think hard, think well

Recently, a friend and I traveled to St Clare’s monastery in order to speak with some nuns about Roman Catholicism. Sister Jean told us a little about their order and the story of St Francis of Assisi and St Clare. Sister Jean invited us to join the nuns in the chapel for prayer whenever we wished. Towards the end of our conversation, I asked her how she viewed Protestants. “I know Eastern Orthodox Christians view us as brothers, but sort of ‘brothers in error’,” I said. “Is that how you think of Protestants?”

Sister Jean shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t say that. I just think that what we have to offer is more…” she trailed off for a moment. After a pause, she began again, “I think one of the primary distinction between Protestants and Catholics is our belief of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.” It was time for prayers, so I didn’t get to chat with her more, but I told Sister Jean I wanted to discuss the Eucharist with her in further detail.

Despite different understandings of the Eucharistic Presence, both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians place considerable emphasis on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As members of Christ’s Body come together to feed on Christ’s Body and Blood, Christ is somehow present there.

What does this have to do with Mesopotamian cult statues? In a previous post, I discussed the Mesoptamian mouth-cleansing (mis pi) and mouth-opening (pit pi) rituals which were performed on cult images in order to transform these statues into the purified image of the deity. Without these, the image was essentially dead or, at least, not yet cleansed or “enlivened.” It is clear that these ceremonies were the means by which the statue became the proper image of the deity and was installed in the temple of the god. The issue on the table is this: what precisely did Mesopotamians believe happened to the cult image through these ceremonies? What was the nature of the image’s transformation and in what way did it represent its deity?

As I said in my other post on cult statues, some think the images functioned as icons in a church, pointing beyond the images to the reality of the deity elsewhere. The main proponent of this view is R.E. Friedman, however, Friedman gives virtually no support for this view. The majority of mis pi scholars believe that either the deity was in some way present in the image, or the image was imbued with the essence of the deity or that – in some mystical way – the statue simultaneously was and was not the deity. The main idea here is that the image is not simply a conduit for communication with the deity. The image in some way bears the reality or substance of the deity.

Interestly enough, several scholars have used the example of the Catholic theology of the Eucharistic Presence to describe what was supposed to have happened through the mis pi and pit pi. In their book, The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia, Christopher Walker and Michael Dick use this analogy to explain how the physical substance of the cult statue was transformed into the actual presence of the deity while maintaining the appearance of the cult image:

To Orthodox and Roman Catholics the bread and wine during the Eucharistic ritual become the real presence of the Divine Jesus, while still subsisting under the appearance of bread and wine. Obviously the Eucharistic species are not coterminous with Jesus, so that the Eucharistic Presence can be found simultaneously in Churches throughout the world. (2001:7)

In this view on the mis pi, the ritual allegedly transformed the physical materials which human craftsmen had used to make the cult statue into the real presence of the deity. The deity was not limited to the cult statue and could be present through the statue in many temples, just as the Eucharistic Presence is not limited to one church.

Again, it may not be wise to simply assume a one-to-one correspondence between the relationship of the Mesopotamian cult image to its deity and the relationship of humanity to Yahweh God as His “image.” However, it seems significant that the identity and life of the Mesopotamian image is directly linked with the presence of the deity. Apart from its relationship to the deity, the image is proverbially dead. To relate this back to the Eucharistic Presence: while Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants may disagree about the Divine Presence with relation to the elements of bread and wine, they do not disagree that the church is Christ’s Body or that Christ is somehow present when members of His Body meet with one another. While a specific understanding of what is meant by the Divine Presence among Christians may vary from community to community, none would contend against the idea that when “two or three are gathered together” in the name of Christ, Christ is present.

If this Mesopotamian understanding of a cult image carries over into our understanding of humanity as God’s image, it may mean that humans (at least, ritually cleansed and “enlivened” humans) are in some way the substance or reality of God. This seems like it might line up with Adam’s role in Genesis pre-Fall, for an “image and likeness” connotes sonship. In the beginning, Adam and Eve are children of God. Not the same as God or coterminous with God, but godlings, so to speak (and therefore of the same substance or reality, perhaps?), who are to extend the rule of their Father to the rest of creation.

