Bible

Old Testament

Genesis, First book of Moses

Creation

• Earth begins without form and void, water deep and dark with Spirit flowing over the water’s face

• Then God says ‘Let there be light’. Notice the language ‘let there’: he allows light to be. Then he separates light and darkness, and the light was good. Unity to multiplicity.

• To allow multiplicity the delight in gathering back into unity? In becoming like God?

• Further separation of waters with the sky (2nd day), then with land and plants (third day), then celestial realm: sun, moon, stars (fourth day), water animals (fifth day), land animals according to their kinds and humans, made in the image of God (6th)

• “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it…” and have dominion of all moving creatures, plants.

• Subdue it…apprehend it? Use it? Exploit it? But also fill the earth… so not just exploitation, and not just apprehension. Fill and subdue. Create and exploit. Generate and moderate(?). Implicate and explicate.

Creation and The Fall

• Man formed out of dust, and the breath of life (spirit) was breathed into his nostrils and a soul was born.
• Placed in the garden of Eden, where the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil lay.
• “Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God has made…”
• Once the forbidden fruit was eaten, their “eyes were opened, and they know that they were naked.” Self-consciousness unlocked. The focus on vision seems important…especially referential, also perhaps the most obvious, and thus potentially misleading sense (i.e., prone to false confidence)?
• God says that, as punishment, Eve will: bear pain in child birth, desire her husband, and he will rule over her (for she misbehaved without said rule). She will also battle against the snake (evil) for time to come.

• Man is punished by being doomed to “in toil…eat of [the tree of knowledge of good and evil] all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat plants of the field.”

• Plants of the field: earthly, material knowledge.

• The woman is given a name: Eve, meaning something like “living”. Adam and Eve are both then clothed by God.
• God said “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil”. Man is made in likeness to God, although this time by defying God? Pre-fall, was man more like God?

• Man drove out of the garden. In the east of the garden, a cherubim and flaming sword turning every which way guard the way to the tree of life.

• East: sunrise—flaming sword is like the sun. The tree of life is guarded by youth (cherubim) and, according to some, reason (flaming swords). The flaming swords slice yet illuminate, divide yet unite, like the mind. Revolve in every which way: open awareness, yet centered on whomever wields the swords (God?). To approach the tree of life, we must become like those who guard it: we must become like children, and sharpen and brighten our minds (not in a ‘knowledge’ way (that would be just a sword), but more in an ‘understanding’ way.)

Cain and Abel

• Born of Eve, the older brother Cain (a tiller of ground) offers fruit to god, the younger Abel (a keeper of sheep) offers the firstlings of his flock. The Lord regard Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
• Cain kills his brother in spite. God punishes him: the earth will no longer yield to him its strength and he shall be a fugitive and wanderer of the earth. Materially bound, wandering aimlessly.
• Cain is marked so that nobody kills him. Branded as a miscreant, but also branded as someone not allowed to be killed…why? We must leave that to god?

Adam’s descendants to Noah

• Adam has a son Seth, to replace Abel, when he is 130 years old. He has more children and lives 930 years. Seth has children, and lives 912 years.
• Bunch more generations, then Noah is born, who will “bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.”

The wickedness of mankind, Noah’s ark

• Men took to wives such as they chose (alluding to irresponsible choice of mates) and mankind multiplied. Men’s lifespan reduced to 120 years. Wickedness greatened, and evil was flowing within the thoughts of man’s heart. The lord was sorry he made man, and said he would blot man out, and all creatures.
• But Noah was righteous, blameless, and walked with God.
• God floods the earth for forty days and nights. Noah gathers his immediate family and two of each kind of animal on the ark. It has a roof, therefore it floats as the waters rise.
• Eventually the water stops, having risen higher than mountains. Upon the highest mountain, the ark settles first as the water drains (provoked by God sending wind across the deep (alluding to first creation story?)).

• Noah sends out a raven to see whether the land dried. It goes to and fro but doesn’t return. He sends out a dove: it first returns for there was still water; after seven days he tried again and the dove returns with an olive leaf in its beak; and after seven more she does not return.

• Interesting. The dove is a she. Also wonder if Jesus’ first miracle is related to the flood: loads of water this time being a cause of elation rather than destruction.

• “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall have his blood shed.”

• “Noah was the first tiller of soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent.”

• Water to wine…

• One of his three son’s snitches on him when he’s naked and drunk, but the two other sons cover him. Canaan is doomed to slavehood under the other two brothers.

• Wonder if Canaan people betrayed another nation when that nation was vulnerable.

The Tower of Babel

• Babel = Babylon. They were a greatly wealthy empire at the time.
• Nimrod, a might hunter before the lord, establishes Babel. Its people build a tower that extends to the heavens to avoid being scattered upon the earth and to make a name for themselves (pride).
• The god acknowledges their oneness, their one language, that this is just the beginning of what they’ll do and nothing will be impossible for them (hmmm…). Then he makes it so they cannot understand one another and scatters them about the earth.
• Babel is close to the Hebrew balal, which means confused.

The call of Abram

• Abram is called to leave his country, his kindred, his father’s house, and in return he will bless him and those who bless Abram.
• Abram goes off, gets told Canaan will at some point become his so he builds an altar there and goes on, until he hits Egypt. His wife is beautiful so he tells her to call him his brother so he will not be killed. She marries the Pharaoh, who gets cursed, and returns her to Abram who has accumulated some wealth. Off they go.
• Abram settles in Canaan. He wins some battle and is honoured by the king of Salem and priest of the most high, Melchizedek, who brings bread and wine for him, blessing and praising him.
• Abram gives Melchizedek a tenth of everything. The king of Sodom, after the war, asks for the conquered people but offers all the goods to Abram. Abram declines, and suggests his family take their share.
• Abraham’s wife cannot conceive, therefore his wife encourages him to marry his maid. He has a son with her.
• Abram = exalted one. Abraham = father of a multitude.
• God is about to lay waste to a city, and Abraham asks him to spare it if such and such a number of righteous people lie in it. He works down to 10 people. Somewhat reminiscent of the 10 percent of his wealth he gave to Melchizedek.

The immorality of Sodom

• Lot lives in Sodom, where he lets two angels stay with him for the night. They warn they may bring trouble, but Lot insists. The sodomites arrive and demand he show them who he’s housing, but he refuses and attempts to protect the angels. The sodomites burst past him and into his home against his will.
• Lot later escapes and Sodom is rained in fire and brimstone in response to the disrespect. (Perhaps a volcano eruption occurred around this time)

God tests Abraham

• God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (“he who laughs”), his only begotten son (minus the one with the slave). Isaac carries the sacrifice wood, akin to Jesus carrying the cross. Isaac asks where is the sacrificial lamb, Abraham says “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
• Abraham is about to kill his son when an angel stops him, and recognizes him as truly god fearing. A ram appears behind him with its horns caught in a thicket, which he offers instead.
• A second angel appears, sent by the Lord, and says Abraham will be blessed with descendants as numerous as sand on earth and stars in the sky.

The birth of Esau and Jacob

• Rebekah marries Isaac and has twins. Two nations divided are born in her womb, one is stronger than the other, the elder serves the younger. Esau is the elder, red and hairy, and Jacob comes out holding Esau’s heel (Jacob = he who supplants, he who takes by the heel)
• Esau is favored by his father Isaac for he hunts good game, Jacob is favored by his mother Rebekah for he is quiet and smooth.
• One day Esau is famished and asks Jacob for food. Jacob offers it in exchange for Esau’s birthright. Starving, Esau accepts.
• Another, Rebekah overhears Isaac asking Esau to bring him game, as he is blind and nearing death. She tells Jacob, who at first is reluctant, to pretend to be Esau and bring him game instead. He does and is blessed. Esau comes later with game, but his father had already gave away his blessing. He gets told he will dwell away from the fatness of earth and heaven on high, will live by his sword and serve his brother, but will at some point break loose by breaking the yoke at his neck
• Esau plots the murder of Jacob, so Rebekah tells Jacob to flee. He does. Esau marries a Canaanite out of spite, despite his father telling Jacob not to do so.
• Jacob has a dream about a ladder ascending to heaven, strewn with angels of God upon its steps and God himself sitting above/beside it.

