"Genesis Chapters 1-11"

Here's a terrific video that showed up in my Twitter feed this morning; great animations and an excellent approach to interpretation:






From the YouTube page:

Published on May 19, 2014

An animated walk through of Genesis 1 to 11.
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The
Book of Genesis can be broken up in two parts. The first part, chapters
1-11, trace the story of God and the whole world from creation all the
way to the tower of Babel.

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Genesis P1 Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m...


About the authors:

Tim Mackie is a Pastor of Door of Hope church and a Professor at Western Seminary.

Jon Collins is a founder of Epipheo and Sincerely Truman and a veteran explainer video producer.

"The New Jerusalem"

Here's one of Derek's old articles I was reading again recently; the portion of Revelation cited in the piece follows immediately today's Daily Office New Testament reading. 


The article's so beautiful that I wanted to post it here, too.  I added the image.

The New Jerusalem

It’s the Easter season and we bask in the newly recaptured glow of the resurrection. Our services reflect the glow with mystical musings from the Gospel of John, dramatic stories of the earliest church from the Acts of the Apostles and—the Book of Revelation.

Wait a minute, how’d that get in there?!

Quite naturally, actually… Remember that we didn’t always have books with the really thin paper in today’s Bibles. Furthermore, getting a big stack of paper in the ancient world wasn’t quite as easy as it is today. Costs were literally calculated in the cows or sheep whose skins provided the pages. One complete Bible would require an entire flock! To keep the page counts and costs down, the biblical books were split up over a number of volumes: the four gospels were bound together, as were the epistles of Paul, and—according to some of the most common reckonings—Acts and Revelation were bound in a volume. In the monastic Night Office lectionary dating back to the eight century, Acts and Revelation were read together during the Easter season. The great lectionary revisions following Vatican II that resulted in the Revised Common Lectionary honored this ancient tradition by selecting the first reading during Easter from Acts and the second from Revelation.

And that couldn’t make me happier; Revelation is one of my favorite books. Yes, it can be strange and difficult; yes, it has provided fodder for some of the worst impulses of religion and yet—I find its poetry and cadences compelling. One image from the book that I find myself returning to again and again this Easter shines from its closing pages: Revelation 21:9–22:5, the vision of the New Jerusalem.

I love the detail and the dazzling description, the whirl of odd images joined together. I love that—but what draws me back is the glitter of light through stone. It’s the image of the city, the New Jerusalem, built of gemstones one to another, cleaving in a clash of light, colored and reflected as it plays through crystal. Truly, St. John has given us an image of rare beauty—but to what end?

Scholars of Classical Greek tend to turn up their noses at the prose of the New Testament—it’s a low-brow dialect, removed from the diction and rhythm of Golden Age Athens—but when they come to the Greek of Revelation, they throw up their hands in horror. The Greek of John’s Gospel, simple as the vocabulary might be, at least conforms to the basic rules of grammar and can contribute an interesting turn of phrase—but this? This is down right barbaric… It reads like a rude translation by someone for whom Greek was a second language. It reads like a work written by someone not steeped in the proper exempla of fine Greek prose. Or, perhaps, it reads like a work written by someone steeped in a rude translation…and so it is. For the language of Revelation, the terms, the turns of phrase, the images are not new—just newly recombinated. The language echoes, nay, inhabits the tongue of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, produced in the last few centuries before Christ, the translation that was the first Bible of the early church. This is not Classical Greek, nor is it trying to be; rather it is Bible Language, a dialect we recognize deep in our bones when a preacher suddenly lapses from words of cell phones and cell structures to thees, thous, forthwiths, and forsooths. The language of the book is our chief lead. Its meaning is indistinguishable, inextricable from, incomprehensible without the Old Testament.

The chief artform of jewel and light is the mosaic, where thousands of tiny bits of glass and gold and jewel called tesserae combine to form glittering vistas, haunting visages of emperors, kings, clergy, or Christ. This bejeweled city is nothing less than a myriad of scintillating fragments of Old Testament prophecy and praise forming a portrait writ in three dimensions of one indistinguishable, inextricable from and incomprehensible without the breath of the Spirit speaking through the prophets. The tesserae glisten and play: the liturgical garment of the Aaronic high priest, the city of hope for an exile people, the vision of a temple rising from desolation, the garden of God, the peerless bride of the great king, even the slain beloved of the Lord. And together they form an image where these fragments are bound and transformed, set one with another until their individual hues blend and blind and form a new image wrought of the old. It is truly a paradise, truly a city, truly a temple, truly a people. Composed of a myriad jewels, the city rests upon its twelve great foundations: jasper and emerald, diamond and chysolite, topaz and amethyst and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Lean close and I will tell you a mystery. This is the mystery of the gleaming city, the New Jerusalem. The twelve great foundation stones, they do not represent the apostles. They do not stand for the apostles. Rather, they are the apostles. And the soaring pinnacles of rubies, the windows of agates, the pavers of gold, who are these, you ask, who are these—but you and me? Lain with fair colors, living stones, builded one with another, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The company of all the faithful people—do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? For God's temple is holy, and you—all of you—are that temple.

