Dark Sky and Howling Wind

Bronze bull head

Alice C. Linsley

The Peshitta is a version of the entire Bible read by Syrian Christians.This is the Bible that St. Ephrem the Syrian knew.

In the Peshitta, Noah's Ark landed in the “mountains of Quardu” (Gen. 8:4). Quardu or Kardu is formed from two Akkadian words: kur - land of, and dû - hill. Note the similarity to the Arabic Đū Shará (ذو شرى‎) which means "Lord of the Mountain."

These people of Quardu are described as hill people or cave dwellers. They appear to be related to or associated with the Jats of Punjab, the Gutians (bull people) and the ancient Horites of Edom. Edom was called "Idumea" by the Greeks, meaning "land of red people."

The horns of the bull were a sacred symbol for the Horites. They formed a solar cradle that indicated divine appointment by overshadowing. In this image from Dendura, the sun rests in the horns of the sacred bull.

Images of Hathor, the mother of Horus, show her overshadowed. This amulet was found at Hazor. It shows the sun cradled in the bull's horns and rays of light radiating from the sun.

Divine appointment of the Horite Hebrew rulers was indicated by the solar cradle Y at the beginning of the ruler's name. Examples include: Yaqtan (Joktan); Yishmael (Ishmael); Yishbak; Yitzak (Isaac); Yacob (Jacob); Yosef (Joseph); Yetro (Jethro); Yeshai (Jesse), Yonah (Jonah), Josedech (Yosedech), and his son Yeshua (Joshua) who wore the double crown (Zechariah 6:11).

The rulers of Quardu are known to have had red hair, like the Horites of the hill country of Edom. Esau the Red, lived in the hill country of Seir the Horite (Gen. 36). Archaic populations lived along the ridges in rock shelters (kar or kur) and later in fortified shrine cities called "high places" in the Bible. These mountain peoples were in the R1b Haplogroup. The Horite high places are called "Horite Mounds" in the ancient Pyramid Texts

The dark red spot in Central Africa is Noah's homeland.
This is the region of Lake Chad.

The Peshitta appears to have preserved the connection between the R1b peoples who had dispersed into Turkey and Iran. This represents the eastern tradition of the older African account of Noah, a ruler in the region of Lake Chad.

There appears to be traces of the older account in Arabic. The identification of Noah's Ark with Ararat probably represents a misreading of the Arabic word herarat - حرار  - which means vehemence.  Har-arat, better translated, would mean Mountain of Vehemence. This fits the story of divine wrath expressed in extensive catastrophic flooding.

Armenia is likely a corruption of Har Meni, or Mount Meni which means Mountain of God or Mountain of Destiny. Har Meni appears to parallel the term Ararat, which is not a place name, but rather a description of an unknown mountain. The term "ararat" in Arabic means vehemence. Likely, a parallel was intended between har-meni and har-arat; that is between the Mountain of God and the Mountain of Vehemence.

The word "meni" appears in Isaiah 65:11, where it is paralleled with the word gad, meaning good fortune. This suggests a connection between meni and encounters with God on mountain tops because where the word gad appears in the context of sacrifice offered on mountains. We recall that Noah offered burnt sacrifice on the mountain in thanksgiving for his deliverance (Gen. 8:20) and that God established a covenant with Noah and his descendants.

The Gikuyu of East Africa tell this story of the experience of their first parents, Gikuyu and Mumbi:

There was wind and rain. And there was also thunder and terrible lightening. The earth and the forest around Mount Kerinyaga shook. The animals in the forest whom the Creator had recently put there were afraid. There was no sunlight. This went on for many days so that the whole land was in darkness. Because the animals could not move, they sat and moaned with the wind. The plants and trees remained dumb. 

It was, our elders tell us, all dead except for the thunder, a violence that seemed to strangle life. It was this dark night whose depth you could not measure, not you nor I can conceive of its solid blackness, which would not let the sun pierce through it. 

