BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 58
February, 1994
Copyright 1994, Biblical Horizons
(The first part of this essay is found in Biblical Horizons 57, January 1994.)
Spiral I: Summary
The first sin is the sin against the Father. It is impatience. The Father has promised that if we eat of the Tree of Life and hold off from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (the Tree of Rule), we will in time be admitted to the Throneland and sit at His right hand. Adam chose to try and make himself a god equal to God. Abraham showed true patience, and became a "prince of God" to the people (Gen. 23).
The second sin is the sin against the Son. It is the sin of murderous intent against other people. It takes place in the home or homeland: We harbor our most murderous feelings towards those closest to us. Cain murdered Abel. Jacob wrestled with Isaac, Esau, and Laban, and through them the Son was wrestling with him to make him mature. As a result, Jacob came to have peace with Esau and for a time enjoyed the land.
The third sin is the sin against the Spirit. It is the sin of lust, of marriage with the world. The Spirit strove with the Sethites before the Fall, but they hardened their hearts and married the daughters of the Cainites. When Joseph was thrust into the outer world, he was soft to the Spirit and rejected Potiphar’s wife, so that Pharaoh confessed that he possessed "the Spirit of God." The result was the conversion of the Egyptians.
There is a fourth sin (against the sabbath), but it does not become explicit until the next Spiral, the Spiral of the Son. The theme of the fourth period, however, is the sabbath, something provided by Noah and Moses. The sin against the sabbath committed by Moses’ people was their refusal to enter the land (Heb. 4).
Now, all of this revelation concerns the interaction of persons with persons, not man with Law. Of course, because God is God, the Law is in the background all along, but it is in the background. What is in the foreground is persons.
The revelation we have just summarized, however, points to the Law in its central expression, the Ten Words:
1. No other gods equal to God – affirm the Father.
2. No bowing to manmade things – affirm the Son, bowing to God and to other persons only.
3. Do not carry about and exalt God’s name in an empty fashion – affirm the Spirit’s true uncompromised witness before the world.
4. Sabbath – when God says "Go in", go in!
5. Recaps 1: Honor God’s authorities – affirm Father.
6. Recaps 2: Do not kill – affirm Son, don’t murder brother.
7. Recaps 3: No adultery – no false intermarriage.
8. Recaps 1: Do not steal – keep your hands off the Tree of Rule! Be patient when you seem to be powerless, and wait for God to reward you.
9. Recaps 2: No false witness against neighbor (brother) – don’t lie, as Cain did.
10. Recaps 3: No coveting – don’t lust after the world.
Thus, Words 1, 5, & 8 focus most pointedly on the first phase; Words 2, 6, & 9 focus most pointedly on the second phase; Words 3, 7, & 10 focus most pointedly on the third phase; and Word 4 points to the sabbath.
Our summary and overview thus far has provided a reason why the sabbath Word is fourth and not tenth: The sabbath sets in motion the next spiral. Moreover, the sabbath is given by God, not earned by man, and thus fits after the three God-affirming Words, not after the entire set.
Volume II, Part 2
Spiral II focuses on the Son, the Word or Torah of God. It is the Age of the Law. The Torah "comes" at Mount Sinai, and Yahweh is enthroned as King through His Law.
Spiral II is made possible by extensions of circumcision from the central horn to the three outer horns of right earlobe, right thumb, and right foot. These correspond to Spirals IIA, B, & C, the age of hearing, the age of action, and the age of witness (travel).
Spiral II:A (Age of Ox-Priest; Age of Circumcised Ear)
God’s Name to the Patriarchs was "El Shaddai, the All Powerful God, so you and trust His Promises." The new name, Yahweh, means "The God who Keeps the Promises made to the Fathers, so you can trust His Law." The first phase of Spiral II reveals God’s Name simply as Yahweh.
The issue in Judges is not the worship of Yahweh through icon shrines on high places, nor is it the abuse of God’s name through Pharisaism. Rather, the issue is in the area of the First Word: worshipping other gods. Thus, we shall have to take a close look at the First Word.
Also, this is an age of tribes. Israel wars against other tribes (Ammonites, Canaanites, Philistines), not against other nations. We shall have to consider the characteristics of tribal order, and how the Sinaitic period presents the true form of the tribe.
The tendency of tribes to worship their fathers is countered by the worship at the Tabernacle, a symbol of the heavenly cloud of God. Ancestor-worship is countered by heaven-worship.
We can see some mini-spirals within this period. For instance:
1. At the golden calf, Israel rebelled against God as God.
2. In the Korah incident, Israel rebelled against Moses and Aaron as older brothers.
3. With the Midianite women, Israel committed the sin of Intermarriage.
Or again, in the three climax stories in Judges:
1. Gideon sets up an ephod, false worship.
2. Jephthah must deal with his brothers.
3. Samson wrestles with true and false intermarriage.
Or again, with Saul:
1. In 1 Sam. 13 Saul commits Sacrilege.
2. In 1 Sam. 14 Saul attempts Fratricide against Jonathan.
3. In 1 Sam. 15 Saul attempts Intermarriage with Agag.
Spiral II:B (Age of Lion-King; Age of Circumcised Hand)
The Kingdom is the second phase. God’s Name shifts to Yahweh Adonai, Yahweh the Master, who must be acknowledged always as High King over the kings of Israel.
During this period, brother murders brother in David’s house, and eventually the kingdom splits between two large brothers: Israel and Judah. The sin in focus is against the Second Word, as both nations pretend to worship Yahweh, but use icons and shrines on high places. Thus, we shall have to make a study of the Second Word.
