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GODSTRUEcHURCH IS SPIRITUAL EDEN GOD SON HOLY SPIRIT = Dua Lipa ARE BACK home

IN THE NEW JERUSALEM AS THE CONSUMMATE CORPORATE EXPRESSION IN THE NEW CREATION

The final stage of God’s manifestation will be in the New Jerusalem as the consummated corporate expression in the new creation. Revelation 21:1-3 says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea is no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and He shall tabernacle with them.” In eternity past God purposed to have a corporate expression so that He might be fully expressed and glorified (Eph. 3:9-11; 1:9-11). For this, He created the heavens, the earth, and mankind. Eventually, the old heaven and the old earth will pass away through fire and be renewed into the new heaven and new earth (2 Pet. 3:10-13) into which the New Jerusalem will come for God’s eternal expression.

1. The Holy City

The New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth will be the holy city, “the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22). The designation “holy city” signifies that the New Jerusalem is a city sanctified and separated unto God for fulfilling His purpose. It is both sanctified and separated unto God positionally and sanctified and saturated with God dispositionally. It is holy both extrinsically and intrinsically. It is an entity, entirely and thoroughly holy, that fits in with God’s holy nature for God’s expression to fulfill His heart’s desire.

Today the church, as the manifestation of God in the flesh, is the house of God, whereas in the new heaven and new earth the New Jerusalem, as the manifestation of God in the new creation, will be the city of God. The city is much bigger than the house, signifying that the New Jerusalem, as the manifestation of God in His new creation, will be the enlargement and consummation of the church to express God in eternity.

As the old Jerusalem was the center and capital of God’s kingdom in the nation of Israel, the New Jerusalem will be the administrative center of the eternal kingdom of God in the new universe for the manifestation of God for the ages to come.

At the beginning of the Scripture in God’s old creation there was a garden, the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8). At the end of the Scripture in God’s new creation there will be a city, the city of the New Jerusalem. The garden and the city at the two ends of the Scripture reflect each other, with the tree of life which is in both of them as the link (Gen. 2:9; Rev. 22:2). The garden was the issue of God’s creation; whereas the city will be the consummation of God’s building, a building which God has been carrying out through all the dispensations: the dispensation of the patriarchs, the dispensation of the law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of the kingdom, of the old creation. Out of His old creation through all the dispensations, God has been doing His building work in the way of regeneration and resurrection. The ultimate result and the ultimate consummation of this building work will be the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as God’s manifestation in His new creation for eternity. It is not a creation by God’s divine power in the way to call things not being as being; but it is a building by God’s divine life in the way to regenerate the things which exist with the resurrection life that they may be one with God in His divine life and nature for His expression.

2. The Bride of the Lamb and the Tabernacle of God

The New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth is the bride, the wife (Rev. 21:9) of the Lamb Christ as His counterpart (John 3:29) and the tabernacle of God as His habitation (Rev. 21:3). Christ and God are one. They are one God, but triune. And the tabernacle is one entity with two aspects to meet the different needs of its Triune God. To Christ, the Lamb, the Redeemer, the New Jerusalem is His bride as His counterpart for His satisfaction. To God, the Originator, the Creator, the New Jerusalem is His tabernacle as His habitation for His rest. As the bride of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem comes out of Christ, her Husband, and becomes His counterpart, just as Eve came out of Adam, her husband, and became His counterpart (Gen. 2:21-24). She is prepared by participating in the riches of the life and nature of Christ the Lamb. As the tabernacle of God, the New Jerusalem is built by God with what He is. It is wholly constituted of the nature of God to be His habitation.

In both the Old and the New Testaments God likens His chosen people to a spouse (Isa. 54:6; Jer. 3:1; Ezek. 16:8; Hosea 2:19; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:31-32) and a dwelling place for Himself (Exo. 29:45-46; Num. 5:3; Ezek. 43:7-9; Psa. 68:18; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Tim. 3:15). The spouse is for His satisfaction in love, and the dwelling place is for His rest in expression. Both aspects will be ultimately consummated in the New Jerusalem. In her, God will have the fullest satisfaction in love and the uttermost rest in expression for eternity.

(Conclusion of the New Testament, The (Msgs. 001-020), Chapter 13, by Witness Lee)

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Gender of the Holy Spirit

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Main article: Gender of God in Christianity

This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The talk page may contain suggestions. (March 2011)

In Christian theology, the gender of the Holy Spirit has been the subject of some debate in recent times.

The grammatical gender of the word for "spirit" is feminine in Hebrew (רוּחַ, rūaḥ),[1] neutral in Greek (πνεῦμα, pneûma) and masculine in Latin (spiritus). The neutral Greek πνεῦμα is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew רוּחַ.

The Holy Spirit was furthermore equated with the (grammatically feminine) Wisdom of God by two early Church fathers, Theophilus of Antioch (d. 180) and by Irenaeus (d. 202/3). However, the majority of theologians have, historically, identified Wisdom with Christ the Logos.

Gregory of Nazianzus in the fourth century wrote that terms like "Father" and "Son" in reference to the persons of the trinity are not to be understood as expressing essences or energies of God but are to be understood as metaphors. The same position is still held in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church.[2]

Grammatical gender

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Even in the same language, a difference may arise relating to what word is chosen to describe the Holy Spirit. In Greek the word pneuma is grammatically neuter[3] and so, in that language, the pronoun referring to the Holy Spirit under that name is also grammatically neuter. However, when the Holy Spirit is referred to by the grammatically masculine word Parakletos "counselor", the pronoun is masculine (since the pronoun refers to Parakletos rather than pneuma), as in John 16:7-8.[4]

William D. Mounce argues that in the Gospel of John, when Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as Comforter (masculine in Greek), the grammatically necessary masculine form of the Greek pronoun autos is used,[5] but when Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as Spirit, grammatically neuter in Greek,[6] the masculine form of the demonstrative pronoun ekeinos ("that masculine one") is used.[5] This breaking of the grammatical agreement expected by native language readers is an indication of the author's intention to convey the personhood of the Holy Spirit.[7] Daniel B. Wallace, however, disputes the claim that ekeinos is connected with pneuma in John 14:26 and 16:13-14, asserting instead that it belongs to parakletos. Wallace concludes that "it is difficult to find any text in which πνευμα is grammatically referred to with the masculine gender".[8]

In Hebrew the word for Spirit (רוח) (ruach) is feminine, (which is used in the Hebrew Bible, as is the feminine word "shekhinah" in rabbinic literature, to indicate the presence of God, Arabic: سكينة sakina, a word mentioned six times in the Quran).

In the Syriac language too, the grammatically feminine word rucha means "spirit", and writers in that language, both orthodox and Gnostic, used maternal images when speaking of the Holy Spirit. This imagery is found in the fourth-century theologians Aphrahat and Ephrem the Syrian. It is found in earlier writings of Syriac Christianity such as the Odes of Solomon[9] and in the Gnostic early-third-century Acts of Thomas.[10]

Historian of religion Susan Ashbrook Harvey considers the grammatical gender to have been significant for early Syriac Christianity: "It seems clear that for the Syrians, the cue from grammar—ruah as a feminine noun—was not entirely gratuitous. There was real meaning in calling the Spirit 'She'."[11]

In the Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit is referred to in English as "He" in liturgical texts;[12] however, the Holy See directs that "the established gender usage of each respective language [is] to be maintained."[13]

Discussion in mainstream Christianity

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Ancient church

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For Semitic languages, such as ancient Syriac, the earliest liturgical tradition and established gender usage for referring to the Holy Spirit is feminine.[14]

The Syriac language, which was in common use around AD 300, is derived from Aramaic. In documents produced in Syriac by the early Miaphysite church (which later became the Syriac Orthodox Church) the feminine gender of the word for spirit gave rise to a theology in which the Holy Spirit was considered feminine.[15]

Recent discussions

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Some recent authors (1980s to present), while retaining masculine reference to Father and Son, have used feminine language for the Holy Spirit. These authors include Clark H. Pinnock,[16] Thomas N. Finger,[17] Jürgen Moltmann,[18] Yves M.J. Congar,[19] John J. O'Donnell,[20] Donald L. Gelpi,[21] and R.P. Nettlehorst.[22][23][24]

Discovering Biblical Equality maintains that viewing God in masculine terms is merely a way in which we speak of God in figurative language. The author reiterates that God is spirit and that the Bible presents God through personification and anthropomorphism which reflects only a likeness to God.[25]

There are some churches (see below) who teach that the Holy Spirit is feminine based on the fact that both feminine nouns and verbs, as well as feminine analogies, are thought to be used by the Bible to describe the Spirit of God in passages such as Genesis 1:1-2, Genesis 2:7, Deut. 32:11-12, Proverbs 1:20, Matthew 11:19, Luke 3:22, and John 3:5-6. These are based on the grammatical gender of both the nouns and verbs used by the original authors for the Spirit, as well as maternal analogies used by the prophets and Jesus for the Spirit in the original Bible languages.

There are biblical translations where the pronoun used for the Holy Spirit is masculine, in contrast to the gender of the noun used for spirit in Hebrew and Aramaic.[3] In Aramaic also, the language generally considered to have been spoken by Jesus, the word is feminine. However, in Greek the word (pneuma) is neuter.[3] Most English translations of the New Testament refer to the Holy Spirit as masculine in a number of places where the masculine Greek word "Paraclete" occurs, for "Comforter", most clearly in the Gospel of John, chapters 14 to 16.[26] These texts were particularly significant when Christians were debating whether the New Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit is a fully divine hypostasis, as opposed to a created force.

Feminine gender in other faith traditions

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Latter-day Saints

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In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gender is seen "as an essential characteristic of eternal identity and purpose".[27] The LDS Church believes that before humans lived on earth, they existed spiritually, with a spirit body with defined gender,[28] and that the Holy Spirit had a similar body, but was to become a member of the three personage Godhead[29] (Godhead consisting of God, or Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost).

Branch Davidians

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Some small Christian groups regard the gender of the Holy Spirit to be female, based on their understanding that the Hebrew word for Spirit, ruach, can be feminine or masculine. Their views derive from skepticism toward Greek primacy for the New Testament.[clarification needed] Foremost among these groups, and the most vocal on the subject are the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists.[citation needed]

In 1977, one of their leaders, Lois Roden, began to formally teach that a feminine Holy Spirit is the heavenly pattern of women. In her many studies and talks she cited numerous scholars and researchers from Jewish, Christian, and other sources. They see in the creation of Adam and Eve a literal image and likeness of the invisible Godhead, male and female, who is "clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made".[30]

They take the Oneness of God to mean the "familial" unity which exists between them, which unity is not seen in any other depiction of the Godhead by the various non-Hebrew peoples. Thus, having a Father and Mother in heaven, they see that the Bible shows that those Parents had a Son born unto them before the creation of the world, by Whom all things were created.[31][32][33][34]

Unity Church

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The Unity Church's co-founder Charles Fillmore considered the Holy Spirit a distinctly feminine aspect of God considering it to be "the love of Jehovah" and "love is always feminine".[35]

Messianic Jews

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The B'nai Yashua Synagogues Worldwide,[36] a Messianic group headed by Rabbi Moshe Koniuchowsky, holds to the feminine view of the Holy Spirit.[37][38] Messianic Judaism is considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity.

There are also some other independent Messianic groups with similar teachings. Some examples include Joy In the World;[39][40] The Torah and Testimony Revealed;[41] Messianic Judaism - The Torah and the Testimony Revealed;[42] and the Union of Nazarene Jewish Congregations/Synagogues,[43][44] who also count as canonical the Gospel of the Hebrews which has the unique feature of referring to the Holy Spirit as Jesus' Mother.[45]

Some scholars associated with mainline denominations, while not necessarily indicative of the denominations themselves, have written works explaining a feminine understanding of the third member of the Godhead.[46]

Moravian Brethren

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There was a well established place in liturgy, prayer and doctrine for the Holy Spirit as the Mother amongst the Moravian Brethren, exemplified by Count Zinzendorf especially.[47]

Gnosticism

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In the Secret Book of John, an ancient codex from the Nag Hammadi Library used in Christian Gnosticism, the divine female principle Barbelo is referred to as the Holy Spirit.[48]

In art

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Main article: The Trinity in art

In Christian iconography, the Holy Spirit is most often represented as a dove. There is also a far less common tradition of depicting the Holy Spirit in human form, usually as male. Thus, Andrei Rublev's The Trinity represents the Trinity as the "three men" who visited Abraham at the oak of Mamre[49] often considered a theophany of the Trinity.[50] In at least one medieval fresco, however, in the St. Jakobus church in Urschalling, Germany, the Holy Spirit is depicted as a female.[51]

