A few people have been asking me whether I plan to do regular posts on New Testament Sunday School topics, as I had been doing with the OT.  I would have to say that my tentative answer is either “maybe” or “probably not.” While I would love to do so, this semester at school is proving to be my busiest ever and I can’t imagine myself having enough time to dedicate to writing anything that would be worthwhile sharing. However, I do hope to find relevant materials that I can point you to as often as possible.

The content of this post was prepared and sent to me by my friend Dean Hunsaker. I appreciate him taking the time to research this important question.

The Problem of John 3:13

John 3:13

NIV No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.

NASB No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.

NLT No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven.

NRSV No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

KJV And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

Is Jesus saying that no one ever has ascended into heaven?

What about OT ascent stories like — Enoch (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5), Moses (Exodus 24:9–11; 34:29-35); Elijah (2 Kings 2:11); Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1–8); or Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1; 10)?

Further, what is the point of the thrice-yearly ritual ascent to the temple to “see the face of the LORD” (Exodus 23:15, 17; 34:20, 23, 24; Deuteronomy 16:16; 31:11; 1 Samuel 1:22; Psalms 42:2; Isaiah 1:12) when real ascent isn’t possible?

What about other ascent into heaven stories:

New Testament (Acts 8:39; 2 Corinthians 12:2, 4; 1 Thess 4:17; Revelation 1-22).

BoM (1 Nephi 1:8; 11:1, 19; 14:13; 15:1; 2 Nephi 4:25; Alma 19:6; 3 Nephi 28:13, 36; Ether 3:1-14).

D&C (D&C 76; 137).  PoGP (Moses 1:1; Moses 6:64; Moses 7:27).

Other (Apocalypse of Moses 37:5; Apocalypse of Abraham 12:10; Wisdom of Solomon 4:11; 1 Enoch 39:3-4; 52:1; 2 Enoch 7:1; 3 Apocalypse of Baruch 2:2).

Is Jesus saying that it is impossibile for human beings to ascend into heaven — no one has or ever will? Does he agree with the Midrash on Exodus 19:20 “Neither Moses nor Elijah ever went up to heaven, nor did the Glory ever come down to earth”? (Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael, trans. J. Z. Lauterbach [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976], 2:224; compare Deut 30:12; Baruch 3:29; 2 Esdras 4:8).

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Does the Greek text Help?

Greek /English

kai / And

oudeis / no man

anabebeken / hath ascended up

eis ton ouranon / to heaven,

ei me  / but

ho / he

ek tou ouranou / that from heaven,

katabas  / came down

/even

ho huios / the Son

tou anthropou / of  man

ho on en to ourano / which is in heaven.

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Greek Helps:

GR “anabebeken” means literally “to go up” and is commonly translated “arise,” “ascend,” and “climb.”

GR “ei me” means literally “if not” and is commonly translated, “but,” “except (that).”

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What does the text mean?
1. NLT: No one else has ever gone to heaven and returned, but Jesus.
2. Local Context: Jesus doesn’t mean “no one” throughout time, he means there is “no one” Nicodemus can talk to that has ascended to heaven, but Jesus.
3. Context: The new birth isn’t brought on through heavenly ascent and descent of Moses or Elijah, but by the ascent and descent of the Son of Man.
4. D&C 88:6: The purpose of ascent into heaven is to descend and teach what was learned, like Jesus did.
5. Prov 30:4: Jesus is inviting Nicodemus to answer the question, Who can of their own power ascend into heaven, or descend? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Surely you know! (BTW, Moses, Enoch and others were “taken up” they did not “climb” on their own power).

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Dean has presented the question here very well and offered some possibilities for how we can interpret Jesus’ words. Does anyone have any further insights into this question?  Was Jesus denying the possibility of heavenly ascent or did he mean something else altogether?

I won’t offer my own explanation at this point, but I just recently read a great answer to the question posted by BYU Professor William Hamblin as part of his “An Enigmatic Mirror” column on Patheos. You can check out the specific post here.

The purpose of this post is to simply announce, for those who haven’t seen them, a couple of papers that I have recently posted on my Scribd account.