We shall also have to study the nature of Kingdoms, for during this period Israel is a Kingdom, and wars against other Kingdoms (Syria, Tyre, Assyria, Egypt, Babylon).
The tendency of Kingdoms to worship heavenly bodies in the privacy of silent temples and shrines is countered by the worship at the Temple, a symbol of the halo of corporate praise enthusiastically sung in the Psalms by the Levitical choir and orchestra around God. Silent shrine worship is countered by sung corporate praise.
Here again we shall see some mini-spirals:
1. Saul primarily rebels against God.
2. In David’s reign, it is brother against brother that is the problem (Joab’s behavior; David and Uriah; etc.)
3. Solomon’s main sin involved intermarriage with 999 too many women.
Again:
1. David’s first sin was to ignore God’s laws regarding the treatment of the Ark of the Covenant.
2. David’s second sin was the murder of Uriah.
3. David’s third sin was to number the people as his own.
Again:
1. Solomon’s first sin was to multiply gold.
2. Solomon’s second sin was political: selling his brethren into slavery for horses.
3. Solomon’s third sin was women.
Spiral II:C (Age of Eagle-Prophet & Emperor; Age of Circumcised Foot)
The Restoration is the third phase. God’s name transforms to Yahweh of Hosts, the International God.
During this period, intermarriage is the issue, as seen in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. True witness and proper intermarriage is seen in Esther. True witness like true marriage is the work of the Spirit, and the prophets promised that in the Restoration there would be a greater outpouring of the Spirit. True to this promise, the Jews took their witness worldwide in the centuries before Christ.
Carrying God’s name, in worship and life, is the main Word in focus, so we shall have to make a study of the Third Word. The Pharisees claimed to bear God’s name faithfully, but God gave them a curse of verbal anorexia so that they would not even say it aloud!
The scene is international, so we shall have to set out the characteristics of an imperial or cosmopolitan social order, a combination of tribe and kingdom. The tendency of imperial worship to pomp and circumstance is countered by the rather "invisible" worship is a small temple and the synagogue.
During this period, there is no longer a political order closely tied to God’s kingdom. The priests rule. Also, the church becomes fragmented into sects. The Sadducees compromise by adopting Greek philosophy. The Zealots compromise by adopting Roman political methods. The Pharisees refuse to compromise and are the best elements (which is why Jesus engages them), but many bear false witness to God’s name. The Essenes refuse to compromise and drop out of society. Nobody does true witness and nobody engages in proper intermarriage with a converted world. (Remember that Peter sinfully refused to enter the house of a converted gentile Cornelius!)
Perhaps there is at least one mini-spiral in Nehemiah:
1. First they try to get Nehemiah to stop building God’s city (ch. 4).
2. Second they use the power of the new order to oppress the poor (ch. 5).
3. Third they commit the sin of intermarriage (ch. 13).
Spiral II:D (Age of Man-the Son of God; Age of Full Circumcision)
Which brings us to Christ, the Greater Noah and Moses, who brings rest. Yahweh is now fully revealed as Lawgiver and Lord. Sending the Spirit, Jesus inaugurates the third and final age of world history. The four gospels present Christ as New Moses (Ox; Matthew), New David (Lion; Mark), New Prophet and World Emperor (Eagle; Luke), and New Man (Man; John).
With Christ’s entrance into the true Throneland in heaven, all tribal, national, and cosmopolitan orders are severely relativized.
Spiral II: Summary
Rather than summarize, let me point out a couple of other features to this progression as a whole.
First, in the Tabernacle, we are told that the cherubim have faces, but not what they were. Only oxen (not lions or eagles) are found in the Tabernacle.
Second, in the Temple, we are still not told about the faces of the cherubim, but ox and lion stand side-by-side in the decor of the Temple: priest and king.
Third, in Ezekiel, we are told of the four faces, but the man face is obscured. The eagle face comes into prominence now, representing both the emperor and the prophet.
Fourth, in the Gospels we see all four faces, with the man face ruling over all.
Additionally, this four-fold progression can be seen not only as A-B-C-D, but also as A-B-A’-B’. In Zechariah, the crown is put on the high priest, and the Davidic kingship of Zerubbabel goes out of the picture. The high priests rule Israel. In a sense, we are back to a priestly ministry in a society without an official "Christian" king. When we get to Christ, we see once again King and Priest, as Christ fulfills the priestly role and is elevated to be King. Thus, the progression from Aaron to David is recapitulated in the progression from Jeshua to Christ.
Volume II, Part 3
This is the Age of the Spirit, made possible by the circumcision of Christ, His complete death. His complete death is given to us, that we might live as dead people, living sacrifices, fully circumcised in all of life. The old creation in its entirety is cut off, and the new creation comes.
Spiral III:A
The first Age of the Spirit is the Early Church. Here the issue is: Who is God? The great councils and creeds hammer out the doctrine. Worship and sacrificial living become important virtues. The temptation is to worship other gods. The good news is the new community of the Church. While the empire overshadows all, the basic social order is tribal: many ethnic groups which are replaced by the Church as true tribe. The institution developed in this period is the Church. The evil influence is Plato. Worship gradually declines and draws the tribal faces from totem poles and the "house of masks" into worship, replacing the big eyes of the watching ancestors with the big eyes of the watching spiritual fathers (the saints). We dare not depart from the fathers! History, thus, must stop developing.
