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.