Antiquitopia

I wanted to continue to think about some of the stranger aspects of ancient Christian Christology, especially as it pertains to the Son's preincarnate existence in Ancient Israel.  The story begins really with Justin Martyr who in his 1st Apology and especially in the Dialogue with Trypho seeks to establish that every time anyone ever claimed to see God in Israel's scriptures, they saw the Son, the Logos.  While on the one hand, this helps to relieve some of the more embarrassing anthropomorphisms of the Bible by attributing them to God's manifest aspect - the Son (the image of the invisible God in Colossians 1) - on the other hand, Justin's blanket identification of the Son with all theophanies has further consequences since not all of the theophanies of the Bible are anthropomorphic.  In his First Apology 62-63, Justin uses Moses as the prototypical prophet, often called the “first prophet” throughout, both chronologically and in importance.   He argues ...

For my current project, which focuses on how early Christians understood Moses' visions, I have been delving much into Second and Third Century Christian sources.  During the past week, I have been playing a lot with Theophilus of Antioch with his treatise/letter/apology to Autolycus.  Theophilus, let's say, has a fairly unique Christology in many ways.  Much of this was explicitly rejected by his rough contemporary Irenaeus and has been discussed at length by modern scholars.  But there is one aspect of his Christology that has been largely ignored and is, well, quirky.   ὁ μὲν θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων ἀχώρητὸς ἐστιν καὶ ἐν τόπῳ οὐχ εὑρίσκεται· οὐ γὰρ ἐστιν τόπος καταπαύσεως αὐτοῦ. ὁ δὲ Λόγος αὐτοῦ, δι᾽οὗ τὰ πάντα πεποίκηκεν, δύναμισ ὤν καὶ σοφία αὐτοῦ, ἀναλαμβάνων τὀ πρόσωπον τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ κυρίου τῶν ὅλων, οὗτος παρεγίνετο εἰς τὸν παράδεισον ἐν προσώπῳ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ὁμίλει τῷ Ἀδάμ. Καὶ γὰρ αὐτὴ ἡ θεία γραφὴ διδάσκει ἡμᾶς τὸν Ἀδὰμ λέγοντα τῆς φωνῆς...

I just noticed that I had a total of 12 blog posts for all of 2015 - the number that James McGrath posts per hour.  I hereby resolve to at least have 13 posts for 2016.

If anyone in the Jacksonville, IL, area stumbles upon this and is interested, here are my courses for the Spring 2016 semester: RE 112: Introduction to the New Testament: Course Description:   The Bible has been one of the most influential collections of literature on religion, other literature, politics, society, and culture.  Jesus and Paul are immediately recognizable figures, popularly invoked in daily life and even public policy.  From the Gospels to Revelation, the books of the New Testament saturate our culture from popular films and novels to shaping people’s behavior and national politics.  Despite the New Testament’s seeming familiarity in religious institutions and public life, however, it can be very strange and disorienting.  In this class we will recover the strangeness of the New Testament in order to read it anew in their ancient Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern contexts.  To do this we will critically examine their transmissi...

So, another quirk in Revelation occurs in 16:7, when the seven angels are pouring out bowls of divine wrath upon the earth and sea.  In the middle of it, the "angel of the waters" speaks of the Holy One as judge, who is righteous and offers proportional punishments: those who shed the blood of the saints get blood to drink (the waters turn to blood as in the Egyptian plague). In response, the heavenly altar itself speaks (NRSV): "yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just." Interestingly, it seems the throne also speaks: "And from the throne came a voice saying, 'Praise our God, all you his servants, and all who fear him, small and great'" (Rev 19:5). This could just be a disembodied divine voice coming from the throne - or the throne is alive, animate.  It is something that occurs intermittently throughout Revelation, too, usually before breaking out in a hymn. I know that in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice the heav...

I have been working on one of the SBL presentations on spatiotemporality in Hebrews, Revelation, and 4 Ezra.  I ran into a passage, which probably won't make the talk, but which I found odd. Revelation 14:10 reads (NRSV): "and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb." I found the torture of sinners in the Lamb's and angels' presence a bit strange, even disturbing.  Of course, the Lamb dispenses divine justice in Revelation; nonetheless, punishment itself is usually "off-stage," in the Pit.  My quick glances at commentaries (so far) discuss the motifs of fire and sulfur, but largely skirt the issue of presence. It did remind me of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke, however, where, while there is a gulf between a good and bad afterlife, they seem to be visible to one another. Is there a bit of Schadenfreude in these accounts: getting to watch your enemies suffer for eternity? (So...