Gender Role Reversals and Sacred Mystery

Long before Structuralism, people recognized a binary feature in the order of creation. Jacques Derrida explored this extensively and noted that in narratives when a gender reversal takes place, the other becomes the dominant voice. Normally, the dominant voice is that of the Male Principle, but when the reversal takes place, the Female Principle is in action. There are many examples of this in the Old Testament.

Claude Levi-Strauss did not invent something with Structuralism. He studied primitive people groups and found that their worldview involved binary sets. His book "The Raw and the Cooked" presents this feature of archaic thought. Both Levi-Strauss and Derrida were exploring "something older" than civilization.



Alice C. Linsley

Genesis 3:15 is one of the most mysterious and fascinating verses in Genesis, if not in the entire Bible. It is here that we find the first suggestion that a savior will be born of “the woman”. We note, as did the Church Fathers, that this is not Eve, as Eve is not named until verse 20 (five verses later).

יְשׁוּפְךָ רֹאשׁ וְאַתָּה תְּשׁוּפֶנּוּ עָקֵב
He will crush you a head and you will crush us a heel

The verb root שׁוּף means "to crush." The prefix י identifies the subject of the verb as the third person, masculine, singular (he) and the tense of the verb as imperfect indicates action yet to be completed (he will crush). The suffix ך identifies the object of the verb as second person, masculine, singular (you). So, this word would be translated as "he will crush you” and the message is directed to the serpent.

The prefix ת identifies the subject of the verb as second person, masculine, singular (you) and the tense of the verb as imperfect (you will crush). The suffix נוּ identifies the object of the verb as third person, singular (him). So, this word would be translated as "you will crush him".

In the Vulgate, St. Jerome rendered Genesis 3:15: Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius: ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius.

I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. She will crush your head, and you will lie in wait for her heel.”

Jerome gives “ipsa” which is a feminine pronoun. Later this was changed to “he will crush” in accordance with the other Church Fathers. The appearance of the feminine pronoun in Genesis 3:15 has led some Roman Catholics to find an elevated role for Mary, as seen in images of Mary standing on the globe with the serpent under her feet. Other Catholics recognize that this is not about Mary but is instead the first biblical reference to Christ’s passion whereby He defeats the Devil and tramples down death by His death. This second interpretation fits the trajectory of the entire Bible which is about the fulfillment of the Edenic Promise.

It is apparent that the Hebrew is intentionally ambiguous. This is another example of how the binary distinctions function in the Bible. Gender reversals occur where there is a mystery calling us to delve more deeply into the matter. This is what Cornelius a Lapide recognized in the 17th century in his Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram.  Here he resolved the problem of the verb in the masculine (yashuph, conteret, or crush) citing the interplay of gender in Hebrew: the masculine being used in place of the feminine and vice-versa when there is some mystery, anomaly or singularity. Lapide wrote, “frequent exchange of gender in Hebrew: the masculine being used in place of the feminine and vice-versa, especially when there is present some cause or mystery.” 

What we have here is an indication that the Creator condescends to grant to the lesser a greater role. So it is that a young maiden, from the least of the tribes of Israel, should become the "unwedded Bride" of God and the ever-virgin Mother of Christ our God.

The split tamar coconut (above) resembles the vagina. The date nut palm is called a "tamar" and many high-status women of the Old Testament had this name. Among Abraham's people, a cure for sterility was to place a date from the tamar in the vagina of the barren women. 

Gender reversals are also seen in the demarcation of sacred centers. Sacred centers are indicated by their placement between two holy places. The moreh who Abraham consulted at Mamre and the prophetess Deborah are positioned on opposite polar axes. Genesis 12: 6-8, tells us that Abraham pitched his tent at the oak of the moreh or prophet. This oak was at the sacred center between Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. The oak was associated with masculine anatomy and masculine virtues. Deborah judged from her tamar which was at the sacred center between Bethel to the north and Ramah to the south. The nut of the date palm (shown above) was associated with feminine anatomy and feminine virtues.

So we see that the masculine is associated with the east-west axis and the feminine with the north-south axis. A reversal of these would invite us to investigate the anomaly. Likewise, the reversal of gender roles in Genesis 3:15, invites us to investigate the singular promise that was made in Eden.

Related reading: Levi-Strauss and Derrida on Binary Oppositions; The Importance of Binary Distinctions; Something Older; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; Trees in Genesis

Mitochondrial Eve

A maternal ancestor to all living humans called mitochondrial Eve likely lived about 200,000 years ago, at roughly the same time anatomically modern humans are believed to have emerged, a new review study confirms.

The results are based on analyses of mitochondrial DNA. Found in the energy-producing centers of cells, mitochondrial DNA is only passed down the maternal line, and can be traced back to one woman.

However, this doesn't mean she was the first modern woman, rather it indicates that only her descendants survive to the present day.

"There is always some other female that predated mitochondrial Eve, whose DNA didn't make it up to modernity," said Marek Kimmel, a professor of statistics at Rice University. "So the age of the mitochondrial Eve is always less than the age of the true, first female modern human."

Read it all here.

I contacted Marek Kimmel and asked him to answer 3 simple questions about this and he never responded.  I wanted to know how a scientist confirms this assumption: "she was the first modern woman" but only because her descendants were the only ones to survive to the present day.

Freud and the Virgin Mary

Alice C. Linsley


"Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis." --Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, 1927

Sigmund Freud was a complex person who was profoundly interested in religion. He wrote four books in which he presented his ideas on religion: Totem and Taboo (1913), The Future of an Illusion (1927), Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), and Moses and Monotheism (1938).

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud wrote: “Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. [...] If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.”

Essentially, Freud argued that religion gives expression to psychological neuroses, is an attempt to control the Oedipal complex, a means of wish fulfillment, an infantile delusion, and an attempt to control events in one’s life. All these aspects appear to be true of Freud himself. He wrote: "Look into the depths of your own soul and learn first to know yourself, then you will understand why this illness was bound to come upon you and perhaps you will thenceforth avoid falling ill." While Freud doubtless explored his own depths, the great psychoanalyst never underwent formal therapy. 

