Читать книгу The Big Book of Mysteries - Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe - Страница 12
ОглавлениеThe books of the Bible introduce a host of mysteries to humankind, and man has for centuries attempted to translate and understand the stories told within its spiritual prose. What better place to start than in the beginning.…
The book of Genesis gives an account of the Garden of Eden that suggests a realistic description of an actual historical and geographical location — a real, solid, physical place, rather than the colourful dream landscape of myth or legend. George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien all had the gift of creating imaginary landscapes that possess uncanny realism — as if they had visited the actual locations.
By contrast, the biblical description of Eden seems to possess a sturdy, time-defying realism, a sense of historical and geographical actuality, which makes the quest for it well worth pursuing.
The first biblical clue is that the Garden of Eden spread over the sources of four rivers: the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Gihon, and the Pishon. The first two present no difficulties on a modern map, but it’s helpful to note that the Hebrew Hiddekel is the same river as the Tigris. The River Aras was called the Gihon-Aras until relatively recent times. To find the fourth river, a little inter-lingual manipulation is needed. Within the area of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Gihon-Aras there is another river named the Uizun. An old scholar named Walker made an interesting etymological suggestion about this a few years ago. He argued that in Hebrew pronunciation the u became the labial p instead. The z of Uizun slides into a sibilant sh and the final syllable can interchange a, u, and o without difficulty.
There are other possibilities for the Gihon and the Pishon, of course, and these include the theories of scholar/historians Josephus, Eusebius, and Augustine that the Pishon was the Ganges. Other theologians, Jarchi, Gaon, and Nachman, argued that it was the Nile because the etymological root meant “to fill” or “to overflow.” Other research in Armenia led researchers to the theory that the Pishon is now called the Halys and the Gihon has been renamed the Araxes.
So the geographical problem posed by the identity of the four rivers of Eden may well be solved eventually, but what of the ancient lands which were said to surround it?
After Abel’s murder, his fratricidal brother, Cain, went to the east of Eden to an area known as Nod. Not far to the east of Eden, where Nod was said to lie, is the small contemporary settlement of Noqdi. Could the modern village of Noqdi be all that remains of the ancient, biblical Nod?
The great riddles of Eden, however, are theological and philosophical enigmas rather than geographical and historical ones. If the biblical account of creation is literally true — despite the enormous weight of scientific evidence that suggests that it is not: and, after all, even evolution’s staunchest supporters will readily refer to it as a theory — then the philosopher and theologian are left asking why God chose to create our universe in the way that He did, and then to populate it with intelligent, observant beings.
The Yahweh of the Old Testament is described by many of its writers as a jealous guardian of his own power and glory: dominant, majestic, aloof, frequently awe-inspiring and terrifying. Even many centuries later when Christ portrays him as a benign, loving Father, the threat of judgment and condemnation to the everlasting tortures of hell still seem to be there.
The Graeco-Roman pantheon was comprised of gods with human characteristics, separated from us only by their longevity and superior powers. Human suffering could then be explained easily enough by their capriciousness, jealousy, anger, competitiveness, and frequent quarrels. There was no insoluble paradox for the Graeco-Roman theologian when good people suffered.
The difficulty of trying to reconcile the existence of a totally benign and loving God, who also enjoyed absolute power, with medieval torture and burning, the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, the atrocities in Kosovo, or the fiendish terrorists in Sierra Leone hacking off innocent victims’ limbs to impose their reign of terror, could not exist for them. But it is an unavoidable, mind-splitting dilemma that confronts every honest theist who tries to explain the contradiction of God and human suffering.
There is some useful mileage left in the argument that centres on the essential nature of free will. It can readily and universally be accepted that true and spontaneous love is the greatest good and the greatest joy in the whole of human experience. It is equally true that such genuine love cannot exist without real free will. Love cannot be bought. It cannot be compelled. It cannot be commanded. It can only be given and received freely by independent minds, hearts, and spirits. Love is like respect: it can be stimulated, earned, and attracted by kindness, gentleness, mercy, and altruism.
Free will can provide the good, rich, fertile soil in which true love grows. It can also be the toxic waste in which unspeakable evil is spawned. Hitler could have chosen goodness. Freewill allowed him to choose the darkest form of evil instead. If the free will argument is valid, God could not prevent Hitler’s evil without depriving him of his free will.
But what about hindering or preventing the consequences of Hitler’s evil choices? Suppose God had allowed Hitler to think and plan his evil, but had then inspired and empowered heroes to thwart his plans and rescue his victims before that evil could be put into effect. Suppose that this pattern had recurred over and over again since the very beginning, since Eden itself.
But is free will itself diluted or destroyed if the consequences of evil choices are neutralized? What if every evil thought is prevented from expressing itself in evil action? Does evil then become an illusion, a hollow sham? Does the would-be murderer look round at the world and say, “There is no point in my shooting, stabbing, strangling or poisoning my victim because whatever evil I try to do will not have any real effect. God will simply intervene in some marvellous way: my gun will jam, the shot will miss, my knife will be deflected, my hands will be paralyzed just as they encircle the victim’s throat, or the man will develop a sudden mysterious immunity to the cyanide capsule I’ve just dropped into his whisky glass.”