Jacob wrestles at Peniel

• When Jacob is heading back home after taking to wives, worried about encountering Esau, he encounters a man at a stream. They wrestle, and when Jacob doesn’t let up, the man touches Jacob’s thigh and puts it out of joint. The man asks Jacob to let him go, but Jacob refuses unless he blesses him. Jacob is blessed and renamed Israel (He who strives with God).

• Jacob asks the man his name, but the man responds “Why is it that you ask my name?”, blesses him, and off he goes.

• The namelessness of God.

Joseph dreams of greatness

• Joseph (He who adds), Rachel’s first son, is most loved by his father Jacob. Joseph has a dream that he was a sheave upright and all his brothers were sheaves that bowed to him. He told his brothers and they were very jealous. He told his father a similar dream and his father rebuked him, but kept the saying in mind.
• Joseph is a dreamer, like his father. His brothers refer to him as the dreamer.

• Joseph is skilled at interpreting dreams. He successfully predicts the dreams of the pharaoh’s butler and baker when they are thrown in prison with him. When they complain of having nobody to interpret their dreams, Joseph says: “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, I beg you.”

• Interpreting dreams as godly. Metaphor. The bridge.

• Genesis ends with Israel’s (Jacob’s) death, and Joseph forgiving his brothers for betraying him, stating that “you meant evil against me: but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Joseph eventually dies in the final paragraph.

Exodus, second book of Moses

Birth and youth of Moses

• Named Moses for he was “drawn out of water”

Moses and the burning bush

• “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.”

• When God saw that Moses turned aside to see why the bush wasn’t burnt, God recognized him and called out to him.

• Recognizing wonder and majesty is rewarded? To recognize that spirit that flows through all things, burns in all things, everlastingly?

• “Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place in which you are standing is holy ground.”

• Shed thy pride.

• “And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”

• God-fearing. Reminds of Arjuna with Vishnu in his cosmic form

• “When you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain.”

• Eternal service?

God reveals his name

• God says to Moses his name: “I Am Who I Am”. Say this to the songs of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’

• I am… being…

• God instructs Moses to say to the Pharaoh: “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, we beg you, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.”

• Moses receives three gifts from God. 1) His staff, his rod, that becomes a serpent unless he takes it by the tail (the rod of God); 2) when he puts his hand in his chest, it comes out white as snow, and when he puts it back and pulls it out, his flesh is returned; 3) if he takes water out of the Nile and pours it upon dry soil, it becomes blood.

• 1) taming of evil through uprightness, order, a trusting grasp, subduing cunning; 2) hmm… something to do with heart giving/taking; 3) water into blood… inanimate into animate… material into vital

• God then grants Moses eloquence of speech to help convince his people and the Pharaoh of God’s demand.

• When Moses and Aaron face the Pharaoh and he asks of them a miracle, Aaron casts down the rod of God and it becomes a snake. The Pharaoh’s wise men and sorcerers then did the same by their secret arts, however Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.

• Those who imitate are bound to be devoured by that which they imitate.

• The Pharaoh’s heart was still hardened, so Moses struck the Nile with his rod and turned it into blood, foul and undrinkable, killing the fish in it. “There shall be blood through all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.”

• Hmmm, similar flavour as Christ’s first miracle, but life-taking rather than life-giving

• The magicians reproduced this trick as well by their secret arts, so the Pharaoh’s heart remained hard.
• The first plague was the water-blood, the second frogs, the third gnats. The magicians couldn’t reproduce this one… hmm… why? Too fine?

• Fourth was flies, fifth death of livestock, sixth boils. In this one it says “But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them; as the Lord had spoken to Moses.”

• The Lord hardened the Pharaoh’s heart? Huh? Wouldn’t he be working against himself here? If it’s not the Pharaoh hardening his own heart, what agency has he?

• Seventh is thunder and hail. The hail destroys the earth of Egypt, and the Pharaoh once more asks Moses to stop the onslaught, that he will let the Israelites go. Moses says he will stop it, and so he does. But the Pharaoh once again lies. Moses knows this: “But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.”
• The eight: locusts. “Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants.” So the Lord is hardening their hearts, so that he may unveil more of his potential?
• Ninth is darkness, tenth is Passover. Lambs are sacrificed by Israelites, their blood is painted on the doorposts. Only unleavened bread shall be eaten for the next 7 days. God passes over the blood painted houses and the firstborn in all of Egypt are killed.

• The Israelites are allowed to leave. They first venture through the wilderness, towards the Red Sea. The pharaoh has his heart hardened and chases after the Israelites. As the Egyptian army is closing on the Israelites, they begin to doubt. “For it would have been better to serve the Egyptians than to do in the wilderness.” Moses replied “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still.”

• Stillness. Faith.

• Moses strikes his staff and God parts the Red Sea with an east wind. The Egyptians follow, the Lord clogs their chariot wheels, and they are enveloped by the sea after Moses is instructed to wave his hand over it. All are killed.
• Amid the deep, fluid unknown, the Israelites found solid ground by grace of their Lord and their belief in Him. The Egyptians still doubted, were still questioning the Lord’s profundity and oceanic potential, and so they were forced to face it. Testament to faith.

• The Israelites continue to move through the wilderness, and went three days without water. There was only bitter water nearby, and after crying to the Lord Moses is instructed to throw a tree into the water, and the bitter water is made sweet.

• Hmmm… mysterious.

• After delivery of the Ten Commandments upon mount Sinai, the people tremble. But Moses says to them, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that the fear of him may be before your eyes, that you may not sin.”

• Interesting… do not fear, but in any case your fear of god is to stop you from sinning.

• Moses goes up to Mount Sinai for forty days/nights, and God gives him a h bunch of “shalls”: how to build the ark of the covenant, all the accessories, priestly garments, ordination ceremonies, stuff like that. While he’s away the Israelites become restless. To appease them, Aaron tells them to offer him their gold, and moulds it into a golden calf. They worship it. God becomes furious, but Moses asks him to repent of his evil and remember his covenants with Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. God repents.
• Moses admonishes the Israelites for the false worship. He tells the sons of Levi that they must kill their son and brother to atone for their false worship (explaining a civil war?). Then God hits them with a plague.

• The Lord says to Moses: “you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”

• Mysterious. We may only see the rear of God. He takes away His hand… revelation. Allowing us to see but a part of Him.

• The Lord proclaims to Moses: “the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy and faithfulness, keeping merciful love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children…”

• Inheritance of iniquity. Similar to karma.

• “…for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God…”

• Hmmm… seems insecure.

• God renews the covenant with Moses, another forty days, and Moses takes the stone tablets (again, he’d broken them before in frustration of the golden calf mishap) down to the people. This time his face is glowing after having spoken with God. This freaks the people out, so he veils his face when speaking with them, and unveils it when he goes to speak with God.
• Moses finishes his work on establishing the tabernacle, ark, all that stuff. Then the cloud hung over and the glory of God filled the tabernacle. In day the cloud was upon it, at night fire. The cloud and fire, the glory, represent the presence and transcendence of God. (?)

Leviticus, third book of Moses

• “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”
• “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as your-self; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

Punishment for disobedience

• If we break from God, He “will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause ife to pine away. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it; I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies; those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins…and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.”

• The terror, depression rings a modern bell. “You shall flee when none pursues you.”

• “…if you walk contrary to me…I will let loose the wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children…and make you few in number, so that your ways shall become desolate.”

• Reminds of the suite of bizarre ideologies contributing to childlessness.

Numbers, fourth book of Moses

• Two men in the village are graced with the Lord’s spirit and begin prophesying. “My lord Moses, forbid them,” says his minister. But Moses replies “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit into them!”
• Aaron and Miriam speak against Moses. God replies “Hear my words. If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses, he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech: and he beholds the form of the Lord. …”
• The Israelites are on the move in the wilderness, and once more complain to the Moses for bringing them out there. They are parched for water. Upon being lambasted with these complaints, Moses and Aaron fall on their faces at the door of meeting. The Lord instructs Moses to take the rod and tell the rock to yield its water. Moses and Aaron then gather the people to the rock and say “Hear now, you rebels, shall we bring forth water from this rock?” And Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice, and water poured forth abundantly.
• The Lord then said to Moses and Aaron “Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assemble to the land which I have given them.”
• Interesting. This is the second ordeal at the rock of meribah. The first time around the Lord instructs Moses to strike the rock and water pours out (Exodus 17). This time around, at the same rock, He tells Moses to tell the rock to yield its water, but Moses instead strikes it twice and asks the assembly “shall we bring forth water from this rock?” Something defiant and prideful about Moses and Aaron’s composure this time around. This may be why God admonishes them after for not believing in Him, otherwise they would have followed his direction. Aaron dies soon after as punishment on Mount Hor, no longer graced with reaching the promise land.