The wording is like that of an Akkadian flood. The 1646 to 1626 BC account begins with the creation of man and quickly moves to the flood. The saga gives this description: "The flood roared like a bull, Like a wild ass screaming, the winds howled.The darkness was total, there was no sun."

The Gikuyu story continues:

But in the darkness, at the foot of Mount Kerinyaga, a tree rose. At first it was a small tree and it grew up, finding a way even through the darkness. It wanted to reach the light and the sun. This tree had Life. It went up, sending forth the rich warmth of a blossoming tree - you know, a holy tree in the dark night of thunder and moaning. This was Mukuyu, God's tree. 

Now you know that at the beginning of things there was only one man (Gikuyu) and one woman (Mumbi). It was under this Mukuyu that He first put them. And immediately the sun rose and the dark night melted away. The sun shone with a warmth that gave life and activity to all things. The wind and the lightening and thunder stopped. The animals stopped moaning and moved, giving homage to the Creator and to Gikuyu and Mumbi. And the Creator, who is also called Murungu, took Gikuyu and Mumbi from his holy mountain to the country of the ridges near Siriana and there stood them on a big ridge.

Here we have language reminiscent of Abraham's encounter on a wild and windy mountain where salvation through the promised Son was revealed to him. William H. Willimon wrote: "The sky darkens, the wind howls and a young man walks up another Moriah, driven by a God who demands everything and who stops at nothing. He carries a cross on his back rather than sticks for a fire, but like Abraham, he is obedient to a wild and restless God who is determined to have his way with us, no matter what the cost."


Related reading: The Substance of Abraham's Faith; Africa in the Days of Noah; Peaks and Valleys; Sacred Mountains and Pillars; The Animals on Noah's Ark; The Historicity of Noah's Flood; What Abraham Discovered on Mt. Moriah

Patrick Henry Reardon: Why Did God Test Abraham?

This piece appeared in Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, and at Orthodoxy Today.


Abraham and God's Power: Why Did God Test Abraham?
Patrick Henry Reardon


Readers of Genesis 22—from Sirach to Kierkegaard—have pondered long what thoughts may have intruded themselves into the struggling mind of Abraham when the Lord required him to offer his son Isaac in sacrifice.

Perhaps the most insuperable problem was one of logic: How did Abraham reconcile in his thought the imminent loss of his son with the Lord’s earlier promise that this same son would be the father of many people? Just how could he resolve the contradiction between God’s promise, which he completely believed, and God’s command, which he was completely resolved to obey?

In fact, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the earliest Christian commentary on this story, explicitly cited God’s earlier promise—“in Isaac your seed shall be called”—in the context of the command that Isaac was to be sacrificed (Heb. 11:18). How was it possible to reconcile God’s promise with God’s command? Abraham had three days to think about it.

The author of Hebrews reflected that Abraham, in order to resolve that contradiction, must have introduced into his reasoning process one further consideration—to wit, God’s power: “He reasoned that God . . . is able”— logisamenos hoti . . . dynatos ho Theos.

The wording of this argument is quite precise. In speaking of God, the author of Hebrews uses the adjective dynatos instead of the verb dynatai (“is able” instead of “can”). He thereby indicated he was thinking of an abiding quality of God—his power.

Abraham had already experienced God’s power in the conception of Isaac, when he and Sarah, for all practical purposes, were as good as dead: “And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom. 4:19).

In other words, Abraham reasoned that God’s power had already overcome the forces of death in the very circumstances of Isaac’s conception. And if God had overcome death once, he was always able to do so. Thus, says Hebrews, Abraham “considered that God is able [dynatos] to raise from the dead.” (Contrary to most English translations, there is no direct object to the verb “raise” in this verse. The text does not mean simply that God can raise Isaac; it means he can raise anybody.)

When the Sadducees challenged Jesus about the resurrection from the dead, he likewise appealed to the power of God. “Are you not therefore mistaken,” he asked, “because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power [dynamis] of God?” (Mark 12:24). And it is passing curious that Jesus spoke of both Abraham and Isaac in that context of the resurrection: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” By way of explaining the reference, Jesus concluded, “He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living” (12:26–27).