This is where I begin to have questions about the nature of Christ as the God-Human, particularly with reference to Hebrews and Colossians. I am not questioning the deity of Christ, rather, I wonder if any of the distinctions we tend to assign to his deity are not, in fact, aspects of his human role as an image/son of God. When Colossians 2 says that the fullness of the Deity dwells in Christ in bodily form, might this be referring to his role as the perfect human being, the whole image – the statue that has no need of ritual cleansing because he is already the perfect reality of God his Father?

The idea of that the Mesopotamian cult image simultaneously was and was not the god it represented also raises questions about the presence of Christ in the community of God. Christ was resurrected in a single physical body and ascended to the heavens. It seems reasonable to think that he still exists as this physical body, yet somehow the Church is also Christ’s Body. Paul speaks about the covenant community as the Body of Christ and those bodies (collectively?) as a temple of the Holy Spirit (i.e., the divine residence of the Deity). Just as the Mesopotamian god was present in both his image and temple yet still remained distinct from these and was not limited to these, Christ is both present and absent in the Church Body. Through the Eucharist, we celebrate Christ’s presence among us and also look forward to Christ’s return. In a sense, as the people of God, we are Christ and we are not Christ – simultaneously God and not God.

Any thoughts? I did a short thesis on this topic, but it mostly just raised questions for further study. I am not quite sure what to think of my own thoughts on the subject. It could be argued, I suppose, that the Church makes up the humanity of Christ rather than his deity, however, this seems contradictory to the doctrine of the hypostatic union.

In a future post, I want to discuss how Mesopotamians treated the cult image in light of its relationship to the deity and how this might have bearing on how we treat human beings as images of God (whether ritually cleansed or not). Yes, Bonhoeffer will be incorporated into the discussion at some point.

My mother-in-law is back in the hospital with dehydration and other aislements. Your prayers are appreciated. This promises to be less serious than last year’s saga, but it is still diappointing. Looks like she’ll be home tomorrow after some X-rays.

– Benj

Ordination (II)

By Rebekah Giffone

It is no longer a matter of can or can’t.
It is a matter of will and why.

They told me what they thought was lawful,
Not what was profitable,
Revealing that it is law that matters most to them:
The law is the telos of Christ –
Or something of that ilk.
They told me their interpretation of the law:
Women may lead members of humanity,
But may not lead members of the microcosm of newly-created humanity.

So I found a way to dodge their law
By pursuing the Academy and eschewing the Church,
Except for occasional Sunday visits.
There is no holy ground for woman in God’s house;
She must stake her own territory
Just outside the gates.

In the Academy, where all men are equal,
and all space is equally unholy,
I had no duty, no law, no obligation
To love my fellow man, whether female or male.
I could press my intellect without consideration,
and make a hell of the inquiring mind
by making myself the center, the telos.
I could be the intimidating, intellectual female,
The overpowering voice of woman unleashed.

In the Academy, I had only to be smart;
I could stand as a man among men.
Love was grand, if I could manage to be loving,
But it was not a goal in itself.
Not everyone can be smart,
But anyone can be loving, right?
Who wants to do what anyone can do?
I could learn it all just to prove men wrong,
To show them what woman can do.

It is no longer a matter of can or can’t.
It is a matter of will and why.

Now, I begin to study under Jesus
And He tells me that I can do all things,
But that it’s not about doing what I want
Or conquering men or even being smart.
Jesus says it isn’t about me staking my claim
In the church or in the world,
But about serving wherever I am,
Making all space holy.
It’s about subduing the self
And offering it to others,
Not the reverse.