Balaam, his donkey, and the angel

• Story of a foreign prince of Moab who is asked to investigate the Israelites who are still in the wilderness making their way to the promise land.

• God is upset with Balaam intruding upon the Israelites, so He manifests in angelic form holding a sword. Balaam cannot see the angel, but his donkey can. First encounter she avoids the armed angel standing on the road, and Balaam strikes her. Second, she sees the angel in a narrow vineyard path and rubs against the wall. Again, Balaam strikes her. Finally, the angel of the Lord stands ahead in a narrow place where there is nowhere to turn. The donkey lay down (submitted) under Balaam, and with anger kindled he strikes her.

• Donkey as a symbol of conscience, of that humble part of us that can feel (but not see?) God. The rider a symbol of arrogance. The gradual narrowing of the path and encounter: our pride eventually forces us into confrontations with the divine.

• The Lord speaks through the donkey “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” Balaam replies “Because you have made sport of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you.” The donkey: “Am I not your donkey, upon which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Was I ever accustomed to do so to you?”

• God as the donkey that supports us. Or as the mediator to God (God speaks through her).

• Also the irony of Balaam wishing he had a sword to slay his donkey (something like God), while the angel holds one.

• The Lord then opens his eyes to his angelic form, holding the sword. Balaam falls on his face and asks for forgiveness. God: “Why have you struck your donkey three times? Behold, I have come forth to withstand you, because your way is perverse before me; and the donkey saw me, and turned aside before me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, surely now I would have slain you and let her live.” Balaam replies “I have sinned, for I did not know that you stood in the road against me…”

• Acknowledgement of sin, of missing the mark post revelation.

• We always ride upon the donkey (must be some significance in her being feminine). Something we always ride upon, that turns us away from wrongful paths, that sees god, that submits to god, even as we remain prideful.

• Balaam is then ordered only to speak as God wills. He later continues to prophesy four oracles related to the establishment of the promise land.

• Interesting how the man who couldn’t see god, post-revelation, becomes an oracle, a seer.

• “He’s an uncommon love for the common man and godly wisdom resides in the least of things so that it may well be that the voice of the Almighty speaks most profoundly in such beings as lives in silence themselves.”

Deuteronomy, fifth book of Moses

• “…your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, shall go in there, and to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.”

• It being the promiseland. The innocence of the child, the return to Eden via lack of knowledge of good and evil, and a trust in God.

• “And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.”

• Wow, the symbolism. The mountain (inspiration), the fire to the heart of heaven (soul, spirit, heart), wrapped in clouds (ignorance, uncertainty), God speaks to us through this burning we have, but through no form, only voice (conscience)

• The formlessness of God is then used to remind Israelites not to worship Gods with form, be it creatures, people, or planets.
• Otherwise, God will become jealous and scatter them. And in their scattering, they will find themselves upon gods of wood and stone, and eventually long for the true, formless god. And God will be merciful in remembrance of His covenant with Noah, Abraham, et al.

• “Out of Heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you; and on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.”

• Despite the formlessness, He still revealed Himself to them. Although this fire is a form in a way, they do not worship the fire itself, but the source of the fire.

• The Great Commandment: “The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

• “And you shall destroy all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you, your eye shall not pity them…”

• Not good.

• God warns Israelites not to claim that it is because of their righteousness that God is granting them victories, but because of their enemies’ wickedness.

• Goes on to remind them all the times they rebelled against god. “You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.” Haha

• “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”

• Single line out of nowhere. Out of pocket fr
• Could be referencing a baby goat. Could be a deep metaphor for not using something life giving contrary to its purpose (to take away life). Can be applied to many things: e.g., using religion (that which binds) to stoke hatred and division

• Devouring mother also comes to mind

• “…you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.”

• Bit of a double standard there on the lending/borrowing. Though maybe it’s not lending with interest, being dependable rather than dependant.

• Ah, explicitly stated in (23:19) that lending to fellow Israelites must be interest free, but to foreigners you may charge interest.

• “For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land.” (14:11)
• If a king is ordained by God, “he shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply for himself silver or gold.”

• “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put in a woman’s garment, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”

• Oof

• “The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (29:29)
• The word is not in heaven, nor beyond the sea, “but the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” (30:14)
• “For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant.” (31:20)
• Moses about to die, will die on Mount Nebo, again “because you broke faith with me in the midst of the sins of Israel at the waters of Meribath…because you did not revere me as holy in the midst of the sons of Israel.” (32:51)

Book of Joshua

• Before the war in Jericho, Joshua (who takes Moses spot after his death) has a vision of a sworded spirit descending to him and claiming he will command the army in the name of the lord. He instructs Joshua to “put off your shoes from your feet for the place you stand is holy.” (5:15) Callback to Moses and the burning bush.
• A harlot (Rahab) saves some Israelite spies by hiding them. She and her family are spared when Jericho is decimated. The rest of the town and occupants are utterly destroyed.

• The Gibeonites clue in that Israel is wreaking havoc and will inherit the earth, and therefore submit to them proactively. They end up working as slaves, hewing wood and drawing water for the congregation.

• Similar flavour of moral justification as the intouchables, lower castes in Hinduism. Eternally bound to slavehood.

• “I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you dwell therein; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards which you did not plant.” (24:13)
• Joshua unites all the hebrews (i.e., those who remained in Canaan(?), such as Esau’s tribe, while Jacob’s boys went to Egypt. He commands them to ditch any other gods they may have come to worship in their time away from one another, and worship Yahweh, the true Israeli god.

The book of judges

• The Israelites conquer the canaanites, almost. But not quite. So they still mingle with them, and end up worshipping their gods. The Lord sends judges to remind them of the covenant, and the lord is with the judges, but once the judges die the people regress harder. The Lord deserts them in their blasphemy, and instead of wreaking havoc he lets them either undue themselves, or find their way back. This seems like the first relaxing of control—letting them find their way. The training wheels are off.
• Samson’s story is interesting. Born of a woman who is urged by a spirit of god repeatedly to not drink wine or unclean food, for she shall bear a special child.
• Samson, a Nazarite, picks a non Jew as a wife. His parents are hesitant, but apparently god wanted a reason to lay waste to these outsiders. So Samson marries her.

• There is a mystical encounter with a lion, and Samson kills it with his bare hands. When he returns to where he killed the lion, its torn-open body is full of honey and a swarm of bees.

• Symbolic of pride/anger and indulgence?

• Wife ends up betraying him, loses a bet cause she snitched, and she is given to a man who had been his best man.
• Samson burns a bunch of crops by lighting three hundred fox tails on fire and then running off, kills a bunch of people, and slays a thousand more men with a donkey’s jawbone
• Then he marries a Gazite, Delilah, who keeps trying to betray him to give him to the Gazites. He eventually tells her how to make him weak after lying the first few times: to cut his hair. She cuts it all off and he loses his power (Nazirite).
• He is blinded, and he finally dies in a sort of coliseum, not before taking down some columns on his way out, killing three thousand more.
• On Micah, who makes some personal shrines of worship: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” (17:5)
• Story of a Levite who has a concubine from Bethlehem, Judah. She runs off in anger back home, he goes to get her, his father in law is very hospitable (almost too hospitable). Eventually, off the Levite goes, passing through a Benjaminite city. They do not acknowledge the sojourner, until another who has a house there passes by.
• The Benjaminites are suspicious of the Levite sojourner, and end up raping his concubine overnight. The Levite ends up cutting his defiled concubine into 12 pieces and spreading a peice to the 12 tribes. They end up turning against the Benjaminites, destroying them in response to their blasphemy, commandment-breaking. In pity, and so that the original 12 tribes are all still alive, the 12 tribes give some ladies (though not theirs) to a few (400) Benjaminite survivors, who complain but eventually comply.
• Again, final lines: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” (21:25)

The book of Ruth

• Short one. A Bethlehem couple and their two sons sojourn to Moab. The sons marry, but eventually all the men die. The widow is left with her Moabite daughters in law. In misery she returns to Bethlehem, and urges the daughters to go back to their homes in Moab.
• One daughter in law, Ruth, refuses, standing by Naomi (the widow) “for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God: where you die i wil de and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you.” (1:16-17)
• Ruth exemplifies the faith of a gentile, a non-Jew, and is eventually rewarded by marrying Boaz after she works diligently in his fields, and he recognizes her devotion. Boaz is of close kin to the widow.

The first book of Samuel

• Samuel enters priesthood quite young, because his mom prays to the lord. He works under Eli, whose sons blaspheme and are eventually killed. The ark gets stolen by the philistines and the blind Eli falls over in shock and breaks his neck.
• The ark eventually finds its way back after causing some pestilence to those who carried it.
• The people demand Samuel, the latest judge, for a king. He advises against it at first: they’d be subjecting themselves to tax and slavery. But they persist. It is a humble yet attractive benjaminite, Saul, who is eventually chosen by God to rule over the people. Saul becomes prince.
• Saul becomes king. Really, this is to appease the masses. The Lord did not want monarchy—He constantly helps the Jews escape monarchies (e.g., Egypt). Reluctantly, he gives the a king, but reproaches them for wanting one and not trusting the Lord. Says that so long as love for the Lord is number one for the people and king, things will be ok.
• While warring with the philistines, Saul makes a rash oath to his people to not eat until evening. They toil all day, and happen upon a forest with honey on its ground. They resist, but his son Jonathan didn’t hear the oath, dips his staff in the honey, and licks. His eyes light up. The people sack a town and in their hunger eat the meat with blood (big no-no). Jonathan also eventually falls into misfortune.
• Samuel instructs Saul to attack some nation, and to make sure they kill absolutely everyone and every being. Saul does so, but spares the ox and sheep for sacrifice, and spares the foreign king. This belligerence causes him to lose his kingship. Obeisance is valued by God more than sacrifices; Saul listened to his people (who didn’t want to waste resources) rather than the Lord (who deemed those resources impure)
• “Man looks on the outward appearance; but the Lord looks on the heart.” (16:7)
• David and Goliath takes place here. Saul falls out of favour with the Lord, but continues to rule. David, a young shepherd boy, the youngest of eight sons, is chosen as next heir, unbeknownst to Saul. David defeats Goliath with his sling; Saul at first gives him armour before battle, but David takes it off. He’s used to being free, and has sling lions and bears while protecting his flock. The flock he protects are now the Israelites; the lions and bears their enemies.
• Saul becomes jealous of David, for the Lord was with David and not him, and plots to kill the shepherd boy who has now become a commander of good esteem among Israelites.

• “David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed three times; and they kissed one another, and wept with one another, until David recovered himself.”

• David upon hearing the king wants him dead, from the king’s son Jonathan. The two are bros, soul-bound. This crying and kissing gives Homeric energy

• David, fleeing jealous Saul, comes upon a priest at Nob who gives him holy bread (for he ran out of regular bread) and gives David Goliath’s sword (interesting) (for he had no other weapons to offer)
• “And every one who was in distress, and every one was in debt, and every one who was discontented, gather to him, and he became captain over them.” (22:2)
• Saul slaughters the priest who helped David, and many more.
• David has a few opportunities to kill Saul, but spares his life both times. In the moments, Saul recognizes David’s virtue, but eventually Saul returns to jealousy.
• Saul sees a medium in disguise (who he’d banished out of the land, along with priests). Samuel’s spirit speaks to him, foretelling his doom. Saul collapses, terrified.
• “For as his share is who goes down into battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage; they shall share alike. And from that day forward he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel to this day” (30:24-25)

• Saul’s army gets bodied by the phillistines. His sons are slain, and Saul falls on his sword (that is, sepukku’s) to avoid torture and shame.

• Feeling some Hitler energy with Saul here. Hitler eventually seppuku’d too, albeit with a gun (?). Delusional, suspicious, jealous, deranged. Similar texture.

The second book of Samuel

• “And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was belted with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark fo the Lord with shouting and with the sound of horn.”

• Almost primitive, indigenous

• Michal, Saul’s daughter and one of David’s wives, sees him dancing with the ark and gets bitter. He responds with “I will make merry with the Lord.” She’s cursed, no children.
• Some degeneracy arising. David sleeps with a married woman after seeing her bathe in a pool. Has her husband killed after, and takes her to be his wife. They have a son, but he gets sick and dies, a punishment from the lord.
• One of David’s sons rapes a half sister, first madly in love but then madly in hatred of her (i.e. of his own vileness)
• Absalom, the half-sister’s brother, kills the brother in vengeance. Absolom ends up vying for David’s throne. He gains in popularity and has David on the run.

• Absolom, in pursuit of David, eventually loses the battle. Riding on his mule in the forest, he gets caught on a branch, suspended between Heaven and earth (neither elevated spiritually nor grounded religiously). He is killed by one of David’s soldiers (although David told them not tk kill Absolom)

• Interesting that the mule, a symbol for humility, service, devotion, departed Absolom.

• “But godless men are like thorns that are thrown away; / for they cannot be taken with the hand; / but the man who touches them / arms himself with iron and the shaft of a spear, / and they are utterly consumed with fire.” (23:6-7)

The first book of Kings

• Story of Solomon’s discernment with the two mothers and single baby. Interestingly, the ignorant, thieving mother smothers her child in her sleep. The drowsy ignorance of sin.
• “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house which I have built?” (8:27)
• “[Solomon] had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart [from God].” (11:3)
• Despite Solomon’s wisdom, his lustful negligence leads to the dissipation of his kingdom. After he dies, his son is usurped from the throne, sent into exile. In this exile he builds two golden calfs to dissuade those still following him from returning to the true Israeli kingdom. Ironic.
• A man of god comes foreseeing the destruction of Jeroboam (the exiled son of Solomon) and his false altars. He gave a sign that the altar shall be torn down. Jeroboam casts his hand to send the seer away, but his hand dries up outstretched. He asks the seer to free his hand; when the seer complies he orders his men to take down the altar. Jeroboam invites the seer to his home, but he refuses and leaves, upon God’s commandment, in a different direction than from where he came.
• Further degeneracy in Rehoboam’s reign, more makings of molten images and altars in high place. “And there were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord drove out before the sons of Israel.” (14:24)
• Prophet Elijah arrives. He invites hundreds of Baal priests to Mount Carmel to display the power of their God, against just him. They fail to conjure a flame; Elijah asks god and so alights the flame. Israelites in attendance are wooed back to God.
• Elijah’s on the run fleeing Jezebel (queen, worships Baal). He’s alone in the wilderness without food, and when he’s given up food arrives to him. He eats and on that fuel walks forty days and night to Mount Sinai.

• “And the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” (19:11-13)

• Fire, earth, air. Interesting. Not an elemental god? Where is water?
• Not in these things… transcends these things? Could he both be in and beyond them?
• The voice of God then speaks to Elijah from within a cave on the mountain.

The second book of Kings

• A king of Jerusalem asks messengers to inquire Baalzebub, god of Ekron, whether he’ll recover from his sickness. Elijah gets word of this from the Lord, and intercepts the messengers and tells them to go back saying the king will die for his idol worship.
• The king gets mad and sends fifty guards after Elijah; Elijah rains fire upon them all. Again this happens. Third time the commander repents and Elijah spares them. The king dies.
• Elisha follows Elijah valiantly until his death. Elisha asks for a double share of his spiritual inheritance. Elijah agrees if Elisha can see him pass. “Behold, a chariot of fire and hordes of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” (2:11)
• Elisha performs a few miracles. He purifies a spring with a handful of salt. He also sics two she-bears on forty two young boys who called him bald lol.