If good thoughts and good actions can produce good, solid consequences, while evil thoughts and actions are ineffectual, then there is no true freedom of will. The realities of the consequences of good and evil actions must be equal, if the choice between them is to be a genuine choice. If God is totally benign and totally powerful, there can be no room for equivocation or prevarication. The absoluteness of divine goodness must include absolute honesty. A benign God cannot be a cosmic stage illusionist or a celestial confidence trickster.
There is also the argument of stability and consistency. If everything is arbitrary and uncertain, if cause and effect are not parent and child, then learning is impossible and progress nonexistent. If two plus two make three when they feel like it and five when they don’t, if gunpowder explodes one day and not another, if arsenic kills today but not tomorrow, if affectionate embraces and a dagger in the heart come arbitrarily from the same unpredictable person, then life is impossible. So dare philosophers and theologians assume that God has made their universe consistent? Humanity can learn and develop only in a consistent environment. We can discover and eventually master the Laws of the Universe only if those laws remain faithful to themselves and to our powers of observation and objective experiment. If consistency is as important as free will, have we taken the first faltering steps along the road to a partial solution of the problem of suffering and death in a universe ruled by a caring and omnipotent God? Is this the first tentative answer to the Eden problem?
Obsessively puritanical, fanatical, religious sects have almost invariably connected original sin with sex. Phrases like “forbidden fruit” have been understood by them to refer symbolically to sexual activity — often sex in general, sometimes a specific sexual activity or orientation of which cult members disapprove. The curious and irrational belief that total celibacy or, failing that, varying degrees of sexual abstinence or self-denial, are in some inexplicable way pleasing to a loving, joy-giving, and creative God, may also be traced back — at least in part — to this confusion of sex and original sin. It hardly requires the wisdom and courage of Sigmund Freud, or some other pioneering psychoanalyst of his calibre, to suspect with good reason that the most strident advocates of sexual denial and restriction are likely to be those people with the most serious sexual hang-ups and misconceptions. Sex is as good, as natural and as benign as eating, drinking, breathing, and sleeping. It has its safety parameters, of course, just as they have. The wise man or woman does not knowingly eat or drink anything toxic, nor any food infected with salmonella. Neither is it acceptable to steal a neighbour’s food. The sensible man or woman does not breathe contaminated air. But to imagine that God wants people to give up eating, drinking, or breathing, or wants them to feel guilty about those good and natural biological activities seems as far from the truth as the east is from the west.
So if the “forbidden fruit” has no sexual connotations at all, what might the author of Genesis mean by it? What exactly was the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” which stood in the Garden of Eden?
Serious students of morality and ethics come up with a number of tantalizingly different answers. The famous Farmingdon Trust, which did outstandingly good work in the field in the late sixties, categorized three types of moral character and attitude. The first was the psychotic, whom the Farmingdon researchers described as an “emotional moral cripple.” According to them, such people were cognitively aware of good and evil, but could distinguish them only in the way that normal people distinguish colour, size, weight, or shape. The psychotic would know that attacking elderly victims with an iron bar and stealing from them was “wrong” or “bad.” He or she would know that housing the homeless or feeding the hungry was “right” and “good.” The psychotic’s problem is that “right” and “wrong” — “good” and “bad” — have no more emotional meaning for him or her than “left” and “right” or “up” or “down.” Such distinctions as the psychotic makes are totally devoid of emotional context.
The second Farmingdon category was the authoritarian moralist, the man or woman of the sacred book, the unquestioning followers of the guru, of the official rules and regulations, or of the party manifesto. This attitude goes back to — or even far beyond — the days of the ancient Medes and Persians “whose law altereth not.” Authoritarian moralists, despite all their inflexible faults and bureaucratic problems are still morally far ahead of the psychotics. Authoritarians are often deeply emotionally involved with their ethics. Good and evil matter to them. Their central weakness and their main focal problem is their inability to understand that what they regard as the ultimate and infallible source of moral authority can often be wrong — sometimes so hopelessly wrong that it disguises good as evil and evil as good. The famous Ten Commandments and the ancillary religious laws of the Old Testament — written on their literal and metaphorical Tablets of Stone — are the classical example of what typical authoritarians would recognize as an infallible and immutable ethical source. Tragically, in the name of such laws, authoritarians will resolutely and implacably imprison, torture, stone, or burn those who dare to disagree with them — and will then self-righteously convince themselves that the horrendous and inhuman evil which they are perpetrating is good. Matthew Hopkins, the Cromwellian Witchfinder General, was just such a man: as were the witch-finders of Salem.