Spiral III:B
The second Age of the Spirit shifts to Northern Europe for the Medieval Church. Here the issue is: How did Christ work out our salvation? The doctrine of atonement receives attention. Charity to fellow believers becomes an important virtue. The temptation is to worship through icons and sacraments, things made by human hands. The institution developed in this period is the state. Kings on thrones rule nations that are explicitly Christian, and the Davidic monarchy is the standard symbol. The evil influence is Aristotle. Worship becomes beautiful, citified, cathedralized, regal, as in the days of Solomon. Gradually the Church leans more and more on the state to enforce Church doctrine, and uses the state to kill those who disagree with the Church.
Spiral III:C
The third Age of the Spirit shifts somewhat to the West again for the Protestant Church. Here the issue is: How does the Spirit apply the work of Christ to us? The answer is justification by faith. Witnessing becomes a very important virtue. The temptation is to carry God’s name emptily as a result of ideology. The institution is the university. The Church breaks up into denominations: some sadducean (liberal), some zealotic (political: fifth monarchists etc.), some pharisaical (conservative for good pharisees; and legalists), some essene (the anabaptists and other dropouts). The social order is cosmopolitan: many nations with common cultures, but no longer explicitly Christian. The evil influence is Nominalism. Worship becomes intellectualized, universityized, seminaryized, ideological. Gradually worship disappears pretty much altogether.
Spiral III:A’
Western Civilization is over, and so is the Protestant era. Men no longer know the law and they no longer fear God, so the doctrine of justification by faith falls on deaf ears. We are moving into a period of international neo-tribalism as the present cosmopolitan orders collapse. The gospel must once again be the community and worship of the Church. But this time, the spiral will be much bigger than merely the Mediterranean world, and this time, thanks to Van Til, we shall deepen our first doctrine, the doctrine of God, without Plato.
Conclusion
Well, there you have a summary, overview, and foretaste of Through New Eyes Volume II. As I polish my research, do more research, and as I write up the newsletters this year, we shall fill in the details and refine the argument.
Biblical Chronology
Vol. 6, No. 2
February, 1994
Copyright © James B. Jordan 1994
by James B. Jordan
Last month we began a survey and review of Centuries of Darkness by Peter James (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, [1991] 1993). The thesis of this book is that the dark ages that supposedly happened all over the Mediterranean world between about 1100 and 800 B.C. never actually happened, and that these dark ages, as well as other problems of ancient history and archaeology, are really the results of "a gigantic academic blunder, perpetuated by the convenience of a seemingly reliable time-scale, as well as the sheer complexity of the issues involved" (p. 320).
In the course of their discussions, James and his colleagues discuss some other problems with ancient world chronology. I want to begin this month with a survey of some of these.
Carbon-14 Dating
Creationists are accustomed to criticisms of Carbon-14 dating, but it is interesting to read such criticisms in a secular work. Carbon-14 is an unstable radioactive isotope and it constantly changes back into nitrogen by the emission of an electron. Half the Carbon-14 in a block of carbon will revert to nitrogen in about 5730 years. By measuring this, scientists can determine when the carbon was produced, supposedly. Since, however, this method is not very accurate, Carbon-14 dates are always quoted with a Standard Deviation, which represents the degree of accuracy.
The first problem James points to is that "in practice the vast majority of results have a Standard Deviation greater than fifty years" (p. 323). This means that there is less than a 68% chance that the date assigned to the carbon piece is within 50 years of being accurate on either side. It may be as much as 200 years off on either side.
Second, James points out that "in certain circumstances old carbon can be absorbed by living organisms and produce radiocarbon dates that are too old" (p. 323). This is especially true in volcanic areas.
A third problem arises from the dating of timber used in construction. Suppose a three-hundred year old tree is felled and beams are cut from it. Over the centuries, the outer part of the beam rots or is burned. What remains from the inner core of the tree may be a century or two older than the house it was used to construct. A Carbon-14 reading of such a timber would, thus, be off by a century or more.
A fourth problem is that one of the original assumptions behind Carbon-14 dating has proven unsound. It was originally held that the proportion of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12 was nearly constant through time. This has proved not to be the case. The amount of C-14 in the atmosphere has fluctuated greatly in the past, falling and rising sometimes within a single century. For instance, because of these fluctuations, anything from the years 400 to 800 BC will give a C-14 date of 500 BC. Thus, Carbon-14 dating is completely useless for that entire period. It is becoming highly questionable for any period.
The Date of the Fall of Troy
Once we eliminate the Greek "dark age," the fall of Troy is set around the year 800 BC. A problem with this date is that the ancient writers put it much earlier. Herodotus puts it at around 1250 BC, and similar dates are provided by Timaeus, Cleitarchus, the Parian Marble, Sosibius, Ephorus, Phaenias of Eresus, and Callimachus. The date 1184 BC, provided by Eratosthenes, became the standard date. There are good reasons to question all of this, because the ancient writers used very questionable methods to arrive at it.
James writes that "the most widely used system of dating in classical antiquity was that of the Olympic Games, which were regularly held in Greece every four years up until their abolition in AD 393 by the Emperor Theodosius. The period from one celebration to the next was known as an `Olympiad’, the first of which was traditionally reckoned as beginning in the year 776 BC (p. 328).
There are many questions about this system. For one, the first actual use of numbered Olympiads as a basis for dating is found in Eratosthenes around 200 BC. Someone must have drawn up a list of previous Olympic Games for him to use. Plutarch (c. AD 50-120) says that Hippias of Elis, in the late 5th century BC, drew up a list of victors of the races. But "what kind and how extensive was the documentation available to Hippias? Did he really manage to assemble scattered evidence for victors of the same athletic competition from over ninety Olympiads, enabling him to create a complete list up to his own time? How critical by modern standards were his methods?" (p. 329).
