2 Corinthians 5:17: Saul and the Seraphim.

[John D. Brey]

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he's a new kind of creature. His old fleshly body and nature have become transformed into something utterly new.​

Too many times to count, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch has been quoted stating that any "new" revelation that's not grounded in the past, i.e., antecedent revelation, is more like smoke and mirrors than genuine revelation fit for truth-seeking hearers. And since Rabbi Hirsch's axiom has served to direct sound exegesis for so long, applying it here should aid in revealing just what Rabbi Hirsch's fore-kin is getting on about regarding the new kind of man hidden behind the foreskin.

In a word, Saul's "new kind of creature," if it's doctrinally legit, should be able to be found out through retrospective expository exegesis of the Tanakh? And saying that, in Professor Elliot R. Wolfson's parlance, is like saying that the origin, though it may appear new when revealed, was indeed the original, hidden, in the beginning, which beginning, was errantly fancied the original (Ephesians 1:4).

The seraphim are the original priestly royalty hidden behind the flesh to be revealed through sound exegesis of John 3:14, as seen through the prism of Numbers 21:8. And since "angels" aren't composed of, nor hidden behind, a skene of actual flesh and blood, the "seraphim," when properly uncovered, are seen not to be angels hidden behind a fore-skene, but Paul's new spiritual species whose true nature is revealed for the first time in the midst of one stupendous historical scene. If a person is Jewish and they see a seraphim, like Israel and then Isaiah did, they should rejoice, for they're saved. But if they're a seraphim, and see a seraphim, they're either looking at a mirror, or seeing themselves in the mirror of the word of God. Examining the latter is the primary purpose of this examination.

And the Lord said to Moses, Make you a seraphim and nail it to, then lift it up, on your priestly rod, that everyone who is bitten with death might look upon him and live.

Numbers 21:8

As Moses lifted up the serpent-rod Nehushtan in the desert, so that sinners might be saved from inevitable death, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that those who look upon him in faith might, like Israel in the desert, not perish, but have a life eternally renewed through faith .

John 3:14.​

John

 

[AlexanderG]

What? I'm sorry, are we taking "feeling like a new person after a religious conversion" and analogizing it to "the new flesh revealed when a piece of one's penis is cut off"?

And we're calling this "retrospective expository exegesis"? Ok then. Whatever floats your boat. I'd call it genital mutilation without consent, but that's just me.

 

[John D. Brey]

What? I'm sorry, are we taking "feeling like a new person after a religious conversion" and analogizing it to "the new flesh revealed when a piece of one's penis is cut off"?

And we're calling this "retrospective expository exegesis"? Ok then. Whatever floats your boat. I'd call it genital mutilation without consent, but that's just me.

In another thread I noted how both Einstein, and his fellow genius, Saint Augustine, both, at one time, speaking as intelligent thoughtful persons, stated that the Bible appeared to be at best a collection of ancient, childish, myths. The latter sat one day on a park bench in a drunken stupor after one more meaningless night of drink and orgy with some of Rome's finest female chaperones (Augustine wasn't always a saint you know).

The children playing in a near-by park were playing an ancient version of Marco Polo; they kept chanting "Tolle Lege" . . ."Tolle Lege," which in Latin means "Pick up and read . . .." As fate records it, a Bible sat next to the drunken and spiritually exhausted Augustine. The rest, as they say, is history.

Augustine later noted that what once seemed simple, and unremarkable, in a new context, read like the deepest and most incredible revelatory information that will ever be presented to mankind. Which is merely to say that context is everything.




John

 

[John D. Brey]

Augustine later noted that what once seemed simple, and unremarkable, in a new context, read like the deepest and most incredible revelatory information that will ever be presented to mankind. Which is merely to say that context is everything.

What the author of this thread thought remarkable enough to write about is the new idea that in the Tanakh, a "seraphim," is neither an angel, a man, or a God, but some kind of Duke's mixture of the latter two. If there's sound exegesis to support this supposition, it would be (at least for theologically adept persons), a truly stupendous act of exegetical marksmanship since it would have reached a target other exegetes appear not to know was even out there.

Angels are divine heavenly creatures. Man is thought to be a terrestrial creature. And according to the sages of the Tanakh text, neither shall the twain be thought to be combined, incarnated, or so delineated.

What this thread of thought offers up is a possible proof that Jewish aniconism, Jewish mothotheism, in its inability to visualize a Duke's mixing of heaven and earth, has, for too long, had the greatest revelation in the Tanakh hidden from her sages and exegetes.

If seraphim can be shown to be neither heavenly creatures exclusively, nor of a terrestrial nature wholly, then this new kind of holiness opens up the very fissure in Judaism (a crack, as it were) that Leonard Cohen implies must exist for the light to get in. It's being posited here that the nature of the seraphim, if exposed, is the light that illuminates the deepest, darkest, parts of the Jewish mystery.




John

 

[John D. Brey]

What this thread of thought offers up is a possible proof that Jewish aniconism, Jewish mothotheism, in its inability to visualize a Duke's mixing of heaven and earth, has, for too long, had the greatest revelation in the Tanakh hidden from her sages and exegetes.

