More things 15
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Realm Distinction
Realm Distinction
We’ve been tracking the story of Yahweh and his portion, Abraham’s descendents. Yahweh chose to disinherit the nations at Babel. He chose to appear to Abraham in visible, human form to initiate a covenant relationship. He chose to reiterate that covenant with Isaac and Jacob, whom he renamed Israel. And he chose to deliver Israel from Egypt.
The choices telegraphed theological messages. Israel existed because Yahweh had supernaturally enabled the birth of Isaac. They continued to exist because God wanted a people on earth by his own plan and by his own power. The lesser elohim he had placed over the disinherited nations — particularly those in Egypt at his point of the story - cannot prevent his will. There is no god like Yahweh. His goal of making the earth a new Eden will not be overturned.
Before the plagues and the exodus from Egypt, the descendents of Jacob knew God by only reputation and oral storytelling. Now they were at his mountain, ready to journey to the land he had taken for himself, and for them. They had the tablets of the law, but that was just a starting point. Egypt and her gods had been defeated, but the conflict with the gods wand their nations was just beginning. Israel needed to understand that being God’s portion meant separation from the gods and the nations who stood ready to oppose them. The concept of realm distinction was fundamental to the supernatural worldview of ancient Israel.
Holiness and Sacred Space
Holiness and Sacred Space
Yahweh is a supernatural being., not a mortal man. Appearing as a human being was a condescension that enable the lesser minds of mortals to comprehend his presence — and live to tell about it. Yahweh is so other as to be incomprehensible without the facade of something familiar. And yet for Israel, his otherness would need to be an everlasting reality, sensed at all times.
The concept of otherness was at the core of Israelite identity. Otherness is the core of holiness. The Hebrew vocabulary for holiness means to be set apart or to be distinct. While the idea has a moral dimension related to conduct, it is not intrinsically about morality. It is about DISTINCTION. Israel’s identification with Yahweh be virtue of his covenant with Abraham and the terms of his covenant at Sinai meant that, as Lev. 19:2
“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
summarizes, Israelites were to be set apart as God was set apart.
God’s complete otherness was reinforced in the minds of Israelites through worship and sacrifice. God was not only the source of Israel’s life - he was life. God was complete in his perfections. He was not of earth, a place where there is death, disease and imperfection. His realm is supernatural; ours is terrestrial. The space he occupies is sacred and made otherworldly by his presence. The space we occupy is “profane” or ordinary. God is the antithesis of ordinary. Humans must be invited and purified to occupy the same space.
Many laws in the Torah illustrate this worldview and its messaging. Whether priest or not, make or female, people could be disqualified from sacred space by a variety of activities and conditions. Examples included sexual activity, bodily emissions, physical handicaps, contact with a dead body, and childbirth.
The logic of such exclusions is simple, yet foreign to our modern clinical minds. Sexual intercourse, discharges, blood loss and menstruation were not considered unclean out of prudishness. Rather, the concept was that the body had lost the fluids that contain, create, and sustain life. That which is not whole and is associated with loss of life cannot enter God’s presence until ritual restoration rectified that status. The same reasoning is behind the ritually unclean status of those with physical handicaps, infected with a disease, and who have touched a corpse, animal or human. God’s presence meant life and perfection, not death or defectiveness. These laws kept the community conscious of God’s otherness.
Regulations
Regulations
governing the sanctity of God’s dwelling provided concrete object lessons about realm distinction. The ground that that dwelling encompassed was sacred space in relationship with the people of Israel. The separateness of the divine realm was reinforced by the laws that allowed or disallowed proximity to God. These permissions or prohibitions even extended to inanimate objects associated with God and his service.
Even within sacred space there were gradations of holiness or sanctity. The closer one got to God’s presence, the more holy the ground or the object in his proximity. The terms that describe the layout of the structure are evidence of this progression. From the entrance inward was the court, the holy place, and the “most holy place (holy of holies). The sacred space of the tabernacle got progressively more holy from the entrance to the innermost room.
The progressive holiness zones were also distinguished by the priestly clothing associated with them. For example, the high priest, the person with permitted access to the holiest place, wore a unique ephod, breastplate and headdress inscribed with “holy to Yahweh.” The holier the zone, the more costly the animal sacrificed to sanctify the priests when they entered into the presence of God for rituals.
The Tabernacle: Heaven on Earth
The Tabernacle: Heaven on Earth
That Yahweh dwelled in a tent before the construction of the temple (much later, during the time of Solomon) is important for marking sacred space. The tabernacle (dwelling) was the place where Yahweh would cause his name - his presence - to dwell.
As the divine abode, the tabernacle was also analogous to Eden. Like Eden, the tabernacle was cosmic in conception, the place where heaven and earth met, a veritable microcosm of the Edenic creation where God first dwelt on earth. There are many connections but we will only look at a few of the most obvious.
