will not seem like a place to have
       such cold air ..  Shanghai or Beijing certainly has much more cold temperature than Taipei ...
     but due to the humidity and the cold Wind ... it definitely feels damn Cold !   :laughing: 

     Then at 3.30 am people get up ...get dressed ( never could understand how they did it too ...
        since I just slept with mine on ... sheeeeesh )   
       next, the entire mass of people would congregate in the large mess hall like place...
       to eat ...  of course...  Taiwanese style breakfast ...  which I never got used to after 22 years of it ..
        -- I will need to find a good way to share photos some day .. --
      Then people would mosey along to get on a small train like something from a large amusement park ...
        then chug chug chug up the mountain to reach a sunrise viewpoint ...
        everyone trying to budge their way around to get a better vantage point for viewing the sunrise...

      Should it be partly cloudy that morning ...well..  tough luck in having a spectacular sunrise experience ..
      on the breathtaking cloudless mornings that the Ads presented for the Marketing guys ...
        it is definitely awesome !

      What does this have to do with Jeremy and Dick's posts?   
          To share my appreciation and admiration for their Passion in expressing their Framework and 
         ideas, paradigms and thoughts concerning this topic concerning History ...  

        Eagerly looking forward to more gems, emeralds, rubies, sapphires coming from you guys
         and awaiting any other posts ...  

         all the best !

This is such a charming thread – a lovely holiday of a thread. What splendid posts! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Greetings :smiley:

Here is another fascinating and illuminating quote ..   
     from ...  

Furthermore, everyone has a canon within a canon–including Justin. Everyone has what Richard Beck calls a regulating text–a Scripture passage or a theological concept that becomes the lens through which they view the rest of Scripture. Over time, this text or concept often becomes a non-negotiable, the foundation on which we (wittingly or not) build the rest of our theology. Justin attempts to frame this as a debate between those who have regulating texts (his opponents) and those who don’t (people like him). But that can’t possibly be true. Otherwise he wouldn’t be in the Reformed camp, which prioritizes a certain group of texts in the same way Arminians prioritize another group of texts. Justin even quotes one of his regulating texts, “‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (Romans 9:14). What he doesn’t happen to mention is that Paul quotes this verse (Exodus 33:19) in the midst of a broader discussion about the wideness of God’s mercy. In other words, Paul is arguing against the very sort of exclusive theology Justin promotes. Ironically, Paul’s argument culminates in what has become a regulating text for many Universalists: “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (Romans 11:32). This leaves one to wonder who is actually ignoring the details of Scripture…

     [hellboundthemovie.com/a-resp ... -response/](http://www.hellboundthemovie.com/a-response-to-justin-taylors-response/)

   then Tally Ho!

To take the concept of a “canon within a canon” a step further, I would add that for Justin’s opponents, this isn’t simply a matter of playing off one set of texts against another. For them, the ultimate canon within the canon isn’t a text at all. It’s a person–Jesus. In John 14:9, Jesus says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” I think even Justin will agree that the Bible portrays Jesus as the perfect revelation of God. Therefore, he becomes the “Rosetta Stone” that allows us to decode the rest of Scripture. So if we see horrific acts attributed to God in the Old Testament, ***rather than say, “Well, I can’t see how dashing infants’ heads upon rocks is consistent with enemy love, but if the Bible says it, I believe it,***” we should test such assertions against the character and teachings of Christ. Are they consistent? If not, rather than shrug and say, “Well, I guess God’s ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9)” (which is also, BTW, stated in the mist of an argument for inclusion rather than exclusion), we should stop and consider that perhaps some of the actions attributed to God in the Bible may themselves be the sort of human projection that Justin detests so much. Of course, this opens up a much broader discussion on competing theories of inspiration. I think Justin and I have a pretty significant disagreement on this level, but that’s an argument for another day. (I do have a few things to say about that subject here.)

      This is another intriguing example of how "proof texting" or using a huge Roller ( you know those 
     machines that have very very heavy circular wheel on the front mashing the newly poured asphalt
       on roads and highways / freeways .. )  flattening all of the Biblical text onto one large cookie pan ..
    regardless of literary genre or authorship or time or the original sitz im leben or situational setting ...

     the comments directly above belong to the highlighted text ... not the very interesting paragraphs...

Finally, I take it from Justin’s comments that he has little or no regard for experience as a means of revelation. He downplays so-called “horizontal reasoning” in favor of top-down approach. As I’ve described in a previous post, our theology is the product of four main sources: Scripture, reason, tradition and experience. Depending where you live on the theological spectrum, you will tend to prioritize one or more of these sources over the others, but taken together, they function as a form of checks and balances. Going back to experience as a means revelation, if humans truly are created in the image of God, then our direct experience of something like parent-child relationships has a lot to tell us about our relationship with God. Granted, we “see through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12), but rather than discourage us from projecting that experience onto God, we should instead take it as an encouragement to believe that God’s love for his children far overwhelms our own puny feelings. In fact, Jesus encourages us to do just that:

the link ----   is here ....

[hellboundthemovie.com/by-what-authority/](http://www.hellboundthemovie.com/by-what-authority/)

Now I am not copying this portion of his article to agree or concur wholeheartedly with it ...  :wink:  :wink:  :wink: 

     but it certainly gives more insightful reasoning into hermeneutics and how differing perspectives
      express their viewpoints ... 

    all the best !

Greetings!

Wow...  If you continue reading into the lengthy comment section of the link ... response to Justin

  then you will surely observe and notice what I did ... lots of cantankerous words towards each other ...
  this is one of the main reasons I finally got toooooo tired of being involved in discussions of this sort online...
 The proverbial straw that broke the elephant's back ( i know it is camel but using elephant is more poignant)
    was when the Moderators and Owners of several Christian Yahoo discussion groups 
    decided it was their turn to emulate "The Shoot Out at the OK Corral "  sheeeeeeeeeeesh.....

  In one Yahoo group discussion all of these Mods and Owners were jumping in and well... never mind...
  
  Calvinists are not Evil .. nor Monsters .. and neither are the others too...
    how do I know ?  Well if researching Church History for decades is not enough .. well.. then I will laugh ...

   If anyone wishes to pick the meat from the bone .. I can do this also ....   :wink: 
  When we get to the Creeds..  :sunglasses:  :sunglasses:  :sunglasses:   Then we can open the closet and see how many skeletons are inside...

   So I will repeat one of my previous perspectives ...
      The NT Writers along with those modern Theologians I have mentioned ... 
     are writing with the same Passion about their Theological, Spiritual, Life Experience ....

      Since I find it very difficult to accept "Myth" in the manner of Bultmann & Co.  ( my nickname for all of it )
      and find it rather challenging to deal with ... at this time in my Life ... those super detailed 
     supposedly exhaustive Narrative or Literary interpretative perspectives ... 

     I then decided to opt for this perspective instead...   To me it is extremely challenging to really
      understand "exactly" what Paul was trying to communicate to the Churches in Modern Day Turkey ..
      and from memory only .. someone fell out of the window while listening to Paul ...  :wink:  :wink: 

    Even though Paul and his Damascus road experience or the visions he hints about in Corinthian correspondence
      still James, Luke, Peter and others also surely had their special Spiritual experience with God ...

      I prefer to give warm affectionate bear hugs now instead of engaging in "Zealous Fencing " with another ..

     Thus I really enjoy this forum for the Active Considerate behavior within the midst of divergent ideas...

     all the best!

Btw we get the word hermeneutics from Hermes. :wink:

Mysteries. The mystery religions all had the same setup, and what so many don’t realize is that the setup is the same as Judaism/Christianity. There were levels of revelation. Like the Masons. They are definitely patterned after the mysteries. Outer court, inner court, holy of holies. This same progressive revelation was present.

Sanchonthian said that the answer or final revelation to the pagan mysteries was that the gods were men. And here is what I consider to be one of the big dividing lines between pagan and Christian, (not withstanding, actually having a relationship with Christ), is that they have the same story but they are mirror images of each other. You know those pictures of buildings or a mountain where there is a perfect reflection in the water. You see the same image, but they go in opposite directions. Up is down for the mirror reflection. Well I see that principle in a lot of stories. For instance, in the movie The Matrix. The higher world, the real world is the post-apocalyptic nightmare world. The matrix is the veil, or as Morpheus says the wool pulled over their eyes. Which I could go into much just about that statement but will try and stay on topic. But the opposite is true. The real matrix is this natural world we live in. The higher reality is the invisible world. When you peer behind the curtains in this story you see the beautiful world, not the nightmare. The nightmare is the world we live in.

Ok back to the mysteries. The pagan secret is that the gods are men. The biblical secret is that God dwells in men, or better worded, Christ in you is the hope of glory. The two shall become one flesh, this is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church. The kingdom of heaven is inside. Don’t you know you are the temple of the living God?

When I just wrote look behind the curtain it made me think of the wizard of oz. Wow that movie is a great representation of what I’m saying. The god, was actually just a man behind the curtain pulling levers. But on another level Oz is like The Framework, and it being the invisible world, puts it more on a correct understanding of the two worlds than the matrix. The kingdom (of Oz) is inside you (Dorothy). Oh man I have a feeling I’m going to be watching a lot of movies in the near future.

Jeremy – what you are saying is fascinating and tallies well with the mythic concerns of C.S. Lewis and, indeed, of the Renaissance Christian Humanists who were keen on drawing parallels between the Gospels and their prefiguration in pagan myths. And it’s lovely to have two biographies melding with True Myth on this thread.