When it comes to religion, Freud most reveals his inner self not in his books on religion, but in letters to his friend Wilhelm Fliess and in his attempt to psychoanalyze Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings of the Virgin Mary and her mother Anne (Anna). Freud expressed his interest in Leonardo’s passion for pioneering and research in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess in 1898. In the third chapter of Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood Freud lays groundwork for the concept of self-love and narcissistic choice, the very aspect of Freud that emerges when we examine his relationship with the person closest to him, his younger daughter, Anna.

In 1899, Freud wrote to Fliess concerning his daughter saying, "Anna has become downright beautiful through naughtiness... ". He praises Anna as one who didn’t conform to behavioral expectations and social norms, the quality that he praises in Leonardo and hopes to demonstrate in his own work, as revealed in this 1900 letter to Fliess: “I am actually not at all a man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador--an adventurer….”

Anna was born after Freud wrote Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, what he believed to be “the only beautiful thing” he had ever written. In the book Freud attempts to explain Leonardo da Vinci’s fondness for the subject of the Virgin Mary and her mother, Anne. Leonardo’s Anne never looks older than her daughter. Leonardo immortalizes the mother of the mother of Christ.

Is it possible that Freud identified with Anne, seeing her as the figure behind the singular event of the Incarnation? This certainly fits Freud’s understanding of religion as wish fulfillment. The “conquistador” wished to become immortal through Ana’s continuation of his work. In this sense, St. Anne becomes the progenitor of Freud as deity and Anna, Freud's daughter plays the Virgin Mary to Freud's Anne.

It appears that Freud’s analysis of Leonardo’s fondness for Mary and Anne speaks more of Freud’s relationship with his daughter who he named for the grandmother of God. At a 1990 conference in Toronto, Patrick Mahoney spoke of Freud’s four-year “treatment” of Anna as a hedge against mortality. Anna Freud entered the profession her father pioneered, never marrying. She remained devoted to her father, caring for him as he suffered and eventually died from cancer of the jaw. She became the Virgin Mary to Freud’s Anne, remaining a strict-constructionist of her father’s theories throughout her lifetime. While she certainly didn’t conform to the norms of young women of her day, Anna was known to have lived a chaste life according to Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, who wrote Anna Freud: A Biography (Yale University Press, 2008). Ann’s offering to the world was not of flesh and blood, but of paper and ink.

Was Freud an agnostic Jew who believed in the Virgin May? This is likely, and further evidence of the complexity of Freud’s personality.  He appears to have accepted at least on the level of myth the idea of Mary as the Bearer of God. Perhaps this Christian view of Mary became embedded through his early exposure to the veneration of the Virgin by the Catholic population of Freiburg, his hometown. Exploration of Freud’s obsession with Anne and the Virgin Mary suggests that he put more stock in the Christian view of Mary than in the Talmudic view which circulated through the synagogues of Europe. Sanhedrin 106a says Jesus' mother was a whore: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.”  I wonder what Freud would uncover through psychoanalysis of the rabbi who first wrote that?

Related reading: The Virgin Mary's Ancestry; Joseph's Relationship to Mary; Was the Virgin Mary a Dedicated Royal Woman?

C. S. Lewis on Genesis

Alice C. Linsley


C. S. Lewis was a prolific writer whose works are not easily classified. Were he writing today he might have a difficult time finding a publisher since the scope of his work is broad, not easily classified, politically incorrect and definitely Christian. The poor fellow would be relegated to Christian bookstores where his writings would outshine the ego-gratifying, life-improvement-through-Jesus junk, but be read by too few. What a loss to the world! Fortunately, he wrote at a time when people still appreciated literary excellence, though they didn’t always agree with what he wrote.

The C. S. Lewis worldview, if we can speak of such a thing, is complex in that he was willing to entertain the possibility of evolution in Mere Christianity, but portrays the end of the age in The Last Battle much as it is described in the New Testament: the heavens and the earth curl up like a parchment placed in a roaring fire. To escape destruction, Aslan urges his followers to move “higher up and farther in.” This is an echo of words from the Magician’s Nephew, the story in which Narnia was created. This could be Lewis’ motto for the Christian life, a motto that points us to the great mystery of Life. We find it expressed in these words from his essay on women priests: “With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.”

Lewis on the Generative Word
Aslan, the Great Lion, creates by singing. Once his generative song accomplishes its purpose, the order of creation is fixed. The magic of the Song lasts only so long. Once it ceases, Aslan's handiwork is complete and humans can't add or detract from the original pattern. Uncle Andrew, the personification of the modern materialist, hopes to profit from the generative power of the Song, but he is so intimidated by the Singer that he moves lower down and farther out. This is the fate of all materialists. They think of themselves as great innovators and yet they block metaphysical discussion by insisting that religion and science don’t mix.

Uncle Andrew’s attraction to Jadis (of the "Deplorable Word") is natural since she too is a materialist, only with an ego as great as Satan’s. Jadis is stirred into action after a period of dormancy when Digory rings a golden bell that sounds “like the crash of a falling tree” (Magician’s Nephew, Chapter 4). As the ringing grows louder, the vibrations bring further destruction to the wicked queen’s kingdom. Digory and Polly are barely able to escape that dark world, but they are not able to escape the evil which now pursues them. Here Lewis casts Digory and Polly in the roles Adam and Eve at the Fall. Interestingly, Lewis portrays Eve in a more compassionate light than Genesis 3 because Polly tries to prevent Digory from ringing the bell and is physically abused for doing so.


Lewis on Adam and Eve
Lewis never lets Adam off the hook as the one who, by virtue of being the first created and the strongest, is the ruler responsible for the welfare of others. Prince Rilian’s mother is bitten by a serpent and dies. Rilian daily seeks the creature to avenge his mother’s death. When the encounter comes, he doesn’t recognize the creature because it appears as “the most beautiful thing that was ever made” (The Silver Chair, Chapter 4). He is seduced by her beauty. This is not Eve who seduces Adam into eating the forbidden fruit. This is the serpent which seeks to enslave him.