For the author of Hebrews, the mind of ancient Abraham raced ahead in prophecy to the doctrine of the resurrection—it was an experienced inference from what he already knew of God. From the very temptation he endured, Abraham arrived at a new understanding of the living God—namely, that he is powerful to raise the dead to life. This was a true prophetic revelation granted to the struggling mind of his servant.

St. Augustine was much impressed by this story. “The pious father,” he wrote, “faithfully clinging to this promise—because it had to be fulfilled by the one whom God commanded him to kill—did not doubt that this son, whom he had had no hope of being given to him, could be restored to him after his immolation [sibi reddi poterat immolatus].”

For the author of Hebrews, the restoration of Isaac was enacted “in parable” (en parabole—Heb. 11:19). St. Augustine, translating “parable” as similitudo, correctly understood it to refer to the Resurrection of Christ, when God’s Son was restored to him after his immolation on the Cross. There was a “likeness”—similitudo—between God and Abraham, revealed in the mystery of the Resurrection (The City of God 16.32).

Why did God test Abraham? In order to reveal an essential aspect of himself: his power over death. Abraham smelted this truth in the furnace of his mind, as he struggled to reconcile God’s promise with his command. God’s power over death was not an abstract truth of theology, available to abstract thought; it was learned on the pounding pulse of an ancient Mesopotamian, as he assumed a personal likeness to the very God who put him to the trial.

---

Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois. His newest book is The Jesus We Missed: The Surprising Truth About the Humanity of Christ.  Father Reardon is a senior editor of Touchstone.  Read more of his work on Genesis here.

To read other views on the Binding of Issac, go here and here.

Fr. Patrick Reardon on the Binding of Isaac

Readers of Genesis 22---from Sirach to Kierkegaard---have pondered long what thoughts may have intruded themselves into the struggling mind of Abraham when the Lord required him to offer his son Isaac in sacrifice.

Perhaps the most insuperable problem was one of logic: How did Abraham reconcile in his thought the imminent loss of his son with the Lord's earlier promise that this same son would be the father of many people? Just how could he resolve the contradiction between God's promise, which he completely believed, and God's command, which he was completely resolved to obey?

In fact, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the earliest Christian commentary on this story, explicitly cited God's earlier promise---"in Isaac your seed shall be called"---in the context of the command that Isaac was to be sacrificed (Hebrews 11:18). How was it possible to reconcile God's promise with God's command? Abraham had three days to think about it.

The author of Hebrews reflected that Abraham, in order to resolve that contradiction, must have introduced into his reasoning process one further consideration---to wit, God's power: "He reasoned that God . . . was able"--- logisamenos hoti . . . dynatos ho Theos.

The wording of this argument is quite precise. In speaking of God, the author of Hebrews uses the adjective dynatos instead of the verb dynatei ("was able" instead of "could"). He thereby indicated he was thinking of an abiding quality of God---His power.Abraham had already experienced God's power in the conception of Isaac, when he and Sarah, for all practical purposes, were as good as dead: "And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb" (Romans 4:19).

In other words, Abraham reasoned that God's power had already overcome the forces of death in the very circumstances of Isaac's conception. And if God had overcome death once, He was always able. Thus, with regard to Isaac, says Hebrews, Abraham "considered that God was able [dynatos] to raise from the dead."

When the Sadducees challenged Jesus about the resurrection from the dead, He likewise appealed to the power of God. "Are you not therefore mistaken," He asked, "because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power [dynamis] of God?" (Mark 12:24) And it is passing curious that Jesus spoke of both Abraham and Isaac in that context of the resurrection: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." By way of explaining the reference, Jesus concluded, "He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living" (12:26-27).

For the author of Hebrews, the mind of ancient Abraham raced ahead in prophecy to the doctrine of the resurrection---it was an experienced inference from what he already knew of God. From the very temptation he endured, Abraham arrived at a new understanding of God---namely, that He is powerful to raise the dead to life. This was a true prophetic revelation granted to the struggling mind of His servant.