A second question is this: Were the games held every four years from the beginning? What evidence is there for believing that they were?
James concludes: "In fact we simply do not know when the Olympic Games began, and the accepted date of 776 BC, upon which so many synchronisms have rested since antiquity, can hardly be used as a fixed chronological point" (p. 329).
Another chronological system available to Greek historians was the list of archons, the rulers of Athens. The official list ran back to 1068 BC, but James shows that anything before the 400s BC must be regarded with suspicion, because it seems to have been invented at that time.
Genealogies were another chronological system that ancient Greek historians could use to calculate the date of the Trojan war, but here again their methods are suspect. Herodotus supposes three generations in a century, which is clearly too few. Data from the ancient world suggests four generations per century would be more reliable.
Moreover, "as Sir Isaac Newton pointed out long ago, continuous father-to-son successions for the two Spartan royal lines over twenty-one generations is highly improbable on biological grounds. He suggested that the genealogies recorded by Herodotus and others must in fact have been a king list" (p. 331).
James summarizes: "One way in which such errors inevitably crept into the calculations for events such as the Trojan War was through overestimating the length of a generation. Dynastic lines may also have been misinterpreted as genealogies, in line with the general tendency to exaggerate the length and purity of one’s pedigree found throughout the ancient world" (p. 332).
James concludes his discussion with the following example: "A flagrant example of the way the chronology could be extended to match prevailing notions comes from the Romans. Some of their earliest traditions put the Fall of Troy close in time to the founding of Rome–in one version Romulus (originally Rhomus) was the grandson of Aeneas the Trojan refugee. A problem arose when this scheme was compared to the canonical Greek system:
"Greek researchers into chronology, notably Timaeus and the Eratosthenes of Cyrene … made the Romans aware that their myths were still much too thin upon the ground. For, once it was established that the Trojan War had taken place–that Aeneas and Ascanius had lived–at a date not far from 1100 B.C., and that Rome had not been founded until three hundred years later, there remained a subsequent yawning gap to be filled. And so the mythographers duly filled it–with a list of the kings of Alba Longa. A few traditions on this subject dated back to earlier times. But the king-list, as we have it, is made up by historians of the third, second, and first centuries B.C.: or more particularly Cato, whose interests in such towns prompted him to attempt a circumstantial account. (M. Grant, Roman Myths [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973], p. 106.)
"How far sheer invention played a part in the development of other detailed chronological schemes for Greek history is difficult to tell. But the Roman example clearly illustrates how the ancient system, once in existence, acquired its own momentum and could gather more `evidence’ to support it as time went on" (p. 333).
The bottom line is that the traditional dates provided by Greek historians for the fall of Troy are not reliable. The Greeks were themselves relying on very dubious historical methods, and on information that was almost certainly false.
Calculating Eclipses
We have seen (last month) that James and his associates argue that Manetho’s dynasties cannot be used to form a chronology for Egypt without considerable interpretation from other sources. They have argued that the attempt to date events in Egypt by means of the star Sirius are illusory. This month we have seen them undermine attempts to form chronologies from Carbon-14 and from Greek and Roman historians.
One source that the writers do not question, though they should, is the "Canon of Ptolemy." James summarizes the work of Ptolemy: "Claudius Ptolemy, the famous Greek mathematician and geographer, recorded for posterity the names and reign-lengths of the kings of Babylon from Alexander the Great, who died there in 323 BC, back to Nabonassar, who ascended the throne in 747 BC. How Ptolemy came across documents containing such information is uncertain, but his interest in them lay mainly in their astronomical content. The sources available to him, now lost, provided detailed records of lunar eclipses observed by the ancient Babylonians, which Ptolemy dated according to an era beginning with the accession of King Nabonassar" (p. 265).
In 1978, astronomer Robert Newton published a study entitled The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press), in which he claimed that Ptolemy had faked his astronomical data; that is, Ptolemy had calculated when these lunar and solar eclipses should have taken place, and had put them into his chronology.
James and his colleagues believe that Newton has no case (p. 267f.), but they should deal more carefully with his argument. Newton has for years studied the "accelerations" of the earth and the moon. These "accelerations" are small increases and decreases in the rotational speed of the earth, and of the speed at which the moon revolves around the earth. (Technically, the word "acceleration" is used both for accelerations and decelerations in these motions.) Newton has been employed by NASA to make these studies, and his many volumes deal with such perturbations all over the solar system.
What causes such small changes? One cause is tidal forces. Occasionally the moon makes a slight adjustment in its orbit because of the tidal pull of the earth and of the sun upon it. The earth undergoes similar adjustments in its rotation. Another cause for rotational changes in the earth might be movements of magma in the mantle of the earth.
The importance of all this is that the farther back in time we go, the more unlikely it is that our calculations of eclipses will be correct. The changes in earthly rotation and lunar revolution may mean that an eclipse happened several days away, and was visible thousands of miles away. Thus, the fact that the Assyrian Eponym List records a solar eclipse during a certain month of the reign of Simanu does not mean that we know what year this took place. The presently-accepted year of 763 BC may be well off. The Simanu eclipse may have been a century later, or earlier.
And this is not to take into account continental drift. If there has been any continental drift at all, calculations of where an eclipse was visible may be well off base. To be sure, this part of the world is not the part that is said to have drifted very much, but it is hard to believe it did not move at all if the other continents were drifting.