Lewis on the Tree of Life
The Tree of Life appears in different forms in Lewis' tales; sometimes as an apple tree and sometimes as a lantern. Lewis places the tree and lantern "in the midst of the garden" (Gen. 3:3) or in the midst of the wood.  Here he is building on an significant detail in Genesis which places the Cross at the sacred center of the cosmos. The tree and lantern are symbols of the Cross of Jesus Christ. He, like the lantern in the Narnian wood, comes from another place (heaven) and He gives light by His Cross to all worlds.
 
Since Digory (Adam) is responsible for bringing evil into Narnia, Aslan holds him responsible for correcting the wrong.  To do so, Digory must bring an apple from the tree that is in the midst of the garden. This apple is used to protect Narnia and fruit from the Narnian apple tree brings healing to Digory's dying mother.  The doctor is baffled by her sudden improvement.
 
After their adventures in Narnia, Digory and Polly bury the rings (symbols of Uncle Andrew's false beliefs) in the back yard. A great tree grows in this place and when that tree is felled in a windstorm, the wood is used to construct a wardrobe. The wardrobe, like the Cross, brings the children to Aslan and opens the way to the Kingdom of the Emperor Beyond the Sea.

Genesis and Climate Change

Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are.... --- Al Gore, chairman and co-founder of Generation Investment Management, a London-based business that sells carbon credits (Grist Magazine May 9, 2006)

(Mongolian Family Uses Solar Energy © UN Photo / E. Debebe)

"Abandon earth..." -- Stephen Hawking

Alice C. Linsley

Everyone seems to be talking about the heat and strange weather this summer. Stephen Hawking thinks that it is time to abandon earth because of global warming and the threat of the Sun devouring Earth.

What's going on?  You hear weather specialists talk about El Niño and La Niña, about ocean temperatures, about wind currents, and about the shrinking Arctic ice cap, but nobody is talking about the expanding Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina and Pio XI glacier in Chile. There's plenty of talk about how humans have caused atmospheric pollution leading to the greenhouse effect, but the magnitude of the gas emissions involved in the atmospheric warming by greenhouse gases is inadequate to account for the magnitude of temperature increases. Total human contributions to greenhouse gases account for only about 0.28% of the "greenhouse effect". So what causes the up and down cycles of global climate change?

One factor that nobody is talking about is the cycle of Earth's Great Year which brings fluctuation in earth's great river systems and affects sea levels. "The expansions and contractions of those environments have pretty profound effects on life on Earth," says Shanan Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of geology and geophysics. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the world's oceans and rivers have expanded and contracted in response to climate change and the shifting tectonic plates. About 150,000 years ago there was a major uplift of the Angolan ridge in the area of the equator. The upper Nile receives its chief supply of water from this mountainous region. From there streams pour eastward into Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake (over 26,000 square miles), and to the west and north into Lake Edward and Lake Albert. The waters of the Nile flow northward, but around 12,000 years ago all of the region between Lake Chad and the Nile was very wet. This is the time and location of Noah's flood, and the area is called "Bor-Nu", which means Land of Noah. Today the area is dry.

I'm pointing to the verifiable climatic changes that involve wide distribution of water in what are today some of Earth's driest regions. With the close of the sidereal cycle dry places that were formerly under water may be returning to wet conditions. In another 20,000 years these wet places may be dry again.This change from wet to dry is a factor in the Afro-Asiatics loss of control over those major water systems that enables them to forge the Afro-Asiatic Dominion. Of course, this didn't happen overnight and it wasn't the only factor.

During some periods, vast areas of the continents were flooded by shallow seas such as the shark-and mosasaur-infested seaway that neatly split North America during the age of the dinosaurs. Between 10 and 12 thousand years ago the Nile river system filled with waters from the Angolan Highlands, the result of geological uplift which created Lake Victoria and directed its excess flow north in the White Nile. The White Nile provides most of the Nile's water during the dry season.

Between 12 and 10 thousans years ago, the Nile connected to the Chadic and Niger water systems through a series of shallow lakes in the Sahara Desert. Because of this, a common plant and animal species is found in all three river systems. The now dry Botswana lake basin was once a sea, filled with water from the Angolan Highlands. Some of Africa's earliest human populations lived on the edges of this great lake and evidenced by thousands of man-made stone tools found there.  The tools include maceheads and date to between 80,000 and 100,000 years.

There were once cities, monuments and settlements on teh land bridge between the Arabian Peninsula and Pakistan.  Many Har-appa monuments and settlements are now submerged under water. Har-appa is a Dravidian word meaning Horus is father. Dravidian religion apparently originated in Egypt and ancient Kush. The Har-appa people had a centralized government as early as 2800 B.C. 

Now that Earth's Great Year is beginning a new cycle, these water systems and others around the world may swell. Perhaps in a few thousand years they will approach the size they once were, as indicated by their footprints seen from space. Vast desert areas were much wetter about 6800 years ago before the Monsoonal Belt started moving south, and the desert began to encroach on peoples of the Sahara, forcing residents to adopt pastoralism to survive. Before this climate change, the residents of the Sudan hunted and fished and grew millet.

If the picture given us in Genesis is taken seriously, we must recognize that the swelling and shrinking of earth's major water systems brings political, social and ecological change.  The ancient Afro-Asiatic rulers lost control when the great river systems they controlled began to shrink about 6,000 years ago. It was no longer possible to control huge areas of land since they were no longer connected by the water ways that made swift movement possible. This is likely when the territorial separation between the Afro-Arabians and the Afro-Asiatics (Aramaens) took place. Genesis says this happened in the time of Peleg and his brother Joktan.

Today the devastation in Pakistan is of such huge proportion that it could easily bring down that government.  There is a good reason for the world's leaders to be concerned about global climate change, but they are foolish to think that they can control a 25,000 -28,000 year cycle like Earth's Great Year.

