In Matt. 22:44 Jesus challenged the Pharisees to identify who King David was referring to in the reference to ‘my Lord’ in Psalms 110.

“‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”‘

In Psalms 110 it literally reads “Jehovah says to my Adonai…”

But the New American Bible adds ‘you’ and a comma.

The Lord (Jehovah) said to you, my Lord (Adonai)…

This is clearly an interpretive decision as ‘you’ is not in any of the manuscripts. No other translation goes so far as to add a word that is not in the originals. By adding ‘you’ the NAB (not to be confused with the NASB) puts the words of the Psalm into the mouths of court singers and makes ‘Adoni’ a personal reference to king David rather than to the Messiah.

Was the Psalm written for court singers to extol the power and virtues of King David? Jesus interpretation of the Psalm clearly rules that out. Jesus put the words of the Psalm in the mouth of David and then asks who is the person that David calls ‘Lord’? The implication being that the Messiah is not a reincarnation of King David but is greater and sits at the right hand of God.

Psalm 110 contains some similarities to Psalm 2. Both contain references to the world wide rule of the Messiah. A kingdom that was never fulfilled in David.

He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. Psalm 110:6

“I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Psalm 2:6-12

The boundaries of Israel are clearly spelled out in Num 34. Even the expanded boundaries mentioned in Genesis 15:18 and Deut. 11:24 do not extend past the Nile or Euphrates. Only the Messiah will rule the nations and judge them as was foretold by Jacob.

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his. Genesis 49:10

It is interesting also that Psalm 110 contains the only other reference to Melchizedek in the OT.

The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” Psalm 110:4

It is hard to understand how David would receive this kind of praise as he was never allowed to build the temple because of the blood on his hands. But that is more speculative.

And I am not sure what this means.

He will drink from a brook beside the way; therefore he will lift up his head. Psalm110:7

What is clear is that David spoke of one who would judge the nations who he referred to as both Adonai and a Priest in the order of Melchizedek. And that is something to take to heart.

Several weeks ago I was asked if there was any chance I would convert to Judaism? How do you answer a question like that? The man asking the question had invited me to a study of Judaism but wanted to make sure that I was open minded enough that he wasn’t wasting his time. I asked him first if he would be willing to convert to Christianity? He said that he would be if he was persuaded that it was true… furthermore he said that when he was a college student in Georgia he had ‘gone to the altar’ after being witnessed to by “Christians who had a gleam in their eye”. When he told his Rabi what he had done, the Rabi did not argue with him but told him that, “he owed it to his people to discover why so many Jews were killed on their refusal to convert to Christianity.” This quest led him to reject the Christian faith and to become an orthodox Rabi. He told me that he had found in his studies that Judaism was very logical whereas Christianity was not based on reason but on experience. However, if it could be proven to him that Judaism was false and that Christianity was true then he would have to convert.

So what about me, he asked? Could I be persuaded to convert to Judaism?

This conversation got me thinking about the nature of faith. If our faith is only a reasoned response to evidence then we should never be fully persuaded of the truth and should always allow for the possibility that we may be wrong. But this is not how faith is defined in Hebrews 11.

Faith is the substance of things hoped and the certainty of what we do not see.

Faith is not a conclusion reasoned from premises. Neither is faith a matter of probability quantified through experimentation and observation. It is not like a scientific theory that is true until it is shown to be false.

At the heart of faith is revelation.

I think revelation is viewed as an inferior way of knowing. Many argue that reliance on revelation places the human mind into a prison of dogmatism. I respectfully disagree. Take one quick glance at the history of philosophy and tell me that human reasoning alone is not utterly futile. This is freedom? And one has to be a blind, deaf and dumb disciple of science to think that some of what we call science today will not meet the same fate as spontaneous generation, Lamarcks’ theory of evolution or the theories of the spheres. Thomas Kuhn has persuasively argued in his book, `The Nature and Structure of Scientific Revolution” that science is prone to seismic shifts as one paradigm is replaced with another. Science is particularly prone to error as it deals with philosophical questions. It is better to take a more humble approach and recognize the distinctions and limitations of each form of knowledge.

Blaise Pascal, the great theologian as well as outstanding scientist, makes some helpful distinctions. Pascal separated knowledge into three orders. These are “the order of nature, the order of mind, and the order of charity.” (Eliot, in. loc) For Pascal it was critical to distinguish between these three orders and to give each its proper place. The order of nature required rigorous experimentation, the order of mind demanded sound reasoning and the order of charity required spiritual understanding and intuition.

