Tonight, my wife and I attended a conference with The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. To be clear this is one of the leading Zionist organizations. Some within the organization might be construed as dispensational (although ICEJ leadership would claim that they are not Dispensational as they do not preach the Pre-Trib Rapture or 2/3rds of Israel dying). If you have followed my work or X44 for long, you know that I would not align with either ideology (even though I have a degree from Moody Bible Institute which remains as one of the top dispensational colleges in the world). I might add, nor would I align with most versions of replacement theology. However, simply because I don’t see theologically the same way as another “Christian” individual or organization doesn’t mean that I don’t partner with them as kingdom brothers & sisters. In fact, quite the opposite. As an unbiased theologian of course, I think my theologies are right (who doesn’t); but I am also open to the fact that in the eyes of God my views may not be correct, or God’s “will or order” may not be understandable to me here. I strongly believe in seasons, callings, and anointings. God’s ways are certainly higher than mine. David Parsons, ICEJ Vice President & Senior Spokesman has become a good friend of mine, and I firmly believe in what he and the rest of his team are doing and the heart for which they do it. God is smiling on them. They are incredible kingdom partners! If there was ever a time to put differences aside and unite on what we do stand in agreement with; it is now and, in the name and kingdom of our LORD Jesus Christ. There isn’t a place for petty differences right now, and whatever they may be, seem rather insignificant. Jesus is calling and these brothers and sisters are highly favored and anointed to the calling before them. If you want to support Israeli aid, this is the organization that is going to see the Kingdom established in Israel and I can’t recommend a better organization than ICEJ.
The night was powerful. Praise and worship, amazing testimonies of what God was doing, deep teaching, and the moving of the spirit with fresh anointing.
I pray for Israel, ICEJ, those in affliction, and particularly the now and coming kingdom of Jesus as I stand in agreement with my family at ICEJ. I wrote a previous post on “all things Israel” here.
Today was a life milestone. I visited the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I have dreamed of this since I was young. As I would love to tell you everything I know about them, I think I will keep this to a brief introduction.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts (some original biblical texts) from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. These date back to the third century BCE.[1]
The Shrine of the Book was built as a repository for the first seven scrolls discovered at Qumran in 1947. The unique white dome embodies the lids of the jars in which the first scrolls were found. This symbolic building, a kind of sanctuary intended to express profound spiritual meaning, is considered an international landmark of modern architecture. Designed by American Jewish architects Armand P. Bartos and Frederic J. Kiesler, it was dedicated in an impressive ceremony on April 20, 1965.
The contrast between the white dome and the black wall alongside it alludes to the tension evident in the scrolls between the spiritual world of the “Sons of Light” (as the Judean Desert sectarians called themselves) and the “Sons of Darkness” (the sect’s enemies). The corridor leading into the Shrine resembles a cave, recalling the site where the ancient manuscripts were discovered. [12]
2017 marks the 70th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Long story short, in late 1947 a young Bedouin boy tossed a stone into a cave, heard the clink of breaking pottery, and would later scramble in to find the tattered remains of ancient scrolls from the centuries leading up to and after the Common Era. If this modern story of ancient discoveries is new to you, you’ve got to ask a very important question. Why does any of this matter today?
These are the oldest Biblical manuscripts that we have and therefore have made us consider the texts of our later translations of the Bible. [2] Today I visited the Shrine of the Book Museum in Jerusalem where the Dead Sea Scrolls and fragments are located and are now mostly the property and heritage of Judaism.[4] There are 981 different manuscripts (discovered in 1946/1947 and in 1956) from 11 caves,[5] in Qumran in the eastern Judaean Desert in the West Bank.[6] Archaeologists have long associated the scrolls with the ancient Jewish sect known as the Essenes, although some recent interpretations have challenged this connection and argue that priests in Jerusalem or other unknown Jewish groups wrote the scrolls.[7][8]
Most of the scrolls are in Hebrew, with some written in Aramaic and Greek.[9] The texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper.[10] The scrolls cover a wide range of topics and genres. The biblical scrolls include texts from every book of the Old Testament, with the possible exception of Esther. Other scrolls are Jewish sectarian writings, administrative documents, deeds of sale, and even divorce and marriage records. Despite the name, the majority of the scrolls are preserved as fragments, small scraps of what were once larger scrolls and documents. While some scrolls are several feet long, many smaller fragments are no larger than a fingertip. To date, more than 25,000 fragments have been discovered, and extensive work has gone into combining, preserving, translating, and studying these various fragments.[11]
The Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on the period between Alexander the Great’s conquest of Palestine in 332 BCE through the Great Revolt, which ended in 73 CE, with an emphasis on the period from the Maccabean Revolt (168–164 BCE) through the turn of the century. However, in order to fully comprehend the Qumran sect, the reasons for its establishment, and its unique character, one must study Judaism and Jews in the Second Temple Period. It is essential to understand the political realities, external influences, and theology of the time. The Second Temple period, or Second Commonwealth, began in 538 BCE with a declaration by Cyrus the Great, king of Persia and Media, that the Jews could return to the Land of Israel and rebuild their Temple. The Temple and the city of Jerusalem were rebuilt by the year 515 BCE, and, in contrast to the First Commonwealth, the high priest became the secular as well as religious authority. This system of government lasted into the Hasmonean period and became an object of protest in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as in other literature of the period. [13]
The scrolls gave historians great insight into the ancient forms of these languages, and they also changed the way scholars studied the Old Testament. For example, the scroll with the most complete version of the book of Psalms had about 40 psalms, including three that were previously unknown. One of these unknown psalms was a “plea for deliverance,” which made note of “evil incarnation.” The Dead Sea Scrolls provide evidence of the diversity of religious thought in early Judaism and the Hebrew Bible’s text development. They revealed the psalms were once sequenced in a different order. This was interesting to scholars because the texts had long been so uniform, and seeing flexibility with the wording and organization was stunning. Few people, however, were able to read and analyze the texts. The Dead Sea Scrolls were long hidden away until they were “liberated” in the 1990s. [14] Later that year, the Biblical Archaeology Society was able to publish the “Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls”, after an intervention of the Israeli government and the IAA.[15] In 1991 Emanuel Tov was appointed as the chairman of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, and publication of the scrolls followed in the same year. Researchers at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ben Zion Wacholder and Martin Abegg, announced the creation of a computer program that used previously published scrolls to reconstruct the unpublished texts.[16] Officials at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, led by head librarian William Andrew Moffett, announced that they would allow researchers unrestricted access to the library’s complete set of photographs of the scrolls. In the fall of that year, Wacholder published 17 documents that had been reconstructed in 1988 from a concordance and had come into the hands of scholars outside of the international team; in the same month, there occurred the discovery and publication of a complete set of facsimiles of the Cave 4 materials at the Huntington Library. Thereafter, the officials of the IAA agreed to lift their long-standing restrictions on the use of the scrolls.[17]
If you keep a close eye on the footnotes of your Bible, you’ll see a number of places where the words of modern translations are different than those read by your parents or grandparents. One of the reasons for this is that we know more about ancient scribal culture and have access to hoards more biblical manuscripts today than we ever have. This means the textual foundation under the hood of most any contemporary translation is better than it has ever been. Whether you’re a fan of the NIV, NRSV, ESV, or ABC-123, each new edition involves incremental change to the actual words on the page.
But this sword cuts in both directions. While we have far more evidence to work with, if the Scrolls taught us anything about Old Testament scripture, it is generally true that the older the manuscripts the more varied they become. Simply put: human scribes were not photocopiers and no two manuscripts are the same. Scribes copied texts but also interpreted them. That was their job. It wasn’t trickery or introducing error at every turn. This often resulted in slow growth of biblical texts with manuscripts having relatively modest variations in content. A word here, a phrase there, and in some cases, more than one edition of a book circulated. To many modern readers, this might sound like a major problem. I’d rather see it as an opportunity. An opportunity for artful restoration of a text that is both ancient and sacred. Let me show you what I mean.
I really like the way RELEVANT handles this:
Have you ever been reading the Old Testament and then, wham!, some guy shows up in the story and starts gouging out people’s eyeballs? I have, very alarming. (Gotta love the Old Testament though, so old school!) Of course, I’m talking about the incident that plays out in 1 Samuel 10-11, just after Saul became Israel’s first king. In most ancient manuscripts and modern Bible translations, chapter 10 ends with a statement of a small group uttering lack of confidence in Saul’s ability to defeat the Ammonites (1 Sam 10:27). Chapter 11 then opens with the sudden introduction of an Ammonite king named Nahash, who insists on only making a treating with the Israelites so long as he can gouge out each and all’s right eyeball (1 Sam 11:1-2). Not only is this a bad deal, its super confusing in the context of the narrative. Why? Something is missing.
At least seven copies of the book of Samuel were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. One of these, known as 4QSamuala, just happens to be the oldest known manuscript of the book in existence (dated to around 50-25 BCE). In this version of the text, we find a full paragraph tucked in between the end of chapter 10 and beginning of chapter 11. The translation of this Dead Sea Scroll reads as follows:[Na]hash king of the [A]mmonites oppressed the Gadites and the Reubenites viciously. He put out the right [ey]e of a[ll] of them and brought fe[ar and trembling] on [Is]rael. Not one of the Israelites in the region be[yond the Jordan] remained [whose] right eye Naha[sh king of] the Ammonites did n[ot pu]t out, except seven thousand men [who escaped from] the Ammonites and went to [Ja]besh-gilead.
What we have here is essentially a cut scene seemingly lost in the generations of copying all other biblical manuscripts. From this content, we learn who this Nahash figure is and why he had the sadistic penchant for collecting eyeballs. Incidentally, the ancient Jewish historian Josephus also seems to have been aware or this detail as he hints at it in his own retelling of Saul’s life (Antiquities 6.5.1). This is the single largest difference discovered when the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls were compared with all previously known witness to the Old Testament. The spectrum of other variations revealed by the scrolls ranges from the spelling of terms, to added/omitted words, or even sentences. While many common Bible translations have dabbled in the Dead Sea Scrolls and included new readings, to date the NRSV is the only one bold enough to integrate the reading described here in 1 Samuel.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are important for a number of reasons. First, they shed light on an otherwise known Jewish group. Actually, the people who wrote the Scrolls never refer to themselves as Jews. They are intriguingly vague about their identity. Second, the Scrolls indicate that certain books of the Bible were more popular than others, a conclusion we could draw similarly from the New Testament quotations of the Old Testament. Third, the use of the Old Testament as an authoritative source for biblical interpretation and personal and community life matches material from the New Testament as well. Finally, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls allows us to access Old Testament manuscripts more than 1,000 years older than we previously possessed. Before the discovery of the Scrolls, the oldest complete manuscript of any Old Testament book dated to the 10th century A.D. To be clear, if Moses wrote the Pentateuch in circa 1400 B.C., then our earliest copy of his complete work in Hebrew dated 2,400 years after it was written! It is with justification that the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered by many the most important biblical archaeological discovery of all time.[19]
WORKS CITED:
“The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls: Nature and Significance”. Israel Museum Jerusalem. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
Lash, Mordechay; Goldstein, Yossi; Shai, Itzhaq (2020). “Underground-Archaeological Research in the West Bank, 1947–1968: Management, Complexity, and Israeli Involvement”. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology.