The last cycle of Earth's Great Year ended in July 1998 and since that time earth's weather patterns have been changing rather dramatically.  The global north appears to be getting warmer and wetter.  The global south may be getting colder and dryer.

Africa
Rains are falling in the Sahara, restoring the grasslands in many places. Between 10,000 and 8000 BC the climate changed, ushering in years of persistent, heavy rains. The Nile was transformed from a slow stream into a roaring river with mile-deep gorges. Lake Chad was a sea, 600 feet deep and 5 times the size of Lake Superior.  Mega-Chad's old footprint is still visible from space. This was the beginning of the wet period that would turn the Sahara into vast grasslands able to support elephants, antelopes, gazelles, ostriches, giraffes, and hyenas. Lakes formed in the basins, large enough to support fish, crocodile and hippopotamus. Early hunters camped along the lakes, as evidenced by heaps of domestic refuse at many sites along the lakeshores.

Between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago the Nile river system filled with waters from the Angolan Highlands. Before this time, the streams of the Ugandan highlands flowed west to join the Congo River, which drains into the Atlantic. Geological uplift about 12,000 years ago tilted the region and created Lake Victoria. The excess swelled the source of the Nile.  Settlements emerged along the length of the Nile river system. Likewise, the Botswanan basin in southern Africa was once a sea, filled by water from the Angolan Highlands. Thousands of stoneage tools have been found here.


Pakistan and India
The Indus is swelling, seeking to become the great river it was 10,000 years ago. The devastion and human misery in Pakistan is beyond any in recorded history. The Indus River Civilization is one of the oldest known. Archeologists have identified over 2600 sites along the Indus and Sarasvati rivers in Pakistan and India. This civilization extended from the Baluchistan highlands in the west to the Punjab deserts in the east. From north to south the region stretches from the Himalayan foothills to the coastal region of Pakistan. This is an area of about 100,000 square miles. The largest known site is Ganweriwala, on the bank of the Sarasvati River in India dating to about 3000 BC. Another site is the prehistoric town of Kalibangan in the northern part of the Rajasthan desert.

During the Neolithic period (ca. 7000-5500 BC) Indus River valley peoples grew food and domesticated animals. They had large ceremonial baths for ritual cleansing, wells and reservoirs. The Indus peoples had kings, priests and specialized elders such as traditional healers, astronomers and prophets. There were farmers, artisans and brick makers.

This civilization includes cities dating to the time of Abraham and surrounded by walls made of mud bricks. Port cities on the Karachi Bay supported trade between India, Arabia, East Africa and Egypt. One material moved through this region was lapis lazuli, a blue semi-precious stone that was mined in the region of Badakhshan, Afghanistan and traded throughout Mesopotamia, East Africa and Egypt.

This ancient Indus Valley civilization was supported by an enormous river that flowed south from the Himalayas in the northwestern region of India until about 4000 years ago. Using satellite photographs, scientists have discovered the outline of the ancient riverbed. At its widest point it was five miles across. The region today is mostly arid, evidence of global climatic changes that led to the disappearance of the Afro-Asiatic Dominion.

North America
Parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa are flooding, and it is interesting to note where the floods are happening.  They are in the southern and western Great Lakes region, in territory that was covered by these lakes thousands of years ago. The recent flooding in Minnesota was adjacent to the south tip of Lake Superior. It is almost as if the cycle of climate change is restoring the larger size of the ancient river systems.

The question we must ask is what will this mean down the road?  It could mean years of flooding in the great river basins and along the seacoasts. For people who live in these areas, it would be wise to follow God's advice to Noah: get a big boat!

Related reading:  Two Environmentalists Knock Heads; 3000 B.C. Rock Carvings in Sudan; 17 Undiscovered Pyramids Seen from Space; When the Sahara Was Wet

The Blessed Woman of Genesis 3:15

Alice C. Linsley


"for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
(Luke 1:48)



Mary is without doubt the most honored woman in the Church as the mother of Christ our God and the very model of obedient love.  She is the Mother of the Church and where the Church is, she is venerated.

Through her God has fulfilled the first promise of Scripture: Genesis 3:15, the Edenic Promise. She is the culmination of the expectation that led the ruler-priest lines to intermarry exclusively so that the Promised Son would be born of their blood lines.  Analysis of the kinship pattern of Abraham's people reveals a unique pattern of intermarriage between patrilineal cousins of priestly lines. It is possible to trace these lines because the cousin brides named their first-born sons after their fathers. The genealogies of Genesis trace only male rulers. The naming of the first-born son after the cousin bride's father was a way to trace royal lineage on the mother's side.

Keep in mind that kinship patterns are highly resistant to change. The unique kinship pattern of ruler-priests survived Egyptian captivity and deportation to Babylon.  It continued afterwards as we see in the case of the priest Elkaniah with his two wives (1 Samuel 1:2). It continued to the time of Jesus and then stopped because the pattern had fulfilled its purpose once Messiah was born.

Mary and Joseph were cousins and both of priestly lines. These lines had been intermarrying from before Abraham's time and continued to intermarry until to the birth of Jesus Christ. Joseph's family lived in Nazareth which was the home of the eighteenth division of priests, that of Happizzez (1 Chronicles 24:15).
Abraham's people traced bloodline through the mother but social status and occupation was inherited through the father. So Joseph was a carpenter like his father and Jesus was a carpenter like Joseph. Likewise, St. Paul was a tent maker like his father.

Jesus was the Son of God, born to "the Woman" according to the ancient expectation (Gen. 3:15). Mary was the proper bride for Joseph since she was of a priestly line. He too was of a priestly line descending from Judah and Ram, David's ancestors. Joseph of Nazareth married the daughter of a priest. In doing so he simply adhered to the custom of his ancestors. Joseph married the daughter of a priest in Egypt and Moses married the daughter of a priest in Midian.  All of these priests are related, though they lived in different places at different times.