Pascal believed that certainty was only possible for those things that belonged to the ‘order of charity’ because they were rooted in God and not in man. Pascal warned that, “reason’s speculation, when cut loose from divine authority, lead people into a junk yard of dead theological platitudes.” (MacKenzie, pg. 41) For Pascal, Gods revelation of himself through Scripture was paramount. This conviction led Pascal to disagree with those philosophers that said that God could be discovered in nature through reason alone. According to Pascal, “It was part of God’s purpose and strategy to give enough light through nature to guide sincere seekers, and enough darkness to keep rebels from being unwillingly bludgeoned into accepting the truth.” (MacKenzie, pg. 91) Natural revelation led genuine seekers to a fuller and more specific revelation of God.

Pascal did not reject reason in matters of faith. He was very interested in the types and prophecies found in the Old Testament, especially as they related to the Jews and to Jesus. He saw in these types and prophecies, proofs that served to confirm the claims made by Jesus to be the Messiah. Pascal even sought to use his mathematical work on probabilities to challenges his readers to consider the repercussions of their decision to believe that God does or does not exist. Pascal said, “You must wager; it is not optional… Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God exists… If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.” (Pascal, Pensees 233)

However, alongside these proofs was a recognition of the limitations of reason. Pascal constantly sought to balance what could be understood by reason with what must simply be recognized as a mystery. “If the truths of Christian religion depended entirely upon reason, it would be stripped of its mysterious and supernatural content. On the other hand, if the principles of reason were offended, then religion became “absurd and ridiculous.”” (Sedgwick, pg. 89)

So how should I answer the Rabi? Can I be persuaded to convert to Judaism?

Well I think it is too late. I have already jumped. Although reason may have led me to the cliff, my leap was a leap of faith based on the conviction that the words of Prophets were fulfilled in Yeshua and that the law is perfected in him. Now that I have jumped, I cannot go back. If a mans wife returns home in the middle of the night and tells him that she was delayed because the car broke down, should he doubt her?

Love… always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Yeah, I know that is a mystical take on faith but then, as Pascal put it, the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. This is knowledge of the first order.

But what do you think?

Pascal, B. Pensees, trans. by A.J. Krailshammer, London: Penguin, 1995

Eliot, T.S., An Introduction to Pensees, by Blaise Pascal, vii-xix, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1958

Krailshammer, A.J., An Introduction to Pensees, by Blaise Pascal, ix-xxx, London: Penguin, 1995

MacKenzie, C. S., Blaise Pascal: Apologist to Skeptics, University Press of America: Lanham, 2008

Sedgwick, Alexander, Jansenism in Seventeenth-Century France: Voices from the Wilderness, The University Press of Virginia, 1977

Oakes, E. T., Pascal, The First Modern Christian. First Things. no95(41) 1999

St. Anne is an old Crusader Church built in 1100’s. It has amazing acoustics – sound reverberates through the whole building although I think it would be a disaster for anyone trying to preach.

According to Catholic tradition, St. Anne was the mother of Mary and this cathedral was built to mark the place where Mary was born. What is of more interest to me is that it was built at the site of the Pool of Bethesda where the sick would wait for healing just outside of the temple.

John 5:2-9 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids–blind, lame, and paralyzed. 4 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 ¶ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

The man thought Jesus might help him into the pool. He got much more than that!

So we have met with a Rabi here on campus several times since the last post…

If there is one thing I have taken from what has been said about atonement is that there is a general desire to downplay the significance of blood in the ceremonies instructed by God on Mt. Sinai. (I think think is true in Church as well)

The Rabi took us to several passages to show that the blood of a sacrifice was not always necessary for atonement in the OT. There was no sin offering mentioned in Leviticus in which a grain offering could be made if the person could not afford a couple of birds.

Leviticus 5:11 – “But if he cannot afford two turtledoves or two pigeons, then he shall bring as his offering for the sin that he has committed a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it and shall put no frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering.

Another place that mentions atonement apart from a blood sacrifice is in the instructions for taking a census of Israel. A 1/2 shekel tax was to be levied for the maintenance of the temple and so that no plague would break out against the people during the census.

11 ¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 12 When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. 13 This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of the LORD. 14 Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the LORD. 15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls. 16 And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls. Exodus 30:11-16

The atonement money was given “so that there would be no plague” when the census was taken. Was this why a plague broke out when King David numbered the people in 2 Sam. 24?

The Rabi also discussed why atonement was made for the altar. The altar cannot sin… so why atonement? It seems that according the commentators, atonement was made for the altar because it is likely that the altar contained material given with impure motives – and thus atonement was made to purify it… and to separate it from the common. (in other words to sanctify it and make it holy)

What I don’t understand is the desire to disconnect atonement from the blood of a sacrifice? Leviticus seems to be pretty clear on the matter: (even if there are some general exceptions for the poor)

Leviticus 17:11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

Some other questions that came up:

Was there any significance in the blood applied to the door post and lintel of the house during the Passover feast? No… It was simply a sign of obedience to God and had nothing to do with the sin of the Israelites.

