Face Melting and the Garden of Eden

Because this blog comes after one year of MA studies, we need to do a little catch up work. 

I walked into my first class with an air of confidence. Introduction to the Old Testament.  I had a minor in Bible from Houghton College, and most of my Bible courses were in the Old Testament. Intro to OT? No problem.   Dusting off my Hebrew Old Testament, and finding any notes I could recover from classes with Dr. Carl Schultz, I was ready to shine.

The first thing to go was my Hebrew Old Testament followed by my confidence.  My professor’s main interest was in Reception History.  He was interested especially in how early Christian’s received and interpreted the Old Testament.   Thanks to Alexander the Great, by the time of Jesus the widely used Scripture in Jerusalem was the Greek translation—the Septuagint.  The Septuagint was the Scripture of the early Church. Have you ever noticed when reading in the NAB, NRSV, NIV, etc., that when the NT writers quote the Old Testament it’s a little different than if you turn to the actual passage? For example, Matthew quotes from Isaiah about John the Baptist:

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight.’” (Mt 3:3) (Based on the Septuagint)

He is quoting from Isaiah 40:3 which in the NRSV reads,

“A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
   make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (Based on Hebrew Texts)

The idea is the same, but there is a difference.  Translators of many contemporary English translations of the Old Testament are interested in Hebrew Texts.  The early Church not only did not have access to these Hebrew Texts, but the Septuagint is usually more ancient.  My professor was interested in the Christian reception of the OT, so he required that we have an English translation of the Septuagint. 

The second curve ball was that my professor was an Orthodox Priest.  How this affected his approach to Scripture became apparent as we discussed the Holy Spirit and Ordination, the Levitical priesthood, Sacrifice, Theophany, Covenant.  Come to think of it, his was a nuanced view on nearly all OT theology. We barely spoke about historical criticism (he was not uninformed of the methodology), but we referred to the patristics every week.  And what a view this was!  Let’s look at one interesting example.

The Tabernacle was the portable Tent of Meeting between God and His people during the desert wanderings.  It was the place where heaven and earth meet.  Because it was such a sacred place there was a sacred ordering to the construction and use of the Tabernacle.   Furniture was situated in just the right place, incense was burned, and men from the Tribe of Levi offered sacrifices to God on behalf of the people.  The Tabernacle was where Moses would meet with God. Much more could be said about the purpose and theology of the tabernacle, but are you okay if we move on?  Good.

A look at the structure shows that closeness to the Divine increases the further you move into the Tent.  The people bring sacrifices to the door. Priests stand within the enclosure to offer some sacrifices.  Perpetual incense is burned before God in the Holy Place.  Lastly the High Priest walked through the veil to encounter God in the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant or the throne of God sat.

Another escalating encounter with God also happened on Mount Sinai (this was before the wandering in the wilderness).  The experience of God was different at various parts of the mountain.  For those at the base of the mountain, they were instructed to sanctify themselves through washing and sexual abstinence (Ex 19:10, 15).  As God came upon the mountain they saw a dense cloud (Ex 19:9), thunder and lightning and a trumpet blast (Ex 19:16), and smoke and fire (Ex 19:18).  Moses later brings Aaron and seventy elders up the mountain with him.  As they ascended the mountain, they beheld a more anthropomorphic vision of God.  They saw God’s feet as if resting on a footstool (Ex 24:9-10).  Moses left the seventy elders to ascend even further.  Visual elements all but faded away as he experienced only a thick cloud (Ex 24:15). 

Closeness to the Divine increases as one ascends the mountain.  At the very top, Moses represented the people before God, and experienced intimacy with God.  It would appear from this schematic that the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, were created as portable Sinai’s—a way to continue to experience the life giving presence of God.

This was all very interesting to me already.  But watch what my professor did next!  Let's look at a schematic of the Garden of Eden.  Humans are made from the dust of the earth, and then brought into the garden where they walked with God.  In the garden were the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If we consult our handy-dandy diagram:

It would appear that the Garden has a similar set-up.  So which came first?  Sinai, which was mirrored in the Tabernacle and then the Garden was interpreted likewise?  Or was the Tabernacle first which then re-interpreted the Sinai Event and the Garden?  I have no idea.   Let me know if you figure it out.

We may spend our time more wisely by looking at what these themes teach us.  Let’s take another look at the Garden as a Tabernacle.  The Tree of life stood as the goal that was sadly missed.  It was missed because humanity rushed for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (don't worry the Tree of Life reappears in Rev. 22:2).  My professor suggested that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is not a tree about morality.  “From good to evil” is an idiom that represents everything from good to evil.   We can assume that since Eden is a garden there are more than just two trees.  Perhaps there were trees for virtues; A Tree of Humility, a Tree of Prudence, a Tree of Love, a Tree of Self-Sacrifice.  Humans were meant to taste of all the other trees to make their way to the Tree of Life.  Adam and Eve should have arrived at the Tree of Life through the Veil of the Tree of Knowledge, but only after having readied themselves like priests. To try to rush through the Tree of Knowledge to prematurely grasp at the Tree of Life would be like running into the Tabernacle and lifting up the lid to the Ark of the Covenant. Bad things happen.  Humanity was called like Moses to represent creation before God, and thus had to be prepared as priests.  The story is a story of the spiritual life; of the progression toward God.  The readers or hearers of the story should be formed to taste the fruit of the trees.

All three “theophanies” (appearances of God) are retold as a model for us to follow.  They are the stories of God trying to reconnect and restore what was broken. They are stories of God's initiative to bring humanity into an encounter with God.