References

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^ Jacobs, Joseph and Blau, Ludwig. "Holy Spirit", Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906
^ "In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective 'perfections' of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband." CCC 370.
^ Jump up to:a b c "Catholic Exchange". 24 June 2006. Retrieved 2009-05-13.
^ John 16:7–8
^ Jump up to:a b William D. Mounce, The Morphology of Biblical Greek (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), pp. 241-242
^ John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13-14.
^ Grudem, Wayne (1995). Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. p. 232. ISBN 0-310-28670-0.
^ Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of New Testament Greek (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 332.
^ Susan Ashbrook Harvey, "Feminine Imagery for the Divine: The Holy Spirit, the Odes of Solomon, and Early Syriac Tradition," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 37, nos. 2-3 (1993): 111-120.
^ Acts of Thomas 5:50, quoted in More Than Just a Controversy: All About The Holy Spirit
^ Harvey, "Feminine Imagery," 136.
^ Trigilio, John; Brighenti, Kenneth (2006). The Catholicism Answer Book. Sourcebooks. pp. 7–8. ISBN 978-1-4022-0806-5.
^ Liturgiam Authenticam Archived January 18, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, 31 (a)
^ Feminine-Maternal Images of the Spirit in Early Syriac Tradition, by Emmanuel Kaniyamparampil, O.C.D. Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
^ "Quartz Hill School of Theology".
^ Clark H. Pinnock, "The Role of the Spirit in Creation," Asbury Theological Journal 52 (Spring 1997), 47-54.
^ Thomas N. Finger, Christian Theology:An Eschatological Approach vol. 2 (Scottdale, Penn.:Herald, 1987), 483-490.
^ Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 157-158.
^ Yves M.J. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. 3 (New York: Seabury, 1983), 155-164.
^ John J. O'Donnell, The Mystery of the Triune God (London:Sheed & Ward, 1988), 97-99.
^ Donald L. Gelpi, The Divine Mother: A Trinitarian Theology of the Holy Spirit (New York:University Press of America, 1984).
^ More Than Just a Controversy: All About The Holy Spirit - by R.P. Nettelhorst
^ Chapter Seven - Pneumatology: Doctrine of the Holy Spirit
^ Appendix 3 -The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament - The Occurrences of Spirit
^ "God is not a sexual being, either male or female─something that was considered to be true in ancient Near Eastern religion. He even speaks specifically against such a view in Num 23:19, where the text has Balaam saying God is not a man [ish], and in Deut 4:15–16, in which he warns against creating a graven image in "the likeness of male or female." But though he is not a male, the "formless" deity (Deut 4:15) has chosen to reveal himself largely in masculine ways." House, H. Wayne (reviewer). "God, Gender and Biblical Metaphor." J of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 10:1 (Spring 2005) p. 64
^ Nestle and others, Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgeselschaft, 1993)
^ "Gender Is an Essential Characteristic of Eternal Identity and Purpose", Ensign, Oct. 2008, 67
^ "Strengthening the Family: Created in the Image of God, Male and Female", Ensign, Jan. 2005, 48–49
^ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
^ Romans 1:20
^ "It's all Greek to Them The Holy Spirit He, She, or It?". Archived from the original on 2019-12-01. Retrieved 2009-06-04.
^ The Real Ghost Story
^ "She is a Tree of Life". Archived from the original on 2009-05-01. Retrieved 2009-06-04.
^ "Shelter from the Storm". Archived from the original on 2009-05-01. Retrieved 2009-06-04.
^ Charles Fillmore. Jesus Christ Heals. pp. 182–183.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-04-16. Retrieved 2009-06-04.
^ Who/What is the Ruach HaKodesh? Sermon Delivered 12-25-04 Part One
^ Who/What is the Ruach HaKadosh? Sermon Delivered 1-1-05 Part Two
^ Joy In the World
^ The Ruach HaKodesh: Him Or Her?
^ The Torah and Testimony Revealed
^ Messianic Judaism - The Torah and the Testimony Revealed - Haas genealogy
^ "The Union of Nazarene Jewish Congregations/Synagogues". Archived from the original on 2007-12-10. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
^ "Home". unjs.org. Archived from the original on 2009-03-25. Retrieved 2009-06-04.
^ Gospel of the Hebrews#Content
^ For example, R.P. Nettlehorst, professor at the Quartz Hill School of Theology (associated with the Southern Baptist Convention) has written on the subject. [1][2][3].
^ Atwood, Craig D. (2011-11-19). "Lecture at Moravian Theological Seminary".
^ Marvin Meyer; Willis Barnstone (June 30, 2009). "The Secret Book of John". The Gnostic Bible. Shambhala. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
^ Genesis 18
^ "Rublev's Icon of the Trinity". wellsprings.org.uk. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
^ "Divine Balance".

External links

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More Than Just a Controversy: All About the Holy Spirit

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GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH 1 Timothy 3.16

The aims of the Society ● To publish and distribute the Holy Scriptures throughout the world in many languages. ● To promote Bible translations which are accurate and trustworthy. ● To be instrumental in bringing light and life, through the Gospel of Christ, to those who are lost in sin and in the darkness of false religion and unbelief. ● To uphold the doctrines of reformed Christianity, bearing witness to the equal and eternal deity of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, One God in three Persons. ● To uphold the Bible as the inspired, inerrant Word of God ● For the Glory of God and the increase of His Kingdom through the circulation of Protestant or uncorrupted versions of the Word of God.

www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org

A VITAL DOCTRINE

The architects and advocates of the modern English translations of the Holy Scriptures often assure us that their numerous alterations, omissions and additions do not affect any vital doctrine. While this may be true of hundreds of minute variations, there is nevertheless a substantial number of important doctrinal passages which the modern versions present in an altered and invariably weakened form.

These inspired words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3.16 have always been held to affirm the essential deity and pre-existence of the Lord Jesus Christ, but this testimony is not maintained by the modern versions when they do not unequivocally declare that Christ was “God manifest in the flesh”. The New International Version reads “He appeared in a body” with a footnote stating “some manuscripts God”. The New American Standard Bible has “He who was revealed in the flesh” with a marginal note “Some later mss. read God” (the 1995 Updated Edition omits the note). These, as most modern versions in following the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, omit the deity of Christ in this verse.

EROSION OF THE SACRED TEXT

Countless millions of the Lord’s people, from the dawn of the Christian era to the present day, have read these words in their Bibles precisely as they appear in our Authorised Version, but now this powerful testimony to the Godhead of our Saviour is swept out of the Scriptures and disappears without trace. If we have the temerity to murmur or complain about this erosion of the sacred text of God’s Word, we are liable to be accused of defending the Authorised Version on emotional rather than on rational grounds. However. our present purpose is not so much to vindicate this English translation as to demonstrate that we have good reason to believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write qeo.j evfanerw,qh evn sarki,, “God was manifest in the flesh”. If these were the words of the Holy Spirit, they are to be cherished as truth and not rejected as an ancient perversion of it.

THE TRUTH PROCLAIMED

The vital doctrine attested by this text is briefly set forth in the appendix to the Laws and Regulations of the Trinitarian Bible Society, quoted from the Westminster Confession of Faith (section 8, para 2), “two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one Person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man”. This Confession of Faith was published with an “Epistle to the Reader” subscribed by forty-four able and godly ministers of the Word, including Thomas Manton, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Watson and Matthew Poole.

This preface explains that the “learned composers...were willing to take the pains of annexing scripture proofs to every truth, that the faith of people might not be built upon the dictates of men, but the authority of God”. The Scripture proofs annexed to section 8, para. 2, include 1 Timothy 3.16, “God was manifest in the flesh”. The Westminster Divines evidently regarded this verse as one of the essential proofs of the Trinitarian doctrine of the Bible, that the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God.

THE TRUTH DENIED

The denial of the eternal Godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ has troubled the Church in every period of its history. Although the opponents of the truth have been known by different names, Arians, Socinians, Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others, they have had many things in common, including an intense hostility to the doctrine set forth in this text of Holy Scripture.

GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH x 2 as now returned as Martyn Nathan and Dua = Love - Lipa = Beautiful His Holy Spirit to live amonst their people as it is written 🔑📜🖌🔐🔓🎉

In his Outlines of Theology, Professor A. A. Hodge, expounding the true doctrine on the basis of this verse, declares that Socinians, Arians and Trinitarians worship different gods and that every non-Trinitarian conception of God presents a false god to the mind and conscience. He contends that it is an historical fact beyond dispute that in whatever church the doctrine of the Trinity has been abandoned or obscured, every other characteristic doctrine of the Gospel has gone with it. There can be no mutual toleration without treason. A UNITARIAN AMONG THE REVISERS OF 1881-1885 Unfortunately this “mutual toleration” was attempted by those responsible for the Revised Version, and Dr. G. Vance Smith, minister of St. Saviour’s Gate Unitarian Chapel, York, was invited to join in the revising body. Dr. Smith attended a Communion service in Westminster Abbey in company with the other Revisers and in a letter to The Times of 11th July, 1870, he declared that he received the sacrament without joining in the Creed and without compromise of his principles as a “Unitarian”. This evoked a solemn protest signed by several thousand clergy, and a resolution of the Upper House of Convocation in February, 1871, “That it is the judgment of this House that no person who denies the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ ought to be invited to join either company to which is committed the revision of the Authorised Version of Holy Scripture…and that any such person now on either company should cease to act therewith”. Vance Smith nevertheless remained on the committee. Among passages robbed of their true significance was 1 Timothy 3.16 where “God was manifest in the flesh” was altered to “who was manifest…” This was entirely satisfactory to Dr. Smith, who commented, “The old reading has been pronounced untenable by the Revisers, as it has long been known to be by all careful students of the New Testament… It is another example of the facility with which ancient copyists could introduce the word ‘God’ into their manuscripts – a reading which was the natural result of the -

GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH 3 - growing tendency in early Christian times to look upon the humble Teacher as the incarnate Word, and therefore as ‘God manifested in the flesh’.” Most of the Revisers were also of the opinion that the original words written by the Apostle did not include the name of God, and as a result the Revised Version presents this text in a weakened form. Notwithstanding the hostile note in the margin of the Revised Version at this place, there is abundant ancient evidence for the text as we have it in the Authorised Version, and comparatively little for the adulterated text of the modern versions.

THE PROBLEM STATED

The most ancient surviving manuscripts of the Greek New Testament were written throughout in characters in some respects similar to capital letters (“Uncials”). In these uncial manuscripts it was the normal practice to abbreviate the name of God, using the first and last letters only, with a short line above these two letters as the sign of contraction, thus:- God = qeo.j, in uncials QEOC, abbreviated QC. The Greek word meaning “who” is o]j. The apostrophe fulfils the function of our aspirate “h” and was not written in the uncial form, which was therefore OC. The little stroke in the first letter and the stroke over the two letters were the only means of distinguishing between “God” and “who”, and a moment’s carelessness on the part of the scribe could easily reduce the Divine Name to the simple relative pronoun. The distinguishing strokes were often written very faintly and age and use have made them fainter still. Some early manuscripts have, “the mystery…which was manifested” (Greek o]). Some early copyists saw the obvious grammatical solecism in the wrongly abbreviated reading before them and endeavoured to “correct” it by reducing who to which, thus carrying the error a stage further.

GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH 4 THE PRINTED GREEK EDITIONS

Many modern scholars insist, with the Unitarian Vance Smith, that misguided piety prompted some early copyists or their later correctors to insert these two distinguishing strokes in 1 Timothy 3.16 to make the verse testify to the deity of Christ. The scholars responsible for the earlier Greek editions found “God was manifested” in practically all the manuscripts at their disposal, and they did not question that this was the true reading. The Greek of Ximenes, Erasmus, Beza, Stephanus and the Elzevirs, and the various translations derived from their editions all have “God” in this verse. The 19th and 20th century editions of the Greek prepared by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort, the Revisers of 1881, Nestle-Aland, Souter, Kilpatrick, and the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, have all rejected the name of God from this text and have replaced it with “who”. The effect on the various translations is shown in the following quotations from English and European versions. THE ENGLISH VERSIONS These three were translated from the Latin Vulgate which has quod, which. ❏ Wyclif 1380: “that thing that was schewid in fleisch…” ❏ Rheims-Douay Roman Catholic version 1582: “which was manifested in flesh.” ❏ Ronald Knox modern English R.C. version 1945: “it is a great mystery we worship. Revelation made in human flesh.” The following were translated from the Greek:- ❏ Tyndale 1534: “God was shewed in the flesche.” ❏ Great Bible 1539: “God was shewed in the flesche.” ❏ Geneva New Testament 1557: “God is shewed in the flesche.” ❏ Bishops’ Bible 1568: “God was shewed manifestly in the flesh.”

GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH 5 ❏ King James Version:

“God was manifest in the flesh,” ❏ New King James Version: “God was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ English Standard Version: “He was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ Revised Version of 1885: “He who was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ American Standard Version: “He who was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ New American Standard Version: ‘He who was revealed in the flesh,” ❏ New International Version: “He appeared in a body,” ❏ Today’s New International Version: “He appeared in a body,” ❏ Revised Standard Version: “He was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ New Revised Standard Version: “He was revealed in flesh,” ❏ New Living Translation: “Christ appeared in the flesh” ❏ Young’s Literal Translation: “God was manifested in flesh,” ❏ Douay-Rheims (1899 American edition): “which was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ New Jerusalem Bible: “He was made visible in the flesh,” ❏ New American Bible: “Who was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ Holman Christian Standard Bible: “He was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ New World Translation: “he was made manifest in flesh” ❏ Phillips: “the one who showed himself as a human being,” ❏ New Century Version: “He was shown to us in a human body,” ❏ Revised English Bible: “He was manifested in the flesh,” ❏ Good News Bible: “He appeared in human form,” ❏ Contemporary English Version: “Christ came as a human.” European Versions with “God” ❏ Italian (Diodati): “Iddio e state manifestato in carne.” ❏ French (Osterwald): “Dieu a ete manifeste en chair.” ❏ Spanish (Valera): “Dios ha side manifestado en carne.” ❏ German (Luther): “Gott ist offenbaret im Fleisch.” ❏ Portuguese (Almeida): “Dens se manifestou em carne.” …and many others.

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THE DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE FOR ASCERTAINING THE TRUE TEXT

I t must be acknowledged that none of the original autograph writings of the Apostles has been discovered, but there are now over 5,300 New Testament manuscripts available, greatly varying in age, extent and reliability. Of these a comparatively small number of ancient manuscripts are in “uncial” or capital letters, and the majority are in small characters and are referred to as “minuscules” or “cursives”. Many of the cursives were derived from manuscripts more ancient than any now in existence. Dr. Scrivener, probably the most able textual scholar of the 19th century, described these as respectable ancestors who are known to us only through their descendants. Apart from papyrus fragments, the oldest existing manuscripts cannot be assigned to a date earlier than the middle of the fourth century. Before and after that period translations were undertaken in several languages including Syriac, Latin, Coptic, Sahidic, Bohairic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian and Slavonic. Some of these translations were made from Greek manuscripts more ancient than any we now possess. Existing manuscripts of these versions are not of very ancient date and they have suffered at the hands of transcribers, but they yield valuable testimony to the contents of the ancient Greek manuscripts used by the translators in those early times. A wealth of evidence is also furnished by the copious writings of early Christian scholars from the 1st century onwards, usually referred to as the “Fathers”, who quoted often and at length from the Greek Scriptures then in their hands. Although the existing manuscripts of these writings are not all of the greatest antiquity, they often serve as a guide to the Greek text as it was known to Christian readers in the earliest period of the history of the Church.

GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH 7

THE MOST ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS

The most ancient surviving Greek manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures differ greatly from each other and exhibit the worst corruptions of the text in great abundance. Many of the later manuscripts were executed with far greater care and are more reliable guides to the true text. The early manuscripts were adulterated in various ways, sometimes through mere carelessness, sometimes through ignorance of the language, sometimes through deliberate heretical attempts to suppress what was written, and sometimes through pious but misguided endeavours to embellish or enlarge upon what was written. It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected originated within a hundred years after it was composed; and that Irenaeus and the African Fathers, and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used manuscripts far inferior to those employed by Stunica, Erasmus or Stephens thirteen centuries later when moulding the Textus Receptus. (F. H. A. Scrivener, Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament) HERESIES RELATING TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST During the first four centuries of the present era the peace of the Church was disturbed by a number of heresies relating to the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit. It is significant that two very ancient manuscripts belonging to the latter part of this period, the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, present in a weakened form a whole series of important passages concerned with these vital doctrines. These two documents, which have been favoured by modern scholars engaged in the translation of the Holy Scriptures, represent a very small minority of the existing manuscripts. The 19th century witnessed a steady drift away from the deity of

GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH 8

Christ and towards “unitarianism”. It is not surprising that scholars who have been caught up in this tide of unbelief should welcome the support of these unreliable documents. It is more than unfortunate that earnest evangelical Christians who do not doubt the deity of our Lord should be prepared to surrender such precious declarations of God’s Holy Word without even attempting to examine and assess the evidence. It must also be admitted that some able evangelical scholars have examined the evidence and have been persuaded that they should reject the name of God from this verse, and that the text in its weakened form may still be understood to relate to Christ. The diluted rendering has thus been favoured by Unitarians, Roman Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, liberals and also by some whose evangelical integrity has been beyond reproach. Are we then right when we insist that Paul was inspired to write “God was manifested in the flesh” or may we safely accept one of the alternatives – “who was manifested”, “He was manifested”, “He who was manifested”, or “which was manifested”? It is self evident that these statements do not affirm the same truth and that they cannot all be right. Think about what this says. “He was manifested in the flesh” or, as the NIV says, “He appeared in a body” could be said about any human being. Henry the VIII appeared in a body. You have a body. Paul himself was manifested in the flesh, but only Christ was God manifest in the flesh. Any man of Nazareth would be manifest in the flesh, but only Jesus of Nazareth was God manifest in the flesh. THE CLAIMS MADE BY THE REVISERS OF 1881 Many of the assertions of the Revisers are not in accordance with the facts. Dr. Roberts, a Presbyterian member of the Revision Committee, Bishop Ellicott the Chairman, and Westcott and Hort, whose Greek Text was in the hands of the Revisers, all allege that the word “God” in this text is not supported by the early Greek manuscripts,

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by the ancient versions or by the early Christian writers. They also claim that the reading, “Who was manifested” has powerful testimony from these ancient sources, and that it is more probable that “God” has been spuriously added to the majority of manuscripts than that the divine name has been accidentally omitted from the minority, or reduced to the relative pronoun “who”. PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE ERRONEOUS READING The practice of writing “God” in an abbreviated form in the uncial manuscripts made the distinction between “God” and “who” dependent upon two small strokes, one written within the first letter and the other written above the two letters. An accident or deliberate omission of these two strokes would be sufficient to account for the substitution of “who” in a very ancient manuscript from which a few later manuscripts were derived. Transcribers confronted with the odd reading, “Great is the mystery who was manifested”, would be tempted to make the sentence grammatical by altering “who” to “which”, and achieved this by a further abbreviation of the Greek o]j to o]. This reading survives in a few manuscripts, including the Codex D of the 6th century. THE DOUBTFUL VALUE OF THE SINAI MANUSCRIPT Westcott and Hort and many modern scholars have attached great importance to the Vatican manuscript, but this does not contain the First Epistle to Timothy at all. The only Greek manuscript of great antiquity which can plausibly be quoted in favour of “who” is the Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th century, but this manuscript is characterised by numerous alterations and omissions. A comparison of these three manuscripts with the Received Text reveals 2,877 omissions in the Vatican manuscript, 3,455 omissions in the Sinai manuscript, and 3,704 omissions in Codex D. In view of these figures a small but significant omission from

GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH 10

1 Timothy 3.16 in the Sinai manuscript and a larger omission in Codex D would hardly seem beyond the bounds of possibility. THE TESTIMONY OF THE CODEX ALEXANDRINUS “A” This almost complete uncial manuscript, probably of the 5th century, was given to King Charles I of England by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, and is displayed in the British Museum near to the Codex Sinaiticus. Codex Alexandrinus is a very important witness to the deity of Christ in this passage. The critics assert that it originally had “who” and that a later hand altered this to “God” by adding the two strokes required. However, many distinguished scholars who have examined this manuscript during the last three hundred years have explained that these strokes were written in the original manuscript, that they had become indistinct with the passage of the centuries and had been written over at a later time to make them clearer, and that the original strokes could still be discerned. The passage has been examined so many times that the parchment is worn away, rendering its present evidence doubtful, but we may refer to the weighty opinions of those who had the manuscript in their hands long ago. They agreed that it supports the Received Text, “God was manifest in the flesh”. Patrick Young had custody of this manuscript from AD 1628-1652 and he assured Archbishop Ussher that the original reading was “God”. In 1657 Huish collated the manuscript for Walton, who printed “God” in his massive Polyglot. Bishop Pearson wrote in 1659 “we find not ‘who’ in any copy”. Mill worked on his edition of the Greek from 1677 to 1707 and clearly states that he found “God” in the Codex Alexandrinus at this place. In 1718 Wotton wrote, “There can be no doubt that this manuscript always read ‘God’ in this place”. In 1716 Wetstein wrote, “Though the middle stroke has been retouched, the fine stroke originally in the letter is discernible at each end of the fuller stroke of the corrector”.

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In his “Lectures on the true reading of 1 Timothy 3.16” (1737- 1738) Berriman declared, “If at any time the old line should become all together indiscernible there will never be just cause to doubt but that the genuine and original reading of this manuscript was ‘God’ ”. Woide, who edited this Codex in 1785, remarked that he had seen traces of the original stroke in 1765 which had ceased to be clearly visible twenty years later. One of the 1881 Revisers, Prebendary Scrivener, who examined the manuscript at least twenty times, asserted that in 1861 he could still discern the all-important stroke which Berriman had seen more clearly in 1741. THE EVIDENCE PROVIDED BY OTHER GREEK MANUSCRIPTS The great majority of the Greek manuscripts have “God was manifested”, and very few indeed have “who” or “which”. At the time of the Revision nearly three hundred Greek manuscripts were known to give indisputable support to the Received Text, while not more than a handful of Greek manuscripts could be quoted in favour of “who” or “which”. It is thus apparent that the correct and best attested reading of this verse is preserved in the Authorised Version. THE TESTIMONY OF THE ANCIENT VERSIONS Almost all of the ancient versions appear to read “who” or “which” instead of “God” in this passage: namely, the Old Latin, Latin Vulgate, Coptic, Peshitta-Syriac, Gothic, Armenian and Ethiopic translations. However, modern scholars have been inclined to overestimate the value of the testimony of the ancient versions in this place. The Peshitta-Syriac version was evidently influenced by Greek manuscripts like Codex D and the Latin versions, which have “which was manifested” instead of “God was manifested”. This reading no doubt would have become popular at a time of Nestorian influence in the Syrian Church. Nestorius denied the union of the two natures of God and man in the one

GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH 12

Person of Christ. He was accused of teaching that there were two distinct persons – the Person of God the Son and the Person of the man Christ Jesus. This teaching was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in AD 431 at which Cyril of Alexandria presided. (Cyril himself witnesses in favour of “God” in 1 Timothy 3.16.) The Syriac version was older by two centuries than the Nestorian heresy, and it is possible that the earliest Syriac manuscripts had “God was manifested”. Under the influence of the Latin versions the later Syriac manuscripts could have been altered to read “which was manifested”. This reading would be acceptable to the Nestorian element because it appeared to be in harmony with their error, and it would be acceptable to any of the orthodox who were prepared to regard the Apostle’s words as an allusion to Colossians 1.27 and 2.2 and therefore a personal tribute to Christ. One of the Syriac versions, which was remarkable for its literal adherence to the Greek, was attributed to Philoxenus Bishop of Hierapolis in Eastern Syria, AD 488-518. This version actually includes the name of God in 1 Timothy 3.16 and indicates that Philoxenus found “God” in the Greek or Syriac manuscripts in his hands. THE GOTHIC VERSION Another ancient version likely to prefer the weaker rendering of this important verse was the Gothic translation by Ulphilas, who became Bishop of the Goths in AD 348. He was known to favour the heresy of Arius, who denied the pre-existence of the Son of God, affirming that He was created by God and not of one substance with the Father. Existing manuscripts of the Gothic version indicate some measure of corruption from Latin sources. The Latin versions all have “which was manifested”. Finding this erroneous reading in the sources available to him, Ulphilas would have no difficulty in adopting it, but would be likely to welcome it as favourable to his “Arian” views.

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THE ARMENIAN AND ETHIOPIC VERSIONS The 5th century Armenian version was influenced partly by the Syriac and partly by the Latin. Extant manuscripts differ greatly from each other and closely resemble the Latin Vulgate. It is probable that when the Armenian church submitted to Rome in the 13th century the Armenian text was revised in accordance with the Latin. The Ethiopic version was probably translated in the 6th or 7th century, but extant manuscripts are of comparatively recent date. According to Scrivener, it was the work of someone whose knowledge of Greek was far from perfect and the text has numerous interpolations from Syriac and Arabic sources. The present text may be compounded from two or more translations, and great caution is needed in applying this version to the criticism of the New Testament. An accidental or deliberate omission in one early Greek copy gave rise to a small company of similarly defective Greek manuscripts. These influenced the Latin versions, which in their turn influenced the versions in several other languages. These versions cannot therefore be regarded as witnesses of indisputable authority against the Received reading, “God was manifest in the flesh”, which is supported by the majority of the Greek manuscripts. Nor can the ancient versions be fairly quoted in support of “the mystery…who was manifested”. In this particular text they have more in common with the old Latin “quod manifestum est” – “which was manifested”, an ancient error also found in the Greek Codex D and still reflected by the Roman Catholic versions. THE TESTIMONY OF THE “FATHERS” Bishop Ellicott insisted that the reading “God”, as in the Received Text, was a “plain and clear error” and that there was decidedly preponderating evidence for “who”. His “preponderating evidence” included an imposing list of ancient writers, but it is evident that his judgment of this class of evidence was affected by his strong prejudice against the Received Text.

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The early writers allowed themselves great latitude in quoting the general sense of passages of Scripture relevant to their subject and it was not always incumbent upon them to quote the whole verse in every context. If an enemy of the truth denied that Christ had a natural body, the orthodox writer would emphasise that “Christ was manifest in the FLESH”. If anyone questioned whether his natural body was visible, the writer would remind him that, “He was MANIFEST in the flesh”. In other contexts it might be equally suitable to the writer’s purpose to write “One who was manifest in the flesh”, or “He who was manifest in the flesh”, while the copy upon the writer’s desk contained the full reading, “God was manifest in the flesh”. EXPOSITORS OFTEN QUOTE ONLY WHAT IS IMMEDIATELY RELEVANT TO THEIR THEME Even at the present time a minister accustomed to use no other version but the Authorised Version may well mention in his sermon, prayers and written articles, “One who was manifested in the flesh in the mysterious miracle of the incarnation”, and none of his hearers or readers would imagine for one moment that the word “God” was missing from his text in the preacher’s Bible. It must therefore be allowed that early writers availed themselves of the same liberty without intending to conceal the full reading. These same early writers would no doubt have been astonished if they had been told that Biblical scholars today would read such an inference into their quotations. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA This principle may be illustrated from Cyril of Alexandria who wrote “God manifest…” in two places, while in another he wrote, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor indeed the great mystery of Godliness, that is Christ, who was manifested in the flesh”. Elsewhere he wrote, “I consider the mystery of godliness to be no other but the Word of God the Father, who Himself was manifested in the flesh”. These uses of “who” cannot be quoted against the presence of “God” in the manuscripts in Cyril’s hands.

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GREGORY OF NYSSA The critics have done their best to demolish the evidence of the 5th century Codex Alexandrinus, but Gregory of Nyssa frequently and powerfully testified for “God manifest in the flesh” at least a hundred years before this manuscript was written. Gregory died in AD 394 and his life spanned the period during which the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus was written. In those of his writings that have survived he has “God” in this text no less than twenty-two times. Even distinguished textual critics have been capable of “plain and clear errors”. Griesbach quoted Gregory of Nyssa as hostile to the Received Text, but he appears to have borrowed this information from Wetstein before passing it on to Scholz and Alford. The words quoted by Wetstein were not the words of Gregory at all, but the opinion of Apollinaris against whom Gregory was writing. Euthalius in the 5th century attributed to a “wise and pious Father” the section title for 1 Timothy 3.16-4.7. This title makes mention of “God incarnate” and was used by Gregory of Nyssa in his dispute with Apollinaris in the 4th century. Diodorus of Tarsus (died AD 370) quotes Paul’s actual words and asserts that he finds them in Paul’s epistle to Timothy. Chrysostom (died AD 407) has at least three references to God manifest in the flesh, and there can be no doubt that this reading was prevalent in the 4th century. The testimony of Dionysius of Alexandria carries the attestation of the Received Text back to AD 264. It has been alleged that the letter to Paul of Samosata was not actually the work of Dionysius, but it cannot be denied that it belongs to the 3rd century and has “God”. Obvious allusions to this text in the writings of Ignatius, Barnabas and Hippolytus make it clear that Christian readers in the 2nd century found in their Scriptures what we find in our Authorised Version – a declaration that “God was manifest in the flesh”.

