Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and welcome to the follow up episode to my introduction to Genesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Last time, we talked about various uses of the Bible's text through time, and while you don't have to go listen to that before you listen to this episode, it might help to frame some of this conversation.
[00:00:36] But, in any case, what we're going to do today is talk about some of the texts that were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves at Qumran, which we are going to call Genesis adjacent. So these aren't the Genesis scroll themselves, but they reference things that are from the account of creation and Eden.
[00:00:58] We'll talk about what we see, and what we don't see, and what some of this seems to say about how the Qumran community thought about the creation and the Fall. I have no idea how far into these texts we're going to get, because really there's a lot of cool things to talk about with them, and I'm not going to apologize for the tangents today. This is really great stuff, And you can see, just like if you were gonna do a book club with a bunch of friends, reading ancient literature and talking about it with the Biblical lens, it's really neat. And bonus, you get your head in the mind of the ancient Israelite, as Dr. Heiser would say. Like, no, this stuff isn't inspired literature, but I think you will be very illuminated by it and it will help you understand the time of Jesus.
[00:01:48] The first text we're going to talk about is a liturgical text called Words of the Luminaries, which takes the creation account and reworks it for a liturgical purpose. And because of that framework, I think it's really interesting and really applicable for us to look at some things here. So we're going to be spending a bit of time with this text.
[00:02:11] It puts Adam within the context of a prayer for the first day of the week. This text is known as 4Q504, so that is the fourth cave at Qumran, manuscript number 5 0 4. Words of the Luminaries is its actual title that is written on the outside of the scroll, which it's fascinating to me that they don't do this on every scroll. But it's from about 150 bc, so it's one of the older manuscripts. But it's very well preserved compared to many.
[00:02:50] There are prayers for every day of the week. Scholars do not know exactly who wrote it, though they don't think it was written by the Qumran community because of its age, and because it doesn't really contain any distinct language that the community tended to use that set them apart. Its theology is very Jewish, but not necessarily Qumran specific theology. Its great preservation suggests that the community did use it though, and plus there is another copy of it, which is labeled 4Q506, and this one is from around the year 50 ad, which is about 200 years after the older copy. So that even more strongly implies it was genuinely used in the liturgy for a long period of time.
[00:03:44] Words of the Luminaries is the actual title of the scroll, and it's not clear what's being referenced by the word luminaries, since that word does have a range of meaning. The Bible uses the Hebrew term here to refer to the sun, moon, and the stars, and this could be the reference, especially because we know how interested Qumran was concerning the regulation of time and season. And again, these are weekly prayers, or daily prayers, really, so definitely connected to the calendar. But the term is also used at Qumran to refer to both angels as well as priests. So likely there's a layered meaning here, I think. It's being used by priests, and it's functioning as part of their calendar cycle. The calendar cycle, of course, being ruled by the actual heavenly bodies that are seen in the sky, and being daily prayers, they are probably associated with sunset and or sunrise.
[00:04:50] You know, just a little aside, I don't know if you guys use set liturgical prayers in your prayer life. Some traditions obviously use them a lot more than others, of course. Now, I was not raised up with them, like, at all, in the LDS church. The idea of a set formal prayer was, I guess, against the idea of what might be called a personal prayer.
[00:05:14] Which, I think that is a bit sad, to be honest, because prayer isn't just about yourself and whatever you happen to be thinking and whatever kinds of thoughts and feelings you might be able to dredge up in yourself and like personal revelation... That's not really what wraps prayer up. Prayer connects you in those horizontal and vertical dimensions of faith. So it is about community and other people as well.
[00:05:44] Now, of course, I'm not saying you have to pray liturgically, but it's helpful, and I think formative. Prayer was a big deal for me personally, though, from a pretty young age, definitely well before the age of eight. So it's interesting to me that I did have that experience and that relationship with God, even when I was so young, and I had to kind of make up my own prayers, essentially.
[00:06:10] But, you know, don't get me wrong, there were definitely set formulas and phrases that everyone around me would use. prayer always sounded a certain way. That food was going to nourish and strengthen my body for sure. And there was always a lot of thee's and thy's and thou's in my prayers, because we always read the King James Version. Eventually, as an adult, when I finally gave up some of those particular formulas in prayer, it took a lot to get used to.
[00:06:42] But the reason I did, really, was because I was praying in different contexts with people who use different words. And so, even if you're not praying liturgically, you're still praying in a way that is involving community, that community is affecting you, I think.
[00:07:01] But I think I really wanted to have liturgical prayers, even though I really didn't. I think I felt an innate draw to them. The only one I was familiar with was the Lord's Prayer. Of course. At least we had that, and I'm sure it was used on occasion when I was young. It was at least taught to us, but it would never be used in our Sunday worship services, for instance.
[00:07:24] And you know, there are times when you want or need to pray and you just cannot come up with the words for whatever reason. In the hardest parts of my life, when I was younger, in my teens or in my 20s, I really and truly leaned into that Lord's Prayer. And I'm so thankful for liturgical prayer to carry me through some of those times, even though I only had one prayer to pray. Some moments, the only thing, like really, the only thing you can do is just pray that prayer over and over and over.
[00:07:58] And yeah, liturgical prayer can get kind of rote sometimes. And your mind might wander and you might chide yourself for that. But I think even then, there's something happening that's good and that is formative. Like, with every time you do bring yourself back into alignment and focus, that's a practice. That's something that's developing a habit and forming your mind. So really, definitely get yourself some liturgical prayer if you don't have that. If the Lord's Prayer is what you got, use it.