The marriage of Joseph and Mary was the pinnacle of biblical history in that the Promised Son was born into their union, but not by their union.  From God, the Son received his divine rights (being one with the Father), from Blessed Mary He received His flesh, and from Blessed Joseph He received his social position as a carpenter in Nazareth.

According to Holy Tradition, Mary’s parents were Joachim and Anne. Joachim was a priest and his wife Anne was probably a daughter of a priest. The Protoevangelium of James says that Mary’s father had flocks, which does not preclude him from being a priest. Many priests of the Bible had flocks. Moses tended the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. A common image of God in the Old Testament is as the Shepherd of Israel (Ps 80:1) and the priests of Israel are referred to as “shepherds.”

Mary is said to have been born in the grotto under the Church of St. Anne which would have been adjacent to the Temple, in an area where the Temple priests lived. It is certain that Mary was of the ruler-priest class because even those who hated her admit this. Sanhedrin 106a says Jesus' mother was a whore: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.” It is said that she was so despised that some Jews tried to prevent the Apostles from burying her body. One of the Jews seized the coffin. A rabbi approached her burial procession and attempted to overturn her casket.

In the Talmud, ignominious names are given by the rabbis to Mary and be Son.  Mary is called "Charia" which means dung or excrement. In Hebrew her name is Miriam. Jesus is called "Jeschu" which means May his name and memory be blotted out. His Hebrew name in Jeschua (Yeshua) which means Salvation. That Mary was hated as much as her Son tells us that she was a force to be reckoned with, a person of great influence.  She was abused in her repose as was her Son in his passion and God has granted her an exalted place among the saints.

May God have mercy upon those who hate and abuse Jesus the Christ and his most blessed, most pure, and most honorable Mother.


Related reading: Marrying that Christ Mat be Born; Mary's Ruler-Priest Lineage

Meat Consumption 3 Million Years Ago?

Alice C. Linsley


Lucy and her kin lived about 3.4 million years ago.  It appears that Mary Leakey suspected that these were archaic humans after her work in Ethiopia. She certainly had reason to think so after her 1979 discoveries in Tanzania. That was the year that Mary discovered the earliest known footprints of hominids, animals and birds at Laetoli. The footprints were preserved about 3.6 million years ago under falling ash from the nearby Sadiman volcano. The raised arch and rounded heel of the footprints showed that these creatures walked as humans today.

Unfortunately, Lucy and her kin were given the name "Australopithicus" (meaning ape of the south) by Donald C. Johanson, though Mary Leakey would have called the finds Homo, as she thought they were. She expressed her regret that "the Laetoli fellow is now doomed to be called Australopithecus afarensis," a name contrary to the evidence that Lucy and her people walked upright, had oppositional thumbs, short fingers, human dentition, built fire, shared their food, and used flints to scrap, saw and chop.

Now there is evidence that Lucy and her kin butchered meat. Read the NYT story here. If true, this pushes back the use of butchering flints in the same region from 2.6 to 3.4 million years ago.

Here is the gist of this recent report: "stone-tool-inflicted marks on bones found during recent survey work in Dikika, Ethiopia, a research area close to Gona and Bouri. On the basis of low-power microscopic and environmental scanning electron microscope observations, these bones show unambiguous stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and percussion marks for marrow access.” On page 11 of the supplementary materials, it states that microscopic stone fragments were found in the cut marks.

There are actually 2 fossilized bones with what appear to be marks made by stone tools.

You can imagine what some are saying to disclaim this report. They are saying that the researchers are trying to "etch their name into the textbooks in rewriting human evolution."  They are saying that the marks were made by crocodiles.

David DeGusta, Founder of Paleoanthropology Institute in Oakland, California, compared the markings published in Nature with images from Njau and Blumenchine (2006) paper titled, “A diagnosis of crocodile feeding traces on larger mammal bone, with fossil examples from the Plio-Pleistocene Olduvai Basin, Tanzania.”  Here are the images. What do you think?

The stone tools marks are more V shaped and smooth, while the marks left by crocodile teeth are more rounded and pitted. Still, the marks must be evaluated in light of the larger archaeological picture of ancient humans in Africa, so let's compare the marks (dated about 3.9 million years) at the left with the marks made on this 75,000 stone from the Blombos Cave in southern Africa:

A close-up look shows that the markings are organized in a geometric pattern.  This is symbolic work whereas the marks on the animal bone are utilitarian. Yet the marks on both the stone and the bone suggest reasoning and deliberate controlled motion. Crocodile victims thrash about until they are dragged under the water. The deeper more rounded marks left by crocodile teeth suggest a more violent motion.

Donald Johanson said, "There is no question that the announcement of stone tool use at 3.4 million years ago will unleash a flurry of controversy and genuine disbelief among some scholars. However, I believe the team has presented a convincing case of stone tool use during Lucy's time. These unexpected results may well generate a new understanding of early hominid behavior and will prompt a reexamination of the tens of thousands of animal bones already collected from this time period at Hadar, Lucy's home, and other sites in Kenya and Tanzania."

Dr. Curtis Marean of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University said, "Most of the marks have features that indicate without doubt that they were inflicted by stone tools." He helped to identify the nature of the marks.


Related reading:  Facts about Human Origins, African Projectiles 90,000 Years Old

Road to Emmaus Interview with Alice C. Linsley

Stepping Into The Stream: An Interview with Alice C. Linsley

Alice Linsley reflects on her years as an Episcopal priest and the continuation of her spiritual journey with her 2007 entrance into the Orthodox Church. Drawing upon her rich experience as a Genesis scholar, Alice carries us deeply into the Old and New Testament understanding of liturgy, gender, and the nature of the priesthood.

Copies of the Winter 2010 issue are $7.00 plus shipping. Webpage: http://www.roadtoemmaus.net/

Or go to Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rtejournal/info


Related reading: Alice C. Linsley's Research on Genesis

The Talmud vs the Doctrine of the Lord

The Closed Book | Princeton University Press by Rebecca Wollenberg

How the Rabbis taught the Jews not to read the Hebrew Bible.

