The Shadow of God:

Speculations on the Body Divine in Jewish Esoteric Tradition

2005 Wesley Williams Work in Progress

1. Introduction The nineteenth century French occultist Alphonse Louis Constant, more popularly known as liphas Lvi, introduced to occult discourse a number of innovative and influential images representing his interpretation, many would say misrepresentation, of the mysteries of Kabbalah, the ancient esoteric tradition of Judaism.1 Particularly interesting are Lvis Great Seal of Solomon and Magical Head of the Zohar (Figure 1), intended by Lvi to illustrate the doctrine of the Great Countenance (Arikh Anpin/Macroprosopus) and the Small Countenance (Zeir Anpin/Microprosopus) found in the Zohar, Kabbalahs central text.2 These two Zoharic countenances are overlapping anthropomorphic structures representing stages in the process of Gods self-revelation; incarnations, if you will, during Gods evolution from his deep and hidden ineffability called Ein Sof (limitless) to the anthropomorphic creator-god of the Torah.3 Lvi took these countenances to represent the God of Light, or the White Jehovah, and his reflection, the God of Shadow or Black Jehovah.4 The latter was an anthropomorphic veil enveloping the

On Lvi v. Thomas. A. Williams, Eliphas Lvi: Master of Occultism (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1975). On he and his milieu v. Christopher McIntosh, Eliphas Lvi and the French Occult Revival (London: Rider Publishers, 1972; rpt. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1975). On his influence v. Robert Lesley Uzzel, The Kabbalistic Thought of Eliphas Levi and Its Influence on Modern Occultism in America, unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Waco: Baylor University, 1995. For an introduction to Kabbalah v. Arthur Green, Ehyeh, A Kabbalah for Tomorrow (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2003); Moshe Hallamish, An Introduction to the Kabbalah, trns by Ruth Bar-Ilan and Ora Wiskind-Elper (New York: State University of New York Press, 1999). 2 On Lvis Great Seal of Solomon, v. liphas Lvi Transcendental Magic, trns. A.E. Waite (York Beach, Maine: Weiser Books, 2001), xiii, 45ff. On the Mystical Head of the Zohar, v. idem, The History of Magic, trns. A.E. Waite (York Beach, Me.: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1970), facing 39. 3 On the Kabbalistic doctrine of the evolution of the biblical God v. Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 101-108; Isaiah Tishby, The Account of Creation, in Fischel Lachower and Isaiah Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, An Anthology of Texts, trns. from the Hebrew by David Goldstein, 3 vols. (Portland, Oregon: Oxford, 2002), II: 549ff.; Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1995) 222ff. On the Great and Small Countenances v. the Zoharic texts Idra Rabba and Idra Zutta, trns by Roy A. Rosenberg, The Anatomy of God (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1973). See also Pinchas Giller, Reading the Zohar: The Sacred Text of the Kabbalah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 105ff; Gershom Sholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead (New York: Schocken Books, 1991), 46ff. On Ein Sof v. Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar I:229-255; Daniel C. Matt, Ayin: The Concept of Nothingness in Jewish Mysticism, in Essential Papers on Kabbalah, ed. Lawrence Fine (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 67-108. On biblical anthropomorphism and an anthropomorphic deity v. James Barr, Theophany and Anthropomorphism in the Old Testament, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 7 (1959): 31-38; E.LaB. Cherbonnier, The Logic of Biblical Anthropomorphism, HTR 55 (1962): 187-208; Meir Bar-Ilan, The Hand of God: A Chapter in Rabbinic Anthropomorphism, in Rashi, 1040-1990. Hommage Ephram E. Urbach, ed. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna (Paris: Patrimoines, 1993) 321-335; Jacob Neusner, Conversation in Nauvoo about the Corporeality of God, BYU Studies 36 (1996-97): 7-30; Stephen Moore, Gigantic God: Yahwehs Body, JSOT 70 (1996): 87-115; idem, Gods Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible (New York: Routledge, 1996); Ronald S. Hendel, Aniconism and Anthropomorphism in Ancient Israel, in The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism, and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. Karel van der Toorn (CBET 21; Leuven: Peeters, 1997) 205-228; Rimmon Kasher, Anthropomorphism, Holiness and the Cult: A New look at Ezekiel 40-48, ZAW 110 (1998): 192-208; Karel van der Toorn, God (1) ,in Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter W. van der Horst (edd.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (hereafter DDD) (2nd ed.; Leiden; Boston: Brill; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999) 361-365; J. Andrew Dearman, Theophany, Anthropomorphism, and the Imago Dei: Some Observations about the Incarnation in the Light of the Old Testament, in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, Gerald OCollins (edd.), The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) 31-46; James L. Kugel, The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible (New York: Free Press, 2003) 5-107; Esther J. Hamori, When Gods Were Men: Biblical Theophany and Anthropomorphic Realism, Ph.D. dissertation. New York University, 2004. 4 liphas Lvi, The Book of Splendours (York Beach, Me.: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1973), 23ff.; idem, Transcendental Magic, xiii; idem, The History of Magic, 24ff.

former, mediating between the infinite light of the Great Countenance and the feeble eye of man.5 This dark God, claimed Lvi, was the monotheistic deity of Moses and the Rabbis and the secret of all Mysteries-that is to say, an esoteric doctrine.6 Lvi produced several intriguing pictorial representations of the God of Light and his shadowy reflection.7 However, he seems not to have actually originated the White and Black Jehovahs. Guillaume Postel (1510-1581), who introduced the West to a Latin translation of the kabbalistic text Sefer Yeirah, included the two in his Key of the Tarot, which clearly inspired Lvi years later.8 But it was certainly Lvi who popularized them.9 Now Lvi, with his infamous nonchalant approach to facts and deficiencies in the relevant languages, has inspired harsh criticisms of his interpretation of Kabbalah.10 Gerschom Scholem saw in Lvis doctrine supreme charlatanism and noted his brilliant misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the tradition.11 Arthur E. Waite, at once the primary editor and translator of Lvis writings and the occultists severest critic, was particularly critical of this alleged Zoharic doctrine of the Black Jehovah. Such a doctrine, Waite argued, is unsupported by the texts themselves and was simply a construction placed upon Zoharic symbolism by Lvi .12 Our primary interest here is neither liphas Lvi nor the occult, French or otherwise. Rather, our attention is drawn to this imagery of the dark god and its relation to Jewish (esoteric) tradition. Such imagery is certainly antithetical to a fundamental axiom of the monotheistic traditions wherein God is a god of light and darkness participates none in his being. For sure, there is a hint of Gnostic dualism here, as argued by Octavius A. Gaba, but the seeds of the negative valuation of darkness and its alienation from the Godhead are found already in the Bible, particularly the New Testament (NT).13 God is light and in him there is no darkness at all (I Jhn 1:5). Yahwehs Kavod, Jesus as Logos, and Allahs Nr (Light) all
Lvi, The Book of Splendours, 51. Lvi, The Book of Splendours, 51, 56; idem, The History of Magic, 25; idem, The Magical Ritual of the Sanctum Regnum, Interpreted by the Tarot Trumps, ed. and trns. W. Wynn Westcott (New York: Samuel Weiser Inc., 1970), 6. 7 See also his Grand Symbol of the Zohar in The History of Magic, 50. 8 On Postel and his influence on Lvi v. A. E. Waite, The Holy Kabbalah (New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1960), 461ff. On the Key of Tarot in Lvi v. La Clef des Grands Mystres suivant Hnoch, Abraham, Herms Trismgiste, et Salomon (Paris: G. Baillire, 1861), 315 (=idem, The Key of the Mysteries, trns. Aleister Crowley [Boston, Ma; Weiser Books, 2002], 206f) 9 Scottish Rite Freemasonry in particular embraced Lvis Great Seal of Solomon. See Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Washington D.C.: House of the Temple, 1969), 102; Rex R. Hutchens, A Bridge to Light (The Supreme Council, 33degree Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Southern Juris diction United States of America, 1988), 253. On Lvis influence on Pike v. Uzzel, The Kabbalistic Thought of Eliphas Levi, 95ff. 10 For an assessment of Lvi v. McIntosh, Eliphas Lvi. 141ff; Waite, Holy Kabbalah, 487ff. 11 Gershom Sholem, Kabbalah (New York: New American Library, 1974), 203; idem, Major Trends, 2. 12 Waite, Holy Kabbalah, 491f. 13 As demonstrated by Gaba as well: Symbols of Revelation: The Darkness of the Hebrew Yahweh and the Light of the Greek Logos, in The Recovery of the Black Presence: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. Essays in Honor of Dr. Charles B. Copher, eds. Randal C. Bailey and Jacquelyn Grant (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995) 143-158.
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reinforce the point: divinity is luminosity.14 Dark God therefore becomes a contradiction in terms; any and all dark deities are, oxymoronically, contrary to the divine by definition.15 Outside of normative monotheism and Gnostic dualism, however, darkness often has a more ambivalent valuation and relation to the divine.16 The Hindu deity Krishna, with his blue-black complexion, is the quintessence of divine beauty, while the black Kali is of terrible appearance.17 In Egypt too gods are depicted black or blueblack, such as Osiris, Anubis and Min.18 And as a number of scholars have demonstrated, the Hebrew Bible (HB) too is much more ambivalent than the Greek New Testament on the issue of darkness and its relation to the divine.19 It will be argued here that indeed, Jewish esoteric tradition allowed both light and darkness to participate in the divine ontology. We seek to elucidate an ancient, heretofore unrecognized tradition of speculation on the divine body according to which the divine luminance indeed cloaked itself in a dark bodily veil symbolized variously as a (high priestly) garment, cloud, temple or shadow. The first symbol is the most consistent: this divine body is a high priestly body signified by the dark blue robe of the Jewish high priest. This high priestly divine body will be the source of significant mystical speculation. Beginning with Philo of Alexandria, we will look at some of this presumably esoteric speculation, later to be openly articulated in published Kabbalistic material. We will also seek to understand the meaning of this body and the significance of its representation by the robe of the high priest. 2. Philos High Priestly Logos With what we are now learning about the diversity of Second Temple Judaisms it is becoming increasingly clear that the Logos doctrine of the first century Torah exegete and philosopher Philo of Alexandria was not simply the product of his intercourse with Middle Platonism as was commonly

On the luminous Kavod v. The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament 12vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1975-) (hereafter TDOT), 7:23-38, esp. 27-31 s.v. ,by Weinfeld. On the Logos v. the Prologue of John; Gaba, Symbols of Revelation, 155-157. On Nr Allah v. Qurn Surah 24:35; Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986-) 8:122f s.v. Nr, by Tj. De Boer. 15 For the dualism between gods of light and darkness in general and in the context of monotheistic tradition v. Yuri Stoyanov, The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) esp. 56-64, 83-96; Michael Grant, The Gods of Light and Darkness, History Today18 (1968): 268-276. 16 On the ambivalence of blackness in different traditions, including Judeo-Christian, v. Linda Van Norden, The Black Feet of the Peacock. The Color-Concept Black from the Greeks Through the Renaissance, ed. John Pollock (Lanham: University Press of America, 1985). 17 David R. Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krishna, Dark Visions of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975) 24, 103. 18 See Terence DuQuesne, Black and Gold God: colour symbolism of the god Anubis with observations on the phenomenology of colour in Egyptian and comparative religion (London: Dath Scholarly Services, Darengo Publications, 1996) passim, esp. 18-23. 19 Forrest Charles Cornelius, The theological significance of darkness in the Old Testament, Ph.D. dissertation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1990; Gaba, Symbols of Revelation; Van Norden, Black Feet, 45-66.

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assumed.20 It seems instead to have been rooted in the same tradition of (Hellenistic) Jewish speculation as that of the Prologue of John and the Epistle to the Hebrews.21 What is more, this tradition is itself rooted in, or at least cognate with, Jewish ditheistic/binitarian traditions widespread in Palestine and the Diaspora (among Semitic and Greek-speaking Jews) during Philos time.22 Thus, Philos deuteros theos or second God, while described in the language of the philosophers, probably owes more to his Jewish (intellectual) heritage than to his Greek education.23 It is therefore the case that Philo can teach us something about preRabbinic Judaism, particularly as it relates to mediation.24 It may even be the case that Philo sheds light on Jewish esoteric as well as priestly tradition.25 This HPL doctrine, we will suggest, is an early witness to a heretofore unrecognized tradition of esoteric priestly speculation on the Divine Body. 2.1. Deuteros Theos As is well-known, Philos Logos is the deity in his accessible aspect26; he is the Image of God through which the latter may be seen27; he is demiurgic-the instrument (organon) through which the universe was

20 See e.g Thomas H. Tobin, S.J., The Creation of Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation (Washington, DC: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983) 65ff. On Philo and Middle Platonism v. John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1977), 139-183, esp. 155-166. 21 On Johns Prologue v. Thomas H. Tobin, S.J., The Prologue of John and Hellenistic Jewish Speculation, CBC 52 (1990): 252269; David Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey (Minneapolis, 1993) 78-83. On Hebrews v. Kenneth L. Schenck, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews: Ronald Williamsons Study After Fifty Years, The Studia Philonica Annual 14 (2002): 112135; Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature, 74-78. 22 Daniel Boyarin, Two Powers in Heaven; or, the Making of a Heresy, in The Idea of Biblial Interpretation: Essays for James Kugel (Lieden: Brill, 2004):331-370, esp. 339ff; idem, The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John, HTR 94:3 (2001) 243-84, esp. 248, 260. Boyarin argues that Logos-type figures were part of the religious Koine of Jews in Palestine and the Diaspora during the first and second centuries. Margaret Barker therefore seems correct when she suggested Philo drew his ideas of the mediator from his peoples most ancient beliefs, and only adapted them to Greek ways of thinking (Great Angel: A Study of Israels Second God [Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992)] 116; emphasis original). On the Alexandrian mediator tradition as background to both Philo and Hebrews v. Ronald H. Nash, The Notion of Mediator in Alexandrian Judaism and the Epistle to the Hebrews, Westminster Theological Journal 40 (1977): 89-115. On the non-Hellenistic background v. M. De Jonge and A.S. Van der Woude, 11Q Melchizedek and the New Testament, NTS 12 (1966): 301-326; Anders Aschim, Melchizedek and Jesus: 11Qmelchizedek and the Epistle to the Hebrews in Carey C. Newman, James R. Davila and Gladys S. Lewis (edd.), Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism. Papers from the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 129-174. 23 As argued by Boyarin, The Gospel of the Memra, 247ff. Cf. also Samuel Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979) 98-9. On Philos Logos and Jewish binitarianism v. also Alan F. Segal, Dualism in Judaism, Christianity, and Gnosticism: A Definitive Issue, in his The Other Judaisms of Late Antiquity (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987): 1-40; idem, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977), passim; Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden: Brill, 1998) 107ff; Barker, The Great Angel, 114-133; Jarl E. Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1985) 197-204. 24 As demonstrated by N.A. Dahl and Alan Segal, Philo and the Rabbis on the Names of God, JSJ 9 (1978): 1-28. On Philos value in reconstructing Greek-speaking Judaism v. Gregory E. Sterling, Recherch or Representative? What is the Relationship between Philos Treatises and Greek-speaking Judaism? SphA 11 (1999): 1-30; idem, Philo Has Not Been Used Half Enough: The Significance of Philo of Alexandria for the Study of the New Testament, Perspectives in Religious Studies 30 (Fall 2003): 251-268. 25 Margaret Barker has argued that Philos HPL doctrine is a demythologized version of Israels ancient Temple tradition. See Margaret Barker, Temple Imagery in Philo: An Indication of the Origin of the Logos? in William Horbury (ed.), Templum Amicitiae. Essays on the Second Temple presented to Ernst Bammel, (JSOT Supplement Series 48; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 71-102; idem, Great Angel, 118, 123ff. 26 According to David T. Runia (Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato [Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986], 449) the Logos is, in general terms, that aspect or part of the divine that stands in relation to created reality. Cf. also David Winston, Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1985) for whom Philos Logos is the face of God turned toward creation (50).

created and ordered.28 And he is anthropomorphic; Gods man (anthropos theou) and the Man after His Image.29 Significant too is that the name YHWH (Grk. kyrios) seems to be that of the anthropomorphic Logos, the second God, while the true, transcendent God is simply To On, The Existent.30 This suggests that for Philo the Logos is the anthropomorphic god of the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh.31 Philo read the biblical passages describing the high priest and his cultic duties, particularly on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), as allegories of the Logos in the cosmic temple, the universe.32 Of particular significance for us is Philos treatment of the high priestly vestments. These consisted of eight garments, four of which distinguished the high priest from the rest of the priesthood.33 Philo was part of a tradition that allegorized the temple and its paraphernalia, seeing in them symbols of the sensible, material world.34

De somniis (hereafter Somn.) 1.239; De confusione linguarum (hereafter Conf.) 97. De specialibus legibus (hereafter Spec.)1.81; De Cherubim (hereafter Cher.) 125-128; Legum allegoriae (hereafter Leg.) 3.96. While Philo may never have given the Logos the status of demiurgic creator, as argued by Runia (Philo of Alexandria, 449 and n. 244), he certainly served this function for Philo: Whenever God is described as engaged in creative or providential activity, he does so in the guise or through the agency of the Logos (ibid). It is God who creates, but he does so at the level of his Logosor in the guise of his creative power and through the agency of the Logos as instrument of creation (Ibid, 450; emphasis original). See also Tobin, The Creation of Man, 65ff. 29 Conf. 40-41, 62-63, 146-47. A.J.M. Wedderburns argument (Philos Heavenly Man, NovTes 15 [1973], 316) that these passages do not imply that the Logos was regarded by Philo as really (like) a man any more than he regarded the Logos as like a rock or wells, symbols elsewhere used by our exegete, fails to take account of Philos use of the Logos to account for the anthropomorphisms of the biblical text from which God must remain aloof. Instead of allegorizing these texts, Philo attributes the anthropomorphism to the Logos. Segal observes: Thus, Philo can use his concept of logos both for philosophical argumentation and for explaining the anthropomorphisms in the Bible. The logos becomes the actual figure of God, who appears like a man in order that men may know His presence (Two Powers in Heaven, 165). See also idem The Incarnation: The Jewish Milieu, in Davis et al, The Incarnation, 133; Barker, Temple Imagery in Philo, 89, 96, 98; Great Angel, 121f. 30 See Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria, 91ff. At times Philo also distinguishes between the anathrous and arthrous Theos (Heb. lhm), the latter denoting the true God, the former his Logos. Somn. I.228-30. See Segals discussion, Two Powers in Heaven, 170. 31 Dahl and Segal, Philo and the Rabbis, 27. 32 Somn. 1.215; Quis rerum divinarum heres sit (hereafter Her.) 185; Leg. 3.45. See Ronald Williamsom, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), 411. On Philos spiritualization of the Temple and its cult v. Valentine Nikiprowetzky, La spiritualization des sacrifices et le culte sacrificial au Temple de Jrusalem chez Philon dAlexandrie, Semitica 17 (1967): 97-116; J. Danilou, La Symbolique du Temple de Jerusalem chez Philon et Josephe, in Le symbolisme cosmique des monuments religieux (Serie Orientale Roma XIV; Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1957) 83-90. On Philos HPL v. Jean Laporte, The High Priest in Philo of Alexandria, The Studia Philonica Annual 3 (1991): 71-82; Barker, Temple Imagery in Philo, op. cit.; John M. Scholer, Proleptic Priests: Priesthood in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 63-68; George L. Coulon, The Logos High Priest: An Historical Study of the Theme of the Divine Word as Heavenly High Priest in Philo of Alexandria, the Epistle to the Hebrews, Gnostic Writings and Clement of Alexandria, diss. Institut Catholigue de Paris, Paris 1966; Edwin R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1969), Chapter IV; R.A. Stewart, The Sinless High-Priest, NTS 14 (1967-68): 126-135. 33 (1) a long dark blue robe (mel), the hem of which was lined with cloth pomegranates and flowers and gold bells; (2) an apron-like ephod (Heb. phd), made of gold, of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and of fine twisted linen (Exod. 28:6); upon the ephod was fastened (3) a breastplate (hen) consisting of twelve precious stones; (4) a golden frontlet or diadem (ss zhb) engraved with Glory to the Lord, according to the MT, or the four letters of the Ineffable Name of God, according to Philo (Spec. 1.95-100; De vita Moysis [hereafter Mos.] 2.23-26, 114). The biblical sources for the priestly garments are primarily Exodus chapters 28 and 39. 34 Quaestiones et solutions in Exodum (hereafter QE) II. 85; De Vita Mosis (hereafter Mos.) 2.87-88. See also Josephus Judean Antiquities III 151-186; Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, V.6. On Philos allegorization of the vestments v. C.T.R. Hayward, The Jewish Temple: A non-biblical sourcebook (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) 108-118; Coulon, The Logos High Priest, 19ff; Margaret Barker, The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem (London: SPCK, 1991) 111ff. On Jewish interpretation of the vestments in general v. Michael D. Swartz, The Semiotics of the Priestly Vestments in Ancient Judaism, in Albert I. Baumgarten (ed.), Sacrifice in Religious Experience (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 57-80; Robert Hayward, St Jerome and the Meaning of the High-Priestly Vestments, in Hebrew Study From Ezra to Ben-Yehuda, William Horbury, ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999) 90-105. On Clements allegorization of the Tabernacle and high priestly vestments v. Salvatore R.C. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Platonism and Gnosticism (London: Oxford University Press, 1971) 173-181; Annewies van den Hoek, Clement of Alexandria and His Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian reshaping of a Jewish model (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988) Chapter Five; Judith L. Kovacs, Concealment and Gnostic Exegesis: Clement of Alexandrias Interpretation of the Tabernacle, Studia Patristica 31 (1997): 414-437.
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The four colors required for the production of the fabrics for the garments and temple drapings (curtains/veil; Exod. 26, 28) represented the four natural elements: air (=blue [Heb. tklet]), water (=purple [Heb. argmn]35), fire (=crimson [Heb. tlaat shni]), earth (=linen [Heb. ]). These garments symbolized the material body of the immanent Logos.36 As Erwin Goodenough put it: The priest in his cosmic robes (is) the Logos clothed in the material elements.37 Garment is a common metaphor for body in Jewish, Samaratain, Christian, and Gnostic literature and the body as garment of the soul motif was widespread in late antiquity.38 Since the high priest signified Philos Logos, the high priestly vestments signified the material body of Philos second God, Yahweh.39 This is significant, but as far as this author knows much of its significance has gone unnoticed. That Philo allegorized the priestly vestments as the material body is known.40 What seems not to have been explored, however, are the implications and significance of interpreting the long dark blue robe as the body of (the second) God. Does the color of the robe have any significance in this garment-as-body metaphor? The significance of the white linen tunic has been explored; it represents, we are told, a heavenly light-form similar to that of the angels.41 But the significance of the blue robe has not been clearly

Philo equates the color purple with the blood of the shell fish that bears the same name, from which the dye was produced. See De congressu eruditionis gratia (hereafter Congr.) 117; QE II. 85; Mos. 2.87-88. 36 De fuga et inventione (hereafter Fug.) 110; Somn. I.196-225; Leg. 2.55-6; De Migratione Abrahami (hereafter Mig.) 101-103. Harry A. Wolfson (Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam 2 vols. [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1947], 1:232ff, 327ff) posited three stages in the manifestation of Philos Logos: initially the Logos existed within God as his mind; this is the preexistent, uncreated Logos. At a secondary stage, the Logos is given an independent existence outside of God, created but not like mortals are. This is the created Incorporeal Logos. Finally, the Logos incarnates in the body of the world, wearing the sensible/material world as a garment; this immanent Logos is the instrument of divine providence. Wolfsons schema has been criticized as being artificial and overly systematic, but its overall correctness has been acknowledged. See Runia, Philo of Alexandria, 450, n. 247. On the robe as symbol of the body in Philo v. also Jung Hoon Kim, The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (London and New York: T&T Clark International, 2004) 44-52; April D. De Conick and Jarl Fossum, Stripped before God: A New Interpretation of Logion 37 in the Gospel of Thomas, VC 45 (1991), 128f. Dennis Ronald MacDonald observes that, One of Philos favorite images for the body is the garment. There is no Male and Female: The Fate of a Dominical Saying in Paul and Gnosticism Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987). See also Goodenough, By Light, Light, 116 (robe as symbol of matter). 37 Goodenough, By Light, Light, 104. The human body is composed of the same elements represented by the four colors. See De Opificio Mundi (hereafter Opif.) 146; Her. 283. 38 Kim, Significance; De Conick and Fossum, Stripped before God, 123-150; April D. De Conick, The Dialogue of the Savior and the Mystical Sayings of Jesus, VC 50 (1996): 190-2; Sebastion Brock, Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition, in Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den stlichen Vtern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter Eichsttter Beitrge 4 (Regensburg 1982): 11-37; S. David Garber, Symbolism of Heavenly Robes in the New Testament in Comparison with Gnostic Thought, unpd. diss., Princeton University, 1974; Geo Widengren, The Great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of God: Studies in Iranian and Manichaean Religion (Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1945) 50-55, 76-83. On the Platonic use of this metaphor v. J.M. Rist, A Common Metaphor, in idem, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (London: Cambridge University Press, 1967) 188-198; MacDonald, There is No Male or Female, 23-25. 39 Barker notes (Gate of Heaven, 116): Since the true high priest was a heavenly figure, he originally passed through the veil not to but from the presence of God (i.e. from the Holy of Holies). As he passed through the veil so he took form from it and thus became visible, robed in the four elements of the created order (emphasis original). Cf. idem, Temple Imagery in Philo, 91. 40 See now Kim, Significance, 44-52. 41 For Philo, the white tunic represents the purified soul, that fair and lovely form (; De Ebrietate [hereafter Ebr.] 157; 85-6; Mut. 45-6), most radiant light (Somn. I.202, 216-17). See also Margaret Barker, On Earth as it is in Heaven: Temple Symbolism in the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), Chapt. V; idem, Temple Imagery in Philo, 91; idem, Gate of Heaven, 113f; idem, Great Angel, 125; Harald Riesenfeld, Jsus Transfigur. LArrire-plan du Rcit vanglique de la Transfiguration de

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elucidated.42 It is this authors view that uncovering the deeper, presumably esoteric meaning of the blue robe in Philo will illuminate for us a significant aspect of Jewish esoterica. 2.2. Logos in a Blue Robe Harry Allen Wolfson discerned three stages of existence in Philos Logos.43 David Runia prefers to speak of three levels of operation.44 In both systems, there is a transcendent Logos, nearly indistinguishable from God; an immanent Logos, incarnate in or permeating through the material cosmos; and an intermediate Logos bridging the two. The latter is the demiurge of the material cosmos.45 A close reading of Philo allows us to associate these three stages/levels with the three Adams found in various exegetical traditions of Gen. 1-2,46 particularly in those texts termed Gnostic.47 According to the Nag Hammadi tractate On the Origin of the World 117:29ff, the first Adam is spirit-endowed (pneumatikos), and appeared on the first day. The second Adam is soul-endowed (psychikos), and appeared on the sixth day, which is called Aphrodite. The third Adam is a creature of the earth (choikos), that is, the man of law, and he appeared on the eighth day.48 These three Adams are not individual men; they are stages in the somatic (d)evolution of Man.49 This somatic tripartition, common in Gnostic texts, is based on

Notre-Seigneur (Kbenhavn, 1947) Chapitre VIII; W. Schwarz, A Study in Pre-Christian Symbolism : Philo, De Somniis I.216-218, and Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 4 and 77, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 20 (1973): 104-117 ; Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978) 174. On the white robe as the luminous body of angels in rabbinic literature v. Pesiqta Rabbati 51.8; Midrash Tehillim 104.4. 42 Other than the cosmological symbolism provided by Philo. See e.g. Harald Hegermann, Die Vorstellung vom Schpfungsmitter im Hellenistischen Judentum und Urchristentum (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1961) 47ff. See also Margaret Barker who, in her otherwise laudable exposition on the symbolism of the temple cult (On Earth) discuses in the chapter entitled The Robe (Chapter Five) the corporeal meaning of the white tunic, but says nothing of what this means in terms of the dark blue robe. In other writings, Barker describes the blue robe as the visible form of the high priest (Beyond the Veil of the Temple: The High Priestly Origins of the Apocalypses, SJT 51 [1998] 4) and as a symbol of incarnation (Time and Eternity: the world of the Temple The Month [January 2001] 21), but does not specifically speculate on the color of the robe. See also Hugh Nibley, Sacred Vestments, in idem, Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley: Volume 12 Ancient History, edited by Dan E. Norton (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company; Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992) 91-138, esp. 114-123 and John A. Tvedtnes, Priestly Clothing in Biblical Times, in Donald w. Parry (ed.), Temples of the Ancient world: Ritual and Symbolism (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company; Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1994) 649-704, esp. 662-680; both authors, in exploring the symbolic (somatic) significance of the high priestly garments, discuss the white linen tunic but not the blue robe. 43 See n. 36. 44 Runia, Philo of Alexandria, 450ff. 45 Runia, Philo of Alexandria, 451; Wolfson, Philo,1:331 46 A connection made already by Coulson, The Logos High Priest, 77f. 47 On the dubiousness of the label Gnostic to categorize the polymorphus movements so designated v. Michael Allen Williams, Rethinking Gnosticism: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996). See also Karen L. King, What is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, Mass. And London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003). 48 Translation of Hans-Gebhard Bethge and Bently Layton in James M. Robibson (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Library (New York: HaperCollins, 1988) 183. On this passage and Gnostic exegesis of the Hebrew Bible v. Orval Wintermute, A Study of Gnostic Exegesis of the Old Testament, in James M. Efird (ed.), The Use of the Old Testament in the New and Other Essays. Studies in the Honor of William Franklin Stinespring (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1972) 241-270. 49 See discussion in Maria Grazia Lancellotti, The Naassenes: A Gnostic Identity Among Judaism, Christianity, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Traditions (Mnster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000) 75-86. On the triple creation of man in Gnostic sources v. Michel Tardieu, Trois Mythes Gnostiques (Paris: tudes Augustiniennes, 1974) 85-139; Pheme Perkins, Creation of the Body in Gnosticism, Religious Reflections on the Human Body, ed. Jane Marie Law (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University

a popular reading of Genesis 1-2. The pneumatikos or spiritual first Adam, born on the first day, is associated both with the Spirit of God that hovered over the pre-mundane waters (Gen 1:2)50 and, more commonly, the light of Gen. 1:3. The latter reading is based on a pun on the Greek word phs, used in the LXX translation of Gen. 1:3 meaning both light and man. Thus, the product of Gods command, Let there be light (phs), was a divine Light-Man, an anthropos enveloped within and consisting of light. This interpretation is Jewish and can be found as early as the second century B.C.E. in the drama Exagoge of the Alexandrian playwright Ezekiel.51 The second, soul-endowed (psychikos), or rather soul-composed Adam of the Sixth Day is the man made according to the Image of God (Gen. 1:26f). His body, anatomically identical to a material body, is yet made of a psychic substance.52 The third Adam is the man molded from the earth (Gen 2:7), possessing now, along with the above two, a material body. This trisomatism in man reflects the same trichotomy in the celestial sphere. According to Tripartite Tractate (NHC I, 5: 118: 14-119:15), three races originate from this trichotomy in the demiurgic logos:
Mankind came to be in three essential types, the spiritual, the psychic and the material, conforming to the triple disposition of the Logos, from which were brought forth the material ones and the psychic ones and the spiritual onesThe spiritual race(is)like light from lightThe psychic race is like light from a fireThe material race, howeveris dark, it shuns the shining of light.53