[00:08:31] If you're not yet into liturgical prayer and don't know where to start, there are apps you can find. I found Catholic apps helpful. I found Greek Orthodox apps helpful. And if you want something a little more Protestant, then you can check out something like the Book of Common Prayer. There's lots of prayers out there, so give them a try if you don't do it already. And when we're talking about the mirroring of heaven and earth and sacred time even, It's an interesting thought that even using the same words as others is like praying together through time.
[00:09:04] Okay, so back to the Words of the Luminaries, which, by the way, I think it's sad that it's fragmentary so we can't read the whole thing and use these prayers in their entirety. But the format of the six day weekly prayers has a petition for God to remember. And then, there's a recollection of a historical event. And then there's another petition to God for either deliverance or some sort of strengthening. And they all end with a benediction and the words, Amen, Amen. The Sabbath prayer is different, as it's doxological, which means it contains a hymn or perhaps hymns, depending on if these are separate songs or if they're stanzas.
[00:09:50] So let's look at the first prayer of the week here, and a possible reconstruction of the first two lines are: remember, Lord, that from dust you made us, but you live forever.
[00:10:05] That call for God to remember the people praying is pretty potent considering what we've talked about regarding God and the idea of remembrance. And I'm going to give a shout out here to some ideas that the podcast Answers to Giant Questions has been bringing out about a connection of God remembering with the idea of sustaining life. Like, particularly with a focus to life. That's a very interesting suggestion, that God's remembrance and the writing down in the Book of Life is genuinely about physical restoration.
[00:10:44] Of course, God doesn't need to literally call to mind the fact that he made us from dust, nor does he need to remember that he lives forever. But it's a powerful thought to consider that this petition might be centered around the idea that God will literally sustain us, even though we are made of something like dust.
[00:11:05] Again, this is a connection of the horizontal and the vertical. The reminder that we're made of dust is surely there to humble us in light of who God is and that He is the one who lives forever. But at the same time, I don't think that that humbling is supposed to be a call for us to think poorly of ourselves. I mean, yes, in relation to God of who we are, that should humble us, but that's not like we're going to say something really bad about ourselves because we need to, right? Like, we are God's creation, and the point of creation isn't just for us to be a drop in the bucket and then gone. The call is for us to reach out to God so that He can share His abundant life with us. We are dust. But He is eternal, and how incredible is it that He wants to share that eternity with us?
[00:12:03] Now, we might say that there's a kind of nexus in liturgy. Certainly, we can pray alone, but praying communally, again, with people in the room or with people across space as you text your friends to pray for you, or with people throughout time as you use liturgical prayer. Communal prayer connects us to one another as well as to God. So it's never just us alone with our Bible and praying, but it's a greater construct that we're part of. And that construct, in community, being connected to God's abundant life, is something that is, I don't know, I have a hard time grasping this. It's like, yes, it is about me and my life. But it's also about the body of Christ living through time and being this consistent witness to the faithfulness of God. And life and new creation being a part of that and being given to us through Christ is, that's just an incredible thing.
[00:13:10] now again, I know I'm kind of going into tangents here, but I think these are really important. And in regards to prayer, if you have a hard time asking for prayer because you're stuck on that word, ask, which I tend to be that person. I tend to be like, I don't want to ask you guys because this sounds really strange. Or, this sounds like a strange thing that I'm asking you to pray for. And, you know, I know that that's not the right attitude to have, but there's something in me that keeps going to that. And so, you know, in that kind of construct and way of thinking, we need to keep in mind that prayer isn't about being granted wishes, but it's about connection and this connection to each other. The most important connection is with God and access to that abundant life that he has, but we cannot neglect that connection with each other as well.
[00:14:06] Alright, so moving on to the next section of the prayer. We'll get into some of my favorite theology here about the image of God. I'm also gonna bring out some points of historical interest to show how even important theological concepts shift over time. So I want you to listen very carefully to the word choices here.
[00:14:30] Line 4 probably says, Adam, our father, you formed in the likeness of your glory.
[00:14:39] First of all, just a note that with the line that we read previously, and this line, we've got a focus here on Genesis 2, or the Eden narrative. Now that's interesting to me because, these liturgical prayers in this scroll do go chronologically across the week, and they don't start in Genesis 1. So that's potentially telling, though of course we shouldn't try to say too much about that when we have a bit of an absence of data. But we can speculate as to why it begins in Genesis 2, and not Genesis 1.
[00:15:17] It can't be that they didn't know about Genesis 1, of course they did, they had a number of copies of it. One thing I consider in all of this that I've talked about before is that the Divine Name, Yahweh, is not used in Genesis 1. So I've brought out the idea that there is a reason for that difference that's much more than just different sources.
[00:15:39] I think the reason is that Genesis 1 is about general creation and the cosmos, which is important and all, but Genesis 2 is about our covenantal relationship with God. And I really think that's what we have in play here as well. These liturgical prayers don't start with Genesis 1, because Genesis 1 is only the setup to get to liturgy.
[00:16:08] Genesis 1 is the temple building. And at the end, we have the resting of God in the temple, and that is when liturgy can begin. Liturgy isn't going to begin when the temple is only half built. So, with that logic, and, you know, it's not really spelled out, we need to do a little logic to figure this out, because people don't need to spell things out when they already understand them. But with that logic, I think it makes perfect sense for worship to start in Genesis 2, although that does remind me, I've got some interesting work coming up at some point about worship and creation and ethics, or right living, and that will show a connection to Genesis 1 there.
