Come Up to Me in the Mount

I have noted before in class, and also in Plain and Precious Things, I think Exodus 24 shows a feast in the temple, the same feast with the Lord that is shown in Psalm 23, Genesis 14, Matthew 6, and 1 Nephi 8.

What I only noticed on this re-reading (this is why I have to read this stuff over and over again; I am dense) is that the feast of Exodus 24 happens in three-part sacred space, and the feast is in the middle of the three parts, exactly as in the Sermon on the Mount (where Matthew 5 is the first room, Matthew 6 is the second, and Matthew 7 is the third).

Bookshelf: Othmar Keel

Othmar Keel's book The Symbolism of the Biblical World is a classic (40+ years old now) that I have only discovered in recent weeks.  It's full of nuggets that make amazing sense in light of the Visionary Men Paradigm.

In The Goodness in the Mysteries and also in class, discussing the Sermon on the Mount, I suggested that the relationship between Nephi's Visionary Men and the Secret Combinations is not casual -- as shown by their contrasting teachings on oaths, they are polar opposites.  So I enjoyed this passage in Keel:

Besides the entirely private enemy (enmity based on rivalry) arising out of some specified personal affair (dispute over an inheritance, over a woman, over an honorary post, etc.), every community knows a type of enemy which represents, as it were, the antipole to what the community recognizes as good and desirable and continuously threatens the same... Enemies of this sort are by their nature carriers of all that is subversive and evil.  The view which a particular group or culture holds of its enemies is crucial to an understanding of that group or culture.

Before the Flood

I'm doing my OT reading this year out of the Hebrew and Greek versions of the OT, side by side.  This is a large undertaking for me, which involves getting up early and committing real time, but so far I'm on track.  The immediate fruit has been to see that the vocabulary in the first seven chapters of the OT is heavy in terms that have priestly and temple significance, even if that doesn't always come through in translation.  There's way too much to capture in this blog, but let me throw just out a few points:

1. The ritual actions in Genesis 3 are unmistakable, but maybe we haven't thought all the way through them.  For one thing, the garment of 'skin' in Genesis 3:21 is a garment of 'or in Hebrew, spelled 'ayin-vav-resh (the names of the three Hebrew letters in the word).  Well, 'or, spelled aleph-vav-resh, means 'light.'  These two words are pronounced identically in modern Hebrew, and have always been pronounced very similarly.  God clothes Eve and Adam in garments of light.  In verse 22, "Yahweh of the Gods" pronounces that "Man has become like one of us."
2. In the same segment, Adam is cursed that he will eat his bread by the sweat of his brow.  Eating bread and being dressed by God are both temple ritual actions, and connected in the Sermon on the Mount (more about this in the next class, for those of you who don't already know what I'm talking about).  This suggests that the curse is the sweat, not the bread part.  Similarly, it suggests that childbirth is not a curse -- the curse is the sorrow.  If anything, the implication is that childbirth, at least in some circumstances, is a sacred act.
3. Adam is commanded to 'work' ('avad in Hebrew) and 'keep' (shamar) the Garden.  These are temple-priestly verbs -- 'avad means to perform ordinances, and shamar means to keep covenants.  It is very striking, then, that the same words reappear in the story of Cain.  Cain, first of all, is given to Eve by the Lord (like Samuel and Jesus), punning on the sound of the name 'Cain' in Hebrew (Hebrew prophets, including Nephi, thrive on puns and wordplay).  In Hebrew, Cain is an 'oved of the earth -- not a 'tiller,' but a 'worker,' using the same word that means 'perform ordinances.'  Interestingly, his brother Abel is a shepherd, a common image for priests and kings.  In terms of vocabulary, the story we're told here is about a rivalry between two priests.  After Cain kills Abel, he justifies himself by asking 'am I my brother's keeper?', where 'keeper' is shomer.  Cain is an 'oved, a temple priest, but he does not shamar, keep his covenants. 
4. After this incident, God marks Cain with a 'sign' ('ot in Hebrew).  Elsewhere, the heavenly bodies are said to be or provide an 'ot.  So are the Virgin and her sons.  Here's another piece of vocabulary for understanding the Visionary Men: stars = angels = priests.  Nephi knows this vocabulary.  Cain is a priest who falls from his station, but who still should not be killed, because of his priestly status.

Keep up the study!

2 Nephi 27-28

1. 27:7 this is a very good description of a book built upon temple rites, including an endowment rite that included the creation narrative and a Day of Atonement ceremony, which Nephi's two books are.  Makes me wonder about the sealed portion.

2. Obviously the book motif has returned with a vengeance.  I think 1 and 2 Nephi should be read as a single work, and as we started on writing we are now finishing on writing, too.

3. 27:27 reminds me of Psalms 2:2, in which the wicked kings take counsel (nosdu, sod being a secret learned in council) against the Lord, in vain, to be told that they should seek wisdom instead.  (Remember that Psalms 1 and 2 are one document in many ancient copies, and are full of the same temple images that are in 1 Nephi 8).

4. I haven't been tracking the word "seed" through Nephi's writing, but someone should.  It appears a ton, including in covenant / temple contexts.  His is a book about books, seeds and the temple.

5. The Deuteronomists have left their mark on Chapter 28, and how Nephi talks about the churchmen of the future.  Learned, denying miracles and revelation and the spirit.  We'll see this in Sherem.

6. 28:11-12 recalls 1 Nephi 8, the people lost in strange paths because of the mockery of those in the strange great and spacious building.

7. 28:28 Of course there is famously a large rock on the temple mount, supposedly the altar on which Abraham sacrificed Isaac, etc. (the mosque there today is called the Dome of the Rock).  I wonder if that is the source of Nephi's imagery and, later, Jesus's.  I note that the rock and sand parable appears at the very end of Matthew 7 (24-27), after knocking three times, asking for bread and fish, entering in at the strait gate, seeing the good tree and being seen and accepted by the Lord.

Check out this Wikipedia article on the rock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Stone.  Note that some traditions identify this stone with the Holy of Holies.  I don't know how I missed this before.

8. 28:30 is hot-button words again: if you listen to counsel (sod, perhaps), you will learn wisdom (hokhmah).  Following close on the reference to being built on the rock and learning line upon line, getting more when you receive, this is temple talk.