The Theology of Semen.

[John D. Brey]

the tohu va bohu part is a curiosity, isn't it, since it has the nuance of blown to atoms, stuff pounded apart till it is utterly dust, all light gone .....which implies a work of restoration in the act of the great being, who came in, found the construct blown to flinders, and first thing....restore power, get the lights and environmental controls running again....and so on

A brand of LSD may have borrowed the name "tohu va bohu" but that's definitely another thread and a different topic.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Jesus’ opponents asked him: “Why do your disciples not observe the tradition of the men of former times, but they eat their meal with defiled hands?” (Mark 7:5) Those religious critics were not referring to the taking of sanitary measures. As a ritual, the rabbis required that water be poured over their hands prior to eating. It is also debated which vessels were to be used for the pouring, which kind of water was suitable, who should pour, and how much of the hands should be covered with water....it got that ridiculous.

A Jewish ritual circumcision, brit milah, has three primary parts, and multiple nuances to each of those parts. The typical Christian probably doesn't know the three parts of a ritual circumcision (milah, periah, and metzitzah) . . . hell, many Jews probably don't. And yet each one of these three parts of the ritual have value and revelatory power, concerning the whole truth of the scriptures, Jewish and Christian, without which the Kingdom of God will never arrive.


John

 

[John D. Brey]

Jesus’ reaction to all these man-made laws was simple. He told the first-century Jewish religious leaders: “Isaiah aptly prophesied about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far removed from me [Jehovah]. It is in vain that they keep worshipping me, for they teach commands of men as doctrines.’ You let go of the commandment of God and cling to the tradition of men.” (Mark 7:6-8)

. . . As I interpret Jesus' words, he's implying that the Jews treat the laws and the scripture as though the body, the text, the words, come infused with the spirit, as though you don't have to have the spirit to properly interpret the words.

Anyone who believes a text can speak apart from the spirit of an interpreter, be he an atheist, a Christian, or a Jew, is participating in the very ruse Jesus laid bare.

As best I can tell, you're participating, to some degree, in the very error you're judging Judaism and Jews for practicing, when you imply that we should just accept what the text says rather than interpreting it according to the spirit within us.

There's nothing in the text until spirit is put into it. The wiggles and ink marks, the lines and curves, mean absolutely nothing until a living being decides to have intercourse with those marks such that he must put something of his own personal DNA into the womb of the marks, to see what comes out of them.

If the interpretation from the marks and wiggles looks exactly like the worldview and beliefs of the person who impregnated the text, then one of two things has happened. Either incest has taken place, so that the offspring are depravely too close to the interpreter, or else, the interpreter has caused the text to give virgin birth by sacrificing his gism (symbolized in brit milah) to produce an interpretive syllogism born of God and not he himself.

The latter is the proper process of interpretation though it happens about as frequently as biological virgin birth.




John

 

[John D. Brey]

The Jews of today have nothing to contribute to MY faith.....the Jewish nation as Abraham's descendants, contributed to the producing of the Messiah, whom they rejected and silenced. How did God feel about that do you think?

When Jesus asked his Father to forgive the ones who put him to death, he was not talking about the Jewish leaders.....these knew full well what they were doing....Jesus said that they had always done this....killing the prophets whom God sent to correct them.

. . . Imo, it's extremely dangerous to put words in Jesus' mouth. I disagree that he was not speaking partwise of the very ones who signed off on his death. Imo, he was speaking of me and you as much as he was speaking of Pilate.

The "Jews of today" are as much a part of God's plan as the "Christians of today." Men like Martin Buber (may he rest in peace), and Professor Elliott R. Wolfson, know the details of Christianity better that about 90% of Christians. They know the Gospels and the Apostolic writings, and interpret them more correctly, than most of Christendom.

That these brilliant men aren't Christian, even knowing the doctrinal foundation of Christianity better than most Christians, should give pause to those Christians who believe eating from the tree of Christian-knowledge is the same thing as eating from the Tree of Life.

Which is to say, if knowing the doctrines makes a person a Christian, then Buber and Wolfson are better Christians than 90% of the non-Jewish hoard. . . But it doesn't. Which should give pause to those Christians peddling Christian-knowledge like snake-oil salesmen.