[00:16:53] But, in any case, when we're talking about liturgical worship and things like that, here in Genesis 2, we have that context of being in the temple, of having covenantal relationship with God, even though the word covenant isn't used here. We're certainly not talking about a covenant of works, but we are clearly talking about a relationship of worship and liturgy. We have the concept of sacred space, the concept of the idol in the temple. All of these ideas are wrapped up here in Genesis 2.
[00:17:25] But anyway, with some of that context in our minds, let's get to the theology of the line I just read, which again, it says, Adam our father, you formed in the likeness of your glory.
[00:17:40] It's very interesting to me that it inputs the term glory there. And scholars suppose that it does that because people were starting to refer to God in more indirect ways. So instead of in the image of God, which would directly reference God himself, it's in the image of God's glory. It's Functionally the same thing. It's just trying to give a little more distance and honor But it also says something about what it means to be the likeness of God, Right? Like if we are in the likeness of God's glory then We are to shine His glory elsewhere into creation as His reflection.
[00:18:24] These ideas also can reflect what happened at the Fall, which was not a loss of image, but potentially a loss of glory. And that is directly referred to in other ancient Jewish texts, like 3rd Baruch, or the Apocalypse of Baruch, and I think it's been talked about quite a bit by other modern scholars.
[00:18:48] So, is the loss of glory the same as the loss of image? I don't think so, and I think the biblical text bears that out. As we've seen in Genesis, people continue to be the image of God after the flood. Now, that's not to say that people in the second temple period may not have had different ideas as to what a loss of glory amounted to, and maybe you do lose some of that image. But a loss of glory is certainly something that isn't lost irretrievably, I think. And the idea here isn't going to parallel our, well, what I think is the wrong modern idea of image, like the idea that image is an inherent part of the physical or neurological makeup of humanity.
[00:19:33] But glory is definitely something that's connected to what is being done, like what you do. Again, what we have here is a bit of a difference or a peculiarity in how we see what they understood the image to be here in the second temple period. Remember, they were pretty focused on being obedient because they had just been through an terrible experience of the exile. They had begun to be out of the exile, but the promises and the fulfillment of those promises had not yet occurred fully. And so they did have that focus on obedience, on repentance, on how do we get back God's glory to be with us, right?
[00:20:18] Like they had a new temple, but that temple wasn't operating functionally. The glory of God had not entered into it. So here we're wondering at this time, why not? What's wrong? How do we make this happen? These are the things they're trying to process, right? And this whole matrix of ideas of the glory of God really fits perfectly into all of that.
[00:20:45] Now, if you haven't listened to my episodes on the image of God, you can find them all very easily by going to my website, GenesisMarksTheSpot. com, and clicking on the Episodes tab. I try to put my related episodes into categories, So, if you click on the image of God there, you will find a list of all of those that particularly deal with the image of God. And I talk about the different ways the image of God is understood today, and has been understood through time. And we talk about the connection of image language in the Old Testament to the idea of pagan idols.
[00:21:23] So, then we get to things like this here in the text. And it's like, well It doesn't say we're formed in the likeness of God, but in the likeness of God's glory. Now, does this discount or change the idea of the terms image and idol being connected together? I don't think it does, but it also doesn't focus on that imagery at its core, I think. Now, it's not to say it's unrelated, because I don't think that either, but it's nuanced differently.
[00:21:57] This kind of question is exactly what I'm talking about when I'm referring to changes in interpretation or understanding. Between the time of the exile, where they were dealing directly with idolatrous oppressors, and the time of Qumran, the concern had shifted from one of being influenced and tempted by false idolatry to these new concerns of being faithful to God via perfect obedience to his law. On the one hand, I don't think we can presume that the people of Qumran have lost or rejected the idea that the image of God is the true version of the idol, right?
[00:22:41] They still might have that kind of context in mind in some sense. It's not like they weren't aware of idolatry and these similar Hebrew terms that connect them. So the understanding of what this is May not have changed, exactly, especially when you consider the idea that the glory of a deity might just be exactly the thing that inhabits the idol.
[00:23:04] But again, even for the Israelites, there's the connection of the glory with the temple. the idea of being stripped of glory isn't about, say, losing spirit or some kind of component of our beings. It's connected to condemnation and a direct outcome of our action.
[00:23:26] So the glory of an idol might be the presence of the deity because the spirit inside the idol gives it something glorious that it wouldn't have without that. But the spirit and the glory are not the same thing. They're very related, certainly. But they're not the same, or at least they're not always the same.
[00:23:48] Again, this is where it gets complicated because you have to nuance the term and look at how it's used in context. So what is the glory? And again, it can be different things. It can be the fame or the renown of something. It can and does refer to the spirit or presence of God. Now in our case here, I think the word glory is primarily standing in for referring to God himself while calling to the idea of glory in a liturgical and temple setting.
[00:24:24] So this is similar to the idea that the name can do this as well. It's a way to give more honor by humbly not using a direct reference. Like you're in front of a king and address him as your honor. I hope all of that makes sense. And I hope that this is a pretty clear example of what I'm talking about in seeing interpreters take the text for what it meant originally and repurposing it for their current theological needs.
[00:24:51] It's like, okay, we no longer really need that anti idolatry polemic here because we finally checked that off our list. We finally don't have that as a problem, but the text is still giving us this truth about how we relate to God. So how is that to be seen, and used, and talked about in our current situation?