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Among 5th century witnesses was a writer formerly confused with Athanasius. At the time of the Nestorian controversy this now anonymous writer insisted that the correct reading was “God”. This writer would have settled the great debate about the testimony of the Codex Alexandrinus in favour of “God”. The anonymity of the writer does not weaken the force of his testimony. The Vatican, Sinai and Alexandrian manuscripts are all “anonymous” and so are most of the ancient documents. THE WEAKNESS OF THE “ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE” Westcott and Hort and other modern scholars have argued that if the correct reading had been “God manifest…” Origen and Eusebius would have quoted it. Nothing can be proved in this way. It is known with absolute certainty that Gregory of Nyssa read “God manifest…”, but it will never be known why he did not quote this text in his treatise on the deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit. If this treatise were the only surviving work of Gregory of Nyssa, scholars would wrongly argue from his “silence” that he could not have read “God” in the Greek manuscripts in his hands. The critics include the silence of Origen and Eusebius among their arguments for the rejection of the Received reading, “God was manifest”, but there are other cases where the testimony of Origen and Eusebius has been regarded by the same modern scholars as being of little value. For instance, in the Authorised Version, Matthew 5.22 reads, “…whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment”. In the modern versions the words “without a cause” are omitted on little more evidence than that of the Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus and Jerome’s Latin. In this place the Received Text and the Authorised Version have the support of nearly all other extant manuscripts, all the Syriac and Old Latin manuscripts, and the Memphitic, Armenian and Gothic versions. Eusebius, the Latin Fathers from Irenaeus and Origen’s old Latin version all bear the same testimony, but all are set aside in favour of the Sinai and Vatican manuscripts. A note in the Greek text underlying the New English Bible announces that the translators regarded “without a cause” as “an early explanatory addition”.

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The reader is entitled to doubt whether these scholars have attached sufficient weight to the external evidence and to wonder to what extent subjective presumptions of the superiority of the Vatican and Sinai manuscripts have influenced their assessment of all the other documents. THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE Dr. Bloomfield and other learned authorities have demonstrated that the new reading “the mystery…who was manifested” violates all the rules of construction and exhibits only too clearly the marks of accidental or deliberate corruption. The context makes it plain that Paul is presenting six propositions relating to the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose divine Person – God was (1) Manifest in the flesh (2) Justified in the Spirit (3) Seen of angels (4) Preached unto the Gentiles (5) Believed on in the world (6) Received up into glory. It cannot be doubted that the weak alternative is old, but it is an ancient error. From the earliest times a host of reliable documentary witnesses have survived to assure us that the first readers of Paul’s Epistle to Timothy read this verse as we read it here. THE MISLEADING CHARACTER OF THE MARGINAL NOTES IN MODERN TRANSLATIONS Most modern versions have a footnote which attempts to explain in general terms the textual reason for removing the deity of Christ. The New Revised Standard Version has in the text, “He was revealed in flesh” and a marginal note, “Gk Who; other ancient authorities read God; others, Which”.

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The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 1 Thou Mother of Compassion, come Come, thou revealer of the Mysteries concealed... Come, thou who givest joy to all who are at one with Thee Come and commune with us in this thanksgiving... —Gnostic hymn [Drinker, 150] Before the Roman triumph of Christianity, serious disagreements had already appeared among the believers. Gnostics were the first Christians to be expelled from the church as heretics. But not all Gnostics were Christian. Jewish Gnosticism predated Christianity, and pagan Gnostics who praised Prometheus and the Titans for opposing the tyranny of Zeus. [Geger, 168; Godwin, 85] Persian dualism, Hellenistic Neo-Platonism, and Egyptian mysticism were all influential in shaping Gnosticism. There was no one unified body of Gnostic belief. Though some Gnostic gospels were among the earliest Christian texts, all were banned from the orthodox canon that became the New Testament. Most people don't realize that the New Testament is a carefully screened selection from a much larger body of Christian scriptures. The others were not simply excluded from the official collection, but were systematically destroyed when Christianity became the state religion. [Epiphanius, in Legge, xliii] Egyptian Gnostics managed to protect an important cache of scriptures from the book-burners by burying them in large jars. Until the discovery of these Nag Hammadi scrolls in 1947, what little was known of the Gnostics came mostly from their sworn enemies, the orthodox clergy. [Pagels 1979: xxxv, xvii; Allegro, 108; Wentz, 363fn, lists a few surviving manuscripts known by 1900.] One of the few scriptures that did survive intact is the Pistis Sophia, while others are known fragmentarily from quotations in orthodox writings, especially those of Irenaeus and Hippolytus of Rome. Among the anathematized scriptures were writings featuring Wisdom as a creative female divinity. Some highlighted female disciples of Yeshua, particularly Maryam of Magdala, as advanced initiates into secret teachings unknown to the male disciples. For example, the Pistis Sophia names Mary Magdalene, Salome and Martha. [Legge, 51, 55] Some Gnostics maintained that the three Marys were part of the inner circle of Christian disciples and that women were present at the Last Supper. (They must have been, since it was a Seder; the Christian bible says that Jesus “lay down at table” with the disciples—reclining was the custom at Seders). [Schussler-Fiorenza, 55]) A woman, possibly Mary Magdalene, sits at the Last Supper in early murals of the Roman catacombs. [Drinker, 154-5] Female leadership is a key theme in the writings, and in contemporary accounts about these communities. Tertullian complained that Gnostics elected women priests, bishops and prophets to baptize, teach, exorcize and heal. They rejected authoritarian priesthood and gave the kiss of peace to all: “they all have access equally, they listen equally, they pray equally—even pagans, if any happen to come.” [Pagels 1979: 42] Tertullian was horrified that females were not barred from priestly acts: These heretical women—how audacious they are! They have no modesty; they are bold enough to teach, to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, and, it may be, even to baptize! [De Praescriptione Haereticorum, in Pagels 1979: 60] Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons noticed that women were especially drawn to heresy. He explained the female defections from his own congregation by calumniating the Gnostic Marcus as a sorcerer and seducer who used aphrodisiacs. The bishop refused to acknowledge the real reason for women’s attraction to this community: that Marcus encouraged women to prophesy (which meant to “preach,” in early Christian parlance). Another aspect of his congregation’s appeal were its prayers to feminine forms of the Divine— Wisdom, Silence, Grace. [Pagels 1979: 59] For Irenaeus these were just more reasons to disparage them. GNOSTIC MYSTICISM The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 2 The Gnostic approach to Christianity had a strong pagan tinge. Its symbolic teachings were transmitted “in secret and by a method of initiation and allegory which was directly copied from the Mysteries then current in the pagan world...” [Legge, iii, xli] For the institutional church, Jesus was divine in a way humans could never attain, and salvation came only through him. But Gnostics saw Jesus as a person who had attained realization, and they followed him in seeking the source of divinity in “the depth” of Being. [Valentinus, in Pagels 1979: 37] In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out... He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am; I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.” [Gospel of Thomas, 13, 108, online] Similar passages survived even in the canonical scriptures, here and there: “... you will do the same things I do. You will do even greater things than I do.” [John 14:12] Gnostic spiritual practice aimed for reunion of human consciousness with the Pleroma, the “fullness” pervading the universe. [Allegro, 112-3] A saying attributed to Simon Magus describes “an infinite power... the root of the universe” living in everyone. [Hippolytus, in Pagels 1979: 134]

The Gospel of Truth says “... in you dwells the light that does not fail...” [Pagels 1979: 128] The Arab Gnostic Monoimus taught that theology was not the right starting point, and counseled seekers to stop thinking about external matters, and to look for the divine within instead. Understanding would come from investigating the origins of the passions and involuntary states, and the discovery of Deity, “unity and plurality, in thyself.” The human is a reflection of the Mother-Father, which is like a musical harmony that “manifests all things, and generates all things.” [in Hippolytus, VIII, V, online] These teachings were not new, nor were they uniquely Christian. In fact, when Yeshua says that “The kingdom of God is within you” he is speaking as a Jew, although his words are recorded in the Christian Gospel of Luke. Kemetic temple inscriptions exhorted the seeker to “Know thyself,” a saying later inscribed at Delphi. It was adopted by Greek sages like Socrates and Pindar, who wrote “Learn what you are and be such.” [Allegro, 223] Self-knowledge involved becoming aware of past lives, according to the Anatolian Theodotus, seeking consciousness of “who we were, and what we have become... from what we are being released; what birth is, and what is rebirth.” [Pagels 1979: xix] Gnostics believed in the growth and perfectibility of the soul over countless lifetimes. They sought to progress through meditation, chanting, retreats to the wilderness, austerities, the praise of silence. Modern scholars remark on the similarities to Hinduism or Buddhism, something that the ancients recognized. Around the year 225, Hippolytus named the “brahmins” as an influence on Gnosticism, citing vegetarianism, the concept of god as light, and adepts wise in Nature’s mysteries. [Pagels 1979: xxi] Many Christians believed in reincarnation, especially the Egyptians, including Origen and Synesius of Ptolemais. Origen's writings show his conviction that past actions bore fruit in later lifetimes. He was later declared a heretic for it, and others followed. Centuries later, the Church hierarchy was fighting this still-widespread belief. In 553 the council of Constantinople decreed: “Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the Soul, and the consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema.” [Wentz, 359fn, 362] Gnostics passed on secret, unwritten teachings about how to reach heightened states of consciousness. Traces remain in the Nag Hammadi scrolls, which recommend austerities, chanting, and meditation in silence. The sage Zostrianos went into the desert seeking visions of the eternal Light. He counseled seekers to overcome physical desires and still the “chaos in mind” through meditation. [Pagels, 135-6] In Allogenes , the glorious Youel speaks of a Triple Power which exists in silence, but emits a beelike sound: “zza zza zza...” Stilling the self is the secret to realizing this state. [Allogenes, online] The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth also recommends seeking in silence. The teacher tells his disciple, “Language is not able to reveal this. For the entire Eighth, my son, and the souls that are in it, and the angels, sing a hymn in silence.” [Braschler et al, online] Gnostics often conceived of the eternal mystic Silence as the Mother. Some said that Sige (Silence) was God's female partner, as bishop Irenaeus related, while the scripture Eugnostos the Blessed names her as "Sophia, Mother of the Universe, whom some call Love." [Parrot, online] Here, and The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 3 throughout Gnostic scriptures, we find strong echoes of Hebrew traditions of Khokhmah, “Wisdom.” The Gnostic Valentinus paired the Primal Father, the Word, with “Mother of the All,” who was Grace, Silence, Womb. His disciple Marcus said that communion wine was her blood. [Pagels 1979: 52-3, 55] Paired divinities were characteristic of many Gnostic sects, including several that paired Jesus with Sophia. Other Gnostics declared that God was neither male nor female—or both. [Arthur, 54] Sige (Silence) was called “God the Father and God the Mother.” [Alexandre, 426] The Apochryphon of John refers to Deity as matropater, the “mother-father." [Arthur, 7]

SOPHIA Egypt, whose ancient religion deeply influenced Gnostic philosophy, still revered its goddesses. Isaic aretalogies (praise-songs based on the affirmation “I am”) made their way into several Gnostic scriptures. The Gospel of Thomas contains an invocation from ancient litanies of Isis: “Come, lady revealing hidden secrets...” [Holland-Smith, 68; find Budge cite] In an aretalogy embedded in the Apocryphon of John, a goddess descends into “the inner part of Emente”—Amentet, the old Kemetic name for the underworld—like Inanna or Persephone. [Arthur, 167] Great Isis had become syncretized in Egypt with Judaic Wisdom traditions of Khokhmah, the female presence that took part in the creation. Her name was translated into Greek as Sophia and other Hellenistic names. The writings of Philo (a Hellenistic Egyptian Jew) and Plutarch identified Isis as Sophia (“Wisdom”). [Long, 46; Allegro, 157] The early, pre-Christian Gnostic scripture Eugnostos the Blessed hail “the all-wise Sophia, Genetrix.” The Origin of the World praises her as the being “who created great luminaries and all of the stars and placed them in the heaven so that they should shine upon the earth”. [Arthur, 65] This verse clearly echoes the Isis aretalogy of Cyme: “I divided earth from heaven, I created the ways of the stars...” [Long, 84] The first words in the Bible are Be reshít: “In the beginning…” The Hebrew name Reshít represents Wisdom in the Palestinian Targum and the Samaritan Liturgy. Several Greek texts draw on these traditions in addressing the goddess as Arche (“beginning”). [Arthur, 61] Other scriptures name the Divine Female as Ennoia (Thought), Pronoia (Forethought) or Protennoia (Primal Thought), Pistis (Faith), Eidea (Image, Ideal), or Charis (Grace). [Long, 87ff; Arthur, 55; Legge, xxxix] These Greek titles were often used interchangeably with Sophia. The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth emphasizes the primacy of Arche (the Beginning): “I have found the Arche of the power which is over every power, she who is without Arche. I see a spring which is bubbling over with life.” [in Arthur, 172] In another text, the waters reflect the image of Pistis Sophia, infused with animist power: “the holy water makes all things alive. It purifies.” [Pronoia intrusion, Origin of the World, in Arthur, 129] Irenaeus tells us that the Gnostics regarded Arche as a mother without origin: “another Monogenes.” This title of “singly-born” was still in play as a Goddess attribute, although the evangelist version of Jesus as “only-begotten son” was fast overtaking older pagan meanings. [Arthur, 61; see chapter 3] Goddess traditions persisted among the Sethian Gnostics in Egypt. Hippolytus wrote that they celebrated rites “very closely bordering upon those orgies of the 'Great Mother' which are observed among the Phliasians.” [Arthur, 32, 31; Hippolytus meant Phlya, known for its ancient Goddess mysteries, and not Phlious as the text implies.] (As I explain elsewhere in this series, orgias was an old Greek name for land ceremonies that, because of their association with women’s mysteries, underwent a Isis Ermouthis, a serpent form, from Paym, Fayum. The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 4 strongly gendered reinterpretation as a sexually scandalous pejorative.) Epiphanius reported that the Sethians revered “the Mother and Female.” They said that the “Mother of All” planted a seed of power in her creation, which became Seth, the ancestor of the Perfect and of Jesus. [Doresse, 39] The biblical god sent the Flood to punish humans for not worshipping him, but “Wisdom opposed him.” She saved Noah's family by showering light on them. [Pagels 1979: 55]

