Re: Naked Bible 124: Ezekiel 17
You can quickly discern who is a fake scholar of ancient religions by how they take the ANE mythology literally. Fake scholars (the kind typically hired for TV shows about ancient history) will talk about how the Hebrew people literally believed the earth was flat.
No, the Hebrews simply talked that way. Their culture was loaded with metaphor, much of which they inherited from other cultures and civilizations. The Hebrew language itself is fundamentally built up from the concept of parable. You should presume any Hebrew text to be generally figures of speech until the context forces you to read it literally. The very letters of the Hebrew alphabet are each metaphors that contribute to the meaning of the words.
Western minds tend to be literal first, then abstract. This is very alien to the ANE mind of parable. We see it in the Gospels when Jesus speaks in parables and His listeners tend to miss the point because the Hellenizing influence had bitten hard into their culture. Christ appeared three centuries after the conquest and very heavy influence of Alexander the Great, who zealously evangelized Hellenism. The religion of Judaism was the result of trying to inject Hellenized literalism and abstraction into parabolic sacred texts and oral lore. It’s an ugly perversion of the teachings of Moses.
Just so, we have a scholarly term we took from the Greeks: “omphalos”. It refers to a cultic object representing the concept of the cosmic axis around which everything rotates. It is drawn from the idea of the human navel. Not the shape of the navel, but the location is the point here. But while the Greek version of this was abstract, the ANE version of the “world navel” was parabolic.
In the podcast, Heiser refers to this by stringing together various parabolic images. If you can think in parables, then you will understand that the Mountain of God, the Tree of Life, and the Cross of Christ as all the same thing. There are a whole raft of associations that show up in how Hebrew parables point back to something that cannot be defined, only indicated within a given context.
It’s not about this world; it’s a reference to cosmic truth in the Spirit Realm (AKA, the Unseen Realm). The axis of divine truth does not exist in this world. It manifests in this world. There are places in this world, for various passages of time, when the focus of convergence between the Spirit Realm and mankind’s fallen existence takes a central place in human awareness.
God has revealed Himself in various times and places. For as long as that manifestation was a key to gaining peace with God, it stood as the “navel of the world” — at least as far as the particular audience is concerned. It’s the place where man can approach Him, and it comes with a collection of typical accessories. ANE legends are loaded with metaphors that show up in Hebrew language and culture — and in the Bible. Heiser links to a couple of documents that are written at his level. You’ll discover what serious biblical scholars have pulled together in their research about the concept of “navel of the world” and these features:
- It is the origin of all things created, as if the umbilical cord was connected there.
- It’s associated with the “cosmic tree”, including the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Thus, a great many shrines were associated with the shade of some massive hardy tree.
- It can manifest in built structures like the Holy of Holies (a special room) decorated with (guarded by) winged serpents (seraphim) and other fearsome beasts (cherubim). It was the place to contact the divine.
- It was also the place to connect with nether realms. Thus, it often included a covered opening in the floor/ground with access to the mythical sea of raging waters and the beasts that live there. Alternatively, it can be access to the Abyss.
- The importance of solar orientation (facing the rising sun). It may vary between solar worship or simply observing the cardinal directions marked by the sun, etc.
- It’s the place where priests and other cultic personnel hang out. In some traditions, the Queen Mother figure is important.
- The association with mountain tops was common. You would expect written references to state metaphorically that it was higher than all other land features. But it was not as a geographic fact; the idea was its prominence in the sense of importance.
- Related to prominence is that it was the center of all things, the focus of everyone’s attention. It was often the place where food was distributed (the umbilicus again).
In the Bible, you will see the navel concept used as a metaphor. For example, in Judges 9:36, in the Hebrew text the armed men are coming down from “the center/navel of the land”, a reference to the ritual high place near Shechem: Mount Gerizim. The prophetess Deborah sat under a special tree for a reason (Judges 4:5). When Solomon held a great gathering before the Temple was completed, he used a high place near Gibeon that had been hijacked for worship of Jehovah. Eventually Zion became the navel of the world for Israel. The presence of Gehenna (Hinnom Valley) as the symbol of Hell should surprise no one, just below the ritual high place David purchased for building the future Temple of Solomon. Moreover, there was an opening in the ground of the site where the blood of some sacrifices was drained away. That opening in the foundation was symbolically reputed to connect to the sea.
