I am very happy to announce that the first volume of texts edited for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project has been sent to the publisher (Eerdmans) and we anticipate its publication within the next year.

This is an epic undertaking that many have been waiting anxiously to see come to fruition.  This is a new collection of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha that goes beyond previous collections, such as the two-volume work of James Charlesworth (The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha).  This new collection includes about 100 documents, including texts most of us have never even heard of!  Some of those include:

• The Apocryphon of Eber
• The Dispute over Abraham
• The Inquiry of Abraham
• The Story of Melchizedek with the Melchizedek Legend from the Chronicon Paschale
• The Syriac History of Joseph
• The Eighth Book of Moses
• The Balaam Text from Tell Deir ‘Allā
• Songs of David
• The Aramaic Song of the Lamb (Dialogue between David and Goliath)
• Exorcistic Psalms of David and Solomon
• The Selendromion of David and Solomon
• Jeremiah’s Prophecy to Pashhur
• The Apocryphon of Ezekiel
• The Treatise of the Vessels (Massekhet Kelim)
• The Seventh Vision of Daniel
• Sefer Zerubbabel: The Prophetic Vision of Zerubbabel ben Shealtiel
• Fifth Ezra
• Sixth Ezra

And there are obviously many more. These are just some of the texts that are covered in the first volume!

These publications will open the way for a much wider appreciation and understanding of these texts. Professor Davila comments, regarding the importance of the publication of these documents:

“Some of these compositions provide us with fascinating background material to the New Testament. Others are a rich source of information on the reception history of the Hebrew Bible by Jews, Christians, and pagans through late antiquity. They frequently give us different perspectives from those found in writings of the same period which later acquired an authoritative status in Judaism (the rabbinic literature) and Christianity (the patristic literature). Together they present us with the sacred legends and spiritual reflections of numerous long-dead authors whose works were lost, neglected, or suppressed for many centuries. By making these documents available in excellent English translations and authoritative but accessible introductions we aim both to promote more scholarly study of them and to bring them to the attention of the vast lay audience who appreciate such treasures.”

Many thanks to Professors Davila, Bauckham, Dr. Panayotov, and their many associates on the project (including the Maxwell Institute’s Kristian Heal), for making these exciting texts available to us!

For the full flier (which will be handed out to participants of our grad conference tomorrow) and Table of Contents of Volume 1, see Jim Davila’s post at PaleoJudaica.

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Matthew B. Brown

“Cube, Gate and Measuring Tools: A Biblical Pattern”

There is a close relationship between the ancient Israelite temple and the book of the Apocalypse in the New Testament.

The holy of holies of the temple was based on a divine pattern that was revealed to Moses. What we know of the holy of holies can be compared to what we are told about the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation in Rev. 21. The New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven is described as a gold cube, just as is the holy of holies of the temple.

The entrance to the New Jerusalem consisted of three gates on each side, each gate guarded by an angel. This reminds us of the veil of the temple, which was decorated with embroidered cherubim who guarded the way to the holy of holies.

The Ark of the Covenant that sat in the holy of holies represented God’s throne and was supposed to have been placed over the “foundation stone” (the “navel of creation”), which, in turn, sat over the “abyss” (the primeval chaos or flood).

This “throne” of God was associated with the divine attributes of righteousness, truth, and uprightness. These three attributes can be seen as requirements for entrance to the temple, as we see in Ps. 15:2 — compare this to Rev. 21 (my notes here don’t contain the details, but perhaps we are to compare all of Ps. 15 with Rev. 21:7–8, and that both should be considered to be requirements for entry into the respective holy place).

Psalm 24 also represents an entrance liturgy that discusses entry requirements for the temple. According to rabbinic traditions (I have no specific reference), the psalm is said to be associated with the king gaining access to the holy of holies of the temple. The psalm speaks of passing through the gates to ascend to the temple.

We are told in Luke 13:22–30 that the gate for entrance into salvation is “strait” or narrow. There is also talk of “striving” (struggling, contending) to enter through the door, and also of knocking at the door (here M. Brown gives an explanation of a Catholic “entrance liturgy” that involves knocking on a door with a mallet).

Note that Psalm 118:19 makes reference to a temple gate known as the Gate of Righteousness.  “Righteousness”, anciently, was symbolized by the plumb line (Isa. 28:17; a measuring tool) and leveling instruments.  The targum to Psalm 89:8 indicates that faithfulness/truth surrounds God like a circle or compass. Also, the Hebrew verb yashar (I don’t have any references he used, but see, e.g., Ps. 5:8) means: to make straight, right, or level. It involves creating a straight line, not deviating to the right or left. (There is much more to this discussion that is missing from my notes — generally, the attributes or requirements for entering the temple, including righteousness, uprightness, etc., are often symbolized by measuring tools, such as those used by God to create the world, or those used to build the temple.)

In Ezekiel 40:3, when Ezekiel is shown in vision the future/ideal temple, he sees an angel “with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.” We see here again the relationship between the temple gates and the measuring tools — the line/rope and rod are tools used for building the temple. We see this same theme in Rev. 11:1 and Rev. 21:15, where a rod is used to measure the sacred precincts.

Ezekiel 46:1–2 — we get a description of the king kneeling before the temple gate. He had to “measure up” to be worthy to worship at the temple (from this point on I think I became so enthralled in the presentation that I forgot to take detailed notes, basically only taking down relevant scriptural passages — I will attempt to reconstruct what I can based on this paucity of real notes).

Going back to our temple entrance liturgy in Psalm 24, verses 1-2 make reference to God’s actions at the Creation and the conquering of Chaos. God builds the earth upon the conquered Sea. Other scriptural passages describe God as a master builder using builders’ tools.  Proverbs 8:27, 29 tells about how God set his compass upon the chaos waters and ascribed limitations that they could not pass.  Job 38:5 talks of God laying the foundations of the earth, measuring and “stretching out the line” upon it — God used builders’ tools.