THE DIVINE BARBELO Barbelo is another syncretic goddess of Egyptian Gnosticism. Her presentation as a divine emanation of god resembles Khokhmah. The Sethian scripture Allogenes calls her “the first Arche of blessedness, the Aeon of Barbelo, full of divinity, and the first Arche of that one without Arche, the spiritual invisible Triple Power, the All that is higher than perfect.” [Arthur, 165] Many writers refer to Mother Barbelo as part of a trinity, along with the Father and Son. Here the Christian influence comes into view, but it is tempered by Egyptian themes: the trinity abides in the female sphere of the “Eighth.” [Pagels, 166; Arthur, 166. Epiphanius said that the Gnostics placed Barbelo with Christ in the Eighth heaven. [Doresse, 43] The Trimorphic Protennoia exalts “Barbelo, the perfect glory, and the immeasurable Invisible One who is hidden.” She is called Protennoia—Primal Thought—who “dwells in the Light.” This scroll begins with an aretalogy that praises her as “the movement that dwells in the All...she who exists before the All.” From her originated a trinity of Father, Mother, and Son. [Trimorphic Protennoia, online] I move in every creature... I am the Invisible One within the All... It is I who poured forth the water. It is I who am hidden by radiant waters. It is I who gradually put forth the All by my Thought. It is I who am laden with the Voice. It is through me that Gnosis comes forth.” [Trimorphic Protennoia, online] Protennoia’s connection with the waters recalls the primal flood of Neith and Isis, who brought forth the Nile inundation. And like both goddesses gave birth to the sun, Neit to Ra and Isis to Horus, Protennoia proclaims, “I am the Womb that gives shape to the All by giving birth to the Light that shines in splendor. I am the Aeon to come. I am the fulfilment of the All, that is, Meirothea, the glory of the Mother.” [Trimorphic Protennoia, online] Attempts to reconcile conflicting traditions generated contradictions in the Barbelo literature. The Gospel of the Egyptians says that Barbelo “originated from herself,” as the ancients had said of Neith, Mother of the Gods. [http://gnosis.org/naghamm/goseqypt.html] But the Three Stelas of Seth represent her as “the first shadow of the holy Father,” who existed before her. Its author addresses her with feminine pronouns, but paradoxically praises her as “the male virginal Barbelo.”[Arthur, 165-6] A later passage reverts to goddess imagery: Thou art a Sophia. Thou art a Gnosis. Thou art truth. Because of thee, there is life. Life is from thee. Because of thee, there is mind... Thou art a cosmos of truth. Thou art a triple power... [Arthur, 166] The Sethian trinity was made up of Light, Breath, and Darkness. The Peratae had it as Father, Son and Matter, with the Son mediating between the exalted Father and a passive female principle. [Both according to the Philosophumena, in Doresse, 52, 50] The male supremacist underpinnings are clear. But there is no single Gnostic doctrine, but an exuberant diversity of them. Frequently contradictory positions are even expressed within the same text, since many of the scriptures are layered composites that underwent revisions and interpolations. The Apochryphon of John contains another aretalogy of “the perfect Pronoia of the universe,” who was the First. She represents “the light which exists in light,” but wandered in the great darkness, “into the midst of the prison,” and the depths of the underworld. [Arthur, 167] However, this book unfavorably compared “sister Sophia” to Barbelo. The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 5 A splitting of Gnostic goddess images was underway, in the process of subordinating the creative female Wisdom to “the Father.” Christian authors disparaged the independence of a goddess not firmly partnered to a male god. Their altered Gnostic aretalogies reflect an emerging concept of a “fallen” goddess. Rose Arthur explains, “Themes such as the impossibility of the feminine to conceive by herself, of the dependency of Sophia upon Christ, of the ‘fault’ of the psychic woman, and the regenerative force of the male spirit are common and basic in developed Christian Gnosticism.” [Arthur, 59] The very female-positive scripture Trimorphic Protennoia, does not assign fault to Sophia but speaks instead of her defeat by the archons: “from the time when the innocent Sophia was conquered, she who descended...” [TP, online] The longest aretalogy appears in Thunder, Perfect Mind. It follows the form of the old Isis litanies: I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin I am the mother and the daughter I am the members of my mother I am the barren one, and many are her sons.... I am the silence that is incomprehensible And the idea whose remembrance is frequent And the word whose appearance is multiple I am the utterance of my name. [Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of an Ancient Religion, 1984, in Long] Further on there is a veiled but pointed reference to Isis: I am the Sophia of the Greeks And the Gnosis of the barbarians I am one whose image is great in Egypt... But unlike the pagan aretalogies, Thunder is dualistic, pairing negatives—“ignorance... shame... fear”—with the divine qualities of the goddess, who it treats with much more ambivalence. Still, it can also be regarded as lifting up the despised; Elaine Pagels calls the conception of the Divine “a presence found not only in palaces but also where one least expects it: “cast out upon the dung heap... among those who are disgraced ... among those violently slain.” [Pagels 2012: 98] Rose Arthur reasons that Thunder was originally titled The Divine Barbelo, based on the abbreviations used and the association of Barbelo with the title “Perfect Mind.” [Arthur, 7, 164, 173-5] She points out that some lines in Thunder also resemble verses in the “Song of the Woman” in another Gnostic text, Origin of the World. That scripture attributes the song to Eve, and assigns her a male lord not present in Thunder. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, Eve no longer speaks; now similar declarations about her are put in the mouth of Adam. [Arthur, 162, 148] FEMALE CREATORS AND CULTURE SHEROES To understand the demotion of goddesses that accumulated in Gnostic mythology, we need to examine the older strands in which Egyptian Gnostics go out of their way to affirm the creative power of a Mother of All, and to critique her omission from the biblical account. These Gnostics embraced the Wisdom goddess as a power higher than the god who created the world. A markedly Egyptian sensibility is expressed in the Origin of the World, a Sahidic Coptic scripture among the Nag Hammadi scrolls. It mixes Greek names in with Hebrew ones, reflecting the influence of these cultures in Egypt at the time. The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 6 Although this text has been Christianized, it still shows a goddess as the major force in creation. It restores Eve to her primordial sacred status as the Mother of All Living. Negative comments about the male creator are embedded in the beginning and end of this text, but conflict with its main thrust. Its author is keenly aware of the Genesis account, but poses a counter-interpretation. The biblical name for god, Elohim, is taken as a plural indicating multiple entities (rather than the ending –im acting as a grammatical intensifier). This text uses elohim to stand for the archons (elemental powers).

Sophia is described as existing in the beginning, even before Chaos. She flowed out of Pistis (“faith”) in the form of “primeval light.” And immediately her will manifested itself as a likeness of heaven, having an unimaginable magnitude...” Her wish brought a great power into being, which became like a veil between the immortals and those who came into being after them. A shadow arose, that gave birth to envy and wrath, and became like dark waters of immeasurable deepness. Pistis appeared over it, and was disturbed at what had come into being "through her fault." [Arthur, 188-89; Young, 54] Then Pistis Sophia caused a lion-like spirit to come into being out of the waters, to rule over the world of matter. She called him Yaldabaoth, Aramaic for “child of chaos” (yalda bahut). [“Ophites,” in the Jewish Encyclopedia, online] He had power, but did not know how he came to be, and was “ignorant of the power of Pistis.” And she “withdrew up to her light.” The godling concluded that he alone existed. Now the author makes a direct link to the Genesis creation story: Yaldabaoth's thought becomes the word, and moves over the waters as a spirit, and he separates the waters and land, making heaven and earth. But this male godling is unaware of the goddess who brought him into being, saying, “I am God, and there is none other existing beside me.” [Arthur, 193] Pistis retorts, “You are wrong, Samael [blind god]… there is an immortal light man that exists before you.” (Here Neoplatonism surfaces in the mix of traditions.) The god later realizes the truth of her words when he glimpses her image on the water, and he repents. [Origin of the World, online] This story Snake Goddess Gives Eve Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting is one of several European representations of the Serpent as a woman, long after the Gnostic era. The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 7 is repeated by Irenaeus in his description of Ophite cosmology; there, when Ialdabaoth proclaims himself sole god, Sophia shouts, “Do not lie!” [Doresse, 38] A similar counter-narrative appears in a Buddhist critique of Hinduism, where Brahma imagines that he is the creator. [Klein, 158] Next comes a section on the Christian trinity, with Israel (later called Sabaoth) enthroned in light, Jesus at his right, and the virginal Holy Spirit at his left. Sophia daughter of Pistis instructs “him”—it later becomes clear that Sabaoth is meant—“about all the things that exist in the eighth heaven.” More creations follow, with Death creating various demonic passions, and Life (Zoë) creating good powers, all of which are androgenous. Then Pronoia’s unrequited desire for the light-man causes her to emit radiance that engenders the Adam of Light. The text, drawing on Hebrew linguistics, ties Adama to Earth (Adamah) and blood (adom). The Pistis Sophia calls this “the blood of the virgin,” which in turn engenders Eros, another androgyne power, and the grapevine, and fig, and pomegranate, and later the rose, and all other plants. The intermix of Hebrew, Greek, and Christian concepts is obvious, with longstanding Goddess symbols like the pomegranate still prominent amidst the Neoplatonism. The seven archons molded a man, but he had no spirit, and they left him. After forty days, “Sophia sent her breath into Adam.” Yaldabaoth and his archons were disturbed when they found their man, but rejoiced when they found that Adam was not able to rise. After a day of rest, they “withdrew up to their heavens.” Now, in a section known as the “Eve intrusion,” Sophia creates “the Living-Eva, that is, the Instructoress of Life,” by letting a droplet of light flow onto the water. It became an androgynous human, which Sophia molded first as a female body. Then she molded this body in the likeness of the mother, who bore another androgynous being. The text says that the Hebrews call this mother “Eve of Life (Zoë), namely, the female instructor of life.” Eva proclaims her identity with Sophia, and assumes titles of Isis, such as “consoler of the labor pains.” [Arthur, 99, 117, 131] The text calls her “Life” both in Hebrew (Eva standing for Chava) and in Greek (Zoë). “Sophia sent her daughter Zoë, who is called Eva, as an Instructoress to awaken Adam in whom there was no soul,” so that his offspring would become “vessels of the light.” [Arthur, 205] Eve saw her co-likeness lying there, and she took pity on him. She said, “Adam, live! Rise up on the earth!” And he rose and opened his eyes. When he saw Eve, he said, “You will be called the mother of the living because you are the one who gave me life.” [Arthur, 205; Young, 54] So The Origin of the World utterly reverses the primacy of Adam over Eve in Genesis. In fact, it goes further that that, making Eva herself the ensouling life-giver. Now the archangels beheld Eve and compared her to Sophia, “the likeness which appeared to us in the light.” Still jealous, they plotted to rape and “pollute” her, and to cast Adam into a sleep, teaching him that she came into being from his rib “so that the woman will serve and he will rule over her.” But Life / Eva laughed at their scheming, darkened their eyes and left her likeness beside Adam. “She entered the tree of knowledge, and remained there. She revealed to them that she had entered the tree and become tree.” The archons ran away in fear, then came back to defile Eva's likeness through rape. “And they were deceived, not knowing that they had defiled their own bodies.” (What a profound truth is said there.) Later, the first couple ate fruit, and the archons cursed them, the earth, and its fruit. At this, Sophia became furious and cast down the archons from heaven. [Young, 54; Arthur 207] This section known as the “Eve-Intrusion” contains its own aretalogy called “Song of the Woman.” [Origin of the World, 114.4-15] Rose Arthur points out that it repeats lines from the famous aretalogy Thunder, Perfect Mind [VI, 2, in Arthur, 99] It has the same paradoxical flavor. However, Origin attributes the song to Eva, and assigns her a male lord not present in Thunder. Fragments of this “Song of the Woman” are repeated in a related text, the Hypostasis of the Archons. But in that version, Eve no longer speaks these verses; it is Adam who speaks them about her. [Arthur, 131, 162, 143] A marked recession of female agency is visible in these later scriptures. Origin of the World ends with strongly Christian themes: savior, word, and apocalyptic judgment. Several other Gnostic scriptures present Eve in a similar light, as a culture hero rather than the culpable temptress of the Church fathers. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, Eve is “the spirit-endowed Woman.” Adam calls her his own mother as well as “Mother of the Living,” the original Hebrew title of Eve. “It is she who is the physician, and the Woman, and She Who Has Given Birth.” The “Female The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 8 Spiritual Principle” entered into the Snake—the Teacher—and she explains that god's threat of death came out of jealousy. She promised the couple that they would be able to tell good from evil. [Pagels 1979: 31] Other Gnostic scriptures show androgynous archons, or pair them off in syzygy (mystic couples), in a manner reminiscent of the Shiva-Shakti of India. The Sophia Jesu Christi reveals the Christian savior himself “as bisexual” (a better word might be “co-gendered” given current usage of this term) and paired with “his female Sophia, ‘Mother of All,’ whom some call Pistis.” [Schussler-Fiorenza,