Moreover, James and his associates do tell us that "studies by British astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier of the orbits of meteor streams and asteroids have shown that there were sizeable cometary bodies in the Solar System during the Bronze Age times which have since disintegrated" (p. 337). The movement of such asteroid swarms through the Solar System may well have slowed or altered the orbit of the moon. If such were the case, we would have no way to calculate past eclipses.
All of this is to say that eclipse data are very shaky. James and his associates need to take more seriously the work of Newton and others, for it may well be that the "fixed dates" provided by the calculation of eclipses are completely unreliable and of no use to the formation of the chronology of the ancient world.
Ptolemy’s King List
Martin Anstey, in his Romance of Bible Chronology (1913; reprinted by Kregel, Grand Rapids, in 1973 as Chronology of the Old Testament), provides a discussion of Ptolemy’s Canon or King List. He argues that Ptolemy erred in his list of the Persian kings. Ptolemy’s list of Persian rulers and the lengths of their reigns, upon which the Current Consensus Chronology relies, is this:
Cyrus 9
Cambyses 8
Darius I 36
Xerxes 21
Artaxerxes I 41
Darius II 19
Artaxerxes II 46
Ochus 21
Arogus 2
Darius III 4
Alexander of Macedon’s Conquest
Now the problem with this is that Ptolemy (AD 70-161) lived well after the facts and in another culture. The records from the cultures actually involved with the Persian empire, some dating from times much closer to the events, provide a shorter list. Let us consider first of all the Persian poet Firdusi (Firdausi, and other spellings), who lived AD 931-1020. He provides a national epic of Persia that is full of legends and stories. Still, he does provide a list of Persian kings of this period, which is as follows:
[Cyrus]
[Cambyses]
Darius I
Artaxerxes Longimanus
Queen Homai, mother of:
Darius II
Darius III, defeated by Alexander
The Talmucid tract Seder Olam, written in the early middle ages in its final form, provides a very short Persian empire:
Cyrus
Cambyses
Darius
Finally, Josephus, writing in the late first century and the earliest source we have, provides this list:
Cyrus
Cambyses
Darius
Xerxes
Artaxerxes
Darius II, the last king
Now, none of these lists is particularly reliable either, but they do call into question Ptolemy’s. It may be that all the rulers listed by Ptolemy actually did hold the throne, but they may have reigned for shorter times than he alloted them.
The fact is that the Persian period is open for revision. One revisionist effort, with which I must disagree, is summarized by Brad Aaronson in the Summer, 1991, issue of Jewish Action: "Fixing the History Books: Dr. Chaim S. Heifetz’s Revision of Persian History" (pp. 66-70). Heifetz revises Persian history to make it accord with the sequence of kings given in the Seder Olam. Just as the CCC is too long for the Biblical chronology, so the Sedar Olam account of the Persian empire is too short. But Heifetz’s labors at least show that revision is possible, given the extreme paucity of accurate information about this period of history. As Aaronson notes, "Modern scholars reject Greek accounts of Mesopotamian history prior to the fall of Babylon almost in their entirety. The large number of Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions make it clear that the Greeks had no grasp of the actual history of this region. But due to the fact that Alexander the Great destroyed the bulk of Persian records when he conquered Persia, the only records of the Persian period are the Greek stories and the Jewish tradition" (p. 67).
In short, this is a field wide open for revisionist research and development.
* * * * * *
Donald Wesley Patten, Catastrophism and the Old Testament: The Mars-Earth Conflicts (Pacific Meridian Publishing Co., 1988), reviewed by James B. Jordan.
In this book, Donald Patten contends that the planet Mars originally had an eccentric orbit that brought it into near proximity to the earth a number of times in ancient history. According to him, these "Mars fly-bys" account for a number of the miraculous events recorded in the Old Testament.
Whether Patten claims to be a Christian or not, I do not know. It is clear from the first chapter of his book that he accepts neither the Biblical account of the creation of the world nor its chronology of history. Throughout his book he ridicules orthodox interpretations of the Bible. His book is of interest to us for only two reasons: (1) it has had some influence in some Christian circles, and (2) it is an example of crack-pot exegesis of the Bible.
Patten’s work is typical of the kind of thing that results with people with fruitcake ideas run to the Bible to find evidence for their notions. I do not know whether Mars actually passed near to the earth in ancient times. I do know that the Bible provides no evidence for such a notion.
According to Patten, when Exodus 14:19-20 tells us that the Angel of God appeared as a pillar of cloud and fire, this refers to the fiery appearance of a volcanically active Mars passing near the earth. The pillar of cloud and fire that led Israel through the wilderness was Mars. Actually, the pillar was a manifestation of God in His glory, a glory created by the angels around His throne. This is what the Bible means by the term, not the planet Mars!
Similarly, when the Angel of God brought a plague upon Israel in David’s day, we again have a reference to Mars (1 Chronicles 21:15). No, the reference is to God’s own action. Remember that David was given a choice of which of three kinds of plagues he would have to undergo. God acted directly on this occasion, not the planet Mars.
The destruction of the Assyrians by the Angel of God in Isaiah 37:38 is also ascribed to Mars. No, God did it.
When Judges 5:20 says that the stars fought against Sisera, it refers to Mars. No, the stars here are angels, who brought the rainstorm that swamped Sisera’s chariots and enabled the Israelites to defeat them.
When the psalmist says that God rode on a cherub, it refers to Mars. No, it refers to God’s glory cloud-chariot.