Alice C. Linsley


In these last days many Jews are embracing Jesus Messiah in faith, recognizing Him as the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, the embodiment of the Edenic Promise (Gen. 3:15). Rabbi  Kaduri upon his death at age 108, left a signed note indicating Messiah's identity: Yeshua - Jesus. His manuscripts, written in his own hand, have cross-symbols painted all over the pages. Many Jews have attempted to explain away the crosses, arguing that the great Rabbi Kaduri was not a Christian. Whether or not he believed in the Incarnate Son who died on the Cross to save sinners, only God knows. We can say that as one of the world's authorities on Jewish mysticism, Rabbi Kaduri knew the tradition of Abraham's people expressed in concealed symbols and those apparently lead him to Jesus, the Son of God.

Still many Jews either willfully reject Him or remain ignorant of their Abrahamic heritage. Rejection of Jesus Messiah is a tragedy of eternal consequence, for the Apostles agree that to be saved one must believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Even the devil and his minions recognized Him. Today there is much evidence that Jesus is Messiah so that ignorance of Him is without excuse.

It has been said that Jews turned from Jesus because they feared for their lives once the Sanhedrin ruled that Jesus was a blasphemer deserving of death. (Later it was circulated that He was a sorcerer because of the signs He worked among the people.)  Some believe that Jesus never claimed to be the Christ. Yet we have the Sanhedrin's records to refute this claim. When Caiaphas said to Him, "I adjure You by the living God, tell us if You are Christ, the Son of God," Jesus answered: "I am, but I tell you hereafter you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Gershom Gale, of the Jerusalem Post, has written: "When the Sanhedrin was first established and empowered by God (as described in the 'Old Testament'), the Creator made it clear that all God-fearing Jews must honor every majority Sanhedrin ruling, on pain of death. I suggest that the real reason the Jews (who only days before had welcomed Jesus as Messiah) shouted for his death was that they had in the meantime learned of the Sanhedrin ruling in his case, and chose to honor God's eternal Law. Of course, God realized humans are fallible. That's why He provided at least four legal (ie. God-approved) means of redress in the event of Sanhedrin error. But until and unless one of those means is invoked and the earlier ruling is overturned, that ruling must stand, and must be honored by all God-fearing Jews."

This only supports the claim that Jesus is the Messiah, otherwise why would so many prominent Jews of Jerusalem defy the Sanhedrin? Joseph of Aramathea (that is Hari-Mathea, of the Horite line of Matthew) being one. Nicodemus another. Even Gamaliel, a member of the Sanhedrin, urged caution, not condemnation.

In considering where Judaism has misled concerning the identity of the Messiah, I found at least 4 factors. They are: Elevating the Law over the Prophets; Elevating the Talmud over the Torah; Elevating rabbinic doctrine over the “doctrine of the Lord” and spiritual blindness.

Elevating the Law over Torah

Judaism maintains that the Major and Minor Prophets are subordinate to the Law of Moses on the basis of Malachi 3:22, which reads: “Remember the Torah of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him at Horeb for all of Israel – its decrees and statutes.” Maimonides quoted this verse in the Mishneh Torah as a proof that prophets are not to be interpreted as bringing new teaching, but should be understood as warning people not to trespass Torah. Historically this is a mistaken view since critical scholarship has demonstrated that the Torah and the Prophets "are separate corpora originating in the same time period" (The Jewish Study Bible, p. 1144).

Further, many biblical texts do not support the view that torah is synonymous with the Law of Moses. In Genesis we find that torah is the instruction of the prophet. This is the original meaning of the word. Torah means that which is thrown by the hand of the moreh (oracle or prophet). Abraham received such guidance when he pitched his tent at the oak of the moreh near Mamre. The word "torah" is usually rendered guidance or instruction, but it has this ancient association with a prophet sitting under a tree. Some of the prophets in ancient Israel were women such as Huldah and Deborah.

Jesus always spoke of the Law and the Prophets together. He understood that both, when truly interpreted, speak of the same Truth and are in agreement concerning Messiah, the Son of God. So it is evident that Judaism leads astray when it claims that the Prophets are subordinate to the Law.


Elevating Talmud over Torah

Many Jews believe that the Talmud contains truth of greater authority than the Bible. The Talmud itself encourages readers to place it above the authority of the Old Testament. We read this explicit instruction: “My son, be more careful in the observance of the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah." (Talmud Erubin 21b)

SUNY history professor, Robert Goldberg, writes; “The traditional Jew studies Talmud because it communicates ultimate truth—truth about God, truth about the world, and most important, truth about how God wants the holy community of Israel to live.”

Note that the Talmud is not studied for information about Messiah. In fact, it is generally anti-Christ in tone. It says that Messiah is Yeshu, the son of Joseph, but it contradicts itself in Sanhedrin 43a were it says that Jesus (Yeshu) the Nazarene was executed because he practiced sorcery. Sanhedrin 106a says Jesus' mother was a whore: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.”

The Talmud teaches that Jesus Christ was illegitimate and was conceived during menstruation; that he had the soul of Esau; that he was a fool, a conjurer, a seducer; that he was crucified, buried in hell and set up as an idol ever since by his followers.

This elevation of the rabbis and scribes over Torah began even before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The hard line against Christians became more evident after the Sanhedrin relocated to Jamnia.  The present form of the Talmud dates to about AD 500. By this time the rabbis had hardened their hearts against the followers of Jesus Messiah.

The Talmud is a collection of rabbinic writings that do not reveal knowledge of what the Bible teaches concerning the Son of God. On this matter, the Talmud is ambiguous and lacking in authority. Consider this statement by Rabbi Johanan: “The son of David will come only in a generation that is either altogether righteous or altogether wicked. (Talmud Sanhedrin 98a) Compare it to the authority of this statement: “But in those days…the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will come falling out of the sky and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory…” (Mark 13:24, 25 NJB).