St. Augustine was much impressed by this story. "The pious father," he wrote, "faithfully clinging to this promise---because it had to be fulfilled by the one whom God commanded him to kill---did not doubt that this son, whom he had had no hope of being given to him, could be restored to him after his immolation [sibi reddi poterat immolatus]."

For the author of Hebrews, the restoration of Isaac was enacted "in parable" (en parabole---Hebrews 11:19). St. Augustine, translating "parable" here as similitudo, correctly understood it to refer to the Resurrection of Christ, when God's Son was restored to Him after His immolation on the Cross. There was a "likeness"---similitudo---between God and Abraham, revealed in the mystery of the Resurrection (The City of God 16.32).

Why did God test Abraham? In order to reveal an essential aspect of Himself: His power over death. Abraham arrived this truth through the furnace of his mind, as he struggled to reconcile God's promise with His command. God's power over death was not an abstract truth of theology, available to abstract thought; it was learned on the pounding pulse of an ancient Mesopotamian, as he assumed a personal likeness to the very God who put him to the trial.

END

For further reflection by Father Reardon on Genesis 22, go here.

Kierkegaard on Abraham

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a brilliant philosopher who was critical of Romanticism’s emphasis on naturalism and Empiricism’s claim that moral judgment must be based on reason and verifiable data. He believed that the basis for forming moral judgment is always subjective and that it requires surrender to God.

Although the term “existentialism” never appears in Kierkegaard’s writings, he is regarded as the founder of this philosophical approach. Kierkegaard believed that the value of philosophers’ thoughts should be judged by their lives rather than by their intellectual conceptions because ultimately, the individual’s life is the basis upon which he is judged by God. As important as a writer's work is to his existence, it is his life as a whole that ultimately matters to God. This is why Kierkegaard was attracted to the lives of saintly figures, especially biblical Abraham, who he called a “knight of faith.”

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche shared the realization that anything decided to be meaningful must come from within the individual. It is the human race itself that attributes meaning. In Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and in Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, each philosopher sets out to discover the importance of subjective human emotion, and the role of human freedom in the universe.

While Nietzsche’s immoral Superman is the embodiment of his philosophy, Abraham is the embodiment of Kierkegaard’s existentialist philosophy. For Kierkegaard, true individuality comes through surrendering one’s individuality. Abraham discovers his meaning in the cosmos through losing himself in God, but when one tries to explain this to another person, the explanation seems absurd.

Kierkegaard recognizes an existential duty to a Creator whose moral authority outranks all social norms. He views Abraham's near sacrifice of his son as a consequence of a “teleological suspension of the ethical” rather than as an expression of obedience to social norms (this assumes that child sacrifice was practiced among Abraham’s people). From Kierkegaard's perspective, the distinction between good and evil is dependent exclusively on God. Therefore it is possible for Abraham to live and act beyond the prescribed norms of his day to fulfill a spiritual destiny that he alone could fulfill.

In Kierkegaard's scheme it makes little difference whether the son bound was Isaac (as Jews claim) or Ishmael (as Muslims claim). The story is not about recognition of the first-born son (a social norm), but about the surrender of Abraham's very being in an existential sacrifice that by faith overcomes despair.

Ethical cases such as Abraham's are problematic since we have no public policy to guide our decision about whether Abraham is obeying God's command or is delusional. For this reason Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy can’t be used to formulate specific ethical guidelines for society. It is simply too personal and too subjective. However, for Christians it is extremely relevant because it points to the necessity of spiritual ascent, divine enlightenment, and a deepening of communion with God.

Kierkegaard found inspiration in both Abraham and in the lives of the saints, especially the sixth-century monk, John Climacus, who spent his days in solitude, prayer and fasting at the monastery on Mount Sinai. Climacus wrote “The Ladder of Divine Ascent,” a work arranged into thirty chapters or “steps.” Each step details the vices that the individual must conquer and the virtues that the individual must perfect in order to ascend the spiritual “ladder” to the Kingdom of Heaven. Here are some of his famous sayings:

Step 1: A Christian is one who imitated Christ in thought, word and deed. A lover of God is one who lives in communion with all that is natural and sinless.

