The Baptism of Jesus

 This week for Come Follow Me we read three accounts of the ministry of John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3, Mark 1, and Luke 3.  I think one of my main themes this year will be how New Testament writers purposely referenced the Old Testament in their writings.  This is never more evident than in the story of John the Baptist.  There are so many references, (and it is already 9:00 pm) that I won't go into a lot of details about each one.  I will just mention some I found or heard of this week. 

John is like Elijah: John's mode of clothing, in camel hair and leather, reminds ancient readers of Elijah in the Old Testament.  (Kings 1:8).  Elijah also had a connection with the Jordan River, where John was baptizing, because he parted the river by smiting it with his mantle.  They both lived in the wilderness and ate wild food. Elijah, like John, was a great prophet who cried repentance, and both men were followed by an even greater prophet who did more miracles.(Elijah-Elisha, John-Jesus)

The River Jordan: When the children of Israel fled Egypt, the wandered in the wilderness for 40 years and then entered into the promised land by crossing the river Jordan. After they crossed the river they entered the Promised Land and became a great nation. Egypt is often the symbol for both captivity and sinfulness. I think the gospel writers here are using the location of the story to show that forsaking sin and entering the waters of the Jordan (in baptism) marked the beginning of the establishment of the Kingdom of God, just as the house of Israel's escaping Egypt and crossing the Jordan signaled the beginning of the Kingdom of Israel.

Baptism in the Old Testament: Jews didn't have to be baptized to be considered part of the house of Israel.  They were part of the house of Israel because they were descendants of Abraham.  The reason people would have been baptized in ancient Israel was because they were Gentiles converting to Judaism, or if they had committed a serious sin and needed to go through ritualistic cleansing. (e.g. Lev 15:16-18 or 16:15) John knew that Jesus was already Jewish, so he didn't need to be baptized as a convert, and John knew Jesus was free from any serious sin.  That is why John asked Jesus why he had come to be baptized.  By being baptized Jesus was establishing a new law.  According to the new law,  someone could come into the Kingdom of heaven by being obedient and making a covenant to keep the commandments, whether or not they were a descendant of Abraham. 

The Sign of the Dove: A Dove first appears in the story of Noah.  Noah sent a dove to see if the waters of the flood had withdrawn. Later, doves were mentioned as acceptable offerings when a petitioner couldn't afford to offer a larger animal as a sacrifice.  In the first story, the Dove represented the hope of salvation after a long time of destruction and being "adrift".  Jesus was the hope of salvation after Israel had been adrift after the Babylonian captivity.  Doves were considered clean and were sacrificed (e.g. Lev 12:6) as sin offerings to make people clean.  Jesus was like a sinless dove that would be sacrificed as a sin offering. 

One more thing I mentioned to my primary class.  It has always seemed strange to me that God would send a dove as the sign of the presence of the Holy Ghost. It just seemed random...a bird flying down and landing on Jesus. Then last Friday as I was doing ordinance work in the temple, I put my hands on someone's head to give the initiatory prayers, and I thought of how my hands were kind of in the shape of birds wings, landing on the head of the person receiving the ordinances.  If you have your eyes closed, hands landing on your head, and a bird landing gently on your head... it doesn't feel that different. As a priesthood holder gently lays their hands on someone's head to give them the gift of the Holy Ghost, is it reminiscent of the dove descending on Jesus as a sign that he had received the gift of the Holy Ghost?

John 1: The Word

ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 

I wonder if this verse, John 1:1, has perhaps been more debated than any other verse in the whole New Testament, maybe even in the whole Bible. The main debate is what the writer means when he calls Jesus "ὁ λόγος" or The Word. The word, "logos" has about as many meanings in Greek as the word "word" does in English.  Think about all the ways we might use the word "word". 

    I wrote a word on a page.
    I gave my word that I would do it.
    When you are ready, give me word.
    Oh my word! What have you done now?
     etc, etc.

A good ancient Greek dictionary will give a page of definitions for the word "logos."  So, which one is the author using here? 