This trichotomous anthropology may very well have been a popular Alexandrian tradition.54 It was known to Philo who elsewhere shows a number of points of contact with Gnosticism.55 It is therefore no

Press, 1995) 21-35; Birger Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology in I Corinthians. A Study in the Theology of the Corinthian Opponents of Paul and its Relation to Gnosticism (SBL Dissertation Series, No. 12; Missoula, Mont., 1973) 65-80. 50 Gnostic sources typically identified this Spirit of God with the fallen aeon Sophia (e.g. The Apocraphon of John NHC II, 13.1721; Hypostasis of the Archons 89, 26; on the latter v. the commentary of Roger A. Bullard, The Hypostasis of the Archons [Berlin: Walter De Gruyter & Co., 1970] 56f ). But the Barbelo/Sophia figure is also identified with the Light-Man of Gen. 1:3; v. Apocryphon of John BG 29, 6. In rabbinic literature (Gen. R. 8:1), it is the spirit of Adam that hovers above the primordial waters. 51 On traditions of Adam as the Phs (light) of Gen. 1:3 v. Elaine H. Pagels, Exegesis of Genesis 1 in the Gospels of Thomas and John, JBL 118 (1999): 477-496; April D. de Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996) 65-79; Jarl Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God: Colossians 1.15-18a in the Light of Jewish Mysticism and Gnosticism, in idem, The Image of the Invisible God. Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (GttingenVandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995)13-39; idem, Name of God, 280ff; Gilles Quispel, Ezekiel 1:26 in Jewish Mysticism and Gnosis, VC 34 (1980): 1-13. 52 E.g. in the Apocraphon of John NHC II 15, 13-19, 10. On the creation of the psychic body in Gnosticism v. R. van den Broek, The Creation of Adams Psychic Body in the Apocryphon of John, in R. van den Broek and M.J. Vermaseren (edd.), Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions, presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday,. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981) 38-57; Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, The Creation of Man and Woman in The Secret Book of John, in The Creation of Man and Woman: Interpretations of the Biblical Narratives in Jewish and Christian traditions, ed. Gerard P. Luttikhuizen (Leiden: Brill, 2000) 140155; Richard Valantasis, Adams Body: Uncovering Esoteric Traditions in the Apocraphon of John and Origens Dialogue with Heraclides, The Second Century 7 (1990): 150-162. 53 See also the Naassen divine anthropos of Hippolytus Ref. V. 1; Lancellotti, Naassenes, 75f. On the three bodies/three races association v. Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos, 76-81; Francis T. Fallon, The Enthronement of Sabaoth: Jewish Elements in Gnostic Creation Myth (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978) 120f. 54 Gilles Quispel ( Hermes Trismegistus and the Origins of Gnosticism, in Roelof van den Broek and Cis van Heertum [edd.], From Poimandres to Jacob Bhme: Gnosis, Hermetism and the Christian Tradition [Amsterdam: Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, 2000] 148) suggested that this trichotomy can be traced back to and localized in a Hermetic lodge of Alexandria, but one clearly of pagan origin. According to Elaine Pagels it was widely known and shared among various groups of Genesis readers. Exegesis, 479.

surprise that Philos Logos shows an affinity to the three Adams. The Logos is identified with the Phs of Day One (Opif. 31; Somn. I.75) 56 and the Man made after the Image of God on the Sixth Day (Conf. 146). This man in turn is the soul housed in the earthly man of Gen. 2:7 (Sec. I.81, 171). That Philos Logos possessed all three concentric bodies57 is demonstrated by his discussion of the pure white, speckled, and ashy-sprinkled he-goats shown to Jacob in a dream (Gen 31:1012; Somn. I.196-225). These, Philo says, represent three seals that marked the great High Priest, i.e the Logos. The pure white is analogous to the rational soul and is symbolized by the white linen tunic worn by the high priest on Yom Kippur. The speckled is read by Philo as variegated, an allusion here to the blue robe (Somn. I.203-208)58; this symbolized the lower, irrational soul of the HPL. While the rational soul is inward and invisible, the irrational is outward and visible.59 The ash-sprinkled is taken as a reference to the high priest sprinkling himself with ash and water prior to offering sacrifices (Somn. I.209-212). The ash and water, symbolized by the pomegranates and flowers that line the hem of the blue robe, are the two elements brought together to make the corporeal body of man.60 According to Philo, the white tunic represented most radiant light (Somn. 1:216-17), which he likened to a cloudless ray coming from the suns beams would appear in a clear atmosphere at noontime (Somn. I.202). Read somatically, this tunic would represent a light-body similar to that attributed to the divine (e.g. Gods anthropomorphic Kavod) and angels.61 The substance of this pneumatic body of the

55 Quod Deterius Potiori insidiari soleat (hereafter Det.) 89; De Gigantibus (hereafter Gig.) 60-61. Hans Jonas pointed out the similarity between the Gnostic and Philonic catergories of men already in his Gnosis und sptantiker Geist, Vol. 1: Die mythologische Gnosis (FRLANT N.f. 33; Gttengen, 1934) 212-214. On the trichotomy in Philo v. also Birger A. Pearson, Philo, Gnosis, and the New Testament, in idem, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990) 179ff; idem, Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom Speculation and Paul, in Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Robert L. Wilken (Notre Dame: University if Notre Dame Press, 1975) 53ff. Louis Painchaud even suggested that the trisomatic anthropogony of On the Origin of the World cited above is inspired by Philo. See The Redactions of the Writing Without Title (CG II5), The Second Century 8 (1991): 226, 228. On Philo and Gnosticism v. R. McL. Wilson, Philo and Gnosticism, The Studia Philonica Annual 5 (1993): 84-92; idem, Philo of Alexandria and Gnosticism, Kairos 14 (1972): 84-92; idem, The Gnostic Problem (London: A.R. Mowbray & Co. Limited, 1958); Birger A. Pearson, Philo and Gnosticism, ANRW II.21.1:295-342; idem, Philo, Gnosis and the New Testament, in idem, Gnosticism, Judaism and Egyptian Christianity, 165-182; Karen L. King, The Body and Society in Philo and the Apocryphon of John, in The School of Moses: Studies in Philo and Hellenistic Religion, ed. John Peter Kenney (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995) 82-97. 56 On the Logos as light in Philo v. Arkadi Choufrine, F. Excursus: Philos ontology of Light, in his Gnosis, Theophany, Theosis: Studies in Clement of Alexandrias Appropriation of his Background (New York: Peter Lang, 2002) 152-158; Tobin, The Prologue of John, 262ff; Alexander Altmann, A Note on the Rabbinic Doctrine of Creation, JJS 7 (1956): 195-206, esp. 198ff. 57 According to Theodotus (Excerpts 59.1-4), the Aeon Jesus, on his descent through the cosmic heavens to earth in order to redeem the pneumatics, put on (as successive envelopes) a spiritual body from the Ogdoad (eighth heaven), a psychic body from the Hebdomad (seventh heaven), and then on earth (what appeared) as a corporeal body. As April D. De Conick observes: So Jesus seems to have three bodies: a spiritual body, a soul body, and a special corporeal body. See Heavenly Temple Traditions and Valentinian Worship: A Case for First-Century Christology in the Second Century, in Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism, 308-341, 333. 58 On the robe as a variegated fabric v. QE II, 107; Mos. II, 110.. 59 On the white and blue robes as higher/inward and lower/outward parts of the soul v. Ebr. 85-6; Mut. 45. 60 See also Spec. I.263-6. 61 See above n. 41. On the Kavod as anthropomorphic form of God v. below n. 164.

Logos and the rational soul was ether, the purest and most subtle of all matter.62 As this ether is represented by gold (QE II. 63, 113), the gold frontlet of the high priest and his golden ephod63 seem also to have symbolized this pneumatic body. The gold frontlet is a likeness of the divine Logos (QE II. 123), just as the light of Gen. 1:3 is an image (eikn) of the divine Logos (Opif. 31).64 This all recalls the Light-Man (Phs) read into Gen. 1:3. The blue robe signifies a dimmer and therefore more sense-perceptible soul-body.65 This lower soul-body is aereal, composed of the blue-black air of the sub-lunar heavens.66 This intermediate body, between the pneumatic/ethereal and the earthly, is associated with the man of Gen. 1:26-7 made after the Image, which is the Logos.67 This man born on the sixth day of creation is thus presented by Philo as aereal/psychic and associated with the blue robe of the high priest. Finally, as noted, the earthly body made of dust, here the ash-sprinkled, was symbolized by the hem of the blue robe lined with cloth pomegranates and flowers signifying the elements from which the earthly body was made.68 Thus, the three Adams and their respective bodies are represented in Philos exegesis on Jacobs dream by the white tunic (1:3), the blue robe (1:26-27), and the hem (2:7).69 Based on the above observations, and at the risk of being overly systematic, we get the following associations:

62 On the rational soul as ethereal v. Her. 283; Leg. III. 161. On the Logos v. Fug. 133 and discussion in John Dillon, ASMATOS: Nuances of Incorporeality in Philo, in Philon dAlexandrie et le langage de la philosophie. Actes du colloque international organize par le Centre detudes sur la philosophie hellenistiqu (Brepols, 1998) 99-110 (106-7). On Philos different levels of corporeality or incorporeality v. ibid. 63 On gold as the predominant ingredient in the ephod v. Haran, Temples and Temple-Service, 167. 64 On the identity between the gold frontlet and the transcendent Logos v. Mig. 102-103. Goodenough identifies the gold plate with the higher Logos, By Light, Light, 114, 116. See also discussion in Coulon, The Logos High Priest, 20; David D. Hannah, Michael and Christ: Michael Traditions and Angel Christology in Early Christianity (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999) 88. A somatic interpretation of the gold frontlet was known to Theodotus and/or Clement of Alexandria. In his Excerpta ex Theodoto 27.12, Clement (or his Gnostic source) allegorized an otherwise unknown Yom Kippur ritual, the priests removal of the gold frontlet upon entering the Holy of Holies:

The priest on entering within the second veil removed the plate at the altar of incense, and entered in silence with the Name engraved upon his heart, indicating the laying aside of the body that has become pure like the golden plate and nimble through purificationthe laying aside as it were of the souls body on which was stamped the luster of pietyNow he discards the body, the plate which had become weightless, within the second veil, that is, in the rational sphere As commentators have noted the body here is not the material body, but a spiritual or psychic body discarded in the spiritual sphere. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria, 178; Kovacs, Concealment and Gnostic Exegesis, 435 n. 96. 65 Ebr. 85-6; Mut. 45. 66 On the sub-lunar air as home of lower souls v. Plant. 14; Conf. 174; Somn. I. 134-5, 144-46. On the blue-black sub-lunar air as signified by the blue robe v. Spec. I.85. 67 Mut. 30 (Adam of Gen. 1:26 as soul of intermediate stage); Somn. I.219; Spec. I.94 (robe as intervening/intermediate); Ebr. 85-6; Mut. 43-46 (robe as lower soul). Now Philo has interpreted the Man after the Image (Gen. 1.26) as both the rational soul (Plant. 18-20; Spec. I. 81; Det. 83-87; Her. 230-1) and the lower, irrational soul (Mut. 30; Leg. III.95-6). This discrepancy can be resolved however. According to Philo, the first person plural used here (Let Us make Adam) indicates that both God and lower powers (viz. the Logos and other angels) participated in the creation of this man: God provided the immortal soul and the lower powers provided the mortal soul (Fug. 66-70; Opif. 72-75; Conf. 179-182). That is to say, Gen. 1:26-27 actually alludes to the creation of both souls. See also Jarl Fossum, Gen. 1,26 and 2,7 in Judaism, Samaritanism, and Gnosticism, JSJ 16 (1985): 202-239, esp. 203-208. 68 See above n. 63. 69 Opif. 134ff.

10

Pure White Speckled Ash-Sprinkled

= = =

White Tunic Blue Robe Hem

= = =

Light/Pneumatic Body Aereal/ Psychic Body Earthly Body

= = =

Gen. 1:3 Gen. 1:26-27 Gen. 2:7

2.2.1. Gods Schattenbild This areal/psychic body signified by the blue robe is in some way related to Philos designation of the demiurgic Logos as both Gods Image and Shadow (Leg. III.96). Philo identifies the Logos with Bezalel (In the Shadow of God), chief craftsman of the Tabernacle and its works according to Exod. 31:2ff.70 The tabernacle that Bezalel constructs is the soul (Leg. III. 95-96). As noted, Philo identified the soul with the man of Gen 1:26-771; this makes Bezalel/Logos demiurge of the psychic man/body, a notion found in Gnostic sources as well.72 This Adam-as-Tabernacle motif should be noted as we will encounter it again. What is important now is that this psychic Adam made after the Image, whom Philo associates with the blue robe of the high priest, is also called a shadow (Plant.27; Somn. I.206). In Gnostic literature the body of the man of Gen. 1:26-7 can be called shadow as well.73 We might understand by this that, while the Logos is the Shadow/Image of God, the man of Gen. 1:26-7 is the shadow/image of the Logos, a shadow of a shadow, as it were. It must be kept in mind, however, that Philo identified the Logos with both the Image (Urbild) and the Man after the Image (Abbild).74 This suggests some sort of identity between the demiurgic Logos as Shadow/Image, the HPL garbed in his blue robe, and the psychic Adam of day six. While we are free to account for this apparent conflation by appealing to the diverse pre-Philonic exegetical traditions that made their way into Philos own exegesis,75 or accuse Philo of some illegitimate exegetical methods,76 this is unnecessary. Behind Philos exegesis may well be a tradition of the somatic devolution of Phs. As

70 The craftsman Bezalel would represent the Logos in the lower of the latters two demiurgic functions. As Runia (Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato, 166) has pointed out regarding Philos building-of-a-city metaphor used in Opif. 17-18, the demiurgic process involves three functions and functionaries: the king, who calls for the citys establishment; the architect, who designs the city; and the craftsman, who actually executes the creative activity. For Philo, the Logos functions as both the architect and craftsman. 71 Spec. I.81, 171. 72 I.e. that the psychic body of Adam was the work of a lower demiurge. See above n. 55. On Gnostic and Philonic exegesis of Gen. 1:26-27 v. also Fossum, Gen. 1,26 and 27, 202-239. 73 E.g. Apocraphon of John II, 20. 28, 21.4-5; Hypostasis of the Archons NHC II, 89, 26. On shadow as a designation for matter in Gnosticism v. also Einar Thomassen, The Derivation of Matter in Monistic Gnosticism, in John D. Turner and Ruth Majercik (edd.) Gnosticism and Later Platonism: Themes, Figures, and Texts, (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000) 13. 74 Conf. 146-47. See also Tobin, The Prologue of John, 261f. 75 la Tobin, The Creation of Man. 76 Wedderburn, Philos Heavenly Man, 323.

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the Man after the Image of Gen. 1:26-7, the Logos has taken on an aereal/psychic body called shadow.77 There is evidence to support this suggestion. Thus we read in Opif. 31:
Now that invisible light (Phs, Gen. 1:3-WW) perceptible only by mind has come into being as an image of the divine (Logos)It is a supercelestial star, fount of the perceptible stars, such as it would not be inappropriate to call it allbrightness to signify that from which the sun and moon, and all the other planets and fixed stars draw, in accordance with the capacity of each, the [degrees of] light befitting them; for that unmixed and pure radiance is dimmed (amauroumens) as soon as it begins to experience the change which is involved in the passage from intelligible to sensible; for nothing in the realm of sense is absolutely pure.

As John Dillon has pointed out, the archetypal light, viz. the Logos,78 in its progressive descent into the cosmos, becomes somehow mixed with the darkness of matter, which leads to its becoming senseperceptible (i.e. visible).79 This cosmic descent of the Logos80 is probably analogous to the descent of nous. When the warm, ethereal mind descends from the upper heaven to the sub-lunar sphere, it cools and, now enveloped by air, becomes (lower) soul.81 Origen, who took his doctrine of the pre-mundane fall of souls from Philo,82 understood the biblical account of the fall of Adam and Eve as an allegory of the later stages in the fall of pre-existent, rational souls:
all rational creatures, incorporeal and invisible, if they be negligent, gradually slip to lower levels and take to themselves bodies according to the quality of the places into which they descend; that is, first ethereal bodies, and then aereal. And when they reach the vicinity of earth they are enclosed in denser bodies, and finally are bound to human flesh (Jerome, Con. Joh. Hieros. 16).

The aereal body here is, as with Philo, identified with the man according to the Image in Gen. 1:267.83 This anthropogonic descent also strikes a resemblance to Porphyrys description of the descent of the

77 This designation of the soul-body as a shadow-image is not peculiar to Philo. As James G. Frazer demonstrated, it is a widespread association (shadow/soul/image) in many indigenous and European societies (See his The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection, in idem, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, II: Taboo and the Perils of the Soul [London, 1911; third edition 77100]) and it was current in the Mediterranean countries in the first century as well (See e.g. P.W. van der Horst, Peters Shadow, NTS 23 [1976-77]: 204-212). This corporeal schattenbild was something like a phantasmic likeness (H.B. Alexander, Soul [Primitive], ERE 11:727. See also Ad de Vries, Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery [Amsterdam and London: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1974] s.v. Shadow, 417). A nice illustration of this motif is found in The True History by the satirist Lucian of Samosata (mid-2nd century CE). He describes the inhabitants of the Island of the Blessed Ones as such:

they have no bodies, but are intangible and fleshless, with only shape and figure. Incorporeal as they are, they nevertheless move and think and talk. In a word, it would appear that their naked souls go about in the semblance of their bodies. Really, if one did not touch them, he could not tell that what he saw was not a body, for they are like upright shadows, only not black (II.12). Translation by A.M. Harmon, Lucian (LCL; London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillian, 1913) 315.
78 See also discussion by Maren R. Niehoff, What is in a Name? Philos Mystical Philosophy of Language, Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995): 235. 79 Dillon, Asmatos, 105. 80 Sandmel declared that The Logos never descends from the intelligible world into the sensible world (Philo, 95), but this is certainly wrong. See also Cher. 99-102; Somn. I. 75, 85-6; II. 242. 81 Her. 281-83; Leg. III. 161(nous/ higher soul ethereal); Somn. I.31; Her. 281-3 (cooling of mind to become aereal soul); Opif. 134; Gig. 13f, 17f; Somn. I. 138 (descent of souls into bodies) 82 See Gerald Bostock, The Sources of Origens Doctrine of Pre-Existence, in Origeniana Quarta; die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origenskongresses (Innsbruck, 1987) 259-264. 83 On Origens anthropology v. Manlio Simonetti, Alcune Osservazioni SullInterpretazione Origeniana di Genesi 2,7 e 3,21, Aevum 36 (1962): 370-381; C.P. Bammel, Adam in Origen, in Rowan Williams (ed.), The making of orthodoxy. Essays in honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge, et. al.: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 62-93; Hermann S. Schibli, Origen, Didymus, and the Vehicle of the Soul, Origeniana quinta (1989): 381-391; Lawrence R. Hennessey, A Philosophical Issue in Origens Eschatology:

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astral body: Originally of an ethereal substance, in the course of its descent the is progressively darkened and thickened as it absorbs moisture from the air, until it finally becomes fully material and even visible.84 That this descent applies to the Logos is confirmed by the fact that the latter is said to dwell in man (Fug. 117; Post. 122). While mans body is the abode of the soul, the soul is the abode of the Divine Logos.85 We can therefore discern in Philos writings the contours of a probably pre-Philonic tradition of the somatic devolution of Phs.86 The intermediary stage of this corporeal descent is the aereal/psychic body, schattenbild of the ethereal/pneumatic body. What is of immense significance for our study is that this body was signified by the blue robe of the high priest. 3. An Ancient Priestly Tradition? Philo was likely of priestly lineage.87 Margaret Barker has seen in Philos Logos a demythologization of one of Israels ancient temple traditions.88 Our research provides strong support for this suggestion. It is our position that Philos HPL doctrine, as reconstructed above, demonstrates his awareness of an esoteric tradition evidenced in the writings of the Priestly redactor (P) of the Pentateuch.

.
The Three Senses of Incorporeality, Origeniana quinta (1989): 372-380; Ugo Bianchi, Origens Treatment of the Soul and the Debate Over Metensomatosis, Origeniana quarta (1985): 270-280. On notions of corporeality and incorporeality with Origen v. further D.G. Bostock, Quality and Corporeity in Origen, Origeniana secunda (1980): 323-337; Ccile Blanc, Dieu est pneuma: Le sens de cette expression daprs Origne, Studia Patristica 16 (1985): 224-241; Gedaliahu Stroumsa, The Incoporeality of God: Context and Implications of Origens Position, Religion 13 (1983): 345-358. 84 Quote from E.R. Dodds, Appendix II: The Astral Body in Neoplatonism in idem, Proclus: The Elements of Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963): 318. Cf. Porphyry, On The Cave of the Nymph 62-66. 85 Opif. 139; Somn. I.26; Mig. 193 (earthly body as abode of the soul); Somn. I.113, 149; II. 248, 250; Cher. 98-100 (soul as abode of God/Logos); Her. 225 (Logos as the 7th part of mans heptadic soul); Spec. IV. 123 (the Divine Spirit [viz. Logos, Plant. 18] as essence of the soul). 86 This dimming of the light of the Logos as it enters the sense perceptible realm recalls the Gnostic and later Jewish (rabbinic and kabbalistic) myth of the dimming of the demiurges light. See e.g. the ApocJhn NHC II, 1, 13.14-17: Then the mother (Sophia) began to move to and from. She became aware of the deficiency when the brightness of her light diminished. And she became dark because her consort had not agreed with her. See also the parallel Mandean myth of the demiurge Ptahil: Ptahil-Uthra rose up, he went and descended below the kinas, to the place where there is no world. He trod in the filthy mud, he entered the turbid wateras the living fire (in him) changed/disappearedHis radiance has changedhas become deficient and imperfectArise, see how the radiance of the alien Man has diminished (Right Ginza III, 98ff; translation by Kurt Rudolph in Gnosis: A Selection of Texts by Werner Foerster [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974] II: 171f.) On the dimming of (demiurgic) Adams light in rabbinic tradition and the blackening of the Shekhinah in Kabballah v. below. See also Howard Schwartz, The Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 58 who, drawing from rabbinic and Zoharic texts, narrates the following Judaic myth: After the Temple had been destroyed and the Shekhinah had gone into exile, all the angels went into mourning for Her, and they composed dirges and lamentations for her. So too did all the upper and lower realms weep for Her and go into mourning. Then God came down from heaven and looked upon His house that had been burned. He looked for His people, who had gone into exile. And He inquired about His bride, who had left Him. And just as she had suffered a change, so too did Her husband-His light no longer shone, and He was changed from what He had been. Indeed, by some accounts God was bound in chains.
87 D.R. Schwartz, Philos Priestly Descent, in F.E. Greenspahn, E. Hilgert, and B.L. Mack (edd.) Nourished with Peace (Chico, 1984) 155-171. 88 See above n. 25.

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3.1. Ps Adam as High Priestly Demiurge Beginning with Martin Buber, scholars have discerned Ps remarkable use of intratextuality between Genesis 1 (the creation account) and Exodus 25-31 (instructions for the building of the Tabernacle) to suggest a correspondence between the creation of the world and the building of the sanctuary.89 The widespread ancient Near Eastern (ANE) temple-as-cosmos motif undoubtedly lay behind this intratextuality.90 In Exod. 25-31 Yahweh in seven speeches instructs Moses regarding the construction of the Tabernacle and its furnishings as well as the priestly vestments. As Peter Kearny has shown, these seven speeches correspond verbally and conceptually to the seven days of creation of Genesis I.91 Thus, in the first speech the newly appointed high priest Aaron is instructed to tend the golden lampstand (menorah) at the evening and morning sacrifice (Tamid) (Exod. 30:7-8). This corresponds to the appearance of light on the first day and the separation of day and night (Gen.1:3-5).92 In the third speech (Ex. 30:16-21) the command is given for the construction of the bronze laver, which in the Solomonic temple is called simply the sea (I Kgs 7:23-26). This clearly corresponds to the creation of the sea on the third day in Gen. 1:911. Again, the seventh speech (31:12-17) contains the command that Israel observe the Sabbath, and in Gen. 2:2-3 God rested on the seventh day. The net effect of this intratextuality is the impression that the

Martin Buber, Die Schrift und ihre Verdeutschung (Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1936) 39ff; Umberto Cassuto, A commentary on the book of Exodus. Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem, Magnes Press, Hebrew University,1967), ad 39:32, 43; 40:33; Joseph Blekinsopp, The Structure of P, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976): 275-292; idem, Prophecy and Canon (Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame, 1977) 56-69; Peter J. Kearney, Creation and Liturgy: The P Redaction of Ex 25-40, ZAW 89 (1977): 375-387; Michael Fishbane, Text and Texture: Close Readings of Selected Biblical Texts (New York: Schocken Books, 1979) 11-13; Moshe Weinfeld, Sabbath, Temple and the Enthronement of the Lord The Problem of the Sitz im Leben of Genesis 1:1-2:3, in Mlanges bibliques et orientaux en lhonneur de M. Henri Cazelles, eds A. Caquot and M. Delcor (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlaq, 1981) 501-11; Jon D. Levenson, The Temple and the World, JR 64 (1984): 275-298; idem, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1985) Chapter 7; idem, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1985) 142-145; Peter Weimar, Sinai und Schpfung: Komposition und Theologie der Priesterschriftlichen Sinaigeschichte, RB 95 (1988): 337-85; Bernd Janowski, Temple und Schpfung: Schpfungstheologische Aspekte der priesterschriftlichen Heiligtumskonseption, in I Balderman et al., Schpfung und Neusschpfung (Jahrbuch fr biblische Theologie 5; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1990) 37-70; Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus (Louisville: John Know Press, 1991)268-272; Eric E. Elnes, Creation and Tabernacle: The Priestly Writers ,Environmentalism, Horizons in Biblical Theological 16 (1994): 144-155. 90 William Foxwell Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1946) 147-150; Gstra W. Ahlstm, Heaven on Earth-at Hazor and Arad, in Religious Syncretism in Antiquity, ed. Birger A. Pearson (Missoula: Scholars, 1975): 6783; John M. Lundquist, The Common Temple Ideology of the Ancient Near East, in T.G. Madsen (ed.), The Temple in Antiquity (Provo: BYU Press, 1984) 53-76. On the biblical/Jewish temple-as-cosmos tradition v. also Jon D. Levenson, The Jerusalem Temple in Devotional and Visionary Experience, in Jewish Spirituality, From the Bible Through the Middle Ages, ed. Arthur Green (New York: Crossroad, 1986) 51-53; Hayward, The Jewish Temple, 8ff; Barker, Time and Eternity,15-21; James R. Davila, The Macrocosmic Temple, Scriptural Exegesis, and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, Dead Sea Discoveries 9 (2002):1-19. Gregory Beale, The Final Vision of the Apocalypse and its Implications for a Biblical Theology of the Temple, in T. Desmond Alexander and Simon Cathercole (edd.), Heaven on Earth: The Temple in Biblical Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004) 191-209 91 Though not all of the correspondences uncovered by Kearney are convincing, the overall pattern cannot be denied. 92 Kearney, Creation and Liturgy, 375, 380. But cf. Levenson, Creation, 83. On Aarons mimicking in the Tabernacle Gods creative act of separation v. Frank H. Gorman, Jr., The Ideology of Ritual: Space, Time and Status in the Priestly Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990): 44, 51, 219-20; idem, Priestly Rituals of Founding: Time, Space, and Status, in M. Patrick Graham, William P. Brown and Jeffrey K. Kuan (edd.) History and interpretation: essays in honour of John H. Hayes (Sheffied, Eng.: JSOT Press, 1993) 50-54.

