Heavenly Ascents » Apocalypse of Abraham

The Bird as Angel of the Lord in Book of Abraham Facs. 1 (Old Testament Lesson 7)

David Larsen — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:00:33 +0000

For anyone hoping that this post was going to be about the Abrahamic Covenant, I hate to let you down. Upon reading the first chapters of the Book of Abraham, my attention was drawn (as it often is) again to the “Facsimiles” that accompany that book, which are a frequent source of wonder and awe to young (and old) Latter-day Saint readers. While perhaps not as mesmerizing and mystifying as Facs. 2, the first facsimile has one figure in particular that begs for some analysis.

In the narrative of the Abraham 1, we are told that this image is included by Abraham to illustrate the situation in which he found himself — ready to be sacrificed by the priest of Elkanah/Pharaoh on the “bedstead” altar, which was like the one depicted. He is turned over to the idolatrous priest by his “fathers”, whom he had tried to convince to give up their idol worship. However, just before he is sacrificed (in a scene reminiscent of the sacrifice of Isaac), Abraham tells us that the angel of the Lord’s presence comes to save him, unlooses his bands and (after an extended dialogue) smites the priest of Elkanah. What is particularly significant in this dialogue is that the angel of the presence announces himself to be Jehovah (whom most Bible readers would not consider to be the oft-mentioned “angel of the presence” of the Old Testament).¹

So Jehovah came down as an angel (remember angel = malak = messenger) to save Abraham. This is so reminiscent of ancient kingship rituals in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and likely also Israel (see, for example, Psalm 18, among others), but that is another post. However, when you look at the Facsimile, the figure (Fig. 1) that Joseph Smith identifies as “The Angel of the Lord” is a bird! Why, you may ask, is the angel of the Lord — Jehovah himself, no less — depicted as, or equated with, a bird?

Well, although I pose it as an exasperating conundrum, the equation of a divine being with a bird should not be very surprising. The Holy Ghost, for example, is commonly represented by a dove. Anciently, it was quite common to employ this imagery to depict different gods. Very pertinent to our facsimile is the ancient Egyptian tradition of depicting the savior god Horus as a hawk. As BYU professor James Harris notes, the bird in this facsimile (in its wider Egyptian context) likely does not represent the “ba“-bird, but “Horus (the hawk) who delivered his father Osiris from death just as a personage represented by a hawk delivered Abraham from death.”²

(Just for fun, compare the above image to Abr. 1:18)

While we may expect, then, an ancient Egyptian pictogram to depict a god as a bird, we can consider it rather odd that Joseph Smith would have so readily made the connection, especially since this association is not made clear in the text (nor is it common in Christianity to depict the Father or Son as a bird). Now what would be even more interesting is if their were some other evidence specifically linking the story of Abraham to an image of Jehovah/Yahweh as a bird.

And we do find such an association in the Slavonic text of the Apocalypse of Abraham. Although we know it only from Old Slavonic Christian translations made in approx. the 15th century AD, scholars believe that the original was likely written in Hebrew in Palestine around the 1st century. We know that the text became popular among many early Christians (who ended up being the only ones who preserved it).

In the Apocalypse of Abraham (ApAb), after an extended sequence in which Abraham rejects and destroys the idols of his father, Abraham seeks the true God, the Creator of all things. God answers Abraham and sends to him the “angel of his presence.” This angel is called Iaoel/Jaoel or “Yahoel”– which was likely meant to be “Yahweh-El”. The angel is called Iaoel “of the same name” (10:3), probably meaning that his name was understood to be the same as God’s (Yahweh). The text describes this angel as being “in the likeness of a man” (10:4). 11:2-4 describe him as having a body like sapphire, a face like chrysolite, and hair like snow—a description which reminds us of the anthropomorphic Glory of God described in the Old Testament and many pseudepigraphal texts. He is described as having a turban, purple robes, and golden staff, which recall a royal/high priestly figure. So far, this seems like a pretty standard (albeit notably anthropomorphic) description of Yahweh/the Angel of Yahweh.