 I think the writer is giving clues in the text to let you know which definition he means.  The first clue is the first two words. "ἐν ἀρχῇ" or "in the beginning".  Those two words automatically conjure up Genesis 1:1, even for people who never read the Old Testament.  We are clearly meant to remember the creation of the world here, and how did God create the world?  He used words. "And God* said, Let there be light." (Gen1:3) John seems to be suggesting that, just as words were the creative instrument God used to create the world, Jesus was God's instrument for creating the world. "All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made." (John 1:3) 

This was a startling assertion for the time. Greeks and Romans were used to stories of demigods, men or women who had one divine parent and one mortal parent.  Hercules, Perseus, Theseus, were all the result of a god mating with a mortal.  Jews were used to stories about prophets who were the result of miraculous births, like Isaac, and Samuel. The difference here is that John isn’t suggesting that Jesus was like Hercules or Samuel.  He is asserting that he is like Zeus or indeed, יהוה. He is not the offspring or creation of the creator god, he IS the creator god that has condescended to take on human form.  I think it was a hard idea for people to wrap their minds around, even the Jews.

The other gospel writers recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the "anointed one" who was sent to save Israel, and as the "Son of God," the result of a mystical union between God, through the Holy Spirit, and Mary that resulted in a virgin giving birth.  But I am not sure that Peter, during Jesus’ earthly ministry or maybe even afterward, would have thought of Jesus as the same being who created the Earth, sent the flood in the time of Noah, spoke to Moses from the burning bush, and appeared as a pillar of fire over the tabernacle. I wonder if in Peter’s mind, Jesus was Hercules instead of Zeus.  I think Paul understood it, I think John came to understand it, but I am not so sure about the rest of the apostles.  As I read through the New Testament again, I will watch for indications that I am wrong.

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*It is interesting to note, that during the creation narrative God is called "אֱלֹהִים" or Elohim, not "יהוה" or Yahweh.  The tetragrammaton name doesn't show up until Genesis 2 .  

Matthew 2 and Luke 2

 I was the one teaching my 9-year-olds Sunday School class today about Matthew 2 and Luke 2.  It was a little awkward because we just had Christmas three weeks and now we are talking about Christmas again.  I decided to teach my class the same principles I used in the "Christmas Week" activities I did with my kids when they were little. The main premise is that each item in the nativity as described in Luke and Matthew was specifically chosen and included because it is a symbol of Jesus' mission on the earth.  As I went back through the scriptures, I realized that, after doing a deeper dive into the Old Testament last year, I could update my Nativity program a little to make it more accurate.

Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels about 40 years after Jesus' death.  They had plenty of time to think about what details were important and which were unimportant in the nativity.  In my last post I said that Luke may have never even met Mary, but in the podcasts I listened to this week, they said that many scholars believe that Luke and Mary may have lived in the same town on Ephesus late in Mary's life, and she probably told him the story of Jesus' birth (though I still think the poetic form of the Magnificat was Luke's invention.)  She must have told the story many times in her life to interested followers of Jesus.  Over time specific details would have come together in symbolic significance in her mind, and in the minds of the Christian community. As I have stated before, Matthew was particularly concerned with showing similarities between Jesus' life and the lives of Moses and David.  This desire would have motivated which details he decided to include.  So, here are the main details mentioned by Luke and Matthew, and scriptures that reflect the symbolism I see there.

Shepherds: John 10:11, Psalm 23: 1-4, Alma 5:38, and also the shepherd imagery throughout the Old Testament.  David was a shepherd before he became king.  Also, if the shepherds in Bethlehem were raising sheep for the temple, they would have had the responsibility to verify which sheep were the first born, without blemish, and worthy of the temple rituals. Who better to testify of the birth of the Lamb of God?

Angel (heavenly hosts): Isaiah 8:15, Jesus is the Lord of Hosts. Also 2 Kings 6:15-17.  The sudden appearance of the heavenly hosts would have reminded Jewish people of the story of Elisha as recorded in 2 Kings 6, suggesting that the new baby would be the spiritual heir of Elijah and Elisha. 