Also what you are saying reminds me very much of the books of Margaret Barker, the biblical scholar who writes about mythology and the Bible – her are controversial but her views are widely respected as groundbreaking. She suggests very compellingly that a lot of the Cosmology found in the Bible stems from the imagery, rites, and traditions connected with the First Temple (and a major source she uses in her research is the Book of Enoch, quoted in the Epistle of Jude, but never included in the canon of our Bible). She speaks, for example, about how the Temple was a symbolic model of the universe (a microcosm), and how the understanding of the cosmos in first Temple Judaism/Hebraism was that everything in the visible world corresponded to an entity, event etc, in the unseen, spiritual world. Whereas in the Second Temple the Holy of Holies – the place where the visible and invisible worlds meet – was an empty space, in the First Temple it was filled by the Cherubim throne. On this an angelic being, one like a ‘Son of Man’, would be enthroned – that is the Priest King of Israel. With sacrifices performed, the Priest King would pass through the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the outer courts as an angelic messenger from the unseen world carrying the blood of a lamb representing the life blood of Yahweh, sacrificed to bring atonement with and between the people of the covenant. By performance of this ritual the fruitfulness of creation and justice between people was restored. The walls of the temple were adorned with paintings and ornaments representing a garden. So the temple was in a sense the Garden of Eden where Adam the Priest King representing the people would take on the sins of the people and as the angelic messenger who passes through the veil bring forth the healing life blood of Yahweh. So Eden and Judgement happen in the same place in sacred time. But she argues that the difference between pagan myth and the myth/liturgy of the first Temple is that it is Yahweh who gives his life blood to the people and not the other way round

Margaret Barker also argues that the liturgy of the first temple is assumed in the New Testament and provides the pattern behind the Gospel narratives and the liturgies in Paul’s epistles – and that the Garden of the Resurrection is the same as Eden but with peace and justice restored, and likewise that the angel of the Resurrection is the same as the Angel who guards Eden – but the flaming sword has been cast aside in a gesture of ‘welcome back’ to humanity.

Blessings to you and Hothorsegz (and I’m still charmed by the both of you - keep posting! :smiley: :smiley: )

Dick

Greetings !

 To make it easier and to make it more personal ..  I will use my name too  
     so jim ( aka hothorsegz )  it is ...   <img src="/uploads/default/original/1X/15680453330e74f929b585a237613f0bdf61e069.gif" width="15" height="17" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green"/> 

  Thanks so much for two intriguing posts about Myth as seen from what you are studying and researching 
     ( applause )  ( applause )

  I also found while reading CS Lewis adult triology some fascinating intuitive insights concerning
    the possible connection between "black holes" and those Eldil in the story line ....
 It seems from recent TV shows discussing the function and behavior of "black holes"
   that every Galaxy has one at its center ...   

     I have very little idea what was in CS Lewis mind while  he was writing his adult triology ...
   so I am only presenting how my active imagination was connecting these two phenomena together .. :wink:  :wink: 

     Especially the Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra ... 

     Out of the Silent Planet (1938), set mostly on Mars (Malacandra). In this book Elwin Ransom voyages to Mars and discovers that Earth is exiled from the rest of the solar system. Far back in Earth's past, it fell to an angelic being known as the Bent Oyarsa, and now, to prevent contamination of the rest of the Solar System ("The Fields of Arbol"), it is known as "the silent planet" (Thulcandra).

      Ransom gets much information on cosmology from the Oyarsa (presiding angel) of Malacandra, or Mars. Maleldil, the son of the Old One, ruled the Field of Arbol, or solar system, directly. But then the Bent One (the Oyarsa of Earth) rebelled against Maleldil and all the eldila (similar to the Valar in Tolkien's Silmarillion) of Deep Heaven (outer space). In response to this act, the Bent One suffered confinement on Earth where he first inflicted great evil. Thus he made Earth a silent planet, cut off from the Oyéresu of other planets, hence the name 'Thulcandra', the Silent Planet, which is known throughout the Universe. Maleldil tried to reach out to Thulcandra and became a man to save the human race. According to the Green Lady, Tinidril (Mother of Perelandra, or Venus), Thulcandra is favored among all the worlds, because Maleldil came to it to become a man.

In the Field of Arbol, the outer planets are older, the inner planets newer.
Earth will remain a silent planet until the end of the great Siege of Deep Heaven against the Oyarsa of Earth. The siege starts to end (with the Oyéresu of other worlds descending to Earth) at the finale of the Trilogy, That Hideous Strength. But there is still much to happen until the fulfillment of what is predicted in the Book of Revelation, when the Oyéresu put an end to the rule of the Bent Eldil and, on the way, smash the Moon to fragments. This, in turn, will not be “The End of the World”, but merely “The Very Beginning” of what is still to come.

     The eldila (singular eldil) are super-human extraterrestrials. The human characters in the trilogy encounter them on various planets, but the eldila themselves are native to interplanetary and interstellar space ("Deep Heaven"). They are barely visible as pillars of faint, shifting light.

         :wink:  :wink:   Now for my imaginative insights ( which by the way remain imaginative -- no need for Astrophyics or Astronomers to ceremoniously bop me on my noggin -- I do know the difference )

    In the story line ... also have significant power over their own planets too ...  being barely visible as 
     pillars of faint, shifting light makes them as Angels in another way of speaking ...   
   Along the lines of black holes which have extreme amount of power over a particular Galaxy there 
     could be a Mythological connection between eldila --- concerning this extreme amount of power ... 

     Certain very powerful eldila, the Oyéresu (singular Oyarsa), control the course of nature on each of the planets of the Solar System (similar to the Valar in The Silmarillion). They (and maybe all the eldila) can manifest in corporeal forms. The title Oyarsa seems to indicate the function of leadership, regardless of the leader's species; when the Perelandran human Tor assumes rule of his world, he styles himself "Tor-Oyarsa-Perelendri" (presumably "Tor, Ruler of Perelandra").

       as for a Holy of Holies imagery ... when Tor assumes rule of is world...
      the dramatic breath-taking suspenseful climatic scene where this takes place has lots of imagery
        in connection with Holyl of Holies ceremony ...   

The eldila are science-fictionalized depictions of angels, immortal and holy, with the Oyéresu perhaps being angels of a higher order. (As Lewis implies in Chapter 22 of Out of the Silent Planet, the name Oyarsa was suggested by Oyarses, the name given in Bernard Silvestris's Cosmographia to the governors of the celestial spheres. Bernard's word was almost certainly a corruption—or a deliberate alteration—of Greek οὐσιάρχης [ousiarches, "lords of being"], used with the same meaning in the Hermetic Asclepius.) The eldila resident on—actually, imprisoned in—Earth are "dark eldila", fallen angels or demons. The Oyarsa of Earth, the "Bent One", is Satan. Ransom later meets the Oyéresu of both Mars and Venus, who are described as being masculine (but not actually male) and feminine (but not actually female), respectively. The Oyarsa of other worlds have characteristics like the Classical Gods, the Oyarsa of Jupiter gives a feeling of merriment.

Hnau is a word in the Old Solar language which refers to “sentients” such as Humans. In the book, the Old Solar speaker specifies that God is not hnau, and is unsure whether Eldila (immortal angelic beings) can be termed “hnau”, deciding that if they are hnau, they are a different kind of hnau than Humans or Martians.
The term was adopted by some other people, including Lewis’ friend J. R. R. Tolkien, who used the term in his (unpublished during his lifetime) The Notion Club Papers - distinguishing hnau from beings of pure spirit or spirits able to assume a body (which is not essential to their nature). Similarly, a character in James Blish’s science fiction novel A Case of Conscience wonders whether a particular alien is a hnau, which he defines as having “a rational soul”.
In recent times the term has been used by some philosophers, for example in Thomas I. White’s “Is a Dolphin a Person?”, where he asks if Dolphins are persons, and if such, if they can also be reckoned as hnau: that is sentient beings of the same level as humans.
Other uses of the term include the term as used by some Christians[citation needed]: here as with Tolkien’s use of the term “hnau” refers to sentient beings possessing independent will, and thus by extension a soul.

      The creative imaginative writing of an Author then has multi-valent aspects which create a 
  spider-web like effect touching many other authors who take up the pen to write ...   

    The cosmology of all three books—in which the Oyéresu of Mars and Venus somewhat resemble the corresponding gods from classical mythology—derives from Lewis's interest in medieval beliefs. Lewis discusses these in his book The Discarded Image (published much later than the Ransom Trilogy). Lewis was intrigued with the ways medieval authors borrowed concepts from pre-Christian religion and science and attempted to reconcile them with Christianity, and with the lack of a clear distinction between natural and supernatural phenomena in medieval thought. The Space Trilogy also plays on themes in Lewis's essay "Religion and Rocketry", which argues that as long as humanity remains flawed and sinful, our exploration of other planets will tend to do them more harm than good. Furthermore, much of the substance of the argument between Ransom and Weston in Perelandra is found in Lewis's book Miracles. Links between Lewis's Space Trilogy and his other writings are discussed at great length in Michael Ward's Planet Narnia and in Kathryn Lindskoog's C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian.[3]

J.R.R. Tolkien was a friend and sometime mentor to Lewis. In That Hideous Strength, Lewis alludes several times to Tolkien’s Atlantean civilization Numinor (spelt Númenor by Tolkien), saying in the foreword “Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the True West must (alas!) await the publication of much that still exists only in the MSS. of my friend, Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.” Villains in both Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings cycle and here are very hostile toward the natural world (specifically in the wanton destruction of trees in Tolkien’s and the manipulation of life in Lewis’s).

        more coming soon... on the other two ...  :wink: 

   Thus there is ample room for plenty of thought here without the need of "Fencing" to "rightly divide the (sic) word..."
 :wink:  :wink:  :wink: 

      Through passionate enthusiasm for expressing, elucidating and sharing concepts, ideas and paradigms
     we can experience the sociological phenomena of what Lewis and others had during their meetings 
     of which was called "Inklings"   Tolkien had a role to play in aiding Lewis to enter into Christianity too...
     I recall Andre and SD33---  one is considering to walk out .. and one is discouraged ... 

       It might be that both of them being in the midst of "Fencing" to "rightly divide the (sic) word...
      and the incessant bickering among those who wish to exercise "authoritative clout" over others...
     makes for a dark stormy evening as both of them are walking along the road .... or in a place...

       Whereas -- when there is more than enough "Light" and the dialogue is filled with friendly warmth
      for each other --  where there is only a "shadow" cast upon the wooden walls of a Tavern 
      ( meaning a place where fellowship takes place while eating, drinking and the Grand Dance is taking place )

      the "shadow" on the wooden walls are a constant reminder that unless there is more than enough 
   "Light" shining around and surrounding everyone with its warmth and energy ... 
   then the atmosphere and environment turns back into becoming a Cimmerian, aphotic, atramentous
       cheerless, gloomy scene from Lewis triology and also as seen in his book -- The Great Divorce
     where the bodiless ghost like figures meander around or become bothersome annoying spirits...