If seraphim can be shown to be neither heavenly creatures exclusively, nor of a terrestrial nature wholly, then this new kind of holiness opens up the very fissure in Judaism (a crack, as it were) that Leonard Cohen implies must exist for the light to get in. It's being posited here that the nature of the seraphim, if exposed, is the light that illuminates the deepest, darkest, parts of the Jewish mystery.

If the seraphim are a Duke's mixture of heaven and earth, then like ha-adam, there should be an original, singular, seraph, who, like ha-adam, was technically speaking a non-gendered female, so that like ha-adam, this first seraph was without a reproductive branch through which fruit, offspring, might branch out to become a family, a community, a nation, or people.

With that as the presupposition, it's a small stretch to posit that the divine-creature in the garden with ha-adam, even before the arrival of Eve, the seraph who helped ha-adam deal with his own originally non-gendered status (Genesis 2:21), might be the first, and thus non-gendered, seraph, i.e., the ----ha-adam of the seraphim ----as it was or were, such that ha-adam and the first seraph conspire, or combine, are united, in their joint desire to join the terrestrial symphony of reproductive-branching-out that was presumably already taking place outside the gates of the garden of Edenic chastity.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

If the seraphim are a Duke's mixture of heaven and earth, then like ha-adam, there should be an original, singular, seraph, who, like ha-adam, was technically speaking a non-gendered female, so that like ha-adam, this first seraph was without a reproductive branch through which fruit, offspring, might branch out to become a family, a community, a nation, or people.

With that as the presupposition, it's a small stretch to posit that the divine-creature in the garden with ha-adam, even before the arrival of Eve, the seraph who helped ha-adam deal with his own originally non-gendered status (Genesis 2:21), might be the first, and thus non-gendered, seraph, i.e., the ----ha-adam of the seraphim ----as it was or were, such that ha-adam and the first seraph conspire, or combine, are united, in their joint desire to join the terrestrial symphony of reproductive-branching-out that was presumably already taking place outside the gates of the garden of Edenic chastity.

With that as the backdrop for the events that begin in Genesis 2:21, it can be posited that the first seraph and ha-adam have a genuine problem that doesn't have an easy solution where the dictates of the theology of the Pentateuch are well understood since any mixing of species transgresses the law of shatnez. Furthermore, ha-adam and the seraph are non-gendered species. Mixing appears impossible since they don't have the paraphernalia required and part-n-parcel of their original nature is their singular status. They definitely appear to be up Chastity Creek without a paddle or other cigar-shaped help meet.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

With that as the backdrop for the events that begin in Genesis 2:21, it can be posited that the first seraph and ha-adam have a genuine problem that doesn't have an easy solution where the dictates of the theology of the Pentateuch are well understood since any mixing of species transgresses the law of shatnez. Furthermore, ha-adam and the seraph are non-gendered species. Mixing appears impossible since they don't have the paraphernalia required and part-n-parcel of their original nature is their singular status. They definitely appear to be up Chastity Creek without a paddle or other cigar-shaped help meet.

Whatever solution to their conundrum they might devise must deal with the problem of shatnez (the prohibition on mixing species) as well as the fact that neither the seraph, nor ha-adam, have a so-called "help meet" to meet them half-way, so to say, on their road to family and community?

Their problems seem truly intractable since not only is ha-adam a species in herself (there's no other ha-adam) such that creating a gendered "help meet" for ha-adam would be tantamount to creating a new sexualized species for the first species (and then transgressing shatnez to mix them), but beyond that, even if the seraph were to help ha-adam along by producing that sexualized "help meet," it would merely make the seraph herself even more lonely since then only the seraph would be singular, and singularly unable to start a family. At best, even if the problem of shatnez were solved, the seraph would have to console herself with watching Adam and Eve start a family.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Their problems seem truly intractable since not only is ha-adam a species in herself (there's no other ha-adam) such that creating a gendered "help meet" for ha-adam would be tantamount to creating a new sexualized species for the first species (and then transgressing shatnez to mix them), but beyond that, even if the seraph were to help ha-adam along by producing that sexualized "help meet," it would merely make the seraph herself even more lonely since then only the seraph would be singular, and singularly unable to start a family. At best, even if the problem of shatnez were solved, the seraph would have to console herself with watching Adam and Eve start a family.

Because of the intransigence of the problems, well-meaning exegetes and theologians have tried to help God out of the corner he seemed to have painted himself into when he created the singular natures of ha-adam and the seraph in the garden . They've twisted a Hebrew word, or consonant, here or there, to solve for God what mere men determined even God couldn't solve after-the-fact of having created the monstrosity requiring a solution. And whereas the Pauline epistles go further than any other scripture toward accepting the fact that God knew what he was doing even if men don't, even Saul is only human. He himself could use a helping hand in solving the theological dilemma. He provided the impetus, with 2 Corinthians 5:17 (juxtaposed against his other theology) such that it's the least we could do to use 2 Corinthians 5:17 to retroactively finish for Paul what time-and-tide and presumably fore-ordination denied him.



John