But what about the bird connection? Dr. Andrei Orlov notes that Kulik’s translation of ApAb includes a detail which Rubinkiewicz’ is missing: the rendering of the Slavonic word “ногуего,” as “griffin” (“the appearance of the griffin’s body was like sapphire,…”). According to Orlov, the author depicted Yahoel as both man and bird.³

Ascent of Yahoel and Abraham -- my thanks to Jeffrey Bradshaw for this image

However, Margaret Barker provides abundant evidence that this indeed was the ancient understanding, see her The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God (Louisville: W/JKP, 1992).
James R. Harris, “The Facsimiles of the Book of Abraham” in Milton R. Hunter, Pearl of Great Price Commentary, accessed online at http://www.gospelink.com/library/document/17396?highlight=1, on Feb. 11, 2010.
Andrei Orlov, “The Pteromorphic Angelology of the Apocalypse of Abraham,” CBQ 71 (2009) 830–42.

Sites to See!

David Larsen — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:33:35 +0000

Before posting more on my trip to the SBL Conference in New Orleans, I wanted to mention just a couple of websites that I think you should see (of course that is up to you!).

Follow the Prophet

Bryce Haymond, the talented web designer who has blessed us with TempleStudy.com for the past couple of years (which, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, has been a great inspiration for my own blog), has now, along with his brother Brad, launched a new website designed to help readers get to know LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson better by reporting on the prophet’s words and activities. The new site is called FollowtheProphet.Net.

In Bryce’s own words:

This site’s mission is to help members of the Church follow the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by collecting all the news, talks, speeches, devotionals, dedications, interactions, and activities he does and posting links to those things in one central location. This way members of the Church may more easily learn more about the prophet, and his ongoing counsel to us, as well as his daily example.

The site includes detailed reports, information, pictures, and maps showing where in the world the prophet has been.

Although some early critics have dubbed the site’s efforts as “stalking”, I totally disagree. One of the most admirable characteristics of our current prophet is the fact that he is so people-oriented — so loving and caring and down-to-earth. It is great, in my opinion, for Latter-day Saints to see him interacting with people, visiting members of the Church, and sitting down to dinner with common folk at a common restaurant like Dee’s (as was reported on the site). Pres. Monson takes time to talk to people, gives attention to small children, and changes his busy schedule to take care of his wife and family when they are in need.

Keeping in mind the safety of the prophet, Bryce notes:

Please note that we will only post about the prophet’s activities some time after he has visited a location, unless it is a scheduled event, so there is absolutely no security concern for the prophet.

I believe that the items posted by the site are important for us as members of the Church (or anyone else) to see, and I support their efforts and congratulate them on their fine work. The site is beautiful, smooth and user-friendly, as we have come to expect from the Haymonds. I send my many thanks to them for their great work.

Andrei Orlov’s Blog

For those who haven’t noticed it, my former professor and adviser Andrei Orlov (Associate Professor at Marquette University), has his own blog and has been posting some great material there.

The blog is at http://aorlov.livejournal.com/

Much of the blog is written in Russian, but I have recently noticed that Dr. Orlov is posting much more in English than I had previously seen. And the items posted appear to be segments from some of his most recent research, so it is especially interesting. If you’ve read any of the stuff I’ve posted from him before (or even if you haven’t), you will find this blog very enlightening. Andrei Orlov is an expert in many areas that are of interest to Latter-day Saints, including the Enochic literature, Abrahamic traditions, heavenly temple themes, throne theophanies and other visions of God, apocalyptic literature, mystical texts, and so on.

One very interesting recent post is entitled: Re-enactment of the Yom Kippur Festival in the Apocalypse of Abraham: The Scapegoat Ritual

Another great one is: Mosaic Background of Abraham’s Priestly Initiations and the Day of Atonement

Also: Arboreal Metaphors and Divine Body Traditions in the Apocalypse of Abraham

This is the cool cosmological pic Orlov includes with this post

Orlov is an incredible resource for these materials and his writing style is very interesting. I highly recommend looking at his blog. Unless you read Russian, you may have to scroll down a bit, but its very much worth your time and effort to search for the hidden treasures he has posted.

I have posted the RSS feed of both Dr. Orlov’s and Bryce’s sites in the right sidebar of Heavenly Ascents. That way you can keep up to date with their most recent posts right here and have a convenient link to their websites. Check them out!