Duhaime, Bernard; Labadie, Camille (2020). “Intersections and Cultural Exchange: Archaeology, Culture, International Law and the Legal Travels of the Dead Sea Scrolls”. Canada’s Public Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p. 146
“Hebrew University Archaeologists Find 12th Dead Sea Scrolls Cave”. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Archived from the original on 2 June 2017.
Donahue, Michelle Z. (10 February 2017). “New Dead Sea Scroll Find May Help Detect Forgeries”. nationalgeographic.com. Archived from the original on 15 June 2018.
Ofri, Ilani (13 March 2009). “Scholar: The Essenes, Dead Sea Scroll ‘authors,’ never existed”. Ha’aretz. Archived from the original on 6 January 2018.
Golb, Norman (5 June 2009). “On the Jerusalem Origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls” (PDF). University of Chicago Oriental Institute. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 June 2010.
Vermes, Geza (1977). The Dead Sea Scrolls. Qumran in Perspective. London: Collins. p. 15.
McCarthy, Rory (27 August 2008). “From papyrus to cyberspace”. The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 December 2016.
“Copies of Dead Sea Scrolls To Go Public – Release Would End Scholars’ Dispute'”. The Seattle Times. 22 September 1991. Archived from the original on 21 October 2013
HUC-JIR Mourns Dr. Ben Zion Wacholder, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, 31 March 2011, archived from the original on 18 November 2015
“Dead Sea Scrolls”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 12 April 2009.
Today was our first full day in Jerusalem and we pretty much covered the entire Old Jerusalem. It was overwhelming but perhaps one of the best days of my life. Our tour guide was an Atheist which I actually quite enjoyed hearing his take on things (that might be a future post). So much of the Jerusalem experience sounds like, “they think this may have been,” or “according to tradition.” I guess that is expected but of course it left me longing to want to stand where Jesus stood for certain. That may be impossible seeing that things have been “excavated” several times over the last 2000 years, and they have continued to build over the last structures raising the “mount” about 40 feet from what it was during the time of Christ. I think there is good evidence for the trial location being at about the same elevation thanks to recent archeology and perhaps the crucifixion site at Golgotha which is covered by a church but shows the mountain top. The temple dome is also covered and completely inaccessible to Christians as the Islamic Mosque covers it. But the location that came to life for me was the Sheep’s gate.
THE ARCHEOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS
In John 5 we find Jesus, the great physician, engaged with a man who is physically unwell. The Pool of Bethesda is referred to in John 5:2 when Jesus heals a paralyzed man at a pool of water in Jerusalem, described as being near the Sheep Gate and surrounded by five covered colonnades or porticoes. I saw this today and it came to life. (It is also sometimes referred to as Bethzatha) [1] and is now established in the current Muslim Quarter of the city, near the Church of St. Anne, which was excavated in the late 19th century.
The name of the pool in Hebrew is Beth hesda (בית חסד/חסדא) which is a bit ambiguous and could mean “house of mercy”[2] or “house of grace” likely due to the invalids waiting to be healed.[3][4][5]IN Greek it reads Βηθεσδά (Bethesda),[7] appearing in manuscripts of the Gospel of John, include Βηθζαθά[8] (Beth-zatha = בית חדתא[9]) as a derivative of Bezetha, and Bethsaida (not to be confused with Bethsaida, a town in Galilee), although the latter is considered to be a metathetical corruption by Biblical scholars.[10] Franz Delitzsch suggests this is a Mishnaic Hebrew loanword from the Greek estiv/estava, that appropriately referred to stoa (στοά).[11] That would seem to fit here. As I mentioned earlier, when you visit this in person you are looking down into a deep hole. This is because over 2000 years nearly 40 feet of fill has been added to nearly the entire Temple mount. Until the 19th century, there was no conception for the existence of such a pool. The Pool of Bethesda almost took on a mystical or magical persona similar to the fabled fountain of youth. However, Conrad Schick in 1872 was permitted to conduct research on the Temple Mount, which was generally off limits to non-Muslims.[12] He discovered a large tank situated about 100 feet (30 m) north-west of St. Anne’s Church, which he contended was the Pool of Bethesda. Further archaeological excavation in the area, in 1964, uncovered the remains of the Byzantine and Crusader churches, Hadrian’s Temple of Asclepius and Serapis, and the small healing pools of an Asclepeion, the second of the two large pools, and the dam between them.[13] It was discovered that the Byzantine church had been built in the very heart of Hadrian’s temple and contained the healing pools.[14] Essentially, when you see this in person as it was excavated, it comes to life. You see the gentle steps for the inflicted, and the way around them. You see how it was likely off the beaten bath and in the bad part of town.
THE NARRATIVE
“Jesus is making his way through the crowd at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. To do so he has to pass by a pool. Today, just like every day, it is surrounded by those who cling to life by a thread of hope. Legend says that this pool sometimes becomes the channel of God’s grace. Legend has it that the first one to enter the water after an angel stirs it up will be cured. So the square is full. There are blind, lame, diseased, dumb, paralytics, amputees. The vestiges of an occupied society. The outcasts, the homeless, the beggars. All there waiting for a chance at new life, to be freed of their special form of imprisonment.”[6]
So, what exactly took place? We aren’t given much of his spiritual state, but he seems to have some faith. Jesus asks a pointed question: “Do you want to get well?” (v 6 NIV). As we take a deeper look at this scene in scripture, we might find Jesus challenging our own situations with that question. The passage points us toward considering the areas in our lives where we are seeking healing from the Lord.
If you have any Bible other than the King James Version you will notice that Verse 4 is missing. Perhaps you have a footnote. I always thought the fact that the NIV has 49 blank verses was very interesting and certainly should challenge your thoughts on inerrancy and what that means. There are over 3000 Greek manuscripts and fragments of the New Testament of varying age. Each one was hand copied, which leaves room for mistakes and even practical decisions of what to do with what the previous copyist has done. John 5:4 is one of the verses in contention, as the addition or subtraction from your translation does carry some interesting implications worth exploring, IMHO it doesn’t change the primary narrative.
The verse or perhaps note in your Bible does help to explain the context of the story and the people involved. They believed in a rather superstitious way that from time to time when the water was troubled (it would rise rapidly and then sink again) that this was caused by an angel who visited the pool, and the first person who got into it when it was so moved would be healed. This is akin to what is found in many parts of the world today. Lourdes, in southern France, has a spa which many believe has healing capacities. The shrine of Guadalupe, in Mexico City, has thousands of crutches stacked along its walls where people have been healed in this special place where they thought they could receive a blessing from God. I spent many summers in Ecuador and there were several pools that took on the same notion. In many historical cases people have been unarguably healed.
Of course, Bethesda, and most of the others mentioned are all intermittent springs, thus explaining the rising and falling water lines, but also may give relevance to people’s notions of healing waters coming from the natural earth. As you can imagine the theories vary. Perhaps most of these healings around the world and throughout history can be explained psychologically. When people believe they are going to be healed, and they are in a place where healings supposedly occur, and they do the expected thing, many of them are “healed.” So much of the human process is psychological and/or spiritual. Thus, the pool at Bethesda had established a reputation as a place where people could be healed. Would you call this then a natural or supernatural occurrence? Yes?! Perhaps? Well, that may depend on your theology!
I used to think that this man at the pool at Bethesda had lain there for 38 years. But the text does not say that; it says he had been ill for 38 years. Scripture likely would have identified him as a “lame” man (or a cripple) had that been the case, but we get more of the description that he is weak, feeble, and unable to stand, probably because of some wasting disease; perhaps what we refer to in modern day language as cancer, tuberculosis, or multiple sclerosis.
The story picks up early in Jesus’ ministry where He is being followed by a crowd at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. He approaches the pool where there are blind, lame, diseased, dumb, paralytics, amputees all hoping to be healed. I am sure this was a mosaic of the fallen world. I am sure the stench in the air would have tipped you off to this. Jesus seemed to have a heart for this kind of place and people. There is a certain simplicity that Jesus masters in cutting to the chase. If you have never picked up on this, Jesus always seems to be direct in a sense of what we might think of as “making time or space for something”; but the fact was his expediency commanded the sole work of the father. In other words, that’s the only “time” He kept.
You don’t need to “make time for something” when “all of your time” is given to it.
The question was direct and quite simple, “Do you want to get well?” I am sure some wondered if he was making fun of the man, as the question may have seemed quite rhetorical. If the man is here at the pool, then of course he wants to get well- why else would he be here on the “other side of the tracks”?
What is interesting is that the paralytic doesn’t exactly answer the question that Jesus asks. His response is, “Sir, I can’t get to the pool fast enough. I have no one to help me and before I get there, someone else is always first”. I find this pretty common. We are stuck in our world’s way of thinking; our paradigm isn’t that of the ways or mind of Jesus.
But Jesus isn’t actually asking him if he “wants” or “desires” to be healed, (that would be rude), He is actually asking him if he is willing. There is a difference. I get tired of completely “free” and/or “unmerited” grace language in the American evangelical church. I will get there…
I often read the Biblical texts in Greek and Hebrew and when I get to this part, something jumps out at me that you wouldn’t know from the English translations. The Greek word He uses is “thelo”. This is an unusual choice of words for “willingness”. The Greek word “boulomai” is the more common word for such a question of will or desire. But “thelo” carries a stronger connotation which also likely created a bit of a wordplay in Aramaic. Jesus isn’t asking if he has a desire to be healed, he is asking if he is willing to do what is needed to experience this. It is a bit of a word play because the man responds that he can’t do this alone; and that is true – HE NEEDS JESUS. But he doesn’t actually realize what he “needs.” Does he realize healing comes from Jesus not the pool, does he understand that Jesus is asking if he is willing to enter into what may be an agreement or covenant as a result of the offered healing? It isn’t really a deal or a contract but has some ramifications similar. By modern English-American understanding perhaps we call this “strings attached.” There is an expectation to the action and an expected response to such a gift.
Jesus is asking, “Are you willing to do what it takes to be generated whole?” Often in English we need more than one word to express the singular joined words of the Hebrew and Greek languages. This is why translation is difficult and gets into literal word versus thought for thought arguments. In this case “be” is often short for become and functions the same way in Greek. It is also why I would say the better translation would uses the phrase “be generated.” It is one of the rare Greek words that actually carries over into English knowledge as the transliteration is “genesis” which in English shares the same root notion as the word generated. In other words, do you want to start over to be made whole? This healing experience in many ways is what each of us is confronted with, it is the takeaway from the text, what does complete healing look like for you?
Do you have the desire and are you willing to enter a covenant to be generated completely well. spiritually and physically?
Jesus is asking then if He wants to “commit” to a new life. We say that all the time without thinking of the implications of what commitment means. Again, I am sure he doesn’t understand the question and we have the advantage of reading the entire Biblical narrative backwards or inside out to gain a better understanding. Did you know that this same Greek word carries the connotation linguistically of being “sound or good (TOV)?” (The creation story reminds us of this.) Another way we say this is “to be healthy.” You may be familiar with the term “shalom” which is so important to the balance of life and healthy physical and spiritual living. It embraces the whole person, physical and spiritual. It is far reaching in the kingdom.