The first, entitled “Insights from the Ascension of Isaiah“, is a re-publishing of a couple of old blog posts dealing with the early Christian text, The Ascension of Isaiah. I analyze the details of this text regarding how Isaiah ascended up through the various levels of heaven to the highest heaven, where he was given the privilege of seeing the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — as three separate persons.

The second, “Three Gods in One: Perspectives on Mormon Social Trinitarianism“, is a paper that I was required to write for a class in Systematic Theology at Marquette University (with Prof. Ralph Del Colle).  The paper is quite different from the material that I usually write about or post here on this blog, but I hope that it is of interest. It is quite a long paper and looks at LDS perspective on the Trinity in the writings of Joseph Smith, and how his views are interpreted by LDS thinkers: Orson Pratt, David Paulsen, and Blake Ostler.  Again, systematic theology is not my cup of tea, but I hope my little foray into the field here is at least somewhat entertaining.

I also just recently posted a paper entitled “Insights into Ezekiel’s Remarkable Merkabah Vision,” which is, again, a reposting of one of the first pieces I wrote on this blog.  It looks at that wild and crazy vision of Ezekiel, where he saw the throne of God on the backs of some interesting creatures, and so forth, and interprets it in light of the objects that were present in the Holy of Holies of the Temple.  Basically, the theory is that what Ezekiel was seeing was a portable version of the throne of God in the Holy of Holies. It is a very short piece and doesn’t go into much detail, but I think that the idea is interesting.

NB: You can see a great presentation by William Hamblin related to this last topic here.

I plan to post items on my Scribd account periodically, so check there every once in a while for the latest piece.

Now while I am trying to put this up at a time when some of you may be studying Daniel, the information in my notes is not necessarily Sunday School material. It represents current opinions in the field of biblical studies — opinions which often do not approximate our own (as LDS) interpretations of the text. Having said that, I hope that there is some information here that is helpful, or that at least serves to communicate the opinions that are out there regarding this biblical text.  This is the material that was presented in class and does not represent my own personal views of the subjects.

As there is a lot of material here, I will have to divide it up between a few posts. This first post will give my notes from Prof. Davila’s lectures on the general overview of the book.

If you want to read these notes on Scribd, see here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/44863398/Daniel-Class-Notes-1

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There are four critical commentaries that are important to look at:

• Montgomery (ICC): published 1927; best commentary of its time; some arguments are dated; still very useful
• Hartman & Di Lella: Anchor Bible commentary; Hartman died before he finished; good critical commentary; written in 70s; has some eccentricities; lot of discussion about theories of original language
• Goldingay: published 1989; more up-to-date; good discussion of history of interpretation; translation; looks at form, genre, setting; more homiletical commentary;  a bit long-winded;  some idiosyncratic ideas
• Collins: Hermeneia commentary; definitive statement on everything to do with Daniel; extremely detailed commentary; one of best commentaries ever written on a biblical book; published 1993

Theodoret of Cyrus: Commentary on Daniel, transl. Robert C. Hill (Atlanta: SBL, 2006) — an early Christian commentary on Daniel

Overview:

The Book of Daniel is a library — a collection of stories; The Bible is a collection of books, but each book generally is a collection as well.

Modern scholars believe that some editor in the Maccabean period pulled the Book of Daniel together.

There are copies of the Book of Daniel among the Dead Sea Scrolls (these are the earliest known copies). There are a number of “Pseudo-Daniel” texts that mention Daniel — 3 texts.  Many other texts that have connections to Book of Daniel. The “Son of Man” title in the Gospels has some connection to Daniel’s “one like a son of man”.  The Book of Revelation uses Daniel as a structuring element and constantly alludes to it — uses its secret names, etc.

The Book of Daniel was written, in terms of final form, in 167-165 BC.  It was set in the mouth of Daniel during the Babylonian Exile (500s BC).

The purpose of the book: To encourage Jews when they were being persecuted by Antiochus IV (Epiphanes). This persecution led to the Maccabean revolt of 167-165 BC.