      ( which is another reason --- I am an Egalitarian -- shameless plug -- :stuck_out_tongue:  :stuck_out_tongue:  :stuck_out_tongue: 

      Christian community should embrace Inclusion before Exclusion ... 
          should embrace Open Source before Proprietary closed system ... 
        ( example .. Linux as contrasted with Microsloft  :wink:  :wink:  as with Apple too or Oracle or Intel et al... )

       should focus on maximizing the warm hearted fellowship with social activities which integrate 
        every individual particularity in the pursuit of exhibiting the Unity which is connected 
        via the "bonding" of diversity ---  (bonding meaning the intense interpersonal interaction 
         between mother and new born baby --- along with the 'bonding' with the father too )

        social activities --  meaning NOT those that take place within the confines of a Church bldg...!
      while I was in Seminary it was a stunning statistic presented to the students ...
         after (so called ) conversion the new convert's number of "outside" social contacts diminished 
      quite suddenly ... leaving the question open ... who to evangelize next ????

       I would much rather spend my social time engaged in a social activity where a group of people 
        gathered together to enjoy and experience the personal (singularity) & social (unity) 
        interaction while "doing" something ... doing what ?   the possibilites are virtually endless...

        Instead of getting together with other "foreigners" or expats at the local Pub, Bar or Restaurant
       engaged with the typical "Westernized" style of slap sticking, high fiving, beer drinking 
         "yellow" jokes ( meaning sex jokes -- yellow jokes are chinese slang )

        or just to get together to experience the previous Cultural milieu that has greatly diminished 
          while living in a "foreign" country ...   

        Ransom had a bewildering time while in Perelandra .. but then later upon reflective musings 
        sorely missed his living experience there ... with the other celestial sentient beings ...

      getting together within the confines of a Church bldg for the sake of said "morning service"
         attempting to have Unity while at the same time expressing Singularity ...
        there seems to be a sense of cognitive dissonance at times ...   with each segment of the Service 
        trying to follow a predetermined order of events ... with a persistent over shadowing of 
        Hierarchical "authoritative clout "  

        now of course, I am exaggerating for the sake of emphasis .. because I certainly have no intention
       of dissing Sunday morning services .. simply due to the social phenomena that takes place there ...
         along with the spiritual experience too....

          however, I have definitely noticed and observed that Church meetings are stuck in a bldg...
        even those that are called "Retreats"  .......

       During this summer .. I decided to put a lot of passion towards encouraging the Hospital staff
         to get together for social activities to enhance their English learning skills .. while at the same
     time to increase their confidence, comfy zone and listening ability with me ... 
          in which there was a friendly warm hearted environment which came from my passion 
            to do so ... we went to Zhuhai .. and had a Camping trip ..  we went to another distant location
         to have fun on a sandy beach .. numerous Staff accepted my invitation to visit me in my localized
        area.. for a bicycle ride which took 4 hours ... the Dragon Boat Holiday we went to another location
           to pretend we were in a Dragon Boat race ... sitting in one of those specially designed boats
          and trying to use the paddles as fast as we could .. then went to a Lichee orchard to pick Lichees..

         during all of these social activities .. I invested much energy and effort to ignite .. to spark..
         to attempt to "draw out" each person's social skills and Natural abilities...
            most, if not all foreigners who are "teaching" prefer to follow the traditional method of teaching
         and when engaged in any English activity that would be outside .. just switch to behaving 
         as any other "foreigner" would do in that particular social setting ... 
           
        I tried to invite many Church members to have social activities in the past ...
           however, the focus of attention was .. we need to gather together for the purpose of 
         worship, bible study , prayer meeting, Sunday service (which is most important ... )

        more coming soon ...   :wink: 

   all the best !

Just remembered …
if anyone has never read any of Cheeseburger Brown’s stories … you should try … :smiley:
especially the Christmas Robots … which has a very poignant ending for community too… :mrgreen:

cheeseburgerbrown.com/Free_Stories.html

       psssssssst Christmas Robots ...

all the best !

(I wrote this before Jims last two posts, which I will read tomorrow and respond to)

Dick,
Wow thats awesome I’ll have to read her stuff. I have just been piecing much of this stuff together and really unable to even verbalize what I’ve been writing here until now. I didn’t even know there were other wack jobs like me out there :slight_smile:

I agree that the temple was a microcosm. The zodiac was carved into the floor of the inner court according to Josephus. Each level represented one of the heavens. Outer is the earth and its atmosphere, the first heaven. The inner was the second heaven, the stars, which is why it had the zodiac in there. The HOH was the third heaven, thats where Paul was caught up to, and likely where he received the Revelation of the Mystery.

Speaking of the cherubim, there were 4 heads. Through the years many people have recognized that each of the gospels correspond to one of the heads. Matthew the lion, for the tribe of Judah was the main audience of Matthews gospel. Mark the Ox, Mark is very action oriented, get work done. Luke the man, as it was written more for all men, gentiles. And the eagle is John. John takes the high view. Which is what I was talking about earlier. If you were to fly above a city you’d have a much different view of those buildings than walking at street level. You’d be able to see the whole form of the building, and its relationship to the other structures that make up the framework :wink: of that city.

4 is the number of creation. It is the 4 corners of the earth. The cherubim represent all of creation IMO,as they are a shorthand for the zodiac. All creation (the cherubim) waits with eager longing for the unveiling of the sons of God. Unveiling is the birthing of the sons of God. Hey did you know the name Mary means rebellion, the Son of God was birthed out of rebellion, and the Sons will(are) too. You were the guardian cherub who covers… until iniquity was found in you. The earth was formed out of chaos, the man was formed out of dirt, the Son(s) come out of rebellion. The manifestation of the presence of God was always within the cherubim. I would disagree with Ms. Barker that they throw the flaming sword away. The flaming sword is the Word being carried or covered by the flesh, the cherubim. It is the same as the pillar of fire, or the cloud, which is the same cloud we see in Ezekiel being carried on the cherubim, and in that cloud is one likened to a son of man. We actually see this man in REvelation with a Rainbow around His head.

When Israel was brought out of Egypt and made the golden calf, they were likely making the cherubim, for they said these be your gods who brought you out of egypt. This is the grave mistake. This is the essence of idolatry, worshipping the vessel instead of the Spirit inside. Thats why I say the cherubim are the heiroglyph for all the pagan gods, because as they were peering they couldn’t see very well(no eyes to see) what was in the cloud, but they could see the visible which was the cherubim. We see one of the kings of Israel making two golden calves to mark the borders of the Northern lands. Why would they? He didn’t want people going up to the temple and seeing the cherubim there, in the center of the beautiful temple. And he knew that God “dwells between the cherubim” and so he spread wide the place God would dwell.

I agree that the temple is the garden. You have the land of nod/outer court, the land of Eden/inner court, the garden/HOH. In the midst of the garden there were two trees. Do the two trees occupy the same space? Lets look at whats in the midst of the garden in the temple. The ark, with the two cherubim, which is where the Glory manifests, in the midst of the cherubim. Two cherubim that are one, good and evil. And in the midst of them is the tree of life, the glory of the Lord. What was it that were the traits of the TOKOGAE? (tree of knowledge of good and evil).

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

Appeals to the senses, and to the ego. That is the natural mind. The TOKOGAE is the cherubim. To eat from It is to go after the image, and not the Spirit. The natural mind cannot understand the things of God, because it only sees the natural, and the cherubim are the representation of the natural. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

"But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘IT WAS NOT TO ME THAT YOU OFFERED VICTIMS AND SACRIFICES FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS, WAS IT, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL?‘YOU ALSO TOOK ALONG THE TABERNACLE OF MOLOCH AND THE STAR OF THE GOD ROMPHA, THE IMAGES WHICH YOU MADE TO WORSHIP. I ALSO WILL REMOVE YOU BEYOND BABYLON.’

Here we have what is possibly Israel worshipping the cherubim. There are two of them. Moloch which is king, the king star is Jupiter, and Rompha(Chiun in Amos where this verse is pulled from) is Saturn(Abraham). They have a tabernacle. In Genesis the word that says they were stationed is a word that means to tabernacle. There was a separate tabernacle that just covered the cherubim. They had chosen again the TOKOGAE, the “natural” over the spiritual. That is why Paul says “now we know no man after the flesh”.

A little more on the number 4. In the first verse of the Bible, there are 7 words. The fourth word is an untranslated word. It is Aleph-Tau. The first and last letters of the aleph-beth. This is the Hebrew equivalent of Alpha-Omega. THE WORD is in the exact center of the first verse. It dwells within the verse. The 4th day of creation gave us the Sun, Moon, and Stars. The Son, Bride, and Sons (as elucidated by Joseph). The light was manifest on the earth in the 4000th year since adam (I don’t believe an exact time is necessary but an ideal time, which is what the geneologies are IMO, and thats another rabbit trail I could go down too). There are 7 colors in the visible spectrum. The visible spectrum is the center spectrum of 7. It is the 4th. And the 4th color in the 4th spectrum is green, the color of life. All things were made for and through Him. He is the very center point of it all. The bullseye.

Goodnight my friends.

Hi Jim and Jeremy

I have had difficulties accessing the EU site recently; but will reply to you both today (in temporal order :laughing: - so that’s Jim first and will post Jeremey later) -

Jim - regarding your interpretation of Lewis – I’m no expert because I haven’t read his science fiction trilogy - but what you say makes total sense to me. Lewis did use symbolism and myth in ingenious ways (and Charles Williams was even more ingenious). There is a scholar names Michael Ward who has done the full symbolic interpretation works on the Narnia chronicles. Here is the publicity blurb for his book (which I haven’t read):

***For over half a century, scholars have laboured to show that C. S. Lewis’s famed but apparently disorganised Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser’s Faerie Queene. None of these explanations has won general acceptance and the structure of Narnia’s symbolism has remained a mystery.

Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia he demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis’s writings (including previously unpublished drafts of the Chronicles), Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets - - Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn - - planets which Lewis described as “spiritual symbols of permanent value” and “especially worthwhile in our own generation”. Using these seven symbols, Lewis secretly constructed the Chronicles so that in each book the plot-line, the ornamental details, and, most important, the portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate the governing planetary personality. The cosmological theme of each Chronicle is what Lewis called ‘the kappa element in romance’, the atmospheric essence of a story, everywhere present but nowhere explicit. The reader inhabits this atmosphere and thus imaginatively gains connaître knowledge of the spiritual character which the tale was created to embody.***

Sounds interesting!

I love your vision of God’s easy hospitality Jim. Love it! -

This reminds me of Celtic Christian prayer -

I should like a great lake of finest ale, for the King of Kings.
I should like a table of the choicest food, for the family of heaven.
Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith, and the food be forgiving love.
I should welcome the poor to my feast, for they are God’s children.
I should welcome the sick to my feast, for they are God’s joy.
Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place, and the sick dance with the angels
God bless the poor, God bless the sick, and bless our human race.
God bless our food, God bless our drink, all homes, O God, embrace.
We saw a stranger yesterday, we put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place, music in the listening place,
And with the sacred name of the triune God
He blessed us and our house, our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song:
‘Often, often, often goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise’
The blessings of God be upon this place, with plenty of food and plenty of drink,
With plenty of beds and plenty of ale, with much riches and much cheer
With many kin and length of life, ever upon it.
Amen.

It also reminds me, in a way, of William Blake’s dear Little Vagabond – who is shut out from Christian hospitality:

**Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold,
But the ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in Heaven will never do well.

But if at the church they would give us some ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
We’d sing and we’d pray all the live-long day,
Nor ever once wish from the church to stray.

Then the parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
And we’d be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

And God, like a father rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,
But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.**

(note that the little Vagabond is a little beggar boy, forced to beg by destitution; and he’s looked upon as a little devil by respectable Christians. It’s not the God of love who his quarrel is with; it’s the god of the respectable who casts him out)

Warm blessings

Dick

Hi Jeremy –

Love your post and I think you will just love Margaret Barker – and really find a soul mate in her (it’ll be like a great minds think alike moment). Just for once I’m not recommending someone books because I’ve found them useful – but because I know you’ll find an answering in her work as well as a questioning. She has a website which contains papers that summarise the gist of her theological reflections at

http://www.margaretbarker.com/

The Christian writer who I’ve found most useful in thinking about myth is Rene Girard. At first his approach to myth seems to contradict that of Lewis, and Margaret Barker – he sees myth as something that covers up truth and Christianity as exposing the truth that myth covers up. However – I don’t need to drone on about Girard – but take a look at the extended extract from an essay by James Alison below (James Alison is Girard’s most accessible interpreter). What’s good about this essay is that it introduces all of Margaret Barker’s key ideas and all of Girard’s too – and he sees them as complementary. (and another scholar has done an analysis of Lewis ‘Till We Have Faces’ arguing for the compatibility of Lewis and Girard – but I haven’t read this yet)

jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng11.html

**‘We tend to have an impoverished notion of liturgy. And we do not realise how much our dwelling in theory complicates our lives. That in fact having atonement as a theory means that it is an idea that can be grasped – and once it is grasped, one has got it – whereas a liturgy is something that happens to you. I want to go back and recover a little bit of what the liturgy of atonement was about; because when we understand that we begin to get a sense of what this language of “atonement” and “salvation” is about.

Let’s remember that we’re talking about a very ancient Jewish liturgy in the First Temple. For this liturgy the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies. Before the high priest went into the Holy of Holies he would sacrifice a bull or a calf in expiation for his own sins. He would then go into the Holy of Holies, taking one of two goats – a goat which was the Lord, and a goat which was Azazel (the “devil”). He would take the first with him into the Holy of Holies and sacrifice it to the LORD; and with it he would sprinkle the Mercy Seat, and all that was in the First Temple, the throne on which were the Cherubim. This was a place that only the high priest was allowed to enter. Now the interesting thing is that after expiating his own sins with the bull, he would then don the white robe, which was the robe of an angel. From that point he would cease to be a human being and would become the angel, one of whose names was “the Son of God”. And he would be able to put on “the Name”, meaning “the name which could not be pronounced”, the Name of God. With the Name contained in the phylacteries either on his forehead or wrapped around his arms, he would be able to go into the Holy of Holies. (Remember the phrase, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”? This is a reference to the rite of atonement, the coming in of the high priest – one of the many references to the rite of atonement we get in the New Testament – and of which we are largely ignorant!). So, he becomes an angel; and one of the angel’s titles is “the son of God”. He sacrifices the goat that is “the Lord”, and sprinkles his blood about the place. The purpose of this was to remove all the impurities that had accrued in what was meant to be a microcosm of creation, because the Holy of Holies, in the understanding of the Temple, was the place where the Creator dwelt. The rite of atonement was about the Lord himself, the Creator, emerging from the Holy of Holies so as to set the people free from their impurities and sins and transgression. In other words, the whole rite was exactly the reverse of what we typically imagine a priestly rite to be about. We tend to have an “Aztec imagination” as regarding the sacrificial system. The hallmark of the sacrificial system is that its priest sacrifices something so as to placate some deity.

The Jewish priestly rite was already an enormous advance beyond that world. They understood perfectly well that it was pagan rites that sacrificed victims in order to keep creation going. And one of the ways in which they had advanced beyond that, even before the fall of the Temple and the Exile to Babylon, was the understanding that it was actually God who was doing the work, it was God who was coming out wanting to restore creation, out of his love for his people. And so it is God who emerges from the Holy of Holies dressed in white in order to forgive the people their sins and, more importantly, in order to allow creation to flow.

The notion is that humans are inclined to muck up creation; and it is God emerging from the place that symbolises that which is before creation began, “the place of the Creator”. The Holy of Holies was the place that symbolised “the first day” – which, of course, meant before time, before creation was brought into being.

The priest emerged from that and then he came to the Temple Veil. The Temple Veil was made of very rich material, representing the material world, that which was created. At this point the high priest would don a robe made of the same material as the Veil, to demonstrate that what he was acting out was God coming forth and entering into the world of creation so as to make atonement, to undo the way humans had snarled up that creation. And at that point, having emerged, he would then sprinkle the rest of the temple with the blood that was the Lord.

Now, here’s the interesting point: for the Temple understanding the high priest at this stage was God, and it was God’s blood that was being sprinkled. This was a divine movement to set people free. This was not – as in our understanding – a priest satisfying a divinity. The reason why the priest had to engage in a prior expiation was because he was about to become a sign of something quite else: acting outwards. The movement is not inwards towards the Holy of Holies; the movement is outwards from the Holy of Holies.

So the priest would then come through the Veil – meaning the Lord entering into the world, the created world – and sprinkle all the rest of the Temple, hence setting it free. After which, as the person who was bearing the sins that had been accumulated, he places them on the head of what we call “the scapegoat”, Azazel, which would then be driven to the edge of the cliff and cast down, where it would be killed, so that the people’s sins would be taken away.
That was, from what we can gather, the atonement rite. But here’s the fascinating thing: the Jewish understanding was way ahead of the “Aztec” version we attribute to it. Even at that time it was understood that it was not about humans trying desperately to satisfy God, but God taking the initiative of trying to break through for us. In other words, atonement was something of which we were the beneficiaries. That it is the first point I want to make when we are talking about a liturgy rather than a theory. We are talking about something that we undergo over time as part of a benign divine initiative towards us.

This puts many things in a slightly different perspective from what we are used to. It means, for instance, that the picture of God in the theory that we have that demands that God’s anger be satisfied is a pagan notion. In the Jewish understanding it was instead something that God was offering to us. Now here’s the crunch with this: the early Christians who wrote the New Testament understood very clearly that Jesus was the authentic high priest, who was restoring the eternal covenant that had been established between God and Noah; who was coming out from the Holy Place so as to offer himself as an expiation for us, as a demonstration of God’s love for us; and that Jesus was acting this out quite deliberately.
There are a number of places where we get hints of this language. One of them is in Jesus acting out the role of Melchizedek. For example, the announcement of the Jubilee, which Jesus preaches in the synagogue in Nazareth (cf. Lk 4:16f.), was the way in which the high priest Melchizedek would come back and work for the liberation, the “atonement”, or “redemption”, of the people. In fact, what Jesus says and does in Luke is to fulfil the Melchizedek agenda, which includes going up to Jerusalem and being killed.

There are different ways in the other Gospels in which this is depicted. The classic example is in St John’s Gospel, Jn 17: Jesus’ last speech to his disciples before the passion is a speech based on the high priest’s atonement prayer. And Jesus then goes off to act out the role of the high priest who is making available the new temple in his body (which, of course, John had given us a hint about in the beginning of his Gospel).

One of the ways in which this is told in St John’s Gospel is that Jesus is crucified on Thursday, not on Friday. So on Thursday afternoon he is going outside the city walls to be killed at exactly the same time – three in the afternoon – when the priests in the Temple were killing the lambs for the Passover feast. So, while they were killing the lambs, the real lamb, the one who was identified as “the lamb of God”, was going to the place of execution to be killed. But – bizarrely – he was going dressed in a “seamless robe”, a priest’s robe: hence the importance of his robe being “seamless”, and lots having to be cast for it rather than it being torn. So the high priest was going – the Lord was going – to “the Temple” where he would be “the Lamb”, for, as we are told, when they look on him after he has died they see that not a bone of his body was broken, alluding to the Passover lamb.

The identification is complete. And of course, Jesus cry on the cross in John’s Gospel is “It is finished”, “It is completed”: meaning the atonement, and therefore the inauguration of creation is completed. In John’s Gospel the “I shall go to my Father” is always synonymous with “I shall go to my death, in which I shall be lifted up, and that is how I will glorify my Father.” All of these things we know; but usually we do not see them in the context of Jesus being the authentic high priest doing the high priestly thing.