The third Farmingdon type was referred to as the autonomous moral thinker. This is the man or woman who judges every moral situation on its merits, who refuses to jump on any particular ethical bandwagon — however popular or traditionally revered — without reserving the inalienable right to jump off again, if, in his opinion, the wagon appears to be rolling the wrong way. The autonomous moral thinker takes a general attitude of Is this loving? Is this kind? Is this helpful? Will this give pleasure to someone while hurting no one else? Would I want this for myself? The autonomous moral thinker takes all that he regards as best from every guru and from every rule book, while reserving the intellectual right to disagree. For the autonomous moral thinker, the ultimate source of ethical authority is his own judgment about whether a word or an action is acceptable to a God of love and mercy, whether a thought, word, or deed is kind, supportive, and benign. The autonomous moral thinker has the courage to go it alone, to accept full personal responsibility for his decisions. There is no rule book to hide behind. There is no guru to ask. You decide for yourself whether a thing is right or wrong — and then you speak or act accordingly.
So how does the Farmingdon analysis relate to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden? What moral and ethical approach does that Tree represent? What does it symbolize? Did the literal or metaphorical eating of the fruit of that tree take Adam and Eve, as the literal or metaphorical parents of the human race, into a different moral dimension, something beyond a state of young, amoral innocence? Did it mean that after a certain point of development was reached they had to take on the moral responsibility of thinking for themselves — becoming autonomous moral thinkers instead of obeying unquestioningly, conforming unquestioningly?
That raises the great philosophical, theological, moral, and metaphysical question about whether simple obedience and unquestioning loyalty are “better” — more moral, more likely to produce inner peace and happiness — than wanting to think for yourself and make your own independent decisions. If an all-powerful God had wanted obedient robots, androids, or beings incapable of thinking for themselves, it would have been a very simple task to produce them. But if God chose to create free and autonomous beings who could genuinely accept or reject Him because they wanted to, who could genuinely choose between good or evil because they understood them, then the Tree and its fruit have profoundly deep meanings. Was that first choice the prototype of all truly autonomous choice? Was it the choice of whether to accept the terrible responsibility of having free will and the power to choose?
Who or what was the literal or metaphorical serpent and its fateful role in the Eden drama? In early Hebrew thought of the kind that must have been familiar to the author of Genesis, the serpent was a subtle, cunning, wily creature — like the fox in medieval western folklore. To what extent was the serpent seen as Satan himself, and to what extent was it thought of as being merely one of his agents or messengers of evil? The Talmudic authorities give the evil spirit, or demon, which tempted Eve a name: they call it Sammâel.
The Phoenicians, however, held the serpent in the highest esteem, and the ancient Chinese regarded it as a symbol of superior wisdom and power. Their early artwork depicted the kings of heaven (tien-hoangs) as having the bodies of serpents.
The Egyptians represented the eternal spirit Kneph, whom they regarded as the source of all good, in the form of a serpent. Paradoxically, Tithrambo, their god of revenge and punishment, was also represented in serpent form, as was Typhon, the terrible god of evil and immorality, who also appears in early Greek mythology as the son of Hera.
The serpent was frequently tamed and mummified in ancient Egypt, where it also has a role in the alphabet as a symbol of subtlety, cunning, and sensual pleasure.
The Greeks associated it with Aesculapius and healing, with Ceres, the good provider, and with the swift and benign Hermes or Mercury. On the opposite tack, they also linked it with the evil Furies, and in its Python form as a terrifying monster that only the arrows of the gods could bring down.
It is particularly interesting to note a parallel between the Eden account and the doctrine of Zoroaster, which relates how the evil god Ahriman appeared in the form of a serpent and taught humanity to sin.
In the writings of those researchers who wonder whether the ancient sacred texts like Genesis were partial recollections of extraterrestrial interference in human history, considerable emphasis is placed on the idea of possible rivalry or conflict between two distinct groups of technologically advanced aliens visiting Earth simultaneously. If one such rival group were physically serpentine in form, or, more probably, used a winged serpent as an emblem, information and instructions given to human beings by the other group would condemn the serpent as evil. The argument goes on to suggest that genetic engineering by the alien visitors — rather than a natural, Darwinian, evolutionary process — was responsible for the quantum leap in the development of the human mind and brain. Is it also possible that the record of Eve being created from one of Adam’s ribs is a dim memory of a very advanced rapid cloning process?
If the Eden narrative is rewritten in terms of a genetic engineering laboratory, and the “forbidden fruit” is seen as exposure to some form of genetic contamination, then the expulsion of the contaminated breeding pair from their original, idyllic, garden laboratory into the dangerous world outside becomes a logical consequence of the contamination.
If one of their offspring, Cain, then demonstrates part of this hypothetical, genetic foul-up by murdering his brother, Abel, that would also seem to harmonize.
The idea that Eden was some sort of isolated, experimental bioengineering reservation run by extraterrestrial technologists gets around the problem of where the other people came from among whom Cain went on his wanderings. It also goes some way toward offering one possible explanation of the mysterious identity of the “sons of God” who were said to have mated with mortal women in Genesis 6, verse 2, and whose offspring grew up to be “mighty men which were of old men of renown.”