89

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liturgies carried out in the sanctuary reenact creation in the cultic setting;93 and as Crispin H.T. FletcherLouis has shown, in this drama the high priest Aaron acts in imitatio Dei.94 As God brought r (light) to darkness (Gen 1
2-3),

so Aaron caused mar (light) to shine throughout the night.95 The Aaronic high

priest represented the creator god in this reenactment, a notion strikingly reminiscent of Philo.96 The various scholars impressed by this intratextuality used by P have paid little attention to the sixth day which culminates with the creation of man in the image and likeness of God. At first sight the correspondence to the sixth speech of Exodus is not so obvious, but on closer inspection becomes clear. The focus of the sixth speech is Bezalel, the master architect appointed by God and responsible for building the Tabernacle (31: 1-5). He was endowed with wisdom (Hokm), ability (tebn), and knowledge (dt), the tools used by God to create the cosmos, and filled with the rah lhm, spirit of God, an allusion to Genesis 1:2 (and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the deep).97 This analogy, as Joshua Berman observes, may be read as a statement that Bezalels creation of the Tabernacle is tantamount to Gods creation of the universe.98 Like Philo, most commentators take the name to mean in the shadow of God,

99. But Richard Friedmans insightful opinion is significant here:

93 On the ritual re-enactment of cosmogonic myth in the ANE and elsewhere v. Benjamin D. Sommer, The Babylonian Akitu Festival: rectifying the king or renewing the cosmos?, JANES 27 (2000): 81-95; Brian M. Hauglid, Sacred Time and Temple, in Parry, Temples of the Ancient World, 636-645; Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or, Cosmos and History, translated from the French by Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954). 94 Crispin H.P. Fletcher-Louis, The Cosmology of P and the Theological Anthropology in the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira in C.A. Evans (ed.), Of Scribes and Sages: Studies in Early Jewish Interpretation and Transmission of Scripture (SSEJC 8; Sheffield; Sheffield Academic Press, 2004) 1-51, esp. 10. Fletcher-Louis has without doubt most clearly and convincingly elucidated the high priestly theological anthropology implied by this intratextuality. See also his The image of God and the biblical roots of Christian sacramentality, in Geoffrey Rowell and Christine Hall (edd.), the Gestures of God: explorations in sacramentality (London and New York: Continuum, 2004) 73-89; idem, Gods Image, His Cosmic Temple and the High Priest: Towards an Historical and Theological Account of the Incarnation, in Alexander and Cathercole, Heaven on Earth, op. cit., 81-99; idem, All The Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 56-87; idem, Wisdom Christology and the Parting of the Ways Between Judaism and Christianity, in Stanely E. Porter and Brook W.R. Pearson (edd.), Christian-Jewish Relations through the Centuries (JSNTS 192; Sheffield; Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 52-68; idem, The High Priest as Divine Mediator in the Hebrew Bible: Dan 7:13 as a Test Case, SBL 1997 Seminar Papers 36 (1997): 161-193, esp. 186-193. 95 Kearney, Creation and Liturgy, 375. 96 According to Fletcher-Louis, within the liturgy of the cult the high priest plays the role of creator of the universe (emphasis original).All The Glory of Adam, 74; Margaret Barker, The High Priest and the Worship of Jesus, in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism, 93-111. Regarding Philos HPL, Barker notes that The high priest was thus the second God (viz. Logos) in his earthly manifestation. Gate of Heaven, 116. 97 See Elnes, Creation and Tabernacle, 149-151; Kearney, Creation and Liturgy, 378; Levenson, Creation, 84. 98 The Temple: Its Symbolism and Meaning, Then and Now (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1995) 16. Both Philo and the rabbis remembered Bezalels demiurgic function. Regarding Philo v. above. On the Rabbis see b. Ber. 55a: Bezalel knew the letters by which heaven and earth were created, as it is written here [Exod. 35:31]: He has endowed him with a divine spirit of skill [hokm] ability [tebn], and knowledge [dt], and there [Prov. 3:19] it is written: The Lord founded the earth by wisdom [hokm]/He established the heavens by understanding [tebn], and it is written, By His knowledge [dat] the depths burst apart [Prov. 3:20]. Similarly, Midrash Tanhuma Yelammedenu 11.3: The very attributes with which the Holy One, blessed be He, created His world and fashioned man were possessed by Bezalel. And he constructed the Tabernacle. Translation by Samuel A. Berman, Midrash Tanhuma Yelammedenu (Hoboken, New Jersey; KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1996), 658. See also Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1911, 1939) 3:154ff. 99 Encyclopedia Judaica 16 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1972-) 4:786b-787, s.v. Bezalel.

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Some have taken the name Bezalel to mean in the shadow of God (bsl l). To me it also intimates in the image of God (bselem lhm) from the creation story (on the absence of the letter mem, compare the name Noah being related to the root nhm, and the name Samuel being related to the root l) And Bezalel was filled with the spirit of God, which also comes from the creation story (1:2). The allusions to creation are attractive because Bezalel, after all, as the great artist of the Torah, is the creative one, who fashions the Tabernacle and its contents, including the ark. Being creative is the ultimate imitatio Dei.100

On this reading Bezalel of the sixth speech corresponds, not only to the creator, but also to the man of day six made in the divine image. In as much as he is demiurgic, Bezalel also corresponds to Aaron, the creator analogue of this cultic drama. Through his high priestly garments Aaron, like Bezalel, is to be identified with the man in the divine image.101 Not only are there first century Jewish traditions describing Adam as the first priest and bearer of the high priestly vestments,102 such a tradition may have been known to the author of Ezekiel. The lament over the king of Tyre (28:11-19) likely alludes to a primordial Adam myth.103 The Adamic protagonist may have been referred to as a seal, a likeness, as in image/likeness of God.104 And every precious stone was (his) covering (28:13); the LXX understood this as a reference to the 12 stones on the high priests breastplate worn on the ephod.105 This may suggest a quite early tradition picturing the primordial Adam as the Image of God bedecked in high priestly attire.106 This jewel-studded ephod prescribed for Aaron in Exod 28 is probably to be understood in the light of the ANE garments of the gods motif wherein idols were adorned with splendid jewel studded garments.107 An Ugaritic cognate (iphd) to the biblical found in a Baal cycle passage possibly

Richard Elliot Friedman, Commentary on the Torah (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) 277. Fletcher-Louis, Gods Image 96. 102 C.T.R. Hayward, The Figure of Adam in Pseudo-Philos Biblical Antiguities, JSJ 23 (1992): 1-20; Stephen N. Lambden, From Fig Leaves to Fingernails: Some Notes on the Garments of Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Bible and Select Early Postbiblical Jewish Writings, in Paul Morris and Deborah Sawyer (edd.), A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden (Sheffeild: JSOT Press, 1992) 79ff. 103 Dexter E. Callender, Jr., Adam in Myth and History: Ancient Israelite Perspective on the Primal Human (Harvard Semitic Studies 48; Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2002), Chap. 3; idem, The Primal Human in Ezekiel and the Image of God, in Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong (edd.), The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000) 175-193; Herbert G. May, The King in the Garden of Eden: A Study of Ezekiel 28:12-19, in Bernhard W. Anderson and Walter Harrelson (edd.), Israels Prophetic Heritage: Essays in honor of James Muilenburg, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962) 166-176. John J. Collins recently doubted Ezek. 28s allusion to a Primordial Adam myth on the basis of the MTs description of the protagonist as a cherub (att kerb) (v. 14: Eng.): On this reading, the story to which Ezekiel refers is not about the expulsion of a human being, but the fall of a demi-god, like the story of Helal ben Shachar in Isaiah 14. (Before the Fall: The Earliest Interpretations of Adam and Eve, in Idea of Biblical Interpretation, op. cit. 295). See also James Barr, Thou art the Cherub: Ezekiel 28:14 and the Post-Ezekiel Understanding of Genesis 2-3, in Eugene Ulrich et al (edd.), Priests, Prophets and Scribes: essays on the formation and heritage of second temple Judaism in honour of Joseph Blenkinsopp (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1992), 212-223, esp. 220-222; Knud Jeppesen, You are a Cherub, but no God! SJOT 1 (1991): 83-94. Ps intratextuallity, however, already casts Adam (as Aaron/Bezalel) in a demiurgic role. 104 The text is notoriously difficult and may be corrupt. Dexter E. Callender Jr has to our mind convincingly argued for reading (perfection?) as ( form, pattern, likeness). The Primal Human in Ezekiel, 186ff. 105 See Callenders discussion, Adam in Myth and History, 102ff 106 Ibid. For a high priestly primal man here and a generally cultic background to the imagery in this passage v. also Robert R. Wilson, The Death of the King of Tyre: The Editorial History of Ezekiel 28, in John H. Marks and Robert M. Good (edd.), Love & Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope, (Guilford, Connecticut: Four Quarters Publishing Company, 1987) 211218. 107 As pointed out by Fletcher-Louis, The High Priest as Divine Mediator, 188. Cf. The Anchor Bible Dictionary 6 vols. (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992-; hereafter ABD) 2: 550, s.v. Ephod by Carol Meyers. On the ephod v. also Haran, Temples and
101

100

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denoting the gods garment strengthens this suggestion.108 This would make Aaron in his ephod correspond to the god statue in non-Israelite cultures of the ANE.109 This further connects Aaron with Adam made in the image of God, . The Hebrew term means primarily statute110 and is a cognate of the Akkadian alam ili/ilni, the common Mesopotamian term for god statues.111 Several scholars have now seen that this terminological congruence contains conceptual congruence as well. Adam was created to be the living statute of the deity.112 Adamic beings are animate iconsThe peculiar purpose for their creation is theophanic: to represent or mediate the sovereign presence of deity within the central nave of the cosmic temple, just as cult-images were supposed to do in conventional sanctuaries.113 This priestly man-as-the-true-idol/image theology, which probably informed Ps use of the term in Gen. 1:26,114 together with the ephod-as-garment-of-the-idols tradition, confirms Ps identification of Adam and Aaron,115 an identification made later by Jesus ben Sira and by the rabbis.116 3.2. Miqd dm: Adam/Aaron as Divine Sanctuary The description of the fabrication of the holy vestments in Exodus 39 invokes the seven divine speeches of Exodus 25-31 and the ten creative acts of Genesis 1.117 This would suggest that the garments, like the Tabernacle, reflected the created cosmos. This garments::cosmos correspondence appears in Philo (Spec. 1.95; Mos. II.117) and the Wisdom of Solomon (18.24), but its presence in P means it is not
Temple-Service, 166ff. On the ANE motif v. A. Leo Oppenheim, The Golden Garments of the Gods, Journal of Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 8 (1949): 172-193. 108 CTA 5.I.I-5;Fletcher-Louis, The High Priest as Divine Mediator, 188. 109 As argued by Fletcher-Louis, The High Priest as Divine Mediator, 188. 110 Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (hereafter HALOT) 5vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994-) 3:1028f, s.v. . 111 The Assyrian Dictionary (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1962) 16: 78b-80a, 84b-85a, s.v. almu. 112 Ulrich Mauser, God in Human Form, Ex Auditu 16 (2000): 81-100 (90-93; Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, The Worship of Divine Humanity as Gods Image and the Worship of Jesus, in Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism, 113-128, esp. 120-128; Herbert Niehr, In Search of Yahwehs Cult Statute in the First Temple, in The Image and the Book, 93f.; John Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 53ff. See also idem, Will the Real elem lhm Please Stand Up? The Image of God in the Book of Ezekiel, SBL 1998 Seminar Papers, 55-85, esp. 69ff; idem, Ezekiels Anthropology and its Ethical Implications, in Odell and Strong, Book of Ezekiel, 119-141, esp. 126ff; Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, 3vols., eds. Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, trs. Mark E. Biddle (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc, 1997; hereafter TLOT) 3:1080ff s.v. ,by H. Wilderger; Garrett Green, Imagining God: Theology and the Religious Imagination (San Francisco, etc.: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1989) 91-97; Edward Mason Curtis, Man as the Image of God in Genesis in the Light of Ancient Near Eastern Parallels, (diss.; University of Pennsylvania, 1984). 113 S. Dean McBride Jr., Divine Protocol: Genesis 1:1-2:3 as Prologue to the Pentateuch, in W.P. Brown and S.Dean McBride (edd.), God Who Creates: Essays in Honor of W. Sibley Towner (Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000) 16. 114 Ibid, 59ff. Pace John F.A. Sawyer, The Image of God, The Wisdom of Serpents and the Knowledge of God and Evil, in Paul Morris and Deborah Sawyer (edd.), A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden, (JSOT Supplement Series 136; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992) 66. 115 Fletcher-Louis was therefore correct when he predicted that A longer discussion would demonstrate that the Adamic identity of Aaron is fundamental to the theology of P. Jesus and the High Priest, 5 n. 13, currently published online, http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/jesus/pdf. 116 On Ben Sira v. below. On the rabbis v. Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, 11.2; Num. R. 12.13. 117 See Casper J. Labuschagne, Numerical Secrets of the Bible. Recovering the Bible Codes (North Richland Hills, Texas: BIBAL Press, 2000) 45-6; Kearney, Creation and Liturgy, 380.

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Hellenic. The chromatic and textile homology between the high priestly garments and Tabernacle drapings also suggests a correspondence between the sanctuary and Aaron.118 We thus have a

Cosmos::Tabernacle::Aaron/Adam homology: as the Tabernacle is a miniature replica of the cosmos, Adam/Aaron is a microcosmic replica of the sanctuary. This observation may illuminate an otherwise enigmatic aspect of Ps creation account (Genesis 1). The latter is regarded as a typical example of an ANE cosmogony.119 The apogee of these cosmogonies is the construction of a sanctuary for the creator god.120 This is conspicuously absent from Genesis, or so it would seem. Some scholars have understood the ANE temple to have been replaced by P with the Sabbath.121 Others suggest that the construction of the divine sanctuary was postponed by P until Sinai.122 While both of these readings have their merit, we suggest that a third alternative takes better account of the evidence of this intratextuality. Ps creation narrative, we submit, does conclude with the construction of the creator-gods sanctuary: Adam/Aaron. In addition to the homology between the high priestly garments and sanctuary drapings, there are also verbal links between Gen. 1:26 and Exod. 25:8:
And God said: Let us make ( )Adam/man as our image, according to our likeness (( 321) Gen. 1:26) And let them make me ( ) a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them, according to ( )all that I show you concerning the pattern ( )of the sanctuary (Exod. 25:8)

James Barr124 and Tryggve N.D. Mettinger125 have observed that both Adam and the Tabernacle (and Temple; cf. I Ch. 28:11f, 18f), and only these two according to P, are made according to a heavenly

118 On this homology v. Haran, Temples and Temple Service, 167, 171; Philip Peter Johnson, Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992)105, 124-128. 119 Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963) 82-140; E.A. Speiser, Genesis (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964) 8-13; Clause Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary, trns. John J. Scullion [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984] 43, 93ff. 120 Heidel, Babylonian Genesis, 127; Victor (Avigdor) Hurowitz, I have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in the Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992) 93-96. 121 Arthur Green, Sabbath as Temple: Some Thoughts on Space and Time in Judaism, in Raphael Jospe and Samuel Z. Fishman (edd.), Go and Study: Essays and Studies in Honor of Alfred Jospe (Washington D.C.: Bnai Brith Hillel Foundations, 1980) 287305; Weinfeld, Sabbath, Temple and the Enthronement,; Shimon Bakon, Creation, Tabernacle and Sabbath, Jewish Bible Quarterly 25 (1997): 79-85; Edwin Firmage, Genesis 1 and the Priestly Agenda, JSOT 82 (1999): 110. 122 See e.g. Benjamin D. Sommer, Conflicting Constructions of Divine Presence in the Priestly Tabernacle, Biblical Interpretation 9 [2001]: 43. 123 We are convinced by the arguments in favor of reading the beth in as beth essentiae. See Wildberger, ,op. cit. 1082; Stendebach, ,op. cit. 394; D.J.A. Clines, The Image of God in Man, Tyndale Bulletin 19 (1968): 76-80. On beth essentiae v. Lawrence N. Manross, Bth Essentiae, JBL 73 (1954): 238-9. On the other hand, we understand the in as kaph of the norm; we therefore do not accept the synonymity of these prepositions. In our view Clines (Image of God in Man, 76-80, 90-93) argument is still persuasive: ...there is no reason why and should be equivalent, and a perfectly satisfactory interpretation is gained by taking as as our image, to be our image and not as synonymous with ,but a explanatory of the image, that it is an image made ,according to our likeness, like us then specifies what kind of image it is: it is a likeness-image, not simply an image; representational, not simply representative (77, 91). 124 The Image of God, 16. 125 Abbild oder Urbild? Imago Dei in traditionsgeschichtlicher Sicht, ZAW 86 [1974]: 403-424, esp. 406-411; idem, Skapad till Guds avbild, STK 51 [1975]: 49-55. See also Weimar, Sinai und Schpfung, 350-352.

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prototype (Urbild; elem/tabnt). The P source had two great events in which something was made in an express analogy: firstly, man himself, created in the image of God, and, secondly, the tabernacle, built by men after a pattern revealed by God.126 As Mettinger notes, this can hardly be accidental.127 He goes on to proffer the thesis that the heavenly prototype in Genesis (the elem)128 refers to the heavenly beings who carry out worship in the heavenly temple.129 It seems to us that this surprising analogy between man and the Tabernacle130 is more easily explainable by the clear pattern we have discerned in Ps use of this intertextuality. The Adam/Aaron::Tabernacle homology strongly suggests that P intends to present the first man as the first divine sanctuary. A closer look at Ps imago Dei theology will provide further support for our suggestion. Scholarly interpretations of Gen.1:26-7 are numerous and divergent.131 Recent studies, however, have made it clear that Ps elem is the Mesopotamian almu.132 The latter was distinguished by its ambivalent godnot god identity.133 The ANE cult statue was not only a representative replica of the god; it was also the dwelling place of that gods essence/spirit.134 It was not considered to resemble an original reality

Barr, op. cit. op. cit. 408 128 Mettinger reads as according to our image (beth of the norm) and thus understands elem as the prototype (Abbild oder Urbild? 411). But as Phyllis A. Bird correctly pointed out (Male and Female He Created Them: Gen 1:27b in the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation, HTR 74 [1981]: 142 n. 34), elem/almu is always the copy, not the original (unless, of course, you are Philo). In our view, the divine model is alluded to in according to our likeness. See Clines, Image of God in Man, 77. 129 (Abbild oder Urbild?, 407, 410-11; Mettinger, Skapad till Guds avbild,54. 130 Mettinger, Skapad till Guds avbild, 51 131 The literature is of course too vast to do justice to in a short note. For a history of interpretations up to 1982 v. Gunnlaugur A. Jnsson, The Image of God: Genesis 1:26-28 in a Century of Old Testament Research (CB.OT, 26; Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International, 1988) and the research cited there. Of special note since 1982 are the following: George Arthur Buttrick et al (edd.), The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962; hereafter IDB) 2:682-684 s.v. Image of God, by N.W. Porteous; TDOT 12:386-392 s.v. by Stendebach; TLOT 3:1080-1082, s.v. by H. Wildberger; Bird, Male and Female; John F. Sawyer, The Image of God, the Wisdom of Serpents, and the Knowledge of Good and Evil, in Paul Morris and Deborah Sawyer (edd.), A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden (Sheffeild: JSOT Press, 1992) 64-73; Johannes C. de Moor, The Duality in God and Man: Gen. 1:26-27 as Ps Interpretation of the Yahwistic Creation Account, in Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel (OTS, 40; Leiden; Boston: Brill, 1998) 112-125; 132 See above nn. 114-115; HALOT 3:1028-1029; DDD s.v. Image, by A. Livingstone, 448-450; Samuel E. Loewenstamm, Beloved is Man in that he was created in the Image, in idem, Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures (AOAT, 204; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980) 48-50. 133 See especially T. Jacobsen, The Graven Image, in P.D. Miller Jr., P.D. Hanson and S.D. McBride (edd.), Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987) 15-32, esp. 16-20. 134 K.H. Bernhardt, Gott und Bild. Ein Beitrag zur Begrndung und Deutung des Bildererbotes im Alten Testament (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1956) 17-68; David Lorton, The Theology of Cult Statues in Ancient Egypt, in Michael B. Dick (ed.), Born in Heaven, Made on Earth: The Making of the Cult Image in the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1999) 123-210, esp. 179-184; Michael B. Dick, The Relationship between the Cult Image and the Deity in Mesopotamia, in Ji Proseck (ed.), Intellectual Life of the ancient Near East: Papers Presented at the 43rd Rencontre assyriologique international, Prague, July 1-5, 1996 (Prague: Oriental Institute, 1998) 11-16; Curtis, Man as the Image of God, 97-102.
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that was present elsewhere but to contain that reality in itself.135 It was the almus roles as both image and divine abode that justified its treatment as the god for whom it was a representative.136 The process by which the idol was incarnated by the divine spirit, the so-called ms p (Washing-ofthe-mouth) or pit p (Opening-of-the-mouth) ritual,137 is thought by a number of scholars to be behind the imagery of Gen. 2:7b: then the LORD GOD formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (NOAB).138 Though the creation narrative of Genesis 2 dose not use the term elem (or demuth), there can be no doubt that the imago concept is present.139 Thus, the composite narrative (Gen. 1-2)140 presents us with a picture strikingly reminiscent of ANE cult tradition: a elem is made for/by the deity141 from mundane materials into which that deity subsequently enters and dwells.142 This indwelling enlivens the elem, making it/him god and king.143 We may thus have here the biblical justification for the later tradition of Adams heavenly enthronement and worship by the angels. In the Latin Life of Adam and Eve (Vita Adae et Evae) God commands the angels in heaven regarding Adam: Worship the Image of Yahweh (14:3)! As the very Imago of God, Adam is here the object of cultic veneration, as the temple language and imagery makes clear.144

Zainab Bahrani, The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) 127. See also Stendebach (TDOT 12:389 sv. :)The cult statue of a god is the actual body in which that deity dwells. 136 See Irene J. Winter, Idols of the King: Royal Images as Recipients of Ritual Action in Ancient Mesopotamia, Journal of Ritual Studies 6 (Winter 1992):13-42; Curtis, Man as the Image of God, 103-106. On this ANE practice and its biblical parody v. Michael B. Dick, Prophetic Parodies of Making the Cult Image, in Born in Heaven, 1-53. 137 See Christopher Walker and Michael B. Dick, The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian ms p Ritual, in Born in Heaven, 55-121. On the Egyptian ritual v. Lorton, The Theology of Cult Statues in Ancient Egypt,153-158. 138 Edward L. Greenstein, Gods Golem: The Creation of the Human in Genesis 2, in Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman (edd.), Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (JSOT Supplement Series 319; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 219239 (224-229); James K. Hoffmeier, Some Thoughts on Genesis 1 & 2 and Egyptian Cosmogony, JANES 15 (1983): 46-48; Walter Wifall, The Breath of His Nostrils: Gen 2:7b, CBQ 36 (1974): 237-240; Cyrus Gordon, Khnum and El, in Sarah Israelit-Groll (ed.), Egyptological Studies (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1982): 202-214 (204-5); Abraham Shalom Yahuda, The Accuracy of the Bible (London: William Heineman Ltd., 1934) 152. See also Gregory Yuri Glazov, The Bridling of the Tongue and the Opening of the Mouth in Biblical Prophecy (JSOT Supplemental Series 311; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 2001). 139 Iain Provan, To Highlight All Our Idols: Worshipping God in Nietzches World, Ex Auditu 15 (1999): 25-26; Greenstein, Gods Golem, 228-9; Sawyer, The Image of God, 64-66; Kim, Significance, 13-15. 140 As arranged by the final redactor. On reading Genesis I and 2 as parts of a (redacted) whole v. Sawyer, Image of God, 64-5. 141 On the ritual attribution of the creation of the cult statute to the deity v. Walker and Dick, Induction; Dick, Relationship, 113116. 142 On the divine entering the form of the statue v. Winter, Idols of the King, 23; Dick, Relationship, 113-114; Curtis, Man as Image of God, 97-99. 143 On made from dust in Gen. 2 as a biblical metaphor for enthronement v. Walter Brueggemann, From Dust to Kingship, ZAW 84 (1972): 1-18. I. Engell already read Gen 1:26-8 as a description of a divine, enthroned Adam: see Knowledge and Life in the Creation Story, in M. Noth and D. Winton Thomas (edd.), Wisdom in Israel and In The Ancient Near East Presented to Harold Henry Rowley (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1955) 112. 144 As persuasively argued by Corrine L. Patton, Adam as the Image of God: An Exploration of the Fall of Satan in the Life of Adam and Eve, SBL 1994 Seminar Papers: 296ff. See also Jarl Fossum, The Adorable Adam of the Mystics and the Rebuttals of the Rabbis, in Geschichte-Tradition-Reflexion (Tubingen : J C B Mohr, 1996) 529-539; D. Steenburg, The Worship of Adam and Christ as the Image of God, JSNT 39 (1990): 95-109.

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Crispin Flectcher-Louis describes Genesis 1 as an incarnational cosmology.145 If our reading of Ps imago Dei theology is correct, this characterization would be justified.146 But what is most important here is that Adam, as elem of God, is the abode of God as well. Late texts provide evidence that the statue of ama was considered to be a place of epiphany of the sun-god147: the parallel with the Israelite Tabernacle/Tent of Meeting cannot be missed. Adam is therefore the first divine sanctuary. It may well be this Priestly Adam-as-Tabernacle tradition that lay behind Philos and the NTs Temple of the Body metaphor, and not the Hellenism of the Stoics.148 If so, the Gospel of Johns presentation of the possibly high priestly Jesus149 as the living abode of God on earth, the fulfillment of all the temple meant150 should not be seen as a decisive break with or radical revision of the cultic tradition of Israel.151 Nor can we assume that John152 took this motif from earlier Christian tradition.153 If John was priestly, as has been argued,154 it is likely that the precedent for his Temple Christology was Ps Aaron/Adam-as-Tabernacle tradition. Indeed, the early worship of Jesus by Jewish Christians is probably predicated on the Jewish worship in Second Temple times of the high priest as the Image and Glory of God, the latter phenomenon

Image of God, 84, 99. We thus need to ammened Norbert Lohfinks statement that Ps conception of Gods nearness in cult must be supplemented by the New Testaments conviction of Gods nearness in the person of Christ. Creation and salvation in Priestly theology, Theological Digest 30 (Spring, 1982): 5. P combines Gods nearness in cult and person, the person of the high priest. 147 Gebhard Selz, The Holy Drum, the Spear, and the Harp. Towards an Understanding of the Propblem of Deification in Third Millennium Mesopotamia, in I. Finkel and M.Gellers (edd.), Sumerian Gods and Their Representations (Grnigen: Styx Publications, 1997) 183. 148 Pace K.G. Kuhn, Les Rouleaux de Cuivre de Qumrn RB 61 (1954): 203 n. 1 followed by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Qumrn and the Interpolated Passage in 2 Cor. 6,14-7,1, CBQ 23 (1961): 277. On Philo v. Somn. 1.21-34, 146-149, 225; Opif. 145f; Sobr. 62 (soul as temple of God); see also R.J. McKelvey, The New Temple: The Church in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969) 54-5. Paul: 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; Col. 1:19; see also McKelvey, loc. cit. 98-107; Jennifer A. Harris, The Body as Temple in the High Middle Ages, in Sacrifices in Religious Experience, op. cit. 232-256. Gospel of John: 1:14; 2:19-21; Alan R. Kerr, The Temple of Jesus Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (JSOT Supplemental Series, 220; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 2002); Mary L. Coloe, God Dwells With Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2001); Jarl E. Fossum, In the Beginning was the Name: Onomanology as the Key to Johannine Christology, in his The Image of the Invisible God (NTOA 30; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995) 121ff; McKelvey, loc. cit. 75-84; Harris, loc. cit.; Lars Hartman, He spoke of the Temple of His Body (Jn 2:13-22), Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok 54 (1989):70-79. On this Temple of the Body motif in Jewish tradition v. also C.R.A. Morray-Jones, The Temple Within: The Embodied Divine Image and its Worship in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish and Christian Sources, SBL 1998 Seminar Papers Series, 400-427. Morray-Jones has discerned a five-fold homology in this early Jewish motif: Divine Image::Body::Temple::Cosmos::Community (see graph on page 427). 149 Whether or not John presents a high priestly Jesus is debated, but we are persuaded that he does. See Kerr, Temple of Jesus Body, 314-370; Coloe, God Dwells, 201-206; John Paul Heil, Jesus as the Unique High Priest in the Gospel of John, CBQ 57 (1995): 729745. See also Fletcher-Louis, Jesus the High Priest,; Joseph E. Zimmerman, Jesus of Nazareth: High Priest of Israel's Great Fall Festival--The Day of Atonement, Evangelical Journal 17 (Fall 1999): 49-59. 150 D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991) 182. 151 Characterizations employed by Kerr, Temple of Jesus Body, 32, 133, 166, 373. 152 By John I mean the anonymous author of the Gospel of John. 153 Coloe, God Dwells, 12. Mark Kinzer (Temple Christology in the Gospel of John, SBL 1998 Seminar Papers [Missoula, Mont. Scholars Press, 1998] 447-463, esp. 458-60) was also unable to find a Jewish Temple tradition paralleling Johns Temple Christology. 154 See esp. Kerr, Temple of Jesus Body, 8-18; Kinzer Temple Christology, 461-63.
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clearly based on Ps imago Dei theology.155 Relevant too must be the ancient Near and Far Eastern tradition of the Temple as the anthropomorphic body of God.156 Gary Anderson has done interesting work on a theology of the tabernacle and its furniture giving evidence of a Second Temple Jewish theologoumenon in which the tabernacle and its furniture were identified with the observable form of God so closely that it was impossible to divide with surgical precision the house of God from the being of God.157 3.3. The High Priestly Garments and Divine Glory The relevance of this Temple-as-Body (Divine) motif to our study is suggested by those traditions identifying the temple veil and/or curtains with the divine flesh or skin: Philo,158 the Epistle to the Hebrews (10:20),159 the Protoevangelium of James,160 and the rabbis161 are examples. The chromatic homology between the Tabernacle drappings and the high priestly garments has been noted. For Philo, the HPL draped in his colored vestments is the anthropomorphic god of the Bible, Yahweh, incarnate in a material body. The high priestly garments served as metaphors for this body. There is no explicit indication in the Pentateuch that P employed this metaphor. There are suggestive hints, however. The garments were given

See esp. Crispin H. P. Fletcher-Louis, Alexander the Greats Worship of the High Priest, in Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Wendy E.S. North (edd.), Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (London: T&T Clark International, 2004) 71-102; idem, The Worship of Divine Humanity,; Barker, The High Priest and the Worship of Jesus. 156 See e.g. Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad, Image of the World and Symbol of the Creator: On the Cosmological and Iconological Values of the Temple of Edfu (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1985); Stella Kramrish, The Temple as Purusa, in Pramod Chandra (ed) Studies in Indian Temple Architecture, (American Institute of Indian Studies, 1975) 40-46. 157 According to Andersons reading, the tabernacle and its furniture constitute the theophanic form in that seeing them was tantamount to seeing Gods very being. This research was apparently part of a 2004 paper presented at the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature and is currently posted on the latters website: http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/symposiums/ 9th/papers/AndersonPaper.pdf. This temple-as-body of God motif will later resurface in kabbalistic writings: Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses our master, peace be upon him: Tell the Israelite people to bring me [gifts] (Ex. 25:2), they should make me a body and soul for [their] God and I will take bodily form (etgashem) in it. Elliot Wolfson comments: According to this text, the Tabernacle functioned as the sacred space in which the divine assumed bodily or concrete form. See Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 64 n. 51. 158 The incorporeal world (i.e. the Holy of Holies/devir) is set off and separated from the visible one (i.e. the Holy Place/ heikhal) by the mediating Logos as by a veil (QE II. 94). As the mediating veil, the Logos is a duality whose very nature consists of both invisible (i.e. incorporeal) and visible substance (Ibid; see also Her. 205-206; Mos. II, 127). The visible substance is no doubt represented by the veil itself. According to Philo (QE II.56), the sense-perceptible sphere of existence has two sides: a light, upwardtending substance (air, ether), and a heavy, downward extending substance (earth, water). The veil, he says, is (made of) the ethereal and airy substance (QE II. 91). 159 On the difficult passage 10:20 v. Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989)285ff; N.H. Young, TOYT ETIN TH APKO AYTOY (Heb. X.20): Apposition, Dependent or Explicative, New Testament Studies 20 (1973-74): 100-104. 160 In the Protoevangelium of James (11, 12), a second century Christian text, Mary is pictured at the moment of the Annunciation spinning a skein of purple wool in order to weave a new temple veil, an allusion to the flesh of the Christ child. On the Protoevangelium of James v. New Testament Apocrypha, Volume I: Gospels and Related Writings, eds. Wilhelm Schneemelcher and R. Mcl. Wilson (Cambridge and Louisville, KY: James Clarke & Co. Ltd and Westminster/John Know Press, 1991) 421-439; Harm Reinder Smid, Protevangelium Jacobi: A Commentary (Assen, 1965), esp. 75-83. For this reading of the Protoevangelium of James v. Nicholas Constas discussion, The Purple Thread and the Veil of the Flesh: Symbols of Weaving in the Sermons of Proclus, in his Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2003) 325ff; Margaret Barker, The Veil as the Boundary, in idem, the Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy (London: T&T Clark, 2003) 211. On the temple veil and incarnation in Christian theology and iconography v. Hlne Papastavrou, Le voile, symbol de lIncarnation: Contribution une etude smantique, Cahiers Archeologiques 41 (1993): 141-168. 161 See below and Raphael Patai, Man and Temple in Ancient Jewish Myth and Ritual (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1967), 114.