You can tell that that was how it was read because immediately after this, at the resurrection, we are transferred to the garden. The “first day” we are in “the garden”. Peter and John come to look, then Mary Magdalene comes in. What does she see? Two angels! And where are the angels sitting? One at the head and one at the foot of a space that is open because the stone has been rolled away. What is this space? This is the Holy of Holies. This is the mercy seat, with the Cherubim present. The Holy of Holies is now open, because creation is able to flow completely freely. No more tangling up of creation. The Holy of Holies has been opened up. The high priest has gone in who did not need to sacrifice a bull for his own sins because he didn’t have any! He was able to come out of the place of creation. And remember that in the epistle to the Hebrews, as in much of the Pauline literature, and in John’s Gospel, Jesus was the Word of God who was with creation from the beginning – “all things were created through him”. This is the high priestly language of the One who is coming from God to offer atonement so as to open up creation. That is being fulfilled. And you get a sense of a realization in John’s Gospel that this is what has been acted out: Jesus’ fulfilling of the liturgy of the atonement. So far so good! This is an explanation that allows us to see Jesus’ “subversion from within” of the ancient liturgy of atonement – which was practiced in a much more cursory way in the Second Temple period.

In the Second Temple there was no longer a mercy seat. There was no longer anything inside the Holy of Holies. The priestly mysteries had been lost. And this was one of the reasons that there was excitement that here was a priest who was going to fulfil the promises and restore the priestly mysteries. But of course “restored” in a skewed, “off stage” way – i.e. the real high priest was engaged in being the sacrifice, “the victim”, the priest, the altar and the temple on the city rubbish heap, at the same time as the corrupt city guys – which is how the ordinary Jews saw them at the time – while going through the motions in the corrupt Second Temple, which was not of any great concern to the people. They didn’t think it was the real thing (very much the diet Pepsi version of the real Coke – if you’ll excuse the imagery).

From our point of view that is all an aspect of atonement. What Jesus was doing was fulfilling a set of prophecies concerning a liturgical happening, which is to us largely mysterious. The reason I wanted to tell you about it is that it is very important for our understanding when we see that this is not someone simply abolishing something that was bad, but someone fulfilling something that was considered good but not good enough. Do you see the difference? That means that our tendency to read the whole world of priesthood and sacrifice as an “unfortunate Semitic leftover” is really very wrong. The Jewish priestly thing – apart from being responsible for some of the most extraordinary texts that we have in what survives in the Hebrew scriptures – was also the pattern which enabled the relationship between creation and salvation to be held together. And that is the pattern of the Catholic faith, as I want to explore a little bit more: it is the notion of God making available for us the chance to participate in the fullness of creation by God becoming a sacrifice for us in our midst.
We are all – quite rightly – allergic to liturgy by itself. We are absolutely right because that is one of the things that the NT is insistent on. The genius of Jesus is the bringing together of the liturgical and the ethical, which is why atonement matters to us. Because what Jesus did was not really, as it were, to fulfil a series of prophecies regarding a somewhat bizarre ancient rite that involved lots of blood and barbeque. What Jesus did – and this is the fascinating thing – was to make an extraordinary anthropological breakthrough. And this is where atonement is “substitutionary”.

Here I want to make a little aside: normally, in the theory understanding of substitutionary atonement, we understand the substitution to work as follows: God was angry with humanity; Jesus says, “Here am I”; God needed to loose a lightning rod, so Jesus said, “You can loose it on me”, substituting himself for us. Boom: lightning rod here: sacrifice: God happy. “Got my blood-lust out of the way!”

The interesting thing is that it worked in an entirely different way: what Jesus was doing was substitute himself for a series of substitutions. The human sacrificial system typically works in the following way: the most primitive forms of sacrifice are human sacrifices. After people begin to become aware of what they are doing this gets transferred toanimal sacrifices. After all it’s easier to sacrifice animals because they don’t fight back so much; whereas if you have to run a sacrificial system that requires you to keep getting victims, usually you have to run a war machine in order to provide enough victims to keep the system going; or you have to keep the pet “pharmakons” around the place – convenient people to sacrifice, who live in splendour, and have a thoroughly good time, until a time of crisis when you need people to sacrifice, and then you sacrifice them. But this is an ugly thing, and people are, after all, human; and so animals began to be sacrificed instead. And in some cultures from animals you get to more symbolic forms of sacrifice, like bread and wine. You can find any variation on the theme of sacrificial substitution.

The interesting thing is that Jesus takes exactly the inverse route; and he explains to us that he is going in the inverse route. “The night before he was betrayed…” what did he do? He said, “Instead of the bread and the wine, this is the lamb, and the lamb is a human being.” In other words he substituted a human being back into the centre of the sacrificial system as the priest, thus showing what the sacrificial system was really about, and so bringing it to an end.
So you do have a genuine substitution that is quite proper within the atonement theory. All sacrificial systems are substitutionary; but what we have with Jesus is an exact inversion of the sacrificial system: him going backwards and occupying the space so as to make it clear that this is simply murder. And it needn’t be. That is what we begin to get in St John’s Gospel: a realisation that what Jesus was doing was actually revealing the mendacious principle of the world. The way human structure is kept going is by us killing each other, convincing ourselves of our right to do it, and therefore building ourselves us up over and against our victims. What Jesus understands himself as doing in St John’s Gospel is revealing the way that mechanism works. And by revealing it, depriving it of all power by seeing it as a lie: “your father was a liar and a murderer from the beginning”. That is how the “prince” – or principle – of this world works.

So what we get in St John’s Gospel is a clear understanding that the undoing of victimage is not simply a liturgical matter, it’s not simply a liturgical fulfilment, but is the substituting himself at the centre of what the liturgical thing was covering up, namely human sacrifice, therefore making it possible for us to begin to live without sacrifice. And that includes not just liturgical sacrifice, but therefore the human mechanism of sacrificing other people so that we can keep ourselves going. In other words, what he was beginning to make possible was for us to begin to live as if death were not, and therefore for us not to have to protect ourselves over against it by making sure we tread on other people. Do you see how he is putting together the ethical and the liturgical into the same space so that there is a moment of anthropological revelation? God is showing us something about ourselves in Jesus bringing together the liturgical and the ethical understanding of victimhood.

Now, this was quite clearly seen at the time, as is clear from references in St John’s Gospel to the prince of this world as the way Jesus understands this mechanism. But there are also some give-aways in St Paul that are very revealing.
Let me read you a little story from 2 Samuel, that takes us straight back into the world of expiation, propitiation and atonement , in the anthropological sphere, not the liturgical sphere. Remember, the two are linked, but they haven’t yet been linked clearly:

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. And the LORD said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” So the king called the Gibeonites. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the LORD?” The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” And he said, “What do you say that I shall do for you?” They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them up before the LORD at Gibeon on the mountain of the LORD.” And the king said, “I will give them.” But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the LORD which was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the LORD, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest. (2Sam 21:1-9)

After a short time the famine and the drought went way. A lovely story! The interesting thing about it is that it reminds us of what we often forget: the language of expiation. Here King David is expiating something, offering propitiation to the Gibeonites. In other words, the Gibeonites have a right to demand vengeance. Can you remember where this passage comes into the NT? St Paul seems to know about this: “What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Rom 8:31-32) Do you see what St Paul is playing with there? St Paul is saying that God, unlike King David, did not seek someone else as a stand-in sacrifice to placate us, but gave his own son to be the expiation, putting forth the propitiation.

In that text, who is propitiating whom? King David is propitiating the Gibeonites by means of Saul’s sons. God is propitiating us. In other words, who is the angry divinity in the story? We are. That is the purpose of the atonement. We are the angry divinity. We are the ones inclined to dwell in wrath and think we need vengeance in order to survive. God was occupying the space of our victim so as to show us that we need never do this again. This turns on its head the Aztec understanding of the atonement. In fact it turns on its head what has passed as our penal substitutionary theory of atonement, which always presupposes that it is us satisfying God, that God needs satisfying, that there is vengeance in God. Whereas it is quite clear from the NT that what was really exciting to Paul was that it was quite clear from Jesus’ self-giving, and the “out-pouring of Jesus’ blood”, that this was the revelation of who God was: God was entirely without vengeance, entirely without substitutionary tricks; and that he was giving himself entirely without ambivalence and ambiguity for us, towards us, in order to set us “free from our sins” – “our sins” being our way of being bound up with each other in death, vengeance, violence and what is commonly called “wrath”.

Now, what is particularly difficult for us, and why I want to remind us that this is a liturgy rather than a theory, is that the way we live this out as Christians is to remember that the one true sacrifice – that is to say, the place where God gave himself for us in our midst as our victim – has been done. It’s over! The whole of the sacrificial system has been brought to an end. The Holy of Holies has been opened.

The way in which we depict this in our iconography is through the doctrine of the ascension. Remember what happens at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus is with the apostles on a hillside outside Jerusalem, and then he is taken up into heaven. He blesses them on the way – i.e. we have the high priest. They stand looking up; and there are a couple of angels – who are, of course, our old friends the cherubim in the Holy of Holies, which is now become everywhere – saying “Why are you standing there looking up to heaven? Go and wait to be empowered from on high.” What we have here is Jesus going to “sit at the right hand of the Father”: the place of the priest – the Word, the Creator – the sacrifice having been fulfilled. We live under that. And the way we live under it liturgically is by our participation in the Eucharist.
The purpose of the Eucharist is not us trying to make Jesus come down here but our obeying Jesus to invoke him, to do this in memory of him, in such a way that we find ourselves transported into participating in the “heavenly banquet”, the place where the Lamb is standing as one slaughtered, as in the vision described by the Book of Revelation. This is a Holy of Holies vision; this is a vision of the Holy of Holies now full. It is the one true sacrifice that has been done. That does not mean to say “over and done with”. It means that the victorious Lamb is there; his blood is flowing out; the victim, the forgiving victim, is present. And we have access to participate in that atonement, which has been achieved through it being made available to us in our Eucharist. What the Eucharist is for us is the high priest emerging out of the Holy of Holies, giving us his body and blood, as our way into the Holy of Holies.

Now, if that picture is true, then it seems that what our Eucharistic life is supposed to be about is that we are a people who are being turned into the new temple by receiving the body and blood of the self-giving victim, who is already victorious. We are being turned into the new temple that is able to participate here and now. That is what the doctrine of transubstantiation is about. It means: this is not our memorial supper; this is, in fact, the heavenly banquet where someone else is the protagonist and we are called into it. We are being called “through the Veil”, into the participation. We are given the signs; which is why the body and blood are not something that hide the divinity but make it manifest. They are signs reaching out to us of what God is actually doing for us.

