R.B. Thieme, Jr. and The Great Power Experiment.

This unique, human, freedom, noted by even avowed materialist/physicalists, and atheists, surely has a theological nuance that should be appreciated by even avowed atheists? On the other hand, one of the great paradoxes regarding this unique human species is its ability, freedom really, to make proclamations come from the heart, that obliterate everything held near and dear in the head.


The brilliance in Rabbi Hirsch statement, which was made over a hundred years before the pronouncements of Dawkins and Dennett, is somewhat mitigated by an egregious error of his own which this thread proposes to correct. The Hirsch quotation above, corrected by R.B. Thieme, Jr.'s doctrine of "The Great Power Experiment," makes sense of many of the paradoxes and nuances found throughout the incredible revelation hidden in the oracle of deutero-Isaiah. Beyond that, it lends itself to the most transparent unification of Jewish and Christian thought that has ever been attempted let alone accomplished.



John

John D. Brey said:

We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. . . We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p. 201.

Human freedom [from the laws of nature] is not an illusion; it is an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found in only one species, us. The differences between autonomous human agents and the other assemblages of nature are visible not just from an anthropocentric perspective but also from the most objective standpoints . . . Human freedom is real . . ..

Daniel Dennett, Freedom Evolves.​

This unique, human, freedom, noted by even avowed materialist/physicalists, and atheists, surely has a theological nuance that should be appreciated by even avowed atheists? On the other hand, one of the great paradoxes regarding this unique human species is its ability, freedom really, to make proclamations come from the heart, that obliterate everything held near and dear in the head.

A person ceases to be an unfree created being (symbolized by the number six) and becomes a human being endowed with freedom (symbolized by the number seven); and he attains this only through a covenant with God. On the eighth day he is reborn for the Jewish mission. This rebirth is on the basis of man's innate Godly freedom, for the sake of a higher level of freedom, a higher calling. The eighth day is a repetition of the first day, the day of physical birth, on a higher level----the beginning of a higher "octave," as it were. . . Accordingly, the מילה by itself constitutes a new beginning of life, unconnected with what came before; the connection with the physical birth is no longer pronounced. . . it dispels the notion that מילה is a procedure to prevent disease, or is a heathen cultic rite (see ibid.). . . Israel is the eighth work of creation, joining the seven works of creation of the world.

The Hirsch Chumash, Sefer Vayikra, 12:3.​

The brilliance in Rabbi Hirsch statement, which was made over a hundred years before the pronouncements of Dawkins and Dennett, is somewhat mitigated by an egregious error of his own which this thread proposes to correct. The Hirsch quotation above, corrected by R.B. Thieme, Jr.'s doctrine of "The Great Power Experiment," makes sense of many of the paradoxes and nuances found throughout the incredible revelation hidden in the oracle of deutero-Isaiah. Beyond that, it lends itself to the most transparent unification of Jewish and Christian thought that has ever been attempted let alone accomplished.

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In the Tanakh, the word "flesh" בשר is often, if not usually, a euphemism for the phallus. Whereas Paul tries to cut the phallus down to size with his tongue, Jewish ritual does it literally, with a knife. Which is to say that the interpretation and translation of Philippians 3:3 found in your KJV, or NIV, can be considered epispasmotic to the extreme: they're all an attempt to resuscitate with mouth-to-mouth what Abraham nearly did in with the mohel's blade. This resuscitation of the wounded phallus isn't for the love of God, but for the pleasure it surely holds when held near and dear. In a scriptural statement centered on brit milah, circumcision (Phil. 3:3), we could, with some genuineness, accuse any exegete not translating "flesh" with "phallus," of exegetical malpractice if not outright mental masturbation. Rather than owning what Paul is saying, the self-righteous exegete too often engages in his onanistic resurrection of the phallus that Paul's sharp tongue just made limpid.



John

John D. Brey said:

For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the production of the phallus.

