Lehi, Nephi and the shekinah -- Part 4 ("Stretch out the curtains of your dwelling place")

After having been asked about Isaiah 54 in the context of my recent series on the Shekinah, I found enough material to make two additional posts. Here are the previous parts 1, 2 and 3. 

The setting of Isaiah 54 is the latter-day gathering of Israel. It starts out with the imagery of the woman/wife, representing Israel, who was rejected in her youth because of unfaithfulness (see verse 6). 

Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. (Isaiah 54:1)

The remarriage with Jehovah symbolizes the renewal of the covenant with "children" as a covenant blessing denoting the gathering of Israel. In verse 2 an expansion occurs to make room for all the covenant children. There is beautiful poetic parallelism here that is a bit lost in the KJV. A more direct translation reads something like this

A) Enlarge the site of your tent, 
B) stretch out the curtains of your dwelling place

Here, tent is translated from "ohel", basically the conventional word for tent. Dwelling place (habitations in the KJV) is translated from "mishkan", the word I have discussed in this series that also means tent/tabernacle and comes from the root, shakan (dwell), from which Shekinah is derived. Since this word often seems to imply a divine presence, I think we can read this poetic parallelism to describe two steps in the context of the latter-day gathering of Israel:

• A) Make room for a covenant people
• B) Make room for God to dwell among them

We find a similar description in the Book of Revelation. In Revelation 19:7-9 we read

7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.

8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

John the Revelator uses the wife imagery of Isaiah. There is a marriage supper at the onset of the millennium and the righteous covenant people are invited. This imagery continues in Revelation 21, adding the tent/dwelling symbolism that we also saw in Isaiah:

2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

There is quite a bit to unpack here. The tabernacle of God and him dwelling with his people fits Isaiah 54 and the Hebrew Shekinah concept very well, even though Revelation is written in Greek. The Greek word, skene, is both the noun translated into tabernacle and verb (skenoo) translated into dwell. Just like the similar Hebrew, "mishkan", skene/skenoo also frequently implies the divine presence. Examples of this is found in the Letter to the Hebrews

A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle (skene), which the Lord pitched, and not man. (Hebrews 8:2)

But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle (skene), not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building (Hebrews 9:11)

So what happens in the parallel prophecy of Isaiah and vision of John is that the covenant people is restored in a grand marriage feast in an expanding tent where God dwells among them. I believe this is the grand feast that Lord Wilmore has written about that occurs when the "fruitful" Ephraim has been restored to Israel and to the fulness of the gospel.

I also think that Isaiah's prophecy of enlarging the tent marks a difference between the old and new covenant people. In part 3, I wrote about the Tsadiks (the Righteous/Holy Ones), like Abraham, Moses and Lehi, who lived in tents as strangers and pilgrims on the earth, isolated from the wicked world but enwrapped in the Shekinah glory. Enlarging and stretching out the tent in Isaiah 54:2 signifies not only the increasing number of Israelites gathered in, but the fact that latter-day Israel is not characterized by the sole, isolated Tsadiks any longer. Instead, Israel becomes a grand kingdom of priests and priestesses, where the ever expanding tent enwraps us all in God's glory. Notice in Revelation 19:8 that was quoted, how the bride is wearing fine linen representing "the righteousness of saints". The saints at the feast are all Tsadiks. Temples and stakes of Zion are flooding the earth and all covenant people can enter in all the way to the Holy of Holies and partake of the feast. This is in fact a fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles, a Jewish festival that I will discuss in the next post.

The Holy Order all the way back to Adam, part 2

In this multi-post series, I'm fleshing out the following ideas:

1. The High Priest tradition is far older than Judaism, dating all the way back to Adam.
2. The Judaism we know today is a revised version of an older form of Judaism, formed in reaction to Christianity and also in reaction to the loss of the second temple.
3. Hebrew culture was fragmented even by the time of Lehi, with various groups condemning other groups as apostate from the true, ancient, covenant-and-temple-based religion.
4. The Old Testament as we know it was most likely written and edited by Jews who espoused a tradition which had long since rejected the original purpose of the Law of Moses. They intentionally left out much of the High Priestly tradition.
5. In order to have written the Book of Mormon (which clearly outlines this older, High Priestly tradition), Joseph Smith would have needed to have organized this complex and historically plausible theology by 1829, inserted in subtly into the text, and then stayed pretty quiet about it for a few years until he received revelations outlining the modern day restoration of these ancient practices, including the priesthood, the temple, eternal families, etc.

In this post, I'll focus on #2 through #4 of the points above.