• Another miracle: a widow comes to Elisha for help. All she has left is a jar of oil, and she’s about to lose her sons to slavery and debt. Elisha tells her to gather many vessels and pour the oil into them. She does so and pours endlessly from the jar until all vessels are full. Interesting…

• Endless fount of the lord. Reminds a little of Jesus’ first miracle. Virgin birth in a way, creation out of nothing.

• Elisha resurrects a dead boy by draping him mouth, his eyes, his body on the boy. This son he’d gifted to a wealthy woman who’d always offer him food and a place to stay when he passed through her town.
• se atae this people, I
• pray you, with bindness. So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha. 19And Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city; follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he led them to Samaria.
• 20 As soon as they entered Samar’ia, Eli’sha said, “O LorD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.” So the LorD opened their eyes, and they saw; and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.

• “When the king of Israel saw them he said to Eli’sha, “My father, shall I slay them? Shall I slay them?” He answered, “You shall not slay them. Would you slay those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” 2So he prepared for them a great feast; and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians came no more on raids into the land of Israel.” (6:20-23)

• Some surprising mercy. This happens after a raid comes after Elisha, and he sends them sleepwalking into another city.

• “Behold, you are relying now on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharoah king of Egypt to all who rely on him.”

Book of Chronicles 1/2

• Just a recap of what’s happened so far.

Book of Ezra

• Book of Kings ended with an exile of the Jews from Jerusalem, by the Babylonians, due to a series of degenerate kings. Book of Ezra opens with their return to Jerusalem thanks to the generosity of some Persian kings. They are allowed to rebuild their temple there, although the locals who occupied the land after they’d left got jealous and hampered the build for a few decades. The locals asked to participate in the build and join the religion, but the Jews declined.

• Eventually, king Darius finds in his royal archives the original decree to allow the Israelites to build their temple, and issues an order for them to recommence the build.

• An example of a religiously tolerant culture (Persia) encouraging the continuation of a more reserved, closed-off religious group (monotheistic Judaism). Admirable expression of charity. Would the Jews have done the same for others? I guess they had many times, but it was abominable and they were consequently punished for false worship. Those who built the altars of Baal, for instance, on Israel’s land, who did not crush their altars, were disgusting and brought misfortune on their people. Something doesn’t seem quite right here… a double standard.

• Intermarriage forbidden. Bunch of doxxing of Israelites who had foreign wives.

The Book of Nehemiah

• After parting the Red Sea, “By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go.”

• When we are illumined, proud, a cloud, an obscuration, leads us to salvation; whereas, when we are lost, ignorant, darkened, a pillar of illuminating late does.

The Book of Tobit

• Tobit’s a nice guy, helps out the poor and deceased Jews, and is mocked for it. He falls asleep outside and bird droppings fall in his eyes and he goes blind. Desolate, he prays for death at the same time as another, Sarah, since a demon keeps killing her prospective husbands.
• An angel Raphael is sent disguised as a human, and ends up escorting Tobit’s son Tobias to get some money left with a relative. Tobias ends up running into Sarah, they get married, they pray before sleeping together, and he burns a magic fish heart to exorcise the demon.
• They return, and Raphael uses the magic fish gall to cure Tobit’s blindness.
• Charity, faithfulness, and suffering core themes of this story. Faithfulness doesn’t necessarily reduce suffering, but makes it fertile. Faith fertilizes suffering.

Book of Judith

• Jewish town is surrounded by Assyrian army. Army worships king (idolatry). They block a water source and try to starve out the town. The Jews in the town aka the high priest to surrender, they are parched and starving. The priest says that if in 5 days God doesn’t save them, he will surrender.
• Judith gets upset at the priest for imposing temporal constraints on God, takes matters into her own hands. She makes herself pretty and walks out to the army, they take her in, she demonstrates her wisdom and charm, the general takes a liking to her, gets drunk one night, she cuts off his head, the army flees, Judith is celebrated. Prayer of thanksgiving given at end—Glory be to god.

Book of Esther

• King of Persia’s second in command, Haman, doesn’t like Jews, sends out royal letter to rid them. King also ditches his Queen at the time because she didn’t listen to him; he then plucks young Esther into his concubine and eventually chooses her to be queen. She keeps quiet about being a Jew at the advice of her uncle Mordecai. Then she convinces the king that Haman is a rat and gets him killed (in the ironic way we wanted to kill Mordecai, via the gallows in his home). They send out another letter (a good old ‘lol jk’) and Esther and Mordecai are hailed for saving the Jews. New holiday celebrated in remembrance: Purim.

Book of Job

• First mention of Satan; the Hebrew word could mean ‘adversary’

• Interesting details:

  • Satan comes among the sons of God presenting themselves to God. God asks where he came from, he replies “from going back and forth on the earth, from walking up and down on it.”

• Interesting… back and forth, up and down, no progress? Earthbound? Aimless?

• God takes Satan’s bet, and says “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only upon himself do not put forth your hand.”

• His material possessions are of Satan’s, but Satan cannot lay his hand upon him… i wonder if this is the referring to his soul. You can touch the material stuff, but you’ll never touch his soul.

• “And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (1:21)

• Says this after his flocks and children are decimated.

• Condole = with + suffer, grieve (similar to the French douleur). Similar to synagonia
• “…he sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety. He frustrates the devices of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success. He takes the wise in their own craftiness; and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end. They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope at noonday in the night.” (5:11-14)

• “When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ / But the night is long, / and I am full of tossing till dawn.” (7:11)

• Bars. Something about this one. Captures restless rumination in general.

• “He thrives before the sun, / and his shoots spread over his garden. / His roots twine about the stone heap; he lives among the rocks.” (8:16-17)
• “My days are swifter than a runner, / they flee away, they see no good.” (9:25)
• “From where does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? … Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” (28:20,28)
• “I had heard of you by the hearing of ear, but now my eyes see you” (42:5)
• God admonishes Job’s friends for claiming that his suffering was to recompense for his sins, that he was punished in due measure. But God reminds that he is beyond measure, and that faith beyond reason, love of something beyond measure, is true faith. Job, despite his complaints, remained bewildered and yet still loved god. God acknowledges the bewilderment.

Book of the Psalms

The Divine Shepherd - good one

The Joy of Forgiveness

…

When I declared not my sin, my body wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

…

Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

which must be curbed with bit and bridle,

else it will not keep with you.

…

• “For with you is the fountain of life; / in your light do we see light.” (Psalms, 36:9)

Psalms 42

7

Deep calls to deep

    at the thunder of your cataracts;

all your waves and your billows

    have gone over me.

8

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,

    and at night his song is with me,

    a prayer to the God of my life.

…

Psalms 43

3 

O send out your light and your truth;

    let them lead me;

let them bring me to your holy hill

Psalms 51

8 

Let me hear joy and gladness;

    let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

**

131 (Song of Quiet Trust)

**

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
    my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
    too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a child quieted at its mother’s breast;
    like a child that is quieted is my soul.

O Israel, hope in the Lord
    from this time forth and for evermore.

139 (The Inescapable God)

…

**

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**

13 

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

    Wonderful are your works;

that I know very well.

15 

    My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

    all the days that were formed for me,

    when none of them as yet existed.

…

• Nice commentary on the miraculous human formation and a hinting towards predestination (our future’s written in His book)

Book of Proverbs

• “The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.” (4:19)

• “What the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.” (10:24)

• The wicked dread/fear the lord, but unawares. God will finally impress upon them, being at the root of whatever retribution they are dreading. Whereas the righteous recognize they fear the lord, and this honest relationship, this healthy fear frees them from sinful neglect

• “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.” (11:1)
• “Even in laughter the heart is sad, and the end of joy is grief.” (14:13)
• “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” (18:2)

• “Do not say ‘I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay him back for what he has done.’” (24:29)

• Turn the other cheek.

The Book of Ecclesiastes

• “All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” (1:8)

• Reminds of the Fire Sermon, and emptiness.

• “10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.” (3:10-15)

• Temporality vs eternity.

• “This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is his lot.” (5:18)
• “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad.” (7:3)

The Song of Solomon

**

##

**

Set me as a seal upon your heart,

    as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death,

    jealousy is cruel as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire,

    a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love,

    neither can floods drown it.

If a man offered for love

    all the wealth of his house,

it would be utterly scorned.