That brings me to the reflective action of this message. Just how ready are we to do whatever is required to begin our own rebirth or regeneration? The man in the story says he needs Jesus and I love the poetic inability. Over and over in the scripture we see that Jesus is looking for a first step and offers for people to simply “Trust Him”. He is asking for first steps of devotion, to follow through right now. He is here, now, in this moment, to help. Take the action of your desire and . . . “Rise up and walk.” Do you see that this is an invitation to all of us?
The reaction on that day would have never been forgotten. The lame man of thirty-eight years stands up and walks. But don’t miss the real miracle- the poetic voice of the story, that without asking, without even knowing or imagining, God visits this victim of the world and asks him to be reimagined for His kingdom. God initiates. God searches. God authors the contact, but our response is important and vital. It is Jesus’ intention to bring this man to wholeness before the paralytic even knows Jesus is there. That is the desire that he has offered and presented to all of us. God cares nothing about your ability. God cares about motivation and action in the midst of inability. Will you complete the covenant gift presented to you?
Do you wish to be generated well?
Maybe the man believed he could be healed, and he wanted to be healed. Maybe this is a story of faith, or maybe it is just a story of what God is offering to anyone, regardless of your faith or even understanding or desire within His kingdom. Perhaps that comes later as a result of enduring devotion and faithfulness. It is absolutely, imperative that you believe Jesus can and does desire to heal you.
Jesus heals in many ways, instantaneously, in a process, and when we see Him face to face. I don’t know what the kingdom sequence or order of why and when is, but I know that He does this, and He will do it completely.
Many of us received initially what was offered (and all of these were miraculous encounters); but perhaps we haven’t completed the circle of the gifted grace. Perhaps we left the covenant on the table. There are “strings attached” that are called devotion, and this devotion is what leads to the preeminent calling of scripture which is to be an “ALL IN” disciple of Jesus. The story wasn’t written with just the expectation to become fans or even simple followers, it was written that we may “become generated” disciples completely whole (and healed) in Jesus. Most American Christians certainly do not fulfill the calling of Biblical discipleship. Yes, it is a free gift of grace, but that gift was given to be regifted or regenerated and show (or display to the world as an image of Jesus in each of us) the way to the new complete life God has intended for you. I feel like many Christians have been quick to take the “free gift” but haven’t followed through with the covenant aspects of the kingdom. We don’t bear the fruit that outwardly proclaims the complete healing inside. Perhaps you’re wondering what you’re missing. I find the answer usually lies in discipleship and devotion. God wants all of us. Thats is what a disciple “works” towards. What does that covenant life look like for you and your family? What does this kind of discipleship look like in your own life and in the lives of those that you are regenerated to impact?
Many of my readers are aware that I would hold to a basic idea that God has partnered with other spiritual beings to manage his creation (and seeks to also partner with humanity) and that when we read the fall of Adam and Eve, we are also most likely reading the beginning of the fall of spiritual beings. The snake figure (Nāḥāš (נחש), Hebrew for “snake” which also later becomes associated with divination) likely would not have been in Eden had it already “fallen.” Eventually it would seem that most of the Spiritual beings that were assigned over the table of nations in Genesis 10 are worshipped as deities and also fall. If you aren’t familiar with this view, I would encourage you to start with this article or this video.
As my friends and I have been navigating Egypt this week, the concepts above have certainly been in my mind. I have been asked more times than I can count if I believe there was alien intervention to build the Pyramids.
Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a pseudoscientific set of beliefs[1] that hold that intelligent extraterrestrial beings (alien astronauts) visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity.[1] Proponents of the theory suggest that this contact influenced the development of modern cultures, technologies, religions, and human biology.[3] A common position is that deities from most (if not all) religions are extraterrestrial in origin, and that advanced technologies brought to Earth by ancient astronauts were interpreted as evidence of divine status by early humans.[4]
I have long been open to the perspective that some of these fallen spiritual beings were “high ranking” deities that served on the Divine Council of Yahweh and then fell to become “gods” worshipped by humanity as they “ruled” over them. This would explain the notion that Egyptian pharaohs described themselves as eternal beings and it is clear that they aligned themselves with the celestial (luminaries were known to be spiritual beings in the ancient world.) In Genesis 6 we read of fallen beings intermixing with women of earth and the Nephilim are produced. This reference to them is in Genesis 6:1–4, but the passage is ambiguous and the identity of the Nephilim is disputed.[5] According to Numbers 13:33, ten of the Twelve Spies report the existence of Nephilim in Canaan prior to its conquest by the Israelites.[6] A similar or identical Hebrew term, read as “Nephilim” by some scholars, or as the word “fallen” by others, appears in Ezekiel 32:27 and is also mentioned in the deuterocanonical books of Judith 16:6, Sirach 16:7, Baruch 3:26–28, and Wisdom 14:6.[7] These fallen beings of Genesis 6 would seem to then rise to high places within humanity such as a giant heralded philistine warrior or perhaps even greater esteem.
From the third century BC onwards, references are found in the Enochic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls,[8] Jubilees, the Testament of Reuben, 2 Baruch, Josephus, and the Book of Jude (compare with 2 Peter 2). For example:1 Enoch 7 “And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.” [9] Some Christian apologists, such as Tertullian and especially Lactantius, shared this opinion. Therefore, it is quite plausible to believe that the fallen spiritual beings became rulers of the physical world and possibly used “spiritual abilities or powers” to accomplish their means. To be clear I personally do not see this as a UFO picking up rocks and dropping them like a cosmic crane or tractor beam; but more of a supernatural control of the natural order such as we clearly see the “gods’ of Egypt demonstrating during the Exodus request and test by Moses.
But this still rises several questions. In Exodus 7:10–14, Pharaoh’s magicians are able to turn their staffs into snakes, although their snakes get eaten by Aaron’s. From where do they derive this supernatural power? Are there other gods that have some power, but Yahweh, the true God, has more? If Yahweh is more powerful, why does he allow the lesser gods to perform miracles at all? Is God truly omniscient over them? Or if there is only one God, does Yahweh perform miracles for believers of other gods? You have to ask yourself who was the intended audience of the text and what is the text primarily trying to communicate?
Seeing the museums in person have solidified the notion within my theology that the fallen spiritual beings were at the very least influencing humanity and most likley ruling over them with some supernatural ability. Not all of the Pharaohs were fallen spiritual beings, but they all seemed to esteem to be, and I am alluding that at least some of them were. Here are some signs: oblong heads*, the hieroglyphic of a saucer like objects used as the main preposition of the heiroglyphic language to describe movement (to, over above etc…), and near laser precision cut blocks out of a quarry from all sides. These are a few things (there are many more) that have me seeing that ancient astronauts, or more likely fallen spiritual beings, were interacting with Humanity and as I will propose, the historical timeline fits. The ancient Sumerian myth of Enûma Eliš, inscribed on cuneiform tablets and part of the Library of Ashurbanipal, says humankind was created to serve gods called the “Annunaki“. Hypothesis proponents believe that the Annunaki were aliens who came to Earth to mine gold for their own uses. According to the hypothesis proponents, the Annunaki realized mining gold was taking a toll on their race and then created or used the human race as slaves.[10] I would slightly disagree with those that hold to the “creation view” of it but the story seems to line up with the slavery of the pharaohs. Proponents contend that the evidence for ancient astronauts comes from documentary gaps in historical and archaeological records while citing archaeological artifacts that they believe, contrary to the mainstream explanations, are anachronistic and supposedly beyond the technical capabilities of the people who made them. These are sometimes referred to as “out-of-place artifacts”; and include artwork and legends which believers reinterpret to fit stories of extraterrestrial contact or technologies.[11] As I have been in Egypt researching some of these things I have very much found it to be true. The Egyptian timeline is often a mess. They were really good at recording victories but seem to also be decent at blotting things out of existence! We witnessed a lot of granite that had been etched clean to remove the past! Chuck Missler and Mark Eastman argue that modern UFOs carry the fallen angels, or offspring of fallen angels, and that “Noah’s genealogy was not tarnished by the intrusion of fallen angels. It seems that this adulteration of the human gene pool was a major problem on the planet earth”.[12] They make some interesting statements.
Some would say that Ezekial’s vision was one of UFO type objects. A detailed version of this hypothesis was described by Josef F. Blumrich in his book The Spaceships of Ezekiel (1974).[13] The characteristics of the Ark of the Covenant and the Urim and Thummim have been said to suggest high technology, perhaps from alien origins.[14]
But to be clear, I don’t think that fallen spiritual beings snapped their fingers and pyramids were made. archaeological evidence demonstrates not only the long cultural trajectory of prehistoric Egypt but also the developmental processes the ancient Egyptians underwent.[15] Egyptian tombs began with important leaders of villages being buried in the bedrock and covered with mounds of earth. Eventually, the first pharaohs had tombs covered with single-story, mud-brick, square structures called mastabas. The stepped pyramid developed out of multiple mastabas being stacked on each one in one structure. This led to the construction of pharaoh Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara, which is known from records to have been built by the ancient Egyptian architect and advisor Imhotep.[16] It was pharaoh Sneferu who had his pyramid transitioned from a stepped to a true pyramid like the well-known pyramids of Giza.[17] A papyrus document like a logbook kept by an official called inspector Merer has also been discovered with records of the construction of the Great Pyramid.[18] I have seen too much this week to think that aliens just did this with a wave of a wand or even their ships!
And then there is the skull thing, among the ancient rulers depicted with elongated skulls are pharaoh Akhenaten and Nefertiti. To be clear this doesn’t necessarily mean there is alien intervention, but it certainly raises an eyebrow. The depiction of Akhenaten and his family with traits like elongated skulls, limbs, underdeveloped torsos, and gynecomastia in Amarna art is hypothesized to be the effect of a familial disease.[19] Marriage between family members, especially siblings, was common in ancient Egyptian royal families, elevating the risk of such disorders.[20] Studies on the remains of the ruling family of 18th Dynasty Egypt have found evidence of deformities and illnesses.[21] Proposed syndromes of Akhenaten include Loeys-Dietz syndrome, Marfan’s syndrome, Frohlich syndrome, and Antley-Bixler syndrome.[22] Akhenaten worshipped the sun disk god Aten and it is suggested that such worship could point to a disease that is alleviated by sunlight.[23] Weighing all of the options, spiritual being or cosmic cowboy intervention per Genesis 6 would seem to not only be viable, but a logical option.
Colloquial concepts of deities can turn into exaggerated extremism, especially when paganism is in the discussion. Corruption of language and corruption of minds seems to turn people into narrow minded symbionts. Egypt was worshiping these “gods” far before Abraham entered Egypt and taught the Egyptians concerning the religion of his God. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born, Gen 21:5, 2066+100=2166. Abraham was born in 2166 BC. Abraham was 75 years old when he was called to leave Haran (Gen 12:4), 2166-75=2091. Abraham was called to leave Haran in 2091 BC. Today I visited the pyramids in/by Djoser which is credited the first Pyramid. He was the first or second king of the 3rd Dynasty (c. 2670–2650 BC) of the Old Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2686 – c. 2125 BC).[25] He is believed to have ruled for 19 years or, if the 19 years were biennial taxation years, 38 years.[26] He reigned long enough to allow the grandiose plan for his pyramid to be realized in his lifetime.[27]
My point is that spiritual beings seem to have influenced ancient Egypt far before Abraham began educating them on Yahweh. The Exodus would then be an establishment (perhaps even spiritual war) of the heavens identifying Yahweh as the greatest “god” as Israel claimed. Notice Yahweh simply says, Have no other gods before me. In Hebrew it would read as just that, the acknowledgment of other “gods” (or fallen spiritual beings.)