[00:25:15] Now, another point is that Adam is referred to as our father. So, it's very much putting Adam as a progenitor of Israel here. It's tempting to say that the prayer is looping in everyone on earth to call Adam father. But that's just not how prayer worked. Prayer worked within the community. The community was not all of earth.
[00:25:40] So, the very reason we can think such things today about Adam being the father of everyone, well, that's a testament to the fact that so much has changed worldwide to include all of humanity in that family of God. But the focus here is definitely that family. And for the people before Jesus, that was specifically Israel.
[00:26:04] So, wow, we're definitely getting into some specifics here and not really getting too far into all of these texts, but that's okay because this is really interesting, important stuff, at least I think it is, and I hope you agree. I still want to say something about the contrast between the lines we've seen already. And I don't want to leave out the rest of the lines to this really interesting prayer.
[00:26:28] So, we were made out of dust, God is eternal, Adam is our father, and yet, being made of dust, Adam holds this incredible status that is far beyond his physical makeup.
[00:26:42] Now, we are used to recognizing all of humanity as having the status of the image, right? And that's true, but there is some suggestion that Adam Would have been seen here as being unique. Because remember, glory is something that could potentially be lost. It could be gained and it could be lost. And there are other texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls that refer to the glory of Adam. And again, those texts that talk about the loss of glory through Adam's sin as well.
[00:27:16] So there's definitely a feeling that Adam did have a unique place and a unique glory that even if it's not gone, it's reduced or it needs to be restored or something along those lines. When we move at some point into the conversation in a future episode about the idea of original sin and the concept of the nature of man, This information might be helpful to us. And again, keeping in mind, this may have been mostly a later development in understanding that shouldn't be placed into the canonical text, it might still be helpful to see what happened in the garden more in this context of glory than a context of nature.
[00:28:00] We're always talking about nature, and that's interesting because we try to not be materialists as Christians, right? And yet we tend to always go back to this nature idea with Adam. Much also needs to be said about what it means for Adam to be an archetype for humanity. He isn't the archetype for restored humanity. That's the second Adam. That's Jesus.
[00:28:28] And we might ask, is it a restored humanity that we get or a fully new humanity? And maybe that's just semantics and nuance that doesn't matter. And we also have that glory with participation in Christ, right? When we're new creations in him. But anyway, just some things to throw out there for everyone to ponder.
[00:28:48] so moving on to line five, it's broken at the end, which again, it's really unfortunate because I want to know how it ends. What we can read says, the breath of life you breathed into his nostrils and understanding and knowledge.
[00:29:06] And that's where it breaks off. We don't know how it ends, but if the grammar is parallel with the other lines, it probably says something about understanding and knowledge being given to Adam, like as a parallel to the breath of life. And this is an obvious adjustment to the biblical narrative, since it's presenting the giving of knowledge as a positive thing prior to the tree, because it does mention the tree later. It is giving things in a chronological order here.
[00:29:35] But of course, even so, Adam had to know things, right? He had blessings and commandments and he served God in the garden and he named animals. So information in general isn't really what's specifically in view with the Tree of Knowledge.
[00:29:51] So let's do a bit of a thought experiment. Maybe what we could say is that the knowledge before the tree was in alignment with God's creative purposes. And despite the name of the tree that suggests all types of knowledge, what if the knowledge that accompanied the fruit was knowledge of disorder and the opposite of creation?
[00:30:14] This is after all where the pain and conflict and curse and toil and soon even murder comes into the story. What is the tree and what is the knowledge are topics that have always been really popular, of course. And I think a lot of people have this idea that the tree of knowledge of good and evil is less focused on the good and more focused on the evil aspect of that knowledge, right? You're gaining evil knowledge, and that's why the tree is bad.
[00:30:44] All of these ideas about the tree of knowledge really do deserve a whole episode in and of themselves. So, we're going to go ahead and not go into too much of a tangent here talking about that. But it is interesting that here in this liturgical prayer, knowledge is a direct gift from God, and so it's not solely from the taking of the tree wrongly, or even really as a choice of humans themselves.
[00:31:13] This might seem a bit of an unimportant bit of information, but remember we're looking into how a particular community understood things like this. Is knowledge gained mystically? Is it a download from God, so to speak? Or is it something we get through experience?
[00:31:31] In the Bible, to know something doesn't mean that you've done a science experiment to figure it out, but you've experienced something and maybe tested it. This is the framework of the biblical test, really. You go through it in order to know something, and that knowledge is connected to maturity. Now, that doesn't mean That there is no other way of gaining knowledge. I'm not saying that we can't gain it via direct instruction from God, because we still see that in places with God speaking to people, people having visions, and all of that kind of thing.
[00:32:08] And I think for us today, with the indwelling of the Spirit, there has to be something said about that intimate connection that we do have with God, which can teach us many things. But those teachings are also to be measured through and by the historical experience between God and His people. This is really one thing that sets Christianity apart from many other religions, is that basis of historical reality in salvation history.
[00:32:38] And so we have to keep in mind, too, that revelation happens most often as something that is really corrective or that is meant to bring us into faithful covenant with God. So, it's really not about getting cool new info that was never before seen, like you've got this new toy at Christmas, but really it's about how what's going on now patterns with what God has done in the past.
[00:33:05] What we very often want is for Revelation to be a data set of information. Here, let me give you this book, and that's going to include everything you need to know. And implied, or even stated outright there is the idea that this is everything you need to know of how to be or what to do.