The Leviathan in Job 41 is Mars. No, it is a great sea monster.
Naturally, the great Flood was caused by Mars, as was Joshua’s long day. Maybe they were, but the Bible says nothing about it.
Mars caused what he calls the "barbecue" on Mt. Carmel in Elijah’s day. No, God sent fire from His hearth, just as He did when the Tabernacle and Temple were initially set up (Lev. 9:24; 2 Chron. 7:1).
About the only thing that does not show up in this book is the appearance of God’s glory to Ezekiel. Maybe this was a flying saucer!
Patten’s slovenly work is, unfortunately, typical of a lot of revisionist work being done in ancient world chronology. Patten grossly misinterprets the text of the Bible, and so do most other catastrophists, including Velikhovsky. Given how little they understand of the Biblical text, we can have no confidence at all in their understanding of other texts from other cultures. Catastrophic revisionists are not reliable guides to the ancient world, and should be read with great caution.
Rite Reasons, Studies in Worship, No. 31
Copyright (c) 1994 Biblical Horizons
February, 1994
As we consider the Age of the Law, which begins with the public enthronement of Yahweh (the Second Person of God; the Son; the Word) on Mount Sinai and then in the Tabernacle, we need to consider the Ten Words. These are generally called the “Ten Commandments,” but that is an unhelpful and misleading name for them. The Bible calls them the Ten Words, and never calls them the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:28; Dt. 4:13, 10:4). The New Testament uses the word “commandment” (Greek: entole) to refer to all parts and aspects of the Law given at Sinai: two great commandments, many least commandments, etc. Thus, we might speak of the Ten Words as the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, the phrase “Ten Commandments” has driven out the phrase “Ten Words,” so that the actual nature of the Ten Words is not clearly understood.
The Ten Words contain more than commands. They contain historical facts (“who brought you out of the land of Egypt”), theological statements (“for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God”), threats (“visiting iniquity”), promises (“showing lovingkindness”), rationales (“for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth . . . “). The same thing is true of the rest of the “laws” given at Sinai, which are called “ordinances,” for which reason it is not correct to speak of Exodus 21-23 as a “law code,” nor is it accurate to speak of it as “case laws.”
Thus, the Words and Ordinances (Ex. 24:3) are not “laws” or “commandments” in the usual English sense of these words. We don’t really have a good English word for the Sinaitic “Law.” We might use the word “Torah,” which means “teaching,” and of course any teaching from God has absolute authority. Exodus 24:12 calls the Ten Words torah, but it also calls them mitsvah, which means “something commanded.” Thus, the Ten Words and the many Ordinances are a combination of teaching and commandment from God. For simplicity’s sake and because the word already has pretty good connotations for our purposes, I shall call the “Mosaic law” by the name Torah.
Thus, “Biblical law” is something a bit looser and broader than what we think of as law. It is God’s authoritative teaching and commandment, which would form the foundation for a specific law code, but which would also form the foundation for wisdom and insight. Thus, when Paul speaks of the condemnation of the “law” (torah), he refers not only to condemnation that comes from breaking commandments, but also to condemnation that comes from not living in the full stature of human holiness. To put it another way, Torah has both a legal and a personal dimension to it. When we use the English word “law” or “commandment,” we miss the personal, teaching side of Torah. Issuing from the mouth of the Second Person of the Trinity, Torah is both Son (person) and Word (content).
What does the Torah actually say? As it stands, what the Torah commands in the way of salvation is exactly what the Gospel commands. When we understand this, we can understand that many people kept the Torah blamelessly, and found salvation. “And they were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and judgments of the Lord” (Luke 1:6).
Start at the beginning of the Torah: “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; you shall have no other gods before Me.” What does this, the First Word, command? It tells us to put our final faith and trust in the true God, the only God there is, who has redeemed us from bondage to sin, the curse of His wrath. Now, this clearly is exactly what the Gospel commands us to do as well.
Second, the Torah provides a series of orders that we are to obey. This is also the teaching of the Gospel. Those who put their trust in God are to obey Him.
But that is not the end. Suppose we sin? The Torah says that when we sin, we are to come back to God through the sacrifices that He has instituted. This is exactly what the Gospel says as well: When we sin, we come back to God through the final sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
So, was it possible to be saved by keeping the Torah? Certainly, in the full sense of keeping the Torah. Those who kept the Torah (a) put their trust in God, who had redeemed them, (b) strove to obey Him, and (c) when they sinned, returned to Him through the substitutionary sacrifices.
Thus, what the Torah said is simply the preliminary form of what the Gospel says. This is why Paul so often praises the Torah.
With this in mind, let us consider the First Word in detail.
The First Word
The First Word provides salvation and redemption as the context in which the Torah comes. It begins, “I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” This statement is sometimes said to be the prologue to the Ten Words, but the next phrase says, “you shall have no other gods before Me.” The “Me” must refer back to “Yahweh,” and thus links the two statements. The first statement is, in a sense, a prologue, but it is also part and parcel of the First Word.
I am Yahweh. While the name Yahweh was known to the patriarchs in Genesis, its full meaning could not be disclosed to them. God revealed to the patriarchs the name El Shaddai, which means God Almighty. God was making promises to them, and He told them that He was all-powerful, so they could afford to trust Him. Now God is going to keep the promises made to the fathers. Thus, only now can God reveal Himself as the one who keeps promises. That is the basic meaning of “Yahweh”: The God who keeps the covenant made with and the promises made to the fathers. Exodus 6:2-8 shows this relationship between the two names.