Eden is a garden of mystery in every sense. Some recent DNA research suggests that humanity did perhaps have just two ancestors. Were they God’s deliberate, miraculous, and specific creation, as Genesis records, and as several other ancient sacred texts partially reinforce? Were they the work of extraterrestrial genetic engineers, and, if so, why? Are they likely to come back to see how their experiment is getting along? Or are we under constant observation already? The Eden narrative leaves vast questions unanswered — especially the problems of who God was talking to when He said, “Let us make man in our own image” (Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26); the identity of the “sons of God,” and the origin of the people of Nod, among whom Cain wandered, and from among whom he presumably took his wife, the girl who became Enoch’s mother. It is perfectly possible that the Supreme God of the Universe may have chosen to use his genetic engineers from another planet to create intelligent life on this one, just as it is perfectly possible that he used Darwinian evolution — or a modification of it — as one of his instruments. Neither concept raises the slightest theological difficulty nor does it present any challenge to faith: if anything, it makes God even more awesome and powerful than the authors, editors, and translators of Genesis realized.
Genesis, chapter 11, verses 1–9 give the biblical account of the Tower of Babel. At the heart of the story is one of the many quaint and colourful, aetiological or explanatory myths which purport to give reasons for various natural phenomena: thunder is the laughter of the gods — or their game of celestial skittles; the rainbow appeared after the flood as God’s promise that the Earth would never again be destroyed by water; the robin has red feathers on its breast because it attempted to take out the crucifixion nails to end Christ’s suffering.
The story of the Tower of Babel begins with the assertion that there was only one universal language in the beginning. In the course of their wanderings from the east “they” (an intriguing use of the plural pronoun, which the author of this section of Genesis may well have intended to include all of Adam and Eve’s descendants, via Noah and the survivors of the flood), arrived at the Plain of Shinar. It was a pleasant enough spot, and they elected to stay for a while. It was then decided that it would be a good idea to build a permanent city there, and accordingly they set to work.
The Genesis account says that they used brick for stone and “slime” for mortar. There is general agreement among scholars specializing in the period that the word translated “slime” here probably refers to pitch or bitumen.
The Tower of Babel does not provide an explanation for the origins of language but for the differentiation of language. The origins of language do not seem to have concerned the authors, compilers, and redactors of Genesis. It seems probable that the writer’s natural assumption was that language had been built into Adam and Eve along with their basic understanding of themselves and their environment.
Paleolinguistic studies seem to suggest that language and thought patterns evolved in mutually reinforcing roles — like acrobats who raise themselves on piles of wooden blocks by adding a block at a time to each pile on which their hands balance alternately.
Hunting, especially with primitive flint weapons, was likely to prove most successful when groups of hunters co-operated. Co-operation — unless we consider the theory that our earliest ancestors were telepathic — was almost certainly improved by language. The earliest aural signals may have conveyed basic, but vital, hunting messages such as “Go forward. Go back. Move toward me. Move away from me. Keep still and silent. It’s coming toward you.”
The technique of a skilled shepherd controlling his dogs with simple sounds, elementary proto-words, or whistle signals could be similar to the proto-words with which paleolithic hunting parties coordinated their movements.
The authors and editors of Genesis probably felt that they had to try to provide an explanation for the apparent anomaly: if all persons were descended from Adam and Eve, why did Babylonians, Israelites, and Canaanites speak different languages?
Map of Eden and its location.
There is an interesting and mysterious connection between the Babel story and the Apostles speaking in tongues. On the day of Pentecost, all those to whom the Apostles preached heard the words in their own language — yet the Apostles were Galileans. Some analysts of this “speaking-with-tongues” phenomenon have wondered whether the Apostles were using Koine Greek — a simplified version that resembles classical Greek in much the same way that Pidgin resembles standard English, and which was widely used and understood throughout the Roman Empire.
GLOSSOLALIA
Psycho-linguistics experts have investigated numerous cases of glossolalia, a state in which a subject with no apparent conscious knowledge or recollection of another language can apparently speak it fluently. In the most interesting reports of glossolalia, some subjects have been able to speak their mysterious unknown language but have not known the meaning of the words they were saying. At other times subjects appear to have been able to understand the meaning, but have not been able to reply in the strange language.
The precise nature of the neurological and physiological processes involved in speaking and understanding a given set of audible signals (or visual symbols in the case of a written language) is complex and controversial. Most linguistic scientists would probably agree that the process is basically an associative one: a distinct, discrete sound, or sound pattern, becomes associated with an object (noun) or an activity (verb). If different human groups evolved at different sites at different times, their chosen sound patterns for denoting different actions and different objects would in all probability be totally arbitrary, with the exception of certain onomatopoeia.
If, however, the Eden origins of Homo sapiens are to be taken literally and historically, then a single “language of Eden” would be the logical sequel.
Investigation seems to suggest, rather tantalizingly, however, that the oldest roots of modern languages do tend to converge in the remote past. DNA investigations have also indicated the possibility of a common ancestor — maybe from the vicinity of the Olduvai Gorge.
The word Babel seems to have been derived from an ancient Hebrew root meaning “to confound” or “to confuse” and would seem to refer to the story of the tower that was never completed because its builders lost the power to understand one another’s languages.
It has been suggested that slaves taken by the Babylonians to carry out their grandiose building projects were dependent upon interpreters among the Babylonian overseers. If a slaves’ rebellion — or an outbreak of plague — led to the deaths of these interpreters, almost total confusion would have ensued, leading to probable abandonment of the site.
