When in 1498, during his third voyage, Christopher Columbus reached the gulf of Paria at the mouth of the Orinoco river (in what is now Venezuala) he thought that he had found the outward traces of the Garden of Eden, the biblical earthly paradise. Although he believed the garden itself must lie further inland and be situated high up, he thought that the waters of the Orinoco river he saw coming down to form the gulf must come from the primeval river that flowed out of Eden. He wrote in his journal I do not suppose that the earthly Paradise is in the form of a rugged mountain, as the descriptions of it have made it appear, but that it is on the summit of the spot which I have described as being in the form of the stalk [or stem end] of a pear; the approach to it from a distance must be by a constant and gradual ascent; but I believe that, as I have already said, no one could ever reach the top; I think also that the water I have described may proceed from it, though it be far off, and that stopping at the place I have just left, it forms this lake. It might seem incredible that an explorer like Columbus, intelligent and knowledgeable, would think that he had found the Garden of Eden. The most obvious question is why he or anyone else would ever have thought that the Garden of Eden was located in South America? The answer of course is that Columbus didn't know he had discovered the Americas - he was hoping to reach China and India (i.e. the 'East') by sailing west, and the biblical story located Eden in the east. It made perfect sense to Columbus that by sailing to the furthest point east he could imagine, he might discover the location of paradise But more fundamentally we might wonder why Columbus imagined he might find paradise on earth in the first place. Wasn't Eden a mythical garden? Wasn't it part of the primeval history in the book of Genesis, that collection of mythological stories about creation of the cosmos in seven days, the formation of the first humans out of clay and bones, impossible towers to heaven and a world-wide flood that wiped out all living creatures except those who were hiding in the giant boat Noah made (and the fish!). Why in the 15th century would an intelligent cultured European explorer think that he had found the mythical land of Eden? And the answer to that is that ever since the book of Genesis was written countless Jewish and Christian readers of that story in the subsequent centuries continued to believe that the Garden of Eden, paradise, was a real place, a location in space and time. Even though the story tells us that the garden God made was 'far, far away' and 'long, long ago' it was, in their minds, nonetheless a real place, where two historical human beings had once lived and where events took place that were drastically to shape their own history. Some writers and thinkers reflected on that story and believing that it was a story about a real place in the real world and reading that the tree of life had once stood there in the centre of the garden, began to imagine ways in which human beings might find their way back to paradise and to that tree which would heal them of their terrible propensity to die! Paradise became the object of intense speculation and aspiration. People believed that it still existed and they wanted to go back there. And so, over the centuries, people wrote stories trying to describe what may or may not have happened to Adam and Eve during their time in the garden and afterwards; they wrote imaginary visionary tales in which biblical heroes were taken by angels to visit the paradise garden; some people thought about how they could get to paradise without physically going there i.e by ascending to paradise through contemplation of the divine throne/chariot (that Ezekiel had seen); and, in the medieval era, people drew maps of the world in which paradise always featured at the top, as the historical and theological 'starting point' of the history of the world. When Columbus sailed to 'the east' (in a westerly direction!) he was fully aware that he was heading towards that 'far away and long ago place' where paradise lay. I have no idea whether he expected to find it on his voyages but when he discovered the rich, luxuriant beauty of the new land and saw the great Orinoco river flowing into the gulf of Paria, he had no problem in thinking that he had found the earthly paradise or, at least, signs of its proximity. In this post I want to explore the way in which the story of that first garden in Genesis came to have such powerful effect on subsequent expectation in Judaism and Christianity that one day we might find our way back there, and how the nature of the Genesis story laid the foundations for the subsequent paradise tradition.
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We are justifiably afraid of fire. Fire burns and when things burn they are damaged or destroyed. Fire has ravaged powerful cities such as ancient Rome and seventeenth century London. Wildfires have recently destroyed huge areas in drought-stricken parts of the world, bringing destruction, death and terror to the people who live there. Fire hurts and burns, leaving terrible scars and injuries. Fires destroy our homes and possessions. But the destructive power of fire is also something that can produce life. I was struck recently by the comments of a friend here in Sweden talking about the positive impact of a large forest fire which swept through the forests in the north of Sweden some years ago. It was horrendously destructive, destroying tens of thousands of trees and injuring and killing wildlife and people. And yet my friend, who at that time worked for the organisation that manages the forests, explained to me (an ignorant city dweller) that the forests depend on fires like these to grow and develop. Usually of course the fires are managed and kept within safe bounds and clearly this one wasn't! But the effect of such fires, controlled or not, is to is strip away the dead and old material in the forest, to allow new, young life to emerge. And the trees grow back, stronger and better and the wildlife returns and and forms a new ecology. And life goes on and flourishes better and stronger because of the fires. Something like this effect of fire, the rooting out and burning up of the old and tired, lies as the background for the trial scene in the Testament of Abraham, the ancient Jewish comic novel which describes the attempts of Abraham to escape the inevitability of death. Abraham's angel guide, Michael, shows Abraham what happens to souls after they die and Abraham passes through the gate of heaven at the East of the world, where he sees the souls of the dead being judged. He discovers that their eternal fate is decided partly on the basis of how the record of their lives responds to the divine fire blown from a trumpet held by Puriel, the 'angel of fire'. Their record of actions while alive, their 'works', are subjected to a 'trial by fire'. Good deeds survive the flames. They are clearly made of solid stuff, worthy and true, like a precious metal. Bad deeds are consumed by the flames, burnt up entirely, reduced to ashes. These are the deeds done in disregard for God's Law, the deeds born of selfish desire and Godless passions. So, as the dead and ancient material of the forest which inhibit the growth of the new are stripped away by the forest fires, here Puriel's fire consumes the dead and dying parts of individual human lives. The Testament of Abraham of course is not trying to say that the souls so-judged pass through to Paradise, better and wiser people; rather that those who see their life's work burn up pass directly to a place of horrendous torment and punishment (without passing go!). There is no sense here that these flames are intended to purify the souls who pass through them but, like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter, they decide where the souls belong, in Paradise or in the 'other place'. But it was this very idea of flames that consume the dross, the old, the broken and the godless and leave the good and the new and the Godly unharmed that led some in the early church to imagine that what might happen after death is that souls would face the fire of judgement, not to destroy them but, like the beautiful forests of Sweden, to make them better. It was ideas like those we find in the Testament that led eventually to the birth of the idea of purgatory, to the idea of the flames that purify. In this post we come close to that place where such powerful ideas began to emerge. When we step onto the scales at home or the gym or our Weight Watchers sessions there usually isn't too much at stake. Yes, there might be disappointment (or joy!), and yes, the result might mean that we have to do without a few treats in the coming week to get back towards our target weight but usually the result won't have a huge impact on our daily life. But nearly 2000 years ago the writer of the Jewish comic novel the Testament of Abraham envisaged a weigh-in with eternal consequences for those who took part. This wasn't a physical weigh-in, assessing the intake of calories but rather, a spiritual evaluation, measuring not mass but moral worth. These scales measure the moral 'weight' or worth of the souls placed in the pans of the scale. The book describes how the souls of the dead are evaluated on balances wielded, not by God, but a fiery archangel called Dokiel and the judgement of his scales determines not the diet for the coming week but the fate of those souls for all eternity. Of course the image of an archangel holding the scales of judgement is one that anyone who is familiar with medieval and Renaissance art will recognise. In countless scenes of final or postmortem judgement, an angel is depicted weighing souls in the balances, the scales of divine justice. But in all of these scenes it is the archangel Michael (Abraham's guide in the Testament of Abraham) who takes centre stage, holding the scales in which the true worth of the dead is gauged. Dokiel disappears to be replaced by the warrior chief angel Michael and what is, in the Testament of Abraham, a postmortem judgement is (by and large) replaced in these scenes by the Final judgement at the second coming of Christ. In this post I try to explain where this image of being weighed in the balance might have come from and how it developed in later western Christian art. It's almost impossible to assess how much the Testament of Abraham influenced the later christian iconography of Michael with the scales but it seems to be the earliest literary reference to this idea and so provides a fascinating insight into how ideas of post mortem judgement developed in the first two centuries after the birth of Christ. Reading this post won't change your life (or make you thinner) but the next time you stand on those scales and see how much you way physically, you might also just wonder, as I do now, what the outcome would be if you were sitting in those angelic scales of justice instead!
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2 Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner3/10/2016 Courts can be rather intimidating places. They should be - after all the dispensation of Justice is extremely important. The judges are usually imposing figures, the courtrooms are hushed and respectful, the clerks and officials note and record everything and dispense justice quickly and efficiently. There is no room for disagreement with the final decision or sentence and bad behaviour in the courtroom is not tolerated. Even the furniture of the court emphasises the solemn importance of what is going on there, with the judge usually seated 'up on high' and the accused 'spotlighted', sat or stood separately, in a place reserved for them, alone and isolated from family and friends. But all of this is nothing compared to the scene of post-mortem judgement described in the Jewish/Christian writing known as the Testament of Abraham. At one point in this ancient Jewish story, in which Abraham tries (with great comic effect) to evade Death, we read how Abraham follows the archangel Michael through the gates of heaven and find himself at the tribunal where the dead are judged. There he finds an awesome, even terrifying vision of divine justice in action, a scene that includes a magnificent judge, gigantic books, glowing tables, scary angels and of course thousands of souls being weighed, burned and whipped! And this, he is told, is just the first stage! This wonderful comic novel originally written by a Jewish writer and then used and preserved (and perhaps adapted) by Christians, dating from perhaps the first or second centuries A.D., provides a wonderful insight into how ideas about heaven and hell and the judgement that sends us there, were developing in the first centuries after the birth of Jesus. In this post I try to describe the elements of divine justice as shown to Abraham and what they mean and why they are there. When people talk about being in the 'seventh heaven' they mean they are as happy as they can possibly be. But where did the notion that there are seven heavens come from? What does the seventh heaven contain that should make us so happy and what are the other six like? Sadly there is no one definitive source book we can turn to to explain this but there are some ancient writings from the Jewish-Christian tradition that reveal that during the first century A.D. (if not earlier) some people believed that there were multiple levels of heaven. In the pseudepigraphal writing known as Slavonic Enoch (or 2 Enoch), the writer describes the ascension of Enoch to the throne of God in heaven but in his version, (unlike that of the Book of the Watchers discussed in the previous post), Enoch ascends through seven heavens to find God. Each heaven has its own distinct identity, purpose and occupants. Like the apostle Paul, the writer locates paradise, i.e the garden of Eden, in the third heaven. Alongside paradise, on the same level, there is a place of terrible punishment reserved for the wicked, and staffed by specially prepared 'torture angels'. On other levels Enoch sees the workings of the cosmos, the legions of weeping angels (long before Dr Who was ever thought of) and the gates and galleries where the weather is stored. His may not have been the first account of multiple heavens but the author(s) of Slavonic Enoch provides a fascinating insight into how some Jews and Christians imagined heaven in the first centuries of the Common Era. "At last Enoch arrives in the seventh heaven and sees God. God, of course, is seated on his throne and attended by a vast number of angelic beings, the divine council or court. It seems that their chief job is to come forward in designated ranks and orders to bow before God. This is an image of God as supreme potentate, the imperial ruler, receiving obeisance from the subject kings and potentates. The heavenly beings here represent the 'powers and principalities' who govern the affairs of the cosmos. These are the forces that shape human destiny. What Enoch sees is that they bow before the authority of the Almighty. Enoch reports that they do so 'in joy and merriment'. There is laughter in heaven!"
The introduction to the 1960s American TV series Star Trek announced every week that captain Kirk and his crew were journeying to places "where no man had gone before". Rather disappointingly (to me as a young boy) the Enterprise usually found itself locked in battle with all too familiar aliens or visiting far-flung human outposts. But over 2000 years ago, an ancient Jewish writing known as The Book of the Watchers, described a remarkable 'otherworldly' journey by the legendary biblical hero Enoch, to a place where truly no man (or woman) had ever "gone before" - to heaven, the dwelling place of God. According to the Hebrew Bible, heaven, the home of God, is not normally accessible to human beings. But Enoch was an exception. An suggestive verse in the book of Genesis stated that Enoch, after three hundred and sixty five years of life, had been 'taken' by God. Assuming that Enoch, instead of dying, had been 'taken up' into heaven by God, the writer of The Book of the Watchers describes Enoch's ascension into heaven. In this, perhaps the earliest written account of a journey into heaven, heaven is described as a terrifying place of extremes, of lightening and hail stones, of fire and ice, in other words, a place totally inhospitable to human life and totally alien to human experience. This is God's home, not the home of human beings. "Strangely (we might think) that house in heaven inspired dread rather than joy. There is no "delight of life" there. This is not a warm and welcoming vision, and there is nothing here of the self indulgent, wish-fulfillment that defines so much of modern day speculation on heaven! Like all prophets before him who see or encounter the divine, Enoch falls on his face. It's strangeness and 'otherness' overwhelm him This is an acknowledgment that no human eyes should ever behold this place, the divine habitation. The home of God was never intended for human eyes."
When we think of hell we usually think of fire. Somewhere deep within the bowels of hell we imagine there is a fiery furnace stoked by demons waiting for the ungodly. Interestingly, in some conceptions of hell the opposite is true. In Dante's poetic vision of hell, despite its name (Inferno), the lowest depths of hell, where Satan is held, is a place of icy coldness. There is no fire, there is no energy. Here, the essence of hell is not flame but lifelessness. But the reason we associate hell with fire is probably because in the New Testament the word often translated 'hell' is actually the word Gehenna, a word which originally conveyed the meaning of the terrible fiery furnace of apocalyptic judgement. Jesus makes frequent references to Gehenna, warning his listeners that their behaviour may well lead them there on the last day when he returns to judge the world! The problem is that by translating the word as 'hell' modern day readers associate his warnings with the kind of hell with which we are familiar; a post-mortem place of punishment and torment inhabited by the devil and his demons. But Jesus had no such notion in mind. For him, as for the Hebrew prophets and the Jewish pseudepigraphal writers before him, Gehenna meant fiery destruction, God's incinerator, where all the rubbish all that opposed the good purposes of God would be burned up. "In these writings Gehenna has become a metaphor for the fiery judgement of God on the wickedness of the earth. When God's great eschatological judgement comes, all that is wicked and defiling will be thrown into the great lake of fire of Gehenna. Once, that had been a place where wicked people lit fires to sacrifice their children to Molech. Now, in these visionary, imaginative documents, it has become a place where the fire of God will consume all wickedness. So, when Jesus warned his hearers that by their actions they risked Gehenna, he was warning them that they risked finding themselves on the wrong side of history, being part of that part of the cosmos that will have no place in the new creation of God. Beware, says Jesus, lest you find yourself on the wrong side of God, for ultimately only God's purposes will last. Everything else will be "burned up". In the end, only God and those things conformed to his love will remain".
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Archives
April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
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