At the center of the city, at the heart of the New Jerusalem, lies the Bridegroom’s bower, the throne of God and of the Lamb and the city has no need of light for the glory of God is its light and its lamp is the Lamb. The light shines forth in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. And our calling, our spiritual worship, is nothing less than to reflect and to refract. Our role is to allow the light to splash and play, to illumine and be illumined, to catch fire and be cast by our facets into the darkness. The light of the resurrected Lord blazes in and through us. We—we—are to spread that light into a dark world as it filters and shines and is hued by who and what we are and what we do. We are the people; we are the city. We are the beacons to spread the light of the dayspring who has visited us to shine upon them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. (Rev 3:12). Amen; Come, Lord Jesus.

Derek Olsen is completing a Ph.D. in New Testament (with a healthy side of Homiletics) at Emory University. He keeps the blog Haligweorc.

"And I saw a New Heaven"

Edward Bainton's composition is sung here by the choir of King's College Cambridge.  This passage from Revelation is one of the Daily Office readings for today, Independence Day in the United States.

And I saw a new Heaven and a new earth
For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away
and there was no more sea, And I John saw the holy city,
Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a great? voice out of heaven, saying,
Behold the tabernacle of God is with men
and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people,
and God himself shall be with them and be their God
And God shall wipe away all tears? from their eyes
And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying
neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away.

Shabbat boundary rock with Hebrew etching discovered

Shabbat boundary rock w... JPost - Arts & Culture - Entertainment

Shabbat boundary rock with Hebrew etching discovered
By OREN KESSLER
07/12/2011 05:42

An ancient rock inscription of the word “Shabbat” was uncovered near Lake Kinneret this week – the first and only discovery of a stone Shabbat boundary in Hebrew.

The etching in the Lower Galilee community of Timrat appears to date from the Roman or Byzantine period.

News of the inscription, discovered by chance Sunday by a visitor strolling the community grounds, quickly reached Mordechai Aviam, head of the Institute for Galilean Archeology at Kinneret College.

“This is the first time we’ve found a Shabbat boundary inscription in Hebrew,” he said. “The letters are so clear that there is no doubt that the word is ‘Shabbat.’”

Aviam said Jews living in the area in the Roman or Byzantine era (1st-7th centuries CE) likely used the stone to denote bounds within which Jews could travel on Shabbat. The Lower Galilee of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages had a Jewish majority – many of the Talmudic sages bore toponyms indicative of Galilee communities.

The engraving uncovered in Timrat is the first and only Shabbat boundary marker yet discovered in Hebrew – a similar inscription was found in the vicinity of the ancient Western Galilee village of Usha, but its text was written in Greek.

Aviam and his colleagues plan to enlist local help in scouring neighboring areas to locate additional inscriptions, and eventually to publish their findings in an academic journal.

“This represents a beautiful, fascinating link between our modern world and antiquity, both emotional and archeological,” Aviam said. “Certainly for those of us who are religiously observant, but also for the secular among us who enjoy a stroll on Shabbat to know that we’re walking in places where Jewish history lived two thousand years ago.”

A couple of informational updates

• Vis-a-vis my Omnes de Saba post earlier this year, and the discussion of "Why Sheba?", Derek notes that: 
  

  Saba [Sheba] was also used colloquilly in combination with Tarshish to refer to the two ends of the earth. Tarshish was as far west as you could go; Saba as far east.

  Always great to have a cultural reference point like that.  Thanks, Derek!

• And in re: the Tallis "I call and cry to thee (O Sacrum Convivium)", about which I'd originally written that:
  

  And indeed, it seems that this was originally a setting of that antiphon [O Sacrum Convivium], but Tallis used an English text instead after the Reformation, once English was made the language of the church (and Latin unofficially banished).

  Our choirmaster told me that in fact, many people - he among them - believe that it was the other way around:  that the English words were written first, and the O Sacrum Convivium version actually came later.  Why?  For a very simple reason that a choirmaster would be the first to recognize:  the English words fit much better with the music.
  