The Babylonians referred to their city as Bab-ili, Babila, or Babilam, meaning “the gate of God.” It was also known as Babilani — “the gate of the gods.” The ancient Akkadians called it Ka-dingira, which also meant “the gate of god,” as well as Tin-tir —“the seat of life.” Its other titles included E or E-ki, meaning “house” or “hollow place.” Yet another ancient title was Su-anna, meaning the city with the high defence.
The mysterious “they” of Genesis 2, verses 2–9, may refer solely to the Cushites, followers of Nimrod, the much acclaimed “mighty hunter” of Chapter 10, listed in the ancient genealogies as the great-grandson of Noah through Ham’s line. They seem to have referred to themselves as the people of Kingi-Ura, and are known in some scholarly circles as the Sumero-Akkadians. It is likely that they migrated to Shinar from some original location in the northeast of Mesopotamia.
Their building materials were mainly bricks and bitumen, and their earliest city layout seems to have been a relatively basic collection of dwellings scattered around a central temple-tower which they called the Zikkuratu.
Part of the mystery of the city of Babel and its vast tower is its great age. It is mentioned before Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in the account in Genesis 10, and almost certainly predates them by many centuries. The Greek historians of Alexander’s time questioned the Babylonians about it, and were given a nominal date of 2230 B.C. The city is undoubtedly much older than that.
The principal god of Babylon was known as Merodach and the city was regarded as his sacred dwelling in a very special and particular way. It was often referred to as “Babilu mahaz Marduk” which translates as “Babylon the stronghold of Merodach.”
This Merodach had a consort called Zir-panitum, the principal goddess of Babylon. Innana, Nana, or Ishtar was also regarded as one of the most important patron deities of ancient Babylon.
The great Hammurabi, known in Babylonian as Kimta-rapastum, was king of Babylon round about 2120 B.C., and was a clearly established member of the Babylonian Dynasty.
Throughout the ensuing centuries, there was continual war between Babylon and Assyria. The great city and its magnificent temples were destroyed and rebuilt on numerous occasions, any of which could have been the inspiration of the Tower of Babel story.
Nebuchadnezzar was a particularly vigorous rebuilder and restorer, as Daniel, chapter 4, verse 30, clearly indicates. Antiochus Soter was probably the last Babylonian king to carry out any restorations. The bold and decisive Xerxes plundered Babylon and intrepidly carried away the golden statue from the Temple of Belus, which Darius had hesitated to remove for religious reasons. By the time Alexander the Great got there, the city was in ruins once again. He originally decided to restore Babylon’s former glories, but even Alexander’s brilliant imagination drew back from the awesome logistics of a task that would have needed ten thousand labourers simply to clear away the rubble before the rebuilding began. After the death of Alexander, the decay and desolation of Babylon continued for many centuries.
TOO MANY RUINED TOWERS?
The biblical mystery of the Tower of Babel and its alleged consequences for global languages remains unsolved. It is not that there are no ruined Babylonian towers to which archaeologists can refer: there are, if anything, rather too many.
While the Israelites were undertaking their long journey through the wilderness after Moses had led them out of Egypt, their central place of worship was the Tabernacle, and the holiest object within the Tabernacle was the Ark of the Covenant, the Hebrew title of which can also be interpreted as the Ark of the Testimony. Together with the Mercy Seat situated on its lid, this ark was the centre of the Israelites’ sacred mystery.
As far as can be ascertained from Exodus, chapter 25, it was cuboid in shape, 1 ½ cubits wide, 1 ½ deep, and 2 ½ long. The biblical cubit was approximately forty-five centimetres or eighteen inches — the length of a human forearm from elbow to fingertips. It was made of fine acacia wood overlaid with gold on both sides.
The Mercy Seat was placed above the ark, and supported a cherub at each end. It was regarded as the symbolic throne of God. When the ark was in place within the Tabernacle, or later within the Holy of Holies in the Temple, a luminous cloud known as the Shechinah was seen to hover above it, and was clearly distinguished from the familiar smoke created by incense.
Tower of Babel.
ACACIA WOOD
Acacia wood, a genus of the mimosa family, or Mimosaceae, is found mainly in Africa and Australia, as well as in the Middle East. Acacia flowers tend to be small and fragrant, and are almost always yellow or white. One variety found in the Sudan is the source of gum arabic, used as glue or as an emulsifier in sweets, inks, adhesives, and chemical products. The bark of most acacias is also a rich source of tannin. The acacias yield interesting and unusual wood, particularly appropriate for the sacred Ark of the Covenant.
The Shechinah was reported during the days of the Tabernacle and while Solomon’s Temple stood, but apparently it was no longer seen in Zerubbabel’s Temple, as it was one of the five things that some Jewish writers maintained was missing from this later temple.
Dr. Bernard in his notes on Josephus disagrees. He argues from Josephus’s records that as the mysterious Urim and Thummim were said to be in Zerubbabel’s Temple, the other four significant “missing” things must have been there as well.
