Antiquitopia

So, another quirk in Revelation occurs in 16:7, when the seven angels are pouring out bowls of divine wrath upon the earth and sea.  In the middle of it, the "angel of the waters" speaks of the Holy One as judge, who is righteous and offers proportional punishments: those who shed the blood of the saints get blood to drink (the waters turn to blood as in the Egyptian plague). In response, the heavenly altar itself speaks (NRSV): "yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just." Interestingly, it seems the throne also speaks: "And from the throne came a voice saying, 'Praise our God, all you his servants, and all who fear him, small and great'" (Rev 19:5). This could just be a disembodied divine voice coming from the throne - or the throne is alive, animate.  It is something that occurs intermittently throughout Revelation, too, usually before breaking out in a hymn. I know that in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice the heav...

I have been working on one of the SBL presentations on spatiotemporality in Hebrews, Revelation, and 4 Ezra.  I ran into a passage, which probably won't make the talk, but which I found odd. Revelation 14:10 reads (NRSV): "and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb." I found the torture of sinners in the Lamb's and angels' presence a bit strange, even disturbing.  Of course, the Lamb dispenses divine justice in Revelation; nonetheless, punishment itself is usually "off-stage," in the Pit.  My quick glances at commentaries (so far) discuss the motifs of fire and sulfur, but largely skirt the issue of presence. It did remind me of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke, however, where, while there is a gulf between a good and bad afterlife, they seem to be visible to one another. Is there a bit of Schadenfreude in these accounts: getting to watch your enemies suffer for eternity? (So...

I just finished reading Elaine Pagels's new book, Revelations:  Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation , and thought I would collect some of my thoughts.  There have been many initial reviews that will, most likely, show greater verve and greater detail than what I am going to discuss here; this is more of a series of notes rather than a review, per se.  See Adam Gopnik's review in the New Yorker here . Moreover, three chapters of the book previously appeared as more technical articles, whereas the book is for a more general, non-specialist audience.  What struck me is that the book is really about shifting contexts of visions, particularly John of Patmos's Revelation .  The different chapters of the book provide different political contexts from an imperial telescope to intra-Christian microscopes in overlapping contexts that slowly spiral outward in space and time until one finds oneself far away from the late first century setting (Page...

As April DeConick has noted at Forbidden Gospels , Adam Gopnik has rather whimsically reviewed Elain Pagels's new book, Revelations on the book of Revelation and other ancient revelations in the New Yorker .  It is quite an entertaining read.

Last month, I posted on the similar imagery used in 1 Enoch 62:2 and Heb. 4:12-13: that of the word with a sharp sword for the purpose of judgment. In the comments, Ken Schenck noted the similar imagery in Wisdom of Solomon 18:15-16, while Brian Small noted some very important differences between the function of 1 Enoch and Hebrews in this regard. In his Carnival of Hebrews posts this month, he reiterates these differences, and, in the comments of that post, Tony Siew pointed out another striking usage of the sword-in-mouth in Rev. 19:15, coming from the word of God (19:13). Here they all are: And the Lord of Spirits upon the throne of his glory, and the spirit of righteousness was poured upon him. And the word of his mouth will slay all sinners, and all the unrighteous will perish from his presence. (1 Enoch 62:2) The all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed a stern warrior carrying the sharp sword of they a...

This is the third part of my reading of Bauckham's first chapter of Jesus and the God of Israel. I have one more part on Bauckham's assessment of continuities and novelties between the NT and Second Temple literature. You can see my earlier posts as following: Introduction Chapter 1A (monotheism) Chapter 1B (christological monotheism) For this week, however, we will discuss the theme of “God Crucified and Divine Identity Revealed in Jesus" I must say at the outset that this has been the most interesting part of Bauckham's analysis thus far--perhaps because this is where he finally gets into the textual nitty gritty and generally avoids the over-generalizing that is so prevalent throughout the rest of the chapter. The next move in Bauckham’s argument is the shift from thinking of a preexistent Christ to the earthly Jesus and the repercussions of a suffering Jesus who shares in the unique divine identity. In this section he asserts that all NT Christology is high C...

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...

For my chapter on the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice , I am revisiting other texts that discuss, depict, or allude to heavenly hymns. Most apocalyptic texts refer to heavenly liturgies sung by heavenly, divine beings (most people call them "angels"), but very rarely tell us what these heavenly beings actually say. When they do report the content of such hymns, they tend to be highly indebted to, or in fact are verbatim quotations of Isaiah 6:1-4: In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the hose filled with smoke. 2 Enoch 21:1 (J) repeats this ...

Here are two passages: one from Revelation; the other, the Aeneid . Each depicts a supernal monstrous divine-like being with lots of feathers and eyes all over: And round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within.... (Rev. 4:6b-8a; RSV) This depiction is, as is often noted, an adaptation of Ezek. 1:5-14. The difference being that each being in Ezekiel has four faces, one of each animal. Another major difference are the eyes. There is absolutely no real discussion of eyes in Ezekiel's vision as there are for John of Patmos. In fact, the vision in Revelation strongly draws attention to this innovation, mentioning that the beasts around the thro...

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...