John

 

[MNoBody]

A brand of LSD may have borrowed the name "tohu va bohu" but that's definitely another thread and a different topic.



John

no, that is the transliteration of the text in genesis ..

 

[John D. Brey]

Why did so many of the Jews reject Christ? Was it really because he did not fulfill Messianic prophesies?....or was it because he castigated the Pharisees at every opportunity? Was Jesus anti-Semitic? Or was he simply telling an inconvenient truth? The practicers of Judaism had lost the plot, and with the death of Christ at their behest, the only thing left for God to do, after fulfilling his part of the covenant, was to "abandon" them and to choose a new nation, (Acts 15:14) made up of both Jews and Gentiles.....”the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16) ...a people who could follow his instructions without wanting to either pad it out.....or water it down.

. . . To answer your first question, so many Jews rejected Christ because they were told to do so by the Torah text. They were under supernatural duress, like no people have ever been under duress.

And they have not been abandoned and never will. The apostle Paul is very clear on this.

A criminal crime, an evil of biblical proportions, literally, is recorded in Deuteronomy. The god speaking in that Torah-text is two-faced. Fork-tongued. From one side of his mouth he promises Israel that if they obey his commandments they will never be persecuted and never be exiled from the promised land.

Then, out of the other side of his jowls, and the other fork of his tongue, he tells Israel that they "will" break the covenant, the Law, and will be exiled, and will be terribly persecuted.

Are you theologically flexible enough, open to the spirit enough, to see the grotesquery of what is found in Deuteronomy? The written text of Deuteronomy is "the Law." It's the dictates (so to say), even the gism, the syllogism, the heart and soul, of the covenant. . . Do you see the problem?

The god writing with what a pen-is in relationship to the desecration in Genesis 2:21, tells Israel that if they're true to the Law, the covenant, they will be safe, and reside in the promised land forever. He offers this as a real, genuine, option. He encourages them to be true to the Law, the covenant. But his very words, written with what a pen-is, are recorded in the womb of the covenant, the text of Law, Deuteronomy, contaminating the covenant, by means of his very, distorted, uh, testemony to Israel.

Do you see the evil our dear brothers and sisters in Israel have been made to bear on our behalf?

They're told first to obey the Law, the covenant, and then guaranteed, in the Law, the covenant, that they will break the Law, and the covenant. They're under impossible duress: if they keep the covenant, they break it, since the god writing the dicktates of the covenant promise they will break it. But if they break the covenant, they will be keeping the covenant, since the writer of the covenant, says, in the covenant, that they will break it.

In one of his epistles, the apostle Paul says to leave him alone. He already bears the stigmata of Christ on his body. . . I beg you leave Israel alone. They already bear the stigmata of Christ cut into their very flesh.



John

 

[Deeje]

OK......quite a bit to respond to here and following so FWIW I’ll answer your statements to the best of my knowledge.

. . . Imo, this gets to the heart of everything. I.e., the relationship between the Torah text, or the text of the Gospels and Apostolic writing, versus the way they're interpreted.

Many people, yourself included, seem to speak as though interpretation is almost optional. Almost as though it's better to just stick with what the text says (you seem to have implies this more than once) rather than interpreting it.

As far as the Hebrew texts are concerned, if they were God given, then the basic command was enough. It did not need a heavy legalistic approach to simply follow God’s instructions.
Jesus indicated that the Pharisaical approach to the law was concentrating too much on the performance rather than understanding the spirit behind it.
It gives us the impression that “performance” (now exaggerated to the nth degree) is everything, when that was not ever the case.

But the text says absolutely nothing without interpretation. Interpretation isn't a layer laid on top of what the text says. The text says absolutely nothing without interpretation. And interpretation is as much an art as a science. There's no rule of interpretation that weeds out the biases, or the presuppositions, of the interpreter, since there's no interpretation that can occur without infusing the text with the interpreter's presuppositions or pretext.

