Antiquitopia

“For when they saw and heard him, he let them taste him and smell him and touch   the beloved Son” (30,23-31,35; trans. Marvin Meyer in Nag Hammadi Scriptures: International Edition ).   I have been reading a lot of the Nag Hammadi Codices lately, since many of my current research projects seem to intersect there.  While re-reading the Gospel of Truth, I found that it was full of multi-sensory language.  The Gospel of Truth, a profoundly original Valentinian homily (some even think it derives from Valentinus himself), effectively engages all five senses.   Indeed, in some ways, this one line encapsulates one’s relationship with the divine in this text: once you see and hear (initial steps), one then came come closer and taste, smell, and touch the divine, all indicating intimacy if not union. Throughout the entire sermon, the speaker/author invokes sensory language.   There is, of course, a lot of visionary and auditory language, bu...

I just finished reading The Gospel according to Paul by Robin Griffith-Jones. Although a lengthy book at just over 500 pages, it was an enjoyable read. Griffith-Jones clearly explicates many of the crucial issues in Paul's letters as he slowly strolls through each letter. Many of his conclusions are fairly idiosyncratic, but he elucidates some of the aspects of Paul that can be understood in the context of late antique Jewish traditions of ascent, the merkavah, and the heavenly temple, a topic that interested my own late mentor, Alan Segal in his book Paul the Convert . This is a book for a general reader, but many may encounter its pacing and its style congenial as one takes a guided tour through the unweeded garden of Paul's writings.

Having discussed the first two parts of Hekhalot Zutarti §420 here and here , today we complete this particular pericope. I want to thank those who have commented on these previous posts to suggest emendations and alternative interpretations--they have been quite helpful. This portion of the pericope designated in Schäfer's Synopse zur Hekhalot as §420 reaches a climactic moment of disclosure of this particular angel's heavenly position and heavenly duties. In the post on §420a, we already learned that he is in charge of crowning(?) or perhaps adorning(?) the divine crown. The in the second post on §420b, we discovered that he dwells at the entrance to the heavenly courtroom and even burns the hands (and feet) of the mystic seeking entrance, although we do not know why. Now we finally see this angel in his fully heavenly duties before the throne itself, and a much more general human response to the sight of him: Text: והוא עומד לפני כסא הכבוד נוכח דיבר שרפים ששמו כשמו ושם ...

I am still in chapter 1 of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel. See my previous remarks on the Introduction and C hapter 1A (monotheism). The second third of chapter 1 is about Christological Monotheism in the NT or Monotheistic Christology. In this section, Bauckham reiterates his (problematic) position that worship (monolatry) is the recognition of unique divine identity, and that there is no blurring of the boundaries with exalted angels or patriarchs, who do not participate in terms of creation or sovereignty—except for the exceptions which prove the rule (Enoch, and all the figures I listed last time like Melchizedek, Adam, Moses (although Bauckham directly denies this) and the anonymous self-enthroned figure from 4Q491c). There is no blurring with wisdom and word because they are already intrinsic in God’s own identity. From here, he moves into the Christology of the New Testament. He forewarns that it is not an exhaustive investigation of NT texts regarding Christol...

I'm in the middle of teaching Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky at the moment, and Raskolnikov, the protagonist, is a divided character; his consciousness is divided against himself. His very name means "schismatic." In the act of murder, he loses the conscious ability to control his own actions; he acts as if in a dreamlike state, a trance. Moreover, almost every character trait he has, he also exemplifies its opposite. He is schism-made-flesh. His best friend, Razumikhin, whose name means "reason," describes his friend: What can I tell you? I've known Rodion [Raskolnikov] for a year and a half: sullen, gloomy, arrogant, proud; recently (and maybe much earlier) insecure and hypochondriac. Magnaminous and kind. Doesn't like voicing his feelings, and would rather do something cruel than speak his heart out in words. At times, however, he's not hypochondriac at all, but just inhumanly cold and callous, as if there really were two opposite ch...