Step 5: Repentance is a contract with God for a second life. A penitent inflicts his own punishment upon himself.

Step 9: If you forgive quickly, you, too, will be quickly forgiven.

Step 15: Purity is putting on the nature of angels. It is the longed-for house of Christ and the earthly heaven of the heart.

Step 17: He who has tasted the things on high easily despises what is below. He who has not, only finds joy in possessions.

Step 25: Humility is a divine shelter which prevents us from seeing our achievements.

Step 50: There remain three virtues that bind and secure the union of all: Faith, Hope and Love--- and the greatest of these is Love.

Kierkegaard published Philosophical Fragments using the name “John Climacus”. In this work, he poses 3 questions:

What is the relationship between history (temporal existence) and human consciousness (eternal existence)?

Is there any purpose or meaning to events in our temporal existence other than historical interest?

Is it possible to base eternal happiness upon historical knowledge?
Kierkegaard’s solution was to find a link between the historical/temporal and the eternal/non-temporal. He does that by explaining knowledge as miraculous. He agrees with the Socratic-Platonic view that there is no learning, since one can’t learn what one already knows. Drawing on John Climacus’ understanding of spiritual enlightenment, Kierkegaard argues that learning involves a mysterious change that takes place in the learner at a specific moment of his existence - a moment of enlightenment. In this moment, the learner is absolutely certain that he/she has grasped eternal knowledge. Kierkegaard maintains that this is miraculous and supernatural because it can only be initiated by God through a series of historical/temporal events. This learning (or enlightenment) is individual, subjective and unique for every learner.

Kierkegaard argues further that individuals are unable to know anything that is certain except through this supernatural intervention in history. In this sense, Kierkegaard is a Skeptic who doubts that humans are able of our own faculties to learn or know anything.

So what makes learning or enlightenment possible? Kierkegaard recognizes that human existence involves suffering, anguish, pain, sickness and death. That being our plight, we naturally desire an escape. This desire is very powerful. It is a yearning for the eternal that leads us to “leap into absurdity”.

What is the absurdity? For Kierkegaard, it is the supernatural intervention of the divine Person Jesus Christ entering history, making it possible for us to know that God exists. The existence of God can’t be proved by reason, by experimentation, by logic or through observation. Only by faith in this divine intervention can one hope to escape the suffering of this life and move from ignorance to enlightenment. Here we see how Kierkegaard’s “supernaturalism” is clearly the opposite of the naturalism of Nietzsche and the Romantics.

Whereas Nietzsche rejected the prevailing morality in favor of his unique brand of “immoralism”, Kierkegaard presents social norms as "the universal" measure of service to the community. Even human sacrifice is justified in terms of how it serves the community, so when Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia he is performing a tragic sacrifice in order that the Greek expedition to Troy may succeed. Were Abraham’s intention in sacrificing Isaac to gain worldly success, he would simply be another tragic hero like Agamemnon. But as Kierkegaard understands the story of Mount Moriah, it is Abraham’s absolute surrender to God that makes possible his receiving back his offering and much more. Kierkegaard explains, “Infinite resignation is the last stage before faith …for only in infinite resignation do I become conscious of my external validity, and only then can one speak of grasping existence by virtue of faith.”
Related reading: About Søren Kierkegaard

Mount Moriah

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who received the promises was ready to offer up his only son… [Heb. 11:17]


On a Wild and Windy Mountain
William H. Willimon

(Copyright 1983 CHRISTIAN CENTURY. Reprinted with permission from the Christian Century. Subscription $49.00/year. P.O. Box 378, Mt. Morris, IL 61054 1-800-208-4097)


It arose out of a frantic, last minute search for something to do for an intergenerational church school session in a moderately affluent, white suburban church. What would appeal to all ages? A movie, I thought. So I rummaged through the holdings at the Duke Divinity School Media Center and selected a video cassette from "The Genesis Project" series.