Philippians 3:3.​

In the Tanakh, the word "flesh" בשר is often, if not usually, a euphemism for the phallus. Whereas Paul tries to cut the phallus down to size with his tongue, Jewish ritual does it literally, with a knife. Which is to say that the interpretation and translation of Philippians 3:3 found in your KJV, or NIV, can be considered epispasmotic to the extreme: they're all an attempt to resuscitate with mouth-to-mouth what Abraham nearly did in with the mohel's blade. This resuscitation of the wounded phallus isn't for the love of God, but for the pleasure it surely holds when held near and dear. In a scriptural statement centered on brit milah, circumcision (Phil. 3:3), we could, with some genuineness, accuse any exegete not translating "flesh" with "phallus," of exegetical malpractice if not outright mental masturbation. Rather than owning what Paul is saying, the self-righteous exegete too often engages in his onanistic resurrection of the phallus Paul's sharp tongue just made limpid.

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Paul's sharp wit makes the phallus limpid, clear, revealed, when he juxtaposes its existence with the existence of Christ. It's this very juxtaposition that's at the heart and soul of this thread, which is to say that in exegeting the parallel Paul exposes concerning the phallus versus Christ, the nuanced error in Rabbi Hirsch's brilliant statement (quoted above) is rescued (from the error) rather than remonstrated (as fundamentally flawed).

Paul parallels Christ and the phallus in Philippians 3:3. The passion and hope for continued existence placed in the phallus as the tree of natural, physical life, is transferred to Christ alone. Which segues directly into the statement of Rabbi Hirsch where he claims:

In his accurate portrayal of the matter, Rabbi Hirsch notes that the number six, and the creation associated with the first six days of creation, represent plant and animal life, while the seventh day of creation is the creation of the spiritual man, ha-adam, who becomes a human being endowed with a greater degree of freedom than is thinkable (so to say) for the realm of the plants and the animals. It's this level of human freedom that's in the cross-hairs of the statements of Dawkins and Dennett. But Rabbi Hirsch goes further than the spiritual man of the seventh day of creation when he speaks of the eighth day, which he calls, well here, it's too important to paraphrase:


It's this "rebirth," this being born-again for a higher level of freedom, a higher spiritual mission, that segues into R.B. Thieme, Jr.'s, profound doctrine which he called "The Great Power Experiment." The very passion for offspring, the continuation of life, born out of the tree in the middle of a man's garden, is, according to Paul, to be transferred to Christ. And Rabbi Hirsch's claim parallels Paul's to the degree that the eighth day, when Rabbi Hirsch claims this new birth occurs, is the day the tree in the middle of a man's body, which up to the eighth day is responsible for all life and reproduction for the clan, is shown the business end of a sharp knife implying its services won't be required, nor recognized, concerning this higher octave of freedom related to Jewish rebirth.




John

John D. Brey said:

It's this "rebirth," this being born-again for a higher level of freedom, a higher spiritual mission, that segues into R.B. Thieme, Jr.'s, profound doctrine which he called "The Great Power Experiment." The very passion for offspring, the continuation of life, born out of the tree in the middle of a man's garden, is, according to Paul, to be transferred to Christ. And Rabbi Hirsch's claim parallels Paul's to the degree that the eighth day, when Rabbi Hirsch claims this new birth occurs, is the day the tree in the middle of a man's body, which up to the eighth day is responsible for all life and reproduction for the clan, is shown the business end of a sharp knife implying its services won't be required, nor recognized, concerning this higher octave of freedom related to Jewish rebirth.

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It's just here that the confluence of Rabbi Hirsch's eighth-day rebirth, circumcision (xing out, or axing, the organ of the first birth), and Col. Thieme's great power experiment, come together in a fruitful way since in Philippians 3:3 Paul is clearly equating Christ with the phallus' role in the seventh-day propagation and production of new life concerning the natural born man with Christ being the organ of rebirth for the new man Rabbi Hirsch sees reborn on the eighth day. Though Rabbi Hirsch is good with rebirth, being born-again on the eighth day (to a higher spiritual mission cut away from the flesh --phallus ---of the first birth) he doesn't appear, ala Paul, to produce a replacement organ for the one cut out of the picture in the picture of Jewish rebirth, brit milah, ritual circumcision (rebirth on the eighth day)?

Worse, since Rabbi Hirsch concedes that what occurs on the eighth-day is a rebirth not fundamentally associated with the physical birth, the physical body (which is ritually bled out of the picture on the eighth day), we're left with a spiritual construct, the Jewish person reborn through the blood of the organ of physical birth, but without a new body, or a replacement for the organ formerly associated with that rebirth? In fairness to Rabbi Hirsch, we'd need Paul to be more explicit concerning how Christ is supposed to replace the phallus in the act of rebirth, and the body of the new man?