The first reference to the Shechinah is found in the Targums. A Targum in Aramaic literally means a translation or an interpretation, so the Targums were translations of portions of the Hebrew Bible — or, indeed, the whole of it — into Aramaic. At one time the word meant a translation of the Old Testament into any language at all, but was honed down over the years to refer specifically to a translation from the old Hebrew into the later Aramaic.
The word Shechinah comes from an old root meaning “to rest,” “to settle,” or “to dwell.” It is not found in the Bible itself, but was widely used by later Jews, and borrowed from them by Christians. It signified the visible majesty of the Divine Presence, particularly when God was thought to be especially there in the area between the Cherubim on the lid of the sacred ark.
The Targums were produced to meet the spiritual and religious needs of the great majority of Jewish worshippers who found it difficult if not impossible to cope with ancient classical Hebrew.
When the Herodian Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, the Targums came into their own. Synagogues had to replace the lost temple, and the central readings in the synagogue services needed to be translated into Aramaic for the benefit of most of the worshippers. As time went on, the Targums assumed the role of commentaries, and a special meturgeman attempted to explain away any confusions or doubtful meanings.
Wise sayings, proverbs, aphorisms, allegories, and legends crept into the Targums as time went on, so that the later ones were very different from the straightforward translations that had been the main purpose of the originals.
From its special use in the Targums, the concept of Shechinah came to signify the actual presence of God on Earth as far as the early Jewish theologians and scholars were concerned. One reason for this was a fear on the part of the writers of the Talmud, Midrash, and Targums that some of the clearly anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the earlier writings might cause serious misunderstandings. The idea of a God who looked like an amorphous cloud of glowing mist — rather than a human being — undoubtedly seemed theologically safer to them than the earlier concepts of an undeniably humanoid God who walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening looking for Adam and Eve.
Some theologians have considered the existence of a parallel between the concept of the Shechinah and the idea of the Holy Spirit. Other, mainly medieval, theologians have tried to work out theories of the Shechinah as a separate Divine Being, Someone or Something created by God, perhaps a personified representation of Divine Glory or Divine Light.
ARAMAIC
It was after the Exile in Babylon that Aramaic became the preferred spoken language of the Palestinian Jews, and so replaced their original Hebrew. Just as Latin lingered among European academics and ecclesiastical scholars long after it had ceased to be spoken by Roman Legionaries, so Hebrew lingered among Jewish academics and scholars until well after the first century of the Christian era, although by then Aramaic was firmly established in the eastern Mediterranean area.
In one of the sadder short stories of H.G. Wells, a character goes in search of Light but falls to his death in the process — the Wellsian concept of Light in the mind of the tragic hero in this particular story comes surprisingly close to the medieval theological concept of the Shechinah.
Yet another Jewish idea connected with the Shechinah was that it would return when the long-promised Messiah came. In the Gospel account of the Transfiguration of Jesus, when the disciples Peter, James, and John witnessed him shining with his rightful Divine Glory on the mountaintop with Moses and Elijah, the Shechinah could well have been put forward as an explanation.
To what extent can this extremely mysterious and powerful Shechinah light be associated with the records of the Exodus? Many of the biblical accounts surround it with a cloud, so that the brilliant radiance of the Shechinah shines through the cloud. In the Exodus account, “The Lord went before the Israelites by day in a pillar of cloud and by night in a pillar of fire.” Philo interprets this as, “The fiery appearance of the Deity shone forth from the cloud.”
Philo’s ideas are always well worth considering. Philo Judaeus, who was also known as Philo of Alexandria, was born in 15 B.C. and died in A.D. 50. He was a brilliantly intelligent, Greek-speaking, Jewish philosopher and theologian, whose great pioneering contribution to human thought was his attempt to reconcile faith with reason — an exceedingly difficult but supremely worthwhile intellectual task. Philo came of an extremely wealthy and influential family in Alexandria. He studied at one of the Greek Gymnasiums, where he mastered mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, grammar, and logic. He also made a deep study of rhetoric, like all other young academics of his time and place.
METURGEMAN
The meturgeman, meaning “interpreter” or “translator,” refers to a person who stood beside the reader of the Torah in the ancient synagogue and recited the Aramaic translation of the Bible. Rules set forth in the Talmud and other rabbinic literature state that the meturgeman was to stand upright next to the reader, reciting orally (not from a written text), and not raising his voice louder than that of the reader. These rules were invoked in order to preserve the importance of the original Hebrew text.
Unlike his more ascetic scholarly colleagues, Philo had the profound good sense to enjoy life as well as to think about its philosophical meaning. He was a keen boxing fan, an enthusiastic theatre-goer, and a devotee of chariot racing. When he wasn’t pursuing any of these sensible and healthy interests, he was enjoying an evening of good food and lavish entertainment: he was, in short, a practical bon viveur as well as a great thinker. Philo’s love of a “middle way” between the extremes of Jewish scriptural fundamentalism on one hand and a liberal disregard of the old laws because they were considered to be “only parables” on the other, would have made him quite a comfortable member of the present-day Anglican Church. He is far and away our most valuable, reliable and informative source of knowledge of the Hellenistic Judaism that was practised in Alexandria in his day.