[00:33:26] Now, really, the Word of God does change us, but the Word of God is Jesus, not the text that we read in a book. The written Word is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, and for us to be equipped for every good work. But it does not change us from the inside to make us truly just people. That's the work of the Spirit.
[00:33:54] All right. Well, there's just so much more I could say about that, but getting back specifically to our topic of knowledge, this theme does seem pretty key to this text.
[00:34:05] Let's recall what we've read from this so far. Remember, Lord, that from dust you made us. But you live forever. Adam our father, you formed in the likeness of your glory. The breath of life you breathed into his nostrils, and understanding and knowledge.
[00:34:25] Then the text breaks off and it says something about that.
[00:34:28] Now a few lines after this, a fragmentary section mentions God's knowledge. It says, For you are the God of knowledge, and every thought of our hearts is before you.
[00:34:40] Okay, so now an interesting part that is going to make our ears perk up here. It says, These things we know because you graciously gave us your Holy Spirit.
[00:34:52] And then the closing benediction says, blessed be the Lord who has made to know us. Amen. Amen.
[00:35:01] Okay. So about that part of the giving of the Holy Spirit, the obvious question might be, well, we thought that didn't happen until after Jesus. I think we've at least mentioned this before, maybe really early on in the podcast, especially when we talked about the Trinity and all of that.
[00:35:18] A reference to the giving of the Holy Spirit doesn't have to be the same thing as what we have in the New Testament. People in the Old Testament certainly had the Spirit in different ways. And of course, the Spirit has always been active in the world as one who mediates. What this line doesn't have to mean is the idea of the indwelling of the Spirit, which we associate different things with that, for sure, but one of those things is the giving of the New Covenant. the Spirit's coming in such a powerful way as we see in the New Testament is probably not what this line has in mind exactly.
[00:35:54] Again, what we're talking about here is the nature of knowledge and receiving that from God. That's a core component of this prayer. And it's bookended by the mention of the knowledge that God bestows. And it makes perfect sense for the Spirit to be involved in that.
[00:36:11] Okay, but we kind of skipped over a bit to see all of that. So let's go back up to another theme. Line 6 says, in the Garden of Eden, which you planted, you gave him dominion.
[00:36:19] This is fascinating because it mentions the Garden of Eden, which we're thinking of Genesis 2 there, but this also says something about dominion. And that we get from Genesis 1. Now Genesis 2 verse 15 does say that the man is to cultivate and keep the garden, which we could say is a type of dominion. But it's in Genesis 1, 26 and 28 where we see at least the English word dominion.
[00:36:54] Now what we have to talk about here is the difference in Hebrew terminology. Because the Hebrew in this prayer is not the same as the Hebrew in Genesis 1, so there's not a direct call to the text of Genesis 1, but there is a call to the theme.
[00:37:12] Now, this Hebrew word that is used in the prayer, we do see that in another liturgical text in Psalm 8, verse 7. And that says, quote, You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. End quote.
[00:37:29] This word is used elsewhere in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the same context of man ruling over creation. Now, it's possible that the Words of the Luminaries is isolating Adam's dominion to the Garden, since it specifically mentions that. Now, that doesn't undo the general idea of having dominion over creation, but there could be something specific about the Garden that is being alluded to here, because, remember how Adam is in the likeness of God's glory?
[00:38:00] And then the next line, it says that Adam walks in a land of glory.
[00:38:05] So what is that? The word can refer to abundance and wealth. So that seems to fit here. But remember, there's a previous mention of glory and likeness. If the land of glory is referring again to God's glory, then this would refer to the glory in the form of the Shekinah cloud that we associate with the tabernacle or the temple. So there's a sense of sacred space for the garden here.
[00:38:34] Now to many of us, that's not going to be shocking news if we're already tracking along with this idea. But, you know, this isn't modern scholarship like John Walton. This is the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is ancient Jewish understanding. So it's pretty cool to see that there.
[00:38:52] Now, here's another fun snippet of text that doesn't come from the Dead Sea Scrolls. This one isn't as old, but it probably retains the memory of an older idea. this is from the book of 3rd Enoch. Now 3rd Enoch is later than 1st Enoch. It's not really the same kind of writing in provenance, but, nonetheless, it probably contains an ancient idea.
[00:39:18] So, in chapter 5, verses 1 through 6 of 3rd Enoch, it says, quote, From the day that the Holy One, blessed be He, banished the first man from the Garden of Eden, the Shekinah resided on the cherub beneath the Tree of Life. The first man and his generation dwelt at the gate of the Garden of Eden, so that they might gaze at the bright image of the Shekinah, Anyone who gazed at the brightness of the Shekinah was not troubled by flies or gnats, by sickness or pain. Malicious demons were not able to harm him, and even the angels had no power over him. When the Holy One, blessed be He, went out and in from the Garden of Eden, and from Eden to the Garden, from the Garden to Heaven, and from Heaven to the Garden of Eden, all gazed at the bright image of his Shekinah. And were unharmed until the coming of the generation of Enosh, end quote.
[00:40:21] So yeah, just wanted to throw that in because it's pretty cool that we do have this ancient witness to the Garden of Eden being sacred space and the land of God's dwelling. And even the angels didn't have the power over the people who are in the presence of the Shekinah. And yet we have Adam who had dominion.
[00:40:41] Alright, so a couple of more points. The prohibition from eating of the tree is mentioned in the Prayer of the Words of the Luminaries, though the tree itself isn't mentioned, at least not in what we have in the existing fragments.