John

John D. Brey said:

Worse, since Rabbi Hirsch concedes that what occurs on the eighth-day is a rebirth not fundamentally associated with the physical birth, the physical body, we're left with a spiritual construct, the Jewish person reborn through the blood of the organ of physical birth, but without a new body, or a replacement organ associated with that rebirth? And in fairness to Rabbi Hirsch, we'd need Paul to be explicit concerning how Christ is supposed to replace the phallus in the act of rebirth, and the body of the new man?

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Without going into all the nuances of Thieme's premillennial dispensational theology, suffice it to say that all the nuanced elements of God's grand, overarching plan, are segregated into individual dispensations. Two fundamental dispensations within all or most dispensationalist theologies, are Israel, and the Church (as distinct elements of God's overall plan).

Col. Thieme had an epiphany that led him to situate the incarnation of Christ as its own dispensation. And he didn't do this willy nilly or without great cause and or effect. What Col. Thieme realized, is that a stupendously great power experiment took place during the incarnation of Christ: could God's very spirit, his holy spirit, be united with flesh and blood, without the flesh and blood rejecting it like it might reject a new heart or other fleshly organ? The question/experiment is beyond measure in its effect and application since the reason a body rejects a new heart is that, well, it's different from what the body is accustomed to. And the difference between God's spirit, and the spirit of man (born of the seventh-day birth/creation) are as distinct as any two things in all of creation. How on earth could the human frame, accept the very spirit of God as a prosthesis replacing the sacrifice of the indigenous spirit of man?



John

John D. Brey said:

Col. Thieme had an epiphany that led him to situate the incarnation of Christ as its own dispensation. And he didn't do this willy nilly or without great cause and or effect. What Thieme realized is that a stupendously great power experiment took place during the incarnation of Christ: could God's very spirit, his holy spirit, be united with flesh and blood, without the flesh and blood rejecting it like it might reject a new heart or other fleshly organ? The question/experiment is beyond measure in it's effect and application since the reason a body rejects a new heart is that, well, it's different from what the body is accustomed to. And the difference between God's spirit, and the spirit of man (born of the seventh-day birth/creation) are as distinct as any two things in all of creation. How on earth could the human frame, accept the very spirit of God as a prosthesis replacing the sacrifice of the indigenous spirit of man?

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In Rabbi Hirsch's Judaism, the question above is directly related to the law of shatnez. The law of shatnez implies that it's unlawful to unite things from fundamentally different kingdoms. Wool is from the animal kingdom, while flax (linen) is from the plant kingdom, such that by the law of shatnez the two materials shant be united to cover up a Jewish body. Rabbi Hirsch notes that the interbreeding of animals, and of humans, comes into the purview of the law of shatnez. Jews are not to interbred, mix, with non-Jews.

And just here we come to a paradox causing what was earlier stated to be Rabbi Hirsch's error concerning the nature of being born-again on the eighth day. In his teaching concerning this rebirth, and it's strewn throughout his writing, Rabbi Hirsch is clear that this new birth creates a new creature, a new spiritual species (noted by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17), existing in a realm of freedom of action that implies he hardly requires the laws needed by less spiritual creatures.

As fate would have it, the emblem, or representatives, of this new spiritual creature, within Jewish symbolism, are the priesthood who, ironically, not only can wear shatznez, but who do wear shatnez as part and parcel of their very identification: they are a new creature for whom the unification of unlike elements isn't forbidden.

What Thieme's great power experiment asks, is can a man, reborn into this priestly level of freedom, freedom, say, from the law of shatnez (the forbidding of mixing kingdoms), go so far as to mix the ultimate kingdoms, the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of man, without that mixing causing a hyper-acute rejection of the new spirit, the holy spirit, that's the prosthesis for the removal of the existing spirit of man?

In Thieme's use of the word "experiment" he's not implying that God holds his breath to see the result of the experiment, but that he, God, already knows the outcome, and is performing the experiment in the viewing of those who would never believe possible what God already accepts as inevitable. The "experiment" is the live explication of laws and rules and realities, that though formerly unthinkable, unbelievable, were nevertheless already written into the very fabric of reality for their eventual revelation by means of experiments showing their genuine and immutable viability.