Now, all that is happening in heaven. That is the purpose of the doctrine of the ascension: the Holy of Holies fulfilled, and us beginning to receive it.

This has ethical consequences. This is tremendously important for our understanding, because, if you have a theory of atonement – something grasped – you have something that people can “get right”, and then be on the inside of the good guys. “We’re the people who are covered by the blood; we’re the ones who are okay, the ones who are good; and then there are those others who aren’t.” In other words, rather than undergoing atonement, we’re people who grasp onto the idea of the atonement. But the whole purpose of the Christian understanding is that we shouldn’t identify too soon with the good guys. On the contrary, we are people who are constantly undergoing “I AM” – that is to say, God – coming towards us one who is offering forgiveness from the victim. And we are learning how to look at each other as people who are saying, “Oh! So that’s what I’ve been involved in.” Which means that we are the “other” in this package; that we are the “other” who are being turned into a “we”, in the degree to which we find our similarity with our brother and sister on either side of us; rather than: we are the people who, because we’ve grasped the theory have become part of “I AM”, and therefore the “other” is some “them”. If you are undergoing atonement it means that you are constantly in the process of being approached by someone who is forgiving you. That, it seems to me, is the challenge for us in terms of imagination when it comes to imagining and re-imagining atonement.

The difficult thing for us is to sit in the process of being approached by someone. Because we are used to theory we want someone to say, “This is what it is. Get it right. Now put it into practice.” This imagines that we are part of a stable universe that we can control. But if the real center of our universe is an “I AM” coming towards us as our victim who is forgiving us then we are not in a stable place. We are in that place of being de-stabilized, because we are being approached by someone who is entirely outside our structures of vengeance and order.

Imagine what it is like to be approached by your forgiving victim. What a pity none of us like very much to think about our being approached by our forgiving victim! What is it like to actually undergo being forgiven? We are not going to resolve this by saying, “Oh, it’s not being forgiven that matters. It’s forgiving: I must forgive!” So we work ourselves up into a moral stupor about straining ourselves to “forgive the bastard!” It’s very, very complicated. But in fact the Christian understanding is quite the reverse: it’s because we are undergoing being forgiven that we can forgive; and we need to forgive in order to continue undergoing being forgiven. But remember: it’s because we are approached by our victim, that we start to be undone. Or in Paul’s language: “even though you were dead in your sins he has made you alive together in Christ.” Someone was approaching you even when you didn’t realize there was a problem, so that you begin to discover, “Oh! So that’s what I’ve been involved in.”

Now, this is vital for us: it means that in this picture “sin”, rather than being a block that has to be dealt with, is discovered in its being forgiven. The definition of sin becomes: that which can be forgiven.

And the process of being forgiven looks like the breaking of heart, or “contrition” (from the Latin cor triturare). What forgiveness look like in the life of the person is “breaking of heart”; and the purpose of being forgiven – the reason why the forgiving victim has emerged from the Holy of Holies offering himself as a substitute for all our ways of pushing away being forgiven, trying to keep order – the reason he has done that is because we are too small, we live in a slowed up version of creation … because we are frightened of death. What Jesus was doing was opening up the Creator’s vision, which knows not death, so that we can live as though death were not. In other words, we’re being given a bigger heart. That is what being forgiven is all about. It’s not, “I need to sort out this moral problem you have.” It’s, “Unless I come towards you, and enable you undergo a breaking of heart, you’re going to live in too small a universe, you’re not going to enjoy yourselves and be free. How the hell do I get through to you! Well, the only way is by coming amongst you as your victim. That’s the only place in which you can be undone. That’s the place you’re so frightened of being that you’ll do anything to get away from it. So if I can occupy that space, and return to you and say, “Yes, you did this thing to me. But don’t worry! I’m not here to accuse you. I’m here to play with you! To make a bigger space for you. And for you to do it with me.” And of course the way he acted this out before his death was setting up the last supper, in which he would give himself to us so that we would become him.

This is a risky project. That is the point! That is why I want to bring together the notion of creation and atonement, recovering the priestly dynamic. This is the risky project of God saying, “We don’t know how this is going to end. But I want you to be co-participants with me on the inside of this creative project. And that means I’m running a risk of this going places I haven’t thought of because I want to become one of you as you, so that you can become me as me.” We get this in John’s Gospel: “You will do even greater things.” And we think, “Oh Jesus is just being modest about his miracles.” No, he is being perfectly straightforward anthropologically. To the degree in which, by receiving this sacrifice, we learn to step out of a world which sacrifices, tries to run things protectively over and against “them”, to that extent we will find ourselves – as we have found ourselves! – doing greater things than he could even begin to imagine. That’s what the opening up of creation does.

The opening up of creation works in our midst through the Spirit who is the advocate, the defense counselor, who therefore rejects the accusatory tendency. While we accuse, while we live in a conspiracy theory, we never learn what is, so we never learn to take responsibility for it. We never learn to inhabit creation with fullness.
Do you see that there is a huge movement in the atonement? The movement is from creation to us becoming participants in creation by our being enabled to live as if death were not. This is the priestly pattern of atonement; and it is the priestly pattern that Jesus had the genius to combine with the ethical, bringing together the ancient liturgical formula, the prophecies, the hopes of fulfillment of the anointed one, the true high priest who would come and create a new temple, the true shepherd of the sheep who would come to create a new temple – fulfilling those, and revealing what it meant in terms of ethical terms: the overcoming of our tendency to sacrifice each other so as to survive. That is the world, which thanks to him, we inhabit.

Now, do you see why I said that I wanted to give you a much more conservative account than the atonement theory allows? What we are given is a sign of something that has happened and been given to us. What is difficult for us is not grasping the theory, but starting to try and imagine the love that is behind that. Why on earth should someone bother to do that for us? That’s St Paul’s issue. “What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Rom 8:31-32) St Paul is struggling to find language about the divine generosity. That is the really difficult thing for us to imagine. We can imagine retaliation, we can imagine protection; but we find it awfully difficult to imagine someone we despised, and were awfully glad not to be like – whom we would rather cast out so as to keep ourselves going – we find it awfully difficult to imagine that person generously irrupting into our midst so as to set us free to enable something quite new to open for us. But that’s what atonement is about; and that is what we are asked to live liturgically as Christians.**

Warm fire Blessings

Dick

I started writing this before I read Dicks most recent post, which I can’t wait to get into. I decided to stay on track, which is like a drunk weaving in and out of lanes, and not touch on those subjects. I am going to have to go back and read it again. I’m sorry if I’m overloading too. Its really flowing right now, and most of what I’m saying won’t make sense even to me outside of this conversation on this topic, so I’m using this kind of as a notebook. And most of what I’ve been saying is fresh to me too, or at least concretely (as concretely as this topic can get), so what I’m saying is I’m not preaching a systematic theology here. Just piecing things together.


The reason there is no ark in the second temple was because Jeremiah took it and the Bronze Serpent and buried them in a cave on the way out to the deportation. The reason is they had become the objects of idolatrous worship.

Acts 7
35“This Moses whom they disowned, saying, ‘WHO MADE YOU A RULER AND A JUDGE?’ is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush.
–(Moses is called an elohimExd 4:16 NASB - "Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him.
Who made you a ruler? Exo 20:19 Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.”
Exo 14:31 When Israel saw the great power which the LORD had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses.)–

36“This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. 37“This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN.’ 38“This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you. 39“Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt, 40SAYING TO AARON, ‘MAKE FOR US** GODS WHO WILL GO BEFORE US; FOR THIS MOSES WHO LED US OUT** OF THE LAND OF EGYPT—WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM.’ 41“At that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.
–(Exo 32:4 And he received the gold at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it a molten calf; and they said, These are your gods, O Israel, whichbrought you upout of the land of Egypt!)–

42“But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘IT WAS NOT TO ME THAT YOU OFFERED VICTIMS AND SACRIFICES FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS, WAS IT, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL? 43‘YOU ALSO TOOK ALONG THE TABERNACLE OF MOLOCH AND THE STAR OF THE GOD ROMPHA, THE IMAGES WHICH YOU MADE TO WORSHIP. I ALSO WILL REMOVE YOU BEYOND BABYLON.’
–(Moloch is a bull/calf)

  44“Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen. 

–(tabernacle of moloch/tabernacle of testimony adam/christ natural/spiritual cherubim/Lord)–

1 Cor 10
1For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; 2and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3and all ate the same spiritual food; 4and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. 5Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.

I was originally posting this from Acts to show that the Israelites were worshipping the cherubim, but as I was reading the passage something jumped out at me (this is the first time I’ve even thought this so its a little rough, haven’t really vetted it yet). That Moses may have been the cherubim. They needed gods since Moses was gone. Once they had built the calf, they said that was the god that brought them up, yet right before it says Moses brought them up. They believed in God and Moses. They sent Moses as their mediator on the mountain. Moses wore a veil, the cherubim are woven into the veil. They chose the TOKOGAE, the vessel, not the tree of life that was carried by the vessel.

In Ezekiel 10 it describes the faces of the cherubim. It also does in EZE 1. In chapter 10 instead of the ox it says that of a cherubim. The Bull was known as a cherubim, or the calf was a cherubim.

We also see the 12 bulls carrying the bronze laver. I believe it to represent the LOF, seeing as how Revelation is explicitly symbolic of the temple. They are both used for purifying. Again note that the true form being fire. Here again we have the cherubim carrying the fire of God’s presence.

We see Christ pictured glorified with a body, but we see fire coming out of His eyes. The fire is pouring out/bursting out. It is the fullness of the Deity/Fire. The veil is gone and the deity can be seen bursting forth out of the glorious body. At the transfiguration the light comes out from inside Him and that transforms Him.

Deu 33:16 With the precious things of the earth and its fullness, And the favor of Him who dwelt in the bush. Let the blessing come ‘on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers.’

That word dwell is shakan, which is the same word used of the cherubim “stationed” outside the garden. God dwells in the thorn bush. The ark was to be made of acacia, which is named in Hebrew for its thorns, that used of a scourge.