Most Jews are instructed by Rabbis who teach from the Talmud more than they teach from the Old Testament, so they don’t know what their own Bible says. They are clueless as to who Jesus is because they do not search the Bible to learn of Him. Sadly, many Christian clergy reference the Talmud in preparing their sermons and treat rabbinical teaching as authoritative for the Church.

 
Elevating Rabbinic Teaching over the Doctrine of the Lord

In the tract Babha Metsia, fol. 33a, we read: "Those who devote themselves to reading the Bible exercise a certain virtue, but not very much; those who study the Mischnah exercise virtue for which they will receive a reward; those, however, who take upon themselves to study the Gemarah exercise the highest virtue."

Likewise in the tract Sopherim XV, 7, fol. 13b: "The Sacred Scriptures is like water, the Mischnah wine, and the Gemarah aromatic wine."

The following is a well-known opinion in the writings of the Rabbis: "My son, give heed to the words of the scribes rather than to the words of the law."

In the tract Sanhedrin X, 3, f.88b is says: "He who transgresses the words of the scribes sins more gravely than the transgressors of the words of the law."

So the scribes, the opinions of rabbis (though they agree on little) and the mysticism of late Judaism are more influential for Jews today than the Hebrew Scriptures. And no wonder! These lead away from the  doctrine of the Lord Jesus as the Messiah.

The rabbis teach that Jesus is neither God, nor the Son of God and that He is not the Christ (Messiah). Speaking of the doctrine of the Lord, the Apostle John teaches: “Whosoever transgresses, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.” (II John 1:9)

The rabbis teach that Jesus was not raised from the dead. Hebrews 6:1-6 says: “Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so. It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”

The rabbis teach that Paul and the other Apostles were apostates who did not glorify God. The Bible tells us that they worked miracles by the Holy Spirit and their witness was so effective that their small band was described by the Jews who opposed them as having turned "the whole world upside down" (Acts 17:6). Gamaliel, one of the most respected rabbis, spoke truth when he advised the Sanhedrin not to persecute the Apostles because "if this enterprise, this movement of theirs, is of human origin it will break up of its own accord; but if it does in fact come from God you will be unable to destroy them. Take care not to find yourselves fighting against God." (Acts 5:34 NJB)

Sergius Paulus was an intelligent man who summoned Barnabas and Saul so that he might hear the word of God. Apparently the proconsul had been listening to a sorcerer named Elymas and Elymas opposed the doctrine of the Lord, seeking to turn Sergius Paulus from the faith. Acts 13:12 tells us: “Then the proconsul, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord (tou kuriou).” When Paul appropriately struck Elymas with blindness, the proconsul believed the doctrine of Christ that Paul and Barnabas preached. Is there historical evidence for this? In a Christian cemetery in Rome there is the name Sergia Paullina indicating that at least one other of the proconsul’s family was a follower of Jesus Christ.


Spiritual Blindness

Spiritual blindness is a common condition and not unique to Jews.  It is an effect of the fallen world in which humans delude ourselves into believing that we do not need a savior and certainly not The Savior of God's eternal provision. The longer we live in delusion, the more it becomes like a thick coat of armor so that the Truth is not able to penetrate. Those with personal experiences of the Living Lord Jesus know that He has made Himself known in all of creation and we see His sign everywhere. Those who reject Him are blind to what God has made clear in creation, be they rabbis, imams, pastors or priests.  From such as these we hear only what darkens and obfuscates. They teach the doctrine of devils.


Related reading:  Rabbinic Interpretations of the Destruction of the Temple; Astonishment at the Doctrine of the Lord; Astonishment (Part II); Astonishment (Part III); The Orthodox Study Bible

If Noah Were a Blogger

If Noah were to blog his experiences on the ark, what would he write?  The Wittenburg Door has a funny piece on this here.

Is Oral Tradition Reliable?

Read this.

Then consider how both Aristarchus of Samos (BC 310 – 230) who thought in heliocentric terms, and Ptolemy (AD 90 – 168) who thought in geocentric terms, were influenced by ancient Egyptian cosmologies, having been exposed to these ideas in Sidon and Egypt.

God's Sovereignty over Life and Death

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity are at variance on the question of God's sovereignty over life and death. Buddhism, as a non-theistic religion, has no concept of God's sovereign will. The oldest layer of Hinduism acknowledges a supreme Deity, but the doctrine of samsara [1] introduces an element that is not consistent with the Judeo-Christian or ancient Afro-Asiatic doctrine of God's sovereignty. The death of our bodies does not lead to reincarnation as is believed in Hinduism and Buddhism. It leads either to eternal life or to what the ancient Egyptians [2] and the Apostles called "the second death” (Rev. 2:11; 20:6 and 20:14).

Religions which believe in samsara cremate to quickly reduce human remains to the smallest particles of matter (atomism). The flesh and the spirit are separated, never to exist again as the person who once lived. There is an element of fatalism in this worldview since existence is both illusory and constantly changing. This is not the faith of our Father Abraham which Christ Jesus and the Apostles commend to us. In its lack of atomistic fatalism, Christianity emerges as a natural, organic [3] expression of the faith of Abraham; an affirmation of what Job declared: “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25, 26 NASB).

Abraham was led to a land where God established him as a ruler. His territory extended between Hebron and Beer-sheba. God promised to make Abraham’s descendents a multitude of peoples. This was accomplished through Abraham's wives Sarah and Keturah and his concubines Hagar and Masek. Together these women bore Abraham 9 sons and a number of daughters. In other words, God fulfilled His sovereign will concerning Abraham and made him the “father of a multitude of nations” (Gen. 17:4)

In God’s sovereign will Abraham becomes a figure through whom “all the nations on earth will bless themselves” (Gen. 18:18; 22:18 NJB). This promise was made twice; first, when God in Three Persons appears to him (Gen. 18) and again after God supplies a ram as a substitute sacrifice for Abraham’s son (Gen. 22). In both stories, God is sovereign over life and death; destroying the ram and Sodomites by holocaust and delivering Abraham’s son and Lot’s family from the fire.