Introduction from Dr. Andrei Orlov’s “Divine Manifestations in the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha”

David Larsen — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:24:52 +0000

As promised in my last post, with Dr. Orlov’s permission, I am posting a link to the full introduction to his new book Divine Manifestations in the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha .

Click here: Orlov Introduction

The intro is over 20 pages long, but it is well worth your time to take a look at it. Dr. Orlov contrasts two basically concurrent but very different religious traditions — one that emphasizes visionary experiences in which the believer is taken up into heaven and is allowed to see the “Glory of God” and is transfigured in the process–and the other in which the adept emphasizes hearing the voice of God.

Dr. Orlov provides some great material here from the monastic Desert Fathers regarding their experiences with heavenly ascent and how they were permitted to see the Glory of God described in anthropomorphic terms. Those who were near the visionaries while or soon after they received this vision described their face/body as shining like the sun.

Orlov looks into the recurring theme that the being that the visionary would see in heaven was regularly described as being corporeal or human-like, similar to Ezekiel’s vision of the fiery, human-like being on the throne. This concept of deity is very ancient and was preserved by certain segments of the Jewish tradition. However, some parties (e.g. the Deuteronomists) were intent on dislodging the ancient anthropomorphic tradition and attempted to replace it with a “Name theology” that posited that God could not be seen but only heard. God did not dwell in his holy temple–only his “Name” did.

The polemics between these two theologies (Form vs. Voice) can be seen in the biblical text as we now have it. For example, in Exodus 19, Moses and the elders of Israel climb Mount Sinai and see the God of Israel standing before them. However, in Exodus 33 and Deut. 4 we are told that Moses merely heard the voice of God and saw no Form. Orlov believes that an insertion of a reinterpretation of the Sinai vision as purely aural is apparent here. Orlov sees Elijah as the champion of this aural tradition—Elijah sees no human-like form, but only hears a still, small voice.

Dr. Orlov goes on to analyze the texts of 2 (Slavonic) Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham as examples of each of these traditions, the first being an example of the Form theology and the latter an example of the aural tradition. Enoch is taken up into heaven and sees the divine face of God, described in appearance like “iron made hot by a fire, emitting sparks.” Abraham, however, according to this apocalyptic text, is not permitted to see God, but hears his voice coming from within a pillar of fire.

You can judge for yourself whether you agree with his theories on the polemics between these to theological trends, but I highly recommend taking a good look at this introduction. Dr. Orlov has done and continues to do excellent research on divine manifestations, on heavenly ascents and visions of God’s Face, and how these traditions were perpetuated over time.

Dr. Andrei Orlov Provides New Resources on Important Pseudepigraphal Texts

David Larsen — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:16:13 +0000

Dr. Andrei Orlov, my professor and academic adviser at Marquette University, has sent me links to some great new resources he has put on the web to assist in the study of pseudepigraphal texts from the Slavonic (old Church Slavic) tradition. As a recipient of the prestigious Way Klingler Young Scholar award, Dr. Orlov has been on sabbatical in Russia working hard on, among other things, the Slavonic texts of the Apocalypse of Abraham, the book of 2 Enoch, and other important Slavonic texts.

Dr. Orlov is one of the world’s top scholars on these texts and has been invited to write on these topics, and others, in the best academic journals and book series. He has recently set up new websites for the Apocalypse of Abraham, 2 Enoch, and the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha project. These sites will be very helpful for anyone studying these texts and also very interesting for LDS readers.

The Apocalypse of Abraham – http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/apocalypseabraham.html

This site gives detailed information on this very important document. Orlov provides a concise introduction to the text, and then lays out the latest in scholarly thought on such details as the authorship, date, provenance, and theology of the text. Furthermore, he has posted great bibliographies, as well as the actual Slavonic text (from Codex Sylvester), and the best English translations. He then provides a list of helpful resources for this text, although you will need to know some Russian in order to read all of them. Dr. Orlov also, very graciously, provides links to many important articles that have been written on this subject.

I have recently been doing some research on the Apocalypse of Abraham together with my friend Jeffrey Mark Bradshaw, and have found Dr. Orlov’s resources to be very helpful. The Apocalypse of Abraham is a text that LDS readers should be aware of (and interested in), as its structure and content are very comparable to our own Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, and, suprisingly, perhaps even more similar, in some respects, to the Book of Moses. For anyone interested in investigating the ancient roots of these books, I highly recommend looking at this great resource that Dr. Orlov has provided.

