All Manner of Sin and Blasphemy

I'm reading the New Testament with the kids, and tonight noticed something striking, which I will offer up without comment.

In Matthew 12, the warning that sins against the Holy Ghost (the "holy spirit" in Greek, and remember that, although "spirit," pneuma, is neuter in Greek, in Hebrew it would be the feminine ruach) will not be forgiven is followed immediately by a reference to the tree with good fruit that elsewhere Matthew identifies as lying behind the strait and narrow gate.

In Mark 3, the parallel passage transitions immediately into the question who is Jesus' mother?

See also 1 Nephi 11.

The Lady Under the Tree

One of Israel's great heroes from the time of the judges is Deborah.  She's a prophetess, and she dwells under a tree.  The KJV also says she's the "wife of Lapidoth," but that may be a mistranslation.  As Methodist scholar Margaret Barker has pointed out (Margaret will merit her own bookshelf entries at some point, for sure), "Lapidoth" nowhere else appears as a man's name, and it doesn't look like a man's name -- it looks like a feminine plural, meaning "torches" or "flashing lights.  This makes Deborah the prophetess, the "woman of flashing lights," who dwells under a tree.  All of this is really, really interesting.

It turns out there's another Deborah, and I, at least, had totally forgotten her.  She only appears in one verse in the Bible, when she dies.  We're told three things about her:

1. She is Rachel's wetnurse (and since Benjamin isn't born yet, this can only mean that she nursed Joseph, which ties her to the royal lineage of the northern kingdom and also to the ancestry of the Book of Mormon prophets).
2. She is buried under a tree (in the LXX, she dies under the tree -- very slight difference), in an event so important the tree merits a name... it's a special tree.  
3. Her name is Deborah.  This name is interesting, because it's the Hebrew word for "honey-bee."  Here we get into a whole bunch of old and interesting associations, including the titles of Pharaoh (one of which, nswt-bjtj, means "he of the sedge and the bee"), the story of Joseph and Asenath (Joseph's bride is covered with honey bees... scroll down to chapter 16) and the packing priorities of the Jaredites.

All this looks to me like one of the ancient symbols of Israel's divine woman (along with the sacred tree, the tree of life) was the honey bee.

His Wife Elizabeth Conceived

Elizabeth is childless and barren, a state Philo (not a Christian, as we understand the term) associates with symbolic virginity.  John the Baptist's conception is therefore also a sort of virgin birth, and arises from a temple appearance of the Melchizedek priest.

By Two Immutable Things

In this course Hebrews describes, God and man swear mutual oaths.  This is because God wants to show man the unchangeability of his "counsel."  In Greek this is boule, which is the word used in Isaiah to translate the Hebrew etza, where it manifestly means the tree of the temple menorah (for instance, Isaiah 11:2 and 5:18-19).  See also Isaiah 9:6, where the Greek LXX provides as the sole title of the descending Melchizedek priest the "angel of great counsel."  The course ends with grasping something described as "hope" and entering within the veil, where one has been preceded by Jesus, the Melchizedek priest.

Because of Their Virtue

Abraham lives in a time in which the righteous are sacrificed on altars for refusing to cooperate with the state religion.  This is exactly the sort of circumstance in which the visionary men write pseudonymous history.

The righteous in question are identified as "virgins," which may mean priestesses,  "daughters of Zion."      This echoes the reforms of Josiah.

"Potiphar's Hill" is a curious name.  It suggests a corrupted woman, a vengeful ruler, and a priestly innocent who flees leaving his clothing behind.

The Mother of Men

There's a divine woman in the Holy of Holies with Enoch and God.  She is visualized as the earth.

Her 'rest' is what Enoch wants, and hopes will be achieved by the ministry of the Son of Man.

Man of Counsel

God tells Enoch his titles in the Holy of Holies.  They're all interesting.  In particular, I'm struck by the title "Man of Counsel."  If the linguistic background of the Book of Moses is Hebrew, then this title of God is ish etza, which can also mean 'husband of the tree.'

Behold, I Am Fair

The daughter of Jared, whose ambition and twisted filial piety launch the false mysteries among the Jaredites, is "fair," like the Virgin.  Where the Virgin will give birth to the king, the daughter of Jared desires the king's head.  Moroni must have seen her as the Virgin's antitype, the whore of Babylon.

The Wife of Thy Youth, Against Whom Thou Hast Dealt Treacherously

A recurring feature in the writing of the visionary men (and the Small Plates are full of this) is imagery of the Divine Woman.  No wonder, given that Nephi's view of the candlestick-tree-Virgin is that she is "precious above all."

In Malachi, "Judah" and "Jerusalem" (less than two centuries earlier, the "Jews [Judahites] who were at Jerusalem" were Lehi's opponents) have forsaken the wife of their youth, the woman with whom they have a covenant, and married "the daughter of a strange god."