When we read the Exodus, we are reading the story of God re-establishing Himself to a lost world as the eternal cosmic KING of the universe and known world.
In early Egyptian writings it makes sense to see congruence or confluence of their concepts of deity. Originally Osiris may have been an Egyptian rendering of “Jehovah” having similar or identical meaning, in which case it would almost necessarily be true that He was present in the Divine council. The Papyrus of Ani and numerous other depictions of the Hall of Judgment mesh exceptionally well with Hebrew and Christian concepts of the Judgment and afterlife. (Interestingly the name of pestilent Egyptian pseudo-deity of the underworld, often called “Set” is lexically indistinguishable from a name pronounced “Satan” in modern tongues.) [23]
It might be an anachronism to say that Israelites believed that Egyptian deities were present in the divine council, but Israelites did teach the Egyptians about the God of Israel. Particularly in regard to Michael Heiser’s recent work, some people have made a point to question whether the Bible taught/represents polytheism. I think this comes down to definitions by which I have never cared for much. I don’t think you’re asking the right question if that is where your mind goes here. You might recall Deuteronomy 4:35, “YHWH is God; there is none else beside him” or Isaiah 44:6–8 which both seem to state Yahweh as the ONLY “god.” But in Exodus 15:11, after the Israelites escape slavery in Egypt, they sing, “Who is like you, O YHWH, among the gods [Elohim]?” At this point they think there are still other “REAL gods.” But what about the other verses that Yahweh seems to be speaking to them such as Deuteronomy 6:14: “Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you” or Deuteronomy 10:17, which says, “For YHWH your God is the God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and terrible, who does not regard people or take bribes.” In Psalm 95:3, it says, “YHWH is a great God, and a great king above all gods.” And in Exodus 12:12, it says, “On that night I will pass through the land of Egypt and smite every firstborn, both man and beast, and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt. I am YHWH.” These verses seem conclusive that there are other gods which I have alluded to are fallen spiritual beings. SO then if you go back to Deuteronomy 4:35 and possibly others like it, you could interpret them as saying that to Israel God should be the ONLY deity in their life. The Hebrew and contextual position of the texts would also support this reading in every situation I know of.
CONCLUSION:
Did spiritual beings have a hand in ancient Egypt? I think the answer after reading the Bible and viewing ancient Egypt firsthand this week would be, “ABSOLUTELY!” The question is how much, and I will leave that for you to decide.
*A number of ancient cultures, such as the ancient Egyptians and some Native Americans, artificially lengthened the skulls of their children. Some ancient astronaut proponents propose that this was done to emulate extraterrestrial visitors, whom they saw as gods. [19]
WORKS CITED:
Lieb, Michael (1998), “The Psycho-pathology of the Bizarre”, Children of Ezekiel: Aliens, UFOs, the Crisis of Race, and the Advent of End Time, Durham, North Carolina and London: Duke University Press, pp. 51–54, 249–251, doi:10.2307/j.ctv11sn0vx.6, ISBN 978-0-8223-2137-8, OCLC 9354231
Hammer, Olav; Swartz, Karen (2021), “Ancient Aliens”, in Zeller, Ben (ed.), Handbook of UFO Religions, Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion, vol. 20, Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers, pp. 151–177, doi:10.1163/9789004435537_008, ISBN 978-90-04-43437-0, ISSN 1874-6691, S2CID 243018663
May, Andrew (2016), Pseudoscience and Science Fiction (illustrated ed.), Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, p. 133, Bibcode:2017psf..book…..M, ISBN 978-3-319-42605-1
Vetterling-Braggin, Mary (1983), “The Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis: Science or Pseudoscience?”, in Grim, Patrick (ed.), Philosophy of Science and the Occult (1st ed.), Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 278–288, ISBN 978-0-87395-572-0, archived from the original on March 19, 2024, retrieved July 26, 2021
Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved February 2025.
Pentateuch. Jewish Publication Society. 1917.
Hendel, Ronald S. (1987). “Of demigods and the deluge: Toward an interpretation of Genesis 6:1–4”. Journal of Biblical Literature. 106 (1): 22. doi:10.2307/3260551. JSTOR 3260551.
Genesis Apocryphon. Damascus Document. 4Q180.
Kosior, Wojciech (2010). “Synowie bogów i córki człowieka. Kosmiczny ‘mezalians’ i jego efekty w Księdze Rodzaju 6:1–6” [The cosmic mis-alliance and its effects in Genesis 6:1–6]. Ex Nihilo: Periodyk Młodych Religioznawców (in Polish). 1 (3): 73–74.”English translation of “The cosmic mis-alliance and its effects in Genesis 6:1–6″”. Translated by Kalinowski, Daniel. 30 May 2011.
Mark, Joshua J. (May 4, 2018), “Enuma Elish – The Babylonian Epic of Creation – Full Text”, World History Encyclopedia
O’Hehir, Andrew (August 31, 2005), “Archaeology from the dark side”, Salon
Ancient Aliens, Series 2 Episode 7: Angels and Aliens
Josef F. Blumrich: The Spaceships of Ezekiel, Corgi Books, 1974.
AncientDimensions Mysteries: De-Coded: The Ark Of The Covenant, Farshores.org
Feder 2020: p. 226
Feder 2020: pp. 227–228
Feder 2020: p. 229
Tallet and Marouard 2014: pp. 8–10
Vesco, Renato; Childress, David Hatcher (1994), Man-made UFOs 1944–1994 : 50 years of suppression (1st ed.), Stelle, IL: AUP Publishers Network, ISBN 0932813232, OCLC 32056133
Retief and Cilliers 2011
Eshraghian and Loeys 2012: p. 661
Habicht and Henneberg 2015
Card 2018: p. 80
Wainwright, Gerald Averay (1938). The Sky-religion in Egypt: Its Antiquity and Effects. CUP Archive.
Shaw, Ian, ed. (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. p. 480. ISBN 0-19-815034-2.
George Hart, Pharaohs, and Pyramids, A Guide Through Old Kingdom Egypt (London: The Herbert Press, 1991), 57–68.
Kathryn A. Bard, An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2008), 128–133.
In Egypt today we visited several churches, one of which was The Church of Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus in The Cave, also known as the Abu Serga Church, and is one of the oldest Coptic Christian churches in Egypt, dating back to the 4th century.[1] Tradition holds that Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church was built on the spot where the Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus rested at the end of their journey into Egypt.
The flight into Egypt is a story told in Matthew 2:13–23 and in New Testament apocrypha. Soon after the visit by the Magi, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus since King Herod would seek the child to kill him.
You might remember, when the Magi came in search of Jesus, they went to Herod the Great in Jerusalem to ask where to find the newborn “King of the Jews”. Herod became afraid that the child would threaten his throne and sought to kill him (2:1–8). Herod initiated the Massacre of the Innocents in hopes of killing the child (Matthew 2:16). But an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him to take Jesus and his mother into Egypt (Matthew 2:13). Both Egypt and Judea were part of the Roman Empire, linked by a coastal road known as “the way of the sea”,[2] making travel between them easy and relatively safe.
After Herod passed, Joseph was told by an angel in a dream to return to the land of Israel. However, upon hearing that Archelaus had succeeded his father as ruler of Judaea he “was afraid to go there” (Matthew 2:22), and was again warned in a dream by God “and turned aside to the region of” Galilee. This is Matthew’s explanation of why Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea but grew up in Nazareth. Herod died is 4BC, which is stated by Matthew and affirmed by Josephus. Mary and Joseph return to Judah. This is the only time the Biblical Text uses the term “Judah” as a geographical place identifying Judah and Galilee. The text indicates that they first come to Judah but them quickly relocate to Galilee after learning that Archelaus had become the new king who was known to be violent and aggressive.
As an interesting rabbit hole, the beginning and conclusion of Jesus’ parable of the minas in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19, may refer to Archelaus’ journey to Rome. Some interpreters conclude from this that Jesus’ parables and preaching made use of events familiar to the people as examples for bringing his spiritual lessons to life. Others read the allusion as arising from later adaptations of Jesus’ parables in the oral tradition, before the parables were recorded in the gospels.
Many would deduct the flight to Egypt to fulfill a prophecy by Hosea. Matthew’s use of Hosea 11:1 has been explained in several ways. A sensus plenior approach states that the text in Hosea contains a meaning intended by God and acknowledged by Matthew, but unknown to Hosea. A typological reading interprets the fulfillment as found in the national history of Israel and the antitypical fulfillment as found in the personal history of Jesus. Matthew’s use of typological interpretation may also be seen in his use of Isaiah 7:14 and 9:1, and Jeremiah 31:15. Some have pointed out that “Hosea 11.1 points back to the Exodus, where God’s ‘first-born son’ (Ex 4:22), Israel, was delivered from slavery under the oppressive Pharaoh. Matthew sees this text also pointing forward, when Jesus, the eternal first-born Son (Rom 8:29), is delivered from the tyrant Herod and later brought out of Egypt (2:21).”[3]
The Orthodox Study Bible states that the citation of Hosea 11.1 “refers first to Israel being brought out of captivity. In the Old Testament ‘son’ can refer to the whole nation of Israel. Here Jesus fulfills this calling as the true Son of God by coming out of Egypt.[4] The Anglican scholar N. T. Wright has pointed out that “The narrative exhibits several points of contact with exodus and exile traditions where Jesus’ infancy recapitulates a new exodus and the end of exile, marking him out further as the true representative of Israel.”[5]
The Masoretic Text reads my son, whereas the Septuagint reads his sons or his children;[6] I typically prefer the Septuagint but, in this case, the Masoretic seems more accurate. The Septuagint seeks to find agreement in the plurals of Hosea 11:2 they and them. I bring this up because Luke does not recount this story, relating instead that they went to the Temple in Jerusalem, and then home to Nazareth. However, both texts can be in Harmony without Luke mentioning the flight to Egypt. A theme of Matthew is likening Jesus to Moses for a Judean audience, and the Flight into Egypt illustrates just that theme.[7]
“[Joseph’s] choice of Egypt as a place of exile … was in line with the practice of other Palestinians who feared reprisals from the government; as a neighbouring country with a sizeable Jewish population it was an obvious refuge. And his subsequent avoidance of Judea under Archelaus, and expectation of safety in Galilee, accords with the political circumstances as we know them.”[8]
We also get some strange tales in the extra biblical apocropha. Jesus tames dragons, the trees bow to Him, and the story of the two thieves that later appear on the cross with Him. [9] These stories have certainly influenced Egypt and the Coptic Orthodox Church which was established by Mark, an apostle and evangelist, during the middle of the 1st century (c. AD 42).[10] There are a number of churches and shrines such as the one I visited today marking places where the family stayed.