To begin, the description of the tabernacle as a tent dwelling is significant. Elsewhere in the biblical world, deities and their councils were considered to live in tents - atop their cosmic mountains and in their lush gardens. The test of the god or gods was, as with mountains or lush gardens, the place where heaven and earth intersected and where divine degrees were issued. This was a common cultural idea, perhaps akin to how many people think of church - -church is a place you’d expect to meet God, or where God can be found.
Moses was told to construct the tabernacle and its equipment according to the pattern shown to him by Yahweh on the holy mountain. The implication is that the tabernacle on earth was to be a copy of the heavenly test in accord with the religious principle as in heaven, so on earth. the heavenly tent prototype was the heavens themselves.
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
this kind of language is also whey the earth is referred to this way
Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
God sits above the circle of the earth, in his heavenly tent, on his throne above the waters see
who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the sea;
covering yourself with light as with a garment,
stretching out the heavens like a tent.
As Eden was the place where humanity experienced the presence of God, so too was the tabernacle. This was particularly true for the priests, but God’s presence occasionally met Israel’s leaders outside the holy of holiness, the most obvious instance being the glory cloud.
The menorah (lampstand) in the tabernacle is a striking analogy with the tree of life in Eden. The lampstand was fashioned in the appearance of a tree and was stationed directly outside the holy of holies.
The cherubim inside the holy of holies are also a clear connection to Eden. The Edenic cherubim stood guard at the dwelling place of God in Eden. Their position atop the lid to the ark of the covenant is not coincidental. The innermost sanctum of the tabernacle was the place from which God would govern Israel. The cherubim form a throne for the invisible God. Later, when the tent of the most holy place was moved into the temple, tow giant cherubim were installed within for Yahweh’s throne, making the ark his footstool.
Lastly, the entrance to Eden was from the east, which was also the direction from which one entered the tabernacle and later the temples of Israel.
And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.
apparently were Eden was. And the items of the tabernacle and the temples were made of gold, as were the walls, ceiling and floor of the holy of holies in Solomon's temple.
Sacrifice and Israel’s Cosmic Geography
Sacrifice and Israel’s Cosmic Geography
One ritual in particular illustrates realm distinction. In the context of the Deut 32 worldview, which has the nations under the dominion of lesser gods, the entire Israelite camp was cosmic geography and sacred space. Israel was identified with Yahweh. Both the people and the land that Yahweh had determined would beling to the descendents of Abraham were Yahweh’s portion.
Look at the Day of Atonement.. and see the convergence of ideas
Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.
Why is one of the goats for Azael? Who or what is Azazel? The passage is inexplicable unless you are acquainted with the cosmic geography we have been talking about.
Azazel can be translated “the goat that goes away” which is why some Bibles use scapegoat as a translation. Symbolically carrying the sins away. Seems simple enough.
But Azazel is a proper names.
And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel.
one for Yahweh and one for Azazel. This parallelism informs us that it is a name. So what does this mean?
Azazel is the name of a demon the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient Jewish books. In fact, in one scroll (4Q 180, 1:8) Azazel is the leader of the angels that sinned in Gen 6: 1-4. The same description appears in 1st Enoch.
Recall that in intertestamental Judaism, the offending sons of God from Genesis 6 were believed to have been imprisoned in a pit or abyss in the netherworld. Azazel’s place outside of the community, of holy ground, was a place associated with supernatural evil.
The OT does not name Azazel as a demon. Some scholars have connected this with Mot- the god of death. The identification of the term with a demon may also derive from cosmic geography and an association of the wilderness with the forces of chaos, which are hostile to God. This would make sense on several levels, as the desert would not only be a place forbidding to life, but as ground outside of the camp of Israel and Yahweh, the source of life, would have a clear association with chaos.
So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.
the desert was spiritually sinister. And although we have no idea why they sacrificed to goat demons, this being in such proximity to the ritual goat for Azazel suggests a conceptual connection. Jews of later periods certainly made such connections.
In the Day of Atonement ritual, the goat for Yahweh - the goat was sacrificed — purges the impurities caused by the people of Israel and purifies the sanctuary. The goat for Azazel was sent away after the sins of the Israelites were symbolically placed on it.
The point of the goat for Azazel was not that something was owed to the demonic realm, as though a ransom was being paid. The goat took the sins of the Israelites to the the realm outside Israel. Why? Because the ground on which Yahweh had his dwelling was holy. Sin had to be transported to where evil belonged - the territory outside Israel, under the control of gods set over the pagan nations. The high priest as not sacrificing to Azazel. Rather, Azazel was getting what belonged to him: sin.
The concept of realm distinction and cosmic geography go hand in hand. Every day ancient Israel’s journey to the promised land reiterated some point in regard to who they were and their purpose on earth. The invisible Yahweh and the visible Yahweh were present as cloud and Angel, leading his people through the domain of hostile gods and their people to Israel’s own divinely allotted home. When they were camped, the glow of Yahweh’s fire over the tabernacle, Eden returned to earth, illumined the camp. They were God’s portion. The forces of chaos, see and unseen, were on every border. One would think the living object lessons would have ensured faith when it came time to confront those forces. But it wasn’t to be.