And this is of course the crux of the matter. Since Israel’ history seems to be one of extremes, too much or too little when it came to following the Torah, what does this actually teach us when we contemplate God’s response to their actions?

He blessed them when they obeyed, and punished them when they strayed. The same laws were in place in both instances. Could God have been more clear about their response to his laws? What was the lesson?

Performance (or over-performance) of ritual was never what God required. He wanted their heartfelt obedience, (no more and no less than his law required of them). Reading through his instructions, we can see how very specific they were, so why the need to add what was never commanded? God was not the Gestapo, waiting to punish them for not performing their rituals in an over-exaggerated way.

It betrays a fault that the Jewish leaders manifested throughout their history.....a concentration on ritual observance as if these actions of themselves, without heartfelt observation of the principle upon which the law was based, governed their actions. (Matthew 23:4-7)

With the way Jesus was treated by those leaders, it was clear where their hearts were. (Matthew 15:8)
Jesus pronounced sentence on them in Matthew 23:37-39.
Their house was “abandoned”. God had fulfilled his promise to Abraham in producing the Messiah, and now it was time to dispense with these serial covenant breakers. As a nation, they would never be his people again....Israel today is a political nation....blood spillers like all the rest......but the door was not closed to individual Jews who acknowledged Jesus as Messiah. All of Jesus original disciples were Jews.

 

[Deeje]

A Jewish ritual circumcision, brit milah, has three primary parts, and multiple nuances to each of those parts. The typical Christian probably doesn't know the three parts of a ritual circumcision (milah, periah, and metzitzah) . . . hell, many Jews probably don't. And yet each one of these three parts of the ritual have value and revelatory power, concerning the whole truth of the scriptures, Jewish and Christian, without which the Kingdom of God will never arrive.

What was circumcision for? And what does it signify. Who had to be circumcised according to the Law?

Jehovah God made circumcision mandatory for Abraham in 1919 B.C.E., a year before Isaac’s birth. God said: “This is my covenant that you men will keep . . . Every male of yours must get circumcised.” Every male in Abraham’s household of both his descendants and dependents was included, and so Abraham, his 13-year-old son Ishmael, and all his slaves took upon themselves this “sign of the covenant.” New slaves brought in also had to be circumcised. From then on, any male of the household, slave or free, was to be circumcised the eighth day after birth. Disregard for this divine requirement was punishable by death.—Ge 17:1,9-14, 23-27.”

It was the sign of a covenant made with Abraham and his descendants. I see no “parts” to the ritual in scripture, so is this simply another addition made by the Jewish Rabbis to make more out of the Law than God intended or even required?

“Not Required of Christians.
After Jehovah showed his acceptance of Gentiles into the Christian congregation, and since many from the nations were responding to the preaching of the good news, a decision had to be made by the governing body at Jerusalem on the question, Is it necessary for Gentile Christians to get circumcised in the flesh? The conclusion of the matter: The “necessary things” for Gentiles and Jews alike did not include circumcision.—Ac 15:6-29.”

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200000977#h=13

The Christian scriptures used “circumcision of the heart” as a necessary thing for Christians, meaning that a purification of the heart was more important than a ritual performed on the flesh.

 

[MNoBody]

Gad, in other words.
otherwise referred to as the deity fortune, fate, destiny
the coin of the realm bears that mark -in GOD we trust......Gad

 

[Deeje]

As best I can tell, you're participating, to some degree, in the very error you're judging Judaism and Jews for practicing, when you imply that we should just accept what the text says rather than interpreting it according to the spirit within us.

OK...one statement that I am at odds with here....
“that we should just accept what the text says rather than interpreting it according to the spirit within us”.
What is the spirit within us? And do all have the same spirit? If not, then from what source is that spirit?

If it is God’s spirit operating on us, then why the great divide?
God’s spirit is unifying, not divisive.....so what’s happening here? (1 Corinthians 1:10)

It is clear to me that the “spirit” that operates in humankind is deceptive....God’s spirit is not deceptive, but satan’s spirit is. Whose spirit is manifest here?