How can this be?
They told me that the law said that being a woman
Meant God-ordained subservience and degradation.
They never told me that serving meant standing
And leading in the strength of humility.
They never told me that being a woman
Under Jesus
Meant modeling his willing self-sacrifice,
Standing as a man among men,
And laying down his life.
They never told me that this
Is what it means to be a real woman.

Ordination (I)

By Rebekah Giffone

I wish God was from the 1950s.
The sights and sounds of that old Bible Belt
dreamily drift toward me as I lazily sip my tea
and the soft, summer breeze rustles in the lace curtains.
I like the rose pattern on the edge of my tea cup,
and the feminine cut of my knee-length dress.

Those days are ended now,
and new patterns begin to emerge,
patterns that plague my pretty little head
and force me to pound the gates of heaven for guidance.

Life was easier for me then,
when I lived in the shade of the Bible Belt.
Sometimes, I want to go back to the days
when it was okay to be a kept woman;
when my only calling was to follow my husband,
and standing up was a man’s duty.

In those golden days,
when only men were called by God,
I thought that I could do whatever I wanted,
as long as I wanted to raise children, too.

But I have entered a man’s world,
and must, like every man,
shoulder the burden of all men,
whether male or female.

I thought that good men
knew what was what
and that as soon as I stopped
trying to wear the pants,
a good man would come along,
who wasn’t as confused as I,
and show me how to live.
Isn’t that what you told me, Mr. Harris?
Isn’t that what you promised me?

Now I see that we are all confused
and that it’s not fair for me to expect
someone else to have life all figured out
just because he has more testosterone.

I told God, amidst my womanish tears,
that I do not want to be a man,
that I am too shy and awkward
and not skilled enough,
and not strong enough,
and that I am afraid of the future,
and of scaring away all the good men.

He would have none of it.
“Daughter,” He said to me,
“Is it not I, the LORD, who have made you?
And is it not I, the LORD, who cares for you?
Is it not I, the LORD, who calls you?”

No, I do not want to be a man;
I want to stay in the world I know,
In the role I know how to play,
doing the things I know how to do.

Freedom is too heavy for woman,
And God’s call is too great for her to bear.

Do they know why it’s so hard for her?
Do they know why she’s so afraid?
They tell her God is wholly masculine
and that theology is a masculine task.
They tell her God loves her no matter what,
but that she has to be (wifelily) sexy
and bear children or God won’t approve of her.
That’s her lot. That’s her job.
That’s because their God is a man.

And if she’s tired of being sexy,
and wants to serve God with her mind,
to learn and teach the Scriptures,
they tell her that Biblical interpretation
is a man’s job
and that if she wants to teach the Bible
or lead the people of God,
she must become a man.

I told God that I am afraid to become a man,
that I’m not strong or brave or bold.
He would have none of it.

My newest acquisition is the iPod Touch, from which this post is made. I love it, but I’m still getting used to the tiny keyboard. If Apple made a fold-up external keyboard, I could use my Touch for notes in class.

For now, though, it’s just fun. More blog posts will be coming soon; I’m doing some work on alphabetic acrostic poems in the Hebrew Bible.

Tomorrow, June 30, Corrie and I celebrate two years of marriage. On this night two years ago, I was kidnapped by my groomsmen and other friends and taken to Iron Hill Brewery for drinks and merriment. Then we went back to my apartment and smoked pipes and talked till 2am. Then I slept on my small pad in the living room for the last time.

When morning came, I symbolically gathered up all my old twin-size sheets and my crumbling egg-crate bed, and tossed them in the dumpster. Then I showered, grabbed my tux, and headed for the church with my buddies.

Eight furious and flurrious hours later, it was all over. Or, maybe it had just begun (cheesiest line ever!)…

Two years later, I am happy to report that we are still in love. But it’s a different sort of love; I knew marriage would change our relationship for the better, but it was one of those things that you just don’t understand until you take the plunge. I think that the scariest part of being married is that the stakes are so much higher; the risk of causing and receiving pain is so much higher. Yet this is also the best part of marriage, since the same closeness that inevitably brings pain also brings joy and intimacy.