The highlight of Philo’s career, however, was an occasion in the year A.D. 39 on which he displayed great courage and integrity when he dared to lead a delegation of Alexandrian Jews to complain to Caligula about a recent pogrom in their city: the ignorant and prejudiced Greek orator Apion, who was opposing Philo, had just delivered a despicable racist attack on the Jews. Philo was on the point of refuting Apion’s nonsense when Caligula decided he did not wish to hear any more arguments at that time. Philo, one of those rare beings who dared to risk the wrath of Caligula, told his colleagues not to be disheartened because God would very shortly deal with the insane Roman emperor. Shortly afterward, to everyone’s delight, Caligula was assassinated. A man like Philo definitely deserves to be heard.
So what was this strange and mysterious Shechinah that was associated with the even more mysterious Ark of the Covenant?
Looked at disinterestedly and objectively, the ark was not an exclusively Jewish artifact. The ancient Egyptians used Arks for religious purposes, as well, and there is a possibility that when Moses led the Israelite slaves out of bondage in Egypt, the ark and its contents came with them. Had Moses with his secret inner knowledge of the Egyptian Court — he had, after all, been raised as an Egyptian prince — brought some great and powerful ancient treasure away with him? Was that why Pharaoh, upon discovering its loss, had launched his finest chariots suicidally across the treacherous bed of the Red Sea?
If distinguished researchers like Colin Wilson and Graham Hancock are right, and some of the technological wonders of very ancient civilizations escaped terrifying inundations or major disasters caused by ice and polar change, did any of those advanced artifacts find their way to Egypt? Was the dangerously powerful Ark of the Covenant itself one such object, or was it the carefully shielded and insulated container for such an object? Was it the operation of a long-forgotten technology rather than the presence of a deity that caused the Shechinah?
The 1999 discoveries by the Joides Resolution scientists drilling the bed of the Indian Ocean have tentatively indicated the ancient inundation of a huge land mass almost a third the size of Australia. Fifty million years ago it was a lush and fertile land. Dinosaurs grazed on the abundant vegetation that grew there. Twenty million years ago movements of the Earth’s crust started it on its long journey to the ocean bed. If one such great land mass could go down, why not others?
Whether it was the work of Egyptian craftsmen, Israelite craftsmen, survivors of Atlantis, or extraterrestrial aliens, the Ark of the Covenant was described as thickly covered with gold. Apart from its commercial and artistic value, gold has the great practical advantages of being easy to work and massively resistant to corrosion — it also acts as an effective radiation shield. If there was an artifact inside the ark — some sort of weapon, perhaps — was it nuclear powered? Could the Shechinah have been a glow of pure energy, visible only when the machine was operating — in other words, when “God” was present and active?
Alongside the high-profile, magical, miraculous, and historical mysteries recorded in the Bible, there are some equally intriguing low-profile, behavioural mysteries. The strange sequence of events in the exotic house on the walls of Jericho is one of these.
At first glance the story is straightforward enough. Joshua, the brilliant Hebrew general who took over the leadership when Moses died, wisely decided to send two spies to the Canaanite city of Jericho before attacking it.
THE SCARLET CORD
In Middle Eastern cities of that period, inns, taverns, and brothels tended to be situated near the gates so that travellers arriving in the city could locate them easily. A scarlet cord hanging from a window and a scarlet lamp above the door would indicate the nature of the premises.
As the Hebrew spies approached, they saw at once that one particular brothel situated on the city wall would be an ideal vantage point from which to study the gate and other defences.
Once inside, they meet Rahab and arrange to stay. Nerves are on edge in Jericho. News of Joshua’s previous military successes against the neighbouring Canaanite strongholds has already reached the city. The arrival of the Hebrew spies has been quietly observed. News of their arrival reaches the king. He sends for Rahab and demands to know where these two dangerous men are.
She reports that they were there earlier, but had slipped away at dusk just before the gates were due to be secured for the night. She assures the king that a swift patrol would almost certainly be able to overtake them.
Meanwhile, she hides them in the flax in case she is not believed and a search party is sent to the house. She begs them to save her and her family when the Hebrew army storms Jericho.
They make her a solemn promise, and instruct her to bring her family together into this house on the wall when the attack starts. They explain that it is vitally important for her to mark the window with the scarlet cord so that the house can be identified.
At the first opportunity, Rahab lowers them down the wall on that same scarlet cord and advises them to make for the mountains and hide there until the patrol gives up the search for them.
The plan works. They remain in the mountains for a day or two, then return safely to the Hebrew camp and report everything to Joshua.
When the attack on Jericho takes place, they go to Rahab’s house while the carnage rages all round it. No one else is spared. Jericho is devastated and destroyed. The vow to Rahab and her family is faithfully kept. Intriguingly, Joshua, chapter 6, verse 25, records that “Rahab is with us to this day,” indicating that she married a Hebrew and that their descendants were still thriving in the Hebrew nation when the book of Joshua came to be written.
The story as it stands, however, raises several challenging behavioural mysteries. Why did the spies feel sure that they could trust Rahab? Why did she feel certain that she could trust them? They literally trusted one another with their very lives. Do strangers of different nationalities normally offer and accept that kind of ultimate trust?