Lamb of God: John 1: 29, 1 Nephi, 12:6. Also the Passover in Exodus 12:5

Star: Jesus is the light of the world: John 12:46, Helaman 14.  There is no prediction of a new star arriving at the birth of the Messiah in the Old Testament, yet one of King David's symbols was the six pointed star, the same star that is on the flag of Israel today.  It is made of two triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down.  It represents the connection between man and heaven. Including the star in the narrative would have suggested that Jesus was the heir of David, and, as such, would be the intermediary between heaven and earth. 

Another way to look at the star is as a echo of the pillar of fire that appeared over the tabernacle when the God was present. As such, the star signaled to Jews that, after centuries of worshiping at a temple with an empty Holy of Holies, (the Arch of the Covenant having been lost centuries before at the Babylonian captivity) the Lord had once more returned to earth, not in the temple, but in a stable. 

Wise men: Psalm 72: 10-11, 1 Kings 10:1-3 These are both refences to the fact that King Solomon, David's son and the only king of a united Israel, was so wise that people would come from distant lands to see him and seek his wisdom.  By telling the story of the wise men coming to see Jesus, the authors were implicitly comparing Jesus to the wisest of Israelite prophet-kings.

Bethlehem: Means House of Bread: John 6: 35  Also Malachi 5:2.  

Manger: John 19: 39-42 The podcasters pointed out that the manger would have most likely been made out of stone rather than wood, since wood was scarce in the region.  So the beginning of Jesus' life, as a small infant wrapped in cloth and lying in a stone manger, would have looked a lot like the end of Jesus' mortal life, with Jesus wrapped in a shroud and laid in a stone sepulcher. 

So there is a more "grown up" version of the Christmas symbols we taught our kids when they were small.

Welcome to the New Testament

 This year in Come Follow Me (the scripture study program for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) we are studying the New Testament.  I enjoyed this week listening to podcasts about the intertestamental period, i.e. the time between Malachi and Matthew.  I especially enjoyed hearing about the Maccabees.  Jared Halverson's podcast on "Unshaken" as especially good on this topic. 

We also covered Matthew 1 and Luke 1.  Matthew 1 starts with Joseph's genealogy.   One of Matthew's main purposes is to show the Jews that Jesus is the Christ by connecting Jesus' life to prophecies from the Old Testament.  Matthew shows that Joseph was descended from both Abraham and King David.  He also states that there were 14 generations between Abraham and David, and from David to the Captivity and from the Captivity to Joseph.  Scholars don't have to study too hard to discover that this is very unlikely.  They believe that Matthew uses the number 14 because the numbers associated with the letters in David's name in Hebrew דוד add up to 14. 

ד=4
6=ו

But why do we care about Joseph's genealogy? He wasn't Jesus' biological parent anyway.  You have to remember that, in the Jewish culture, status as a Jew was established through the mother, but status as an heir to kingship comes through the male line.  One podcaster mentioned that by taking Jesus to the temple for his Briss at 8 days old, Joseph was officially adopting Jesus. As Joseph's adopted son, Jesus took on Joseph's kingly lineage as a descendant and heir of King David. 

In Luke 1, we get the story of Zacharias and Elisabeth. Here, clearly, the reader is supposed to draw comparisons between John's miraculous birth and the stories of other miraculous births from barren couples: Sarai and Abraham, Rachel and Jacob, Hannah and Elkanah for example. Clearly John is to be a great prophet by Jewish standards.  

We also get the story of the annunciation and Mary's visit to Elizabeth. One thing I thought that was interesting in the podcasts is that they talked as if Mary really did say the Magnificat when talking with Elizabeth.  I think that the chance the Mary actually said those exact words recorded in Matthew 1:46-56 in is pretty low.  They are written in refined Greek poetry. How would Luke have even known what Mary said or did ?  Would a young Galilean girl, talking with an older relative, suddenly start spouting Greek poetry? 