(8:6-7)

The Wisdom of Solomon

• ”for God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.” (2-23-24)

Description of Wisdom

12 

Wisdom is radiant and unfading,
and she is easily discerned by those who love her,
and is found by those who seek her.

13 

She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.

14 

One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty,
for she will be found sitting at the gate.

15 

To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding,
and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care,

16 

because she goes about seeking those worthy of her,
and she graciously appears to them in their paths,
and meets them in every thought.

17 

The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction,
and concern for instruction is love of her,

18 

and love of her is the keeping of her laws,and giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality,

19 

and immortality brings one near to God;

20 

so the desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom.

• Wisdom leads to the recognition of the wholeness of all things, the infinitude and eternity of all things, of immortality—and thus brings one near to that All (God)

May God grant me to speak with judgment,

and to have thoughts worthy of what I have received;

for he is the guide even of wisdom

and the corrector of the wise.

For both we and our words are in his hand,

as are all understanding and skill in crafts.

(7:15-16)

• God (love?) as wisdom’s source. He as her source.
• Our skills and understanding as begotten from Him through grace.

24 

For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;

because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.

25 

For she is a breath of the power of God,

and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;

therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.

26 

For she is a reflection of eternal light,

a spotless mirror of the working of God,

and an image of his goodness.

27 

Although she is but one, she can do all things,

and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;

in every generation she passes into holy souls

and makes them friends of God, and prophets;

(7:24-27)

• One but can do all things, remains herself while renewing all things (like a stream remains and renews itself)—more mobile than motion.
• Wisdom again as emanation of God, his influential breath.
• Through purity we penetrate all things. When we are defiled, or our view is blurred, we are unable to indwell with all things

15 

In return for their foolish and wicked thoughts,

which led them astray to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals,

you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them,

16 

so that they might learn that one is punished by the very things by which one sins.

(11:15-16)

15 

For a father, consumed with grief at an untimely bereavement,

made an image of his child, who had been suddenly taken from him;

he now honored as a god what was once a dead human being,

and handed on to his dependents secret rites and initiations.

16 

Then the ungodly custom, grown strong with time, was kept as a law,

and at the command of monarchs carved images were worshiped.

(14:15-16)

• Imagine that Jews may point to this to claim the idolatry of Christianity through their worship of a “once dead human being”. Also the wooden images of the earlier lines and Christian icons.

16

For a human being [makes idols],

and one whose spirit is borrowed formed them;

for none can form gods that are like themselves.

17 

People are mortal, and what they make with lawless hands is dead;

for they are better than the objects they worship,

since they have life, but the idols never had.

• The lifeless abstractions of the left hemisphere. When we cut, divide, we kill.
• Interestingly, worshipping material objects, then, places us above the object we worship, for the object is lifeless but we are alive. For a wooden trinket this is evident, but it also applies to abstract trinkets.

27 

For what was not destroyed by fire

was melted when simply warmed by a fleeting ray of the sun,

28 

to make it known that one must rise before the sun to give you thanks,

and must pray to you at the dawning of the light;

29 

for the hope of an ungrateful person will melt like wintry frost,

and flow away like waste water.

(16:27-29)

• Before things get better (before the sun rises) and as things get worse (dawning of light), give thanks lest you melt into waste.

“For those who promised to drive off the fears and disorders of a sick soul

were sick themselves with ridiculous fear.” (17:8)

• On false healers. Therapists today (among others)?

11 

For wickedness is a cowardly thing, condemned by its own testimony;

distressed by conscience, it has always exaggerated the difficulties.

12 

For fear is nothing but a surrender of the helps that come from reason;

13 

and the inner expectation of help, being weak,

prefers ignorance of what causes the torment.

(17:11-13)

• Exaggerating hardship: cowardice, indicative of underlying wickedness; fear as irrational; preferring of ignorance over pursuing the cause.

20 

For the whole world was illumined with brilliant light,

and went about its work unhindered,

21 

while over those people alone heavy night was spread,

an image of the darkness that was destined to receive them;

but still heavier than darkness were they to themselves.

• All is brilliantly lit, yet the deluded are enshrouded in darkness

The Book of Sirach

9 

The Lord himself created wisdom;

    he saw her and apportioned her,

    he poured her out upon all his works.

10 

She dwells with all flesh according to his gift,

    and he supplied her to those who love him.

(1:9-10)

12 

The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord;

    the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.

13 

For the beginning of pride is sin,

    and the one who clings to it pours out abominations.

(10:11-13)

12 

He sees and recognizes that their end is miserable;

    therefore he grants them forgiveness all the more.

13 

The compassion of human beings is for their neighbours,

    but the compassion of the Lord is for every living thing.

(18:12-13)

• The version I’m reading had miserable translated as evil, miserable feels much better

“He who is not clever cannot be taught,

but there is a cleverness which increases bitterness.” (21:13)

“A fools narration is like a burden on a journey,

but delight will be found in the speech of the intelligent.” (21:16)

The Book of Isaiah

3 

The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled;
    for the Lord has spoken this word.

4 

The earth dries up and withers,
    the world languishes and withers;
    the heavens languish together with the earth.

5 

The earth lies polluted
    under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed laws,
    violated the statutes,
    broken the everlasting covenant.

6 

Therefore a curse devours the earth,
    and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled,
    and few people are left.

(24:3-6)

• Idolatry yielding environmental collapse.

“You keep him in perfect peace, / whose mind is stayed on you, / because he trusts in you / … For your dew is a dew of light, / and on the land of the shades you will let it fall.” (26:3…19)

11 

Truly, with stammering lip

    and with alien tongue

he will speak to this people,

12 

    to whom he has said,

“This is rest;

    give rest to the weary;

and this is repose”;

    yet they would not hear.

13 

Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them,

    “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,

    line upon line, line upon line,

    here a little, there a little;”

in order that they may go, and fall backward,

    and be broken, and snared, and taken.

(28:11-13)

• The Lord speaks not through the literalist law maker, but the inspired poet. Through babbling Moses rather than sophisticated Aaron.

For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim;

    he will rage as in the valley of Gibeon

to do his deed—strange is his deed!—

    and to work his work—alien is his work!

(28:21)

9 

Stupefy yourselves and be in a stupor,

    blind yourselves and be blind!

Be drunk, but not from wine;

    stagger, but not from strong drink!

10 

For the Lord has poured out upon you

    a spirit of deep sleep;

he has closed your eyes, you prophets,

    and covered your heads, you seers.

(29:9-10)

Have you not heard

    that I determined it long ago?

I planned from days of old

    what now I bring to pass

(37:26)

• God speaking through Isaiah. Determinism.

18 

Hear, you deaf;

    and look, you blind, that you may see!

19 

Who is blind but my servant,

    or deaf as my messenger whom I send?

Who is blind as my dedicated one,

    or blind as the servant of the Lord?

20 

He sees many things, but does not observe them;

    his ears are open, but he does not hear.

(42:18-20)

• To see but not to attach oneself to what is seen, to hear but not attach oneself to what is heard. Mystical openness. Blind and deaf to sense but following spirit.

18 

Do not remember the former things,

    or consider the things of old.

19 

I am about to do a new thing;

    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

    and rivers in the desert.

(43:18-19)

• Radical genesis.

8 

Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures,
    who sit securely,
who say in your heart,
    “I am, and there is no one besides me;
I shall not sit as a widow
    or know the loss of children”—

9 

both these things shall come upon you
    in a moment, in one day:
the loss of children and widowhood
    shall come upon you in full measure,
in spite of your many sorceries
    and the great power of your enchantments.

10 

You felt secure in your wickedness;
    you said, “No one sees me.”
Your wisdom and your knowledge
    led you astray,
and you said in your heart,
    “I am, and there is no one besides me.”

11 

But evil shall come upon you,
    which you cannot charm away;
disaster shall fall upon you,
    which you will not be able to ward off;
and ruin shall come on you suddenly,
    of which you know nothing.