Structure:

• First half of the book: Narrations about Daniel & his three friends
• Last half: First person accounts by Daniel of his visions and dreams, visitations by angels

History:

The late 7th Century BC marked the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire; the destruction of Nineveh occurred in 612 BC by Medes. The Medes were an Indo-European people who lived in Northwestern Iran – they weren’t really empire builders — they destroyed Nineveh and went home. The Medes were conquered by Cyrus the Persian — but they were closely related peoples in Iran. There was now a power vacuum in the ancient Near East.

The Babylonians took over territory from the Assyrian Empire for the next few generations — this became the Neo-Babylonian Empire (not old Babylonian Empire). Nabo-polasser (625-605 BC), King of Babylon, made a treaty with the Medes and took over Assyrian territories. He turned over the empire to his son Nebuchadnezzar (II) — 605-562 BC — who defeated the state of Judah and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah in 597 BC, plundered the temple in order to  show that he, as king, and his gods were dominant — and because he needed money. He set up Zedekiah as a puppet ruler. Zedekiah later revolts and Nebuchadnezzar comes back and finishes the job — destroyed Jerusalem and burned down the temple (586/87 BC). The wealthy and educated taken captive to Babylon (10,000 to 15,000 taken) — the poor were left behind.

The Babylonian Exile — 587 – 536 BC  — is the setting of the Book of Daniel. But the book was written centuries after the fact and because of this makes mistakes. It has the order of Babylonian kings wrong.

Historically, Nebuchadnezzar dies and his son Evil-Merodach (Amel-Marduk, “Man of Marduk”) takes over, rules for two years. Then Nebuchadnezzar’s son-in-law takes over — Neriglissar. His son Labashi-Marduk (Garment of Marduk), succeeded him while yet a boy, but he was murdered after a couple of months. Nabonidus takes over — a general, no relation to Nebuchadnezzar. He worshiped the moon-god, Sin, instead of Marduk. Nabonidus would go away for years at a time to Teima in south Arabia. During those times, his son Belshazzar ruled as substitute.

Cyrus the Persian defeated the Medes –550 BC — and created the Persian Empire (Achaemenid Empire). He added Asia Minor, Afghanistan, and finally Iraq — and then in 538, he overthrew Babylon. Cyrus was a pretty nice guy compared to the Assyrians and Babylonians — he didn’t use such brutal methods. He was kind to cities that surrendered — he just asked tribute. The Cyrus Cylinder, found in the ruins of Babylon, was a propaganda piece. Cyrus deposed Nabonidus in Babylon. He declared in 536 that any Jews who wanted to go home could go.

Daniel’s history goes from 606-535 BC — to the third year of Cyrus.

The Second Temple Period is from 535 BC (520 temple built) to 70 AD (2nd Temple destroyed).

The last king of the Persian Empire was Darius III. In 356 BC, Alexander was born to Philip of Macedonia — In 336, Philip was assassinated and Alexander inherited the throne. Alexander had been tutored by Aristotle — he became king at age 20. He joined up with Greece; conquered Asia Minor, Syria/Palestine, Egypt (Alexandrias; “Kandahar” = Iskandriya = Alexandria). Alexander came to Iraq and defeated Darius III by the Tigris River; He went on to conquer the Mediterranean coast; Tyre. He was named Pharoah in Egypt — son of God. In 331, he defeated Darius a second time and captured Persia and Babylon. His soldiers married local women — made ties to local people and spread Greek culture. They founded “poleis” — Greek city-states. Alexander claimed to have conquered the “whole world” — actually stopped at India 327/6 BC. He died in Babylonia in 323 — age 33 — under suspicious circumstances. Alexander appears in the Bible — Daniel chapter 8 — he is the “he-goat from the west”.

The Diadokoi –”successors” — of Alexander divided his empire. Ptolemy took charge of Egypt and took control of Palestine — great for economy because of trade routes. Palestine was kept by the Ptolemies until 198 BC.