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by God to be for glory ( )and beauty (( )Exod. 28:2, 40), presumably of the high priest. But in P these terms, particularly ,have special significance. The latter denotes the fiery, anthropomorphic form of Yahweh162 hidden behind a black cloud (nn/arpel), also likely anthropomorphic.163 Elsewhere in the HB and its synonyms ( , , ,etc.) are described as garments of the divine (Ps. 93:1; 104:1f).164 In the Akkadian pulu melammu awe-inspiring splendor, which a number of scholars associate with the and its cloud,165 we have a fine parallel to the semantic nuances of the Hebrew Kavod: the pulu ( )is conceived of as a fiery garment of the gods that also signifies the latters self and corporeal shape.166 We also find in the HB the claim that the Spirit of God put on or donned ( ,qal) a particular human being as if he were a garment (Judg. 6:34; I Chr. 12:18; 2 Chr. 24:20).167 We have seen that such a pre-Christian incarnational motif is operative in Ps imago Dei theology as well.168 It therefore does no violence to biblical tradition if we suggest that Aarons splendid vestments may have been understood by P as the glorious Body Divine, the incarnate body, if you will.169

On the anthropomorphic Kavod of P and priestly tradition v. Moshe Weinfeld (Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School [Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972] 191-209, esp. 200-206; idem, TDOT 7:31-33 s.v. ;Tryggve N.D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kavod Theologies (CWK Gleerup, 1982) Chapters Three and Four; J. E. Fossum, Glory, DDD 348-52; A. Joseph Everson, Ezekiel and the Glory of the Lord Tradition, in Sin, Salvation, and the Spirit, ed. Daniel Durken (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1979): 163-176; Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 The Anchor Bible (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1983), 52f; idem, Ezekiels Vision: Literary and Iconographic Aspects, in History, Historiography and Interpretation eds. H. Tadmor and M. Weinfeld (Jerusalem and Leiden: The Image Press, the Hebrew University and E.J. Brill, 1983): 159-168; Kasher, Anthropomorphism, Holiness and Cult, 192-194; Andrei A. Orlov, Ex 33 on Gods Face: A Lesson from the Enoch Tradition, SBL Seminar Papers 39 (2000): 130-147. G. von Rad (C. in the OT, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel [trns. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids, Michigan: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1964-]; hereafter TDNT 2:241) and recently Israel Knohl (The Sanctuary of Silence: the Priestly Torah and the Holiness School [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995] 128-137) sought to distance Ezekiels anthropomorphic Kavod from Ps abstract Kavod. But such an inclination is predicated upon the old presupposition that Ps theology is antianthropomorphic. This presupposition is baseless. John Kutsko has demonstrated that both P and Ezekiel share a common imago Dei theology (v. above) which presupposes anthropomorphism or, better, theomorphism: Adams form is a likeness (demuth) of Gods. On the anthropomorphic cloud v. below. 163 George Mendenhall in 1973 discerned a religio-historical connection between Ps ammd nn, pillar of cloud, the biblical Malk YHWH tradition and the Akkadian pulu melammu. The ammd nn and malak, Mendenhall argued, were conceptually equivalent and interchangeable, both denoting Yahwehs manifestation in human, sense-perceptible experience. As the malk is Yahwehs anthropomorphic manifestation (see now Kugle, God of Old, 5-36; Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, Chap. Three; Hannah, Michael and Christ, Chap. 1; DDD, s.v. Angel of Yahweh, by S. A. Meier, 53-58), we would expect the ammd nn to be so as well. This expectation is only heightened by the latters correlation with the Akkadian pulu melammu, which suggests the corporeal form of the Mesopotamian deities (see below n. 168). See George Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation. The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1973) 32-66. See also Freedman and Willoughbys discussion in TDOT 11:190f, s.v. ammd: V. The Pillar of Fire and of Cloud: The form of the pillar is described by the word nn, a cloud-like covering enveloping and concealing the deityEx:19 apparently shows that the pillar of cloud and fire is the same manifestation of Yahweh as the malak helhm. See also Fossum, Name of God, 223ff. On cloud as a metaphor for the body divine in later Jewish literature v. below. On the role of the dark cloud in biblical theophany narratives v. Paul Allen Smith, An Investigation of the Relationship of Theophanies to Gods Concealment by Clouds in the Old Testament, unpublished Ph.D dissertation, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994. 164 See Weinfeld, ;82 ,TDOT 3:335-337 s.v. ,by Warmuth. 165 Weinfeld, ;13-92 ,Mendenhall, Tenth Generation, op. cit. 166 A. L. Oppenheim, Akkadian pul (u) (t)u and melammu, JAOS 63 (1943): 31-34. 167 See esp. discussion in Kim, Significance, 25-28. 168 J.M. Meyers (I Chronicles [AB; New York: Doubleday, 1979 (1965)] 97) describes this HB motif of the Spirit of God putting on a person a forerunner of the idea of incarnation. 169 As we find, for example, in those Christian traditions that compare the pre-Easter body of Christ with the high priestly robe. Clement of Alexandria (2nd century) notes a tradition (and they say) in which the robe prophesied the ministry in the flesh by which

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This reading of P is of course speculative. There is, however, Second Temple evidence indicating a priestly tradition of interpreting these garments as metaphor for Gods body.170 The (possibly) priestly author Jesus ben Sira171 (second century B.C.E.), who seems to have known this theology behind Ps intratextuality,172 presented the high priest Simon II as a new Adam and cultic analogue to the creator deity.173 In his cultic function and clothed in his vestments of glory, the high priest (Aaron/Simon) was the very image of the Creator.174 As Otto Mulder observed: Simon mirrors Gods glory in a worthy manner in his service and his radiance as High Priest.175 A number of scholars have observed that Ben Sira seems to understand the high priest in these garments as Gods anthropomorphic Glory as seen by the priest Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:28)176: the rainbow-like appearance of the latter is reflected in the variegated colors of the high priestly robe and ephod. 177 The priestly defectors from the Jerusalem Temple who established a yaad (community) at Qumran seem likewise to have identified the colored vestments of the high priest with Gods rainbow-like glory. In the 12th and 13th Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q405 20 ii-21-22; 23 ii), Ezekiels vision of the Kavod is
he (Christ) was made visible (Stromateis V 39, 2). Proclus of Constantinople (sed. 434-46) described the womb of Mary as a workshop in which was the awesome loom on which the purple robe of incarnation, i.e. the flesh of God, was woven (See Nicholas Constas discussion, Weaving the Body of God: Proclus of Constantinople, the Theotokos, and the Loom of the Flesh, Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 169-194; idem, The Purple Thread, 325ff). The comparison was quite popular in Syriac Christian circles (See Brock, Clothing Metaphors, 18). 170 On the high priest as the visible image of God in Second Temple traditions v. now Crispin H. P. Fletcher-Louis, Gods Image. 171 H. Stadelmann, Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter (WUNT 6; Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1980). 172 Fletcher-Louis, The Cosmology of P, op. cit. 1-51; idem, All The Glory of Adam, 74ff; idem, Wisdom Christology, 52-68, esp. 58ff. On the common priestly ideology between Ben Sira and P v.Saul M. Olyan, Ben Siras Relationship to the Priesthood, HTR 80 (1987): 261-86. 173 In Chapter 50 of his Wisdom (Hebrew and Greek). As New Adam and embodiment of primordial divine Wisdom v Hayward, The Jewish Temple, 45ff, 52f; idem, Sacrifice and World Order: Some Observations on Ben Siras Attitude to the Temple Service, in Sacrifice and Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology, ed. S.W. Sykes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 27ff; James K. Aitken, The Semantics of Glory in Ben Sira-Traces of a Development in Post-biblical Hebrew? in Sirach, Scrolls, and Sages: Proceedings of a Second International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, and the Mishnah, held at Leiden University, 15-17 December 1997, eds. T. Muraoka and J.F. Elwolde (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 3-24, esp. 4ff. On Simon II as cultic manifestation of the Creator God v. Hayward (The Jewish Temple, 80) who suggests, regarding the Greek text 50:19, that the high priests completion of the order, kosmos, of the daily sacrificebelongs to the same sort of continuum as Gods ordering of the works of creation. See also Fletcher-Louis, The Cosmology of P, 33ff; idem, All The Glory of Adam, 68ff; idem, Some Reflections on Angelomorphic Humanity Texts Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Dead Sea Discoveries 7 (2000): 293ff; idem, Wisdom Christology, 56ff; Barker, The High Priest and the Worship of Jesus, 101ff. James K. Aitken, loc. cit. noted also In the portrayal of Aaron in Sir. 45 we may also find divine attributes of God transferred to the priest (11). 174 Fletcher-Louis, The Worship of Divine Humanity, 127; idem, All The Glory of Adam, 70. 175 Regarding the Hebrew. Simon the High Priest in Sirach 50: An Exegetical Study of the Significance of Simon the High Priest as Climax to the Praise of the Fathers in Ben Siras Concept of the History of Israel (Leiden: Brill, 2003) 199. Mulder does not, however, discuss this text in the context of this intratextuality nor Simon II as cultic creator, but as builder of the Temple (according to Sirach 50:1-4). See ibid., 102. 176 In the Hebrew 50:5, 7 the high priest Simon II is compared to a bow that appears in a cloud, which identifies him with the anthropomorphic Kavod seen by Ezekiel who was described like the bow in the cloud on a rainy day (Ezek 1:28). On this identification v. Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 19; Fletcher-Louis, The Cosmology of P, 40; idem, Wisdom Christology, 56; idem. All The Glory of Adam, 72; P. W. Skehan and A.A. DiLella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (ABC 39; New York: Doubleday, 1987) 552. 177 Ben Sira (Sir 50:5-21) is describing the high priest conducting the daily Whole-Offering (Tamid), or maybe during Rosh Hashanah (as argued by Mulder, Simon the High Priest, 168-175), but not likely Yom Kippur as was commonly assumed. Thus, the garments described are the glorious ornamented garments, not the simple linen tunic of Yom Kippur. See Hayward, The Jewish Temple, 49-51; Featghas Fearghail, Sir 50,5-21: Yom Kippur or the Daily Whole-Offering? Biblica 59 (1978): 301-316. On the rainbow-like Kavod v. below.

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reworked.178 The divine Glory is described as a [ra]diant substance, with glorious mingled colors, wonderfully hued (4Q405 20 ii-21-22 lines 10-11) and many-colored ( )as a work of a weaver (4 ;Q405 23 ii line 7).179 These descriptions associate the Glory of God with the colors of the high priestly robe.180 Whether or not the Songs intend to identify the (angelic/human?) high priests of the 13th Song with Gods anthropomorphic Glory, as Fletcher-Louis has argued,181 the divine appearance is certainly reflected in the high priestly garments.182 3.4. Adam/Aaron as Divine Schattenbild The Akkadian almu means both image/statue and black, the latter meaning deriving from its verbal form almu, to become dark, to turn black.183 This semantic duality is found also in the Hebrew root lm (lm I: image/statue; lm II: dark, darkness, from lam II: to be dark).184 In an exhaustive philological study in 1972 I.H. Eybers suggested taking the Hebrew elem as el (shadow, dark image) expanded by the enclitic mem.185 Marshalling an impressive amount of comparative material Eybers concluded: Taking all the data into consideration the meaning of lm in Gen. 1:26-27 could be that man is a shadowy (and therefore weak) replica and creation of God.186 Earlier, Pierre Bordreuil, also noting the etymological relationship between the Hebrew elem and Akkadian almu,187 argued for a conceptual link between Gen. 1:26-27 and the ANE (specifically Mesopotamian) characterization of the king as both

178 See the discussions by Christopher Rowland, The Visions of God in Apocalyptic Literature, JSJ 10 (1979): 142-145; idem, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982) XXX; Carol Newsom, Merkabah Exegesis in the Qumran Sabbath Shirot, JJS 38 (1987): 11-30. James R. Davila, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Merkavah Mysticism, in Timothy H. Lim et al (edd.), The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000) 249-64. 179 On these passages and there association with the Kavod v. Carol Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) 315; idem, Shirot Olat Hashabbat, in Qumran Cave 4: VI, Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1 (DJD 11; ed. E. Eshel et al.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1998) 352; Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 19f. Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, Heavenly ascent or incarnational presence: a revisionist reading of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, SBL Seminar Papers Seris 37 (1998) 367-399, esp. 385f, 389f; idem, All the Glory of Adam, 346f, 366f. Newsom took 4( Q405 23 ii line 7) as an ellipsis for spirits clothed with multicolored garments (Songs, 336), but Fletcher-Louis rightly rejects this reading (All the Glory of Adam, 366). 180 Ibid. As Newsom (Songs, 336) noted, in 4Q405 23 ii line 7 is likely phonetic orthography of ,used in connection with the high priestly robe in Exod. 28:32; 39:22, 27. Newsom found it puzzling, however, that in the Songs the blue robe is described as multicolored .We find the same peculiarity in Philo; he too describes the robe as variegated: QE II, 107; Mos. II, 110. Such a description probably takes into consideration the hem of the robe which is multi-colored. 181 Heavenly Ascent, 393f; idem, All the Glory of Adam, 373ff. 182 Newsom, Merkabah Exegesis, 27; Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 19f. 183 CAD 16:70,77-85. 184 HALOT, 3:1028-1029 s.v. ;TDOT 12:396 s.v. by Niehr. 185 I.H. Eybers, The Root -L in Hebrew Words, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 2 (1972): 23-36 (29-32). See also International Standard Bible Encyclopedia 4vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 1979-; hereafter ISBE) 4:440 s.v. Shade; Shadow, by G. Chamberlain. 186 Eybers, The Root -L, 32 n. 2. 187 The first to propose such as relation seems to have been the Assyrologist Friedrich Delitzsch who described elem as a Babylonian loanword: Prolegomena eines neuen hebrisch-aramischen Wrterbuchs (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1886) 141. On denials of such a relation v. below n. 193.

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image of a god and as residing in that gods (protective) shadow.188 Adam, therefore, was created in tant quimage dElohim and dans lombra paisse dElohim.189 The relation of lm II and el to Gen.1:26-27 has been disputed.190 However, a connection between lm II and el is probable191 and comparative philological evidence makes a connection with elem likely.192 The fact that Ps elem is the lexical and conceptual equivalent of the Akkadian almu suggests that we should expect the former to exhibit the same semantic range as the latter.193 Also, Ps intratextual paralleling of Adam the Image of God with Bezalel the shadow of God may further indicate that this semantic nuance was known by P.194 Thus, as with Philo Adam is both image and shadow of God, his shadow

188 Pierre Bordreuil, A LOmbre DElohim: Le theme de lombre protectrice dans lAncien Orient et ses rapports avec LImago Dei, Revue dHistoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 46 (1996): 368-391. 189 Ibid., 390. 190 Two relevant issues were actually debated: (1) whether lm II to be/become dark ever existed in Hebrew or Northwest Semitic (NWS) at all and: (2) if so, whether it was in any way related to elem. This discussion often focused on the much disputed term (Jer. 2:6; Pss. 44:20; 23:4; Job 16:16; 38:17; v. discussion in D. Winton Thomas, in the Old Testament, JSS 7 [1962]: 191200). After Friedrich Delitzschs initial suggestion in 1886 of a elem/almu (black) relation, he was disputed by his father, OT scholar Franz Delitzsch (New Commentary on Genesis [Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1888-89] 1:91. The longest lasting rebuttal came from Theodor Nldeke, first in a review of Friedrich Delitzschs Wrterbuchs (ZDMG 40 (1886): 733-34) and latter in an article devoted to the subject ( und ,ZAW 17 [1897]:183-187). Nldeke doubted the existence of a Hebrew lm II to be/become dark and derived elem from an Arabic slm meaning to cut off (on the denial of a NWS lm II v. also J.F.A. Sawyer, Review of W.L. Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament in JSS 17 [1972] 257; D.J.A. Clines, The Etymology of Hebrew elem, JNSL 3 (1973):23-25; Walter L. Michel, LMWT, Deep Darkness or Shadow of Death? Biblical Research 29 [1984]: 5-13). The weakness of this Arabic derivation has been adequately demonstrated (Bordreuil, A LOmbre DElohim, 368372; James Barr, The Image of God in the Book of Genesis-A Study of Terminology, BJRL 51 (1968): 18-22; idem, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament [1st ed.; Oxford, 1968; repr. With additions and corrections: Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1987] 375-380; Eybers, The Root -L, 31-32; Clines, Etymology, 19-21) and the existence of a NWS lm II to be/become dark has been affirmed and accepted (Paul Humbert, Etudes sur le recit du paradis et de la chute dans la Genesis (Mmoires de lUniversit de Neuchatel 14, 1940) 156; Baruch Margalit, A Matter of "Life" and "Death": A Study of the Baal-Mot Epic (CTA 4-5-6) [Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980] 72 n. 1; HALOT 3:1028 s.v. ; TDOT 12: 396 s.v. by Niehr; Chaim Cohen, The Meaning of Darkness: A Study in Philological Method, in Michael V. Fox et al (edd.), Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran [Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1996] 287309). James Barr (Comparative Philology, 375) noted in 1987 that by that time the derivation of from a Hebrew root lm to be/become dark had become so completely accepted that some works have ceased to mention that the older tradition of meaning (viz. shadow of death) ever existed. Cf. Michel, loc. cit. 5. 191 Pace Nldeke, und 581 ,and Clines, Etymology, 21-22. el is thought to derive from the basic form to be/become dark; cf. Ar. ll IV, Eth. salala II, Akk. illn. See TDOT 12:372-73 s.v. ;B. Halper, The Participial Formations of the Geminate Verbs, ZAW 30 (1910): 216. On v. further: The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (1906; Peabody, Mass. : Hendrickson Publishers, 1996; hereafter BDB) 853 s.v. III ;HALOT 3:1027 s.v. III ;Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, ed. Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985; hereafter KBL) 804b s.v. III .On the Ar. ll IV v. E.W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon 2 vols. (Cambridge, England : Islamic Texts Society, 1984) 2: 1914 s.v. . On the Akk. illn v. CAD 16: 188 s.v. illn. 192 See e.g.: Akk. almu black::image/statue and illu shadow::likeness (in a transferred sense; v. CAD 16:190 s.v. illu); Old South Arabic lm/lm darkness/black::image/statue (see A.F.L. Beeston et al, Sabaic Dictionary (Louvain-la-Neuve: Editions Peeters; Beyrouth: Librairie du Liban, 1982) 143, 172. Thus Sawyer, The Image of God, The Wisdom of Serpents and the Knowledge of God and Evil, 66; Eybers, The Root -L, 29-32; Barr, The Image of God, 21. Pace most recently Wildberger, TLOT 3:1080, s.v. ;Stendebach, TDOT 12:388, s.v. . 193 Thus Barr (The Image of God, 21), preferring to see two different but homonymous Hebrew roots at work here, acknowledged that by the time of P the semantic content came to overlap, the component image and the component dark, obscure reality coming to penetrate one another. See also J.F.A. Sawyer, who in 1972 was doubtful of a Hebrew cognate to Akkadian almu (Review of W.L. Holladay, op. cit.), argued in 1992: It is much more likely that the term tselem is used here (Gen. 1.26-27) in its older sense of shadow, dream, as in two Psalms on the subject of human nature (Ps. 39.6; 73.20): The Image of God, The Wisdom of Serpents and the Knowledge of God and Evil, 66. 194 We are reading with Beth essentiae as the parallel with Gen. 1:26-7 suggests.

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picture.195 elems relation to a root meaning to be/become black/dark recalls also the dimming of Philos Logos as it entered the sense-perceptible cosmos.196 We have seen above that this somatic descent of the Logos is associated by Philo with a complex of themes including the Logos as Shadow of God, as Man after the Image, and as cosmic high priest draped in the cosmic elements. 4. Summary: Part I Ps intratextuality implies a theological anthropology remarkably reminiscent, avant la lettre, of Philos HPL doctrine. Adam is implicitly presented as the high priestly, demiurgic Image and Shadow of God ministering within the cosmic Temple.197 This divine, prelapsarian Adam is garbed in the ornate cosmic garments of the high priest.198 Internal evidence along with the evidence of Second Temple priestly traditions, some of which show a relation to P, suggests that these garments might have a somatic significance in P as they do in Philo. As with Philo, Ps Adam is the divine sanctuary into which the divine spirit entered and took up residence. Ps Adam subtly effaces the Creator/creature distinction,199 just as Philos HPL stands on that border and whose nature mediates between the two.200 These remarkable parallels between P and Philo can, in our view, only be adequately accounted for by assuming Philos knowledge of a priestly tradition similar to, if not identical with that implied by P. Questions remain however. What exactly is the point of symbolizing or identifying the Body Divine or Kavod with the high priestly robe and its colors? How exactly does this association relate to the more prominent description of the Kavod as luminous? Are these conflicting traditions? An examination of the rabbinic, mystical (Heikhalot) and kabbalistic reception of this ancient priestly tradition will provide answers to these questions. To these we now turn.

195 N.W. Porteous, Image of God, Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, 4 vols. (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962-; hereafter IDB) II:683. In his discussion of Poimandres in 1935 C. H. Dodd (The Bible and the Greeks [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935] 157-8, n. 1), observing that the Greek terms and used with regard to the divine Anthropos corresponded with the biblical and used in the creation account of Adam (Gen. 1:26-7), noted: certainly there is an old exegetical tradition according to which and in Genesis mean likeness and shadow respectively, corresponding fairly well with the and of Poimandres. Unfortunately, I cannot trace this tradition farther back than the Jesuit Cornelius a Lapide, who died in 1637. Is there any evidence that it was known at a date which would make it possible that the Hermetist was acquainted with this interpretation? We can now answer Dobbs question in the affirmative. 196 See above. 197 High priest: Adam::Aaron correspondence. Demiurge: Aaron::Creator, Aaron::Adam, Adam::Bezalel, Bezalel::Creator. Shadow of God: Adam::Bezalel. 198 According to Kim, Significance, 18, 21, 24 the high priestly garments divinized the wearer. 199 McBride, Divine Protocol, 16-17. 200 Her. 205-6; Somn. II.188-89; Spec. I.116; Mig. 101-105.

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5. Priestly Tradition and the Divine Body in Rabbinic Literature Rabbinic ambivalence towards priestly tradition is well-known. While the priesthood is conspicuously absent from the (Oral) Torah chain of transmission (Pirq Abot 1:1), a number of priestly traditions were preserved in rabbinic literature.201 The tradition behind Ps intratextuality was preserved. The rabbis explicitly articulated the correspondences between creation and tabernacle implied by P.202 They also fleshed out, excuse the pun, the somatic significance of the tabernacle.203 As implied by P, the rabbis parallel the building of the tabernacle with the creation of microcosmic Adam: The Temple corresponds to the whole world and to the creation of man who is a small world.204 This Adam::Tabernacle/Temple correspondence is certainly related to, if not actually the source of, the rabbinic tendency to read biblical passages referring to the sanctuary as metaphoric allusions to Adam.205 As the Image/statue of God, Adam is paralleled with the Tabernacle, also described as Gods earthly Image/statue.206 Here we may draw another parallel to the Priestly and Philonic traditions: the Tabernacle (read: Adam), constructed by the

201 On the priesthood in rabbinic Judaism v. Steven D. Fraade, From Tradition to Commentary: Torah and its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991) 70-71, 232;Micheal D. Swartz, Ritual about Myth about Ritual: Towards an Understanding of the Avodah in the Rabbinic Period, JJTP 6 (1997): 145-46 and sources cited in nn. 39, 40. 202 Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, 11.2 (Eng. 648). See also Num. R. 12.13; Ginzberg, Legends, I:51; Patai, Man and Temple, 105ff. 203 See e.g. Bereshith Rabbati ad Exod 26:33:

In the hour when the Holy One blessed be He said to Moses, Make me a temple, Moses said, How shall I know how to make it? The Holy One blessed be He said: Do not get frightened; just as I created the world and your body, even so will you make the Tabernacle. How [do we know] that this was so? You find in the Tabernacle that beams were fixed into the sockets, and in your body the ribs are fixed into the vertebra, and so in the world the mountains are fixed into the fundaments of the earth. In the Tabernacle the beams were covered with gold, and in the body the ribs are covered with flesh, and in the world the mountains are covered and coated with earth. In the Tabernacle there were bolts in the beams to keep them upright, and in the body limbs and sinews are drawn to keep man upright, and in the world trees and grasses are drawn in the earth. In the Tabernacle there were hangings to cover its top and both its sides, and in the body the skin of man covers his limbs, and his ribs on both his sides, and in the world the heavens cover the earth on both its sides. In the Tabernacle the veil divided between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, and in the body the diaphragm divides the heart from the stomach, and in the world it is the firmament, which divides between the upper waters and the lowers waters. On similar such traditions in Rabbinic literature v. Patai, Man and Temple, 116f. 204 Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu 3. On the man-as-microcosm motif in rabbinic literature, as well as the tabernacle::unviverse::man correspondence v. Avraham Yaakov Finkel, In My Flesh I See God: A Treasury of Rabbinic Insights about Human Anatomy (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1995) 1-17. 205 E.g. Gen. R. 21.1, 66.23 (Jacob; on the Adamic identity of Jacob v. below). On fallen Adam/Israel as destroyed Temple v. below. 206 In Exod. R. 35.6 Gods command to Moses to build the Tabernacle according to the heavenly prototype shown him on Mt. Sinai (Exod. 25:40) is compared to a king who had a fine image and who instructed one of his household to make a bust of him replicating this image. The heavenly tabernacle is here Gods fine image, and the earthly tabernacle His bust, which identifies it with Adam, the statue/image of God. The similarity to our reading of P is not likely accidental. On Adam as Image/statue of God in rabbinic literature v. Deut. R. IV.4; Morton Smith, The Image of God: Notes on the Hellenization of Judaism, With Special Reference to Goodenoughs Work on Jewish Symbols, BJRL 40 (195758): 473-512, esp. 475-478; idem, On the Shape of God and the Humanity of Gentils, in Jacob Neusner (ed.), Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968) 315-326; Alexander Altman, Homo Imago Dei in Jewish and Christian Theology, JR 48 (1968): 235-244; Alon Goshen Gottstein, The Body as Image of God in Rabbinic Literature, HTR 87 (1994): 171-95.