Luke was a gentile who traveled with Paul and was a physician.  He may have met Mary on a visit to Israel at some point, but it is unlikely.  My guess is that he was raised as an educated Roman and that in the Greco-Roman world interactions related to divine occurrences happen in poetry. The Iliad and the Odyssey are written in poetry, as are all the Greek plays that deal with divine manifestations.  Just as we might expect divine messengers to talk in Old English, with "thee's" and "thou's," Mark would have felt funny writing a dialog between these two women with divinely appointed pregnancies in anything less than poetry. He probably captured the main thoughts and feelings of Mary's encounter, but he probably composed the poetry himself.  I am glad he did, because is is really lovely verse that has inspired women for generations.

Finishing the Old Testament Year

I am sorry that the holidays overtook me and I never wrote about Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi.  In all honesty, I was suffering from a little bit of "minor prophets" fatigue. Of course, Malachi in particular has a lot of meaning for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints as it was quoted to Joseph Smith in one of his early visions, and the idea of "Turning the hearts of the children to the fathers" is foundational in our church's practice of family history research. I actually had something interesting to write about all that three weeks ago, but I don't remember what it was. (This may partially be because I am in the final hours of my monthly fast, and my brain isn't working well.)

I did want to end the year with my overall takeaways from this year's study of the Old Testament. Since it is New Year's day I think I will do them in countdown style. 

5. More than ever before I see the Old Testament as a book that was composed/edited at a specific time for a specific purpose. Just as the Book of Mormon was compiled and edited by Mormon to show the hand of God in the lives of his people from their first arrival in the Americas, the Old Testament was written by some unnamed person who wanted to have a record of the workings of God in the lives of his people from the time of Abraham to the time of the return from exile.  Each book and each story was included for a reason to teach something to the author's present day audience, and to future Jews. 

4. It is super important to understand the historical and cultural context in order to understand the Old Testament.  There is a practice that often happens with Christians, to take a verse or a chapter of the Old Testament out of context and use it as starting point for a gospel conversation.  If that is the only way you use the Old Testament, you are pretty much missing the boat. I am so grateful for the podcasters I listened to this year that gave me more of a historical context and I look forward to doing a deeper dive into that in later years.

3. One of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament, is that the Jews have been able to maintain their cultural identity for thousands of years.  What other group of people feel connected to the religious practices of their ancestors 3 or 4 thousand years ago. I have no idea even how or where my ancestors were living in 2000 BCE let alone how they were worshiping.  Somehow at least a small group of Israelites still see themselves as Israelites even after all this time.  They still worship the same god and revere the same prophets. That is amazingly remarkable. 

2. Both the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants must be seen through the lens of the Old Testament.  New Testament writers chose the scenes they portray in the Gospels specifically to compare them to Old Testament ideas and people.  When you read the stories in the New Testament, they are supposed to bring to mind antecedent stories in the Old Testament. Likewise, Joseph Smith very much saw his role in the restoration as a continuation of the role of prophets in the Old Testament.  He was striving to restore or create a modern day House of Israel, with worship focused on the Temple, just as it was from the Exodus to Malachi.  

1. (And this one may seem contrary to all the previous ones)  Jesus' doctrine about personal salvation and hope for exaltation in a life after death, is a stark and dramatic departure from Judaism which focused on group salvation in the mortal world.  The prophets of the Old Testament, except for perhaps Isaiah, were primarily focused on saving their civilization by community righteousness, i.e. if they were righteous, God would protect and prosper them as a nation. The gospel of Jesus Christ, with its emphasis on personal righteousness and personal salvation was new and unique teaching, and it is no surprise that even his own disciples didn't understand it until after His death and resurrection.  Christianity, though born in the world of Judaism, is a fundamentally new belief system.

This year of study has been a delight.  I look forward to seeing the influence of the Old Testament in the next three years of study of the New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Church History, and revisiting the Old Testament in 4 years.