It’s easy for me to say that marriage is great. I highly recommend it. But wait till we’ve been married for five years, and then ten, and then twenty-five, then fifty–that’s when my opinion might mean something. I suppose marriage is what Corrie and I make of it, by God’s grace.

– Benj

In the beginning, Yahweh God built a temple. Now the stones with which Yahweh wished to build His temple were scattered and broken and there were no hands to set the stones together, and the Breath of Yahweh hovered over the stones. And the Breath of Yahweh blew upon the stones and separated air from stone and ordered the stones into walls. Within the walls, Yahweh built more walls, rooms within rooms. Yet there was no life in the temple. And so Yahweh God fashioned a statue of Himself out of mud, and the Breath entered its lungs and it became a living image. One day while the image was sleeping, Yahweh pulled a rib from its side and with it fashioned another living image.

Now Yahweh placed these two enlivened statues in the innermost part of the temple, the Holy of Holies, and commanded them saying, “Multiply, fill the whole temple with images, spread the divine space of the Holy of Holies to the whole of the temple until there is no more division between holy and unholy space, between chaos and order, between being and non being. Fill the whole temple with My bodily Presence.” Yahweh gave His images charge over the temple storehouses also, saying, “Eat from all the food in the storehouses and feed the other inhabitants of the temple, making certain that every creature has what it needs. Yet do not eat of the Bread of the Knowledge of Holiness and Unholiness, for in the day that you do, you shall surely cease to be my images.”

Yet there were enemies lurking within the outer walls of the temple courts who did not wish Yahweh to be the God of the temple, and they despised the statues whose senses He had enlivened. And so the enemies broke into the Holy of Holies and lied to the images of Yahweh saying, “Yahweh has deceived you. He knows that if you eat of the Bread of the Knowledge of Holiness and Unholiness, you will become as divine as He and try to overthrow Him. In that day, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, and you will no longer need His Breath in order to live in divine space.”

And so the two images believed the words of the enemies and ate of the forbidden bread, declaring to Yahweh, “We do not wish to be your images any longer! We shall represent only our selves, our own divinity! We shall be our own holiness! Take away the Breath of your Presence!” No sooner had the images eaten the bread and uttered the words when Yahweh’s Breath left His images and they died, for there was nothing to enliven them. They fell from the altar bench to the ground, for there was no more Breath in their lungs. The enemies plundered the statues and carried them away from the temple, stripping them of the precious metals and jewels with which they were adorned. The enemies cast the images out into a razed field outside the temple walls and left them to rot within the earth.

Outside the entrance to the Holy of Holies, Yahweh placed a guardian deity with a flaming sword, lest anything unholy try to enter it again. In the outer courts of the temple, all the inhabitants mourned, for the keepers of the temple storehouses had died. Who would care for the temple and who would fill it with holiness? Who would be Yahweh’s bodily presence to sustain all that lived within the temple and who would protect them from the wild unholy things that lurked outside the Holy of Holies?*

***

After spending a semester studying ancient Near Eastern mythology and the spatial layout of ANE temples, it is well-nigh impossible for me to think of the Gospel of Jesus Christ without thinking about Mesopotamian cult statues. “What do cult statues have to do with the Gospel?” you may rightly ask. If you’ve grown up in a Christian family or been at all immersed in Christian sub-culture, you’ve probably heard people say that human beings are created in the “image of God” – and that is what the Biblical account in Genesis says. In the beginning, God speaks into the chaos and starts building the universe and filling it with living creatures. When God sets about creating humanity, He says, “Let us make humans in our image, after our likeness.” But what exactly does it mean to be created “in the image of God”?