Paul wrote at Ephesians 2:1-2...
“Furthermore, God made you alive, though you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you at one time walked according to the system of things of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

How do we discern the difference since the devil, as the one having authority over the dominant spirit in humankind, is a master deceiver? (1 John 5:19)

Paul made an interesting statement.....

“9 But the lawless one’s presence is by the operation of Satan with every powerful work and lying signs and wonders 10 and every unrighteous deception for those who are perishing, as a retribution because they did not accept the love of the truth in order that they might be saved. 11 That is why God lets a deluding influence mislead them so that they may come to believe the lie, 12 in order that they all may be judged because they did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)

Can you see what this implies? If we have a delusion concerning our beliefs (often formulated on our own, and not shared by others) and we are determined to hang onto it rather than to allow ourselves to entertain any other viewpoints, God will not prevent us from clinging onto what our heart desires. It’s a delusion that will lead to disaster, but it’s what we have chosen, and it shows that we don’t love God’s truth but are actually in love with our own.

There's nothing in the text until spirit is put into it. The wiggles and ink marks, the lines and curves, mean absolutely nothing until a living being decides to have intercourse with those marks such that he must put something of his own personal DNA into the womb of the marks, to see what comes out of them.

And God is the one who chooses those whose hearts are complete towards him. He knows us better than we know him.

He is the one who decides what the truth is, but as Jesus said...”No man can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draws him”. . . . “This is why I have said to you, no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 6:44, 65)

So God is ultimately in control of who comes to his son, and whom he allows to entertain their delusions. His spirit operates on a collective as it always has, not on single individuals who think that they alone have discovered the truth.

I find that sobering....don't you?

 

[Deeje]

The "Jews of today" are as much a part of God's plan as the "Christians of today."

That is an interesting statement.....and I agree...just not in the way you do. I believe that they are both devoid of God's interest in any way. They have proven by their own conduct that neither have done what he asked of them.
Both have gone astray and done their own thing, taking God's worship in a direction he never told them to.

Men like Martin Buber (may he rest in peace), and Professor Elliott R. Wolfson, know the details of Christianity better that about 90% of Christians. They know the Gospels and the Apostolic writings, and interpret them more correctly, than most of Christendom.

That may be very true in essence.....but the truth is not going to come from those devoid of God's spirit. The bare bones might be there in the language, but Jesus said that there is only one truth and that this truth would be dispensed by the ones appointed by him......it would not be through unbelievers. (Matthew 24:45)
There is a whole household of fellow slaves counting on this spiritual food to nourish their faith. Being served "at the proper time" means that they get what they need, when they need it....no more, no less.

That these brilliant men aren't Christian, even knowing the doctrinal foundation of Christianity better than most Christians, should give pause to those Christians who believe eating from the tree of Christian-knowledge is the same thing as eating from the Tree of Life.

Yes, its quite sad that atheists often have a better knowledge of scripture that most Christians do....but that is usually because they have the mistaken notion that the man standing at the pulpit knows it all for them.....big mistake.

We are to prove to ourselves what God's will is.....and not be molded by what others think or believe, just because it appeals to us. (Romans 12:2)
Sometimes the simple truth is just that...simple.

Which is to say, if knowing the doctrines makes a person a Christian, then Buber and Wolfson are better Christians than 90% of the non-Jewish hoard. . . But it doesn't. Which should give pause to those Christians peddling Christian-knowledge like snake-oil salesmen.

Its not about knowing doctrines......its about knowing God. As Jesus said...
"This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ." (John 17:3)
You see, 'knowing God' and 'knowing about him' are two entirely different things. How many of those dutiful church attenders actually know God and his Christ at all? And how many go through the motions of attending church and getting a bit of bread and wine without having a clue what it all means? They have just been told that if they do that they are saved......saved from what?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

That is an interesting statement.....and I agree...just not in the way you do. I believe that they are both devoid of God's interest in any way. They have proven by their own conduct that neither have done what he asked of them.
Both have gone astray and done their own thing, taking God's worship in a direction he never told them to.