In Psalm 89, verse 9 describes God’s power over the chaos waters, how He rules over the raging of the sea. This is an important symbol of God’s power.  In Ps. 89:25, we can understand that God has delegated this divine power to the Israelite king, who shall likewise rule over the sea.

Psalms 2, 110 — God anoints king, sets him on his holy hill and gives him power over his enemies.

1 Kings 5:17 (see also Ezra 6:3) — King lays the foundation stones for the temple, following similar pattern to God in Creation

Psalm 72:1–2 — This psalm is declared, in the superscription, to be “A Song for Solomon”, and attributes to him the powers and duties of God. “Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.  He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.” The succeeding verses continue to demonstrate just how much divine power God has delegated to the king:

Psalm 72:4–11  4 He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.  5 They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.  6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.  7 In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.  8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.  9 They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.  10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.  11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.

The righteousness expected of the king in order to be worthy of this trust is described in Pss. 19:13; 89:24; 101.

In 1 Kings 3:6, we are told that King David possessed the three divine throne attributes (mentioned above): truth, righteousness, and uprightness. The fact that the Davidic king was seen to sit on the very throne of Jehovah (1 Chron. 29:23) emphasizes the need for the king to possess these essential qualities.

The stories in Scripture related to the Creation, the Temple, and the End Times (Eschaton) contain a pattern of similar images and symbols.  We see the cube, the sets of three gates (veil), the cherubim (angels), the Ark of the Covenant (throne of God), the entrance requirements, and the measuring tools — these very significant symbols can be seen in biblical passages regarding the Creation, the Temple, and the New Jerusalem of the End Times.  There are significant parallels between what happens in Heaven and what happens on Earth, and God can be seen to delegate his divine power to mankind.

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For more on similar temple-related themes, please see the following papers, also presented at the Expound Symposium (the overlapping of themes was not planned):

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Standing in the Holy Place: Ancient and Modern Reverberations of an Enigmatic New Testament Prophecy”

David J. Larsen, “Ascending into the Hill of the Lord: The Psalms as a Key to Understanding the Rituals of the First Temple”

My apologies to Matthew Brown for anything in my notes that may not fully or properly represent the wording or intentions of his presentation.

First, here is the abstract:

The Psalms contain many allusions and also direct references to the temple and temple ritual and are one of the few windows we have into the religious experience of the First Temple in Jerusalem. This paper will attempt to shed some light on ritual practices alluded to in the Psalms that I will argue were central to the ritual system of that Temple. Dr. Silviu Bunta, in a recent publication, argues that 1 Enoch 14 should not, as is commonly argued, be understood as the earliest example of the ascent to heaven motif in Jewish literature, but that Ezekiel’s vision in Ezekiel 1 should be seen as a temple vision and, thus, as an earlier, biblical account of an ascent to heaven.  Moving a step beyond Bunta’s conclusions, I argue that the heavenly ascent motif can be traced even further back, into the pre-exilic traditions of Solomon’s Temple, as illustrated by a number of pre-exilic Psalms and other biblical traditions, and that a ritualized ascent into heaven to see the face of God was one of the central features of the temple cult.  Descriptions of temple pilgrimages, festal processions, passage through temple gates, divine theophanies, and other religious experiences involving the temple can be seen to parallel key elements of the later heavenly ascent literature.

Ascending Into the Hill of the Lord: The Psalms as a Key to Understanding the Rituals of the First Temple

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.

Tony Burke at Apocryphicity shared the following regarding why he chose to study the Christian Apocrypha:

Why am I such an advocate for the Christian Apocrypha? Have I been “burned…by orthodox Christianity” as Ben Witherington suggests (in The Gospel Code: Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Da Vinci [Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2004], p. 172-174, and What Have They Done With Jesus? Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History—Why We Can Trust the Bible [San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2006], p. 4-5)? Am I trying to prove I am a “good critical scholar” by “discrediting” the New Testament? Or have I been “misled…by the powers of darkness”? I hope the answer to all of these questions is no. But the answer is connected to faith—or more rightly, a reaction to a faith once held.

[...]

My views on censorship have led me also to become an advocate for apocryphal texts. This is literature that Christian orthodoxy did not, and indeed still does not, want us to read. We can debate the validity of this position—the process of selecting a canon of sacred texts is a common phenomenon and is, in some ways, necessary for the survival of the faith—but part of me still thinks it wrong. Texts should be available to all, ideas should flow freely, and to censor them is nothing but cowardice. This is particularly so today. For the church to censor texts in the fourth century, and many centuries thereafter, may be understandable given the times, but for Christian groups and Christian writers to advocate doing so now is unconscionable. Of course, in an age of the free flow of information, censoring the texts is no longer an option, but actively discouraging others from reading literature, sometimes by distorting their contents to instill fear in the potential reader, is just as insidious.

[...]

You can read the full post here. I don’t agree with all of Tony’s remarks; for example, I would take issue with his opinion that the Apocalypse of John is not the result of a vision (in agreement with Jim Davila’s comment).

I think that the Apocrypha is an important body of literature, as it gives us insights into the beliefs and practices of early Jews and Christians that we often don’t find so clearly in the canonical texts.

See also Tony Burke’s More Christian Apocrypha page, which lists a number of apocryphal texts that you probably have never even heard of (I hadn’t).

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For a day-by-day plan for reading all of James Charlesworth’s The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.), and why you would want to do so, check out “The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Calendar-in-a-Year” at Joseph Kelly’s blog, כל–האדם

Jim Davila recommends reading these volumes this year before the release of his “More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha” soon afterwards.