What was the first recorded sacrifice? Cain and Abel.

When was the first recorded death? It was the death of an animal to provide clothing for Adam and Eve. Why did God clothe Adam and Eve? To show his love for them because fig leaves are uncomfortable. Is there significance to Adam and Eves feeling of nakedness and Gods provision of clothing other than purely physical considerations? Could this be considered the first sacrifice?

Anyway, that is the gist of the far ranging conversations that we had…

In finishing off this post, I think there is a danger in focusing only on the atonement sacrifices as though they were the sole purpose of the tabernacle… They were not. The tabernacle was ‘the Dwelling Place’ where God met with his people.

What was the music like? And what craftsmanship and skill went into the making of the tent and its furnishings? What vivid and meaningful ceremonies – such as the pouring out of water and wine at the feast of Tabernacles or the offering of the first fruit’s – were carried out as the people came before God with joy and singing at the appointed feasts? What messages of the prophets were spoken for the first time in its courts?

Psalm 84:10 10 Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

This was not a dark and depressing cathedral filled with the chanting of men who sound like they are at the edge of the grave.

But what is clear… and this what all of Rabinic Judaism seems to wish to deny… was that the sacrifice of atonement was at the heart of everything else that occurred in the tabernacle.

As the writer of Hebrews said,

Hebrews 9:22 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Matthew Henry – on the burnt offering:

It must be offered at the door of the tabernacle, where the brazen altar of burnt-offerings stood, which sanctified the gift, and not elsewhere. He must offer it at the door, as one unworthy to enter, and acknowledging that there is no admission for a sinner into covenant and communion with God, but by sacrifice…

Once a week, after the Ulpan is finished, a visiting Rabi or professor gives a talk on theology, Judaism, etc. With Rosh HaShana (the head of the year) approaching and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) soon after, there has been some discussion on kippur… or ‘atonement’.

Here are a few notes from the session:

The Rabi has said that the goal of our existence is to be increasingly filled with God’s presence. The more we obey God the closer God draws near to us. As far as I understand his concept of salvation, we are saved and are made fit for heaven by our actions. This brought up a question: If God dwells in us based on keeping his commands then what is the purpose and meaning of atonement in the Tannach? Why did atonement figure so prominently in the ceremonies conducted by the priests in the tabernacle?

The Rab knew where this question was going and said that Christians have a concept of atonement that focused on death as the means by which God forgives sin but that this was not correct interpretation of atonement… or of the sacrifices.

According to the Rabi, since the temple has been destroyed, the sacrifices that God finds acceptable are the fruit of our lives – the sacrifices of our lips. So what is atonement?

At this point a religious lady who was a Jew described ‘kaparot’ , a ceremony in which a chicken is slaughtered on eve of Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement). She told us that she could not sleep for two nights after she had done ‘kapporot.’ She told the class that although you can read about it, it is not until you actually do ‘kaporot’ that it becomes meaningful. It is when you grab the chicken by the wings and feel its heart beating and then realize that you deserved to die instead of the chicken…

What she had described was exactly my understanding of ‘kippur’.

The Rabi said that although on the surface atonement appears to have the same meaning to Jews and Christians, that this was not the case. He offered to meet with those of us interested, mostly Christians by this point, to explain atonement further. It was a friendly conversation and it has helped bring the meaning of ‘atonement’ into sharper focus. I will write more about the results of our second meeting with the Rabi another time. (I am out of time right now)

There seems to be an increasing amount of debate surrounding this word in ‘Christian’ circles. There have been a number of books written recently that reject substitutionary atonement and refer to the concept as divine child abuse. (I haven’t read the books but only reviews)

Such a view denies the unity of God and makes a mockery of the tremendous mystery of the Incarnation.

Reading Tacitus reminds me a little of reading articles written by Hitchens, Harris or Dawkins about ‘Christian fundamentalists’ except that Tacitus writes with a degree of hatred that can only be understood in the context of that ancient hatred that has been uniquely reserved for the Jewish people.

Tacitus writes of the Jewish traditions,

“Things sacred with us, with them have no sanctity, while they allow what with us is forbidden

[Jewish customs]…which are at once perverse and disgusting, owe their strength to their very badness. The most degraded out of other races…”

What are these customs that Tacitus finds so disgusting?

“They slay the ram, seemingly in derision of Hammon, and they sacrifice the ox, because the Egyptians worship it as Apis.”

Tacitus is not disgusted with the sacrifices themselves (he later criticizes them for not offering sacrifices) but with the idea that the Jews offer sacrifices to spite the Egyptians. Is this simply ignorance? Did Tacitus have no understanding of atonement? Or is this just polemics?

What other criticisms did he have?

They practiced circumcision, they do not sleep with foreign women, they do not expose their children, they keep one day for rest and they do not eat bacon.