That may be very true in essence.....but the truth is not going to come from those devoid of God's spirit. The bare bones might be there in the language, but Jesus said that there is only one truth and that this truth would be dispensed by the ones appointed by him......it would not be through unbelievers. (Matthew 24:45)
There is a whole household of fellow slaves counting on this spiritual food to nourish their faith. Bring served "at the proper time" means that they get what they need, when they need it....no more, no less.




Yes, its quite sad that atheists often have a better knowledge of scripture that most Christians do....but that is usually because they have the mistaken notion that the man standing at the pulpit knows it all for them.....big mistake.

We are to prove to ourselves what God's will is.....and not be molded by what others think or believe, just because it appeals to us. (Romans 12:2)
Sometimes the simple truth is just that...simple.



Its not about knowing doctrines......its about knowing God. As Jesus said...
"This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ." (John 17:3)
You see, 'knowing God' and 'knowing about him' are two entirely different things. How many of those dutiful church attenders actually know God and his Christ at all? And how many go through the motions of attending church and getting a bit of bread and wine without having a clue what it all means? They have just been told that if they do that they are saved......saved from what?

That’s a great point, @Deeje . The important thing, is: who gets God’s spirit? Luke 10:21 is pretty clear (well, it’s not pretty, it’s just clear...LOL!).
Jesus didn’t choose those from the Rabbinical schools of His day. He chose fishermen, etc. They were humble men, meek men who could be taught and trained, already obedient to God. — Acts of the Apostles 4:13.... Acts of the Apostles 5:29. They made these courageous statements, because of God’s spirit, His power — Acts of the Apostles 4:8.

That is the necessary thing! And Jehovah doesn’t give it to those who are willfully disobedient.

 

[Deeje]

. . . To answer your first question, so many Jews rejected Christ because they were told to do so by the Torah text. They were under supernatural duress, like no people have ever been under duress.

Whoa....told by the Torah? What supernatural duress are you speaking about?

And they have not been abandoned and never will. The apostle Paul is very clear on this.

The apostle Paul was very clear about what it meant to be Jewish.
Romans 2:23-29....
"You who take pride in law, do you dishonor God by your transgressing of the Law? 24 For “the name of God is being blasphemed among the nations because of you,” just as it is written.

25 Circumcision is, in fact, of benefit only if you practice law; but if you are a transgressor of law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 If, therefore, an uncircumcised person keeps the righteous requirements of the Law, his uncircumcision will be counted as circumcision, will it not? 27 And the physically uncircumcised person will, by carrying out the Law, judge you who are a transgressor of law despite having its written code and circumcision. 28 For he is not a Jew who is one on the outside, nor is circumcision something on the outside, on the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one on the inside, and his circumcision is that of the heart by spirit and not by a written code. That person’s praise comes from God, not from people."

God changed the definition of what it meant to be "Jewish". 'Spiritual Israel' would replace natural Israel as God's people. (Acts 15:14)

A criminal crime, an evil of biblical proportions, literally, is recorded in Deuteronomy. The god speaking in that Torah-text is two-faced. Fork-tongued. From one side of his mouth he promises Israel that if they obey his commandments they will never be persecuted and never be exiled from the promised land.

Did you notice that little word "if"? All Israel had to do was obey God's Law.

Deuteronomy 11:13-17....
"And if you will diligently obey my commandments that I am commanding you today and love Jehovah your God and serve him with all your heart and all your soul, 14 I will also give rain for your land at its appointed time, autumn rain and spring rain, and you will gather your grain and your new wine and your oil. 15 And I will provide vegetation in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat and be satisfied. 16 Be careful not to let your heart be enticed to go astray and worship other gods and bow down to them. 17 Otherwise, Jehovah’s anger will blaze against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will not give its produce and you will quickly perish from the good land that Jehovah is giving you."

There it is......'obey me and receive my blessings...or fall away to false worship and incur my anger'.....Not rocket science is it? Can you tell me what there was in that Law was impossible for them to carry out?

Are you theologically flexible enough, open to the spirit enough, to see the grotesquery of what is found in Deuteronomy? The written text of Deuteronomy is "the Law." It's the dictates (so to say), even the gism, the syllogism, the heart and soul, of the covenant. . . Do you see the problem?

I see the problem clearly.....but I am not sure that you do.....the Jews could not keep their covenant with God and so they broke it...more than once, yet God kept them in existence as his people till he had fulfilled his end of the agreement. (to produce their Messiah) Why should he have kept on forgiving them when they were incorrigible?
Jesus already sentenced the Pharisees to "gehenna".....a judgment that they could not escape. Are these people really as precious to God as you think they are...or as they still think they are? Being Abraham's offspring had its limits.
What did John the Baptist say about them?

Matthew 3:7-10...
"When he caught sight of many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to the baptism, he said to them: “You offspring of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore, produce fruit that befits repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. 10 The ax is already lying at the root of the trees. Every tree, then, that does not produce fine fruit is to be cut down and thrown into the fire."

Do you see the evil our dear brothers and sisters in Israel have been made to bear on our behalf?

No...all I see is them pushing the envelope and not obeying the God that they willingly said they would.
I call it "reaping what you sow"....anyone who is deliberately disobedient to God and who has no remorse, is no 'brother or sister' of mine.

They're told first to obey the Law, the covenant, and then guaranteed, in the Law, the covenant, that they will break the Law, and the covenant. They're under impossible duress: if they keep the covenant, they break it, since the god writing the dicktates of the covenant promise they will break it. But if they break the covenant, they will be keeping the covenant, since the writer of the covenant, says, in the covenant, that they will break it.

Where is this impossible situation you speak of? Deuteronomy 11:13-17 was not a bit ambiguous.

I beg you leave Israel alone. They already bear the stigmata of Christ cut into their very flesh.

Oh boo hoo....all that they received, they brought on themselves. I don't feel one bit sorry for them. They were told the conditions of the covenant, and they agreed to the terms...then they broke the laws that they vowed to uphold.

On what basis was there to forgive them for what they did to Jesus? It wasn't just the Jewish leaders who bore the responsibility...
Matthew 27:25...Pilate tried to release Jesus but to avoid an uprising he washed his hands of the whole affair and handed Jesus over to them for execution.
"Seeing that it did no good but, rather, an uproar was arising, Pilate took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying: “I am innocent of the blood of this man. You yourselves must see to it.” 25 At that all the people said in answer: “Let his blood come upon us and upon our children.”

The Jewish people invited the responsibility for Jesus' death.....and virtually cursed themselves and their children with his blood. This is why, as a nation, they are 'reaping what they sowed'. I have no pity for the guilty ones at all. If the Jewish people still uphold and condone the actions of those guilty ones, then from God's perspective they are equally guilty IMO.

I do not see it your way at all....sorry.

 

[John D. Brey]

Not only does the name "adam" spell out the "blood" dam, of the bull, the alef, but the blood that goes into ha-adam doesn't go in through the intact veil associated with temple ritual, but through the mouth per the analogue of human sexuality whereby the last of three symbols related to an orthodox brit milah, ritual circumcision, is metzitzah, where the blood of the divine organ, come, so to say, from the animal flesh on the human body, is symbolically ingested in a Jewish ritual that more than one anthropologist, and more than one rabbi, has bristled to say looks peculiarly similar to the Eucharist:

The third stage of the circumcision procedure is called metzitzah, or "sucking." The mohel briefly extracts blood from the child's wound, traditionally using his mouth. He then expectorates the blood into a goblet, which, as I discuss shortly, the boy and his parents sip.

Professor Eric Kline Silverman, From Abraham to America: A history of Jewish Circumcision.

Several new practices placed special emphasis on bloodshed. After performing metsitsah, sucking blood from the circumcised penis, the mohel would spit some blood into the cup of wine from which he would place drops on the child's lips.

Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America, p. 63.

The justification for this rabbinic custom of metzitzah was generally medical: it was believed that sucking the blood would prevent infection. However, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that something more ritualistic was at stake. These Jewish practices might be called the mirror image of the Eucharist. In both cases, blood appears to be consumed, although in fact it is not.