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demiurgic Bezalel, is the Shadow of God.207 Thus, like P and Philo, the Tabernacle/Adam is both the divine Image and Shadow! 5.1. Temple Veils and Divine Skin According to the rabbinic Body::Tabernacle homology, the goat-hair coverings of the Tabernacle (v. Exod. 26:7-11) correspond to the skin of Adam.208 These also corresponded to the sapphiric blue sky called ( Veil, Latin velum), the first of seven heavens.209 This Temple drapings/Divine Image/Skin of Adam nexus is made again in Cant. R. 3.11, 2:
R. Joshua of Sikhnin said in the name of R. Levi: You might suppose that when God said to Moses, Make Me a tabernacle, it would have been sufficient for him to set up four poles and spread the tabernacle (i.e. the draping) over them; that would have been a tabernacle. But the Holy One, blessed be He, did not do so. He took him (Moses) aloft and showed him red fire, green fire, white fire and black fire, and said to him, Make me something resembling this. He said before Him: Sovereign of the Universe, and whence shall I get black or red or green or white fire? He said to him, after the pattern which is being show to you on the mountain (Exodus 25:40). R. Abun said: God was like a king who had a fine image, and who said to one of his household, Make me one like this. He said: My lord and king, how can I make one like this? He replied: You with your pigments and I in my majesty.R. Berekiah in the name of R. Bezalel said that God was like a king who showed himself to his servant in a beautiful robe adorned with diamonds and said to him, Make me one like this. So the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Make Me a tabernacle.210

This haggadah is significant in that it parallels the sanctuary draping, the Divine Image, and the royal robe of God.211 In a parallel midrash (Exod. R. 35.6),212 the divine Image/santuary is replicated on earth with a bust. The allusion to Adam made as/according to the Image of God is transparent. The sanctuary draping probably alludes to Adams prelapsarian skin. This suggestion finds support in the anomalous list of colors. Instead of the biblical list, this haggadah substitutes green and black for tekhelet (blue) and argaman (purple) respectively.213 This substitution is relevant because according to a haggadic reconstruction by Louis Ginzberg, Adam was made from dust taken from all four corners of the earth, and this dust was respectively red, black, white and green-red for the blood, black for the bowls, white for the bones and veins, and green for the pale skin.214 This green skin of Adam would then correspond to the

Num. R. 12.3; Exod. R. 34.1; Cant. R. 2.1, 1. See above n. 203. 209 b. Hag. 12b quotes regarding the viylon Isa. 40:22: Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in. This same verse is applied to the goat-hair coverings of the Tabernacle (e.g. Num. 12.13; Exod. R. 33.4). Cf. discussion in C.R.A. Morray-Jones, A Transparent Illusion: The Dangerous Vision of Water in Hekhalot Mysticism. A SourceCritical and Tradition-Historical Inquiry (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 161-163. On Isa. 40:22 and Tabernacle imagery v. George W. MacRae, Some Elements of Jewish Apocalyptic and Mystical Tradition and Their Relation to Gnostic Literature, 2 vols. (diss.: University of Cambridge, 1966) 37. On the sapphiric blue sky v. William Brownlee, Ezekiel 1-19 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1986) 13 and below; Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, loc. cit.. On the viylon and seven heavens in rabbinic literature v. see below. 210 Soncino translation. 211 On the Tabernacle as a garment v. Num. R. 12.14. 212 n. 209. 213 Gershom Scholem, Colours and Their Symbolism in Jewish Tradition and Mysticism: Part I, Diogenes 108 (1979): 94. 214 Ginzberg, Legends, 1:55; cf. PRE 11 (Frielander trns., 77). Robert Graves and Raphael Patai describe the skin as olive-green: Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1963) 61. See also Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 140.
208

207

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robe which is no doubt the blue (tekhelet; but here green) robe of the high priest,215 and to the tabernacle veils, whose dominant color is tekhelet.216 In Exod. R. 35.6 the bust is to be made after their pattern, in blue, purple, and scarlet, i.e. the colors of the tabernacle drapings and high priestly vestments (robe and ephod). 5.1.1 The Temple Veil and Rabbinic Esoteric Midrash This identification of the temple drapings with Adams skin or body can shed light on a noted esoteric rabbinic text: Sifr Deuteronomy (Pisqa 355).
And in his majesty on the high vaults (Deut. 33:26): All the people of Israel gathered around Moses and said to him, Our master Moses, tell us about the Glory (of God) on high. He replied, From (the appearance of) the lower heavens, you may know what is the measure of the Glory on high. A parable: To what may this be likened? To one who said, I wish to behold the glory of the king. He was told, Go to the capital city and you may see him. He came (there) and saw a curtain (viylon) set with precious stones and pearls and spread out at the entrance of the city. He could not take his eyes off it, until he collapsed in a swoon. They then said to him, If you could not take your eyes off of a curtain with precious stones and pearls and spread out at the entrance of the city, until you collapsed in a swoon, how much more so had you entered the city (and beheld the glory of the king). Therefore it says (in Scripture), And in His majesty on the high vaults.217

It was Michael Fishbane who alerted us to the esoteric tradition presupposed in this text218 and C.R.A. Morray-Jones has further illuminated it.219 As Fishbane has shown, the Glory on High here is to be connected with the demiurgic anthropos called Likeness on High mentioned in a similar midrash, Abot de Rabbi Nathan, version A 39.220 Rabbinic tradition knew of an esoteric doctrine concerning an upper Adam and a lower Adam.221 The upper Adam, called Gods Likeness (/ 222,)was demiurgic and associated with the Spirit hovering above the waters of Gen. 1:2 and the light

The diamonds that adorn the robe recalls the jewel-studded breastplate of the high priest. In the parallel haggadah in Pisiqta deRab Kahana 1.3 the robe is covered entirely with precious stones. Translation by Jacob Neusner, Pesiqta deRab Kahana: An Analytical Translation, 2 vols. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 6. 216 On the predominance of tekhelet in the veils v. Haran, Temples, 162. 217 For another thranslation v. Reuven Hammer, Sifre, A Tannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986) 375-6. 218 Michael Fishbane, The Measures of Gods Glory in the Ancient Midrash, in Ithamar Gruenwald, Shaul Shaked and Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa (edd.), Messiah and Christos: Studies in the Jewish Origin of Christianity (Tbingen: Mohr, 1992), 53-74; idem, The Measure and Glory of God in Ancient Midrash, in idem, The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998) 56-72. 219 The Body of Glory: The Shiur Qomah in Judaism, Gnosticism and the Epistle to the Ephesians, forthcoming in Christopher Rowland and C.R.A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Jewish Mystical Traditions in the New Testament CRINT 3;Assen and Minneapolis: Van Gorcum/Fortress) 147ff (our thanks to Morray-Jones for providing the author with a manuscript copy). 220 Where R. Meir proclaims: Because of his sin it is not granted to man to know the Likeness on High; for were it not for that (viz. sin) the keys would have been handed over to him and he might have known how the heavens and earth were created. Translation, slightly modified, by Judah Goldin, The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955) 161. See Fishbanes discussion, The Measures of Gods Glory 69ff.; idem, The Measure and Glory of God 64-72; idem, Some Forms of Divine Appearance in Ancient Jewish Thought, in Jacob Neusner et al, From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding. Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, Volumn 2 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 261-270; Saul Lieberman, How Much Greek in Jewish Palestine?, in Alexander Altmann (ed.), Biblical and Other Studies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963) 140-41. 221 In b. Hagg 12a the restriction on discussing what is above, what is beneath, what before, what after is connected with upper and lower Adams. 222 See b. B Bat 58a discussed below. On Demut as a technical term for the divine anthropos in Jewish mystical tradition v. Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 33ff. In a number of midrashim the upper and lower Adams are replaced by Jacob and his celestial image

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of Gen. 1:3.223 The lower Adam seems to be the post-lapsarian Adam.224 The inquirers of Sifre Deuteronomy want to know from Moses the measure ( )of the Glory on High. As Fishbane has shown, this is a clear reference to an early Shiur Qomah tradition.225 According to Moses response, the measure may be known by looking at the lower heavens ( )which, in the parable, is equivalent to a jewel-studded veil (viylon). This identification of the temple curtains/veil with the lower heavens is common in rabbinic literature.226 Morray-Jones connects the city in our parable with the cosmic temple and the veil with the curtain of the outer court.227 But in rabbinic literature city is also a metaphor for the human body228 and the use of the term viylon and its association with the lower heavens recalls the goathair curtains::lower-heaven::human skin nexus encountered above.229 This anthropomorphic reading is supported by a comparison of Sifre Deuteronomy with b. B Bat 58a:
R. Banaah used to mark out caves [where there were dead bodies]. When he came to Abraham, he found Eliezer the servant of Abraham standing at the entrance. He said to him: What is Abraham doing? He replied: He is sleeping in the arms of Sarah, and she is looking fondly at his head. He said: Go and tell him that Banaah is standing at the entrance: Said Abraham to him: Let him enter; it is well known that there is no passion in this world. So he went in, surveyed the cave, and came out again. When he came to the cave of Adam, a voice came forth from heaven saying, Thou hast beholden the likeness of my likeness, my likeness itself thou mayest not behold. But, he said, I want to mark out the cave. The measurement of the inner one is the same as that of the outer one [came the answer]. (Those who hold that there was one chamber above another [say that the answer was], The measurement of the lower one is the same as that of the upper oneThe beauty of R. Kahana was a reflection of [the beauty of Rab; the beauty of Rab was a reflection of ] the

engraved/enthroned upon the merkavah; cf. Gen. R. 68. 12; 78.3; 82.2; Num. R. 4.1; b. \ul. 91b; Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (hereafter PRE) 35; Targums (N., Ps.Jon., FT) ad Gen. 28:12; v. also Ginsberg, Legends 5: 290-91 n. 134. On the Image of Jacob v. Jarl Fossum, The Son of Mans Alter Ego: John 1.51, Targumic Tradition and Jewish Mysticism, in idem, Image of the Invisible God, 135-151; Morray-Jones, Body of Glory, 141-147; Elliot R. Wolfson, The Image of Jacob Engraved upon the Throne: Further Reflection on the Esoteric Doctrine of the German Pietists, in idem, Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Myth, Symbolism, and Hermeneutics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995) 1-62 and sources cited 111-186; Christopher Rowland, John 1,51, Jewish Apocalyptic and Targumic Tradition, NTS 30 (1984): 498-507. On Jacob as primordial Adam v. Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 365-367; Ginzberg, Legends 5:290, n. 134; Alexander Altman, The Gnostic Background of the Rabbinic Adam Legends, JQR 35 (1945): 13. 223 On the demiurgic anthropos in (esoteric) rabbinic tradition v. Jarl Fossum, The Name of God, 266ff; idem, The Adorable Adam of the Mystics and the Rebuttals of the Rabbis, in Geschichte, Tradition, Reflexion: Festschrift fr Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996) 529-539, esp. 534-536; Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, 109-116; Fishbane, The Measures of Gods Glory; idem, The Measure and Glory of God; idem, Some Forms; Lieberman, How Much Greek, op. cit. On Adam as Spirit above the waters v. Gen. R. 8.1. On Phs in rabbinic tradition v. Alexander Altmann, A Note on the Rabbinic Doctrine of Creation, JJS 7 (1956): 195-206; idem, Gnostic Themes in Rabbinic Cosmology, in Essays in Honour of the Very Rev. Dr. J.H. Hertz, eds. I. Epstein, E. Levine and C. Roth (London: Edward Goldston, 1942) 19-32, esp. 28-32. Altmans suggestion that this divine Adam in rabbinic literature was due to Gnostic influence must of course be rejected. See Fossum, Adorable Adam, 534 n. 33. 224 This is implied by the descriptions of the lower Adam/Jacob as sleep, a metaphor for Adams fallen, embodied state. See Gen. R. 21.7; 68.12; Altman, Gnostic Background, 387-391. On sleep as a metaphor for Adams fallen state of embodiment in Gnosticism v. Stuart Smithers, Bodies of Sleep, Garments of Skins, Parabola Fall (1994): 7-10. 225 The Measures of Gods Glory, 59ff. 226 See e.g. b. Hag. 13a; Exod. R. 33.4; PRE 3; Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, 11.2. On the symbolism of the Temple veil v. Barker, The Veil as the Boundary, Chapter Nine; idem, Beyond the Veil of the Temple: The High Priestly Origin of the Apocalypse, ibid, 188-201 (=Scottish Journal of Theology 51 [1998] 1-21); idem, Gate of Heaven, Chapter Three; Morray-Jones, A Transparent Illusion, Chapter Seven; MacRae, Some Elements, Chapter One; Otfried Hofius, Der Vorhang vor dem Thron Gottes (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1972), 4-25. 227 Body of Glory, 156. On the heavenly temple in rabbinic literature v. Victor Apowitzer, The Celestial Temple as Viewed in the Aggadah, in Joseph Dan (ed.), Binah: Volume 2: Studies in Jewish Thought (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1989) 1-29. 228 b. Ned. 32b. See also Bereishit Rabbah 12 (body as palace of the King; cf. discussion in Finkel, In My Flesh, 143). On the city of the body in Philo v. Ebr. 101, 208; Det. 38; Sac. 48; Abr. 103; Mut. 119. for an anthropomorphic reading of John the Revelators New Jerusalem v. Robert H. Gundry, The New Jerusalem: People As Place, Not Place For People, NovT 29 (1987): 254-264. 229 See above.

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beauty of R. Abbahu; the beauty of R. Abbahu was a reflection of the beauty of our father Jacob, and the beauty of Jacob was a reflection of the beauty of Adam.

The point of this midrash is clearly the relationship between the upper Adam, Gods very likeness, and the lower Adam, whose place is here taken by Abraham.230 Like the inquiring Israelites of Sifr Deuteronomy, R. Banaah seeks the measure of the (the cave of the) Likeness on high, the upper Adam. And like those Israelites, his request is denied, but he is told to refer to the measure of the (cave of the) lower Adam (or lower chamber). While the measures agree, the end of the midrash contrasts the beauty of the upper Adam with its poor reflection, the lower Adam (viz Jacob).231 In Sifr Deuteronomy, while Moses informs the Israelites that one can know the measure of the higher from the lower, implying congruence, in the parable the stupefying beauty of the veil, i.e. the lower, is still only a pale reflection of the Glory on high. The parallel between these two midrashim is unmistakable. What is important here is that the veil in the Sifr corresponds to the lower Adam (Abraham/Jacob) of b. B Bat 58a. This correspondence suggests that the lower Adam is the personified veil or personified Temple whose garment (i.e. body/skin) is the veil. This is consistent with the rabbinic Temple-as-body-of-Adam/Veil-as-skin tradition noted above. This personification of the temple veil is old, found not only with Philo, but in Gnostic,232 Samaritan,233 early Christian literature234 and presupposed as a Jewish belief in rabbinic sources.235 Relevant too must be the comment of R. Isaac Nappaha in Pesiqta Rabbati 48 (Braude) that even angels on high only see the likeness (demut) of Gods Kavod as through (the refraction of) a viylon. This should be compared with the Tagums (N., Ps.Jon. FT) who narrate that the angels on high, desiring to look upon the face of the celestial image of Jacob (Upper Adam) engraved/enthroned upon the merkavah had to descend to look upon the earthly Jacob (lower Adam). The earthly Jacob, like the veil, is the means by which the likeness on high may be seen. 236

On Abraham as Adam v. Gen. R. 14:6;15: 15:5; 24:5. The interchangeability between the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob here demonstrate that they are both expendable substitutes for the lower Adam. 232 In On the Origin of the World NHC II.98. 21-24 Sophia functioned as a veil dividing mankind from the things above. 233 E.g. the angel Kebala. See Jarl Fossum, The Angel of the Lord in Samaritanism, JSJ 46 (2001): 51-75. 234 E.g. Melito, bishop of Sardis, Hom. Pasch. 98 (S.G. Hall [ed. and trans.], Melito of Sardis on Pascha [Oxford, 1979] 54). For a discussion of this and other examples of the personified veil in early Christian literature v. Fossum, Angel of the Lord, 59-60; Marinus de Jonge, Two Interesting Interpretations of the Rending of the Temple-Veil in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Bijdragen, tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 46 (1985): 350-362; Campbell Bonner, Two Problems in Melitos Homily on the Passion, HTR 31 (1938): 175-190. 235 B. Gi. 56b relates a Jewish legend in which the Roman general Titus, after having entered the Holy of Holies committing fornication with a harlot on the outspread Torah scroll, pierced the veil with his sword and drew blood. As Fossum observes: This story apparently presupposes the idea of an anthropomorphic representation of God being mysteriously linked to the veil before the Holy of Holies. Angel of the Lord, 59. 236 See discussion by Rowland, John 1,51, 503.
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5.2. Garments of (Divine) Skin Related to this veil-as-skin motif is the rabbinic garment of skin tradition. Like Philo, the rabbis interpreted the high priestly garments somatically, equating them with the garments of skin of Gen. 3:21, i.e. Adams body.237 As Gary Anderson has shown, the rabbis understood Gen. 3:21 in a dual sense, referring both to Adam and Eves prelapsarian garments of light and their opposite, the post-lapsarian bodies of flesh.238 The former was a luminous body, the skin of which was in some way analogous to finger nails.239 The luminosity of this prelapsarian body has misled many into associating it with the white linen robe of the priesthood or Christian baptism,240 but this is certainly wrong.241 It was the colored garments,

On Gen. 3:21 and the high priestly vestments v. Num. R. 4:8 ad Numbers 3:45; Tanuma Buber, 12. See also Ginzberg, Legends, 1:177, 332, 5:93; Stephen D. Ricks, The Garment of Adam in Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Tradition, in Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes and Fred Astren (edd.), Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communications and Interactions, (Leiden: Brill, 2000) 209; M.E. Vogelzang and W.J. van Bekkum, Meaning and Symbolism of Clothing in Ancinet Near Eastern Texts, in Scripta signa vocis: studies about scripts. Scriptures, scribes, and languages in the Near East, presented to J.H. Hospers by his pupils, colleagues, and friends (Groningen: E. Forsten, 1986) 275. On the somatic reading of these garments in rabbinic literature v. especially Gary Anderson, Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001) 117-134; idem, The Garments of Skin in Apocryphal Narrative and Biblical Commentary, in James L. Kugel (ed.), Studies in Ancient Midrash, (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 2001) 110-125; Lambden, From Fig Leaves to Fingernails, 86f. 238 According to R. Jacob of Kefar \anan Gen. 3:21 really belongs after Gen. 2:25, thus describing the prelapsarian garments of the first couple (Gen. R. 18.6). Its current placement in the text has only to do with narratological concerns, not chronological. See Anderson, The Garments of Skin, 112ff. On the other hand, in b. Nid. 25a R. Yehoshua b. \aninah identifies the coats of skin of Gen. 3:21 with normal human skin, which is post-lapsarian. The Targums attempt to secondarily weave these two traditions together by identifying the garments of glory with the fleshy body (See Andersons detailed discussion, ibid., 120-123). 239 These two possibilities derive from the , garments of skin of MT Gen. 3:21 and its homophonous equivalent ,garments of light, from a textual variant. See Gen. R. 20:12. On the prelapsarian garments of light v. Gen. R. 20.12; Ginzberg, Legends, 5:103-104 Gottstein, The Body as Image, op. cit. (but cf. the rejoinder by David H. Aaron, Shedding Light on Gods Body: Reflections on the Theory of a Luminous Adam, HTR 90 [1997]: 299-314); Lambden, From Fig Leaves to Fingernails, 7590; Anderson, The Garments of Skin, 116-120; Ricks, The Garment of Adam, 203-225; Vogelzang and van Bekkum, Meaning and Symbolism of Clothing, 272ff; Brian Murdoch, The Garments of Paradise: A Note on the Wiener Genesis and the Anegenge, Euphorion 61 (1967): 375-382. On the nail-skin v. Gen. R. 20:12; PRE 14; Ginzberg, Legends, 1:74, 5:69; Anderson, The Garments of Skin, 118. 240 E.g. Lambden, From Fig Leaves to Fingernails, 80 who conflates radiant garments and white robes; Barker, On Earth, 6172, esp. 65; Peterson, A theology of dress, 565; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, 9:169. On the other hand, Murdoch (Garments, 376), based on his reading of Targum Ps.-John. ad Gen. 3:21, is aware of the alternative. 241 Ginzberg, Legends, 5:103 suggested in 1925: But we shall not go astray if we identify (the prelapsarian garments of light) with the celestial garments worn by the pious, frequently mentioned in the pseudepigraphic literature, and in early Christian as well as kabbalistic writings. In fact, it is precisely in making this identification that scholars have gone astray. The white robes in which the pious will be clothed in the eschaton (e.g. Rev. 3:4, 7:9, etc.) and the glorious garments of Adam and Eve are related but not identical. One contributing factor to this conflation is the articulation of trichotomic anthropological themes in a dichotomic context. While the former acknowledges three bodies-(A) a spirit (light) body, (B) a soul (shadow) body, and (C) a fleshy (earthly) body-dichotomic anthropologies tend to conflate the latter two (B and C) into one body and distinguish it from (A). In this way, there is only the glorious light body on one hand, symbolized by a white robe (after all, God produced the Phos of Gen. 1:3 from the His own white garment; Gen. R. 3.4) and the fleshy, post-lapsarian body on the other, which now is symbolized by the colored high priestly robes! This is so, e.g. in Syriac Christian tradition. While the white baptismal garment reflects the glorious pre-lapsarian body of Adam, the post-lapsarian body is reflected in the purple robe. See Brock, Clothing Metaphors. See also Pseudo-Macarius II, 2.1 (Eng. 45), for whom the post-lapsarian body of Adam is the purple of darkness. See below. While rabbinic anthropology will become basically dichotomous (Emero Stiegman, Rabbinic Anthropology, ANRW 19.2, 508ff), the Tannaim appear to have worked with a trichotomic anthropology (See Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their concepts and Beliefs, translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams, 2 vols. [Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1975] 218f). This ambivalence is reflected in the rabbinic discussions of the garments of Adam and Eve. As we are demonstrating, the garments of glory are generally identified as prelapsarian high priestly garments, as distinct from the fleshy body and distinct from the white garment donned by God on Day One which, according to Alexander Altman (see above n. 225) is to be associated with the pre-mundane luminous Adam (Phos). The Targumim, however, conflated the garments of glory and post-lapsarian garments of skin, the fleshy body (see Anderson, Garments of Skin, 120f). Now, the white robes of the pious, as symbols of the resurrection body, likely alludes to the light-body of Phs. According to rabbinic tradition, that pre-mundane light was hidden before the creation of the luminaries on the fourth day and will return with the Messiah (b. \ag 12a; Gen. R. 3.6; Exod. R. 18.11). Thus, the man of day six was not in possession of this white robe.

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the robe and ephod, which served as metaphor for Adam and Eves prelapsarian bodies.242 According to Gen. R. 21.5 Adam in his glorious vestment in the Garden was like a snail whose garment (i.e. shell) is part of his body. The point here is clearly a somatic interpretation of garments with regard to Adam.243 But this snail has a purple (read: blue, tekhelet244) shell and the garment to which it is parallel is a purple (read: blue) garment.245 The white stole may signify the resurrection bodies of the righteous;246 it may signify the luminous bodies of some angels;247 it may even represent Gods garment of light from which the phs of Gen. 1:3 emerged.248 But God also possesses a royal purple robe after which the colored high priestly garments are patterned.249 It is this purple high priestly robe that signifies the divine Image.250 Indeed, the divine Glory, Likeness and Sanctuary are specifically described as tekhelet.251 Further evidence that the prelapsarian garment was the colored high priestly robe is supplied by the rabbinic tradition of Israels glorification at Sinai after the giving of the Torah.252 The Israelites were deified253 and garmented in Gods own splendor as reflected in the purple high priestly robe.254After the golden calf incident, however, they were stripped of this glory.255 What is important here is that, according to rabbinic tradition, Sinai was a recapitulation of Eden.256 Israels glorification at the former was

The ancient versions of Ezek. 28:11-19 which understand the precious stones as an allusion to the high priestly ephod presuppose the colored garments as Adams prelapsarian vestments (See above). For Ben Sira too Adams Edenic glory was reflected in the colored high priestly garments (v. Aitken, Semantics, 6-9; on the identity of the garments described by Ben Sira in his Praise of the Fathers, Sir 50:5-7 v. above n. 180) 243 On the shell-as-body metaphor cf. Plato, Phaedrus 250 C and Philo, Vir. 76. 244 The exact hue of the biblical tekhelet has been a matter of great discussion (but v. below). Ancients and moderns often translate it as purple, identifying the tekhelet robe of the high priest with royal regalia. This is certainly the case in rabbinic literature (cf. Pesikta Rabbati [hereafter PR] 33. 10; Midrash Tehillim [hereafter MT] 23.4) On the biblical high priestly garments as royal regalia v. Thomas Podella, Das Lichtkleid JHWHs: Untersuchungen zur Gestalthaftigkeit Gottes im Alten Testament und seiner altorientalischen Umwelt (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1996) 67-8. 245 See Ginzberg, Legends 2:132, 237. 246 See above n. 244. 247 On the white garment and angels v. PR 2:868; 1 Enoch 71:10; 2 Enoch [J] 37:1; Ricks, Garment of Adam, 217ff, and sources cited in n. 43; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, 9:167ff. But according to PR 20.4, while in heaven Moses saw four sets of angels, the first of which were draped in garments the color of the sea (i.e. tekhelet). When Rebekah saw Isaac for the first time as he meditated in a field (Gen. 24:63-64) she beheld him exceedingly glorious, garmented in and covered with a (blue-fringed) prayer shawl, his appearance like that of an angel of God (MT 90.18, trns. William G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms, 2 vols. [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959] 2:98). 248 On Gods garment of light v. Scholem, Some Aggadic Sayings Explained by Merkabah Hymns. The Garment of God, in idem, Jewish Gnosticism, 56-64; Raphael Loewe, The Divine Garment and Shiur Qomah, HTR 58 (1965): 153-160. 249 Lam. R. 1.1, 1; Lev. R. 2.4; Exod. R. 38.8; Num. R. 14.3; PR 27/28.2, 45.2; MT 9.13. 250 Exod. R. 28.8; Cant. R. 3.11, 2. 251 Num. R. 4.14; 14.3; MT Ps. 90.18. 252 See Exod. R. 51.8, 45.2; Cant. R. 1.4, 2; PRE 47. 253 See Lev. R. 11.1: He attributed to them divinity (.) 254 See Exod. R. 45.2, 51.8; MT 23.4, 103.8. On these purple royal garments as high priestly robes v. Cant. R. 4.12, 2; PR 33.10. The original version of R. Simais remark that God clothed them in royal purple (Exod. R. 45.2, 51.8) may have read: He clothed them with purple and the ineffable Name was inscribed upon it (cf. Num. R. 16.24). As Gershom Scholem (Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition [New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965], 131f) and Ira Chernus (Mysticism in Rabbinic Judaism [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1982], 9) have observed, this reading connects these garments with Gods own which is described in Heikhalot Rabbati 3.4 as being engraved from within and without YHWH YHWH. 255 Exod. R. 15.2; 51.8; Cant. R. 1.4, 2; PRE 47. 256 See Andersons discussion and sources cited in Genesis, 14ff.