Sects of Hebrew religion

It's too easy for us to assume that there was only one version of the ancient Hebrew religion, when the truth is probably closer to the wide array we see in Christianity today.

We know there were several prominent sects of the Hebrew religion by the time of Jesus. The Essenes, for example, were a prominent sect from the 2nd century before Christ until the 2nd century after Christ.  Here is how an early Christian scholar described one particular sub-sect of Essenes:

The Nasaraean—they were Jews by nationality—originally from Gileaditis, Bashanitis and the Transjordan... They acknowledged Moses and believed that he had received laws—not this law, however, but some other. And so, they were Jews who kept all the Jewish observances, but they would not offer sacrifice or eat meat. They considered it unlawful to eat meat or make sacrifices with it. They claim that these Books are fictions, and that none of these customs were instituted by the fathers. This was the difference between the Nasaraean and the others... (source)

I'm not claiming that this particular group were adherents to the High Priestly tradition, but it is interesting to note that they believed Moses had received a different law and that they refused to offer sacrifice. (Perhaps because they believed they temple authority had become corrupted?)

The point is that many groups existed, some of which did not recognize the second temple authority as valid.

The 'Long Exile' Tradition

In the introduction of her book, Barker asserts that some sects of Hebrews believed the temple had lost its true purpose and High Priestly authority. By end of the first temple period, when the exile began, the central purpose of the temple had been corrupted. Barker notes that for some of the Israelites, the spiritual exile from the temple's true meaning did not end even when the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland and allowed to rebuild and rededicate their temple. For the Israelites who did not recognize the authority of the temple as valid, the "exile" continued all the way to the time of Jesus.

It was this tradition (which Barker refers to as the "long exile" tradition) that awaited their Messiah, a great High Priest/prophet/king to come and restore what had been lost. Barker claims that adherents to this tradition were the prime target of early Christian missionary efforts, and that the incredibly rapid adoption of Christianity in the early days after Jesus came about in part when large groups of "long exile" Israelites living in the surrounding areas recognized Jesus as the Messiah.

Not everyone shared this worldview, though.  In fact, the political 'winners' of the day held firm to a tradition that revered the Law of Moses.

The Old Testament as a record of a different tradition

Barker says:

...the Old Testament, both text and canon, has a complex history...others who shared the Hebrew heritage did not always share the same beliefs or the same scriptures. Among these 'others' were the first Christians. The Hebrew Scriptures as we know them were preserved, edited and transmitted by the priests and scribes of the second temple, the very people whom the 'long exile' tradition had condemned as impure apostates who had altered the Scriptures. (Temple Theology, pp. 5-6)

I find this very interesting and compelling, seeing as how Lehi and his family were not Jews, but were of a different tribe (Manasseh), living as 2nd or 3rd generation refugees in Jerusalem among Jews.  It isn't hard to see that Lehi and Nephi did not consider the Jews to be righteous and on the right path.

Nephi says the following of the Jews in Jerusalem:

2 For I, Nephi, have not taught [my people] many things concerning the manner of the Jews; for their works were works of darkness, and their doings were doings of abominations. (2 Nephi 25)

He also made very specific prophecies about what would happen to the scriptures which fit right in to this picture:

26 ...for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.
27 And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.
28 Wherefore, thou seest that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God. (1 Nephi 13)

It seems very reasonable to conclude that the "Lehite" religion described in 1 and 2 Nephi is a close descendant of one of the versions of Hebrew religion of Lehi's day, possibly one that questioned the temple authority and looked to a future Messiah to make things right.  We shouldn't be surprised that this religion seems closer to Christianity than the version of Judaism we know.

The Judaism we know today (rabbinical Judaism) developed in part as a reaction to the development of Christianity.  Thus, as early Christians pointed to ancient Hebrew scripture to support their claim of Jesus as Messiah, Judaism adjusted its canon to create a clearer distinction from the Christian position.  This topic is discussed in detail in chapter 12 of The Great High Priest by Margaret Barker ("Text and Context). She gives examples of early Christian writers pointing out how the Jews of their day had altered their canon, changing some verses and removing entire books to exclude references to Christ.