Seleucus started with Babylonia and spread to Persia and Syria. The Seleucids didn’t do well until Antiochus III (223-187 BC) conquered Palestine in 198 BCE. This led to the Maccabean revolt. Antiochus wanted to make Palestine a polis. In 175,  Onias III (the high priest) was deposed by his brother Jason. Jason set out to Hellenize Jerusalem; he built a gymnasium, etc. In book of Daniel, we see Onias assassinated (Dan. 9); Antiochus IV (called “little horn”) plundered temple and looted part of city. In 167, he outlawed the practice of Judaism (punishable by death penalty), sacrificed a pig on the temple altar and instituted the worship of Zeus in the temple.

The Maccabean revolt was started by a priest named Mattathias — his oldest son was named Judah “the Hammer” (Macabee). After 3 years, freedom of religion was granted to the Jews.

167-164 BCE — this is the context of the writing of Daniel (but considerably older material was used).

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Structure of the Book of Daniel:

Chapters 1-6 — stories about Daniel and Friends

Chapters 7-12 — visions

Chapters 1-2:4, 8-12 — written in Hebrew

Chapters 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 — written in Aramaic

No one knows why it is divided this way — was it originally all in Aramaic and then some parts translated to Heb? Why those parts?

Chapter 7 seems to be the central pivot — the last Aramaic section, and the first vision

Chapters 1-6

These are “court tales” — set during the Babylonian exile, in the courts of pagan kings. This is a genre in the Bible — Joseph, Esther (Jewish hero in court of pagan king).

Daniel & his friends are not narrators — the story is told in the 3rd person omniscient. Chapter 4 is narrated by King Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel and friends are mantic sages on whose behalf God works miracles.  Mantic vs. prophetic — mantic initiates the revelation; prophet receives from God whether he wants it or not. Mantic sages engage in divination. Daniel can interpret dreams; read writing on wall — this comes as revelation from God.

In these stories, the hero has to remain true to God in a threatening situation — he is always delivered by God in order to remain faithful to religion.

Setting — the Aramaic folklore of the Persian period; stories gathered by scribes in the Maccabean period.

Chapters 7-12

Apocalypse — or collection of smaller apocalypses — a revelation by an angel/divine being to a human — revelation of heavenly secrets (narrative genre: apocalypse).

There are older themes being used (and perhaps older documents)

Written in first person as Daniel (Daniel is pseudonymous author)

Angels appear to and have dialogue with Daniel

No otherworldly journey precisely (like Enoch) — although chapter 7 seems to present Daniel in heaven talking to an angel.

All these visions have vaticinia ex eventu (prophecies after the fact) — also include reviews of history (especially chapter 11)– history of world from creation, leads up to persecution of Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes, then end of world.

The visions are built on the ancient schema of 4 world empires — (in Daniel they are) Babylon, Medes, Persians, Greeks

1970s — John Collins, et al., collected all of the ancient apocalypses they could find — published in Semeia a “master paradigm” for the genre “apocalypse”:

• there are key features: narrative framework, otherworldly mediator (angel), human recipient, revelation of divine secrets (otherworldly realities, future eschatalogical salvation–judgment, afterlife journey)
• some elements are present, some not — some common but not universal
• pseudonymity is nearly universal
• some have reviews of history, otherworldly journeys — some don’t

Daniel is “historical apocalypse with no otherworldly journey” — a rather unusual combination

The development of apocalyptic literature happened generally outside the canon. It’s good to know the Enochic literature to help you understand Daniel.  Genesis 5 — understood to mean that God translated Enoch to heaven. The Book of the Watchers expands on Gen. 6 — the writer of Gen 6 knows the longer story, but doesn’t want to include it, but has to include something because it is well known — the Book of Watchers is the more original story. The Animal Apocalypse is an ex eventu review of history, from the creation of Adam to the Maccabean revolt — the allegory/animal fable is similar to Dan 7 — they are interested in the same series of events — the author of the Animal Apocalypse probably lived at the same time and place, writing at the same time as author of Daniel. The Similitudes of Enoch was written quite a bit later — 1 century CE — it draws extensively on the Book of Daniel, and is one of the first sources we have of the interpretation of Daniel.