[00:40:56] It says, quote, and you charged him not to turn aside.
[00:41:02] The language there of turning aside isn't used in the Genesis account, but it is used for the Israelites in general elsewhere. Joshua 23 verse 6 says, quote, Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the Torah of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left, end quote.
[00:41:28] So we're using definite exile language here. Now unfortunately, in the prayer, there's a sizable missing portion next that probably says something about the disobedience.
[00:41:40] But what we have next says. Quote, He is flesh, and to dust he returns.
[00:41:48] Now in Genesis 3, it mentions dust, but not flesh. In the Flood narrative, though, flesh is mentioned. So it's possible there is a brief hint about looping in the Flood account, and that's strengthened by the fact that the Flood is mentioned shortly. But sadly, the text isn't preserved well enough to really make a whole lot of sense of that part of what it's trying to say. But it does reference violence, and the shedding of blood, which does bring to my mind the potential idea that the flood wasn't just about a flood of water, but also of war and violence, as has been brought out by Answers to Giant Questions.
[00:42:32] Alright, so that's about it for what we have in this text. It's crazy how talking about just a few lines of text can get you so many places of conversation. I know that some of what we've talked about here have been tangents to what the text says, but I get to do that here. A lot of times when you read these texts alongside scholarly literature, the accompanying discussion is understandably a bit dry and doesn't tend to focus a whole lot on the implications of what we have in this ancient writing. Because the people who are writing these books aren't trying to do any kind of theology.
[00:43:10] But when we take them and we look at them, we do need to see how they fit with the Bible and how they fit with what we should be thinking. And so I find it fascinating how helpful even these few lines are to help us see the kinds of things they were thinking about and how they utilize the biblical text.
[00:43:30] In some ways it's very particular and unexpected, And in some ways, it's really very like how we might use the text at times ourselves, linking our situations to what we read in scripture, and taking out particular things about the biblical text for use. Part of the interesting thing is in what they say, but it's also in what they don't say. Because there's details in the narrative of the garden that they don't mention, that aren't brought up here. And so it's interesting because the things that aren't brought up aren't core to what this writer of this prayer was trying to say. There's all kinds of details that aren't mentioned that we tend to sometimes really fixate on.
[00:44:16] Alright, so I really didn't expect that single text to take up as much of the episode as it did. But, you know, that's okay. We're going to go ahead and talk about another one that is called the Paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus, which puts together the creation account with the flood account and the exodus account.
[00:44:36] This text is known as 4Q422, and it dates from the Hasmonean period, which is about the time of Qumran. And there's some question as to whether this was a composition unique to the community or not. There's some language that would at least make it unsurprising if it was, but they don't really know.
[00:44:59] So they call this a paraphrase, but that doesn't mean that everything in Genesis and Exodus is being covered, and some parts of the story are more complicated than just highlights of the events, especially with the flood account, it adds a bit of material as well. So, rather than a paraphrase, this might really be put under the genre of rewritten Bible, which is a thing that shocks us, but it wasn't uncommon. The translations into Aramaic, for instance, that are called Targums, they are exactly that, really. This is a way to have the biblical text, or the biblical story, and you get to add whatever commentary you see fit as the author. The thought is that they would use these texts as homilies, or they might be a kind of commentary.
[00:45:51] Now, unlike the Words of the Luminaries, this text does start with Genesis 1, talking about God creating the heavens and the earth with his Word. But again, it combines and repurposes and mixes language from Genesis 1 and 2 together, including mentions of the garden and dominion and the fruit of the ground and the tree of knowledge. And we seem to have a bit of Genesis 3 going on here as well.
[00:46:18] Here's an important part referencing Humanity's Rebellion. It says, quote, And he rose up against him, and they forgot, with an evil inclination and for works of wickedness. End quote.
[00:46:34] So this is referencing Adam, and the bit about the evil inclination doesn't seem to really fit the story of Genesis 3 as we have it. But remember that Genesis 6 verse 5 says, And every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
[00:46:54] So this bit about creation is from column 1 of the text. Column 2 tells the flood story, which seems to begin similarly to Genesis 6 verse 5. With God seeing the wickedness, and then a mention of Noah, probably. We don't really have his name, but it does say, Righteous in his generation upon the earth.
[00:47:17] And, also the divine name in this text is replaced with the name El. and it mentions 40 days and 40 nights, so not the 150.
[00:47:27] And then there's a deviation from the original text. It says, The waters were mighty upon the earth in order to cleanse sin, and in order to make known the glory of the Most High.
[00:47:42] So I think this line right here is very key to the whole composition and the purpose of it. Because we have parallel lines in these columns about giving glory to the Most High. Like, this is the point of what's happening.
[00:47:57] Also, there's that nice direct connection to the waters cleansing the earth. So this kind of shows a point and a purpose to the Flood. And again, the point isn't, hey look, everyone died. The point is to give glory to God and to cleanse sin.
[00:48:17] All right, so the third column of the text is from the stories of the Exodus. Talks about things from the first part of the book and specifically and mostly talks about the plagues.
[00:48:29] It seems like there's a purpose to each part, and each of these pieces are reflective of one another to tell the patterned stories of decreation and God's judgment. Now we might wonder why it talks about the plagues instead of the Red Sea, especially in light of the flood. because we're thinking, well, it seems like the water in the flood and the water in the exodus should be really obvious parallels, right? But I think the point was to see the hardness of Pharaoh's heart and the judgment on Pharaoh specifically. Now, of course, what happened at the Red Sea definitely was a judgment upon Pharaoh, But I think seeing the plagues as a really primal part of this is something that we tend not to do too often.