(47:8-11)

• The ego as all there is, delighting in pleasure, delighting in wisdom and knowledge estranged from the Highest. Seeing the self as all there is, they think their misdeeds go unnoticed. Eventual ruin.
• The lovers of pleasure will have their husband’s killed (symbolic of loss of security) and children lost (we are so deluded these days that the privileged don’t even want children, lest they distract from pleasure).

so he shall startle many nations;

    kings shall shut their mouths because of him;

for that which had not been told them they shall see,

    and that which they had not heard they shall understand.

(52:15)

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

(55:8)

The Book of Jeremiah

**

##

**

“for my people have committed two evils:

    they have forsaken me,

the fountain of living water,

    and dug out cisterns for themselves,

cracked cisterns

    that can hold no water.”

(2:13)

• Symbolic of spiritual neglect (forsaking the water) and prideful erect (broken cistern)

“23 Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; 24 but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practice steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord.”

(9:23-24)

• Glory not in wisdom, might, or wealth; glory in that which affords all these goods.

“And I will doubly recompense their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.” (16:18)

• Materialist idolatry pollutes the earth.

“Am I a God at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.” (23:23-24)

The Lamentations of Jeremiah

22 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
    his mercies never come to an end;

23 

they are new every morning;
    great is thy faithfulness.

24 

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

25 

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
    to the soul that seeks him.

26 

It is good that one should wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.

27 

It is good for a man that he bear
    the yoke in his youth.

28 

Let him sit alone in silence
    when he has laid it on him;

29 

let him put his mouth in the dust—
    there may yet be hope;

30 

let him give his cheek to the smiter,
    and be filled with insults.

(3:22-30)

• Abiding in silence, turning the other cheek. Very good.

The Book of Baruch

The Book of Ezekiel

34 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock?3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. 4 You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd,and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. 6 My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

• Pharisees, neglectful officials/leaders

15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will watch over; I will feed them in justice.

22 I will save my flock, they shall no longer be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. 23 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken.

• The flock shall be judged and overseen by a shepherd redeemer, a prince (the king’s son…but Christ is referred to as a king (Christos = king)?)

25 I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.

(36:25-27)

The Book of Daniel

12 “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time; but at that time your people shall be delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. 4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

• First mention of life and death everlasting? Michael first mentioned here in Daniel? Michael delivering from evil?

The Book of Hosea

10 

They shall eat, but not be satisfied;

    they shall play the harlot, but not multiply;

because they have forsaken the Lord

    to cherish harlotry.

(4:10)

## 6 

“Come, let us return to the Lord;

for he has torn, that he may heal us;

    he has stricken, and he will bind us up.

2 

After two days he will revive us;

    on the third day he will raise us up,

    that we may live before him.

3 

Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;

    his going forth is sure as the dawn;

he will come to us as the showers,

    as the spring rains that water the earth.”

(6:1-3)

• Christ foreshadowing

Book of Joel

• Foreshadows Pentecost (outpouring of spirit)

###

Book of Amos

• Amos is a shepherd who calls out Judah’s licentiousness during a period of affluence

Book of Obadiah

Book of Jonah

…

Book of Micah

6 

“With what shall I come before the Lord
    and bow myself before God on high?
…
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

8 

He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
    and to walk humbly with your God?

(6:6-8)

The Book of Nahum

“His way is in whirlwind and storm,

and the clouds are the dust on his feet,” (1:3)

The Book of Habakkuk

**

##

**

17 

Though the fig tree do not blossom,

    nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

    and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

    and there be no herd in the stalls,

18 

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

    I will joy in the God of my salvation.

(3:17-18)

The Book of Zechariah

10 For before those days …. I set every man against his fellow. 11 But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, says the Lord of hosts. 12 For there shall be a sowing of peace; the vine shall yield its fruit, and the ground shall give its increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. 13 And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.

• Prophesying a step change, man against fellow shall be no more, peace will find its root

Second Book of Maccabees

“12 Now I urge those who read this book not to be depressed by such calamities [e.g., burning Jews alive, killing them for circumcising their children], but to recognize that these punishments were designed not to destroy but to discipline our people. 13In fact, not to let the impious alone for long, but to punish them immediately, is a sign of great kindness. For in the case of the other nations the Lord waits patiently to punish them until they have reached the full measure of their sins; but he does not deal in this way with us, I5in order that he may not take vengeance on us afterward when our sins have reached their height. 1Therefore he never withdraws his mercy from us. Though he disciplines us with calamities, he does not forsake his own people.” (6:12-16)

30 When he was about to die under the blows, he groaned aloud and said: “It is clear to the Lord in his holy knowledge that, though I might have been saved from death, I am enduring terrible sufferings in my body under this beating, but in my soul I am glad to suffer these things because I fear him.

(6:30)

• 90 year old when forced to eat swine. He refuses.

9 And when he was at his last breath, he said, “You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life,because we have died for his laws.”

(7:9)

14 And when he was near death, he said, “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!”

(7:14)

22 “I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. 23 Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.”

(7:22-23)

New Testament

The Gospel According to Matthew

“23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; 26 truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny.” (5:23-6)

• Anger as a prison, passion as a prison, an indulgence in a withholding of attention, of a reluctance to attend to those beyond oneself, one’s group. To free oneself from the prison, pay attention! Love!

36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (5:36-7)

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”(6:24)

• Mammon means riches.
• Danger of duality. Privilege unity.

I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. (12:6)

• Christ to the Pharisees. That which gives rise to the temple is greater, the implicit is greater than the explicit.

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

(22:36-40)

• The second commandment is essentially the same as the first. If you love the Unity with all heart, soul, and mind, you will find that Unity in your neighbours as in yourself, and thus love them as you do the God in you.

11 He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; 12 whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

(23:11-12)

23 Then if any one says to you, ‘Lo, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

(24:23-24)

• The false prophets will also show signs, as the Pharaoh’s magicians could mimic those of Moses.

35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (24:35)

36 But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. … 44 Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (24:36,44)

• Time of arrival unknown. Millenarianism seems to be both motivated by this passage (a promise of a second coming) yet misses the time is unknown.
• Eternal becoming?

The Gospel According to Mark

27 And he said to them, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; 28 so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath.”

(2:27-28)

23 And he called them to him, and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. (3:23-26)

• How can evil cast out evil? How can hatred cast out hatred? Unity.
• This after being accused by the Pharisees that Jesus is Beelzebub casting out his own demonic kin from the possessed.

22 For there is nothing hidden, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light.

30 And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

• Very Upanishadic. Atman, the smallest of the small, and Brahman, the largest of the large. Thy soul, a mere mustard seed, planted in love of God flourishes infinitely.

35 And he sat down and called the twelve; and he said to them, “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” (9:35)

29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many that are first will be last, and the last first.” (10)

42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. (10)

43 And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.” (12:43-44)

• Helps to understand what might be meant by ‘blessed are the poor in spirit.’ Those who may not be spiritually endowed, but nevertheless express spirituality, might be much greater expressions of Spirit than those already profiting from spiritual abundance.

1 And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” 2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.” (13:1-2)

• Entropy. Also alluding perhaps to his Body.

**

The Gospel According to Luke

**

16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

(3:16)

27 “But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your cloak do not withhold your coat as well.”

(6:27-29)

35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.

(6:35)

• To expect nothing in return… akin to the surrender of fruits of action preached in the Gita.
• To expect nothing in return… true forgiveness (forth-givingness), a pure giving to the future; a total parting of forgetfulness (forth-gettingness), a taking of the future

40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but every one when he is fully taught will be like his teacher.

(6:40)

• Deification.

17 For nothing is hidden that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light.

(8:17)

• Eventual total revelation. Interesting to pair with Heroclitus’ ‘Nature loves to hide.’

23 And he said to all, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

(9:23-25)

• Deny oneself to save oneself. The notion of two selves, ego and atman, helps to wrestle this paradox.

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”

(10:25-28)

• Unity with God (obeying the two greatest commandments) as inheriting eternal life. The two commandments address the one and the many…

**

Jesus Visits Martha and Mary

**

38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; 42 one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”

(10:38-42)

• Preoccupation with the many leads to anxiety, trouble, for the many come to pass. Heaven and earth will pass away, but His word will not. Mary is submitting to the Word, which cannot be taken from her.

17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.