Second (Slavonic) Enoch – http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/2enoch.html

This site gives many of the same type of wonderful resources as noted above. 2 Enoch is another Jewish pseudepigraphal document that has survived only in its Slavonic translation. As Orlov notes, “The central theme of the text is the celestial ascent of the seventh antediluvian patriarch Enoch through the heavens, his luminous metamorphosis near the Throne of Glory, and his initiation into the heavenly mysteries.” This is obviously a text of interest for anyone who reads this blog. LDS readers will find much in this text to compare with the Enoch portions of the Book of Moses and with temple tradition as well.

Dr. Orlov presents us with unparalleled access to this powerful text, which, in his words, “depict[s] Enoch, not simply as a human taken to heaven and transformed into an angel [as earlier Enoch texts depict], but as a celestial being exalted above the angelic world (Orlov, 2005).”

Again, this site provides us with bibliographies, translations, articles, links, and other great resources for studying this important text.

The Slavonic Pseudepigrapha Project – http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/pseudepigrapha.html

A similarly excellent site that covers the pseudepigrapha, in general, that come to us from the Slavonic tradition. The Orthodox tradition based in Byzantium preserved many “non-canonical” texts that were all but forgotten in the West. Many of these texts were originally written in Greek, but as the church spread in the East, many of these texts were eagerly translated by the Slavic peoples and carefully preserved. Dr. Orlov has spent much time pouring through ancient manuscripts in old Russian libraries and sanctuaries in order to analyze these texts in great detail. In them are retold the lives and visions of the great saints of the past — most especially the early patriarchs and prophets Adam, Enoch, Noah, Jacob, Abraham, and Moses. Orlov’s skillful research and knowledge of the language help unlock these lost treasures for our use and enjoyment.

Orlov provides many texts in their original Slavonic versions, and then gives the latest modern translations. Although many of the texts are still available only in Russian translations, several great texts can be read in English. Numerous very interesting articles regarding these texts can also be found here. Additionally, for those interested, Orlov comments on the latest scholarly opinion regarding what role the dualistic sect, the Bogomils, had on these documents.

I am grateful to Dr. Andrei Orlov for sending me these links and for the hard work he put into preparing these resources and posting them on the internet in such an orderly and accessible manner. These Slavonic texts are largely unknown to us because of the great language barrier (except maybe for those who have done missionary work in Russia and Slavic nations!). This is a pity, as these are some of the most exciting and relevant texts available for the study of Jewish and Christian traditions, mysticism, and the Heavenly Ascent.

Some Notes about the Apocalypse of Abraham

David Larsen — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:15:06 +0000

As you may have noted, unfortunately I have not had the time to post as much as I would like to here on Heavenly Ascents. I have been bogged down with multiple papers and presentations for my classes which have taken up most of my time. I would like, however, to share with you some notes from one of the presentations I did for my Apocalyptic Literature class on the Apocalypse of Abraham.

The Apocalypse of Abraham is an ancient Jewish document (likely written in the first century AD) that was eventually preserved and passed down by Christian hands. Today we only have access to it through the Slavonic (Slavic) manuscripts kept by the Russian Orthodox church for centuries. It only became known in Western circles towards the latter half of the 19th century. In fact, the first English translation of this text appeared in the Improvement Era (an LDS publication) in 1898. The LDS Church obviously had an interest in this text because of its many similarities to their own Book of Abraham, which Joseph Smith had translated from some Egyptian papyri that he had obtained in the 1830s. Interestingly, the Apocalypse of Abraham has many parallels with the Book of Moses as well.

I am providing you with a link here to the notes I made for use in my presentation. Unfortunately, not all of the information I gathered is particularly interesting, as my assignment was to present the “State of the Question,” an analysis of current scholarly opinion on the text, with emphasis on its origin, dating, and other technical issues. Towards the end, I did note some theological themes in the text that would be of interest to our class. So, for whatever it’s worth, I give you my notes. If you have any further questions on them, please feel free to ask me. Here is the link:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df9gpgs4_2gqzqcnfc