There is another difficulty here that I should point out. Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament, or by Josephus or any other rabbinical sources.[11] In other words, the quote, “he will be called a Nazarene” is that it occurs nowhere in the Old Testament, or any other extant source. In Judges 13:5 we see a similar clause of Samson but reads “nazirite.” Did Matthew suggest Jesus was intended to have been a Nazirite? Dis the text change and eventually the area became known as Nazareth? Jesus later would not match the description of a first century Nazarite so this has left scholars scratching their heads.
Much of Matthew was likely penned in Hebrew and when you translate this back to Hebrew you find a wordplay that I think answers our difficulty. Isaiah 11:1 states that there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: the Hebrew for branch is נצר (netzer). The priestly clan of the “netzerites” possibly settled in the place which became known as Netzereth/ Nazareth. This leaves us clearly seeing that the title Nazarene alludes not so much to his town of origin as to his royal descent.
At any rate, I hope you enjoyed a venture into my mind and appreciate the way that I view history, theology, and a working through a better lens of agreement within the entire text taking into account several different textures of interpretation. I pray that it deepens your enthusiasm for the Word as it has moved me.
WORKS CITED:
Sheehan, Peter (2015). Babylon of Egypt: The Archaeology of Old Cairo and the Origins of the City. Oxford University Press. pp. 35, 40. ISBN 978-977-416-731-7.
Von Hagen, Victor W. The Roads that Led to Rome published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1967. p. 106.
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, New Testament (2010). San Francisco: Ignatius Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-1586174842
The Orthodox Study Bible (2008). Nashville: Thomas Nelson. p. 1268. ISBN 978-0718003593
Wright, N. T. and Michael F. Bird (2019). The New Testament in its World. London: SPCK; Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic. p. 590. ISBN 978-0310499305
Brenton’s Septuagint Translation of Hosea 11, accessed 4 December 2016
Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. “Matthew” pp. 272–285
France, R. T. (1981). “Scripture, Tradition and History in the Infancy Narratives of Matthew”. In France, R. T.; Wenham, David (eds.). Gospel Perspectives: Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels. Vol. 2. Sheffield (UK): JSOT Press. p. 257. ISBN 0-905774-31-0.
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew at The Gnostic Society Library, Christian Apocrypha and Early Christian Literature
Meinardus, Otta Friedrich August (1999). “The Coptic Church: Its History, Traditions, Theology, and Structure.”. Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity. American University in Cairo Press. p. 28. ISBN 9789774247576. JSTOR j.ctt15m7f64.
Perkins, P. (1996). Nazareth. In P. J. Achtemeier (Ed.), The HarperCollins Bible dictionary, pp. 741–742. San Francisco: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-060037-3.
Galilee Archived 9 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine.
Today I was able to view the Merneptah Stele. This is a pretty big deal in my theological world. The Merneptah Stele, also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah, is an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BCE. It was discovered by Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896, and it is now housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo where I visited and was given hands on access to this today.[1][2]
A stele or stela (plural stelae) is a commemorative slab decorated with text and/or images. Ancient Egyptians erected stelae for many purposes including to document historical events, to record decrees (the Rosetta Stone is a famous example), and to remember the dead. [3] Such monuments were made by a variety of cultures in the ancient world, including the Assyrians, Maya, Greeks and Romans. The most common Egyptian term for a stela is wedj, which originally meant “command” and stems from wedj–nesu, “royal decree.” Various qualifiers could be used to further classify wedj, such as wedj-her-tash – “boundary stela” – or wedj-en-nekhtu – “victory stela.” [4]
The “victory stela” here has text engraved and is largely an account of Merneptah’s victory over the ancient Libyans and their allies, but the last three of the 28 lines (in the large photo you will view this as slightly darker colored) deal with a separate campaign in Canaan, then part of Egypt’s imperial possessions. It is sometimes referred to as the “Israel Stele” because a majority of scholars translate a set of hieroglyphs in line 27 as “Israel”. Alternative translations have been advanced but are not widely accepted.[5] The stele represents the earliest textual reference to Israel and the only reference from ancient Egypt. [6] It is one of four known inscriptions from the Iron Age that date to the time of and mention ancient Israel by name, with the others being the Mesha Stele, the Tel Dan Stele, and the Kurkh Monoliths.[7][8][9]
For reference here is the timeline of Pharoahs of Egypt before and after the Exodus: [10]
1295 BCE – 1294 BCEThe reign of Ramesses I in Egypt.
1294 BCE – 1279 BCEThe reign of Seti I in Egypt.
1279 BCE – 1212 BCEReign of Ramesses II (The Great) in Egypt.
1212 BCE – 1202 BCEReign of Merneptah in Egypt.
It was first translated by Wilhelm Spiegelberg.[11] Spiegelberg described the stele as “engraved on the rough back of the stele of Amenhotep III. The inscription says it was carved in the 5th year of Merneptah of the 19th dynasty. From a strictly historical perspective here us what scholars have noted. Egypt was the dominant power in the region during the long reign of Merneptah’s predecessor, Ramesses II, but Merneptah and one of his nearest successors, Ramesses III, faced significant invasions. Traditionally Egyptians only document the victories, not the losses. The final lines of this stele deal with a campaign or situation in the East. Traditionally the Egyptians had concerned themselves only with cities, so the problem presented by Israel is interesting in the ay it is breifly mentioned. Merneptah and Ramesses III were thought to have been fairly successful at fighting off their enemies, but history shows us that it is at this time that Egypt ceased to continue control over Canaan – the last evidence of an Egyptian presence in the area is the name of Ramesses VI (1141–1133 BC) inscribed on a statue base from Megiddo. [12]
In terms of translating the language, the “nine bows” is a term the Egyptians used to refer to their enemies;[13] Israel is clear in the transcription and was thought of as smaller units scattered throughout the region, –Canaan might here refer to the city of Gaza,[14] Based on their determinatives, Canaan referred to the land whilst Israel referred to the people.[15]
The line which refers to Israel is below (shown in reverse to match the English translation; the original Egyptian is in right-to-left script):
According to The Oxford History of the Biblical World, this “foreign people … sign is typically used by the Egyptians to signify nomadic groups or peoples, without a fixed city-state home, thus implying a seminomadic or rural status for ‘Israel’ at that time”.[16] The phrase “wasted, bare of seed” is formulaic, and often used of defeated nations – it usually would imply the people posed some sort of a threat to Egypt.[17] The Merneptah stele is considered to be the first extra-biblical reference to ancient Israel in ancient history and is widely considered to be authentic and providing historical information.[18][19]
There isn’t much scholarly disagreement on the interpretation. It is worth pointing out that in the 4th inscription the image I use above interprets seed/grain. In many other known stela inscriptions this notation meant that famine had come, and conflict resulted in another nation or peoples trying to “war” over Egypt’s grain stores. But in the ancient world this notation is much broader than that and simply means conflict. [20]
DOES THIS GIVE US A CLEAR DATE ON THE EXODUS?
Sadly, no. The dates of the Exodus are still largely inconclusive. Many have chimed in such as Flavius Josephus (c.70 CE), but unfortunately there are some things in Egyptian history that don’t seem to line up. The easiest explanation I have already implied. Most of the documentation of Egypt is in the form of “VICTORY” stela and they are just that, embellished records of victory, not failure. The pharaohs were known widely for covering their less than astounding feats. According to Biblical chronology, the Exodus took place in the 890th year before the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 421 BCE (generally accepted date: 587 BCE). [21] This was 1310 BCE (1476 BCE). In this year, the greatest warlord Egypt ever knew, Thutmose III, deposed his aunt Hatshepsut and embarked on a series of conquests, extending the Egyptian sphere of influence and tribute over Israel and Syria and crossing the Euphrates into Mesopotamia itself. While it is interesting that this date actually saw the death of an Egyptian ruler – and there have been those who tried to identify Queen Hatshepsut as the Pharaoh of the Exodus – the power and prosperity of Egypt at this time is hard to square with the biblical account of the Exodus.
Some historians have been attracted by the name of the store-city Ramses built by the Israelites before the Exodus. They have drawn connections to the best-known Pharaoh of that name, Ramses II, or Ramses the Great, and set the Exodus around his time, roughly 1134 BCE (1300 BCE). [22] In order to do this, they had to reduce the time between the Exodus and the destruction of the Temple by 180 years, which they did by reinterpreting the 480 years between the Exodus and the building of the Temple (1 Kings 6: 1) as twelve generations of forty years. By “correcting” the Bible and setting a generation equal to twenty five years, these imaginary twelve generations become 300 years. Is this acceptable? Generations are fairly generic language in the Bible so there is some textual merit to do this. Others feel strongly that such “adjustments” of the Biblical text imply that the Bible cannot be trusted, Ramses 11 was a conqueror second only to Thutmose III. And as in the case of Thutmose III, the Egyptian records make it clear that nothing even remotely resembling the Exodus happened anywhere near his time of history. However, I come back to, the more powerful and well liked the rulers were, the greater power they had to dictate what was remembered of them. It is also worth noting that Egyptian dating is a disaster in the scholarly community. Few things agree.
Does this stone tell us who the Pharoah of the Exodus was? No; but perhaps it supplies you with a more educated proposition.
Lemche 1998, pp. 46, 62: “No other inscription from Palestine, or from Transjordan in the Iron Age, has so far provided any specific reference to Israel… The name of Israel was found in only a very limited number of inscriptions, one from Egypt, another separated by at least 250 years from the first, in Transjordan. A third reference is found in the stele from Tel Dan – if it is genuine, a question not yet settled. The Assyrian and Mesopotamian sources only once mentioned a king of Israel, Ahab, in a spurious rendering of the name.”
Maeir, Aren. Maeir, A. M. 2013. Israel and Judah. pp. 3523–27, The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. New York: Blackwell. The earliest certain mention of the ethnonym Israel occurs in a victory inscription of the Egyptian king Merenptah, his well-known “Israel Stela” (c. 1210 BCE); recently, a possible earlier reference has been identified in a text from the reign of Rameses II (see Rameses I–XI). Thereafter, no reference to either Judah or Israel appears until the ninth century. The pharaoh Sheshonq I (biblical Shishak; see Sheshonq I–VI) mentions neither entity by name in the inscription recording his campaign in the southern Levant during the late tenth century. In the ninth century, Israelite kings, and possibly a Judaean king, are mentioned in several sources: the Aramaean stele from Tel Dan, inscriptions of Shalmaneser III of Assyria, and the stela of Mesha of Moab. From the early eighth century onward, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah are both mentioned somewhat regularly in Assyrian and subsequently Babylonian sources, and from this point on there is relatively good agreement between the biblical accounts on the one hand and the archaeological evidence and extra-biblical texts on the other.