John

John D. Brey said:

In Rabbi Hirsch's Judaism, the question above is directly related to the law of shatnez. The law of shatnez implies that it's unlawful to unite things from fundamentally different kingdoms. Wool is from the animal kingdom, while flax (linen) is from the plant kingdom, such that by the law of shatnez the two materials shant be united to cover up a Jewish body. Rabbi Hirsch notes that the interbreeding of animals, and humans, comes into the purview of the law of shatnez. Jews are not to interbred, mix, with non-Jews.

And just here we come to a paradox causing what was earlier stated to be Rabbi Hirsch's error concerning the nature of being born-again on the eighth day. In his teaching concerning this rebirth, and it's strewn throughout his writing, Rabbi Hirsch is clear that this new birth creates a new creature, a new, spiritual species (noted by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17), existing in a realm of freedom of action that implies he hardly requires the laws needed by less spiritual creatures.

As fate would have it, the emblem, or representatives, of this new spiritual creature, within Jewish symbolism, are the priesthood who, ironically, not only can wear shatznez, but who do wear shatnez as part and parcel of their very identification: they are a new creature for whom the unification of unlike elements isn't forbidden.

What Thieme's great power experiment asks, is can a man, reborn into this priestly level of freedom, from say shatnez (the mixing of kingdoms), go so far as to mix the ultimate kingdoms, the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of man, without that mixing causing a hyper-acute rejection of the new spirit, the holy spirit, that's the prosthesis for the removal of the existing spirit of man? In Thieme's use of the word "experiment" he's not implying that God holds his breath to see the result of the experiment, but that he, God, already knows the outcome, and is performing the experiment in the viewing of those who would never believe possible what God already accepts as inevitable. The "experiment" is the live explication of laws and rules and realities, that though formerly unthinkable, unbelievable, are nevertheless written into the very fabric of reality for their eventual revelation by means of experiments showing their genuine and immutable viability.

A new truth that claims to be more than a heretofore unrecognized aspect of, or conclusion from, an old truth ceases to be truth and enters the realm of fantasy and delusion.

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash, Shemos, p. 590.​

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Although it's hard to imagine anyone having greater respect for Rabbi Hirsch than we surely possess if we appreciate his theological genius, we can nevertheless gain insight into a greater understanding of the unification of Jewish and Christian theology than was possible for Rabbi Hirsch ----in the zeitgeist of a Germany already careening toward the Holocaust even in his day ---- by dissecting and removing elements of Rabbi Hirsch's teaching that even he must have surely known he was using to veil himself, rather than avail himself, of concepts in the Christian world that would have led his own theology into a golden age of Jewish/Christian unification.

Case in point is his teaching on the tzitzit which, as fate would have it, is the tangible explication of the freedom from shatnez. This freedom is afforded all who've entered that freedom by means of an eighth-day rebirth that's itself free from the taint of the fleshly spirit of the first birth. The tzitzit can be worn by any circumcised Jew on their tallit so long as it's dyed in the sacerdotal hue (techelet) that was lost about the time the Jew Paul claims united human flesh with divine spirit was shown the business end of Jewish law.


And Rabbi Hirsch is more explicit here:

The tzitzit is, to Rabbi Hirsch's theology, what Christ is in Paul's: a tangible unification of the invisible, holy, spirit, with the tangible, body, where the face of God can be beheld, and his hand held, kissed, on the way into the kingdom of God. In Paul's theology, the tzitzit, which unites unlike kingdoms, wool and linen, represents Christ, who, Christ, isn't a ritualized reality (a mere representation), a brit, or a German-Jew, but the reality of the union ritualized ברית in the manufacture and wearing of the tzitzit.



John

John D. Brey said:

The tzitzit is, to Rabbi Hirsch's theology, what Christ is in Paul's: a tangible unification of the invisible, holy, spirit, with the tangible, body, where the face of God can be beheld, and his hand held, kissed, on the way into the kingdom of God. In Paul's theology, the tzitzit, which unites unlike kingdoms, wool and linen, represents Christ, who, Christ, isn't a ritualized reality (a mere representation), a brit, or a German-Jew, but the reality of the union ritualized ברית in the manufacture and wearing of the tzitzit.