To quote Barker:

Jesus was described and remembered as a great high priest (Hebrews 4:14), the Melchizedek raised up by the power of an indesctructible life (Hebrews 7:16) who had offered the final atonement sacrifice to fulfill and supercede the temple rites (Hebrews 9:1-14). ... Paul knew where the roots of Christianity lay; he argued that Christianity looked to the faith of Abraham (and by implication Melchizedek), and so was rooted earlier than the Law given to Moses. (Temple Theology, p. 4)

There is a fascinating document found among the Dead Sea Scrolls designated 11Q13, also known as the Melchizedek document, which references Melchizedek and speaks of an atonement for "the sons of light."  It is fragmentary, but includes passages like this:

Zion is ..., those who uphold the Covenant, who turn from walking [in] the way of the people. (link to wikipedia article)

Sounds very similar to Enoch from the Book of Moses. The Book of Enoch was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, suggesting it was a prominent part of that community's scriptural canon approaching the time of Christ. Both of these documents became lost to the Jews who practiced rabbinical Judaism.

Barker asserts that in order to understand the mindset of the early Christians, one must look to the ancient temple tradition:

Adam was remembered as the first high priest, and Jesus was described as the new Adam. The Christians remembered and hoped for the earlier Eden -- the true temple -- and saw themselves returning to the place and the priesthood from which they had been driven.  This was their worldview. (Temple Theology, p. 4)

This worldview was not shared by the Deuteronomists, who wrote and edited the Old Testament as we have it. It's not a stretch at all to conclude that the record we have today is not the same one had back then.

The final post in this series will look at what Joseph Smith would have needed to accomplish in order to include this complex theology into his new religion, as early as 1829.

"Covering" and "encircling" as symbols of the Atonement and Temple Covenants

In this 1990 Ensign article, Hugh Nibley talks about the word "atonement" and makes some interesting points.

First, he talks about the usefulness of the term "renconciliation" in this context, which means "to be seated again with someone."

The Greek term "katallagein" is translated to "reconciliation" and refers to the settling of a debt or making peace.

With that discussion out of the way, the Semitic roots of the concept of Atonement are then discussed:

The basic word for atonement is kafar, which has the same basic meaning in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic—that being “to bend, arch over, cover; 2) [to pass over with one’s palm &c., to wipe out, rub] … to deny, … to forgive, … to be expiated, … renounce.”
The Arabic kafara puts the emphasis on a tight squeeze, such as tucking in the skirts, drawing a thing close to oneself. Closely related are Aramaic and Arabic kafata, meaning a close embrace, which are certainly related to the Egyptian hpt, the common ritual embrace written with the ideogram of embracing arms. Hpt may be cognate with the Latin capto and the Persian kaftan, a monk’s robe and hood completely embracing the body.

Each of these roots offers an interesting glimpse into the atonement: to cover, to forgive, to draw a thing close to oneself, a close embrace, and a robe and hood covering the body.

The last concept is the one that really caught my attention, and Brother Nibley takes it one step further:

Most interesting is the Arabic kafata, as it is the key to a dramatic situation. It was the custom for one fleeing for his life in the desert to seek protection in the tent of a great sheik, crying out, “Ana dakhiluka,” meaning “I am thy suppliant,” whereupon the host would place the hem of his robe over the guest’s shoulder and declare him under his protection...In reply, according to the ancient custom, the Master would then place the hem of his robe protectively over the kneeling man’s shoulder (kafata). This puts him under the Lord’s protection from all enemies. They embrace in a close hug, as Arab chiefs still do; the Lord makes a place for him and invites him to sit down beside him—they are at-one.

 These ancient Semitic roots illuminate our understanding of atonement-related in the Book of Mormon. Considering the following verses:

O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness! O Lord, wilt thou make a way for mine escape before mine enemies! (2 Nephi 4:33)

Behold, my brethren, do ye suppose that such an one can have a place to sit down in the kingdom of God, with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and also all the holy prophets, whose garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure and white? (Alma 5:24)

But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love. (2 Nephi 1:15)

I added italics to related temple/covenant language found in the references above, lending credibility to the idea that "encircling with a robe" and "sitting down in the kingdom of God" can safely be added to the list of terms that should point our mind to the atonement and connecting the atonement with the temple covenants.

Here is Paul speaking to the Hebrews (Hebrews 9:3-5 [Expanded Bible]):

3 Behind the second curtain was a ·room [section; L tent] called the ·Most Holy Place [T Holy of Holies; Ex. 26:31–34]... 5 Above the Ark were the ·creatures that showed God’s glory [or glorious cherubim; Ex. 25:18–22; C angelic beings representing God’s presence and glory; Gen. 3:24; Ezek. 9:3; 10:1–22], ·whose wings reached over [L overshadowing] the ·lid [mercy seat; atonement cover; Lev. 16:2]. But we cannot ·tell everything about [discuss in detail] these things now.