[00:49:19] Going back to the creation narrative of this text, as fragmentary and short as this is, it does make a point to creation being made by the Word. We think, well, of course we know that God spoke things into existence, but this specific mention of His Word recalls what we read at the beginning of John in the New Testament. And it recalls what the Aramaic Targums use. They use the Word to refer to God's agent.
[00:49:48] What this is, is two powers theology. Maybe you've heard before the idea that the Logos in the Gospel of John is riffing off of a Greek concept, but it's actually a very, very biblical concept of this Word. In Hebrew, it's Memra, the Word being the active agent of God. Again, two powers all over this.
[00:50:12] This is referencing the pre incarnate Jesus. Another way that scholars talk about this is Logos theology. and if we're right in seeing this mention of the Word in these Dead Sea Scrolls, well, it's very embedded into the Jewish thought.
[00:50:28] There's a real sense that God is acting, but he's acting through an agent, and that agent is also God. Now, of course, we can't be absolutely sure that the mention of the Word is reflecting that here, but there's a good chance. We see the two powers theology in the Word, in the angel of the Lord, in the wisdom of God. All of these are active agents who are doing what God does, and they're not separate from God. They're seen in parallel.
[00:51:00] In this text, we also see the Holy Spirit involved in creation. There's not a lot of detail attached to the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit seems to be seen as separate from God.
[00:51:12] The text, on different lines, it says, He made by His Word, and on the next line, it says, and His Holy Spirit.
[00:51:21] Now, are the Word and the Holy Spirit to be seen as separate, like it's referencing two separate members of the Trinity?
[00:51:29] Remember, this is well before Jesus and well before the early church. Or do we see these things as being referenced in parallel? Well, we can't really tell.
[00:51:39] But in Psalm 33, 6, which this also seems to reflect, that verse says, By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
[00:51:53] So that does put the Word and the Spirit together because breath is the same word as spirit. And here in that verse in the Psalms, the Word and the breath or spirit are parallel rather than necessarily describing two separate things going on. But it It really isn't until the New Testament and after that that we start to see the separation of the Spirit as a separate person really clearly.
[00:52:17] Now that's not to say that it wasn't always there, but He wasn't always obvious and revealed fully. And in my opinion, it's no mistake or coincidence that the full revelation of God in the person of Jesus also puts the Spirit on display in his personhood, right? It's like, we have suddenly, now, in front of us, the full revelation of God in Jesus, and so along with that is the full revelation of God as three in one, with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
[00:52:53] But like we have the Trinity in the Old Testament, we still have these ideas here in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well. It's just not really fleshed out and fully understood in the way that it would when we have the full revelation.
[00:53:09] Now, the purpose of judgment is noted twice in what we have in this text that we're talking about. We have it in the flood account and we have it in the Exodus account.
[00:53:23] As I read the flood account says, the waters were mighty upon the earth in order to cleanse sin and in order to make known the glory of the Most High.
[00:53:34] In the section on the Exodus it says, And he hardened his heart so that he would sin in order to make known the glory of God for eternal generations.
[00:53:46] And so both of these have the idea of the purpose of this judgment being to glorify God. Now, we don't see that in the first column with the creation. But, again, it's very fragmentary, and it's very possible it does have a section that also reflects that. The other possibility is that this kind of puts together the Eden story and the Flood story as one kind of idea, kind of conflates some things there.
[00:54:16] Now some of that might feel a little bit disturbing to us when we are used to reading the text in a certain way and saying, Hey, you don't mess with it. You don't change it. You don't take things out and you don't try and put two stories together and smash them into one. To us, that is not treating the text with respect and with the idea that it is inspired literature.
[00:54:41] Our idea of inspired literature kind of necessitates a particular type of historicity that goes along with the text. And our idea of historicity is, it's very particular, and it's really quite a new idea. The idea that when you're writing something down, by golly, you better get the details as right as you can. You're not going to change anything in it in order to suit your fancy. You're not going to change it because you have a particular bias. That's not really doing history.
[00:55:16] But as I've said before, especially when I was talking about The Liturgy of Creation by Dr. Michael Lefebvre, in the past, people had biases and they weren't apologetic about it.
[00:55:29] Like today, we're trying to be objective and we're trying to get to the truth and we're trying not to have our ideas color the meaning and what we see in the text. But in the past, they didn't have those compunctions. That wasn't part of their value system. They really didn't care if their bias and their particular spin on the story affected what they recorded.
[00:55:56] I know it's really hard for us to kind of correlate. Now I will say, also, that I think by the time of the first century, some of that tendency had changed. It's not like they weren't going to be doing polemics and things. But ideas of science and historical recording were a little bit more modern, we might say, at that time than they used to be a thousand years before.
[00:56:24] So when I'm talking about all of this, I'm primarily talking about the Old Testament because the Old Testament is composed of very, very ancient documents. And the way that those documents were written and collected and made important was in the construct of the narrative of the people. Like, they're not just carrying around documents for document's sake. That's not really what they cared about. They cared about what helped them know who they were. Those were the kinds of things that mattered to them and the kinds of ways that they thought about things.
[00:57:05] Writing that looks more like modern historical writing was really at play during the time of Jesus and before. So by the time we get to the New Testament, there's still that practice of looking at things from our lens.