In the New Testament, Jesus's body is the temple (John 2:19-22) and the community is a temple of the Holy Spirit (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:16f), but in Paul's articulation it is not always clear whether it is the individual or the community--some passages tend toward one or the other, but there is enough ambiguity. Augustine responds quite unequivocally which it is: both. Yet he takes the body/temple connection even further: For we are his temple, collectively, and has individuals. For he ocndescends to dwell in the union of all and in each person. He is as great in the individual as he is in the whole body of his worshippers, for he cannot be increased in bulk or diminished by partition. When we lift up our hearts to him, our heart is his altar. We propitiate him by our priest, his only-begotten Son. We sacrifice blood-stained victims to him when we fight for truth "as far as shedding our blood." We burn the sweetest incense for him, when we are in his sight on fire ...

The Master said, "Unless a man has the spirit of the rites, in being respectful he will wear himself out, in being careful he will become timid, in having courage he will become unruly, and in being forthright he will become intolerant." (Confucius, Analects 8.2a; trans. Lau) It sounds a bit like Paul in 2 Cor. 3:6: "For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life." The hallmark verse, at least for Augustine, for his "spiritual" hermeneutics that he learned from Ambrose (Confessions V.xiv (24)): Above all, I heard first one, then another, then many difficult passages in the Old Testament scriptures figuratively interpreted, wehre I, by taking them literally, had found them to kill. This was while listening to Ambrose's sermons. And then reading on his own: I was also pleased that when the old writings of the Law and the Prophets came before me, they were no longer read with an eye to which they had previously looked absured, when I used to attack yo...

Sitting one Sunday in a Pentecostal service, I listened as someone began to “speak in tongues.” Such occurrences have a strange effect on me. I grew up in this church, and have noticed a sharp decline in the past decade or so of people speaking in tongues (and a slight recent resurgence), and so, at least psychologically, there is a strange feeling of comfort, of reminiscences of my childhood when such utterances occasionally occur. I care much less for the so-called “interpretation” afterwards, the attempt to make this excitable speech intelligible. It always seems like a betrayal of that speech, which, as excitable, should remain unknowable. At the same time, I am a scholar of religion. I cannot but think about that this is a phenomenon that occurs in multiple contexts throughout the world, whether a Shaman on the Eurasian Steppes (you can also see it in the movie Kundun , about the life of the current Dalai Lama), the Pythia in ancient Delphi, or a Pentecostal service in twent...

As my students just learned, the Bible does not support what are often touted as "family values" by conservatives...those same conservatives who look to the Bible to support their claims. What are the family values of the Bible? Largely polygamy, or as my academic advisor, Alan Segal, says, "One man, and as many women as he can pay for." What about Jesus? He changed a lot of things, right? Well, at least in the Bible we have, he was single. Moreover, he said he came to cause internal divisions between families: setting father against children, and vice versa, husband against wife, etc. In fact, Jesus was a single man in his early thirties (most likely) who called similar men in their prime to leave their wives and join him. Paul was also single. And, well, Paul suggested marriage only for those who could not contain their lust. Newsweek , in fact, picks up much of what I am saying here: Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at thei...

First things first, this is my 100th posting ever! It only took me about 13 months of blogging to get here, but today is that great milestone! For that milestone, I would like to give a quote of the day from the Baal Cycle : She [Anat] seizes Divine Mot (Death), With a sword she splits him With a sieve she winnows him. With a fire shes burns him. With millstones she grinds him, In a field she sows him. The birds eat his flesh, Fowl devour his parts, Flesh to flesh cries out. Baal Cycle , 6.2.30-37. The Baal Cycle , sometimes called the Baal Epic , is basically about the Kingship of the Canaanite God Baal. It consists of six tablets that were inscribed around 1400-1350 BCE in the ancient city of Ugarit. The six tablets depict Baal's struggles to establish his kingship over the universe. The first two tablets depict his defeat of the Sea (Yamm), providing the counterpart to the Enuma Elish , in which Marduk establishes his authority by defeating the Sea (Tiamat). The differences...