4th Book of Ezra — 100 CE — is more or less a contemporary of John (Revelation) — its visions were inspired by the Book of Daniel — another early source for what people thought of the Book of Daniel.

The Book of Revelation and the Gospels draw on Daniel.

What is the relationship between the Book of Daniel and the Akkadian apocalypses of Ancient Mesopotamia? Calling the Akkadian documents “apocalypses” is really an incorrect description — the stories they tell are not mediated by a divine being. They present past events as prophetic predictions–after the fact predictions lead into real future predictions.

Date of Book of Daniel

This is a theologically fraught/controversial issue.  The modern scholarly conclusion: it is clearly from the 2nd century BCE, not from 6th Century BCE.  The book’s claimed setting was first challenged by pagan thinker Porphyry (3rd century CE) – he dated the book correctly to the time of the Maccabean revolt. St Jerome argued against him.

The Book of Daniel does preserve ancient material — but the prophecies and final form are from the Maccabean revolt.

Arguments:

• The book is full of miracles. This is a weak argument –circular reasoning that assumes that miracles don’t happen–miracle stories can be contemporary with events.
• There are detailed, correct predictions of future events — astonishing detail, so it must be written after-the-fact. This is a weak argument — again circular reasoning–there is nothing in the laws of physics that presents information from travelling backwards in time–it would reasonably be possible for someone in the past to know something of the future–the predictions are not impossible.

We can dismiss the above arguments as weak. However, there are other arguments that are more persuasive.

• The stories in the Book of Daniel are not mentioned anywhere before the Maccabean Revolt. –Not overly impressive argument on its own — it is an argument from silence — in the end, a weak argument.
• In the Jewish canon, Daniel is listed among the “writings” instead of the “prophets” –”Writings” is the catch-all category at the end, written after the canon of prophets was closed. –We don’t know when the canon was closed, when the collections were final — also, Daniel is not actually a prophet (he’s a mantic sage), and is never called a prophet–he doesn’t do prophecy — so it is reasonable that he is not included among the prophets.
• The Aramaic of the Book of Daniel looks to be much later than 6th Century BCE. — It’s a late western dialect. Now we recognize that Daniel was written in Imperial Aramaic used by Persians as diplomatic language in their empire, which makes it very difficult to date. There is Aramaic in the Book of Ezra that also looks late, but that could be due to copying over time. While the Aramaic in Daniel is consistent with it being from the Maccabean period, we are not compelled to conclude this. There is a lot of older Persian language in it — but the Persian and Greek words in it would not go back to the Babylonian period.
• Stronger argument: the writer shows vague knowledge of his supposed time period – the text is full of mistakes, anachronisms, things that don’t make sense according to history — There was no deportation of Jews in 606; no Belshazzar son of Nebuchadnezzar (there was one who was a son of Nabonidas, but he is not mentioned); there was no Darius the Mede (there was a Persian king Darius); the use of the word Chaldean is odd– it was an ethnic term, not used for magicians (that is a later, Hellenistic usage). There are various apologetic arguments to explain these away, but they become quite desperate.  There are incongruities (furnace, Lion’s Den law).
• Strongest argument: ex eventu prophecies — there are many examples of fake “historical reviews” — these flow into real future predictions, but these are almost always wrong (see Daniel 2, 7, 8, 11) — predictions of events after the Maccabean revolt all go wrong — the final judgment is to come directly after the Maccabean revolt — all of predictions up to Maccabean revolt are correct, but then when the end time is expected, it doesn’t happen — so we can understand that it was written in Maccabean times.

Is pseudonymity dishonest?

Possibilities:

• The writer wanted to enhance the believability of his writings (this is dishonest and stupid as people will soon catch on)
• There is a humility in this — the writer wanted to give a message, but didn’t want to glorify himself so wrote it in the name of an ancient worthy (still dishonest)
• It was written in the name of someone else because the writer was afraid of persecution (they could have written anonymously without claiming to be an ancient prophet)
• The writers actually had visionary experiences themselves in which they channeled ancient prophets (as a medium — dead person speaks through him) –the writers were mantic sages themselves that involved being possessed by the earlier prophet — the writer is speaking in the name of Daniel — this is Davila’s working hypothesis in analyzing Daniel — this gets rid of the moral problem.