[00:57:20] It's the same kind of thing with the early church fathers and the allegorical reading of scripture. They knew who Jesus was. They knew that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament. So, they would look at the Old Testament and ask, How does this point to Jesus? That was their primary concern.
[00:57:40] They didn't care about the ancient Near East historical context and geography of the time and literary devices and things that we study today. They were most interested in how the Old Testament pointed to Christ. And so, they're taking the Old Testament and they're not modifying it, they're not changing it, but they're interpreting it and looking at it and reading it through the lens of Christ.
[00:58:06] Which by the way, that's not a bad thing to do. That's a very good way to be reading scripture. And so there's different levels and different things we can see. And what I'm saying here is that interpretation can change through time. The way that we see things can change through time. And what we're trying to do with the text is Use it as a guidepost for ourselves, right?
[00:58:31] How does this speak to who we are? What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to believe in the Bible? What does it mean that Jesus was a Jewish messiah? Now again, we're not changing anything here. We're not adjusting the text.
[00:58:46] The Dead Sea scrolls that we're talking about here. These aren't scripture, right? And they didn't treat them like they were Scripture. This paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus that I'm talking about wasn't seen as something that was inspired. It seems like it was being used in the construct of the people to help them understand what the purpose of the text and the stories in the past even were.
[00:59:12] And that meant that they brought out certain facts and aspects of the text in order to make their point. And honestly, we do the same thing. What is our main concern and what are we drawing out of the text? We are so very used to thinking about the idea that Genesis 3 is the introduction of sin and the reason we have all of these bad things that are going on in the world and we don't want to cram that with anything else because we feel like that does damage to that story.
[00:59:42] But as you can see, what is happening in this text right here, they're looking at these stories and they're seeing, how do we understand God in them? What is the purpose of this? And what I really like about these is that they are so focused on God. And I think sometimes the things that we focus on are very human centric instead of God centric.
[01:00:09] Like, what does this tell us about humans? What does this tell us about me? What does this tell us about my situation here? And we're like, we're looking around us and we're looking at ourselves. We're looking at other people and maybe we should like increase our gaze and move our head up and look at God and say, what is this saying about God?
[01:00:30] What is this saying about what's happened in history with what's going on? And so it's not like it's not about history because it is But it's about what God is doing in history and what that means. Well, I could go on about that topic for quite a long time, but I think it's about time to wrap everything up. So I'll be saying more about that in the future.
[01:00:58] We will probably look at more Dead Sea Scroll texts in the future. for sure, we're going to be talking about other texts in relation to Genesis and the Bible as a whole, and how we're going to be looking at that. There's just so very much to say. A lot of times we get into the texts like First Enoch and things like that because we're interested in the weird things about them, right? We want to know about the giants and what's the story about demons and all of these things. And I'm not saying that we can't do that or it's not interesting or anything, but I think there's a lot more we can say about this.
[01:01:35] And my concern about it is always to come back to the question of, what does this mean about Jesus? What does it mean about our relationship to God? How does this relate to the gospel? Or does it? and what's fascinating to me is that even in these non canonical texts, they're not inspired, they're not part of our canon, they're not to be used specifically for correcting and for reproof and all of these other things that I've mentioned before, but they can still point to Jesus. And I think they do because the whole mindset of the people during the second temple period is really headed towards what's going to happen with Jesus.
[01:02:22] And so that's what's exciting to me when we're going to be getting into things like First Enoch more and Jubilees. That's my focus. Yes, we'll talk about Giants. Yes, we'll talk about demons and the other spiritual things. But let's make sure that we understand why we're doing that and why that matters.
[01:02:43] How does Jesus fit into this and how is Jesus the intersection of humanity and history. And how do these texts show that?
[01:02:53] Because something doesn't have to be canonical for it to point to Jesus. Like, you can read a good story. You can read some good fiction. You can read a good commentary. You can read some good philosophy. And when those things point to Jesus, then, really, it's fundamentally speaking the same kind of truth that we have in Scripture. Same kind of thing as we have in a sermon. A sermon isn't going to be like Scripture, but that doesn't mean it can't be inspired in a different kind of a way to point to Jesus, right? And I think that we can make a really strong argument that when we're preaching the Gospel, we are giving that kind of revelation.
[01:03:40] I know that's scary for a lot of Protestants because you've heard so often that the only revelation is in Scripture.
[01:03:47] But revelation has to be wider than that for revelation to even really work in the world for people to understand who God is. Because every time you get that revelation of God, then, I mean, it's revelation, right? Now we have to be careful about what that is, and there's a reason why we have a written text, and it's supposed to keep us in line, and there's a reason why we can search history and see how that does or doesn't align with what the truth is in Scripture.
[01:04:21] at any rate, I really hope you guys got some good stuff out of this episode. I would love to hear about what you think about prayer and what you think about all of these different things that I've talked about in this episode with knowledge and how did we get knowledge and what does knowledge mean?
[01:04:39] These are really worth pondering on and meditating on. So, thank you guys for joining me in that pondering and that meditation. If you want to contact me to talk about this stuff more, to ask me some questions, or maybe to suggest a new episode, you can contact me on Facebook, I do have a Facebook discussion group and you can contact me through my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com, where you can also find blog posts and artwork and places to find out how to support me. And, I really want to give a big shout out to all of you who do that. It is such a great blessing to me. Thank you for supporting me in what I'm doing, and I hope you can look forward to some more things coming up.
[01:05:25] But until then, I hope you all have a blessed week, and we will see you later.