Through the prophets, God speaks in terms of such concepts, calling Zion the “center/navel of the world”. Thus, when Ezekiel in this chapter refers to the “twig” of some future descendant of the House of David, he’s building the image of something that will grow into a great cosmic tree to be planted atop Zion. It combines both common images for the navel of the world, tree and mountain.
I’ve been interested in Heiser’s work for a few years now. I recently stumbled upon the podcast Lord of Spirits, in which 2 Orthodox priests cover lots of the same territory – plus much more – in a way that sheds lots of additional light on the same stuff. They spend a lot of time also on connecting the threads between ANE cultures (they count the Greeks as one such), the Israelites, the early Church, etc. There are lots and lots of their podcasts, each about 2.5 hours, so it would take a long long time to take it all in. But, worth the time. Their stuff on gigantomachy is particularly insightful.
Well, Kristor, I’m leaving this up where others can find it. However, I must confess I grow weary of Orthodox people trying to recruit me. It happens way too often. My convictions include a very solid rejection of some of Orthodoxy’s fundamental assertions. Let’s keep it friendly.
Confused. I’m not Orthodox, or trying to convert anyone. Nor are the 2 priests in their podcasts proselytizing. It’s just interesting stuff, & erudite (one of the priests reads Akkadian).
We’ve never met before. Your name (“Christ bearer”) is common among the Greek Orthodox and even priests. Your blog, at first blush, seems oriented toward a liturgical church background, and the title itself points that way. Orthodox folk will insist vociferously that the Greeks were part of the ANE, but almost nobody else thinks so. Hebrew scholars (not just Heiser) spend a lot more time addressing the radical difference between Greek and ANE language and cultures. And then, I referred to how often I’ve had Orthodox folks approach me, personally and virtually, trying very hard to proseletyze me. I suppose they consider my work to be broaching on their turf. I’m not trying to run you off, but I have some shields up. I haven’t yet had time to check out the podcast you recommended; anything related to the Orthodox is a low priority for me. They have been mostly unhelpful in my ministry.
If I assume nothing, I’ll do nothing. Now that I’m pushing 70 years of age, I’ve never been so busy trying to bless my brothers and sisters in the faith. If you associate with Bruce Charlton and his friends, you will be disappointed by my lack of classical theology work. You could call me a primitivist about such things; I regard the whole of Church History post-First Century as inherently and deeply flawed, so I don’t refer to it much. Surely, you are welcome to comment here, as would be anyone else who genuinely wants to build faith.
Christopher is Greek, and means Christ bearer. Kristor is Scandinavian, and means, simply, Christian. The Orthosphere is not especially oriented to Eastern Orthodoxy; as I recently explained in a post that repeated the About page we posted when the site started, it is intended as a site that takes a perspective on the modern sociopolitical discourse that is *ortho*gonal thereto, as oriented first to normal Christianity of all sorts – mere Christianity – and so to all Christian nations, up until about 150 years ago, give or take. The Orthosphere has no Orthodox contributors, and few Orthodox commenters.
Bruce Charlton was one of the founding contributors of the Orthosphere, and is still (out of longstanding friendship) accorded a place on the masthead. But he never contributes, indeed never has so far as I can recall. He left behind Christian orthodoxy, and even monotheism, shortly after the Orthosphere was founded in 2012. I’m still friends with him and his friends, but I disagree with them radically and publicly.
I can appreciate how little spare time you have. I’m 70 myself, and have more I need to do than ever, so I get it. Still, you have mistaken me about 7 different ways. Haste makes violence.
There’s no violence, just two old men with very different sensibilities. My ministry calling is to a very different audience from yours.
For sure, no worries. I did not mean to imply that violence was in the offing. I was, rather, only invoking an old Yiddish version of ‘haste makes waste.’ My best to you, sir.
Maybe irrelevant, but there’s some evidence that America was named not after Vespucci but from an indigenous word for “land of the plumed serpent”–Amaruca. There’s not a lot of documented evidence compared to the Vespucci idea, so it’s probably not true. Interesting coincidence, maybe, nonetheless.
Odd little item. We are likely to see a lot of such stuff because there’s plenty of history as yet unexplored, but also because the ideological agendas have no boundaries.