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tantamount to Adam and Eves prelapsarian glory in the latter;257 Israels garments of glory, which they lost after that deed were the same that Adam and Eve lost after their transgression in the Garden.258 As Israels were the colored high priestly robe, so too was Adam and Eves. Rabbinic sources therefore make it clear that it is the splendid colored high priestly garments, not the white linen tunic, that represent Adams prelapsarian body made as/according to Gods Image.259 But this creates an immediate exegetical problem for us. How could a dark blue robe260 come to be regarded as a

See esp. the sources cited and discussion by Joel S. Kaminsky, Paradise Regained: Rabbinic Reflections on Israel at Sinai, in Alice Bellis and Joel Kaminsky (edd.), Jews, Christians, and the Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000) 15-43; Jacob Neusner, Confronting Creation: How Judaism Reads Genesis, an Anthology of Genesis Rabbah (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991) 103ff. 258 As Anderson points out: In both the rabbinic and patristic traditions a close relationship has been drawn between Adams clothing in Eden and Israel at Sinai (Genesis, 125). See also Kaminsky, Paradise, 26. 259 Taken as a possible exception may be the description given in the name of Resh Laqish that they were milky white [in color] and in them the first-born sons [prior to Sinai] served as priests (Gen. R.20:12). But as Gary Anderson has argued, this unit is secondary and refers to the first couples post-lapsarian garments. See The Garments of Skin, 116-17. 260 Rediscovering the lost secrets of biblical tekhelet has been the pursuite of scholars and scientists alike. Since the demise of the tekhelet production industry ca. 500-750 CE, its dye sourse, method of manufacture and hue are unknown. The modern attempt to rediscover these secrets began with Rabbi Gershom Henoch Leiner (1839-91), the Hasidic Rebbe of Radzyn, Poland, who thought the source was a cuttlefish and its color blue-black (see his Sefrei HaTekhelet Radzyn [Bnei Brak, 1999]). Today, scientists such as Irving Ziderman and Baruch Sterman have proclaimed the miracle rediscovery of the biblical tekhelet and its source, though both have proffered differing hues for their authentic tekhelet. Sterman and Ptil Tekhelet, the Israel-based non-profit organization he cofounded which manufactures and distributes this tekhelet, argues that the source of the dye is the Murex snail found in the Mediterranean off the coast of northern Israel and that the hue is a rather bright indigo blue. Ziderman, on the other hand, posits the same source (the Murex snail) but argues that the authentic hue is violet or blueish purple (purpura hyacinthine). See Irving Ziderman, A Modern Miracle The Rediscovery of Blue Dye for Tallit Tassels, Israel Yearbook 1988, 287-292; idem, Revival of Biblical Tekhelet Dyeing with Banded Dye-Murex (Ph. Trunculus): Chemical Anomalies, in Dyes in History and Archaeology 16/17 (2001): 87-90; idem, First Identification of Authentic Tklet, Bulletin of the American Society of Oriental Research (hereafter BASOR) 265 (1987): 25-33; idem, 3600 Years of Purple-Shell Dyeing: Characterization of Hyacinthine Purple (Tekhelet), in Historic Textile and Paper Materials. Conservation and Characterization, ed. Howard L. Needles and S. Haig Zeronian (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1986), 190; idem, Seashells and Ancient Purple Dyeing, Biblical Archaeologist June (1990): 98-101; Ari Greenspan, The Search for the Biblical Blue, Bible Review (February 2003): 32-39; Baruch Sterman, The Science of Tekhelet, in Tekhelet: The Renaissance of a Mitzvah, ed. Rabbi Alfred Cohen (New York: The Michael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University Press, 1996) 63. For critigues of both Zidermans and Sterman et als tekhelet v. P.F. McGovern, R.H. Michel and M. Saltzman, Has Authentic Tklet Been Identified, BASOR 269 (1988): 81-84 and Zidermans response BASOR 269 (1988): 84-89. The most serious challenge to Sterman et al, and Ziderman indirectly, is from Mendel E. Singer, Understanding the Criteria for the Chilazon, Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society (hereafter JHCS) 42 (2001): 5-29. See the debate that ensued between he and Sterman: JHCS 43 (2002): 112-124; 44 (2002): 97-110 and Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perrs contribution to the debate, Letter to the Editor, 44 (2002):125-128. Whatever the dye-source of tekhelet turns out to be (if ever that secret is rediscovered) it is clear that in early rabbinic tradition the color was dark blue, even blue-black. Rabbi Isaac Herzog, who would become the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, demonstrated this in his D. Litt thesis submitted to London University in 1913 on the subject tekhelet (now translated and published as Hebrew Porphyrology, in Ehud Spanier (ed.), The Royal Purple and the Biblical Blue, Argaman and Tekhelet [Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House Jerusalem Ltd, 1987]). As he shows, the classic Talmudic description of tekhelet as the color of the sky and sea must be understood against the background of its Palestinian-Mediterranean locale where the cloudless Palestinian sky in bright sunshine is dark blue closely bordering on black (ibid., 64, 67, 81, 89f) and the Mediterranean along the Palestinian coast was likewise deep, dark blue appearing almost black to the eye (Ibid., 90). The early Palestinian midrash Sifr to Numbers 115 describes tekhelet as like the deep blue of the night. See also Num. R. 2.7 where sapphiric blue is described as black. Both Philo and Josephus, who lived during the Second Temple and therefore witnessed the curtains, veils, and priestly garments themselves, describe tekhelet as dark or blackish blue. Josephus, The Jewish War Book 5, 212-13; Philo v. Spec. I.85 and QE 2.123 where he describes the robe as almost black, and black is the color of ink and is opaque. Rashi, in his commentary on Numbers (Bemidbar 15:41) said tekhelet resembled the blackened or darkened sky and in Maimonides commentary (Brachat 1:4) he compares its color to that of the gemstone tarshsh, thus deep, dark blue (see below). Herzog thus concluded that the tekhelet colour was regarded by the Tanaites as well as by Philo and Josephus as akin to black (Hebrew Porphyrology, 137, n. 292). Rabbi Leibel Reznick (The Hidden Blue, Jewish Action 52 (1991-92): 54), based on the same sources, reached the same conclusion: What color is the heavenly throne? Talmud Yerushalmi (Brachot 1:2)says that it is like sapphire, dark blueRambam (Hilchot Tzitzith 2:1) says that Techelet is the color of a clear, noonday sky. However, in his commentary to the Mishnah (Brachot 1:4), he says that Techelet is similar to the gemstone Tarshish. All the Targumim (Aramaic translators of the Torah)say Tarshish is aquamarine. Rashi (BaMidbar 15:41) says that Techelet is the color of the darkening evening sky. That would seem to be a black-blue.

257

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garment of light261? This interpretive difficulty probably encouraged some writers to associate the garment with the white tunic. But the rabbis answer this question differently. The blue robe is associated with a precious stone.262 While some sources suggest that this stone is a pearl,263 crystal264 or an onyx,265 it is the sapphire that is most consistently brought in relation to the robe. The blue of the robe, tekheleth, is a sapphire blue.266 In biblical tradition and in ancient and medieval texts generally the term sapphire denotes lapis lazuli, a semiprecious stone of great mythological significance in the ANE.267 In its natural state lapis lazuli is deep blue with fine golden spangles, which ancient peoples took to be actual gold.268 This stone, with its dark blue color and golden spangles, reminds one of later representations of the priestly robe and ephod. In the mosaic from the synagogue in Sepphoris (ca. fifth century) Aarons robe is depicted dark blue with golden dots.269 In a wall-painting at Dura Europos (3 cent. CE.) Aaron dons a wine-colored, jewel-studded cape, which some scholars take to be a representation of the robe or ephod.270 The yellow jewels are similar to the gold dots on the priestly robe in the Sepphoris mosaic.271 The parallel between lapis lazuli and these garments is unmistakable. It is possible that the golden spangles represented the interior Glory, or as Josephus terms it, the all-pervading sunlight in which the

261 One could, of course, point to the precious stones affixed to the breastplate (Exod. 28:15-21). A number of Second Temple sources describe these stones as sources of light (See sources and discussion in Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory, 222-251; Robert Hayward, Pseudo-Philo and the Priestly Oracle, JJS 46 [1995] 43-54). But this explanation is unsatisfactory. The breastplate is not, per se, a garment, but an accessory. The Adamic garment of light alludes to Adams prelapsarian body in a way that the breastplate cannot. 262 According to Isaac the Elders description of these garments they were as smooth as a finger-nail and as beautiful as a jewel (Gen. R. 20.12, Soncino trns.) 263 Neusners reading of Isaac the Elders above statement (Gen. R. 20.12): as lovely as a pearl. Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis. A New American Translation (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) 227. 264 The Book of the Cave of Treasures says of prelapsarian Adam: the image of his body was like unto the sparkling of crystal. Trans: Sir E.A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Cave of Treasures: A History of the Patriarchs and the Kings, Their Successors From the Creation to the Crucifixion of Christ (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1927) 52. As Sebastian Brock has noted (Jewish Traditions in Syriac Sources, JJS 30 (1979): 227), the Cave of Treasures is The richest source for Jewish traditions. 265 Targum PsJon ad Gen. 3:7 uses , garments of onyx/nail. While Michael Maher (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis. Translated, with Introduction and Notes [The Aramaic Bible, Vol. 1B; Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1986] 26 and v. n. 12) reads clothing of fingernails, John Bowker (The Targums and Rabbinic Literature: An Introduction to Jewish Interpretations of Scripture [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969] 121) reads clothing of onyx. See also Friedlanders n. 6 to PRE 14. On v. Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalami, and the Midrashic Literature 2 vols. (New York: Pardes Publishing House, Inc., 1950) 1:525-6; Jacob Levy, Chaldisches Wrterbuch ber die Targumim 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1881) 1:367-17. 266 Sifr to Numbers 115.2; b. Men. 43b; Num. R. 4.13, 17.5. 267 Michel Pastoureau, Blue: The History of a Color (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) 7, 21f; IDB s.v. Sapphire, by W.E. Stapes; Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings (New York: MacMillian Publishing Company, 1988) 497, s.v. Jewels and Precious Stones, by J. Patrick and G.R. Berry 268 In fact, they are iron pyrite, fools gold.On Lapis Lazuli v. Lissie von Rosen, Lapis Lazuli in Geological Contexts and in Ancient Written Sources (Partille: Paul strms frlag, 1988); idem, Lapis Lazuli in Archaeological Contexts (Jonsered: Paul strms frlag, 1990); Rutherford J. Gettens, Lapis Lazuli and Ultramarine in Ancient Times, Alumni de la Fondation universitaire 19 (1950): 342-357. 269 Zeev Weiss and Ehud Netzer, Promise and Redemption: A Synagogue Mosaic from Sepphoris (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1996), 20ff; Swartz, The Semiotics of the Priestly Vestments, 63 n. 16. 270 E.g. C.H. Kraeling, The Excavations at Dura Europos: The Synagogue (Final Report vol. 8 Part 1) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956; repr. New York: Ktav, 1979) 127; Erwin R. Goodenough, Cosmic Judaism: The Temple of Aaron, in his Jewish Symbols, 9:16. 271 Swartz, The Semiotics of the Priestly Vestments, 63 n. 16; Weiss and Netzer, Promise and Redemption, 45 n. 31.

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Godhead most rejoices,272 filtered through the dark material medium; this is how it will be articulated in later developments of this tradition.273 In any case, the sapphire stone with its golden spangles was indeed the source of great illumination according to rabbinic sources: it illuminated Noahs ark with a light as bright as day and in the New Jerusalem it will shine like the sun.274 This paradox of a dark blue stone giving off bright luminance was for the rabbis an example of Gods ability to harmonize two antagonistic elements in creation.275 Significantly they illustrate this point with the angel of Dan. 10:6 whose body is like the tarshish stone (dark blue276) and whose face (i.e. inner glory?277) is like lightning in appearance. The space given here to a discussion of Adams prelapsarian garments is justified for on two accounts. First, in Jewish and Christian tradition these garments are metaphor for Adam and Eves prelapsarian bodies.278 In rabbinic tradition these high priestly bodies, reflected in the dark blue robe, are associated with the sapphire stone. We are therefore presumably dealing with a sapphiric body. The second reason is that bodily descriptions of prelapsarian man in rabbinic texts as a rule apply equally to God, for Adam originally had a physical appearance which was indistinguishable from that of God.279 Jacob Neusner has demonstrated this point well.280 And as we shall see, a sapphiric, high priestly body of God is an important, though unrecognized theme in Jewish tradition.

Judean Antiquities 3.184, 187. See below. 274 On sapphires in the New Jerusalem v. Exod. R. 15.21. On the illumination of Noahs ark v. Ginzberg, Legends, 1:162, 5:177, n. 23. 275 See Cant. R. 3.11., 1. 276 On the color of tarshish v. below. 277 In rabbinic literature often has the meaning interior or ,innermost, as in Holy of Holies (Jastrow, Dictionary, 2:1190), and it also equivalent to kavod Glory and demut, Likeness, i.e. the demiurgic anthropos called the Glory and Likeness on High (Midrash Tanhuma [Buber], Bemidbar 20; Shemot Rabbah 23.15; Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 45-51; Orlov, Ex 33 on Gods Face; DDD 322-325 s.v. Face by C.L. Seow. We are not suggesting that this midrashic passage presents the angelic (?) being of Dan. 10 as the Divine Glory, but that the harmonious contrast between the formers lightning-like face and tarshish-like body should be understood in terms analogous to the luminous Glory and its dark sheath. See below. 278 Anderson, Genesis, 124; idem, Garments of Skin, 135; De Conick and Fossum, Stripped Before God, 124f; Wayne A. Meeks, The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of A Symbol in Earliest Christianity, HR 13 (1974): 187f; Smith, Garments of Shame, 231. 279 Fossum, The Adorable Adam, 532. 280 He makes the point that, according to the theology of the Oral Torah, God and man look exactly alike, being distinguished only by actions performed by the one but not the other. The Theology of the Oral Torah (Montreal and Kingston: McGill and Queens University Press, 1999) 364f. This applies especially to Primordial Man. Neuser cites as a proof-text Gen. R. 7:10.1:
273

272

A. B.

Said R. Hoshaya, When the Holy One, blessed be He, came to create the first man, the ministering angels mistook him [for God, since man was in Gods image,] and wanted to say before Him, Holy, [holy, holy is the Lord of hosts]. To what may the matter be compared? To the case of a king and a governor who were set in a chariot, and the provincials wanted to greet the king, Sovereign! But they did not know which one of them was which. What did the king do? He turned the governor out and put him away from the chariot, so that the people would know who was king.

The clear point of this midrash is the corporeal identity between God and Adam. See also Jacob Neusner, Judaism When Christianity Began: A Survey of Belief and Practice (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002) 29ff.; idem, Judaism, in God, ed. Jacob Neusner (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1997) 17f; idem, The Incarnation of God: The Character of Divinity in Formative Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988) 14f. See also David H. Aaron, Imagery of the Divine and the Human: On the

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6. Divine Bodies and Sapphire Stones In the ANE sapphire/lapis lazuli was often associated with the divine body. In Egypt, for example, the dark blue coloring of the flesh and skin of the gods was represented by this stone.281 The limbs of the Egyptian gods were said to be composed of lapis lazuli and were lapis lazuli colored, viz. blue-black.282 As Lise Manniche has demonstrated, The traditional colour of (the) gods limbs (was) the dark blue lapis lazuli.283 Now Jewish myth owes a great deal to the mythology of the ANE.284 It would therefore not surprise to discover that Israel participated in this Blue Body Divine tradition. We get evidence of this participation in the exalted, probably divine figure found in The Apocalypse of Abraham named Yahoel whose body (was) like sapphire (11.2).285 Though the ontological status of this figure is much disputed,286 the evidence suggesting that Yahoel is in some way representative of the form of God is strong.287 As Andrew Chester observed, at the very least it can be said that the angel Iaoel is portrayed in

Mythology of Genesis Rabba 8 1, JJTP 5 (1995): 1-62. On rabbinic anthropomorphism generally v. also Wolfson, Through A Speculum, Chapters One and Two. 281 On the dark blue, lapis lazuli body of the Egyptian gods v. Lise Manniche, The Body Colours of Gods and Man in Inland Jewellery and Related Objects from the Tomb of Tutankhamun, Acta Orientalia 43 (1982): 5-12; Monika Dolisks, Red and Blue Figures of Amun, Varia aegyptiaca 6 (1990):3-7. On Mesopotamia v. von Rosen, Lapis Lazuli in Geological Contexts, 30; George Frederick Kunz, The Curious Lore of Precious Stones (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1913), 230. 282 Manniche, The Body Colours of Gods, 6. Manniche notes: From the point of view of colour classification it appears that dark blue was related to black, the general interchange between the two colours being attested elsewhere. Lapis lazuli or its imitation is used for things that in paintings are generally black, such as the hair and eyebrows, the scaraband the strokes(ibid., 10f.) 283 Manniche, The Body Colours of Gods, 10. 284 Schwartz, Tree of Souls, lxiii; Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (New York: Oxford, 2003). 285 Translation by R. Rubinkiewicz, Apocalypse of Abraham (First to Second Century A.D.), in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols., ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 694. 286 He is an exalted angel: Peter R. Carrell, Jesus and the Angels: Angeology and the Christology of the Apocalypse of John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 53ff; Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988) 79ff. He is a bifurcated aspect of the Godhead: Christopher Rowland, The Visions of God in Apocalyptic Literature, JSJ 10 (1979): 137-154; idem, The Vision of the Risen Christ in Rev. i. 13 ff.: The Debt of an Early Christology to an Aspect of Jewish Angelology, JTS 31 (1980): 1-11; idem, Open Heaven, 101ff; idem, A Man Clothed in Linen: Daniel 10.6ff. and Jewish Angelology, JSNT 24 (1985): 99-110. He is the personification of the Divine Name itself or the Divine Glory: Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, 196; Fossum, The Name of God, 318f; Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Christology (Leiden: Brill, 1998) 142ff. He is God in his Angel of the Lord disguise: David B. Capes, Old Testament Yahweh Texts in Pauls Christology (Tbingen: Mohrs-Siebeck, 1992) 170f. 287 Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, 144; Carrell, Jesus and the Angels, 54; Andrew Chester, Jewish Messianic Expectations and Mediatorial Figures and Pauline Christology, in Martin Hengel and Ulrich Hechel (edd.), Paulus und das antike Judentum, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991) 52; Capes, Old Testament Yahweh Texts, 171 n. 375; Rowland, The Open Heaven, 102f; idem, The Vision of the Risen Christ, 7; Fossum, The Name of God, 320. M. Scopell (Youel et Barblo dans le Trait de Lallogne, in Colloque International sur Les Textes de Nag Hammadi, ed. Bernard Barc [Quebec, Canada: Les Presses de LUniversit Laval, 1981] 377) notes: Yaoel nest autre que le Ttragramme. See also P.S. Alexander, The Historical Setting of the Hebrew Book of Enoch, JJS 28 (1977): 161. Yahoel carried the appellation little Yahweh ( ,) which is evidently meant to denote this being as the lesser manifestation of, the second to, the (inscrutable) Deity (the First Mystery). Hugo Odeberg, 3 Enoch or The Hebrew Book of Enoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928; repr. New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1973), 189; Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, 43; idem, Major Trends, 68f. Gedaliah Stroumsa (Form(s) of God: Some Notes on Metatron and Christ, HTR 76 [1983]: 278) interprets the early Yahoel as Gods archangelic hypostasis, by which he means the hypostatic form of God. Yahoels apparently reduced status in the Apocalypse may be evidence of early efforts to suppress the widespread tradition of Gods hypostatic form, as C.R.A. Morray-Jones has argued. We have witnessed such a fall with Metatron and Akatriel, both of whom started their careers as hypostatic forms of God but ended as demoted archangels. See C.R.A. Morray-Jones, Transformational Mysticism in the Apocalyptic-Merkabah Tradition, JJS 43 (1992): 9f; See also idem, The Body of Glory, 147ff; idem, Hekhalot Literature and Talmudic Tradition: Alexanders Three Test Cases, JSJ 22 (1991): 1-39; Nathaniel Deutsch, Guardians of the Gate: Angelic Vice Regency in Late Antiguity (Leiden: Brill, 1999), Chapter Four; Daniel Abrams, The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead, HTR 87 (1994): 291-321; idem, From Divine Shape to Angelic

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terminology usually reserved for God alone.288 This holds true for the above description of his body like sapphire as well. Thus, in an important Shiur Qomah (SQ) passage it is said of the anthropomorphic demiurge:
His body is like tarshsh. And His face and the splendor thereof shine forth and give light from within the cloud of thick darkness289 that surrounds Him.290

Commentators have generally refrained from proffering interpretations of His body is like tarshsh. This is a clear allusion to the description of the exalted being seen by Daniel (Dan. 10:5-6; I looked up and saw a man clothed in linen, with a belt of gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like tarshsh, his face like lightning), but what does it mean in Daniel? David Halperin glossed Daniels statement with whatever that means.291 The difficulty lies in the Hebrew term itself. It has been used to designate a geographical location,292 a precious stone,293 and a proper name.294 The term is sometimes taken as a cognate of the Akk. rau, to be smelted, and meaning refinery,295 but this is unlikely.296 As a stone, the term is usually translated either as the sea-blue beryl (Targum Onqelos 28:20; 39:13, AV, RV, JB) or chrysolite (LXX, Quninta and Sexta, Aquila, Vulgate, RIV). The latter term is taken to designate Spanish topaz, a yellow rock-crystal.297 On the assumption that the geographic Tarshish is to be identified with Tartessus in Spain, where chrysolite is found and not beryl, some scholars assume the former is the correct stone.298 Thus, BDB defines tarshsh as yellow jasper or other gold-colored stone.299 But the

Being: The Career of Akatriel in Jewish Literature, JR 76 (1996): 43-63. On Yahoel as part of Jewish esoteric tradition v. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, 42. 288 Jewish Messianic Expectations,53. 289 Lit. from within the darkness, and cloud, and arpel that surrounds him. The latter term has a basic meaning of (thick) darkness (TDOT 11:371 s.v. by Mulder; Chaim Cohen, The Basic Meaning of the Term Darkness, Hebrew Studies 36 (1995): 7-12). This combination is found in Dt. 4:11 in relation to the Sinai theophany. Indeed, it may be that the primary word here is ,which is specifically designated as Yahwehs dwelling place (I K. 8:12) and has its setting in theophany accounts (Mulder, op. cit., 372f; TDNT 2:382 s.v. by Von Rad ). 290 Synopse 949 in Peter Schafer, Margarete Schlter and Hans Georg von Mutius (edd.), Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1981). 291 David Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot: Jewish Responses to Ezekiels Vision (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1988) 75. 292 Jer 10:9; Ezek 27:12; 38:13. 293 Exod 28:20; 39:13; Ezek 28:13; Cant 5:14. 294 Gen 10:4; I Chr 1:7. For a look at these various occurrences and some possible etymologies v. Federic W. Bush and David W. Baker, ABD 6:331-333, s.v. Tarshish (Person), Tarshish (Place). 295 Encyclopedia Judaica 15:825, s.v. Tarshish; W.F. Albright, New Light on the Early History of Phoenician Colonization, BASOR 83 (1941): 14-21, esp. 21 296 See Cyrus Gordons arguments in The Wine-Dark Sea, JNES 37 (1978): 52. 297 Dictionary of the Bible, 497, s.v. Jewels and Precious Stones, by G.R.Driver. 298 Driver argues for instance: The Targums berylcannot stand if the name means the stone of Tarshish and Tarshish is Tartessus in Spain, since beryl is not found there. Dictionary of the Bible, 497, s.v. Jewels and Precious Stones, 497. For

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identification Tarshish/Tartessus is unsound.300 The most we can state with confidence is that The location of Tarshish is uncertain, since the biblical references are vague and apparently contradictory.301 On the other hand, strong arguments have been advanced suggesting that tarshsh has the meaning sea-like. The Targums (Onqelos, Jonathan) often translate the term by sea, and Jerome informs us in his commentary on Isaiah 2:16 that he had been told by his Jewish teachers that the Hebrew word for sea was tarshsh. While Sidney Hoenig understood the term throughout the entire Bible as a general expression for sea,302 Cyrus Gordon notes that, when designating the jewel, it signifies the color of the sea in particular, as already perceived by Targum Onqelos (Exod. 28:20; 39:13).303 Gordon argued that the term is from a qall formation of the denominative root tr, wine or wine-dark, signifying the winedark sea.304 This seems correct, but the association of this term term with the sea suggests a dark blue, not a dark red as Gordon supposes.305 It is therefore more likely that tarshsh refers to the sea-blue beryl.306 That this interpretation is correct is confirmed by lines from certain Avodah piyyutm (sing. piyyut), liturgical poems written (mainly) between the fourth and seventh centuries.307 These poets show some knowledge of ancient priestly and SQ tradition.308 Thus, in the anonymous piyyut called Attah Konanta

arguments supporting the identification of Tarshish with Tartessus v. M. Elat, Tarshish and the Problem of Phoenician Colonization in the Western Mediterranean, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 13 (1982): 55-69. 299 BDB 1076 s.v. ,followed by IDB 4:517, s.v. Tarshish, by B.T. Dahberg; ISBD 4:733, s.v. Tarshish, by W.S. Lasor. 300 Gsta W.Ahlstrm, The Nora Inscription and Tarshish, MAARAV 7 (1991): 41-49, esp. 45-49. The Tarshishas-Tartessus theory was already refuted in 1894 by P. Le Page Renouf, Where was Tarshish? Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 16 (1894): 104-108, 138-141. 301 Encyclopedia judaica 15:825. 302 Sidney B. Hoenig, Tarshish, JQR 69 (1979): 181-182; See also The Jewish Encyclopedia 12 vols. (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Company1901-) 11:65, s.v. Tarshish, by M. Sel. 303 Gordon, The Wine-Dark Sea, 51: That the tar gem is translated color of the sea indicates that tar literally designates a color. 304 Gordon (52) challenges W.F. Albrights (op. cit.) derivation of the term from a taql form of r to smelt. 305 Gordon understands the term to signify a wine-red hue (The Wine-Dark Sea, 52), but this is unsupported and unnecessary. A wine-blue is likely intended here. A reference to wine of Khl chiseled on an early wine decanter possibly from Judah may be a reference to the color of such wine. A. Demsky argued (Dark Wine from Judah, Israel Exploration Journal 22 [1972]: 233-234) that the here is a reference to the wines color. In late Hebrew means blue and in rabbinic sources a dark shade inclining to black (see e.g. Num. R. 2:7). While these are late sources, there is no a priori reason to assume that the color connotation has shifted. The association of the wine color with the sea further confirms that dark blue is the intended color. On dark wines in rabbinic sources v. also S.M. Paul, Classifications of wine in Mesopotamian and Rabbinic Sources, Israel Exploration Journal 25 (1975): 42-44. 306 Athalya Brenner, Colour Terms in the Old Testament (Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 1982) 166f; Hoenig, Tarshish, 182. Christopher Rowlands description of the angels body (Dan. 10:6) as yellow-coloured brightness should therefore be replaced with blue-black brightness, an apparent contradiction already encountered in rabbinic tradition. Rowland, The Open Heaven, 466 n. 54. 307 On the history of the Avodah piyyutm v. Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, trns. Raymond P. Scheindlin (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society and New York: Jewish theological Seminary of America, 1993): 219-271. 308 On Avodah piyyutm and priestly tradition v. Micheal D. Swartz Sage, Priest, and Poet: Typologies of religious leadership in the ancient synagogue, in Steven Fine (ed.), Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue. Cultural interaction during the Greco-Roman period, (London and New York: Routledge, 1999) 101-117; idem, Ritual about Myth; idem, Semiotics, 73-4. On piyyutm and SQ tradition v. Martin Samuel Cohen, The Shiur Qomah: Liturgy and Theurgy in PreKabbalistic Jewish Mysticism (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983) 61-65.

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Olam me-Rosh, You established the world from the Beginning, we find a description of the high priest in his robe that exactly parallels our SQ passage:
His likeness is like Tarshish, Like the look of the firmament When he puts on the blue robe, Woven like a honeycomb. (line 103)309

Draped in his blue robe, the high priests likeness is like that of tarshsh. His body is like tarshsh would thus mean that the demiurges body is a dark blue body, a high priestly body, similar to Yahoels and to the aereal body of Philos HPL. Some Talmudic passages understand tarshsh in Dan 10:6 as a reference to a long sea and therefore as an indication of the great size of the angels.310 This certainly works well with the gigantism of SQ, but most commentators rightly assume that the stone is in view here.311 Naomi Janowitz insightfully observed that the Divine Body of SQ seems to be made of the mysterious element tarshish.312 Morray-Jones has convincingly demonstrated the existence of a possibly second-third century CE Heikhalot tradition connected with the enigmatic Water Episode found in several Heikhalot and rabbinic sources in which the stone tarshsh-sapphire was understood to be solid air with the look of turbulent water.313 The substance of this solidified transparent air is the stuff from which the heavenly (Torah) tablets, the celestial pavement (firmament), the Throne of Glory, the bodies of angels and, most importantly, the Body Divine is made.314 This stuff of heaven, Morray-Jones argues, is known scripturally under different designations: 613 513,and 713.This is significant. Identifying the substance of the dark seablue tarshsh stone,318 which is the stuff of the high priestly body divine of the demiurge according to SQ, with solidified air brings to mind the blue-black aereal body of Philos HPL signified by the blue high

See discussion of this passage in Swartz, Semiotics of Priestly Vestments, 77. b. Hull.91b; Gen R. 68:12. See also M. Mishor, Tar, Leshonenu 34 (1969): 318-319 [Hebrew]. Pieter W. van der Horst, The Measurement of the Body: A Chapter in the History of Ancient Jewish Mysticism, in Effigies Dei: Essays on the History of Religions, ed. Dirk van der Plas (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987) 66; Cohen, The Shiur Qomah: Liturgy and Theurgy 209; Rowland, The Open Heaven, 466 n. 62; Naomi Janowitz, Gods Body: Theological and Ritual Roles of Shiur Qomah, in Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (ed.), People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992) 189, 197 n. 31; Morray-Jones, A Transparent Illusion, 211. 312 Janowitz, Gods Body, 189. 313 Transparent Illusion, passim, but esp. 96, 109, 192-214. On the Water Episode in general, see ibid., passim.; Deutsch, Guardians, 109-123; idem, Dangerous Ascents: Rabbi Akibas Water Warning and Late Antique Cosmological Traditions, JJTP 8 (1998): 112; R. Reichman, Die Wasser-Episode in der Hekhalot-Literature, Frankfurter Judaistische Beitrge 16 (1989): 67-100 and the sources discussed there. 314 Transparent Illusion, 90, 89-100, 201,205-214. 315 Exod. 24:10; Ezek. 1:26; Cant. 5:14. 316 Dan. 10:6; Ezek. 1:16; 10:9; Can. 5:14. 317 Ezek. 1:27. On these three as designations for this stuff of heaven v. Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 199-214. 318 Morray-Jones suggests that tarshish (possibly) signifies a yellow jasper (211), but he is obviously misled here by the old, erroneous assumption, examined above, that tarshish=chrysolite.
310 311

309

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priestly robe, especially since this stuff of heaven itself seems to have been signified by the high priestly robe in the Heikhalot and Qumran tradition.319 Clearly, Philos blue-robed HPL, SQs tarshsh -bodied demiurge, and the Apocalypse of Abrahams sapphire-bodied Yahoel derive from the same tradition of speculation on the body divine.320 A further allusion to this Blue Body Divine tradition may perhaps be found in an otherwise obscure passage from the SQ work, Sefer Raziel: By His mouth were the depths enkindled, and from His form, ,were hewn out (the) proud heavens.321 The idea that the firmament ( )is derived from the (blue) body divine is known from Gnostic sources. According to Irenaeus Ophites,322 Sophia descended and was entrapped by the waters below, from which she acquired a watery-body. After finally garnering enough strength (power from the moisture of light), she was able to escape from the waters and reascend upwards. She then spread herself out as a covering, her (blue) watery-body serving as the visible heaven.323 This heaven/waters/divine body nexus recalls the magical invocation to the Jewish God found on a GreekHebrew amulet324 and in a Greek magical papyrus325: Thou (whose) form is like heaven, like the sea, like darkness/cloud, the All-shaped.326 In Manichaean tradition, the Mother of Life spread out the heaven with the skin of the Sons of Darkness.327 Related too must be the anthropomorphic body of Zurvan, called Spihr, which is associated with both the blue firmament and a blue garment.328 The Manichaean association of the skin of the archons with the firmament is probably related to the non-Gnostic Jewish tradition, examined