Fleming, Daniel E. (1998-01-01). “Mari and the Possibilities of Biblical Memory”. Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale. 92 (1): 41–78. JSTOR 23282083. The Assyrian royal annals, along with the Mesha and Dan inscriptions, show a thriving northern state called Israël in the mid—9th century, and the continuity of settlement back to the early Iron Age suggests that the establishment of a sedentary identity should be associated with this population, whatever their origin. In the mid—14th century, the Amarna letters mention no Israël, nor any of the biblical tribes, while the Merneptah stele places someone called Israël in hill-country Palestine toward the end of the Late Bronze Age. The language and material culture of emergent Israël show strong local continuity, in contrast to the distinctly foreign character of early Philistine material culture.“
H. Jacob Katzenstein, ‘Gaza in the Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom,’ Journal of the American Oriental Society, January-March 1982, Vol. 102, No. 1 pp. 111-113 pp.111-112
Smith 2002, p. 26.
FitzWilliam Museum, UK: Ancient Egypt
H. Jacob Katzenstein, ‘Gaza in the Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom,’ Journal of the American Oriental Society, January-March 1982, Vol. 102, No. 1 pp. 111-113 pp.111-112
Jones, Daniel (2003) [1917], Roach, Peter; Hartmann, James; Setter, Jane (eds.), English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-3-12-539683-8
Contrary to the Jewish historical tradition, the generally accepted date is 166 years earlier, or 587 BCE (see “Fixing the History Books – Dr. Chaim Heifetz’s Revision of Persian History,” in the Spring 199.1 issue of Jewish Action). This difference applies to all Mesopotamian and Egyptian history prior to the Persian period. The dates for Egyptian history given in the history books are therefore off by this amount. For our purposes, we will use the corrected date followed by the generally accepted date in parenthesis.
Some people have been excited about the generally accepted date for Ramses II coming so close to the traditional date for the Exodus. This is a mistake, as Egyptian and Mesopotamian histories are linked. If Ramses II lived c.1300 BCE, then the destruction of the Temple was in 587 BCE, and the Exodus was in 1476 BCE.
“Unless you can enter deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation, I’m afraid your Christianity will remain shallow, uninspiring and largely legalistic. You will essentially think that Christianity is about rules and rewards and where you go when you die. And in an increasingly secularized and pluralistic culture not too many people are interested in a legalistic afterlife religion. The best hope I know for presenting the gospel in a compelling way to a 21st century audience is to begin with….the beginning: The Incarnation. The breath-taking mystery of God joining us in our humanity.” [1]
Greg Boyd, has put it this way, “There is no denying that the Incarnation is paradoxical. It is hard, if not impossible, to conceive how a person could be, at one and the same time fully God and fully human. I don’t think this should surprise us too much, however. After all, we confront similar paradoxes in science as well as in our everyday life. For example, as I’m sure most of you have heard that physicists tell us that light has the property of waves in some circumstances and of particles in other circumstances, yet we have no way of understanding how this is possible. Even the nature of time and space is paradoxical if you think about it. We can’t conceive of time having a beginning, but neither can we conceive of it without a beginning. So too, we can’t conceive of space having an end, but we also can’t conceive of it not having an end. If things as basic to our experience as the nature of light, time and space are paradoxical, I don’t think we should find it too surprising that things surrounding God are mysterious.”
Paul declared that Jesus was nothing less than the very embodiment of all of God. This distinction of “all of God” is important for us to understand what it means for us to see Jesus and God rightly. Battling proto-gnostic teachers who were apparently presenting Christ alongside other manifestations of God, Paul declares “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2:9; cf. 1:19). His statement could hardly have been more emphatic:
“All” (pan)—not some
“of the fullness” (plērōma)—not a part or an aspect
“of the Deity” (theotēs)—not a lesser divine being. [2]
As F.F. Bruce notes (regarding 1:19), Paul is asserting that, “all the attributes and activities of God—his spirit, word, wisdom and glory—are disclosed in [Christ].”[3]
In other words, the fullness of God is revealed or embodied in Jesus. Jesus is the complete revelation of God in Word. Graeme Goldsworthy puts it this way, if “Jesus is the one mediator between God and man,” then Jesus himself must be “the hermeneutic principle for every word from God.”[4] It is also paramount to recognize that Christ is the “head” of the cosmos by which all reconciliation will come (Eph. 1:10; Col 1:19-20).
The Temple and YHWH’s return to Zion are the keys to gospel Christology. Focus on a young Jewish prophet telling a story about YHWH returning to Zion as judge and redeemer and then embodying it by riding into the city in tears, by symbolizing the Temple’s destruction, and by celebrating the final Exodus. He would be the pillar of cloud for the people of the new Exodus. He would embody in himself the returning and redeeming action of the covenant God. [5] Wright is suggesting, and I would agree that we are to read the Gospels as the Story of God’s returning to Israel, to Zion, to the Temple and Jesus is that presence of God.
Regardless of your view of the atonement, such as Substitution, Satisfaction or Christus Victor; in all of them, Christ must be human in order for the sacrifice of the cross to be efficacious, for human sins to be “removed”, “cleansed”, “purified”, “covered”, and/or “conquered” (again depending on your atonement theology). This soteriological emphasis then gives way to the incarnation of the Son of God becoming a man so that he could save us from our sins. Therefore, the incarnation serves as a fulfilment of the love of God manifested and revealed in completeness as Jesus to be present and living amidst humanity, to “walk in the garden” with us.
The pervasive New Testament theme of union with Christ is by the Spirit. We actually become united to Christ the Lord by the Spirit’s power.
Michael F. Bird shares this, “What we should take away is that in the unfolding story of the New Testament, the pre-incarnate Son who divested himself of divine glory in his incarnation is now fully invested by the Father with divine authority over every realm and every creature. What the Lord God of Israel does in creation and redemption is now, in some way, done through the lordship of Jesus Christ. When Jesus is named as “Lord” it is usually in the context of affirming that he carries the mantle of the Father’s authority and that he is the Father’s agent for rescuing Israel and putting the world to rights. Confession of Jesus as Lord was not a matter of mere assent or academic affirmation. It was a life and death issue. It meant standing up to the Caesar’s of the world who usurped for themselves the praise and power that rightly belonged to God. As Christians today, our highest vocation is to live our lives under the aegis of Jesus’ lordship and to make it clear to all that “this Jesus,” whom men and women reject, is Lord of all. What is more, the Lord Jesus will bring justice to our sin cursed earth and then flood the world with the shalom of heaven.” [6]
Before Christ passes, he shares with the remnant, his faithful disciples that he wants them to continue this oath of allegiance to a coming kingdom and that he will rule as the Lord of all regathering the nations to Him. And when he dies, no one can understand what has happened. We still struggle with this today. We don’t know the full work of the cross; we don’t need to. We know that it was the power to save. The veil separating humankind from God was torn and the cord fell once and for all. The blood of the cross would run both ways. The plan to enter into a holy covenant with God would be not only restored but made perfect. The new covenant was cut. The plan of redemption for all humankind fulfilled. Nothing more than obedient faith to walk with God would be asked for. This commitment would encompass all of life, the heart, mind, and soul. [7]
[1] brianzahnd.com/2008/12/son-of-adam/ [2] The Incarnation: Paradox & reknew.org/2017/01/jesus-center-scripture/ [3] F. F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, Philemon and to the Ephesians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eermans, 1984), 207. [4] Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, 252, cf. 62. [5] N.T. Wright, The Historical Jesus and Christian Theology, Sewanee Theological Review 39, 1996. [6] Reflections on Jesus as Lord, June 24, 2014 by Michael F. Bird [7] Dr. Will Ryan, This is the Way of Covenant Discipleship, Crosslink Publishing 2021 Pgs. 82-83
What is the gospel? Most people answering this would go right into soteriology and likely give you some step plan for salvation, the spiritual laws, the romans road or some other systematic cleverly devised way of super simplifying the message of Jesus. For nearly the last 2000 years this wasn’t the way people thought of the gospel. In the Bible we read stories of people considering “conversion” into the way of Jesus and it never comes off as some checklist. These plans are almost always laced with some kind of Penal Substitutionary theory of atonement and feel very bait and switch. If that was the intention of the text, wouldn’t one of the authors simply have given it to us? But we don’t get that. In fact, we don’t get anything in history close to this until perhaps the reformation with Luther and Calvin. But they wouldn’t be considered evangelists by today’s standards. It isn’t until many years after that when Moody, Billy Sunday, Charles Finney, Bill Bright, and Billy Graham that we really get the church wide view pushing decisions to follow Jesus and altar calls of momentary decision. If we go back to the pages of the Bible what we find is quite different. We see mind wrenching decisions of people determining whether they want to change their entire life to follow the way of Jesus. This is followed by being baptized into this way of life and then likely joining this “ALL IN” community to continue their immersion into discipleship. Jesus literally used the 12 as an example to step away from life as you know it and enter into a life of total commitment. This kind of a decision was intended to be pondered and your old life to be exchanged for a new one should you take the dip.
The Greek word εὐαγγέλιον originally meant a reward given to the messenger for good news (εὔ = “good”, ἀνγέλλω = “I bring a message”; the word “angel or messenger” comes from the same root) and later “good news” itself. The Bible records that Jesus sent out his disciples to evangelize by visiting people’s homes in pairs of two believers (cf. Luke 10:1–12).[1] In the same text, Jesus mentioned that few people were willing to evangelize, despite there being many people who would be receptive to his Gospel message.[2] In case you ever wondered this is why Mormons go door to door.
In 2017 Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King was released by Matthew W. Bates. Anytime something has “alone” in the title I am weary, but there was a lot of good in this book, Jesus is the anointed King of all creation, elevated to that position by God, evidenced by the resurrection. As King, he has expectations for those who follow him. As the verse in John 14 clearly demonstrates, commandments and/or devotion is central to these expectations. Allegiance entails obligatory obedience. I think Torah is important here and even though bates uses the word commandments I would take that more into devotion. He goes on to define the gospel by these points:
a reiteration of his eight-point summary of the gospel, totally Trinitarian which is ok I guess…
a statement that the Church needs to “stop asking others to invite Jesus into their hearts and start asking them to swear allegiance to Jesus the King”[3] Yep!
a claim that “it is dreadfully wrongheaded to suggest that the gospel is best (or even adequately) proclaimed by actions unencumbered by words” . . . “the true gospel is not reducible to Christian activities.”[4] Totally Agree!
a suggestion that the “Christian metanarrative” need only include the creation, the fall, the election of Israel, the gospel, the church and the future renewal [5] This one I see a bit differently
a demand for discipleship: “The invitation to begin the journey of salvation can never be anything less than a call to discipleship, for nothing less will result in final salvation.”[6] YES!!! YES!!!
a suggestion that saying the creeds (particularly the Apostle’s Creed) is the equivalent of saying the eight-points of the Trinitarian gospel as he outlines it. I can argue this one either way.
Where I mainly agree is on allegiance. In the first century you were allegiant to one and had no other masters. If you were loyal to Caesar there couldn’t be another. In my book, this is the way of covenant discipleship I devote an entire chapter to a better way of theologically framing the gospel. I will share some of that book at the bottom of this article. If you haven’t read it, I suggest starting there. My next suggestion would be The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good released in 2016 by Scot McKnight (Author), N.T. Wright and Dallas Willard (Foreword).
Frank Viola also has a great handle on this. The New Testament calls Jesus an insurgent. He was an enemy of the State, accused of treason.
“They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.”