Behold the dwelling place of God is with man


This is from J. Preston Eby on the sphinx:

The ancient Sphinx in Egypt actually holds the key to the riddle and unlocks the mystery of the Zodiac. All have heard of the Sphinx. Most people know that it was a figure with the head of a woman and the body of a lion. But what this creature actually stood for, or was intended to represent, has been lost from history and has always been an open question. It is what is spoken of as the unknown and insoluble mystery — “the riddle of the Sphinx.”

Neither the ancient religion of Egypt, nor mythology, nor yet astrology has the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx. When Napoleon was in Egypt he was told that if he could solve the riddle of the Sphinx he would know the way to eternal life. After the nations had lost the original meaning of the signs of the Zodiac, they invented a mythological meaning out of the carnal imagination of the thoughts of their own hearts. How clear that just as the truth of the Zodiac antedated the mythological interpretations of those signs, just so the truth contained in the great Sphinx lies far back beyond even the knowledge of ancient Egypt! And it is intricately connected with the truth of the Zodiac.

Confirmation of this is found in one of the very old Zodiacs dating back to 2000 B.C. or before. It is called the Zodiac of Dendereh and was found on the ceiling of an ancient portico in Egypt. In this Zodiac there is placed between the signs of Virgo and Leo a picture of the Sphinx. Its woman-like face gazes upon the sign of Virgo, and its lion-like body and tail point to Leo, telling us that we begin with the Virgin and end with the Lion.

Furthermore, by the very formation of the Sphinx with its woman’ s head and lion’s body — IT BINDS TOGETHER IN ITSELF THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE GREAT CIRCLE OF SIGNS. The head of the Sphinx, the woman, is Virgo the virgin, whereas the body and tail of the Sphinx, the lion, is Leo the lion. The circle is thus seen to begin at the woman (Virgo) and to end with the lion (Leo).

The word “sphinx” is taken from the Greek word SPHUNGO which means “to bind closely together.” It is, therefore, designed to show where the two ends of the Zodiac were to be joined together and where the great circle of the heavens begins and ends.


Now most of the sphinx’s of Egypt have wings, which are supposed to be of the son/sun Horus. That is the northern station of the eagle. There is evidence that the phoenix is an eagle or hawk, (can’t remember where, or what the link was, but I found some pretty compelling evidence), which would make the phoenix Horus, or the rising from ashes, which makes sense since Horus is the reborn Father, Osiris aka Baal/Nimrod/Moloch. Horus is known in the middle east as Tammuz. And we see in Ezekiel they are weeping for Tammuz, and praying to the sun, which is Baal, the bull. The image of jealousy in Ezekiel is none other than the ark, IMO. They also had the bronze serpent. In Egypt you see all the sphinx’s and pharaohs, with the snake for a headband. The serpent representing the carnal mind. The Israelites had the separate bronze (for judgement) serpent wrapped around a pole instead of the head. When Christ hung on the pole, all the sin was put on him, and for a moment He experienced being veiled from His Father, when He said Father Father why have you forsaken me? We don’t see the serpent wrapped around the head in the Jewish heiroglyph of the cherubim. And in the zodiac, we don’t see the serpent wrapped around the head, but instead it is grasped in the eagles claws. The eagle is the highest elevation, the divine. The book of John/the Eagle is focused on Jesus as the son of God. That is how we overcome the serpent, by putting on the heavenly. You will mount up on wings like eagles.

I wanted to add a bit to the number 4 too, which is the link between what I was saying about the cherubim and the number 4 in the first place, but that short attention span got me aga… Ooh look at the butterfly :slight_smile:

The bible in its original order is something that is quite interesting. According to Earnest Martin, the Bible was ordered with 7 sections. The OT was originally ordered as the Law, Prophets, and Writings. It was organized into 22 books, each corresponding to a letter in the aleph-beth (some books were originally one like the minor prophets was one book. They expected 5 more because there are 5 extra letters called ending letters? IIRC. Anyway they were expecting another law. And thats what they got with the 5 gospels, Acts being the gospel of His body. The 4 gospels were of The Head. Then there were another 22 books written in the NT. The sections of the NT were the General letters, those written to the jews. The Paulines including Hebrews. And Revelation. (One of the reasons I see REV as the cypher to the whole bible is it is the only book with its own section. Its like a key or an appendix, or better a map, or even better a 3d model.) Ok so thats 7 sections. The center section is the 5 gospels. The four heads of the cherubim and the body. It is the 4th of 7. The central focus.
BTW 66 books, has nobody ever thought how ironic that is? But Mans confusion has mixed up the original order of 49 books (7x7). Hebrew reads from right to left, and Greek from left to right. They both go out from the same point, that is the center focus of the Bible, and all of creation…the CROSS.

The bible is a vessel for the Spirit. It is even laid out like the carriers, the cherubim. BUT the letter kills and the Spirit gives life. "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;. How many people have deified the Bible? I didn’t want to take it in the bathroom with me when I was younger because I didn’t want to defile it. (Sorry for the imagery I’m sure you could have done without, just think of George Costanza) These pharisees were doing the same thing that the killers of Stephen were being called out for. TOKOGAE, it makes one wise. Search and search in your own stubborn independence leads to bondage and death. ONly the Spirit gives life. But they say I will ascend to the heights of zaphon, above the throne of God. Thats why at the End of Stephens diatribe he says:

“But it was Solomon who built a house for Him. 48“However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says:

49‘HEAVEN IS MY THRONE,
AND EARTH IS THE FOOTSTOOL OF MY FEET;
WHAT KIND OF HOUSE WILL YOU BUILD FOR ME?’ says the Lord,
‘OR WHAT PLACE IS THERE FOR MY REPOSE?

50‘WAS IT NOT MY HAND WHICH MADE ALL THESE THINGS?’

  51“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.

Even the disciples didn’t see it when they said Look at the marvelous buildings of the temple. This was just after Jesus contrasting giving to Caesar, the coin with his image on it. And giving to God the image of God, you. After saying that David called Him Lord. The giving of the Royal Law in contrast to the written law. The contrast of the widows mite to the wealthy showboating religious dudes. So they just go through all this and still say look at how amazing this temple is.

Ooh look at the pretty thing. But eye has not seen nor ear heard.

Greetings …!

 Wow.. both of you must be in the business of opening Gold mines... 
     for both posts are really full of fascinating material...

     I really look forward to reading much more from both of you ...

    all the best !

I’ve gone and read about half of what is posted on Ms. Barkers website. I also emailed her and she is going to be reading this page, so maybe she can join in and give us the low down straight from the source. :slight_smile: I’ll respond to this in red below. I may add some things (I know shocking) to how I interpret this data. Also I’d like to read Girard if you could point me in the right direction.

Hi Jeremy –

You’ve touched base with Margaret Barker :smiley: ! I thought you’d have a lot in common – a great deal actually. That’ll be a turn up for the books if she joins us!

Regarding Girard, have a look at the very attractive Raven foundational Website for more information at -

ravenfoundation.org/

This gives links to other Girardian conversation partners too including -
Colloquium on Violence & Religion (COV&R)
James Alison
Paul Neuchterlein (Girardian Reflecitons on the Lectionary)
Preaching Peace

All of which I have enjoyed and benefited from.

For the moment, here are some clumsy notes I made on Girard once which I;v ealready posted on another thread (a lot of them cribbed from Mark Heim and Gill Baille)-

***Human beings have one huge problem when trying to live together in settled communities; namely the way we ‘operate’ means that we often desire things that others have – whether this be physical goods/property, social status, personal qualities, friends, wives, husbands etc. And if we desire something that someone else cannot or will not share with us we can become envious – we can hate another person because they have what we want; and if we fear that someone envies what we have we can become jealous – we can hate anther person because we fear that they may take from us what is ours. This is what the tenth commandment terms ‘covetousness’. The problem with covetousness is that if it is not kept in check it leads to murder and then to an escalation of cycles of retribution that can tear society apart (for example, Lamech in Genesis requires seven deaths in recompense for every single death he and his clan suffer). This is the reason, for example, for the widespread fear of ‘the evil eye’ in archaic and nomadic societies. If you tell a Bedouin that you like/admire his camel he is liable to give it to you to forestall further problems – so be careful that you want the camel before you open your mouth.

In archaic societies, before proper institutions of law have developed, religion and religious ritual serve the function of preventing/dealing with escalation of violence born of covetousness. The theory goes that order in early archaic cities/settled communities is first established by a ‘founding murder’ – a human sacrifice that takes place so that a community can discharge all of their suspicious wrath born of covetousness on the victim and feel united in the frenzy of this lynching – and then peace descends and order emerges. This is why the skeleton of a sacrificial victim is often found in the foundations of ancient city, and it is reflected in founding myths, often featuring twin brothers who are rivals… For example, in Roman myth Romulus kills Remus before the founding of Rome – and Romulus is counted the hero for doing so. Likewise in the Bible Cain kills able before the founding of the first city – but in this case, in contrast to the myths of the world, the blood of Abel cries out to heaven and it is Abel who is vindicated by God –not Cain. The wonder of the Bible is that it questions the whole mechanism of using victims to cement our peace on which archaic religion is centred; the God of the Bible is truly transcendent of human culture and is the judge of ore history and culture.

The founding murder is then remembered in ritual re-enactment to sustain the order of the community and make ‘fertility’ possible by providing social stability. In this ritual the community returns to the chaos before the foundation of the world/city. All social distinctions are dissolved as the community turns from a group of individuals into a crowd and then into an ecstatic mob. Distinctions of rank are forgotten and , and with the help of the scared prostitutes all sexual and gender distinctions are forgotten in an orgy as people become intoxicated and forget all individuality. Then the mob – by now in ecstatic rage – focuses their rivalry of envy and jealousy on to a scapegoat. A scapegoat is a person chosen randomly because of a slight difference in them – perhaps they have a disability, perhaps they are an outsider. The ecstatic mob tear the scapegoat apart while loud music blocks out the scapegoat’s screams and thick incense obscures the sight of the murder. Then the mob comes to its senses – almost unaware of what has happened. They feel they have been visited by a god of wrath – but the death of the scapegoat has saved them from a contagion of violence rivalry because they now feel peace together – having discharged their violence -and social order can be reborn from the chaos. This is reflected in myths of creation in which the god enters into combat with the chaos monster to create the world, and often the monster when dead turns in to a human giant and society is formed from the giant being cut apart by the god. And one of the remarkable things about the creation story in Genesis is how different it is from these myths.
An understanding of the relationship between the Bible and the myths found throughout the cultures of the world is central to Girard’s thinking. Thinkers from the pagan philosophers who debated with Christian apologists in the 2nd century, to Joseph Campbell in the 20th have pointed out that the kernel of the Christian story - the sacrificial victim who is revealed as being divine - is also found extensively in the myths of other religions. Therefore, they have argued that the Christian story, far from being unique, is no more than the re-telling of an archetypal myth. Indeed, this view has been influential in strands of Liberal Christianity.