See our discussion of Schfer, Synopse 371 below and the 13th Song of Sabbath Sacrifice above. Racel Elior (Mysticism, Magic, and Angelology: The Perception of Angels in Hekhalot Literature, JSQ 1 [1993/94]: 7 n. 13) cited our SQ passage (Synopse 949) as an example of the new mystical conception of the deity introduced by Heikhalot literature. This obviously must be reconsidered in the light of our investigation. 321 Line 469 of Michael Cohens translation, slightly modified here: The Shiur Qomah: Texts and Recensions (Tbingen: MohrSiebeck, 1985), 122. 322 Against the Heretics I.30 323 A.J. Welburn reads this myth as a commentary on the Ophite Diagram described in Origens contra Celsum VI, 24-38. In his reconstruction of the diagram (Reconstructing the Ophite Diagram, NT 23 (1981): 262-87, esp. 280-87) Welburn associates the blue circle (see contra Celsum VI, 38) with Sophias watery-boby of the above myth. 324 See Josef Keil, Ein rtselhaftes Amulett, Wiener Jahreshefte 32 (1940): 79-84, esp. 80 and Scholems discussion, Mystical Shape, 28. 325 PGM IV. 3065. See following n. 326 Our translation. We have departed from standard translations in order to bring out what we believe is the true sense of this passage. The amulet reads: , {}x x which Keil translates du Himmelsgestaltiger, Meeresgestaltiger, Dunkelgestaltiger, du Allgestaltiger (80). PGM IV. 3065 reads: , , , which is translated in Betz (The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, ed. Hans Dieter Betz [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press] 97) as, [the] skylike, sealike, cloudlike. See also Adolf Deissmann, Light From the Ancient East. The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-roman World (trns. Lionel R. M. Strachan; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Baker Book House, 1965) 262. The Betz translation of PGM IV 3065 obscures the obvious morphic focus of the passage. Keil seems right in his translation because the amulet, by adding , seems to parallel eidos and morphos. 327 According to the testimony of Theodore bar Khonai, Liber Scholiorum XI, trns. H. Pognon in Inscriptions Mandates des coupes de Khouabir, II (Paris: Welter, 1899) 188. 328 See R.C. Zaehner, Zurvan, A Zoroastrian Dilemma (Oxford, 1955; rep. 1972), 11f, 122. See also Greater Bundahin, 189, 8 where the cosmic body is said to have skin like the sky. See Zaehner, loc. cit. 145. On the firmament-as-skin motif in kabbalistic tradition v. Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar II:764, 794.
320

319

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above, which associated the temple veil/curtains with the firmament and both (firmament and veil/curtains) with the divine skin.329 The well-known debt that Manichaeaism and some Gnostic trends owe to Jewish tradition,330 and their obvious though allusive connection to Heikhalot/Merkavah traditions331 suggests that this SQ passage should be read in the light of these Manichaean/Gnostic/magical traditions. 6.1. Dark Clouds, Divine Bodies and Rainbows The continuation of our SQ passage is illuminating: His body is like tarshsh. And His Face and the splendor thereof shine forth and give light from within the cloud of thick darkness that surrounds Him. The cloud of thick darkness from within which the splendor of Gods Face shines forth seems somehow to be related to the body like tarshsh, though just how is not obvious. The idea that God surrounds his luminance with dark clouds is biblical: He made darkness His covering around him, his canopy thick clouds dark with water. Out of the brightness before him there broke through his clouds hailstones and coals of fire (Ps. 18:12-13). This identification of the dark cloud with a covering and canopy suggests Temple imagery.332 In the tradition under discussion the temple drappings signified the divine body/skin and there is an old tradition interpreting the cloud anthropomorphically.333 The clouds somatic association is often articulated in connection with clothing metaphors. Adams pre-lapsarian body, his
329 On the temple veil as firmament in Jewish tradition v. Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 158-172; Hofius, Vorhang, 19-25; Ithamar Gruenwald, Jewish Sources for the Gnostic Texts From Nag Hammadi? Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies (3 vols.; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1975-77) 3:49-52 (=idem, From Apocalyptic to Gnosticism [Frankfurt am Main, etc.; Peter Lang, 1988] 207-220). On the veil-as-divine-skin metaphor in Jewish tradition v. above. 330 On Jewish traditions in Manichaeism v. John C. Reeves, Jewish Pseudepigrapha in Manichaean Literature: The Influence of the Enochic Library, in idem (ed.) Tracing the Threads: Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994)173-203; idem, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions (Cincinnati, OH; Hebrew Union College Press, 1992); Gedaliahu Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984) 145-167; Ithamar Gruenwald, Manichaeism and Judaism in Light of the Cologne Mani Codex, ZPE 50 (1983): 29-45. On Jewish traditions in Gnosticism v. Stroumsa, Another Seed, passim.; Birger A. Pearson, Jewish Sources in Gnostic Literature, in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus, ed. Michael E. Stone (Assen and Philadelphia: Van Gorcum, Fortress, 1984) 443-481; idem, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity (Minneapolis; Fortress Press, 1990); P.S. Alexander, Jewish Elements in Gnosticsim and Magic c. CE 70-c. 270, in William Horbury, W.D. Davies and John Sturdy (edd.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, III: The Early Roman Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 1052-1059; Madeleine Scopello, The Apocalypse of Zostrianos (Nag Hammadi VIII.1) and the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, VC 34 (1980): 376-385; April D. De Conick, Becoming Gods Body: The KAVOD in Valentinianism, SBL 1995 Seminar Papers Series, 23-36; idem, Heavenly Temple Traditions; MacRae, Some Elements,; idem, The Jewish Background of the Gnostic Sophia Myth, NovTest 12 (1970): 86-101; Fallon, Enthronement of Sabaoth. 331 On Manichaeism and Heihalot/Merkavah tradition v. sources cited above, n. 333. On Gnosticism and Heikhalot/Merkavah tradition v. Scholem, Major Trends, 40-79; Jewish Gnosticism; Ithamar Gruenwald, Knowledge and Vision: Towards a clarification of two gnostic concepts in the light of their alleged origins, IOS 3 (1973): 63-107 (=idem, From Apocalyptic to Gnosticism, 65123); idem, Jewish Merkavah Mysticism and Gnosticism, in Joseph Dan and Frank Talmage (edd.), Studies in Jewish Mysticism: Proceedings of Regional Conferences Held at the University of California, Los Angeles and McGill University in April, 1978 (Cambridge, MA: Association of Jewish Studies, 1982) 41-55 (=idem, From Apocalyptic to Gnosticism, 191-205; Alexander, Historical Setting , 173-180; idem, Comparing Merkavah Mysticism and Gnosticism: An Essay in Method, JJS 35 (1984): 1-18; idem, Jewish Elements, 1059-1067; Nathaniel Deutsch, The Gnostic Imagination. Gnosticism, Mandaeism and Merkabah Mysticism (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995) 18-55 and passim. 332 See MacRae, Some Elements, 35f. See also Targum Job 26:9: He wraps the thick darkness all around his throne, so that the angels might not see him; he spreads the clouds of his glory upon it/him like a curtain. See Morray-Jones, A Transparent Illusion, 164f; Freedman and Willoughby, TDOT 11:256, s.v. nn; Leopold Sabourin, The Biblical Cloud: Terminology and Traditions, Biblical Theology Bulletin 4 (1974): 301 n. 13. 333 See above n. 163 and Fossum, Name of God, 223ff.

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garment of light, was a cloud of glory.334 This cloud of glory, lost after Adams sin, will again clothe the elect in the new paradise.335 In a third century Samaritan hymn cycle describing the Sinaitic glorification of Moses, we read:
Exalted be the Prophet, and exalted be his prophethood!Verily he was clothed with a garment with which no king can clothe himself. Verily he was covered by the cloud and his face was clothed with a ray of light336

Clothed with a garment is here parallel to covered with a cloud. As Jarl Fossum notes: The cloud functions as an outer garment, as it were.337 He argues that the brilliant garment and the cloudare variants of the same theme.338 As he and April De Conick have pointed out as well, garment and cloud here denote the Divine Form or Body with which Adam was initially vested, but lost, and which was regained by Moses on Mt. Sinai: He (Moses) was vested with the form which Adam cast off in the Garden of Eden; and his face shone up to the day of his death.339 Thus the cloud was undoubtedly regarded as the visible form taken by the glory of Yahweh when He wished to indicate His presense in his earthly abode, the sanctuary.340 The rain-cloud is thus the dark, anthropomorphic veil enveloping the divine luminance (Kavod/Pnm).341 This seems to be an ancient priestly interpretation;342 it is certainly found in Kabbalistic sources.343 It appears that the tarshsh-blue alludes to a blue iridescence produced by the Kavods presumably white brilliance as it flashes out of the dark cloud-like body: And around the throne are pure thunder clouds, which give forth lightning flashes like jewels of tarshsh.344 The light flashing through the cloud therefore has the appearance of tarshsh. This passage continues:
As the likeness of them both, sapphire and tarshish, thus is the likeness of hashmal. It is like the appearance of fire, but it is not fire. Rather, it is like fiery flames of all kinds of colors mixed together, and the eye cannot master their likeness.

PRE 14.20: What was the clothing of the first man? A skin-of-nails and a cloud-of-glory. When he ate from the fruit of the tree, the skin-of-nails was stripped from him and he saw himself naked. The cloud-of-glory flew off him. 335 Mekilta 48. On the cloud as eschatological vestment of glory in Jewish tradition v. Sabourin, The Biblical Cloud, 303f, 309f. 336 A.E. Cowley, The Samaritan Liturgy 2 vols. (Oxford: Claredon, 1909) 1.40; Jarl Fossum, Ascensio, Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, in his The Image of the Invisible God, 74. 337 Ibid, 92. 338 Ibid., 93. 339 Memar Marqa 5.4; Fossum, The Name of God, 92ff; April D. De Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996) 159f. See also the exegesis of the fourth century Origenist Didymus the Blind on Isa. XX: Behold the Lord sat upon a cloud and came into Egypt, and the idols-made-by-hands shook. It is not to be thought that the Lord escorted [his] body in such a way that [first] he was born upon it [and] then he came into Egypt, an earthly spot. Rather, at the very moment he took bodily form, he was in Egypt. Mounting a cloud is here an allegory for taking bodily form. Quoted from P. Nautin (ed.), Didymus LAveugle sur la Gense I, SC 233 (Paris: Cerf, 1976) 253f. 340 Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, Third Edition (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990) 97. 341 On the dark cloud as a veil over Yahwehs Kavod v. TDOT 11:256 s.v. nn; ibid. 11:374 s.v. arpel; Cornelius, theological significance of darkness, 103-105. 342 See above n. 166. 343 See sources and discussion in Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 243f, 274f; Fishbane, Biblical Myth, 260-264. 344 Synopse 371.

334

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The sapphire/tarshsh blue is here likened to a flame-like substance of all kinds of colors mixed together, which may allude to the colors of the high priestly robe.345 The latter had already been identified with the rainbow like splendor said to surround the Kavod (Ezek. 1:28).346 Taking the dark clouds as a metaphor for the anthropomorphic veil over the divine luminance thus helps us understand this rather enigmatic description of the divine glory or its surrounding splendour as similar to a rainbow.347 As Ezekiel described it: Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding splendor. This was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the Lord (1:28). Based on this passage a tradition developed regarding Gods rainbow-like body: his body resembles a bow, and the bow is (something) like the semblence of fire348 Some Jews in third century Palestine were in the habit of prostrating on the ground at the sight of a rainbow,349 following Ezekiels example (When I saw it [i.e. the rainbow-like glory], I fell on my face [Ezek. 1:28]). Rabbinic Judaism suppressed such behavior, for it looks like heresy.350 Certainly there is no greater aesthetic contrast than between a black rain cloud and a rainbow. The relationship between the rainbow-like appearance of God described by Ezekiel and the dark, cloud-like body described in Shiur Qomah and implied by the P source is clearly the same as that between a rainbow and a rain cloud. As the cloud acts as a prism, refracting the sunlight and producing the beautiful colors of the rainbow, the dark body refracts the luminance of the divine Kavod, producing a rainbow-like surrounding splendor (Ezek. 1:28). As Elliot Wolfson so eloquently put it: The divine woman (i.e. the Shekinah, Gods corporeal manifestation) is an optical apparatus that refracts the light and renders the veiled image visible, like a rainbow that is manifest in the covering of the cloud.351 The rainbow-like appearance of the Kavods surrounding splendor therefore presupposes the dark, cloud-like body.352 This is surely the crucial property of the rainbow, rather than its ability to span heaven and earth as Halperin

See Morray-Jones, Tansparent Illusion, 213. See above nn. 182-183. 347 See also Gen. R. 35.3; Exod. R. 35.6. 348 Synopse 367. Thus the Zohar interprets the talmudic dictum not to gaze at a rainbow (b. Hag. 16a): It is forbidden for a person to look at the rainbow, for it is the appearance of the Supernal Image (3:84a). See also Gen. R. 35.3, where My bow (qashti) is read as My Likness (qishuthi). On the significance of the rainbow in Jewish mysticism v. Wolfson, Through a Speculum, index s.v. Rainbow; Halperin, Faces of the Chariot, 255-261. 349 See e.g. b. Ber. 59a and Halperins discussion, Faces of the Chariot, 253f; EJ 13: 1524-1525, s.v. Rainbow. 350 Quote from variant reading of Hag. 16a. See Halperin, Faces of the Chariot, 253. 351 Through a Speculum, 274. See also Zohar II, 23b: a light that does not shine (Shekhinah) receives them (i.e. the shinning lights), and these lights appear in it, as in a crystal ball against the sun. 352 According to Lev. R. 23.8 clouds are a prerequisite for a sapphiric blue heaven. Without the clouds, the firmament is clear and free of its sapphiric qualities.
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opined.353 The rainbow splendor and tarshish-blue should therefore be seen as the visual effect of the divine luminance passing through the dark, cloud-like, anthropomorphic veil. What is this dark, cloud-like body? It seems to be the material body in which Adam was created. The biblical designation for the material from which Adams body was made, admh (Gen. 2:7) suggests a dark reddish brown inclining towards black.354 Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition describe the material of Adams body as a dark or black substance.355 A connection between admh, dm human, and the hue of the first mans skin has been suggested.356 In rabbinic tradition we find Adams skin associated with the blue-black tekhelet357 and the cloud of glory.358 This together with the widespread description of Adam and Eves post-lapsarian bodies as black or darkened359 suggests the following tradition: the luminous

Faces of the Chariot, 260f. Cf. the Akkadian cognates adamtu, dark red earth and adamatu B black blood. CAD 1.94; TDOT 1:75-77 s.v. dhm by Maass; ibid, 1:88-90 s.v. adhmh by J.G. Plger; ABD 1.62 s.v. Adam by Howard N. Wallace. 355 Jewish: cf. the rabbinic tradition of the dust from the four corners of the earth mentioned above. See also Maimonides who describes the substance of dust and darkness from which Adams body was made. The Guide of the Perplexed, trns. M. Friedlander (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1947) 3.8. Christian: cf. St. Ephrem the Syrians description of the dark mass [of dust] ymwt"; see discussion by Tryggve Kronholm, Motifs from Genesis 1-11 in the Genuine Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian (Sweden: CWK Gleerup Lund ,1978) 53, 57; Edmund Beck, Iblis und Mensch, Satan und Adam, Le Museon 89 (1976): 214. Islam: Qur"n 15:28 and parallels: I am going to create man from sounding clay (all), from fetid black mud (ama mann). 356 ABD 1:62; Greenstin, Gods Golem, 221. The latters statement that Adams pinkish complexion and blood share their hue with the reddish clay of earth must be modified in the light of the Akkadian dark red earth and black blood. See also Josephus, Antiquities I, 1.2: He was called Adamwhich signifies one who is red ( ,)because he was formed out of red earth. 357 See above discussion. 358 PRE 14. In Exod. R. 50.5 the goat-hair curtains of the Tabernacle, otherwise associated with Adams skin and the sapphiric heaven (see above), are paralleled with a cloud that will protect the righteous during the Messianic Age. There are at least two possible ways of understanding this cloud-body/skin association. Avraham Yaakov Finkel in his In My Flesh I See God: A Treasury of Rabbinic Insights about the Human Anatomy recounts a late Jewish interprtation of the Clouds of Glory such that they refer to vapors rising from the pores in the skin of Aaron and the Israelites (188). See also PR 20.4 where the splendor of the presense of God, presumably the surrounding splendor of Ezek. 1:28, is His cloud. On the other hand, Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymph 59-66 describes the descent of souls into generation (). Once a soul reaches the moist air it is embodied, condensing like a cloud. This wet, cloudlike soul, being dark and having an apparition-like quality to it, recalls the shadow-soul of folk mythology. Porphyry compares this soul to a sea-purple garment, bringing to mind Philos high priestly, tekhelet-colored aereal soul. 359 The post-lapsarian blackness of Adam is known from a number of Jewish, Christian, Gnostic and Muslim sources. The Iggeret Baale Hayyim says of Adam: Scarcely had he eaten of the tree of life, when his body became black and his countenance changed. His garment of light fell from him and he was troubled by the heat of the sun. See Angelo S. Rappoport and Raphael Patai, Myth and Legend of Ancient Israel (New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1966). See also the Syriac Christian theologian Pseudo-Macarius,: In the day when Adam fell, God came walking in the garden. He wept, so to speak, seeing Adam and he said: After such good things, what evils you have chosen! After such glory, what shame you now bear! What darkness are you now! What ugly form you are! What corruption! From such light, what darkness has covered you!Therefore, darkness became the garment of his soul. Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter (tr. George A. Maloney, S.J.; New York: Paulist Press, 1992), II, 30 (Eng. 190). Relevant too is the description in The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan of the fall of a certain angel whose relationship to Adam is ambiguous: (And God said): Oh Adam, so long as the good angel was obedient to Me, a bright light rested on him and his hosts. But when he transgressed My commandment, I deprived him of that bright nature, and he became dark. And when he was in the heavens, in the realms of light, he knew naught of darkness. But he transgressed, and I made him fall from heaven upon the earth; and it was this darkness that came upon him (13.1-5; see The book of Adam and Eve, also called The conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, a book of the early Eastern church, tr. from the Ethiopie, with notes from the Kufale, Talmud, Midrashim, and other Eastern works, by the Rev. S. C. Malan [London [etc.] Williams and Norgate, 1882]). In 10.5 Adam is said to have been a bright angel, and in 13.9 it is stated that the same darkness that came upon the fallen angel came upon Adam, in contrast to 13.7. Gnosticism: Irenaeus (Against the Heretics 1.30.9) reports from his Ophites: Adam and Eve formerly had light and luminous and kind of spiritual bodies, just as they had been fashioned. But when they came to this world, there bodies were changed to darker, fatter, and more sluggish ones. Trns. By Dominic J. Unger and John J. Dillion, St. Irenaeus of Lyons Against the Heretics, Volumne One, Book One (Ancient Christian Writters, No. 55; New York: Newman Press, 1992). According to the the ApocJhn (II, 1,23:26-32; BG 1, 61:19-62:3) the demirge Ialtbaoth, after expelling Adam and Eve from the garden, clothed them in obscure darkness. In Islamic tradition v. al-Tha#lab, #Ar"is al-Majlis f Qia al-anbiy (Lives of the Prophets) who states concerning the consequences of Adams transgression: The third (affliction) was that (God) weakened (Adams) skin so that it
354

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Divine Presence (Kavod) shining through the dark/black body of Adam produced a blue iridescence (tarshish/sapphir/tekhelet) or rainbow symbolized by the colors of the high priestly garments. After the Fall the lamps were extinguished, that is to say the divine luminance left Adam and Eve leaving only the dark body described metaphorically as dirty and black rags that are reminiscent of dark rain clouds ragged and torn by wind and weather.360 7. Rabbinic Esotericism and the Blue Body Divine The SQ tradition is thus part of this larger ANE Blue Body Divine tradition. While the origin, time and milieu of composition, and identity of the authors of Heikhalot literature are still unresolved issues, Rachel Elior has made a compelling case for a priestly identity of its creators, arguing that following the destruction of the Second Temple the corpus became a repository of diverse priestly traditions.361 The

became dark, after his skin had been like brightness all over. Trns. by William M. Brinner, #Ar"is al-Majlis f Qia al-anbiy or Lives of the Prophets As Recounted by Ab Isq Amad ibn Muammad Ibn Ibrhm al-Tha#lab (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 53. 360 In rabbinic literature Adams loss of luminance is accompanied by the blackening of the sun and moon (Gen. R. 11.2; 12.6; 21.4; see also Ginzberg, Legends, vol. 1, 79). That the latter presupposes the blackening of Adam is demonstrated by the following: Jacob Milgrom, in a brief but highly insightful article (The Alleged Hidden Light, in Idea of Biblical Interpretation, op. cit. 41-44), has demonstrated that the noted parallel between the first three days and the second thee days of Ps creation account (v. also Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, trns. Israel Abrahams, 2 vols. [Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961] 17; Rikki E. Watts, On the Edge of the Millennium: Making Sense of Genesis 1, in Hans Boersma [ed.], Living in the LambLight: Christianity and Contemporary Challenges to the Gospel [Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2001] 129-151) imply that the luminaries created on the fourth day actually do not shine with their own light, but instead refract and funnel to the earth the light of Day One (Gen. 1:3). With this in mind, the repeated association of the spoiling of the luminaries and the sin of Adam in rabbinic literature is fully understood. As Alexander Altmann has shown (v. above n. 225), esoteric rabbinic tradition identified the light of Day One with Primordial Adam and with the lost splendor of fallen Adam. The association of the spoiled luminaries with the lost luminance of Adam suggests that the rabbis supposed, like P, that the luminaries refracted the light of Day One, Primordial Adam. The darkening of the luminaries as a result of Adams sin would then indicate the darkening of Adam, the eclipse of his light. This is further confirmed by the parallel the rabbis draw between Adam and Israel (see above discussion). The latter, after being wonderfully adorned at Sinai with the Glory of God (see above), lost this glory after the Golden Calf incident becoming black like an ox or black like the bottom of a pot during exile (Exod. R. 49.2; Cant. R. I.2, 3; PR 28.1. On the black ox v. PR 20.2; 53.2.). In Lam. R. I.1, 1 Israels/Adams loss of glory and subsequent donning of exiles garments (Lam. R. 1.i. 1) is paralleled with Yahweh clothing the heavens with blackness and extinguishing the lamps, i.e. blackening the sun and moon. This post-exilic somatic darkening is often accompanied by theriomorphism. Adam or his descendants transform into beasts (monkeys, centaurs) or black ll-demons. Gen. R. 23.6; b. B Bat 58a. See Jeffrey H. Tigay, He Begot a Son in His Likeness after His Image (Genesis 5:3), in Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, Jeffery H. Tigay (edd.), Tehilla le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1997) 139-147. In Kabbalah this blackening of Adam is made the catastrophic darkening of the Shekhinah (see below). See also Zohar II, 179b: when the upper light departed from the lower, every light darkened, and there was no light in the world. As a consequence, the Temple was destroyed in the time of Jeremiah, and III, 29a: Whoever commits a sin that extinguishes a commandment-which is a lamp-extinguishes his own lamp, of which it is said, The lamp of the Lord is the soul of man (Proverbs 20:27), [driving it away] from his body. And this is an extinguishing, for the body is left in darkness. Translations by Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, III:1143). This is compared to the Shekhinah, Gods resplendent mistress or corporeal form, going into exile and leaving in her place the black handmaid Lilith. See ibid., nn. 200-201; Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 54, 59-60. On this darkened body as a dirty or black, ragged garment v. Pseudo-Macarius, 27, 3; Bently Layton, The Soul as a Dirty Garment, Le Muson 91 (1978): 155-169. On the black garments of the Shekhinah v. below. See also the so-called Hymn of the Pearl (c. third century), which distinguishes the somatic Image of God in its protaganists (probably Adam), described as a purple robe (Syriac) adorned with precious jewels recalling the robe and ephod of the high priest, from the fleshy, material (post-lapsarian) body, which is described here as the dirty garments of Egypt (=material world). On the Hymn of the Pearl v. trns. in Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer (edd.), The Gnostic Bible: Gnostic Texts of Mystical Wisdom form the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Shambhala, 2003) 386-394 (Syriac); Bently Layton The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (New York: Doubleday, 1995) 366-375 (Greek). On the purple robe and the high priestly robe v. Garber, Symbolism,206f. On an Adamic reading of the Hymn v. Kim, Significance, 70-78 and sources discussed there. On rain clouds as black shreds of garments in rabbinic tradition v. H. Torczyner, The Firmament and the Clouds, Rqa and Sheqm, ST 1 (1948): 188-196. 361 The Three Temples. On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism (trans. David Louvish; Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004); idem, The Priestly Nature of the Mystical Heritage in Heykalt Literature, in Exppience et criture Mystiques

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similarities between SQs tarshish-bodied demiurge and Philos blue-robed Logos therefore supports our suggestion that this Blue Body Divine tradition is priestly. And though the relationship of the Heikhalot literature to rabbinic tradition is not clearly defined, the rabbinic reception of the priestly Adam-as-DivineSchattenbild tradition has been demonstrated. We can also discern in rabbinic literature the contours of an esoteric Blue Body Divine tradition. 7.1. The Mystery of iit Such a tradition seems to be related to rabbinic speculations on the sapphiric blue tassel among the ritual fringes (iit) worn on the corners of the prayer shawl (tallit).362 Num. 15:38-39 obligates observant Jews to look upon it ( ,)and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them. While the antecedent to the pronoun is generally assumed to be the blue tassel, the grammatical incongruity (feminine noun, masculine pronoun) led to the mystical reading, look upon Him. The tassel thereby became associated with the visible presence of God, a symbol of the Shekhinah itself363; gazing on the blue, Ben Zion Bokser explains, one was reallygazing on the divine.364 The Divine Likeness and Glory are thus sapphiric blue,365 and tekhelet, like tarshsh and sapphire, came to symbolize the mysterious substance which robes the Eternal Himself.366

dans les Religions du Livre: Actes dun colloque international tenu par le Centre dtudes juives Universit de Paris IV-Sorbonne 1994 (eds. Paul B. Fenton and Roland Goetschel; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 41-54; idem, The Merkavah Tradition and the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism, in Sino-Judaica: Jews and Chinese in Historical Dialogue (ed. Aharon Oppenheimer; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1999) 101-158; idem, From Earthly Temple to Heavenly Shrines: Prayer and Sacred Song in the Hekhalot Literature and Its Relation to Temple Traditions, JSQ 4 (1997): 217-267. 362 The classic expression of this speculation is a famous homily attributed to the second century Tanna R. Meir: Why is blue singled out from all other colors? Because blue resembles the sea, and the sea resembles the sky and the sky resembles the Throne of Glory. So it is written: They saw the God of Israel, and beneath his feet was something resembling a construction of sapphire stone, like the heaven itself for purity [Ex. 24:10]. It is also written: Like the appearance of sapphire stone, the likeness of a throne [Ez. 1:26] (b. Sot. 17a) On these speculations v. Ben Zion Bokser, The Thread of Blue, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 31 (1963): 1-31. Halperin, Faces of the Chariot, 217ff; Scholem, Colours and their Symbolism (Part I), 90ff. For a more exoteric analyses v. Jacob Milgrom, Of Hems and Tassels, Biblical Archaeology Review 9:3 (1983): 61-65. On R. Meirs homily v. Isaac Herzogs discussion, Hebrew Porphyrology, 87ff. 363 See e.g. R. Meir statement: It does not say, that you may look upon them (i.e. the fringes) but that you may look upon him, by which the verse intends to teach us that whoever keeps the commandment of the fringe, we ascribe it to him as though he has seen the Shekhinah. Sifre Num. 115 2:8. It is also recorded in the name of R. Simeon ben Yoai: Whoever is careful to observe this commandment makes himself worthy to behold the Shekhinah, for it is written, that you may look upon Him. (b. Men. 43b). See also Bokser, The Thread of Blue,4ff. 364 Bokser, The Thread of Blue, 4. Christopher Rowland suggested that these speculations were connected with certain mystical visionary preparations. The mystic prepared himself to gaze on the divine throne, and its divine occupant, by gazing at the blue tassel. Open Heaven, 302ff. 365 Num. R. 4.14; 14.3; MT Ps. 90.18. 366 Bokser, The Thread of Blue, 12.

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7.2. His body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires Further evidence of an esoteric Blue Body Divine tradition among rabbinic circles is certain midrashim on Cant. 5:14: His arms are rounded gold, [covered with jewels (tarshsh). His body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires]. This of course is a description of the Beloved, whom rabbinic tradition very early identified with the God of Israel both in the context of an allegorical love song between he and Israel (here the maiden), and as a literal description of Yahweh as he physically appeared to Israel at the Red Sea.367 In Cant. R. 5.12, Cant. 5:14 is glossed: This refers to the tablets of the covenant: And the tablets were the work of God (Ex. 32:16). Morray-Jones, who has analyzed this midrash in the light of the Talmudic and Heikhalot Water Episode,368 finds this discussion unsatisfactory and problematic.369 The main problem is lack of clarity: on what basis is this connection between Gods hands and the tablets made? Although the biblical account states that the tablets were made by God (Exod. 32:16) and that he wrote on them with his own finger (Exod. 31:18), the statement that the tablets were the hands of God makes no apparent sense (emphasis original), Morray-Jones argues.370 He highlights a statement attributed to R. Joshua b. R. Nehemiah as the key to unraveling this confused midrash: They were of miraculous construction, for they were rolled up. They were of sapphire371. This association of the tablets with Cant. 5:14 seems to have originally pivoted around the term sapphirm.372 As Morray-Jones points out, tradition held that the tablets were cut from the sapphire pavement of the firmament beneath Gods throne.373 While this accounts for the sapphiric tablets, it still does not elucidate their identity with Gods hands, as Morray-Jones is given to believe.374 We are thus still at a loss in terms of the connection between the sapphire tablets and the divine hands. But if indeed sapphire is the link, it is reasonable to assume that the hands, like the tablets, are of sapphire.375 In fact,

367 Arthur Green, The Song of Songs in Early Jewish Mysticism, Orim: A Jewish Journal at Yale 2 (1987): 49-63; Gerson D. Cohen, The Song of Songs and the Jewish Religious Mentality, The Samuel Friedland lectures 1960-1966 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1966) 1-21. On Canticles and the theophany at the Red Sea v. Arthur Green, The Children of Egypt and the Theophany at the Sea, Judaism 24 (1975): 446-456; Daniel Boyarin, The Eye of the Torah: Ocular Desire in Midrashic Hermeneutic, Critical Inquiry 16 (Spring 1990): 532-550, esp. 540ff; Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 33ff. 368 Transparent Illusion, 205-209. 369 Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 205. 370 Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 207. 371 Morray-Jones reading of : Transparent Illusion, 206. 372 Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 207. 373 See e.g. Tanuma, #eqeb, 9; Sifre Num. 101; v. also Ginzberg, Legends, vol. 7, index s.v. Sapphire. 374 Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 207. 375 Morray-Jones overall discussion of the stuff of heaven, in which he argues that all of the celestial bodies, including the angels and the Glory, are composed of this substance designated by the names tarshish, sapphire, and hashmal, should have led him to the same conclusion.