But where did the writer get the idea that there was a Daniel? Ezek. 14:12–20; 28:1-3 — mentions a Daniel: Ch. 14–refers to Noah, Daniel, and Job as great preachers. Ch. 28–Prince of Tyre thinks himself wiser than Daniel (a very wise figure). The problem with relating this to Daniel in the Book of Daniel is that it is an odd context — Daniel was supposed to be a contemporary of Ezekiel, and wouldn’t have been associated with Noah and Job — but we don’t have any stories of an ancient Daniel — the Ugaritic texts have a figure named Dan’el. Nehemiah has Daniel & Three Friends listed as exiled priests. Stories about a Daniel seem to come up in the Persian period, but they don’t really match Book of Daniel. Daniel is called a prophet in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the NT. But Daniel is not a “prophet”, he is a mantic sage and gets revelation through ritual practices.

Sources for Daniel Text

• Masoretic text (Bible)
• Greek translations –Old Greek (Chapters 3,4,5,6 quite different from MT — not many copies because it was embarrassing to early Church because of differences from MT), Theodotion, Papyrus 967 (best source for OG)
• Qumran — 8 highly fragmentary copies of Daniel (all 12 chptrs) — also quoted many times in other texts
  • oldest copy dated to late 2nd century BCE (within 50 years of actual writing of book)
  • close to Masoretic text
• Daniel traditions outside of the MT — Greek translation is larger than MT
  • Prayer of Azariah, Song of Three Young Men, Bel & the Serpent/Dragon, Susanna — likely written in Hebrew/Aramaic, but we only now have Greek versions
  • other stories found among DSS
    • Prayer of Nabonidus (clear parallels to Book of Daniel)
  • other related elements (Book of Giants throne theophany, etc.)

Daniel highly influential in the NT

–expression Son of Man –from Dan. 7, “one like a son of man” who came to throne of Ancient of Days

–Book of Revelation highly dependent on Daniel

400 BCE — Tichonius, a Christian writer, (picked up by Augustine) developed a non-chiliastic view of Book of Daniel (non-millenarian) — eschatological aspects watered down — New Jerusalem is Church on earth at present, not some future place — apocalyptic instructional, not predictive — Christ already rules on earth

Joachim of Fiore — a bit before 1200 BCE — renewed the eschatological perspective — predicted the establishment of two orders of monks

4 Empires idea changed to include the Romans

Protestant reformers — “the Romans” includes the Papacy — John Knox

Modern evangelicals have an eschatological view that relies heavily on Daniel.

With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic and Mysticism (Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 2 ; eds. Daphna Arbel and Andrei Orlov, De Gruyter, 2010), forthcoming, $201.00, ISBN 978-3-11-022201-2.

The topics covered in this book are extremely interesting. You can see the Table of Contents here:

http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/EkstasisContents.pdf

Like most academic books these days, the price is quite prohibitive (especially if you’re a poor student), but if you are interested in these topics, this looks like one that you won’t want to pass up!

And if you can’t get your hands on a copy yet, you can enjoy Orlov’s contribution to the volume here:

http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/kavodazazel.html

I don’t think I’d be able to list all those who I met and talked with (I’m afraid I’d inadvertently leave someone out), but I’ll try to share here what sessions I attended and who I heard give presentations. I hope to follow this up in the near future with what notes I took from these sessions. Unfortunately my notes are not especially extensive this year as the capacity of my laptop’s battery is apparently decreasing (it lasts only 1.5 hours on low-power setting).

You should also check out Jim Davila’s PaleoJudaica.com, where he posts his “RANDOM SBL 2010 REFLECTIONS AND LINKS” — he has links to a number of other blogs by scholars who were at the conference.

Some of the best sessions that I attended were those of the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism group. I have attended the sessions of this group since my first SBL in San Diego (2007), following the lead of my MA advisor, Andre Orlov, and my current supervisor, Jim Davila.  The group’s first session, Saturday morning, focused on reviews of two books: Peter Schafer’s The Origins of Jewish Mysticism and Guy Williams’ The Spirit World in the Letters of Paul the Apostle – I have read neither of these books, but after listening to the reviews at the session, I am very interested in both.  Although Peter Schafer himself was not there, we heard some well-written reviews from Jim Davila and Seth Sanders. Rebecca Lesses was there, but didn’t give a presentation — not sure what happened there. I posted a link to the text of Davila’s review here.  As I said there, the review was awesome and really took Schafer to task for taking lightly the possibility of real experience/praxis as a background to what was going on in these texts. Davila asked: “Why was Hekhalot literature written?” He explained that it consists of manuals that readers can use to obtain divine revelations, mystical experience, mastery over spirits–ritual practices that were intended to be used. He argued that we must grasp this notion in order to understand these texts–this was point of his book Descenders to the Chariot. Schafer minimizes these elements of the text.

The theme of the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism’s Sunday session was: “Possible Provenances of Merkavah Mysticism.”

• The first paper was Jonathan Knight’s on “The Transformation of Merkabah Mysticism in Early Christianity” (read by Silviu Bunta). Knight argues that the early Christian text “The Ascension of Isaiah” was written in the early 1st Century CE, likely before the Gospel of John, and must have had influence on the early Christians’ Christology. This text is like the Jewish merkabah mystical texts and this tradition was very influential for Christians. In the text, Isaiah ascends to the seventh heaven, gaining greater glory as he passes each heaven. He is temporarily transformed into an angelic glory in order to be able to behold the vision. In the highest heaven, he sees three Divine Beings, including the Beloved One and the Holy Spirit (seen in angelic form). In one recension of the text, Isaiah even briefly glimpses the Great Glory (the Father). This text gives us a good example of an early mainstream Christian view — the text is not secondary or peripheral to the Christian tradition.
• After this paper, Bunta then read his own, entitled “The Convergence of Adamic and Merkabah Traditions in the Christology of Hebrews.” This was a great paper — Bunta argues that the Book of Hebrews describes a temple ritual in which Christ takes his followers to the heavenly sanctuary to participate in heavenly cult (heavenly ascent). He described how the text depicts Jesus as behind the veil of the temple. Jesus leads worshipers through the temple curtain and into the Holy of Holies, the rest of the Lord, where the throne of God and that of the Eternal High Priest are set. All of this is done as part of the early Christians’ ritual praxis — a ritual ascent to heaven. Bunta argues that many of the references to Christ draw on ancient Adamic traditions — Adam is the High Priest, the Son of God, the image of God, the Kavod, the one who sits on the Throne.  The angels were ordered to worship Adam (Testament of Adam, compare Heb. 1:6). Christ is the Heavenly Adam that became the earthly Adam.
• Jack Levison then gave a generally positive review of Bogdan Bucur’s (a Marquette grad) book, Angelomorphic Christology. The main idea in this complex, but important study is that many early Christians attributed to the Holy Spirit angelic characteristics (for example, in the Ascension of Isaiah, the Spirit looks like an angel). Also, the Spirit works through, or manifests itself in the angels (especially the seven principal ones) — according to Clement, these angels represent the Holy Spirit.

Sunday evening, the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism group held a gathering/reception for Hebrew University Professor Rachel Elior. It was a nice, informal meeting (there were 8-10 of us there initially) in which Prof Elior was presented with a Festschrift in her honor, celebrating her influential work in Jewish studies, including Jewish mysticism.  Elior was very kind and gracious — someone who has a big heart, who loves the subjects of her research and loves to share with and help others.  I was able to speak with her and expressed my thanks to her for her influence on me through her book, The Three Temples. Another LDS PhD student, Matthew Grey, was also there — his work on post-70 AD Jewish priestly circles has also been influenced by her research. The Festschrift was put together by Andre Orlov and Daphne Arbel and contained contributions from many great scholars in the field. For more on this, see Rebecca Lesses blog post, here.

As it is very late and I am still rather jet-lagged, I will have to continue this report later (hopefully soon).