Thursday, October 13, 2022

James Barr's Interpretation of Ezekiel 28:11-13

  

There is mention of a ‘cherub’, which reminds us of Genesis 3, but textual problems have made scholars uncertain whether the king is compared to the cherub or to a person like Adam, a first man who is associated with the cherub, or how the two are related.

 

Some have regarded this as another version of the story of Adam’s Fall, but this cannot be taken as certain. In my judgment it is more likely to be a Fall: not, however, that of the first man, but rather that of one of the heavenly creatures who were also associated with the mountain of God. This being was perfect; it walked among the precious stones. It was one of the cherubs, but it forsook its work of guardianship, fell into sin and evil, and was expelled. It is suggestive to consider Pope’s view that the story derives from an older (Canaanite and Ugaritic) myth of the god El, who was deprived of his pre-eminence and consigned to the underworld. In other words, the story is not so much parallel to that of Adam’s disobedience as to that of the ‘angelic’ fall of ‘Lucifer, son of the morning’ in Isaiah 14.12 (RSV: ‘Day Star, son of Dawn’), who is ’fallen from heaven’: he had aspired to ascent to heaven, so set his throne on high, but now he was cast down to Sheol. Ezekiel stresses the ‘wisdom’ of this being, a feature which makes him similar to the snake of Genesis 2, and dissimilar from the humans of that story, who were conspicuously lacking in that quality. We have here an aspect of the tremendously powerful idea, lacking in Genesis 2-3 itself except for the very limited role there of the snake, of a heavenly or angelic rebellion against God and the casting out of the rebellious heavenly forces.

 

Ezekiel thus represents an important stage in that process whereby the elements of sin, of blame, of revolt came to be more emphasized. But these elements have started out as part of the picture of the heavenly revolt against God, which in later times was to become so much more powerful. On the other hand, the Ezekiel passages, being vague, difficult and textually obscure, were probably a force that in its turn influenced the Genesis story. Indeed one may say that it is upon the combination of this portion of Ezekiel with Genesis that the traditional picture of Adam and Eve as rebels against God depends, whether consciously or unconsciously.

 

Ezekiel is relevant also for his vision of the valley of dry bones (ch. 37), a passage that shows the existence of the terminology and ideas of bodily resurrection, but one that does not necessarily state this expectation of it. For the passage is an image of the renewal of the nation; cf. the image of the joining of two sticks which follows (Ezekiel 37.15-23). Since the revivification of the bones is a symbol, there is no indication that actual bodily resurrection is to follow, and no interest in the resurrection of individuals. (James Barr, The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality: The Reed-Tuckwell Lectures for 1990 [London: SCM Press, 1992], 48-49)