Later on in the Biblical narrative, Yahweh God commands His people, Israel, not to make any graven images or any sort of anthropomorphic statues in an attempt to represent Him. This command against graven images stands in sharp contrast to the surrounding peoples of Mesopotamia who had oodles and oodles of images of varying kinds to represent their many deities. As W.W. Hallo has noted, because human beings were already the image of God, Yahweh’s command against making graven images was, “presumably intended to discourage all experimentation to arrive at a more precision depiction of the deity.”

If humanity is created in the image of Yahweh, then…humans are Yahweh’s cult statues?

I decided to pursue the connection further. I thought that an understanding of how these cult images were mean to represent their pagan deities might shed some light on humanity’s function and identity as Yahweh’s image. As aforementioned, there were many kinds of images and divine representation of ANE deities, however, these cult statues seemed to have a special function because of their placement in Mesopotamian temples and the specific rituals the images had to undergo in order for the spirit of the deity to take up residence in the image. But before I tell you about that, let me discuss what the temple meant for people in the ANE.

To the Mesopotamian mind, the destiny of humanity was inextricably linked to the will and destiny of the gods. The temple was not just a place for humans to offer sacrifice and make requests to a deity who lodged elsewhere – the temple was thought of as the divine residence of the god. The presence of the god was needed in order for the community to thrive. If the nation was to function as it ought, you needed to gods to move into the neighborhood. Without the gods, the crops would fail, the animals would languish, and you wouldn’t have success in battle, so you wanted the gods to live among you as members of the community. But no one would expect a god to take up residence in an unholy house or live in the community with the proper treatment. So the people must build a house fit for…well…a god. And so grand temples were built on mountains or atop tall ziggurats in order to bring humans closer to the divine space of the heavens, in hopes that the gods would condescend to dwell among humans. The high places were the meeting point between human and divine space.

The spatial layout of the temple determined where the god would reside. There was a good deal of diversity and complexity within ANE temples, but usually the holiest, most sacred space was deep within the heart of the temple. There were sometimes outer courts where any temple functionary or worshipper could go, but travel a little deeper into the temple and you would find holy places that only certain officiates and priests could enter. The holiest place was the cella or holy of holies, which might be thought of as the throne room of the god. This was where the image of the god lived.

While there is some debate on how precisely the cult image was supposed to represent its deity, the majority of scholars own that the image did not function like an icon in a church. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, icons are pictures that remind the viewer of the saint or Christ who is beyond the icon. An icon is like a window through which one speaks to the person depicted, yet the reality of the person is elsewhere. Mesopotamian cult statues are a different kind of image. It was supposed that, through ritual cleansing, the spirit of the deity actually became present in the statue. (And, some postulate, the statue simultaneously was and was not the god itself – I’ll discuss this in greater detail later.) Through ceremonial washing, the image became the living presence of the deity.

However, even if a cult statue was crafted, this did not guarantee the presence of the god within the image. The image had to undergo several ceremonies, the mis pi (mouth-cleansing) and pit pi (mouth-opening). As part of the mouth-washing ceremony, the human craftsmen who had fashioned the image had their hands ceremonially “cut off” with a wooden tamarisk sword while swearing that they had not made the image; that it was in fact a god “born of the heavens.” The lips of the statue were cleansed at least fourteen times in order to make it a proper abode in which the deity might dwell. After this, the statue’s mouth was ritually opened, which meant that its senses were activated in order that it might it might smell incense and hear and eat food, etc. In essence, it became a living being and was treated as one (the image was often clothed, adorned and given food and incense by the temple officiates who cared for the images). After this “activation,” the statue was escorted to its residence in the holy of holies.