(11:17)

23 He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

(11:23)

**

The Light of the Body

**

33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a bushel, but on a stand, that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”

• Lamps of fire. To see the Light is to open oneself to that highest Unity. The Body is then seen as full of Light. Any darkness is apparent, the result of an unsound eye.

10 And every one who speaks a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

(12:10)

• To deny the particular manifestation of God is forgivable, but to deny the universal manifestation (the whole spirit) is to deny everything.

20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; 21 nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”[a]

[a] Or within you

(17:20-21)

• Within you. Oooooh. At hand!

24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of man be.

(17:24)

• The revelatory flash of divine insight

17 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. (18:17)

• And if the kingdom of God is within us, is this not to experience the world with wonderful love, with playful innocence?
• There is also the childlike innocence of believing authorities to be blameless, heroic. And so we ought to be with our Heavenly Father.

18 And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

(18:18-19)

• Jesus as God manifest is a work of God, not God Himself. Jesus’ good comes from God’s good, and that only.

The Gospel According to John

**

Chapter 1

**

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

• Without + not anything made, double negative. The dual apophatic reveals something more than the mere assertion.

• To be without him, to be without the Unity, is to be without creation, to not participate in the making of things.

• As Augustine was without God in his money-and-status-chasing days. He didn’t really create anything, just moved around what already was.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.

• The whole affording part, but the part not affording the whole. The material built of the spiritual, but the spiritual built of something beyond the material. Gestalt. Asymmetry.

18 No one has ever seen God; the only Son,who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

• Through the Son, the foreground of the divine background, we come to know the ineffable, we are led to the ‘God no one has even seen.’

Chapter 3

3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew [or from above], he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

• Metanoia as well. Same idea as repentance, turning one’s mind to the One Truth, akin to a rebirth in consciousness.

8 The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit. … 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

• Christ to Nicomedus, the ruler of the Jews. Again, the spiritual cohering with the material, but the material not necessarily cohering with the spiritual.

31 He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth belongs to the earth, and of the earth he speaks; he who comes from heaven is above all.

• Descent from heaven, manifested in body, return to heaven. Spirit to material to spirit. Implicit explicit implicit. Enfolded to unfolded to enfolded. Through this is further created, further given.

34 For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for it is not by measure that he gives the Spirit; 35 the Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand. 36 He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.

• Not by measures is the Spirit offered. Pure selfless offering, unconditional.
• To believe in the One is to be at-one with eternity.

Chapter 4

13 Jesus said to her, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

• Again, the material and unalive vs. the spiritually alive. From the finite we thirst again, but the unmeasurable fount is ceaseless, One, throbbing with continuous, eternal life.

24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

• To worship in spirit is to worship in God, for God is spirit. Again, pure ceaseless surrender.

Chapter 5

16 And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working still, and I am working.”

• God never ceases his Work. Endlessly and effortlessly he stirs the universe. Although this may be contested by Genesis, God had rested before, and rest, negation, withdrawal can be as generative as affirmative work.
• This claim that God ceased working is still…conceptual, an abstraction. But the purity of experience suggests a ceaselessness.

19 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise.

• Complete surrender to the will of the Father.

22 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

• The implicit judges no one, but the explicit does. The explicit is afforded by the implicit (the Father sent the Son). To believe in the Father, interestingly, is to also believe in the Son and avoid the Son’s judgement, and this belief in the implicit Father is akin to belief in the eternal, that which affords and is beyond time. This is life, freedom from the discrete (through the discrete Son to the Father, bewilderingly).

29 and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.

• The resurrection of self giving love (life itself) and divisive judgement (death itself)… resurrection of death. Not even what seems like death can be destroyed!
• Resurrection, to rise again! Resurrection of judgement is like a rising again of what falls. A sort of earthly cycle of rebirth.

39 You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

• Scriptures are insufficient to atone with God, it is through a life with Him, the only God, that we find life.

44 How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

• To receive glory from one another is to worship the finite and divided and perishable. This is idolatry. Rather seek the glory that affords the ‘one anothers’, that being the Unity within which the multiplicity whirls.

47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?

• His being Moses’. Scripture still matters.
• Again the idea of having a good understanding of the immanent and material as a prerequisite (?) of getting in touch with the spiritual, but not getting caught in the material.

Chapter 6

26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal.”

• An appeal to surrender from material rewards. Seek not a reward for oneself, seek only to be united with Him, to believe in Him.

63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Chapter 7

16 So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me; 17 if any man’s will is to do his will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. 18 He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

• It is not I who teaches myself, but others, and fundamentally He by whom all others are taught.
• Seek not personal glory, but the glory of that which gave rise to your personhood.

38 He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”

Chapter 8

4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

• The writing with his finger in the ground (a sort of living law) against the ossified law of Moses. Nobody threw the stone, for the law in their hearts, their conscious, that living law within, told them not to harm her.

15 You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one.

• Contradiction with earlier claims of the Son judging, the Father not judging.

26 I have much to say about you and much to judge; but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.

• Contradiction again. ‘I contain multitudes.’

34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.”

• Sin confines. Separates. Draws one away from the One. Seeks personal glory, seeks rewards for oneself, rather than complete surrender of reward, complete sacrifice. To surrender is to be free.

38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.

44 …[the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. … 50 Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it and he will be the judge.

• To glory in oneself is the ultimate lie (?), and that which begets lies, untruth.
• To be a murderer from the beginning is to separate from the beginning, to bring an end between oneself and the Whole.

Chapter 10

11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

• The Pharisees as hirelings. Materialists as hirelings. The master and the emissary. The emissary cares not for the One, but for oneself, and if a threat befalls one, one will flee from the One. This is death.

16 And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.

• Krishna like.

Chapter 14

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.”

• Through the explicit we come to know the implicit. Both are folds of the same ground.

10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.

• The Son as the Father’s channel, the works of which are enlivened by the Holy Spirit. Almost like Christ is Matter, the Holy Spirit is Motion, and the Father is Energy (E=mc^2)

28 You heard me say to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.

• Father is greater. Son returning to the Father, to the implicit, the implicit from which unfolded the Son.

Chapter 15

###

1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. … 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

• Abide in me, and I in you.

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

12 This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

The Acts of the Apostles

34 And Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

(10:34-35)

6 And they went through the region of Phry′gia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

(16:6)

• Weird

35 In all things I have shown you that by so toiling one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

(20:35)

The Letter of Paul to the Romans

To serve the Creator rather than the creature. The spirit rather than the matter. The doer rather than the done.

“Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” (Romans 3:31)

“12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned— 13 sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. …

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17 If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

18 Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. 20 Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

(5:12-21)

3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

(6:3-5)

10 The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

(6:10-11)

14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

(6:14)

20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(6:23-23)

• Slaving to sin frees you from righteousness (doing what is right), but condemns you to death, finitude. Slaving to God frees you from death, frees you to Love.

6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

(8:6)

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now

(8:22)

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.

(8:26)

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen

(11:36)

14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for any one who thinks it unclean.

(14:14)

• Evil as relative. Everything is utterly good, utterly clean.

The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians

“10 I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chlo′e’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apol′los,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided?..”

(1:10-13)

“18 Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness””

(3:18-19)

The Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians

“…you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

(3:3)

“4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. … not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

(3:4-6)

“7 Now if the dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses’ face because of its brightness, fading as this was, 8 will not the dispensation of the Spirit be attended with greater splendor? 9 For if there was splendor in the dispensation of condemnation, the dispensation of righteousness must far exceed it in splendor. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had splendor has come to have no splendor at all, because of the splendor that surpasses it. 11 For if what faded away came with splendor, what is permanent must have much more splendor.”

(3:7-11)

“16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. 17 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

(4:16-18)

“6 So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.”

(5:6-7)

The Letter of Paul to the Galatians

The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians

“9 For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

(1:9-10)

“22 and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all.”

(1:22-23)

“And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

(2:1-2)

• Prince of power, Satan, as an evil spirit. Explanatorily rich, however I don’t believe spirit can be anything but good. The Prince of power is powerless! The spirit of evil has no power, no flow!

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God— 9 not because of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

(2:8-10)

• Hints of determinism, but a hint of liberty (we should walk in them)

14 For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.

(2:14-16)

• Unity prevailing duality.

4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.

(4:4-6)

• Atonement

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

(5:1-2)