The film that my wife and I decided to show was the dramatization of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. Afterwards, my wife would lead the children in a learning activity related to the story, while I would discuss its meanings with the adults. Patsy had some misgivings about showing so ancient and strange a tale to the children.

"It’s only a little Bible story," I said. "What harm can there be in it?"

The group watched silently as the story unfolded. Abraham was played superbly by the Israeli actor Topol, and the dialogue, in Hebrew with English subtitles, added authenticity to the film. What an austere sight it was to see old Abraham struggle up the windswept, dusty mountain – Moriah – a knife under his coat and his son trudging silently behind him. Finally the bronze knife is raised, the boy’s black eyes flash with horror; then the voice stays the knife, the ram cries from the thicket and it is over.

I stopped the projector, divided the group in half by age, and the learning began – began for me, that is.

"Who knows what the word ‘sacrifice’ means?" my wife asked the children. A few hands went up, a definition was attempted here and there.

"But what does sacrifice mean to you?" she continued. That’s when the trouble started.

"My Daddy and Mommie are doctors at Duke," said one third grader. "They help sick people to be better. Every day they do operations to help people."

"And how is that a sacrifice?" Patsy asked. But the little girl wasn’t finished.

"And I go to the day care center after school. Sometimes on Saturdays too. Mommie and Daddy want to take me home, but they are busy helping sick people – so lots of times I stay at the center. Sometimes on Sunday mornings we have pancakes, though."

And everyone from six to 11, nodded in understanding. They knew.


Meanwhile, the discussion was getting off to a slow start among the adults. I was talking too much - giving them a bit of historical background on the Abraham saga, filling them in on child sacrifice among the Canaanites. They listened in awkward silence.

"But what does this old story mean to us?" I asked. "I daresay we moderns are a bit put off by the primitive notion that God would ask anyone to sacrifice his child like this. Can this ancient story have any significance for us?"

"God still does," interrupted an older woman, hands nervously twitching in her lap. "He still does."

"How?" I asked.

Quietly she said, "We sent our son to college. He got an engineering degree, and he got involved in a fundamentalist church. He married a girl in the church; they had a baby, our only grandchild. Now he says God wants him to be a missionary and go to Lebanon. Take our baby, too." She began to sob.

The silence was broken again, this time by a middle-aged man. "I'll tell you the meaning this story has for me. I've decided that I and my family are looking for another church."

"Why?" I asked in astonishment. "Why?"

"Because when I look at that God, the God of Abraham, I feel I'm near a real God, not the sort of dignified, businesslike, Rotary Club god we chatter about here on Sunday mornings. Abraham's god could blow a man to bits, give and then take a child, ask for everything from a person and then want more. I want to know that God."

Someone else was crying now, a young woman whom I had not yet met, a member of the congregation.

The woman sitting next to her put her arm around her. "Gloria wanted me to tell you that her husband left her and the two children last week. She wants us to pray for her," she explained.


After the bell had rung and the group had filed out of the room, Patsy and I silently wound up the extension cord and put away the chairs.

"What on earth was all that about?" I finally asked.

She knew no more than I. By then, the wind had died down, the bleatings of the ram could be heard no more, and Father Abraham had descended from the wild mountain, leaving our group of 20th century suburbanites on the flattened plain of middle-of-the-road, reasonable religion.

How odd that we who make our homes and plant our gardens under the shadow of the mushroom cloud, who regularly discard our innocents in sacrifices to far lesser gods than Yahweh, should look condescendingly upon Abraham. No stranger to the ways of the real God, Abraham would know that a mad, disordered, barbaric age needs more than a faith with no claim but that its god can be served without cost. How puny is this orderly, liberal religion before the hard facts of life.

The sky darkens, the wind howls and a young man walks up another Moriah, driven by a God who demands everything and who stops at nothing. He carries a cross on his back rather than sticks for a fire, but like Abraham, he is obedient to a wild and restless God who is determined to have his way with us, no matter what the cost.


Related reading: Sacred Mountains and Pillars; Dark Sky, Howling Wind