THE OPHITES Gnostic sects often reversed meanings of biblical myths. The villains of the Bible, such as Cain and Esau, were heroes to the Cainites and Ophites. The Ophites (“Snake-people”) revered the Serpent of paradise as the source of Gnosis, and saw Jesus as its incarnation. The serpent entwined around an egg was their divine symbol. The Ophites “kept and fed [snakes] in baskets; they held their meetings close to the holes where they lived. They arranged loaves of bread upon a table, and then, by means of incantations, they allured the snake until it came coiling its way among these offerings...” [Doresse, 44] This scene closely resembles the old Goddess Mysteries, in which women held and danced with snakes. Late Greco-Roman art shows the persistence of these ritual practices, and depicts the snakes coiling around baskets or circular chests. According to bishop Epiphanius, the Eleusinian and Phrygian Mysteries also influenced the Naassene sect of Christians. They took their name from Naas, a Hebrew word for “serpent.” [Doresse, 47-8] The Perates also embraced the Serpent as the true savior. [Couliano, 128] In the heavens they saw “the beautiful form of the Serpent coiled up in the grand beginning of the heavens and becoming, for all born Beings, the principle of all movement.” [Doresse, 51] Sethians agreed that generation began with the serpent, who was the (male) Instructor. They also compared the heavens to the belly of a pregnant woman. (This sky-mother symbolism has very ancient Kemetic origins in Neith, Hathor, and Nut.) All pregnant beings carry this “imprint of heaven, of earth, and of all that is situated immovably in the midst.” The wind born of water stirred the waves, which were like a womb bringing forth. Sethians compared the wind to the hiss of a serpent. [Doresse, 51-2; Arthur, 137] A Nag Hammadi scroll called the Testimony of Truth is sympathetic to the Serpent in the Genesis account of the Tree of Knowledge. The wise Serpent convinces Eve to eat the fruit of wisdom: “the eyes of your mind will be opened.” The author points out that the lord's threat of immediate death didn't come true, but the Serpent's promise of knowledge did. He calls the god of Genesis “a malicious envier” who begrudged humans the power of knowing. [Pagels 1979: 30] The theme of an imperfect creator god recurs in other Gnostic texts. Sophia rebukes this god as a liar and fool for claiming sole divinity. Provoked to anger by his hubris in refusing to acknowledge the female principle, or grieved that he created inferior beings, she withdraws to the upper heavens. [Hubbs, 253; Pagels 1979: 58] The Apocryphon of John says that by proclaiming his jealousy, this god proved that another Power did in fact exist, “for if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous?” This jealousy caused “the mother” to become distressed. [Apocryphon of John, 61:8-14, in Pagels, 1992: 113] In the Hypostasis of the Archons, Wisdom and her daughter Life cry out that the arrogant god is wrong to proclaim his supremacy. Sophia answers his challenge by sending forth light into matter, all the way down to the realm of Chaos. [Pagels 1979: 58] The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia

THE FALLEN SOPHIA Though Sophia was prominent in the Gnostic creation accounts, she was being stripped of the radiant holiness the Egyptians attributed to Isis, and the Hebrews to Khokhmah. The very meaning of her name, Wisdom, was in the process of being abrogated and reversed. In her groundbreaking book The Wisdom Goddess, Rose Arthur showed how the positive view of Sophia in the early, pre-Christian scriptures was gradually broken down and degraded by a masculinizing, Christianizing narrative. Her work shows that “...the fallen Sophia appears to be a specifically Christian soteiriological [salvational] motif.” [Arthur, 4, 50, 67] Arthur demonstrates that the older texts were consistently re-edited to reduce and subordinate female divinity, while exalting the male god. The Hypostasis of the Archons is no more than “a Christianized, patriarchalized and defeminized summary of On the Origin of the World.” It blatantly replaces the original goddess with the Christian god. The line “But all this came to pass according to the Pronoia of Pistis” becomes “But all these things came to pass in the Will of the Father of the All.” [71, 94, 152] The pre-Christian scripture Eugnostos the Blessed was revamped as the Sophia Jesu Christi, in which Sophia rebels against the “Father of the Universe,” repents of her fault, and is saved by her male partner, Jesus Christ. [Arthur, 4-5] The revisionist text repeatedly refers to the “fault of the woman.” [Couliano, 80-5. He estimates that 80% of the Gnostic Sophia myths are negative or ambivalent.] The same process was at work on the Pistis Sophia, where the fallen Sophia is made to sing thirteen hymns of repentence before Jesus helps her to regain the Heights. [Legge, xvii] The Origin of the World also shows signs of editorial revisions in the same patriarchalizing direction, out of character with the main text. An earlier view of the goddess as god's perfect partner gave way to myths casting her as a flawed and lower being needing his pardon and salvation. New authors developed themes of a deluded and foolish Sophia (this despite the meaning of her name, “Wisdom”). They describe her creations as defective, and accuse of her of breaking cosmic law by creating without a male partner. [Couliano, 78-9] Hippolytus described Sophia as a junior aeon who tried to imitate the Father's generation without a partner. Due to her inferior powers, her creation was “devoid of form and perfection.” The Father then emanated the aeon Limit-Cross to bar her from the Pleroma (“Fullness”). As a result Sophia undergoes a four-fold passion—Anguish, Pain, Confusion, and Supplication—and must be rescued by other aeons. [Couliano, 78] The Apocryphon of John also converted Sophia into an inferior, fallen power: “... when the mother understood that the veil of darkness had come into being imperfectly and she knew her partner had not agreed with her, then she repented...” [Arthur, 70] These texts preach female abnegation and inferiority. The Exegesis of the Soul took an even more extreme position. The female soul was debauched by “many robbers” and bore defective offspring. The author blames these events on Aphrodite, and compares the soul to a prostitute who must repent and pray to the father god. Her genitals are presented as defective, being on the outside like the male genitals. But if the soul repents and prays to the father, he will turn her organs back to the inside “so that the soul will regain her proper character.” Then she will fulfill the Father's will, receiving a salvific male partner and bearing good children. [Arthur, 36-8, 40-8. This prescribed “correction” of female genitalia looks like a justification of the late Egyptian practice of clitorical excision practiced by this period. The account of Strabo, in Geography, Book VII, chapter 2, 17.2.5, dates to about 25 BCE. Keep in mind however that the term “pharaonic circumcision” is ahistorical, since solid evidence is lacking for female genital excision in classic Kemetic times.] These patriarchalizing discourses are still contending with a deep-rooted conviction that Goddess is the ultimate source of life. Even hostile writers acknowledge that Sophia gives the breath of life to Adam, although they often show her doing it indirectly. But the prestige of the creatrix is compromised by the Gnostic view of the material creation as evil, imprisoning the souls who live in it. [Arthur, 64, 88] The scriptures often show Sophia herself falling into bondage. In one Gnostic myth, Sophia is taken prisoner by the seven archons. They subject the essence of Wisdom made flesh in female form to every indignity, including forcing her into whoredom. In another account, Sophia mistakes the lion- The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 10 headed archon for an emissary of the Pleroma and he swallows her power, depriving her of her light. Weakened, Sophia “repents repeatedly” and calls to the Pleroma to rescue her. The aeon Christ is sent to her aid. [Couliano, 79] In another version, Simon Magus rescues “Helena” from a brothel in Tyre. In actuality she is the creator of the angels who made the world. She is called Kyria (Lady), a Greek title exactly corresponding to the Christian god as Kyrios. [Allegro, 141-2, 145; Eusebius II, 13, 4] The Roman theologian Hippolytus also emphasized a pairing of Simon with Helena. [Hippolytus, VI. 17] One form of this story appears in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, which says that Simon fell in love with a woman named Luna. He went around presenting her as Wisdom herself, the Universal Mother who had fallen from the clouds, and himself as god born of a virgin. This account identifies Luna with Helena, bound by the archons into physical form and fallen into a Phoenician brothel. By freeing her, Simon claimed to free all humanity from the archons. Christian patriarchs regarded him as the founder of Gnosticism, [Ogden, 73- 76] and invented endless stories of his downfall. Eusebius called him “the author of all heresy.” [II, 13, 6] A Gnostic sect of Simonians existed in 2nd century Syria. Their teachings were a fusion of Hellenistic concepts with Hebraic themes. From the Silence come two roots, the male heaven and female earth (who is also called Ennoia, Thought, as in some other Gnostic accounts.) The male principle is granted primacy: he creates her from himself, and never the reverse: “the male-female having the female in itself.” [Hippolytus, VI. 17] How much this actually had to do with an actual Simon Magus is anybody’s guess, but orthodox heresiologists conflated the two, to the point of calling some Simonians the Heleniani. [Origen, Contra Celsum, 62] In any case, we are looking at another form of the “fallen” Sophia. The theme of androgyny running through many of these texts is in fact gendered. It passes itself off as even-handed, but as Jane Schaberg makes clear, the androgeny being prescribed is a male-dominant androgyny: the female contained within the male. The prescription is that women should become like men, never men like women. [Schaberg, 158] “It is a world in which women learned to double-think and see themselves as included even (and especially) when they were not... to learn to tune out.” [Schaberg, 190] Some women dealt with anti-female prejudice by passing as men, as Thecla had. Mariamne does so in the Acts of Philip. Jesus instructed her to put on male garments for her journey to Greece, to prevent the serpents from mistaking her from Eve. One version of this scripture even has Mariamne declaring outright that she is not a woman. [VIII, 94, in Schaberg, 157-9] The Kukeans said that god was born out of the Awakened Sea in the midst of the World of Light. He looked into the waters of his mother and saw his own image. He had sex with this image, the Mother of Life. She gave birth to “a multitude of gods and goddesses,” creating seventy worlds and twelve aeons. God animated a great dead image using the life of these worlds. By breathing on the Mother of Life, this image caused her fall: “its breath penetrated even to the sexual organs of the Mother and defiled her.” She was no longer able to enter the divine planes, and remained in an impure state for seven days. The Savior came to rescue her and her seven virgins. [Doresse, 59] Again the female is singled out for sexual defilement, and made to symbolize spiritual inferiority—even when she is presented as senior to the god. In the Origin of the World, Sophia sends forth a drop of light “upon the water,” and it takes shape as a divine female. The Sophia of Jesu Christi repeats this creative act, but then retracts it and replaces Sophia with a male creator. It is he who sends forth the drop of light over the veil between the worlds, says the revisionist scripture, “so that the fault of the woman should be made manifest, and that she should come into being contending with error.” [Arthur, 83, 75-6] These Christianizing scripts encoded male supremacy into religion in ways that generated pain, alienation, and demoralization for women.

DOCTRINES OF THE FLAWED FEMALE Under the oppressive climate of imperial society, with its heavy taxation, displaced populations, urban crowding, plagues, and arena executions, a profound negativity had seeped into religious consciousness. This sense of hopelessness manifested in what has been called Gnostic pessimism. People The Gnostic Goddess, Female Power, and the Fallen Sophia ©2010 Max Dashu 11 felt like prisoners in the world, and a conviction arose that creation itself was flawed. The taint reached back to the Goddess herself, since she manifested herself in matter, in birth, in bodies. The prejudice against the female as lower than the male, material as against his supernal mind, was already present in Plato. Now Gnostic doctrines identifying the female with bondage, weakness, inferiority and fault became the final means of overthrowing the Goddess Mysteries. This process was erratic. Judaic Wisdom mysticism, so influential in early Gnosticism, exalted the creative power of Khokhmah, and held that creation was good. The two creation narratives in Genesis offered opposing views of gender relations, one with both women and men in the image of god. (But god curses Eve and all her daughters with the lordship of men who would rule over them.) However, as Gnostics increasingly gravitated toward a “value-inversion,” they did not only revolt against the Biblical god in a rejection of Judaism: they rejected creation itself. They saw the world of matter as hopelessly corrupt and evil. [Geger, 168] Naturally, this view contradicted not only Judaism but the pagan cosmovision in which the Divine was present in the natural world. Even before Christianity, Judaism had become a powerful influence in the pagan Mediterranean. Jewish communities were present around the Mediterranean in sizeable numbers, and many gentiles (known as “god-fearers” attended Shabbat services in synagogues. Gem amulets with Hellenistic inscriptions often invoke Sabaoth, IA, IAO, IAIA, Sabaoth—all drawn from names of the Judaic god. These names even appear as magical formulae engraved on goddess images. But slurs against the Hebrew god were circulating among Romans and the Egyptians, who portrayed him as ass-headed. [Doresse, 42 n. 101; 43] Although Gnostic Christians were strongly influenced by Judaism, many of their writings evince a strong animus against it. Many Gnostic scriptures reinterpret the biblical cosmogony, casting its creator as a deluded archon called Ialdabaoth or Saklas or Authades. Junior to the creating Wisdom goddess, he is unaware of her presence but works with her light. This theme may have originated as a reassertion of the Egyptian goddess, whose scattered signatures are visible in the Gnostic amalgam of Hellenistic, Judaic and Persian cosmologies. Many people have interpreted Gnostic cosmologies as an affirmation of Goddess. But they too subject her to massive reinterpretation, although in different ways than the orthodox clergy (especially in the polytheism that persists in some texts). In the end, however, they ultimately degrade and deny the female Divine. Gnosticism's rejection of the “lower” world ended up dragging down Goddess in the midst of its attack on Judaism. Christian Gnostic doctrines stripped Sophia of her divine qualities and subordinated her to the Father, and to Christ who is introduced as her male better and savior. Later writers dropped the name Sophia altogether. Many if not most equated the Goddess with matter, darkness, ignorance and fault. She was literally subjected to erasure on a 2nd-century Italian relief of Aeon surrounded by the zodiac. The inscription Felix Pater (“auspicious father”) remains intact, while a female name beside the figure has been removed. [Godwin, 170-1]