David Biale, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians, p. 98-99.​

Once the parallels between blood and semen are made nakedly clear, a secondary theological issue comes out of the argument. We can say this with some authority since more than one professor of theology, and more than one rabbi, have noted the symbolic relationship between the two fluids of life flowing from the one serpentine organ: semen, in profane, genitile reproduction, and blood, on the eighth day, which, the eighth day, Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch relates to Jewish rebirth. Furthermore, in this duality between the two life-fluids associated with the phallic-tree, the sages speak of two parallel life-fluids associated not strictly with biological life, but with thought-life, memetic-life, i.e., the life of the mind.

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.

Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Circle in the Square, p. 68.​

And where Professor Wolfson's statement is appreciated, Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch's exegesis starts to transform the pen, and what the pen-is in the writing of mind, or thought, into a parallel of its biological analogue, i.e., the flesh through which ha-adam's original sin must pass to create biological life:

כתב [katab, "write"] is related to קטף [qutap] (to bend, tear off), קטב [qutab] (to kill), גדף [gadap] (to abuse) . . . From this we may infer that although the written word is a bearer of ideas and thus of great benefit, nevertheless, by itself it is incomplete, and it is likely to jeopardize the completeness, the vitality, and the truth of ideas. . . God's Torah is entrusted to the living word, not to the lifeless letter. . . The written word is to remind you ever anew of what was entrusted to your mouth.

The Hirsch Chumash, Shemos 34:27; 13:9.​

On the eighth day, the fleshly organ that gave birth to the physical body is cut and bled as though the blood of the organ that creates biological life has the power to create a new form of mental life, Jewish thought life, if the blood of the organ of biological life is treated as the semen of a higher, spiritualized, form of thought-life.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

On the eighth day, the fleshly organ that gave birth to the physical body is cut and bled as though the blood of the organ that creates biological life has the power to create a new form of mental life, Jewish thought life, if the blood of the organ of biological life is treated as the semen of a higher, spiritualized, form of thought-life.

In his book, Sacred Attunement, Michael Fishbane speaks of three Torah's (a trinity of Torahs). The written-Torah is obviously the written-text thought of as a demotic narrative from God. But since the text is initially delivered as a string of consonants, no vowels or punctuation, it can legitimately be considered DOA, dead-on-arrival; that is, without the oral-Torah, that resuscitates a meaning derived through the intercourse between God and his chosen mediator (be it angel, man, or both). Nevertheless, as Fishbane points out, there's a third Torah. Torah-kelulah, a holy hieroglyph: the secret meaning God has hidden for those who can receive it. An "unmediated" Torah --- no man or angel stands up erect claiming to be the organ of God, filled to breaking point with God's seminal testemony, looking to impregnate those desirous of a union, intercourse, with God, but without the attractiveness God desires in a mediator, an attractiveness related to a particular ornament, associated with a particularly cutting ritual.

The torah kelulah [as distinct from the written or oral Torah] is truly a torah min ha-shamayim: a Torah from heaven. It is given by God, and God alone. It is a holy hieroglyph----a divine scripture encoding patterns and forms of every sort. It is God's seal of truth stamped into our universe [and our flesh].

Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, p. 159 (bracketed comments mine).​

Quoted from thread: Hieroglyph vs Stiff.​

The argument above centers around the nature of a demotic text (where what the pen-is mimics its biological analogue by leaving, and mixing something of itself with the medium where it's revealed) versus a form of communication come, so to say, from the mouth, orally, as though the mouth can act just like what a pen-is in the profane communicative act of Gentile writing. Where metzitzah both comes into its own as a symbol, and into this discussion, one might think that it's precisely in this particular hyper-symbolic act (metzitzah) that the mouth is acquiring the very ink through which it will archive a living thought in a permanent manner.

Circumcision is not simply an incision of the male sex organ; it is an inscription, a notation, a marking. This marking, in turn, is the semiological seal, as it were, that represents the divine imprint on the human body. The physical opening, therefore, is the seal that, in its symbolic valence, corresponds to an ontological opening within God. . . The opening of circumcision, in the final analysis, is transformed in the Zohar into a symbol for the task of exegesis. . . The uncovering of the phallus is conceptually and structurally parallel to the disclosure of the text.

Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, The Circle in the Square, p, 30.​

John