Their trust was not only mutually offered and accepted: subsequent events proved that it was totally justified by the solid gold integrity of both parties. Spies and prostitutes both live in convoluted serpentine worlds where honesty and integrity are rarer than lap-dancers in a monastery. Rahab herself had no difficulty in telling the king of Jericho a yarn that would have done justice to Baron von Munchausen.
Despite the nature of her work, Rahab was undoubtedly deeply devoted to her family. It wasn’t solely her own life she begged for: she wanted to save her parents, brothers, and sisters, as well. And why were the spies so determined to keep their word to her? It’s easy enough under the stresses of war for integrity to be the first casualty. Promises are even more vulnerable than flesh and bone when bloodstained swords are swinging in the desperate heat of battle and the only law is kill or be killed. Yet their promise to Rahab and her family was sacrosanct to the two Hebrew spies? Why?
Is it possible that Rahab was a Jewish girl? The well-known account of Joseph and his coat of many colours is a stark reminder that Canaan was infested with opportunist slave traders of the kind who sold Joseph in Egypt. The Hebrew families who straggled out of Egypt with Moses easily became separated from their main column. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for slave traders to abduct Rahab and her family under cover of darkness.
But how to get the best price for them in Jericho? Beautiful young Rahab is undoubtedly the jewel in the crown, and the slavers know exactly where to take her. The proprietor of the house on the wall begins the long, inevitable haggling. No, he has no interest in the others. They might just be worth a handful of silver as domestic servants…. It is only Rahab who is worth gold because she can earn gold. The others are practically a liability. The parents might just as well be killed now. They will not really justify the price of feeding them. If the girl proves difficult and uncooperative, even she may not be worth anything. The slavers understand the haggling arguments only too well.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, the spirited and intelligent slave girl intervenes. She understands perfectly well what is going on, what their problems are. Perhaps she can help them all?
Rahab and her family captured by slave traders.
The proprietor and the slavers listen attentively. What if she is willing to be totally committed to her work and to making her customers happy? She could earn far more for him than three or four desperately unhappy girls who have to be starved and beaten into reluctant, passive submission. She will attract extra customers for him. In return, will he allow her family to stay, too, as domestic servants, to gather wood, to fetch water, to prepare flax for linen, to spin, to weave, to clean? One price for the whole family and she will be the best harlot in Jericho.
If he doesn’t believe her, would he like to prove it for himself. She will sleep with him here … now … then he can decide if she’s worth what she’s asking. There are nods and smiles.…
The proprietor leads Rahab to his couch…. He is more than satisfied that she can honour her bargain. Money changes hands. She has won. The family who mean more to her than her own life are safe…. Just as importantly, she has kept them together.
As long as they are alive and together there is always hope of rescue. Joshua will conquer this land before long. They will go back to their people. This house on the wall will be like a nightmare that fades when the sun rises.
One day two strangers come in. Something about them makes her wonder. Dare she ask them who they are and where they’re from? Could they possibly be Joshua’s men?
She dare not speak to them in Hebrew. The house is full of local clients and local girls. One wrong word and the strangers — if they are Joshua’s men — will be captured. Her persistent hope of rescue will be disappointed. One of the men beckons and smiles. Money changes hands. She takes him to her room. As they undress she sees that he is circumcized. Now they are alone she dares to whisper in Hebrew. His eyes brighten. He smiles warmly. He answers her in Hebrew. She tells him her story. He tells her why he and his brother are there.
The attack on Jericho will not be long delayed. They talk urgently about the present danger to him and the imminent danger to her and her family when the great attack begins. In the heat of battle, no Israeli soldier will have time to stay his sword stroke at the urgent pleading of a girl dressed as a Jericho harlot.
Rahab is already very concerned that someone will have reported the spies’ presence in the city … even reported that they are in her house on the wall…. It will be best if she hides them among the flax.…
They are no sooner safely hidden than messengers arrive from the king. She plans her story quickly. She’s quick-witted as well as beautiful. That’s what saved her family after the slavers brought them all to Jericho. Yes, of course, the men were here. One of them was her client. They left soon afterward. She’s almost certain that they’ve left the city. If the king’s soldiers pursue them swiftly it should not be difficult to overtake them. It is an honour to be of service to the king.
As soon as it is dark enough, she lowers the men down the same strong red cord that hangs from the window to tell the world what the house on the wall has to offer, the same scarlet cord that is destined to save her life.…
So her integrity is absolute, and so is theirs. It is a life for a life, an infinite trust for an infinite trust.
The collapsing walls leave Jericho totally vulnerable. The invincible Israeli army storms through from all directions. The two spies race for the house on the wall. Rahab’s family are gathered with her. All are safe. Her courage and intelligence have saved them a second time. The spy she spoke with has his arms protectively around her lovely young shoulders — but not for money this time. There is a powerful bond between people who have saved each other’s lives.
So there is a fairy-tale happy ending. They marry. They raise a family.
And at the time when the book of Joshua was written, Rahab’s descendants were thriving among their fellow Israelites. Hopefully, they still are.