So how does this shed light on the idea of human beings as the “image of God”? I think this “temple action” in the pagan temples of Mesopotamian parallels what’s going on with the earth and humanity in Genesis 1-3. There are numerous Psalms and other poetic descriptions in the Bible that portray the heavens and the earth as a kind of cosmic temple (Psalm 104 is one example that comes to mind). The heavens are Yahweh’s throne and the earth is his footstool (Isa. 66:1). Even the apostle Paul in his speech in the Areopagus says that, “the God who made the world does not dwell in temples made by hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:24-25). Yahweh is not like other gods who live in temples and must be served food and drink by human hands. Yahweh does not create humans to serve Him in that sense, as if He needed anything, but it is He who formed the temple of the world and sustains it by the Breath of His Presence. After fashioning the world, God fashions an image, Adam, and breathes His Spirit into him and Adam becomes a living being. From Adam’s rib, God creates another image, Eve. God sets His images in the Holy of Holies (the Garden of Eden) and commands His images to, in essence, push the sacred space of the Garden out to the rest of the world. They are to be their Father’s bodily presence to the rest of the world.

In Mesopotamian temples, if the cult image of the deity was in the holy of holies, it meant that all was well with the world, for the god was in his earthly home. If the image was alive, it meant that the deity it represented was also alive. Sometimes, however, foreign invaders would ravage the city and steal the temple images. Once the statues were thus desecrated, it was believed that the spirit of the deity had abandoned the image because of its unholiness. In order for the statue to once again become the living presence of the deity, it had to be repaired and ceremonially cleansed, activated, and installed in the temple in order for the deity to return to the temple and dwell within its image once again. A time of mourning took place while the statue was being repaired, for the death of the image meant that the god, too, had died. When the statue was brought back to the temple, a time of rejoicing took place, for the resurrection of the image meant the resurrection of the deity.

By the end of Genesis 3, we have God’s images stripped bare and abandoned just outside of the temple. Obviously, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between Mesopotamian cult statues and humanity and all these comparisons must be taken with a grain of salt. Unlike the abandoned cult images, Adam and Eve are still alive and, in some sense, are still the images of God, but not in the old way. All is not right with the world; the Garden has been ravaged by evil creatures and humanity (instead of subduing evil), has been subdued by evil.

So where does the Gospel of Jesus Christ come in? In my next post, I will discuss Jesus as both the image of the Deity and the Deity Himself and also address in greater detail the relationship between the image and the deity in ancient Mesopotamia (there’s this recurring theme that what is done to the image is done to the deity). I will also discuss the idea of the Eucharistic Presence and what being Yahweh’s image might entail in the context of the covenant community.

– Rebekah

*As you can see, I have taken a good deal of poetic liberty in my rendition of the Creation story. It is not meant to be a theologically precise account, but a creative interpretation to provoke thought and dialogue.

It’s a privilege to welcome my sister, Rebekah, to this blog as my co-host. I’ll let Bekah introduce herself more fully, but I will say that you will find her writing thoughtful and enjoyable. I have encouraged her to put up some of her poetry, past and present, for you to savor.

Check back in often, or subscribe to ThinkHardThinkWell using the feed on the right. Thanks for reading!

– Benj

Several years ago I discovered a radio program based in the Midwest called "Issues, Etc." The host, Todd, is a Lutheran pastor, and the show is a mix of theology, culture, politics, history and pastoral theology, livened by Todd’s and Jeff’s dry humor. As someone who grew up in contemporary, evangelical, credobaptistic churches but has come to Reformed theology as an adult, I appreciate the perspective of my new-found Reformational "cousins" in the Lutheran tradition.

Here’s Pastor Todd in a round-table discussion with some other LCMS pastors on the history and theology of the debate on priestly celibacy. All of Todd’s shows are available in MP3 format on the website.

Priestly celibacy finds its roots in fourth-century monastic asceticism–abandoning the world in the pursuit of higher spirituality. When governmental persecution ended in 313, the church lost its "refiner’s fire," so Christians had to come up with some other way of getting close to God–or, more skeptically, of proving how truly spiritual they were. Thus, some chose to afflict themselves.

Yet in the contemporary American church, the pendulum has swung the other way as a result of the Christian response to the 1960s revolution. This results in "how-to" books from the Song of Songs, and a general "Why-should-the-devil-have-all-the-good-sex?" mentality. Are we telling our teens and young singles that marriage will be a sexual bonanza?