Is this all that Tacitus can marshal against “the most base of races”?

Among other observations by Tacitus, I thought this one was most interesting,

“The Egyptians worship many animals and images of monstrous form; the Jews have purely mental conceptions of Deity, as one in essence. They call those profane who make representations of God in human shape out of perishable materials. They believe that Being to be supreme and eternal, neither capable of representation, nor of decay. They therefore do not allow any images to stand in their cities, much less in their temples.”

While jeering, Tacitus unintentionally described the very aspects of the Jewish faith that make it timeless and profound.

At a campus meeting at the U of C, I had an opportunity to ask Alberta’s Finance Minister, Ted Morton, why Alberta was selling its natural resource to foreign state owned enterprises. I don’t pretend to know much about this subject but I was expecting to get a well informed answer as to why our leaders approved the sale of Conoco Phillips 10% stake in Syncrude to Sinopec for 4.6 billion dollars or why Encana was allowed to sell the equivalent of 20.8 million barrels of oil reserves to STX Energy, an unlisted Korean company… however, the answer I received was along the lines of, “I haven’t given that question enough thought to give a proper answer.” Our finance minister had not given enough thought as to why we are selling major stakes of our resource to other nations… directly. Does our national sovereignty mean anything at all?

Now BHP Billiton has made a hostile bid for the worlds major producer of potash in Sasketchewan. Next to the oilsands this is one of Canada’s most important strategic assets. Although it is true that BHP Billiton is a privately owned corporation, it seems to me that there is something rotten at the heart of our free market system. If, by free markets, we mean the freedom of citizens to build and grow and profit from their work, then I support free markets whole heartily. But free markets no longer belong to citizens but to corporations (or their state owned equivalents). There are many ways in which the interests of citizens and corporations intersect, but the sale of land and resources to foreign nations is not one of them.

See also:

Corporate investors lead the rush for control over overseas farmland

In his Pensees Pascal describes his despair at what can be known about God through nature alone:

This is what I see and what troubles me. I look around in every direction and all I see is darkness. Nature has nothing to offer me that does not give rise to doubt and anxiety. If I saw no sign there of a Divinity I should decide on a negative solution: if I saw signs of a Creator everywhere I should peacefully settle down in the faith. But seeing too much to deny and not enough to affirm, I am in a pitiful state…

We are truly in a pitiful state if all we can know of the meaning of ‘life’ is what we discover through our senses. We look up at the great, majestic trees of the forest and feel that they must be the work of God but then recoil in horror when we watch the grim drama that unfolds on their branches when a parasite takes control of the mind of an ant and causes it, in the last moments of its life, to lock onto a leaf stem with its mandibles and become an incubator for the next generation of deadly fungus.

It would be better that God had not revealed himself to us at all than leave us alone with the light of nature… As Pascal put it,

“I have wished a hundred times over that, if there is a God supporting nature, she should unequivocally proclaim him, and that, if the signs in nature are deceptive, they should be completely erased; that nature should say all or nothing so that I could see what course I ought to follow. Instead of that, in the state in which I am, not knowing what I am nor what I ought to do, I know neither my condition nor my duty. My whole heart strains to know what the true good is in order to pursue it: no price would be too high to pay for eternity.”

So nature makes us thirsty but it doesn’t satisfy our thirst.

I am in the middle of the Summer Ulpan… (still not sure what Ulpan means in Hebrew) at the HU. It is has been great fun and Hebrew is a snap… and every evening Arabs, Jews and Christians and even Atheists join together in song and dance.

It is hard to believe that 3 weeks have gone by already! Today marks the middle of the Ulpan (at least today we wrote the midterm today). I have learned a lot since being here:

1. A 110 V clothes iron gets hot quickly when plugged into a 220 V outlet. You can iron a hemp shirt left damp in the dryer for 2 days in a flat 60 seconds. The secret is to always keep the iron moving and to make good use of the steam function. Its a good idea to keep a window open nearby to toss the flaming shirt if you run out of water or absent mindedly (my spell check says that isn’t word?) leave the iron rest in one spot for more than a few seconds.

2. Don’t be offended if the man behind the falafel stand looks at you like your an imbecile. If someone ordered a hamburger in your country by pointing to different pictures on the menu and saying, “There is a meat, there is a bread, there is a salad and there is a pickle” and then asks “How much to pay for the dog?” well, you’d probably look at them the same way.

3. Pedestrian walks are optional. You have better odds playing Russian roulette with a derringer than you do with Israeli crosswalks. It is best to understand that the white lines painted on the road are a memorial to former pedestrians who thought they had the right of way.

So it has been a good 3 weeks and I am grateful to be here.

I will write more later and post some pics soon.

PS – If you came across this blog by Googling “mindedly” please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you.