Canticle: "The Song of the Sea" Part I

Kishnevi, who sometimes comments on another of my blogs, has left a really interesting description of the way the Deuteronomy version of "The Song of the Sea" (also called "The Song of Moses") was traditionally written out on the Torah scroll. I hope he won't mind if I reproduce the whole comment in a new post (to which I'm adding a couple of line breaks):

For purpose of context and comparison, the only one of the OT canticles which became part of the Jewish daily prayers is what we call the Song of the Sea (iow, the First Song of Moses). It's the Psalms and selected verses from the prophets (most importantly, the passage from Isaiah you know as the Sanctus and we call the Kedushah (same meaning as Sanctus)

The two songs of Moses are of course read as part of the regular cycle which allows the entire Torah to be read each year as part of the Sabbath services; the Song of Jonah is read on Yom Kippur afternoon, but only because the entire Book of Jonah is read at that time; the opening chapters of 1 Samuel are read as the prophetic portion on Rosh Hashanah, and that of course includes the Song of Hannah.

The two Songs of Moses receive special treatment in the traditional scribal writing of the Torah scroll. The Deuteronomy song is written as two columns of half verses, with a space running down the middle between them. The Song of the Sea is written in a pattern that results in a series of diagonals across the parchment/page. Verse 1, up to the word 'v'amru' (and spoke) occupies a full ine. The next word, v'omer (saying) is written by itself, then a space follows, then the middle phrase of the verse, then a space, then the single word sus (horse)at the left margin, then on the next line the remainder of the verse ('and his rider he has thrown into the sea'--which in Hebrew requires only three words), then a space, then the first part of verse 2 ("the Lord is my strength and my song and He has become to me"--five words in Hebrew), then on the next line, the single word "l'yeshua" (salvation), a space, then a three word phrase, a space, then a single word at the end of the line with the last two words of the verse at the start of the next line. The spatial pattern repeats every two lines, and every verse after verse 1 is spread over three lines in an interlocking pattern (the last half line of line a, the full line b, the first half line of lince c). The number of words in the phrases, other than the one-word phrases at the start and end of the alternate lines, vary as needed between two and six. The very last line manages to have the word "hayam" (the sea) as the solo word both at its start and end
and the Lord brought back on them the waters of/
the sea--but the Children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of--the sea./

[The dashes are the spaces.] It's a neat visual trick that most printings of the Biblical text don't even come close to.

How great, eh? While trying to find an image of this on the web (no luck so far, but I'll post it if I do), I came across this, in an article called "Sofrut: Scribal arts and sacred texts":

The scribe prepares the parchment by scratching 43 horizontal lines on it and two vertical ones at each end. This allows for a standard 42 lines of writing. Each sheet of parchment contains three to eight columns of writing. Certain letters might be stretched within a column to justify the left margin.

There are some places in the Torah where certain letters are larger or smaller than standard, or where the text is written in a different type of column. Each deviation from the norm carries a special meaning. For example, the "Song of the Sea" (Exodus 15:1-19), which describes the parting of the Sea of Reeds, consists of three interlocking columns. The two outer columns symbolize the sea parted on either side, with the middle column representing the children of Israel marching on dry ground. Visually, this sets the section apart from the surrounding columns. Such changes were instituted by the Masoretes--scribes of the 7-9th centuries who standardized the biblical text--to highlight the importance of certain passages. All of the writing and layout must be done exactly to specification in order for the scroll to be kosher.

More later about "The Song of the Sea," which is a really interesting Canticle - and, it's thought by some, one of the oldest of all things in the entire Bible. Meantime, here's an mp3 of the Exodus "Song of the Sea" from the Lutheran Liturgical Prayer Brotherhood.

Here is the BCP version of the words to this Canticle:

8    The Song of Moses    Cantemus Domino
       Exodus 15:1-6, 11-13, 17-18
Especially suitable for use in Easter Season
I will sing to the Lord, for he is lofty and uplifted; *
    the horse and its rider has he hurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my refuge; *
    the Lord has become my Savior.
This is my God and I will praise him, *
    the God of my people and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a mighty warrior; *
    Yahweh is his Name.
The chariots of Pharoah and his army has he hurled into the sea; *
    the finest of those who bear armor have been
                               drowned in the Red Sea.
The fathomless deep has overwhelmed them; *
    they sank into the depths like a stone.
Your right hand, O Lord, is glorious in might; *
    your right hand, O Lord, has overthrown the enemy.
Who can be compared with you, O Lord, among the gods? *
    who is like you, glorious in holiness,
    awesome in renown, and worker of wonders?
You stretched forth your right hand; *
    the earth swallowed them up.
With your constant love you led the people you redeemed; *
    with your might you brought them in safety to
                          your holy dwelling.
You will bring them in and plant them *
    on the mount of your possession,
The resting-place you have made for yourself, O Lord, *
    the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hand has established.
The Lord shall reign *
    for ever and for ever.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *
    as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

EDIT: I believe the image below (from this page at Wikipedia) is an example of what kishnevi is talking about. I'm not sure whether it's the Deuteronomy or Exodus version, between which (according to what's been said so far) there are differences; this seems to be three columns, but I may be wrong about that: