Thursday, May 7, 2020

Michael Heiser on Cosmic Geography and its Relationship to Matthew 16:18


The following discussion of Cosmic Geography and how it relates to Matt 16:18 comes from:

Michael S. Heiser, Demons: What the Bible Really Says about the Powers of Darkness (Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2020), 214-17:

The Day of Atonement ritual (Lev 16) and its goat “for Azazel” illustrated (and reinforced) the idea [of Cosmic Geography]. Outside the camp was the realm of death, not life, the latter of which was associated with the presence of God. Thus sacrificial remains were taken outside the camp, an idea that prompts the writer of the book of Hebrews to apply Leviticus 16 and its cosmic geography to the crucifixion (Heb 13:10-13). Most commentators on this passage focus on the consumption of sacrifices and the disposition of remains in light of Leviticus 4. However, some have noticed that the Azazel material plays a role here:

In the ritual of the day of Atonement in chapter 16, it should be noted that in verses 26, 28 the same rule on defilement and purification is applied to the person who handles the Azazel-goat and to the one who handles the remaining flesh of the sin offering. This act implies that the Azazel-goat ritual is a special form of the burning of the sin offering outside the camp . . . The interpretation that the Azazel-goat ritual constitutes the culminating point of the sin-offering ritual, simultaneously symbolising something beyond the sin offering, seems to be more in line with the other OT prophetic passages such as Psalm 40:6-8, in which no sin offering is said to be necessary (cf. Heb. 10:5-9, 18). Therefore, it is also possible to see the Azazel-goat ritual behind Hebrews 13:12-13. Seen this way, the lifestyle of Christ was compared with that of the Azazel-goat. Since Christ fulfilled the role of the Azazel-goat in a cosmic dimension, believers have no need to bear guilt, whether their own or that of others, in order to make atonement.[3]

Given the absence of any visible postexilic return of the glory that had departed the original Israelite temple of Solomon just before its destruction [4], New Testament cosmic geography was also discerned by answering the question, “Where is God’s presence?” The God of Israel was incarnate in Jesus Christ, and so it should come as no surprise to read his challenge (“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”; John 2:19) as ultimately about his own body (John 2:21-22).

After Jesus’ ascent to the right hand of the Father, New Testament temple talk focuses on the metaphorical body of Christ and its localized manifestations. In New Testament theology, believers are holy ground, the place where the presence of God resides. This is reflected in New Testament statements referring to believers (corporately and individually) as the “temple of God” (1 Cor 3:16; 2 Cor 6:14-18; cp. 1 Pet 2:4-5) or “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 6:19; Eph 2:19-22). Paul’s insistence that an unrepentant believer be expelled from the Corinthian church and that the people “are to deliver this man to Satan” (1 Cor 5:5) illustrates an application of the idea. The church, the visible body of Christ, removes sin “outside the camp” into the world. Sin belongs outside holy ground in the world, the dominion of Satan.

The famous scenes of Peter’s confession (Matt 16:13-20) and the transfiguration (Mark 9:2-8) occur, respectively, at the foot of and on Mount Hermon, the place where the Watchers vowed to corrupt humanity in Second Temple Jewish thought. Mount Hermon is in the northernmost region of Bashan, associated in the Old Testament and Canaanite literature with the Rephaim giants and entry points to the underworld [5]. While some scholars still accept the traditional identification of Mount Tabor as the site for the transfiguration, many are now convinced that Mount Hermon is the better choice due to the height of Hermon, its proximity to Caesarea Philippi, and its symbolic associations with evil and the underworld [6]. In 1 Enoch, this region is clearly associated with the Watcher. As I noted in Reversing Hermon:

The book of 1 Enoch identifies Hermon with the region known in Jesus’ day as Upper Galilee. When Enoch writes down the confessions and petitions of the Watchers—their pleas to God for forgiveness and clemency, he says, “And I went and sat down upon the waters of Dan—in Dan which is on the southwest of Hermon” (1 Enoch 13:7). Of this passage Nickelsburg observes, “This is a clear reference to the immediate environs of Tell Dan in upper Galilee.” [7]

It is difficult to miss the implications. When Jesus declares that “the gates of hell” will not be able to withstand the church, he does so in a place deeply rooted in Old Testament and Second Temple-period thinking about Satan and the realm of the dead, his kingdom as it were. Jesus chooses Mount Hermon to reveal his glory—a direct provocation of the demonic realm. For ancient readers, these cosmic-geographical spiritual warfare gestures would be unmistakable. Jesus is essentially picking a fight, as these two events are precursors to the commencement of teaching the disciples that he must die in Jerusalem—the catalyst to God’s redemptive plan.

Notes for the Above

[3] Nobuyoshi Kiuchi, “Living Like the Azazel-Goat in Romans 12:1b,” TynBul 57.2 (2006):260

[4] The departure of the glory of God from the Jerusalem temple is described in Ezek 11:23. Greenberg writes of Ezek 11:23: “The east gate of the temple where the cherubs had previously halted (10:19) was situated in a continuation of the city wall; hence soaring above it might be said to be soaring ‘over the city’. The Majesty, leaving the city, takes the direction of King David’s flight from Absalom—east to the Mount of Olives (2 Sam 15:23ff.).” Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AYB: New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), 191. That the glory left the city and “stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city” is significant. The location was the Mount of Olives, the mountain to which both Ezek 43:2 and Zech 14:4 prophesy the arrival of the messiah at the end of days.

[5] Joshua 13:11-12, 30-31 describes Og’s general kingdom as the region of Bashan, which encompassed sixty cities. In the Ugaritic language, the location of Ashtaroth and Edrei was not spelled Bashan but was pronounced and spelled Bathan. The linguistic note is intriguing since Bashan/Bathan both also mean “serpent” so that the region of Bashan was “the place of the serpent.” On this point, Ugaritic scholar Gregorio del Olmo Lete observes: “This place ‘štrt is also treated in [tablets] KTU 1.100:41; 1.107:17; and RS 86.2235:17 as the adobe of the god mlk, the eponym of the mlkm, the deified kings, synonym of the repum. For the ‘Canaanites’ of Ugarit, the Bashan region, or a part of it, clearly represented ‘Hell’, the celestial and infernal abode of their deified dead kings, Olympus and Hades at the same time. It is possible that this localization of the Canaanite Hell is linked to the ancient tradition of the place as the ancestral home of their dynasty; the repum” (del Olmo Lete, “Bashan,” DDD, 161). See also James H. Charlesworth, “Bashan, Symbology, Haplography, and Theology in Psalm 68,” in David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J.J.M. Roberts, ed. Bernard Frank Batto and Kathryn L. Roberts (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 351-72. Further, Ashtaroth and Edrei appear together in the Ugaritic text, KTU 1.108 as the seat of the chthonic deity Rapiu. Hermann writes, “Dietrich and Loretz have shown that Baal is called rpu in his capacity as leader of the rpum, the Rephaim (1980:171-82). They find the epithet in KTU 1.108:1-2 and guess KTU 1.113 belongs to the same category of texts. The Rāpi’ūma (Hebrew rĕpā’îm) are the ghosts of the deceased ancestors, more especially of the royal family. Baal is their lord in the realm of the dead, as shown by the circumlocution zbl b’larṣ (‘prince, lord of the underworld’).” See W. Hermann, “Baal,” DDD 139.

[6] Heiser, Reversing Hermon, 97.

[7] Heiser, Reversing Hermon, 97, note 175. The Nickelsburg source I cite is George W.E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100.4 (1981):575-600.