Your God. Yahweh is their God, the God of Israel. There are, as we shall see, other gods, but only Yahweh is El Shaddai, the Almighty. Only Yahweh is the creator of heaven and earth and of humanity. Thus, only Yahweh is the supreme God. When Yahweh states that He is their God, it means that He has reconciled Himself to them. They are no longer alienated from Him. Indeed, “your God” implies marriage, and in the Second Word Yahweh says that He is jealous of any affection given to other gods or to substitute gods made by human beings (cf. Ezk. 16).
Who brought you out of the land of Egypt. To understand the land of Egypt, we have to recall that Israel was going to be put into a land “that flows with milk and honey.” The first land that flowed with something was the land of Eden, for a river arose in Eden, flowed down into the Garden of Eden, and from there to the rest of the world (Gen. 2:10). Genesis 13:10 says that the Circle of the Jordan, before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, was well-watered, like the Garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt.
Egypt was like the land of Eden, and initially it was a good place for God’s people to be. The Hebrews were settled by Pharaoh in the land of Goshen, the best part of Egypt (Gen. 47:6). At this time, Pharaoh and the Egyptians were believers, and they favored the priestly nation.
Because the Hebrews fell into idolatry and failed to maintain their true witness (unlike Joseph), God raised up bad Pharaohs to oppress the Hebrews (Josh. 24:14). God changed the paradise into a hell. Now God is delivering the Hebrews from this fallen Eden, and is taking them to a land that flows not just with water, but with glorified water. Wine, milk, and honey are forms of glorified water.
Out of the house of slavery. In the book of Exodus we begin with the Hebrews enslaved and building storage cities for Pharaoh�the title “pharaoh” actually means “great house.” We end Exodus with the Israelites redeemed and building a house for Yahweh, in which is stored the Ten Words, Aaron’s rod, a pot of manna, and twelve loaves of bread (cp. Gen. 41:48). This is another house of bondage, but this time the liberating bondage of service to Yahweh, God of gods.
Pharaoh was a god, as we shall see: a junior elohim ruling a land given him by God. Pharaoh chose to try to make himself equal to the God of gods, and thus (like Adam) lost his land. Now God comes and makes Himself not only Israel’s heavenly ruler, but also her earthly ruler as well. Yahweh is the true Pharaoh, the true Great House in which we live and move and have our being, the true earthly God. This points forward to the time when Yahweh will be incarnated in human flesh, serve as a carpenter building houses, and ascend to be king not only of Israel but of all the nations of the world.
The old house stank, both the river and the land (Ex. 7:21; 8:14). The new house has incense in it. The old house was dark when God put out the sun; the new house has a lampstand with seven glorious lights on it. In the old house we were hungry; the new house has twelve loaves of bread in it. This is what it means for Yahweh to deliver us from the old house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods. The word for God in Hebrew is Elohim, which is a plural word. When used of the Creator of heaven and earth, it implies the Tri-unity of God. Since, however, human beings are made in the image and likeness of Elohim, it is appropriate to call human beings elohim. The Hebrew singular word el refers to might or power. Thus, the elohim are the “powers,” and Elohim is the ultimate Power.
What we find is that only certain human beings are called elohim, those who have matured to the point of exercising judgment and rule. It is such men who display God’s Elohim-rule over the earth. Paul’s phrase “the powers that be,” or “authorities on high” (Rom. 13:1-3) is virtually equivalent to the Hebrew “elohim,” gods.
Specifically, who are the other gods that actually exist? First, they are the angels, who have been given some rule over human affairs during the Old Creation, when humanity was in its childhood. The Bible calls angels “sons of elohim,” or “sons of God” (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). If you are a son of God, you are in some sense a god yourself.
The Bible says that the Torah was given through the ministry of angels (Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2). No such gods were to be worshipped. Fallen angels, like Satan, might seek to receive divine honors themselves (Mt. 4:9), and human beings, being idolaters, might seek to give divine honors even to unfallen angels; even the righteous might fall into this trap (Rev. 19:10; 22:8-9).
The other group of gods that really exist are human rulers. Psalm 58:1 begins: “Do you speak righteousness indeed, O gods? Do you judge uprightly the sons of men?” (or, “Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men?”) Whichever translation we take, it is clear that men are here addressed as gods. In the first case, they are the human gods who judge other men. In the second case, they are identified as sons of men. The psalm contrasts the false judgment of these gods with the true judgment of the ultimate Elohim (v. 11).
Psalm 82 begins: “Elohim takes His stand in the congregation of the elohim; He judges in the midst of the elohim.” Verses 2-4 make it clear that this assembly of gods is a human law court. In verses 6 & 7 God says to these gods: “I on My part said, `You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High’; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall like one of the princes.” We see from this that becoming a god is at God’s appointment. (Cf. John 10:34).
Similarly, Philippians 2:6 says that Jesus, being incarnated in the form or image of God, did not try to grasp equality with God (as Adam did), but remained humble until God exalted Him.
The judges of Israel are called elohim, gods, in Exodus 21:6; 22:8, 9, & 28.
Because Mormons and other heretics speak of human beings as gods or as little gods in the sense of being literal offspring of Mr. and Mrs. God, orthodox Christians have been very reluctant to deal with these passages in the Bible. We must not, however, permit heretics to bully us away from Biblical language and concepts. Adam was made in God’s image, and in His likeness. It seems clear that the likeness is something that might increase with maturity, for in Genesis 3 the tempter suggests that Adam seize greater Godlikeness, and God even says that Adam has become like “one of Us.” Partaking of the Tree of Rule makes a person a god in the secondary sense, a ruler and a judge. Adam seized this station without waiting for God to bestow it upon him.