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Embracing a vision of the New Jerusalem (Rv 21:1−22:5) to impact on life and society

Apocalyptic biblical literature has played a significant role in motivating and mobilising Christians. As part of this genre, the Apocalypse of John has played this mobilising role within the church throughout its history. Jerusalem is often incorporated into this genre to conjure up different emotions and images to impact many different people. For example, the Jew annually recites the words to fellow Jews at every Passover meal: ‘Next year in Jerusalem’. Most Christians know the hymn ‘The holy city’, originally penned by Frederic Weatherly in 1892. It lifts many a spirit as it conjures up the idea of a beautiful, perfect, heavenly city of God. However, there is more to this apocalyptic vision, which will be explored in this article. The city upholds the hope of decent godly living today. Whilst Jerusalem is a city with an extremely chequered history, it remains to be the launching pad of a dream that believers can embrace in order to impact society for the better. The vision in Revelation 21–22 is the launch of the ‘idea’ of God’s intention for society today, and the ‘implementation impetus’ is the primary role of the church. In the greater scheme of things, the world community is the target group for a better society for everyone

Introduction

The method of writing this article will follow a biblical theological path. The text of Revelation 21:1–22:5 is assumed to be part of the traditional Canon of Scripture. Thus, there is an assumption of progressive revelation (Genesis to Revelation) and a constant of ’inspiration’ (2 Tm 3:15). Whilst a brief and cursory exegesis will be done on certain key elements of the chosen text, the method followed will be far more biblical theological where relevant passages of Scripture are engaged to develop the theological thought, as the text is engaged grammatically, historically and theologically. This will cover comparative Old Testament, New Testament and Apocalyptic passages. There will not be a direct engagement with the traditional millennial models of eschatology. However, the implications for all these views will be obvious to those reading this article from the perspective of any one of the models. The approach will be far more eclectic in nature, allowing the text and interaction of texts to create a fresh and challenging perspective through this eschatological subject with its implications for life (2 Pt 3:11). ‘Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two people’s, the shrine of three faiths, the setting for Judgement Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilizations’ (Montefiore 2012: inside Author: Martin H. Pohlmann1,2 Affiliations: 1 Department of Reformed Theology, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, South Africa 2 Baptist Theological College, Randburg, South Africa Correspondence to: Martin Pohlmann Email: martin@btc.co.za Postal address: PO Box 50710, Randburg 2125, South Africa Dates: Received: 27 June 2014 Accepted: 27 Aug. 2014 Published: 20 Apr. 2015 How to cite this article: Pohlmann, M.H., 2015, ‘Embracing a vision of the New Jerusalem (Rv 21:1−22:5) to impact on life and society’, In die Skriflig 49(2), Art. #1854, 7 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ ids.v49i2.1854 Copyright: © 2015. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Embracing a vision of the New Jerusalem (Rv 21:1−22:5) to impact on life and society Apocalyptic biblical literature has played a significant role in motivating and mobilising Christians. As part of this genre, the Apocalypse of John has played this mobilising role within the church throughout its history. Jerusalem is often incorporated into this genre to conjure up different emotions and images to impact many different people. For example, the Jew annually recites the words to fellow Jews at every Passover meal: ‘Next year in Jerusalem’. Most Christians know the hymn ‘The holy city’, originally penned by Frederic Weatherly in 1892. It lifts many a spirit as it conjures up the idea of a beautiful, perfect, heavenly city of God. However, there is more to this apocalyptic vision, which will be explored in this article. The city upholds the hope of decent godly living today. Whilst Jerusalem is a city with an extremely chequered history, it remains to be the launching pad of a dream that believers can embrace in order to impact society for the better. The vision in Revelation 21–22 is the launch of the ‘idea’ of God’s intention for society today, and the ‘implementation impetus’ is the primary role of the church. In the greater scheme of things, the world community is the target group for a better society for everyone. Aanneming van ’n visioen van die Nuwe Jerusalem (Op 21:1–22:5) ten einde ’n invloed op lewe en die samelewing uit te oefen. Apokaliptiese Bybelliteratuur het ’n beduidende rol in die motivering en aansporing van Christengemeenskappe gespeel. Die Openbaring van Johannes het hierdie motiveringsrol deurgaans in die geskiedenis van die kerkas deel van dié genre vertolk. Jerusalem is dikwels hierby ingesluit om ’n verskeidenheid van emosies en beelde op te roep ten einde ’n impak op ’n verskeidenheid mense te maak. Die Jood, byvoorbeeld, haal jaarliks die volgende woorde teenoor mede-Jode tydens die Paasmaaltyd aan: ‘Volgende jaar in Jerusalem’. Die meeste Christene ken die gesang ‘The holy city’ wat oorspronklik deur Frederic Weatherly in 1892 geskryf is. Dit hef menige gelowiges se gemoedere op omdat dit die beeld van ’n pragtige, perfekte stad van God oproep. Daar is egter meer aan hierdie openbaringsuitsig wat in hierdie artikel verder ondersoek word. Die hemelstad bekragtig die hoop vir ’n godvrugtige lewe vandag. Alhoewel Jerusalem ’n stad met ’n uiters veelbewoë geskiedenis is, is dit tog die beginpunt vir hierdie droom van gelowiges om die samelewing te verbeter. Die visioen in Openbaring 21–22 is die bekendstelling van die ‘idee’ van God se bedoeling vir ons hedendaagse samelewing en die ‘vervullende beweegkrag’ is die primêre rol van die kerk. Holisties beskou, is die wêreldgemeenskap die teikengroep vir ’n beter samelewing vir almal. Read online: Scan this QR code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online. http://www.indieskriflig.org.za doi:10.4102/ids.v49i2.1854 Page 2 of 7 Original Research cover). It all began with Abraham and his son, Isaac. Genesis says: Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love − Isaac − and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.’ (22:2)1 The first mentioning of Jerusalem as a city name is in Joshua 10 under the rule of Adoni-Zedek. These two worlds of an ordinary city, on one hand, and then later to be the place for God’s plan to unfold in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, were to unite into one dream city: He has founded his city on the holy mountain. The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the other dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, city of God. (Ps 87:1–3) A further brief historical sketch of Jerusalem is gleaned from Montefiore’s book: Jerusalem: The bibliography. The biblical history kicks into high ratio with David taking the stronghold by force (Montefiore 2012:27): ‘Zion was said to be impregnable and how David captured it is a mystery.’ He renamed the place ‘The city of David’. It was a small place of some 15 acres but significant in terms of its location. After some significant and turbulent history, the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed by an arch rival, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (Montefiore 2012): In the seventh month of Kislev’, declared Nebuchadnezzar’s chronicle, preserved on a clay inscription, ‘the Babylonian king marched to the land of Hatti [Syria], besieged the City of Judah [Jerusalem] and on the second day of the month of Adar [16 March 597] took the city and captured the king’. (pp. 50–51) However, the dream and vision of Jerusalem was not lost. A series of prophets, leaders, builders and ordinary people were to redream the city under God’s inspiration. Inspired by prophets like Haggai and Zechariah, taught by Ezra the scribe, and finally led by Nehemiah, the city of Jerusalem’s walls were rebuilt and the temple repaired: At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites were sought out where they lived and were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres. (Neh 12:27) The dream of Jerusalem was alive again. God had his holiest spot in their temple: ‘Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem’ (Ps 122:2) and ‘Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May those who love you be secure’ (Ps 122:6). Jerusalem would be repeatedly challenged as the winds of political change blew through the Middle Eastern region. Daniel, an exilic prophet, warned the people of Jerusalem about the ‘abomination of desolation’ in the temple three times in his prophecy (Dn 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). Daniel had seen something of this threat personified in Nebuchadnezzar during his own lifetime and warned about future occurrences: ‘From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the 1.All quotations shall be from the NIV (2011), unless otherwise indicated. abomination that causes desolation is set up there will be 1,290 days’ (Dn 12:11). One of these prophesied occurrences took place with the intervention of Antiochus Epiphanes (167 BCE). Montefiore 2012: Then Antiochus forbade any sacrifices or service in the Temple, banned the Sabbath, the Law and circumcision on pain of death and ordered the Temple to be soiled with pig’s flesh. (p. 75) The final historical fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy would be the destruction of the temple by the Romans when temple sacrifices ceased, and still cease to this very day. Brian Russell (2013:171) correctly sees that: ‘The seventy sevens, then, are consecutive.’ The 490 ‘heptads’ of Daniel’s prophecy (Dn 9:24) take us to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. It is important to note Herod the Great’s contribution to the temple and to recognise that it was Herod’s temple that the historic figure Jesus was to contend with. Herod chose to create one of his masterstroke buildings to cement political relations with his Jewish subjects. ‘Herod pulled down the existing Second Temple and built a wonder of the world in its place’ (Montefiore 2012:102). Mark 13:1 makes reference to this temple: ‘As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings”.’ Some of these extraordinary huge stones can still be evidenced in the remaining foundation stones of the Western ‘Wailing Wall’ in Jerusalem where Jews still pray for the vision of Jerusalem. Bauckham (1996) correctly says: Thus the New Jerusalem of the future, the bride of the Lamb, has both a forerunner in the present and an opposite in the present. The forerunner is the holy city, mother Zion. (p. 128) Revelation 21:1–22:5 in recapitulation Jerusalem is a vision that is historical, doctrinal, existential and eternal. When John describes the city of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, Beckwith (1979:755) says: ‘This vision of the holy city is shaped throughout by the eschatological imagery contained in the prophets and apocalyptists.’ Some of these are found in the Ezekiel vision (Ezk 40–48) and in the reflection of Isaiah, especially Isaiah 66. Beckwith (1979:755) goes in to say: ‘To the description of this new Jerusalem are transferred all the splendors of the earthly Jerusalem in the earlier eschatological writers.’ There is a perpetual recapitulation throughout Scripture, on the one hand, and then a more detailed recapitulation within the Apocalypse of John itself, bringing the book to a climax in chapters 21 to 22. The purpose of this climax is not only to point readers to the future eternity of grandeur that God has for us ‘through the Lamb’, but also to stir our memory of the biblical Jerusalem as well as hold out a ‘dream vision’ of all that God has for us. This is designed to create an existential tension to mobilise people to transform society. Bauckham (1996) adds: http://www.indieskriflig.org.za doi:10.4102/ids.v49i2.1854 Page 3 of 7 Original Research The universalism of the vision of the New Jerusalem completes the direction towards the conversion of the nations which was already clearly indicated in [Revelation] 11:13; 14:14; 15:4. Its universal scope should not be minimized. (p. 139) Though transformation is a broad term, the Christian community has a distinctive goal of transformation through Jesus Christ as ‘the Lamb’. The vision in Ezekiel 40–44 Ezekiel is an exilic prophet. He knew of the past destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. He had experienced exile with all its challenges for the Jewish people. His vision from God pointed the people back to Jerusalem, where he envisioned a new historical geographical city with a temple. The vision is more than that, however. It becomes prophetic, apocalyptic and everlasting. The line between time and eternity − what is seen and what is not seen − is blurred, and only finally realised in the writing of Revelation 21–22. Psalm 137:1 expresses the limited vision of Jerusalem by the people in Exile: ‘By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.’ The Jewish people had localised God to one place on earth: ‘How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?’ (Ps 137:4). Ezekiel’s vision of the temple in a New Jerusalem answered their desire for a restored building, but, more importantly, went beyond it towards a global, international and eternal perspective (Bauckham 1996:136): ‘The description of the New Jerusalem in many respects closely follows Old Testament models (especially Isa 52:1; 54:11–12; 60; Ezek 40:2–5; 47:1–12; 48:30–34; Zech 14:6–21; Tob 13:16–17)’. Beckwith (1979) makes the important point about Ezekiel’s vision: In Ezekiel’s vision of the future Jerusalem the temple forms the principal object; likewise in Jewish eschatology in general it is an essential part of the glorified city, e.g. Is. 44:28, 60:13. (p. 763) Ezekiel and the Exiles were still primarily concerned about themselves and their future in Jerusalem. They wanted to get back to where they were prior to the Exile. However, the inspiration of the Spirit in Ezekiel raises the visionary expectation somewhat. By the time the Apocalypse draws on Ezekiel’s prophecy, there is no temple (Beckwith 1979:763): ‘Its absence in the vision of the Apocalyptist echoes the Christian thought of Jn. 4:21, 23.’ John’s Gospel explains this to a Samaritan woman who was confused over ‘temple’ locations. Was she to worship at the local Samaritan shrine or the traditional Jewish temple? ‘“Woman,” Jesus replied, “Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem”’ (Jn 4:21). Jesus is in one sense already alluding to himself as the new Temple. The need for a ‘place’ was soon to become obsolete. The interplay between Ezekiel’s chapters and those of Revelation 21–22 are important to note. One aspect is (Wright 2011): … the extraordinary measurements of the city. (The angel measures this heavenly city, as John was told to measure the heavenly temple in 11.1; this time, we find out what the measurements were, as in the original vision of Ezekiel 40–48 which lies behind a great deal of John’s vision at this point). (p. 194) However, Botha (1988:145) is correct to emphasise that: ‘The author also differs from Ezekiel in that he elaborates upon the wall of the city and emphasizes that there is no temple.’ Isaiah’s vision (Is 65:17–66:24) Gornik (2002) on Isaiah’s vision: When Scripture paints a picture of the new creation, its most comprehensive image is the new city of God. According to Isaiah 65:17–25, the new city forms part of the peaceable home that fulfils God’s promised justice for the poor, salvation for the humble, and the renewal of creation. (p. 25) Isaiah’s prophecy is very similar to that of Ezekiel. Both these prophets were Exilic prophets moving the Israelite nation with their words towards a future of rebuilding the city of Jerusalem as well as the temple. At all costs, the people needed to get back to where they were before the Exile. Typical of most apocalyptic passages of Scripture as contained in the major and minor prophets, they cause people to look above the immediate and visualises the future − firstly in physical terms, then in spiritual terms and finally in eternal terms. ‘For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit’ (2 Pt 1:21). Whilst Isaiah was well aware of the people’s need of their city Jerusalem and the temple, he unpacks the deeper meaning of Jerusalem and the original meaning for having the temple in the first place by drawing people’s attention to the worship of God again. The prophetic hope contained within Jerusalem is always seen by the prophets within the bigger picture of God’s covenant. Whilst locality and livelihood are critically important − as can be witnessed in the present argument for Jerusalem within the Middle East political debates − the prophetic meaning points everyone to the theological sense. Moltmann (1973) helps us here when he says that: When we cease using God as helper in need, stop-gap and problem solver, we are according to Augustine − finally free for the fruitio Die et se invincem in Deo, the joy of God and the enjoyment of each other in God. (p. 80) The Apocalypse (Rv 21:1–22:5) upsets the desire often found in the Old Testament people with their focus on the temple by removing and replacing it with the presence of God (Rv 21:22): ‘I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.’ The physical city providing Israelites with protection by its walls, living conditions and all city services are eclipsed by a cubic symbol city. Wright (2011) suggests that: … the city is not only vast in terms of its footprint − fifteen hundred miles each way, roughly the same number of square miles http://www.indieskriflig.org.za doi:10.4102/ids.v49i2.1854 Page 4 of 7 Original Research as the Roman Empire (That, of course may be part of the point). It is also fifteen hundred miles high. (p. 194) In one sense, this city eclipses the Roman Empire! The Apocalypse provides the final recapitulation in Revelation 21:1–22:5 Beckwith (1979:771) is at pains to demonstrate that Revelation 21:1–22:5 is part and parcel of the overall chapters of the Apocalypse due ‘to numerous examples showing parallelism with other parts of the book and indicating the work of the same hand’. The first comparison is Revelation 17:1 with Revelation 21:9: One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come. I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute who sits by many waters.’ (Rv 17:1) One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the last plagues came and said to me, ‘Come I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ (Rv 21:9) The same angel gives the two perspectives to the same author. One perspective is on the great prostitute and the other perspective on the bride of Christ. The Apocalypse typically deals with one vision at a time, and sometimes deals with them in different chapters. Revelation 17:3 and 21:10 convey the same idea: ‘Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness’ versus ‘And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high.’ The phrase the glory of God is repeated in Revelation 15:8 and 21:11. Further, Revelation 21:15 (‘The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls’) is very similar to Revelation 11:1: ‘I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshipers”.’ Some verses in chapter 21 (God, the Lamb, the Bride) contrast with verses in the body of the text, especially where there is reference to the ‘prostitute’. For example, Revelation 21:19 says: ‘The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald.’ Revelation 17:4 says of the ‘woman’: The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. There is a constant cross-referencing throughout the Apocalypse contributing to its whole as a letter, prophetic words from God and apocalyptic literature. One of the most consistent points in the Apocalypse is the significant statement in Revelation 21:23: ‘The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.’ The first chapter sets the scene in verse 17: When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last’. (Rv 1:17) König (2007) correctly makes the point that: … once Jesus is seen as the goal of creation and the eschatos, the consummation can be seen as reachable (in one sense, as already reached!) before the end of natural world history. (p. 39) Revelation 11:17 follows on from Revelation 4:8: ’We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your power and begun to reign.’ The theme continues onto Revelation 16:7: ‘And I heard the altar respond: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments”.’ Throughout the Apocalypse the typical motion found in an epistle is eclipsed by the ‘cubic’ vision given in Revelation 21–22. The existential is overwhelmed by the ‘eternal now’ of God who straddles the past, present and the future with equal ease. For example, Revelation 1:7 includes the final ‘end’ with ‘those who pierced him’ with equal ease. Six key verses in identifying the transferable concepts of the New Jerusalem Within the Revelation 21:1–22:5 passage, there are six key statements that fit like building blocks to create the overall Weltanschauung (Pohlmann 2008:93–244) of the Apocalypse as well as the overall perspective of God’s activity revealed in Scripture. There are parallel verses like them found dotted within the New Testament. Their concepts are transferable and applicable today. Whilst there is an eternal and future dimension to the Apocalyptic understanding of the New Jerusalem, it is primarily meant to be embraced within God’s present administration of the Kingdom (Eph 3:9–11). First verse: Revelation 21:3 The 1st verse of importance and the key verse within this section is Revelation 21:3: And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.’ This has been the plan ever since Creation (Gn 1–3). This verse is ‘richly endowed with motifs from the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel that are concerned with the restoration of the Jerusalem temple after its destruction: God will dwell among his people’ (Stuckenbruck 2003:1568). This verse states in one single theological construct the purpose of the election of Israel, the life of Jesus Christ and the mission of the church: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:14) http://www.indieskriflig.org.za doi:10.4102/ids.v49i2.1854 Page 5 of 7 Original Research Following on from this, Pohlmann (2010) expands: Just as God positioned the famous Jerusalem Temple in Temple Mount for all to see a sign of His presence − God has now positioned the church comprising of individual Spirit filled believers − ‘in the world’ yet not ‘of the world’. (p. 139) It is God’s will to be ’among the people’. This started with Eden, regrouped with Israel (Gn 12:1–3), perfected with Jesus and now exists through his Spirit in the church. Second verse: Revelation 21:5(a) The 2nd verse of significance is Revelation 21:5(a): ‘He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”’ Charles (1976:154) correctly informs us that: ‘The old world has vanished: God creates a new world.’ The idea of quality is what emerges here. When God creates or recreates, he puts the stamp of his character on it. Third verse: Revelation 21:6(a) The 3rd verse of significance is Revelation 21:6(a): ‘He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End”.’ This was the announcement made to John on the Isle of Patmos: When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said, ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.’ (Rv 1:18) The reality of an ‘eternal now’ living Christ is the reality of the entire New Testament age. The conceptual results and outcome are fixed from the very beginning when Jesus triumphed over death in the resurrection. Fourth verse: Revelation 21:22 The 4th verse of significance is Revelation 21:22: ‘I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.’ It is significant to note that the Greek word ναός is used, referring to the inner sanctuary of the Holy of Holies. Initially, God ‘walked’ in Eden with our first parents. Later, the tabernacle was built as a portable ‘sanctuary’ and ‘meeting place’. Eventually, the great temple was built on Temple Mount, housing the ‘sanctuary of meeting’. Jesus challenged this by presenting himself as the ‘new sanctuary’ (Jn 2:19): ‘Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days”.’ Here, just as in Revelation 21, the Greek word ναός is used, referring to the ‘shrine’ of meeting God in person. 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19 make the same reference to the abiding Holy Spirit within the Christian life. Therefore, Revelation 21:22 is no surprise, but rather the culmination of all things implemented in God’s salvation. Fifth verse: Revelation 21:24 The 5th important verse is Revelation 21:24: ‘The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.’ One of the ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John is: ‘I am the light of the world’ (Jn 8:12). The light of Christ eclipses everything portrayed as darkness. The radiance of this light was so overwhelming to the angry pre-converted Rabbi Saul that it struck him to the ground (Ac 9:3). What happened here on a personal level can happen on a societal and national level, if people would be willing to embrace the ‘light’ of the New Jerusalem. Sixth verse: Revelation 22:5 The last verse of importance, acting as the sixth pillar theological statement is Revelation 22:5: There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever. Genesis 1:3–5 and 1:14–19 have been eclipsed by a ‘new heavens and a new earth’. The New Jerusalem depicts everything God and Jesus are by nature. God is by nature light and Jesus is light. Those who embrace the vision of the New Jerusalem become ‘the light of the world’. The Christian community should always be busy dispelling ‘darkness’ in favour of ‘light’. Embracing the vision for change There are obvious points about Jerusalem that we are not expected to embrace. For example, no one is expected to rebuild the city of Jerusalem or the temple or the sanctuary of the temple under Christian mandate. The Christian mandate in Acts 1:8 is away from geographical Israel’s Jerusalem and not back towards it: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to all the ends of the earth. (Ac 1:8) God’s ultimate plan is for ‘Jerusalem’ (in the theological and eternal sense) to be taken to the earth and not the earth to Jerusalem. Embracing the presence of God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit God initially came to us in creating the world in which we live (Gn 1–2). This was God’s initiative and he continues to display this initiative. The choice and appointment of Abraham as covenant partner and the establishment of an ‘elect’ nation was God’s initiative (Gn 12:1–3). The advent of Jesus Christ to ‘seek and the save that which is lost’ (Lk 19:10) was God’s initiative. The Word came to live amongst us and we have seen him as the only true Son of God (Jn 1:14).Our responsibility is to embrace the presence of God by faith (Rv 21:3a): ‘Look! God’s dwelling is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.’ The word translated as ‘dwell’ is translated from the Greek word σκηνή [tabernacle], which is the same word used to describe Jesus in John 1:14. With Jesus and the presence http://www.indieskriflig.org.za doi:10.4102/ids.v49i2.1854 Page 6 of 7 Original Research of the Holy Spirit, we have the presence of God. We need to embrace the reality of God’s presence in the eschatological existential present reality, even though it has ‘not yet’ been fully realised. Be part of everything ‘new’ that God is doing Whilst the tension between the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’ will always be felt, it should not mitigate against us embracing the restored order of things that God has already introduced. Christ has ‘destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility’ (Eph 2:14b) and made it possible that: In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. (Ac 2:17) Based on the work of Christ, there is something refreshingly new and creative available to us. The church holds the key to more transformative opportunities than many people realise. These need to be embraced in order to present a ‘new city’ of hope for people. As (Kidwell 2014) puts it: The thinking goes: rather than Israel becoming like Canaan, the reverse will be the case, Canaan will be culturally absorbed into Israel, and this will serve as a sign of the triumph of God’s holiness in this kingdom. (p. 2) Enjoy the eschatological moment that we have The presence of Christ has eclipsed (König 2007:23–31) all former focuses on temporary things. As in the alphabet, Christ is the beginning and the end of the alphabet, and everything in-between! The dye has been cast and it is only a matter of time for all things to be worked out (Rm 8:28) according to the plans and the purposes of God: But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. (Heb 10:12–13) The Apocalypse of John demonstrates the dramatic developments unfolding. Romans 1:18 summarises the basic principle seen more illustratively in the Apocalypse: ‘The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.’ We need to embrace the fact that Satan, sin and death have been judged and Christ is our answer in overcoming these through his cross and resurrection (Rm 1:4). We have been shown the way There is no need to look any further than Christ. God is with us (Mt 1:23; Immanuel). There is no need for a special pilgrimage to Jerusalem or any other holy site in order to embrace what God has intended for us. Christ has revealed the Father to us wherever we may be. All the nations of the world are beneficiaries Wherever God’s people embrace the Gospel of Christ in truth, everybody benefits! Jesus Christ developed a gospel that was both private and public, both personal and communal. Jesus ‘went on to imprint the Kingdom of God radically on every facet of life’ (Pohlmann 2014:8). Jeremy Kidwell (2014) illustrates the same point when he reflects on Zechariah 14: The closing chapter of Zechariah offers an ‘apocalyptic’ description of the age to come. There, the writer describes the new kingdom as a sort of impenetrable bulwark in the midst of violent conflict and collapsing political order. (p. 1) In the New Jerusalem, like in the expectation of Zechariah 14, Kidwell (2014:2) notes that ‘God cares about truthfulness in the way we represent value in business’ (cf. Rv 22:24–27 compared to Zch 14:21). We should move in the direction of the eternal construct and not the time construct Just as the tabernacle, the temple, the sanctuary and the city of Jerusalem have all served a valid purpose in the past, the time is coming when created time will also have served its purpose. As 2 Peter 3:10 says: But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. We need to keep looking forward and upward towards the culmination of the Gospel. George Eldon Ladd (1997:682), who represents a classical premillennial model, is willing to agree with those of a realised millennial model that the New Jerusalem embraces a culmination of the Gospel: ‘The description of the city is highly symbolic. Its inhabitants include the redeemed from both the Old Testament (21:12) and the New Testament (21:4) times.’ Yet, it is more than just a glorious picture – there is a sense that the symbol of the New Jerusalem should be embraced by those who focus on God’s future. Conclusion Professor Jan du Rand (2004) offers a broad overview on the apocalyptic vision of Revelation 21–22: To a large extent, the apocalyptic eschatology of the Apocalypse is shaped within the framework of soteriology. The descent from heaven of the new Jerusalem is the eschatological fulfilment of OT as well as early Jewish apocalyptic expectations within the restorational frame. Particularly Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zechariah have made meaningful contributions in this regard. The rebuilding of the temple within the relationship of the heavenly Jerusalem to the new Jerusalem is of utmost importance. (p. 275) Believers need to dream again within the biblical framework. On the one hand, there is the challenge of ‘Babylon’ (Rv 17:18) as it affects everyone on earth negatively. Believers http://www.indieskriflig.org.za doi:10.4102/ids.v49i2.1854 Page 7 of 7 Original Research have a positive hope by embracing the vision of the New Jerusalem. Jesus Christ came to bring the Kingdom and glorify the Father.

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IN THE NEW JERUSALEM AS THE CONSUMMATE CORPORATE EXPRESSION IN THE NEW CREATION

1. The Holy City

2. The Bride of the Lamb and the Tabernacle of God

Gender of the Holy Spirit

Grammatical gender

Discussion in mainstream Christianity

Ancient church

Recent discussions

Feminine gender in other faith traditions

Latter-day Saints

Branch Davidians

Unity Church

Messianic Jews

Moravian Brethren

Gnosticism

In art

See also

References

External links

ABOUT US

OUR VISION

WHAT WE DO

OUR COMMUNITY

FIND YOUR FAITH

"Jesus The Alpha and The Omega "

Chapter 2 – The Angel of the Lord