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Rabbi Hirsch's statement here segues into the distinction between his traditional Jewish thought versus the thinking of R.B. Thieme, Jr.. Rabbi Hirsch's statement assumes the power experiment described by Col. Thieme (whereby God's holy spirit is made to dwell in human flesh and blood) is affected through Israel prior to the Incarnation that Thieme makes the first dispensation where such a thing can possibly occur.

Part and parcel of Thieme's "power experiment" is the question of whether or not human flesh and blood can withstand the prosthetic grafting on of God's holy spirit to replace the spirit of man associated with the seventh day of creation? And to state it this way, insinuates that the prosthetic graft requires the elimination of the spirit of man that makes room for the graft, or prosthesis.

Rabbi Hirsch's Judaism is aware, on some level of theological insight, that when this "power experiment" was offered to Israel, at Horeb, the results were horrible. Israel, realizing that the human spirit they were accustom to would have to die in order to make room for the grafting on of God's fiery holy spirit, the very gist of the experiment, refused even to entertain the experiment since they refused to discard with their human spirit (die to the fleshly spirit) in order to make accommodation for the test of whether the human frame could withstand unification with the holy spirit of God.

At Horeb, which is the offering to Israel of what was later related to Paul's Christ, Israel is, wisely or otherwise, afraid even to entertain the experiment by acquiescing to the required dying of the human spirit associated with the first birth. In effect, the rebirth required to enter genuinely into the Jewish mission, the new man, is aborted by Israel at the offering. Israel tells Moses to bring them the handwritten law of God and they will obey in that way rather than submit to a power experiment which they intuitively reckon could end in failure of the worst kind (Exodus 20:19).



John

John D. Brey said:

At Horeb, which is the offering to Israel of what was later related to Paul's Christ, Israel is, wisely or otherwise, afraid even to entertain the experiment by acquiescing to the required dying of the human spirit associated with the first birth. In effect, the rebirth required to enter genuinely into the Jewish mission, the new man, is aborted by Israel at the offering. Israel tells Moses to bring them the handwritten law of God and they will obey in that way rather than submit to a power experiment which they intuitively reckon could end in failure of the worst kind (Exodus 20:19).

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The "handwriting" is on the wall in the juxtaposition of Colossians 2:13 and Exodus 20:19. Paul is claiming that what was aborted in Exodus 20:19, is made real at the cross of Christ? What Israel rejected, wisely, as will be seen, was made genuinely possible for the first time not at Horeb but Golgotha.


It's just here (Exodus 20:19) that the "handwritten" law of God first comes, so to say, onto the scene. Moses fetches what God wanted to put in Israel's heart of flesh, but he delivers it to them "handwritten" on a heart of stone. God wanted an unmediated, direct, relationship with each and every member of the nation of Israel. Israel wanted a mediator, Moses, or a "handwritten" witness to mediate between the spirit of God's revelation, and Israel as a communal body, rather than as a unity of spiritually sovereign individuals.


This relationship between a "handwritten" testimony, versus a verbal one, is seminal to the principle in the cross-hairs of this examination. When a Roman swore on his testicles in court, it was tantamount to him taking a pen and writing down, to include his signature, that if what my mouth is telling you is untrue, you can take away ----as punishment ----something more valuable to me than my life itself: the life of my firstborn. When Abraham sore allegiance to God, he first signed his allegiance in the blood of his testicles, or rather their deliverer, as it were, and then later, at the Akedah, threatened to follow through on what he swore with the guarantee of the blood of the deliverer of his testicles by offering up their first testimony: Isaac.


John

John D. Brey said:

And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your phallus hath he quickened [συζωοποιέω] together with him having forgiven all trespasses blotting out the handwritten law that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way by nailing it to his cross.

Colossians 2:13-14.​

The "handwriting" is on the wall in the juxtaposition of Colossians 2:13 and Exodus 20:19. Paul is claiming that what was aborted in Exodus 20:19, is made real at the cross of Christ? What Israel rejected, wisely, as will be seen, was made genuinely possible for the first time not at Horeb but Golgotha.

And they said unto Moses . . . let not God speak with us lest we die.​

It's just here (Exodus 20:19) that the "handwritten" law of God first comes, so to say, onto the scene. Moses fetches what God wanted to put in Israel's heart of flesh, but he delivers it to them "handwritten" on a heart of stone. God wanted an unmediated, direct, relationship with each and every member of the nation of Israel. Israel wanted a mediator, Moses, or a "handwritten" witness to mediate between the spirit of God's revelation, and Israel as a communal body, rather than as a unity of spiritually sovereign individuals.

The resemblance between testimony, testify, testis, and testicle shows an etymological relationship, but linguists are not agreed on precisely how English testis came to have its current meaning. The Latin testis originally meant “witness,” and etymologically means “third (person) standing by” . . .How this also came to refer to the body part(s) is disputed. An old theory has it that the Romans placed their right hands on their testicles and swore by them before giving testimony in court.

Dictionary.com​

This relationship between a "handwritten" testimony, versus a verbal one, is seminal to the principle in the cross-hairs of this examination. When a Roman swore on his testicles in court, it was tantamount to him taking a pen and writing down, to include his signature, that if what my mouth is telling you is untrue, you can take away ----as punishment ----something more valuable to me than my life itself: the life of my firstborn. When Abraham sore allegiance to God, he first signed his allegiance in the blood of his testicles, or rather their deliverer, as it were, and then later, at the Akedah, threatened to follow through on what he swore with the guarantee of the blood of the deliverer of his testicles by offering up their first testimony: Isaac.

. . . It is clear that the zoharic authorship, consistent with standard medieval views, reflecting in turn ancient Greco-Roman as well as Near Eastern cultural assumptions, identified the writing instrument (pen or chisel) with the phallus, on one hand, and the tablet or page with the female on the other. It is evident from other zoharic passages that the act of engraving---which signifies in its most elemental sense the process of forming or giving shape by digging out space from slabs of matter ---is understood in sexual terms as phallic penetration . . . (p. 62).

It may be concluded from these and other passages that in zoharic literature engraving letters, or more generally the process of writing or inscription, is a decidedly erotic activity: the active agent of writing is the male principle; the written letters are the semen virile, and the tablet or page upon which the writing is accomplished is the female principle. . . It is obvious, therefore, that the letters must be seen as the semen that the male imparts to the female. (p. 68).

Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Circle in the Square.
​

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By equating phallic-sex with "handwriting" --- and thus the penis with what the pen-is in spirituality --- Professor Wolfson's statement opens the door into the deepest chambers of the mystery of what R.B. Thieme, Jr., calls the "great power experiment of the hypostatic union," therein shining a bright light on the word translated "quickened" in Paul's statement at Colossians 2:13. The Greek word ---συζωοποιέω (syzōopoieō) implies the grafting of two formerly different kingdoms (think shatnez) into a new whole. Paul is claiming that by nailing the "handwritten" law to the cross, Christ is making the law of shatnez (the "handwritten" law forbidding the mixing of unlike kingdoms) of no more account. Christ's blood is literally being compared to techelet, the crimson dye, used to obviate, or obliterate, the handwritten law set against such a melding of unlike things.



John

John D. Brey said:

By equating phallic-sex with "handwriting" --- and thus the penis with what the pen-is in spirituality --- Professor Wolfson's statement opens the door into the deepest chambers of the mystery of what R.B. Thieme, Jr., calls the "great power experiment of the hypostatic union," therein shining a bright light on the word translated "quickened" in Paul's statement at Colossians 2:13. The Greek word ---συζωοποιέω (syzōopoieō) implies the grafting of two formerly different kingdoms (think shatnez) into a new whole. Paul is claiming that by nailing the "handwritten" law to the cross, Christ is making the law of shatnez (the "handwritten" law forbidding the mixing of unlike kingdoms) of no more account. Christ's blood is literally being compared to techelet, the crimson dye, used to obviate, or obliterate, the handwritten law set against such a melding of unlike things.

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If Paul is correct in his assessment that Christ's death on the cross is the prerequisite for the rescinding of the handwritten law of shatnez, then Israel's rejection of the attempted melding of unlike things at Horeb either established the prohibition, or acknowledged the danger associated with such a melding prior to the prerequisite required for such a thing. In other words, if there's something unique about Jesus' conception, birth, and death, so unique that it's required to rescind the handwritten law, then Israel doesn't establish the authority of the written law at Horeb so much as having intuited its necessity, they merely, wisely, reject an attempted experiment (melding two unlike things, God's spirit and the human frame) that's likely to result in death, dismemberment, or both:




John