The idea that God destroys is not popular these days, but it is inescapably an aspect of God's sovereignty.  Scripture teaches that God desires that none should die, yet He leaves the choice to us.  That is why the faithful leaders urged the people to "choose life that you may live" (Deut. 30:19).


NOTES
1. Samsara is the cycle of reincarnation, a central doctrine of Hinduism and Buddhism.

2. The Egyptians believed that the unification of Ka (life that animates the body) and Ba (eternal spirit) happened after death by means of the proper offerings, prayers, and mummification. There was a risk of dying the second death if the unified soul and life force were condemned in the afterlife. Dying the second death meant not becoming an akh. Only as an akh could one enjoy the resurrection life. Ankh is the Spirit of Life and was the hieroglyphic sign for life in ancient Egypt and Kush.

3. Organic religions develop naturally and consistently out of very ancient religious traditions. Organic religions are unlike synthetic religions such as Scientology, Mormonism and Baha’i which are recent synthetically developed religions or cults.

Abraham's Two Concubines

Alice C. Linsley

God established Abraham as a ruler in ancient Edom (Idumea, Land of red people). The northern and southern boundaries of Abraham's territory were marked by the settlements of his two wives.  Sarah dwelt in Hebron and Keturah dwelt in Beersheba to the south. Abraham's wives bore him 7 sons. Daughters were born also, though they are not named in the Bible. Abraham's sons married these daughters and the daughters of Nahor, Abraham's older brother, a ruler in Padan-Aram.

Sons were born to Abraham by concubine servants as well. Ishmael was born of Hagar and, according to the Septuagint, Eliezar of Damascus was born of Masek. In the New Jerusalem Bible (following the Vulgate) Abraham says to the Lord: "Since you have given me no offspring... a member of my household will be my heir." The Septuagint offers this: "What will you give me, seeing I go childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus, the son of Masek, my domestic maidservant."  Eliezar as a son of Abraham by a maidservant, parallels the story of Hagar. This means that Abraham had 9 sons: Ishmael, Eliezer, Isaac, Joktan, Zimram, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. There were also daughters.  Clearly, God fulfilled His sovereign will concerning Abraham that he should be the "Father of a multitude".

Hagar and Masek are to Abraham's household what the concubines Zilpah and Bilhah are to Jacob's household.  They built up the ruling houses of these patriarchs by producing many offspring. If the biblical pattern is to be trusted, we may reasonably suspect that Hagar and Masek were the servants of Sarah and Keturah, just as Zilpah was the servant of Leah and Bilhah the servant of Rachel (Gen. 30). That Masek was Keturah's servant is supported by the fact that the name Masek is still found among the south Arabian Mahra. They dwell in Yemen, Oman and southern Saudi Arabia (see map). This is where we would expect to find the descendants of Abaham by Keturah's servant Masek.

Some Mahra/Masek are semi-nomadic and others are settled in small semi-fortified villages where they farm and raise chickens for eggs and goats for milk. They are known to aggressively defend their territories and water sources and are regarded as belonging to the warrior caste. Their chiefs control the goods and persons who pass through their lands.

The Mahra/Masek are an endogamous tribe, which means that they exclusively marry within their kinship circle. Most men have only one wife, but the chief may have more than one. Children receive inheritances patrilineally, with the first-born son receiving the lion's share.  Young girls are valued for childbearing and for the bonding of families through marriage. In Abraham's time, this was especially true for both wives and concubines.

Related reading: The Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern of Abraham's People; The Hebrew Hierarchy of Sons; Royal Sons and Their Maternal Uncles; Hebrew Rulers with Two Wives

Holy Tradition on Formation vs Generation

Alice C. Lisnley


In conversations about Genesis and creation one must be mindful of the distinction between the original formation of Man and Woman and the generation of the human race. This distinction is necessary to understand the Bible's teaching on Christ's Incarnation by the Holy Spirit and the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 through Mary, the Mother of God. St. John of Damascus compared the Mary with Eve, writing: Just as the latter was formed from Adam without connection, so also did the former bring forth the new Adam, who was brought forth in accordance with the laws of parturition and above the nature of generation. (On the Orthodox Faith, IV, 14)

Holy Tradition, which in the first order is the unchanging and immutable kergyma concerning Jesus Christ, teaches that all things came into being through Him; that Christ existed with the Father before the world was created. The Beloved Son is the first Man, even before He became Man at His Incarnation. If we think of the creation from the worldly perspective alone we will miss what matters.  All things are to be examined through the lens of the Promised Son for whom God has prepared a Kingdom "not of this world" that is populated by world-lings (imagine that!).  This is the doctrine of the Lord that astonishes (Acts 13).

St. John of Damascus, whose thought is representative of the teaching of all the early Fathers on the formation of man, also wrote: The earliest formation (of man) is called creation and not generation. For creation is the original formation at God's hands, while generation is the succession from each other made necessary by the sentence of death imposed on us on account of the transgression. (On the Orthodox Faith, II, 30)

The woman who Adam named Eve was formed by God also, as St. Cyril explained: Eve was begotten of Adam, and not conceived of a mother, but as it were brought forth of man alone. (Catechetical Lectures, XII, 29). She was formed by God from Man, not born of human flesh. Male and Female were at the beginning formed by God; Adam from the dust and Eve from Adam. This is why it is false to claim that humans are not special; that we are the product of evolutionary generation.

It is also falsely claimed (Aristotle being an advocate) that when humans die their decomposition represents a rebirth. This atomistic regeneration is the basis for many Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, but is not what the Bible teaches. According to the atomistic view, the first humans were produced by nature through spontaneous generation. Yet no examples of spontaneous generation of humans has ever been observed. The idea that matter, when subjected to the correct conditions, can produce human beings is a pagan idea and a popular alternative to what the Bible teaches. But is it supportable?