Thus, in terms of Biblical language, it would be appropriate for us to speak to Congress and say, “You men are gods, under God’s appointment. You’d better shape up or you will die like mere men!”
As concerns the First Word, then, there really are other gods, and we are to give them appropriate honor. But such other gods are never to be confused with the Creator God, Yahweh. They are never to be given the honor given to God alone.
The First Word also forbids worshipping the powers in nature. This is because, Biblically speaking, the powers in nature are angelic, in some ways connected with angelic activity. (See Jordan, Through New Eyes, chap. 9.) Angels are gods, but may not be worshipped as God, though they may be honored as bearing in some sense the likeness of God.
What about false gods? If other real gods may not be preferred before, or treated as equal with, God, then clearly the inventions of the human mind may not be either. It is really the Second Word, however, that deals with the fabrications of human beings, including those of the human mind.
Before My face. The First Word does not say, “You may have no other gods,” but “You may have no other gods before My face.” We do have other gods: church elders, civil rulers, mature people in general, angels. But such gods are never to be put in a par with God.
Covenantal Idolatry
The First Word prohibits Covenantal Idolatry, treating anything other than God as God, while the Second Word focuses on Liturgical Idolatry and the Third Word focuses on Practical Idolatry. Yahweh is the Covenant Maker. He brought us out of bondage and has made Himself our God. To treat any lesser “power that be” on a par with Him is covenantal blasphemy.
Thus the focus of the First Word is on God’s ultimate and absolute authority in all of life, including worship and all other spheres of activity. There is a specific application of this Word to worship. Yahweh’s Face or Presence was about to be enshrined in the Tabernacle. Apart from the Tabernacle, God was enthroned in heaven. Whatever honors men might show to other men, such as bowing to them, they were never to offer sacrifice or send up incense to any god but God.
More generally, we find that Adam turned away from God and made the Serpent his god. He made the Serpent his authority, and thus put another god before the true God. As I mentioned above, angels are the powers that run the natural world, so that we are not surprised to learn that behind the serpent was a fallen angel, a god but not God. Covenantal idolatry means to treat anything created by God as on a par with God, and that always means to make it more ultimate than God. For some sinners, Nature (angels) is the idol, while for others Humanity is the idol. As Western Civilization dies we see both today: New Age environmentalism and secular humanism. Both nature (angels) and humanity are indeed “gods” in the senses we have been discussing, but neither is the Creator God, and neither can redeem us from slavery in Egypt.
The twin gods of nature (angels) and humanity define for us two forms of idolatry, what Herbert Schlossberg has called Idols of Nature and Idols of History. (The third kind are Idols of Liturgy, with which the Second Word is concerned.) In practice, undeveloped societies worship and come into bondage to powers of nature and to ancestors. Powers of nature are angelic, as we have mentioned, and such powers invade human life and humble us. We should look through the lions, tigers, earthquakes, plagues, floods, etc. and see that God is dealing with us through His angelic servants as they manipulate nature under His command. But when men focus on the servants, the “spirits” in water, trees, animals, etc., then they become idolaters.
Human gods are the aged, the elders, the judges. Most particularly, therefore, they are the ancestors. The ancestors have gone ahead into the world to come, and rule from there. Certainly it is true that the saints in heaven, though not yet glorified through resurrection, have become more godlike than they were on earth. Yet, whatever power ancestral tradition should exercise in our lives, making us respect the wisdom of the ancestors, we should never confuse such respect with the absolute authority of God. Yahweh made this very plain when He announced that He was the “God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He was far above the ancestors, and in fact the fathers worshipped Him. Thus, to elevate Church Tradition and the “Church Fathers” on a par with the Bible, the Word of God Himself, is a very serious form of covenantal idolatry.
(In fact, the so-called “Church Fathers” are not the fathers at all. The fathers are Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, etc. The early church is, so to speak, the infant offspring of the Old Creation church, and the leaders of the early church would be better called the “Church Babies.” We should indeed pay attention to what God taught them, but the Church is called to mature in history, and if we do not allow ourselves to progress beyond the first few centuries of the Church we are idolators who worship false ancestors. This is one of the gravest sins of the Eastern Orthodox churches.)
The period from Moses to Solomon presents the fundamental sin of Israel in terms of the First Word. Israel was at that time a tribal society, and we shall have to investigate the nature of tribalism more fully at another point. Here it must suffice to say that tribal societies are close to nature and close to their ancestors. Large faces with big eyes are placed on totem poles or in houses of masks (icon shrines), representing the ancestors who watch to make sure the tribe never deviates from what they established. Thus, historical maturation and development are blocked. This was a backhanded benefit to the pre-Christian world to the extent that it prevented the maturation of sin, but for a Christian society it is Satan’s way of preventing Christianity from maturing under the leadership of the Spirit. The early Church moved into tribal societies, and the icons of the Eastern Churches are nothing more than ancestral masks, only the ancestors are now spiritual ancestors rather than physical ones. The Eastern Churches commit the sin of breaking the Second Word by bringing the false accoutrements of pagan religion into the worship of the Church, and the Eastern Church has rejected historical maturation for over a thousand years, remaining close to infancy.
Tribal societies, being close to nature, worship the powers of nature: Baal the storm god, for instance, or the spirits of wolves, trees, fresh water, etc. Such nature gods are often conflated with the ancestors.
(to be concluded)