The Insurgence, then, is the recovery of the titanic, earth-shaking, subversive gospel of the kingdom that got Jesus, John the Baptist, and the apostles in hot water. It’s a spiritual revolution against the world system that Jesus, John, and Paul speak against, and an utter and total allegiance to Jesus Christ and His alternative civilization called “the kingdom of God.”
But I still go down deeper trails… the gospel is combined in every word of the New Testament. The gospel isn’t a “plan” as much as it is a Person.
“And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he announced Jesus as the gospel to him (Acts 8:35).”
The gospel of God is “concerning His Son (Rom. 1:3).” It is the all-inclusive unveiling of God’s full counsel concerning His goodness, His will, His purpose, and His kingdom.
“The gospel is the work of God to restore humans to union with God and communion with others, in the context of a community, for the good of others and the world.”
– Scot McKnight, Embracing Grace
So then, what is the Gospel? This is pretty basic to Christianity, yet we have made it out to be so confusing. If we can’t answer this as Christians then what are we doing? Many of us understand part of the gospel, or understand part of the gospel to be the complete gospel. The Bible literally calls the gospel the “good news” and the word for that is euengelion. If you have never done a simple word study in the Greek, it is worth the investment to start here. This word is introduced at the announcement of Christ’s birth and carries forward to continue to be our calling as Christians. The word originally signifies the idea of good tidings, but as we work our way through the scripture, ironically what we refer to as “the gospels” or the books that tell the story of Jesus; we find that the word begins to take on a similar yet different meaning. We read passage like Mark 1:14:15, ‘The time has been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe in the gospel’. Has the meaning of the word changed, stayed the same, or taken on a broader meaning?
What about Luke 4:18-19“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointedme to proclaim good newsto the poor. He has sent meto proclaim releaseto the captivesand the regaining of sightto the blind, to set freethose who are oppressed, to proclaim the yearof the Lord’s favor.”
The answer is in the covenants and the context of the entire lens of the Bible. When I say you can’t clearly understand the message of the Bible without understanding the covenant thinking, this is what I mean. Many have failed to see the gospel in the Old Testament and that is problematic to understanding the complete message of the overall gospel. In Galatians 3:8 we read, that God made a Covenant to Abraham. We usually call the this the Abrahamic covenant, but it is actually more clearly called the covenant of circumcision. Essentially the message from God to Abraham was that all nations would be blessed through his lineage. In the next chapter we are going to walk through this story, but for now let’s simply leave it that many generations went by and failed to live intimately with God. We see the fall in the garden, the flood, the tower of babel, God taking on Israel as His chosen people (or portion of all the world) and eventually they fail him too and he allows them to go into exile and judgment. But he doesn’t lose everyone throughout those years. Some remain faithful and some will return back to Him. The faithful are called the remnant. The Old testament closes with an idea that the Messiah will come to not only deliver the faithful remnant but possibly even the rest. Those that have fallen short (all of us in some way), and lost their allegiance will be given a chance to find their way back into this covenant of intimacy with God; to be let’s say, “adopted” into the kingdom. But as we read, we also find that even the remnant is blemished and (despite ritual yearly cleansing through faithful sacrifice) still will not “make the cut”; so not only is the good news for the unfaithful to return to faithfulness but even for the faithful to now be made complete. The good news is for everyone.
This plan by original design would be the greatest message to the earth; it would be the “good news” that the world needed to receive after the realization of knowledge that they had lost, or given up their right to the kingdom, by refusing God.
To the Jews, God’s chosen people, it meant a return from exile. To the gentiles, it meant a return or reclaiming by God of all people, the covenant of Abraham. To the spiritual beings, it meant that the fallen would be bound and a promise or covenant that ensured victory had been won. To all, it meant a return of the original plan to be in intimate relationship and walk with God in a covenant vocation with Him. We are all Lightbearers that eventually inherit a new Kingdom merged with the Heavenly realms and sacred space on the earth.
That is essentially the good news. We have been given the opportunity to be with God in intimate sacred living once again and all we have to do, is by our free will accept the new covenant that God is offering and live life in covenant with him, our spiritual family and our neighbor. But God isn’t just asking for a momentary decision, he is asking for us to follow Him as he has shown us; to literally give back all that he has offered in “life” and sacred living.
It comes down to the complete plan of the new covenant, eternal living life with God in His sacred kingdom. The story that starts with a sacred partnership in Eden has a plan to return to that way of walking in life with God almighty. A vocation of light, to be one with God almighty.
Rainer, Thom S. (1989). Evangelism in the twenty-first century: the critical issues. H. Shaw Publishers. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-87788-238-1.
Muzorewa, Abel Tendekayi (December 1, 2005). Evangelism That Decolonizes the Soul: Partnership with Christ. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-59752-445-2.
[1]Matthew Bates, Salvation by Allegiance Alone, Chapter 8.
I want to talk about what is meant by God’s order, but before I do that, I want to guide you through a brief exegetical teaching through the text. When you hear the word order in relation to a biblical sense we have been conditioned to think about creation, law, hierarchy in the church and marriage, and perhaps even church discipline. Although it encompasses those things, I find it unfortunate that we start there, and therefore I feel we might need some deconstruction to get to good.
In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice; in the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch. Psalm 5:3 NASB
As I begin to read this in Hebrew the first thing that I notice in contrast to most English translations is the phrase “My prayer” is not found in the text. It isn’t a bad translation as I get the context leans that way but in Hebrew the verse better reads, “I will order toward you” which emphasizes a slightly different posture. Interesting the word prayer isn’t really there, perhaps a NT implication or even insertion. Prayer in the OT was a bit different than the way we understand it today. It was communal and far less personal (unless God appeared to you in a bush and orally spoke directly to you), after Jesus ascends to the throne and sends the Spirit to dwell in us and intercede, the biblical concept of prayer takes on a different form than what it had been considered over the last 2000 years or more. The way people thought of “prayer” in the OT may or may not be accurate. Are we just reading what they thought prayer was supposed to be perhaps based on what they knew of their former deities? Is this something that they got a bit off track with and Jesus sought to adjust or shed new light on? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Maybe our prayer should take a cue from the OT notions. When we read this verse in Hebrew form, we see that David isn’t talking about ritualistic prayer, or is he? He isn’t necessarily folding his hands and closing his eyes – but he is sort of. He is making a statement that if his life is in alignment with what is of God – TOV (creation order language), then he expects God to acknowledge and “DO THINGS” on his behalf. This may tie into the never-ending OT grappling over whether God was retributive or not, but it certainly had the trajectory of demonstrating the idea of devotion in connection to intimacy with the Lord. This connection over the years will then be attributed to the conjecture of relationship with the father in prayer. Some prayer is communal and some is personal.
Different people interact with God differently and perhaps in different seasons. Some say they don’t hear God and others act like God never stops screaming in their ear. How can the voice of God differ from person to person? Is it based on the posture of the heart, covenant faithfulness, gifting, seasons, understanding, choice, some sort of prejudice, or something completely different that is higher than our understanding? I believe that God is just that dynamic. I don’t know why He communicates differently to people and what it might be based on; I don’t always have the eyes of God. I believe Him to be Sovereign and know significantly more than we do in a much more complex grid. I am convinced that there are many things that influence this covenant relationship at a cosmic level. It is far bigger than simply me, and to think of my relationship with God (the creator of the universe) as doating on my every thought seems like a selfish notion. Does that view minimize a personal relationship or exemplify it?
God’s order is described in everything naturally defined by Yahweh and described generally as what is good (TOV). This is creation, the waters, the counting of the ark, the building of the temple, the pieces of firewood set in order for a sacrificial fire, showbread set out in two rows of six cakes on the gold table (Lev 24:8); seven altars set up by the pagan mantic Balaam (Num 23:4); stalks of flax arranged by Rahab for hiding the spies (Josh 2:6); a table prepared for dining (Ps 23:5; Isa 21:5); words produced for speaking (Job 32:14); a legal case developed for presentation (Job 13:18); etc. In II Sam 23:5 David exults in the covenant granted him by Yahweh, “for he has made with me an everlasting covenant, / ordered (ʿărûkâ) in all things and secure.[1] We see God’s order in many ways, but the common thread that binds seems to be that it is given as a framework for our devotion to Him. This intimate devotion that is often described as reading or memorizing scripture, devotional repetition, standards of practice and living, and so much more are all described as what it means to be defined as SET APART. That we are defined and claimed as part of God’s order not the chaos of the world.
What defines this? Covenant. Covenant is the secure, accessible, and recognizable attribute of everything good that God offers to us. It is the basis of all of our interaction with the LORD. Without covenant we are detached or separated from the creator and his ways. When David chooses every morning to be in order, he is making a statement about the balance of life and the posture of the heart. The Hebrew term בְּרִית bĕriyth for “covenant” is from a root with the sense of “cutting”, because pacts or covenants were made by passing between cut pieces of flesh of an animal sacrifice.[2] It meant something deep.
The New Covenant is a biblical interpretation originally derived from a phrase in the Book of Jeremiah and often thought of as an eschatological world to come related to the biblical concept of the Kingdom of God. Generally, Christians believe that the New Covenant was instituted at the Last Supper as part of the Eucharist, which in the Gospel of John includes the New Commandment.[3] A connection between the Blood of Christ and the New Covenant is portrayed with the saying: “this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood”. Jesus is therefore the mediator of this New Covenant, and that his blood, shed is the required blood of the covenant. This is true looking back in both testaments and can be seen in all of the biblical covenants of the bible.
In the Christian context, this New Covenant is associated with the word ‘testament‘ in the sense of a ‘will left after the death of a person (Latin testamentum),[4] the original Greek word used in Scripture being diatheke (διαθήκη) which in the Greek context meant ‘will (left after death)’ but is also a word play having a dual meaning of ‘covenant, alliance’.[5] This notion implies a reinterpreted view of the Old Testament covenant as possessing characteristics of a ‘will left after death’ placing the old covenant, brit (בְּרִית) into a new application of understanding as revealed by the death, resurrection, ascension, and throning of CHRIST THE KING, JESUS. All things will forever connect at the covenants and be defined by the atoning accomplishments that transform into a covenant of eternity.
Order today might be better understood as a continually evolving algorithm based on the posture of your covenant faithfulness which, as I have described, is defined by many facets of devotion. Some may hear the audible voice of God more clearly while others simply see Him in every image. The revelation of God to us isn’t in a form of hierarchy. One form of transcendence doesn’t trump another. Who are we to judge anyway. But I do know that most of Christianity seems to be off course here. Rather than coming to the LORD as the cosmic wish granting genie in a bottle, let’s get back to biblical roots and think more covenantal and devotional based on the order that God modeled for us.
[1] Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., Jr., & Waltke, B. K. (Eds.). (1999). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 696). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2]Strong’s Concordance (1890).
[3] “Comparison of the two covenants mediated by Moses and the two covenants mediated by Jesus”. 25 September 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-09-28. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) in 2025 will begin on October 2 and end on October 4. The American New Year (New Year’s Day) in 2025 will fall on January 1.
Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה, Rōʾš hašŠānā, lit. ’head of the year’) is the “observed” New Year in Judaism, (although as I will get to, it is more complicated than that). The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah (יוֹם תְּרוּעָה, Yōm Tərūʿā, lit. ’day of shouting/blasting’). It is the first of the High Holy Days (יָמִים נוֹרָאִים, Yāmīm Nōrāʾīm, ‘Days of Awe”), as specified by Leviticus 23:23–25. Current tradition has Rosh Hashanah beginning ten days of penitence culminating in Yom Kippur, as well as beginning the cycle of autumnal religious festivals running through Sukkot.
Rosh is the Hebrew word for “head”, ha is the definite article (“the”), and shana means year. Thus Rosh Hashanah means “head of the year”, referring to the day of the New Year. But Rosh Hashanah itself can’t really be found in the Biblical text itself.
Abandoned old spooky church in Vergalijo (Navarre, Spain)
In ancient times, there were four different New Years on the Jewish calendar. Each had a distinct significance:
The first of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the New Year of Kings, was the date used to calculate the number of years a given king had reigned.
The first of the Hebrew month of Elul was the new year for tithing of cattle, a time when one of every 10 cattle was marked and offered as a sacrifice to God.
The first of the Hebrew month of Tishrei was the agricultural new year, or the New Year of the Years.
The 15th of the Hebrew month of Sh’vat, known as Tu BiShvat, was the New Year of the Trees.
Although the Torah refers to Nisan as the first month of the Jewish year, the first day of the month of Tishrei emerged as what we now know as Rosh HaShanah. This is an example of something that isn’t really Biblical but became the norm for some reason.
So, as you will see the celebrated New Year wasn’t really as biblical as it became traditional. (Remember the fiddler on the roof “TRADITION!!!”)
This started when the Babylonians, among whom the Jews lived under the captivity that began the diaspora which then some jews associated as a “Day of Judgment” each year to which the Babylonians believed the “gods” assembled in the temple of Marduk to inscribe the destiny of every person. Well, what is a bit crazy is that the Jews adopted these ideas and borrowed the elements to shape their New year, Rosh HaShanah believing that Yahweh also acted in the same way choosing the good and wicked (yes making God the author of evil); and that for 10 “in between” days you could repent before the book of life was sealed for the new year. Eventually this is going to become the reformed view of God actually ordaining the lives of those who would win the cosmic lottery in a sense of being “chosen” or predestined and laced to a lot of PSA beliefs. (We would see predestination as God simply seeing ahead of time the consequences of free will choices but would agree it is also more complicated than that.) Does it sound messed up, rather un-Biblical? Yea it is! Even though according to the Torah it was NOT the beginning of the year, it officially became the Jewish New Year because of this traditional thought as well as other thoughts such as believing that the world was created on this day (also not of biblical origin.) In the second century the Mishnah basically made this official. It was actually a very visible picture of 2nd temple Judaism walking farther away from the scripture and God than being rooted in Him.
Getting back to the Biblical text…
On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord. You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God. Leviticus 23:27-28 NASB
So the original intent of the New Year was that it would be a day to humble our souls. Imagine that. Humility is a forgotten word in both Hebrew and American culture.
But when the rest of America celebrates the New Year it isn’t a biblical date either! But we can still own this sort of thinking for Jesus. For example, by many reasons, traditionally Yom Kippur is the most solemn day of the year. It is a day of fasting, repentance, self-reflection, and a return to holy thinking. Those are GREAT things we should want!
The root word used in Leviticus is kāpar which has a glossed (regularly known as or thought of but not necessarily correct) meaning of “to cover,” or “conceal” which is also tied to reformed theology. Some have (IMHO) wrongly asserted that the word then would mean to “cover sin” as such to pacify the wrath of the deity in this case Yahweh by making atonement such as I explained the Babylonians believed about the gods and the temple of Marduk. It is suggested then that sin was covered until Christ could rightly atone. Sounds good, and likely what you might have heard at church, but more traditionally based on the gods of the exile than biblically accurate. There is very little evidence for this view. As many scholars have pointed out, the connection is at best weak as the Hebrew root is not used to mean “cover.” To say it correctly, the Hebrew verb is never used in the simple or Qal stem, but only in the derived intensive stems. These intensive stems often indicate not emphasis, but merely that the verb is derived from a noun whose meaning is more basic to the root idea.[1]
Ok so what does that mean or what is a better view? (Kippūr) is the word for Atonement that is also used today in the name of the Jewish holiday yom kippur “day of atonement” (also associated with a Biblical new year) which was the tenth day of the seventh month, Tishri. This solemn day was the only day of fasting prescribed for Israel. It was celebrated by a special sin offering for the whole nation. On that day only would the high priest enter within the inner veil bearing the blood of the sin offering (cf. Heb 9:7). A second goat was released as an escape goat to symbolize the total removal of sin.[2]
Jewish tradition ultimately adopted here a synthesis (not always elegant) of the two views. Throughout the Day of Atonement, the liturgy bemoans the burden of sin we labor under, and our inadequacy to measure up in God’s sight. But at the end of the day, in the Ne’ilah (Closing ) Prayer, the burden of sin is gone; the Jew is confident of having achieved forgiveness, by a combination of human repentance and divine mercy, and proceeds forward refreshed, optimistic about our power to do good in the world under God’s guidance.”[3] In other words, despite some terrible history, the final idea of the Hebraic New Year comes back to be pretty Biblical. God has always forgiven. (We actually didn’t need Jesus on the cross for that part contrary to many people’s opinions, but the cross accomplished a slew of other things we did need. God has always offered complete forgiveness.)
The New Year is about a return to what is of God – TOV.
Most of you know that X44 has done a good bit of research in this area. Here is a link to our video series on atonement:
If you want to read a better version I would suggest this:
Better views of atonement:
Well first let’s get the word right.
Leviticus 16 – gives us the instructions for the day of Atonement. Notice in Lev 16:2 is the noun for atonement (a place not an action).
Aaron must make a burnt offering (the gift) and a sin (purification or decontamination) offering before entering the Holy place. So, there is a gift to God to say, “Hey I want to spend some time in your presence” and a purification offering. There is no wrath debt or substitution to be seen here.
2 goats are selected for Israel: The sin offering goat and the goat that will “bear the sin”. Lots are cast to see which goat fulfills which role.
The “Sin” offering goat
Both goats are called a sin/purification/decontamination offering and the reason is that is that the lots have not been cast yet over these two. So, since we don’t know yet which ones going to be the actual sin offering, they’re both referred to that way. We don’t know which one’s going to be for the Lord, which one was to be for azazel.
a better way to translate “Atonement” here is to make expiation with it, or to make a purging with it. The whole notion of the sin offering is decontamination and purification. It is a reset back to holiness. (starting to see new year implications yet?)
Propitiation or Expiation (KPR language)
Both words presuppose that there is a barrier that must be removed to overcome sin. We need to look to see what is acted upon in order to translate KPR correctly. As we noted atonement language means to cover or purge but is the issue with humans, God, or sin?
Propitiation: means that the barrier lies within God himself; thus, it is usually interpreted as an action to satisfy divine wrath against sinners. This was the pagan concept of sacrifice, but Christians who hold to this say that God’s justice must be exercised, and sin must be paid for in order to receive forgiveness and the aversion of God’s wrath. (This is PSA language)
Expiation: means that the barrier lies outside of God, within humankind and/or a stain they leave on the world (sacred space), it is often interpreted as an action aimed at removing sin. To cover, wipe, or to purge sin.
Mercy Seat Translation-This is a common translation, reading the ESV, this is not a good translation although it’s a traditional one. More literally, if atonement (kapper) means to purge then kapporeth (noun) should be the place of purging. In other words, we would really focus on the location not the result, because calling it the mercy seat is sort of reading the theological result into the lemma. That’s why it’s not a great translation. The place is the cover of the Ark in the Holy of Holies which is the footstool of God’s throne. This is a throne room scene.
The Scapegoat or the goat for azazel
The propitiation view (punishment). The goat bears the sin and wrath.
The azazel refers to the location (the desert) which theologically if the place where sin and evil lives or belongs (not in God’s camp)
Azazel is a proper name. This was the leader of the fallen angels/demons in 2nd temple Judaism. The goat transports the sin to Azazel.
Because the goat was bearing the sin (carrying) it could not be a sacrifice because God only gets spotless pure animals (what does that do for your New Testament theology of the cross if Jesus was imputed our sin?)
One more issue here is the laying on of hands and confessing Israel’s sins over the goat. Some argue that this is the connection that all laying on of hands must equal that the animal is bearing sins and the laying on of hands is the transfer. In this instance this is true. But as we saw in every instance of hand laying it is not about sin, so we cannot jump to conclusions when we deal with other sacrifices that as we saw don’t deal with that concept. Laying on of hands is about setting something apart or consecrating it for a task.
Atonement Conclusions
Goat 1- the purification offering, is to cleanse the temple objects. Blood is not applied to anyone.
The scapegoat is sent to Azazel. So, sin, the forces of death, are removed from the camp. This connects God is rescuing his people from the forces of death.
Neither of these goats are punished. It’s about expelling or purging God’s space (so Expiation!). The first goat (the one that dies) is more about cleaning the throne room of the stain of sin. The scapegoat doesn’t get killed (he’ll probably die in the desert).
This is all about resetting sacred space (getting back to Eden)
New Testament
The Exodus is the primary motif of what is going on at the cross, but the Biblical authors do see the day of atonement being fulfilled in Jesus. We see Jesus as all 3 actors in the Day of Atonement: The purification offering goat, the scapegoat, and the priest.
1 John 3:8- Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil. Both Exodus and Day of Atonement deal with this concept.
Romans 3:21-26, 1 John 2:1-2, 1 John 4:10, Heb 13:11-12, Matt 27:28-31, Heb 9:18-26, Heb 10:8-17
Addressing PSA notions of the Day of Atonement:
Neither goat is taking the place of anyone
Neither goat is getting wrath poured out upon them
The goat doesn’t make a payment for forgiveness but is the one who carries it away. Remission.
Expiation (defined as purging) is the action taken- like the goat taking the sins back to where they belong. Not only does he take it back to where it belongs, he defeats it for good!
Sin is seen as the forces of death and they have no place in sacred space, Jesus removes them by his blood and carries them out of the camp. Dissolves them- His blood is the ultimate ritual detergent.
Jesus is the place where heaven and earth meet (the “mercy seat”) he’s not the propitiation to satisfy God’s wrath. This is a rescue of humanity and the world from the powers
The Day of Atonement was all about resetting holiness in sacred space and not about appeasing God’s wrath. It was about purging the sin from God’s presence
CONCLUSION:
Whatever date we want to associate as the New year, the idea biblically has always centered around a return to TOV – the way that God intended. Jesus shows us the way back after much brokenness to what God asks of us. To be TOV. To reflect on how to live in Holiness, Devotion, and Tribulation. How to Live in the Joy that we were created for. To bring Heaven to earth. To Celebrate Life here and now in the name of Jesus. To return to what is Holy and who we were made to be – a Set Apart Holy Royal Priesthood.
[1] Harris, R. L. (1999). 1023 כָפַר. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 452–453). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gordon Tucker, in Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations (ed. and trans. by Gordon Tucker, Continuum International Publishing Group, New York, 2007), p. 169.