Girard’s extensive research in comparative mythology, literature and anthropology has led him to a very different conclusion. For him, the story of the divine sacrifice is none other than the disguised story of the murder of the scapegoat – the original founding act of human communities that is ’the thing hidden since the foundation of the world’. Girard argues that whereas in the myths of the world the story is told from the point of view of the lynch mob concealing the sordid truth of the murder of the innocent victim, in the Bible the same story is told from the perspective of the victim. Thus the mechanisms of human violence that generate the lynching are unmasked and ‘demythologised’

To illustrate Girard’s point I’m going to tell you a story (nicked from Mark Heim)- .

Christ – the sacred lamb sent by God – visited a great city in the form of a swarthy stranger from a distant province, in order to call back those who had fallen into ignorance. He did many acts of power and the people worshipped him and made him their king. He taught them how he would become God’s son.

However, in those days there was turmoil in the city, each house was set against another; and so Christ prepared his final wonder.

One day he called to him Mary, his mother and his dearest disciple. He went with her into the temple and ate bread in the holy of holies that no person is to touch. Then he lay with his mother near the altar throughout the night. The earth shook, many in the city were stricken with a deadly disease, and the people were afraid.

In the morning the people came to the temple seeking to know what evil had been done to bring these troubles upon them. They found nothing but the smallest mustard seed carrying the entirety of divinity within it. All the people were greatly distressed at this and were seized with trance-like awe. With one spirit, they rushed to form a great procession and carried the seed to a stony hill outside the walls of the city. Each person, without exception, threw stones in to cover it.

Miraculously the seed immediately grew up into a great tree, and Christ himself was the fruit of that tree. All who ate of this fruit discovered the joy of eternal life. The people returned to the city rejoicing; and health and peace ruled again in those walls. And they worshiped at Christ’s tree of life in every generation.

This story has all of the features of a myth of the sacrificial victim. We note that Christ is a stranger and therefore bears one of the archetypal marks of a potential victim. There is an unresolved crisis of rivalry in the City – and conflict and crisis are always the context for sacrifice in myth. Christ commits heinous acts of sacrilege in the Temple and this results in a plague (the implication being that he is guilty as the source of pollution and the cause of the crisis – as in the mob’s view he is). His expulsion and death at the hands of the mob is not referred to explicitly. Rather, it is covered up in the sanitised euphemism of the crowd’s procession with the seed and their ritual placing of the stones over the seed. This use of euphemism is another hallmark of myth and is not entirely propaganda – once they return to normal life, the individuals who form the crowd feel genuinely disconnected from the violence they have done in a unified frenzy. It is as if a wrathful god has visited them while they were in a trance. This ‘misrecognition’ results in misrepresentation. Peace returns after Christ is killed; and, paradoxically, the source of pollution becomes a source of blessing and Christ becomes a divinity. This all accords with universal pattern of narrative myth but it is unnecessary for me to point out to you that is not what we find in the Bible.

‘What myths hide, the Bible reveals’ and Girard points out that the vindication of the victims of the scapegoating is there in the Hebrew Bible from the start. Abel’s murder cries out to heaven. Joseph is cast out by his envious brothers – but is vindicated by God (and events). Crowds also unite against the victim in the servant songs of Second Isaiah, as they do against Jeremiah, Job and the narrators of the penitential psalms. However, in none of these instances is there any attempt at a ‘cover-up’. The story is told from the point of view of the victims who are vindicated by Yahweh. Indeed the murder of the very first victim - Abel – whose murder is the thing hidden since the foundation of the world – cries out for vindication.

Of course, the voice of the victim is not the only voice in the Hebrew Bible – we also have the ideology of the Hebrew sacrificial cult, which Girard would admit does contain mythological elements. As he says, ‘the Bible is a text in travail’ In Hebraic sacrifice, an animal was substituted for the human victim. However, if the ritual went wrong the priest could become the victim as happens, for example, to Aaron’s sons in Leviticus. This is portrayed as an instance of the descent of ‘the wrath of God’. However, it is not difficult to discern that what is actually being related is an event in which rivalry in the community becomes so intense that the sacrifice of an animal is not effective and there is a frenzied reversion to human sacrifice as a safety valve for human wrath. Indeed, Girard argues that the bible is a text in travail in which t

The later prophets repudiate the notion of redemptive sacrifice completely, telling the people of Israel that Yahweh despise the stench of their burnt offerings and requires works of justice and mercy of them instead. However, Girard argues that even in the most progressive texts of the Old Testament such as the fourth Servant Song in Second Isaiah there is ambiguity. Sometimes the crowd is presented as the sole instigator of the persecution but sometimes Yahweh is also implicated.

It is in the New Testament that Girard sees the complete unmasking of the scapegoating mechanism, and an accounting for ‘the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world’ (Luke 11:50-51). Now it is Christ who is the innocent victim against whom the mob unanimously unites. However, his vindication is complete through his resurrection; and it is through this resurrection that those who joined in with the lynch mob (Peter through his denials and Paul through being the instigator of persecution) are able to see the truth without myth/satanic lies, and live according to the order of life rather than the order of death.

The Gospels also unmask the anatomy of human destructiveness that makes scapegoating necessary. The Greek word Skandalon occurs many times in the New Testament, especially in Matthew’s Gospel. It has a richer and more nuanced meaning than the English word ‘scandal’ and is best translated as ‘stumbling-block’ rather than ‘moral offence’. It implies an addictive process of overwhelming compulsion. The unavoidable obstacle’ both attracts and repels each time we stumble against it (and each time we do this we suffer progressive psychic damage). For Girard this term encapsulates what happens during the process of rivalry; it speaks of the core of our human problems – of our ‘anthropology’.

When two people desire the same thing they become each other’s ‘stumbling blocks’. As rivalry escalates, the contested object of desire becomes forgotten and the antagonists become fascinated with each other instead. The more they block each other’s desire, the more they imitate each other. In effect, they become each other’s ‘Doubles’ as mutual fascination gives way to envy, indignation, and hatred and – in the end – to annihilating violence (hence the repeated motif of warring twins in world mythology and to a certain extent in the early books of the Bible). However, the more they become ‘the same’ in their actions, the less they can see the violence in themselves. Each only sees the violence in the other.

On a number of occasions in the Gospels, Jesus warns the disciples with great severity and in quite shocking language against the dangers of scandals. A pivotal example comes in Matthew’s Gospel when Jesus first predicts his violent death at the hands of the worldly powers (Matthew 16: 21-23), and Peter protests that this must not happen. This suggests that Peter believes his Master should be capable of beating these worldly powers at their own game on their own terms (a temptation that Jesus has already struggled against and rejected in the wilderness). Jesus rebukes him harshly with ‘Get behind me Satan; you are a skandalon to me.

Girard’s interpretation of this is that instead of imitating Jesus, Peter is expecting Jesus to imitate him. If Jesus succumbs to this temptation, it will probably initiate a cycle of infighting in which he and Peter become rivals for the leadership of a politicised messianic movement. However, Jesus, who has God the Father as his model of how to live, has nothing to do with violence and antagonistic desire. He shows the way to live a life free of the scandals that generate violence. However, if we instead choose possessive and antagonistic models we choose the ‘satan’ as our model who is scandal personified: hence, Jesus’ harsh rebuke to Peter.

Jesus question, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan’ (Mark 3:23) suggests the answer ‘He does this through the scapegoat mechanism. Satan is the instigator of the scandals that force communities to disintegrate – but also provides the mechanism for their pseudo-resolution. In exposing the mythical lie, Christ becomes a focus of division rather than reconciliation. In the Gospel of John Jesus testifies to the God of love who has nothing to do with our ‘sacred’ mechanisms of expulsion, violence and death – and yet everything he does has a divisive effect. Likewise, in Matthew 10:34 Jesus says, ‘’ I have not come to bring peace but a sword’’. Girard comments on this that ‘if the only peace humanity has ever enjoyed depends on unconscious victimisation, the consciousness that the Gospels bring into the world can only destroy it’. In this connection, he sees the apocalyptic dimension in the New Testament not as an alien element but as a revelation of the turmoil we need to go through as scandals proliferate, to reach a peace beyond the peace of victimisation.

Very importantly, Jesus’ death is described as a skandalon. Before the passion drama begins, Jesus warns his disciples – and especially Peter – that they will become skandalizien by him. An ironic reading immediately suggests itself – Jesus who has lived and taught us how to live without scandal is being made the scapegoat for scandals. For Girard this use of skandalizien also confirms that the force at work in the scapegoat lynch mob - in which violence spreads like wildfire through what Girard terms ‘mimetic contagion’- is indeed the same as the violence at work in mimetic rivalries between individuals. It is a type of violence that makes everyone the same, everyone blind. The crowd turned into a unified mob in the Passion narratives is a tinderbox of complex and envious rivalries for power both within and between groups comprised of rebels, collaborators and the occupying forces. The death of Jesus prevents a riot and brutal reprisals through its cathartic effect. The mob disperses peacefully. At the end of his Passion narrative Luke writes, ‘’And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other’’ (Luke 23:12). However, this camaraderie is a ‘satanic’ parody of Christian reconciliation being the cathartic effect of the scapegoat ritual.

Any reading of the atonement informed by Girard’s ideas will be non-sacrificial. Certainly

Christians say ‘blood shed for us’ but they mean blood shed once for all. They say ‘We are reconciled in his blood’, but they mean we are freed to live without the reconciliation that requires the blood of the scapegoat- victims of such acts will never be invisible again – they look too much like Jesus. We can turn to finding a new basis for peace, such as that found around the communion table***

Blessings

Dick