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if the hands are the tablets, then the hands must be of sapphire. Indeed, a related midrash in Tanuma (#eqeb, 9) declares: as it is said: His hands are rounded goldwrapped with sapphires, for they were made of sapphire.376 The tradition lurking beneath Cant. R. 5:12 might therefore be a tradition that included speculation on the divine sapphiric body. This very passage (Cant.5:14) seems to confirm this: His (i.e., Gods) body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires. On our reading, Cant. R. 5:12 would anticipate the later Kabbalistic doctrine of the Torah as anthropomorphic form of the Godhead.377 Jewish tradition and religious practice had already anthropomorphized the Tablets and the Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) and identified the Torah with both the human body and the image of God.378 It was therefore a small step to identify the Tablets with the Body Divine. Morray-Jones considered this motif, but ultimately denied it any relevance to understanding Cant. R. 5:12. The obstacle to such a reading he suggested is the fact that Moses broke the Tablets.379 This objection can be overcome however. As we saw, rabbinic tradition paralleled Adam with his high priestly, sapphiric body with the tabernacle/temple and read biblical references to the destroyed temple as metaphoric allusions to Adams post-lapsarian state. The broken sapphiric tablets could easily be read as another such allusion. As the first sanctuary (viz. Adam) was built by God and destroyed by man, obligating man (Israel) to build the second sanctuary (Tabernacle), so the first set of tablets were produced by God (Exod. 32:16) and destroyed by man (Moses), obligating man (Moses) to produce the second set.380 7.3 Divine Exiles and Sapphiric Bodies Our final piece of evidence of a rabbinic Blue Body Divine tradition regards the rabbinic tradition of Shekhinta ba-Galuta, the Shekhinah in Exile.381 According to this tradition, God went into exile with Israel;

See also Morray-Jones discussion, Transparent Illusion, 208-9. See below. 378 On the anthropomorphization of the Tablets v. Eccl. R. 7.12, I; 9.10, 3 where the rabbi is identified with the tablets of the covenant. On the identification of the Torah with the human body v. b. Mak. 23b. For a discussion of the latter tradition and the anthropomorphization of the Sefer Torah v. especially Paul Morris, The Embodied Text: Covenant and Torah, Religion 20 (1990): 77-87; H.E. Goldberg, Torah and Children, in ibid. (ed.), Judaism Viewed From Within and From Without (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987) 107-131. On the anthropomorphization of Torah in pre-kabbalistic rabbinic tradition v. Jacob Neusner, Is the God of Judaism Incarnate? RS 24 (1988): 213-238; as the image of God v. Elliot R. Wolfson, Judaism and Incarnation: The Imaginal Body of God, in Tikva Frymer-Kensky et al (edd.), Christianity in Jewish Terms, (Boulder, Co.; Westview Press, 2000), 246-251; Jacob Neusner, Torah: From Scroll to Symbol in Formative Judaism (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988) 4. 379 Transparent Illusion, 207 n. 52. 380 There are biblical references to two sanctuaries, one made by Gods own hands (Exod. 15:17 and Ps. 78:68) and one made by Israel (Tabernacle/Temple). This is consistent with the construction of two sets of tablets, one by God and one by Moses. On God as builder of the sanctuary v. Hurowitz, I have Built You an Exalted House, 332-334. 381 See Norman J. Cohen, Shekhinta Ba-Galuta: A Midrashic Response to Destruction and Persecution, JSJ 13 (1982): 147-159 and sources cited there. See also Paul Morris, Exiled From Eden: Jewish Interpretations of Genesis, in Paul Morris and Deborah Sawyer
377

376

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he shared in all of her afflictions and, when she is redeemed, so too will he be.382 In Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, a second century collection of midrashim on the Book of Exodus, we read:
Even the Selfsame Day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt (Exod. 12:41). The hosts of the Lord are the ministering angels. And so you find that whenever Israel is enslaved the Shekhinah, as it were, is enslaved with them, as it is said: And they saw the God of Israel; and there was under His feet [the likeness of a pavement of sapphire]. But after they were redeemed what does it say? And the like of the very heaven for clearness (Exod. 24:10). And it also says: In all their affliction He was afflicted (Isa. 63:10).383

Our midrashists here contrasts two divine states: the first, the Shekhinahs enslavement in Egypt with Israel, is indicated by the sapphire pavement under Gods feet according to Exod. 24:10; the other, Gods own redemption, is indicated by the like of the very heaven for clearness. The latter quote, in the biblical text, is actually a description of the sapphire pavement,384 but for our midrashist it denotes a separate and contrary divine state. The sapphire pavement is associated with Gods suffering, an important rabbinic motif.385 As commentators have pointed out, the connection between the sapphire stone and Israels sojourn in Egypt is made by reading livnat ha-sappir, paved work of sapphire, as an allusion to levenim, bricks (Exod. 1:14), i.e. the brick-work characteristic of Israelite enslavement in Egypt. (J)ust as Israel below is enslaved by the bricks of Egyptian servitude, so too God has to place bricks (i.e., sapphire stones-WW) beneath his feet.386 When Israel are redeemed, so too will God be from the sapphiric stones. As Moshe Idel has pointed out, An entire myth of the passage of Israel from slavery to freedom is here attributed analogically to God himself, described in highly anthropomorphic terms.387 While the sapphire is associated with the divine throne, a number of considerations make it clear that it is Gods own being that is afflicted here. R. Eleazar ha-Darshan in his Sefer ha-Gematriyot reports the following tradition from the lost Midrash Avkir: The likeness of a pavement of sapphire this alludes [to the fact that] just as Israel were treading the mortar with their feet to make bricks, so it was, as it were,

(edd.), A Walk in the Garden. Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992) 117-166; Fishbane, Biblical Myth, 132-77, 382 Mekhilta deRabbi Ishmael (hereafter MRI), Pisa, 14; y. Suk. 4.3; Exod. R. 30.24; 33.1; Lev. R. 23.8; 32.8. 383 Translation by J.Z. Lauterbach in Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, 3 vols, (Philadelphia; Jewish Publication Society of America, 1933) I: 113. 384 It reads in full, and they say the God of Israel. Under His feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness (NOAB). 385 See esp. Elliot R. Wolfson, Divine suffering and the hermeneutics of reading: Philosophical reflections on Lurianic mythology, in Robert Gibbs and Elliot R. Wolfson (edd.), Suffering Religion (London and New York: Routledge, 2002) 101-162; Peter Kuhn, Gottes Selbstniedrigung in der Theologie der Rabbinen (Munich, 1968); idem, Gottes Trauer und Klage in der rabbinischen berlieferung (Leiden: Brill, 1978); Fishbane, Biblical Myth, op. cit. On God as mourner v. also Melvin Jay Glatt, God The Mourner-Israels Companion In Tragedy, Judaism 28 (1979): 72-79; David Stern, Imitatio Hominis: Anthropomorphism and the Character(s) of God in Rabbinic Literature, Prooftexts 12 (1992): 151-174. On the Old Testament background of the theme of divine suffering v. Terence E. Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). 386 Elliot R. Wolfson, Images of Gods Feet: Some Observations on the Divine Body in Judaism, in Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (ed.), People of the Body: Jews and Judaism in Embodied Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 150. 387 Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988) 226.

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above, in all their troubles he was troubled.388 One of the implications of this tradition is that, as the feet of the Israelites were soiled by an overlay of mortar during their labor, so too were the feet of the Shekhinah (ragle Shekhinah) covered with sapphire. The significance of this can be appreciated only when we consider the fact that ragle Shekhinah is rabbinic idiom denoting the anthropomorphic, terrestrial Presence of God, the lower Glory, if you will, cognate with pene ha-Shekhinah, the Face of the Presence, the fiery Kavod or upper Glory.389 This anthropomorphic Glory covered with sapphires recalls Cant. 5:14: His body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires.390 This association of the biblical pavement under Gods feet with a sapphiric soil covering the ragle Shekhinah illuminates a midrash that seems to allude to the somatic transformation of the divine.
But they had no comforter. Says the Holy One, blessed be He: It shall be My task to comfort them. For in this world there is dross in them, but in the World to Come, says Zechariah, I have seen them all gold, all of them pure gold: hence it is written, I have seen, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a gulah (bowl) upon the top of it-roshah (Zech. IV, 2). Two amoraim differ on the meaning of gulah. One reads golah and the other reads goalah. He who reads golah explains it to mean that they had been exiled (gulah) to Babylon and the Shekhinah had accompanied them into exile; as it says, For your sake I have been sent to Babylon (Isa. XLIII, 14). He who reads goalah renders redeemer, as it says, Our Redeemer (goalenu), the Lord of hosts is His name (ib. XLVII, 4), and it is written, The breaker is gone up before them; they have broken forth and passed on, by the gate, and are gone out thereat; and their king is passed on before them, and the Lord at the head of them-berosham (Micah II, 13).391

We first notice that our midrashist draws an analogy between the eschatological Israel and the golden menorah seen by Zechariah. Underlying this analogy is a widespread motif of the eschatological somatic transformation of the righteous into luminous angelic beings.392 In rabbinic tradition the golden menorah symbolizes the luminous image of God, the Shekhinah, and the transformed righteous.393 The setting for this midrash is the Babylonian exile. Redemption from exile and the eschatological transformation are here conflated, and the use of Micah 2:13 suggests that God, in exile with Israel, will lead them in redemption.394 The implication is that God will lead Israel in experiencing this somatic transformation. The dross here parallels the mortar soiling the feet of the Israelite slaves in Egypt and, as in that case, the divine
Cited by Idel, Kabbalah, 382, n. 101. As demonstrated by Wolfson, Images of Gods Feet, 143-181. 390 The idea that the sapphiric pavement of Exodus 24:10 symbolized the lower, anthropomorphic Glory through which the upper, luminous Glory is made visually manifest was the esoteric doctrine of the 10th century philosopher, scientists, and Jewish mystic of southern Italy Shabbetai Donnolo. See ibid, 155-156; idem, The Theosophy of Shabbetai Donnolo, with Special Emphasis on the Doctrine of Sefirot in His Sefer \akhmoni, Jewish History 6 (1992): 281-316; idem, Through a Speculum, 127-144. 391 Lev. R. 32.8, Soncino translation. 392 Morray-Jones, Transformational Mysticism, 17ff; Willem F. Smelik, On the Mystical Transformation of the Righteous into Light in Judaism, JSJ 26 (1995): 122-144; Gilles Quispel, Transformation Through Vision in Jewish Gnosticism and the Cologne Mani Codex, VC 49 (1995): 189-191. It is this transformation that likely lay behind Pauls doctrine of glorification (cf. 2 Cor. 5:110). See Alan F. Segal, Paul and the Beginning of Jewish Mysticism, in Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys, eds. John J. Collins and Michael Fishbane (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995) 95-122, esp. 101-108; idem, Paul the Convert, 35-71, esp. 46-56; idem, The Risen Christ and the Angelic Mediator Figures in Light of Qumran, in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 302-328, esp. 313-320. 393 Smith, The Image of God, 497-512; Rachel Hachlili, The Menorah, the Ancient Seven-Armed Candelabrum: Origin, Form, and Significance (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 204-205. 394 As in Pesiqta Rabbati 8.4 the bowl (gulah) atop the lampstand is God.
389 388

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counterpart is signified by the sapphire throne.395 The overall context therefore suggests that the sapphire has somatic significance: corporeal accretion from which Yahweh will be redeemed.396 7.3.1. Adam and the Shekhinah in Exile When Adam sinned on the eve of the first Sabbath, his light dimmed, but darkness did not overtake him until the close of Sabbath.397 In the meantime, the sapphire tablets came into existence and the Shekhinah went into exile in the first of seven heavens.398 There is probably a connection here. The first heaven is called Veil ( )in rabbinic literature and as William Brownlee notes was thought of as sapphire in color, and as crystalline and transparent.399 This sapphiric heaven to which the Shekhinah retreated is therefore analogous to the sapphire pavement of Exod. 24:10, also the mark of the Shekhinahs exile.400 Now this lower heaven, the ,is associated with the goat-hair coverings of the Tabernacle. In the World::Temple::Body homology of the rabbis, the coverings correspond not only to the visible heaven but, significantly, to the skin of Adam as well.401 We recall that the association of the skin of a divinity with the heavens is ancient and that in Heikhalot literature (SQ) the body of God is so associated.402 Taken together this all suggests that the Shekhinah went into somatic exile in the first heaven after Adams sin; that is to say, Gods Glory assumed a sapphiric body some time on day six, in contrast probably to the light-body of day one. If our reasoning is cogent, there is yet a tension in all of this that must be resolved or, at least, noted. While Adams high priestly body, a sapphiric body on our reading, is prelapsarian and thus pre-exilic, Gods sapphiric body seems to be connected with Adams sin and therefore post-exilic. Yet, we are arguing that the two bodies are identical: Adam is the hypostatic image and form of God. As we do not suggest that
Though the throne is not mentioned here, it is implied by the Babylonian setting. In parallel midrashim Gods accompaniment of Israel in exile in Babylon is denoted by the sapphiric divine throne encountered by Ezekiel at the river Chebar (Ezek. 1:26; y. Sukkah 4:3). 396 For a somatic reading of the sapphire throne in Ezekiel v. Grey Hubert Skipwith, The Lord of Heaven. (The Fire of God; The Mountain Summit; The Divine Chariot; and the Vision of Ezekiel), JQR 19 (1906-7): 688-703, esp. 692-701. 397 Gen. R. 11.2; 12.6. 398 According to rabbinic tradition the sapphire tablets came into existence on the eve of the first Sabbath. See Ginzberg, Legends, vol. 1:83; Jewish Encyclopedia 11:662-664 s.v. Tables of the Law. On the Shekhinahs exile in the first heaven v. Gen. R. 19.7. On the seven heavens in Jewish cosmology v. Adela J. Collins, The Seven Heavens in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, in John J. Collins and Micheal Fishbane (edd.), Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1995) 57-93. 399 Ezekiel 1-19, 13. The association of the heavens with precious stones is found in Babylonian cosmologies as well, which may have influenced biblical cosmology. According to W.G. Lambert, the Babylonians associated their three heavens (upper/middle/lower) with stones, the lower deriving its blue from the jasper stone (The Cosmology of Sumer and Babylon, in Carmen Blacker and Michael Loewe (edd.), Ancient Cosmologies [London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1975] 58). In rabbinic literature, the firmament is made of crystal, whench the heavens derive their light (See Ginsberg, Legends, vol. 1, 13). 400 See Max Kadushin, A Conceptual Approach to the Mekilta (New York: Jonathan David Publishers, 1969) 187 of the sapphiric pavement of Exod. 24:10 as an indication the Shekhinahs heavenly exile. 401 See above. 402 See above.
395

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these various sources witness to a single Blue Body Divine tradition, it is not necessary to find consistency across them. There are, however, two motifs that may make sense of the discrepancy. The first is the motif of Adam as Tabernacle. We have seen that the rabbis could speak of Adam as the sanctuary. This is relevant because, as Benjamin D. Sommer has so eloquently argued, the Tabernacle represents a place of divine exile.
(Ps) God of Creation stands outside of that creationHence the deitys attachment to a particular location (i.e. the tabernacle) represents an incongruityIf this is so, then Ps God, the God who belongs in the tabernacle, does not really belong there at allThe tabernacle, like the cosmos it represents and whose creation it culminates, is Gods home, a place God desires to inhabit, for in Ps theology God attempts to overcome the gulf separating divinity from humanity by establishing an abode among a particular people. But the tabernacle also constitutes a place of divine exileThus the priestly document reveals the beginning of a notion that developed much more fully, and much more boldly, in the postbiblical Jewish tradition: to wit, the notion of Gods own exile in the world God created.403

The rabbis associated the Tabernacle with divine exile (Exod. 33.1). If the tabernacle is Gods place of exile in the world, then prelapsarian Adam, who parallels the sanctuary, would likewise represent the place of divine exile. There is thus congruity between Adams sapphiric body and the Shekhinahs; from this angle they are both exilic. But we can go a step further. There is evidence that Adams high priestly body, though described metaphorically as garments of glory, was considered sin-related. This was not the sin of Gen. 3, but some prior, unrecorded sin, which resulted in a prior, unrecorded (though hinted-at) exile. Rabbinic tradition associated the high priestly vestments with atonement.404 As the first to don these garments, Adam was the first to atone. But if we accept the view that these were prelapsarian garments of glory, we beg the question: for what sin does prelapsarian man have to atone? And if Adams high priestly, sapphiric body is exilic, whence was he exiled? After all, he is in Eden! Partial answers to these questions may be provided by the Eden-as-Temple tradition found in a number of Jewish and early Christian sources.405 Eden is compared either to a seven-tiered sanctuary or, originally it seems, a three-tiered sanctuary corresponding to the three divisions of the tabernacle: the ulam (outer-court), heikhal (outer sanctum), and devir (inner

403 Conflicting Constructions, 61; v. also idem, Expulsion as Initiation: Displacement. Divine Presence, and Divine Exile in the Torah, in Aryeh Cohen and Shaul Magid (edd.), Beginning/Again: Towards a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts (New York and London: Seven Bridges Press, 2002) 37. 404 b. Zeb. 88b; y. Yoma 7:3. See discussion by Swartz, Semiotics of Priestly Vestments, 70f. 405 Num. R. 8.2. See Gordon J. Wenham, Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story, Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 4-12, 1985 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986) 19-25; Martha Himmelfarb, The Temple and the Garden of Eden in Ezekiel, the Book of the Watchers, and the Wisdom of ben Sira, in Jamie Scott and Paul Simpson-Housley (edd.), Sacred Places and Profane Spaces: Essays in the Geographics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991) 63-78; Donald W. Parry, Garden of Eden: Prototype Sanctuary, in idem, Temples of the Ancient World, op. cit. 126-151; Lawrence E. Stager, Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden, Eretz-Israel 26 (1999): 183-194; Gary Anderson, The Cosmic Mountain: Eden and its Early Interpreters in Syriac Christianity, in Gregory Robins (ed.), Genesis 1-3 in the History of Exegesis: Intrigue in the Garden (Lewiston, New York: E. Mellen Press, 1988) 187-224.

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sanctum).406 These three areas represented three concentric gradients of holiness, each distinguished by color and type of fabric for its wall coverings and tapestries.407 The vestments of the priests corresponded to the area to which they had access. The high priest wore his distinctive garb in the outer sanctum, but when he entered the Holy of Holies (devir) on Yom Kippur, he wore a white linen tunic (Lev. 16). In the context of Eden, Adams high priestly garments of glory places him in the outer sanctum, from which he and Eve were expelled after transgressing Yahwehs command. Thus, the Syriac Christian theologian St. Ephrem (d. 373), whose exegesis shows a considerable affinity to Jewish haggadic tradition,408 placed Adam in the heikhal of his tabernacle-like Paradise where he possessed a mid-grade glory.409 But there seems to have been a tradition that put Adam in the Holy of Holies itself, from which he was expelled and then clothed in priestly garments. This is what is found in the book of Jubilees (ca. second century B.C.),410 and as C.T.R. Hayward observed, the high priests entry into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur may correspond typologically to Adams return to Eden.411 But it could not have been Adam of Gen. 1:26ff who resided in the Holy of Holies; his colored high priestly garments restricts him to the outer sanctuary. Rather it is , the First Adam, the Phs created on Day One and who, according to two famous articles by Alexander Altmann,412 is midrashically identified with the white garment of God from which the primordial light (Gen. 1:3) emanated. This First Adam is probably the same as the demiurgic anthropos called Gods likeness, Demut, the archetype of Adam of Gen. 1:26ff.413 Unlike the many Gnostics who distinguished between Phos and the Adam of Genesis 1:26ff, the rabbis refused to differentiate: the two were identical.414 Thus R. Shimon b. Laqishs statement: he (Adam) was last of the creations of the last day, and he was first of the creations of the first day (Gen. R. 8.1). But the former, in his colored high priestly garment, is of a lesser grade of holiness than the latter, the whiteC.R.A. Morray-Jones, Paradise Revisted (2 Cor 12:1-12): The Jewish Mystical Background of Pauls Apostolate. Part 1: The Jewish Sources, HTR 86 (1993): 203-207; idem, Transparent Illusion, 29-33. 407 Haran, Temples and Temple Service, 167, 171; Johnson, Graded Holiness, 105, 124-128; Anderson, Genesis of Perfection, 12124. 408 See particularly Knonholm, Motifs, passim. 409 See sources and discussion in ibid., 76, 108; Anderson, Genesis of Perfection, 55-58, 79-86. 410 See Jacques Van Ruiten, The Garden of Eden and Jubilees 3:1-31, Bijdragen tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 57 (1993): 305-317. On the Garden-as-Sanctuary motif in Jubilees v. also Joseph M. Baumgarten, Purification After Childbirth and the Sacred Garden in 4Q265 and Jubilees, in George J. Brooke (ed.), New Qumran Texts and Studies. Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Paris 1992 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994) 3-10. 411 Jewish Temple, 89. See also Parry, Garden of Eden, 133-137. 412 See above n. 225 413 According to b. Keth 8a Adam of Gen. 1:26-27 was created in His image, in the image of the likeness of His form ( . Adam, the Image, is here the Abbild to the Demut, Likeness (Urbild), which in turn is the Abbild of Gods tabnt. This anthropogonic triplicity recalls Philo. See also Altmann, Homo Imago Dei, 241-243. 414 Altmann, Homo Imago Dei, 244.
406

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robed Phs. Phs must have sinned in heaven, been exiled to the outer sanctum and accreted a sapphiric body in the process.415 Now it must be remembered that in rabbinic literature Shekhinah, Kavod, Panim, and Demut are all used interchangeably and denote Gods luminous anthropomorphic form, Primordial Adam who, we recall, is the Divine Likeness of God (b. B Bat. 58a), the Primordial Light (Phs) of Day One.416 His somatic devolution is, then, the devolution of the divine.417 8. Black Fire on White Fire: Kabbalahs Dark Demiurge What is only hinted at and alluded to in rabbinic literature is fully articulated in Kabbalah.418 In fact, this Blue Body Divine tradition gives strong evidence of continuity between Kabbalistic and Prekabbalistic rabbinic doctrine as argued by a number of scholars,419 as well as the pretensions of the Kabbalists themselves of being transmitters of the ancient esoteric doctrine of Israel. Kabbalah traces the evolutionary development of the Godhead from deus absconditus to deus revelatus.420 The end product of this emanative process, as such it is, of divine self-evolution is Adam Kadmon or Primordial Man, also called YHWH and the Holy One, blessed be He, i.e., the personal god of biblical and rabbinic tradition.421 During this process the divine unfolded from its ineffable repose in the mystery of Ein Sof and

415 Thus there is no conflict between the traditions that Adams garments were created on the first day of Creation and that they were created on the sixth. See Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 437-38. On the sin of the heavenly Adam v. ibid, 15, 137. In 3 Enoch Adam is exiled from inner Eden where the Shekhinah resides on a cherub beneath the tree of life, i.e. the Holy of Holies, only to the gate of Eden where he could still gaze at the luminous Shekhinah. It was only after the sin of the generation of Enoch that the Shekhinah retreated to the first heaven (Chapters 5 and 6). We find the same two-step estrangement from Eden in St. Ephrams Hymns of Paradise 1:10-11. Origen, with his debt to Jewish tradition, read the Genesis narrative as an account of two falls, one of rational, incorporeal beings into embodiment in Eden, and from there into fleshy, garments of skin (Gen. 3:7) outside of Eden. See Bammel, Adam in Origen, 64-69. 416 On the Shekhinah as Kavod v. J. Abelson, The Immanence of God in Rabbinic Literature (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1912) 380ff. On the Kavod-as-Panim-as-Demut v. Ex. R. 23.15; on Adam-as-Demut-as-Panim v. Gen. R. 21.7. On the First Adam as the Light of the world see y. Shabbat 2:6. 417 On Jewish, Jewish Christian, and Jewish Gnostic traditions of the somatic fall of the divine v. Gilles Quispel, Gnosis and Alchemy: the Tabula Smaragdina, in van den Broek and van Heertum, From Poimandres to Jacob Bhme, 303-333. See also Alon Goshen Gottsteins reading of b. B Bat 58a:

Compared with Sarah, all other people are like a monkey to a human being, and compared with Eve Sarah was like a monkey to a human being, and compared with Adam Eve was like a monkey to a human being, and compared with the Shekhinah Adam was like a monkey to a human being. Gottstein (The Body as Image, 180-184) quite perceptively observed that this comparison suggests a gradual and graduated move away from the divine form (Shekhinah) to a growing similarity to apes, a kind of reverse Darwinism. 418 Bokser (The Thread of Blue, 20f) assumed that many of these (kabbalistic) speculations about the thread of blue were known in the early rabbinic period. They are, in any case, only elaborations on interpretations found in the Talmud and the early midrashim. 419 Yehuda Liebes argued, for example, that there is unquestionable continuity between rabbinic and Kabbalistic conceptions of divinity, the kabbalistic system being created through exegesis of the Midrash (De Natura Dei: On the Development of the Jewish Myth, in idem, Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism [trns. Batya Stein; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983] 1-64). For further suggestions of continuity v. also Idel, Kabbalah, esp. Chapters 7, 8; idem, Rabbibism Versus Kabbalism: On G. Scholems Phenonenology of Judaism, Modern Judaism 11 (1991): 281-296. 420 See above n. 3. 421 On Adam Kadmon v Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 15-16; Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, I:295ff; C.J.M. Hopking, The Practical Kabbalah Quidebook (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2001), 34f.; Leo Schaya, The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah, trns from the French by Nancy Pearson (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1971), 116ff; Gershom Sholem, Adam Kadmon, Encyclopedia Judaica 2:248f; Green, Guide to the Zohar, 46.

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descended ten levels or stages, ending with the demiurgic anthropos and his material creation. These ten stages of divine descent are called sefirot (s. sefirah), also characterized as luminous spiritual substances and potencies emanating from Ein Sof and constituting Adam Kadmons luminous divine body.422 Important here are the sixth and the tenth sefirot called respectively Tiferet (Beauty/Splendor) and Malkhut (Kingdom), also called Shekhinah. The relation of the two to each other is analogous to the human soul (Tiferet) to the body (Malkhut), the latter serving as an anthropomorphic veil weakening and refracting the luminance of the upper sefirot before transmitting it to the world.423 They are, so to speak, husband and wife (the luminous, masculine Tiferet and the dark material, feminine Malkhut/Shekhinah) representing the soul and body of the divine anthropos.424 In the Zohar we find the doctrine of the two countenances (parufim)425, the Great Countenance (Arikh Anpin) and the Small Countenance (Zeir Anpin). Together, the two countenances constitute the anthropomorphic God of Light (Arikh Anpin)426 and his dark bodiliy veil (Zeir Anpin)427-that is to say, Adam Kadmon. While Arikh Anpin, the brilliantly luminous anthropos, is the hidden deity, analogous to the human soul concealed within the body, Zeir Anpin is the external deity, the body veiling and filtering the infinite luminosity so as not to burn up all of creation.428

422 On the sefirot v. Green, Guide to the Zohar, 2859; Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, I;269-307; Elliot K. Ginsburg, The Image of the Divine and Person in Zoharic Kabbalah, in Larry D. Shinn (ed.), In Search of the Divine: Some Unexpected Consequences of Interfaith Dialogue (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987) 61-87. There are different Kabbalistic conceptions of the sefirot and their relation to the divine; v. Idel, Kabbalah, 136ff. Incidently, Gershom Scholem connects the sefirot with sapphire: The word (sefirah) is not derived from safar, to count, but from sappir, sapphire. They are thus sapphirine reflections of the divinity, and Psalm 19:2: The heavens declare the glory of God, is interpretedwith this etymology: the heavens shine in the sapphirine splender of the glory of God. Origins of the Kabbalah, edited by R.J. Zwi Werblowsky and translated from the German by Allan Arkush (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1987) 81. 423 Schaya describes it in this way (Universal Meaning, 68): when the creative influx of the Sefiroth fills the receptivity of the lower mother (Malkhut), its emptiness or translucence transmits the divine radition in all the directions of the cosmos, while its darkness contracts, condenses and becomes substance enveloping light. In its first and celestial condensation, substance is still subtle and resplendent with the radiation that only lightly veils it; but it becomes opaque and gross in its corporeal and terrestrial solidification, which hides the light from above, as thick clouds mask the sun. See also Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, I:376; Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 15-16. This recalls the philonic descent of Phos examined above. On the possible relation between philonic and kabbalistic tradition v. Elliot R. Wolfson, Traces of Philonic Doctrine In Medieval Jewish Mysticism: A Preliminary Note, The Studia Philonica Annual 8 (1996): 99-106. On Malkhut and the material body v. Hopking, Practical Kabbalah Quidebook, 25; Hallamish, Introduction, 137. 424 On the masculine luminosity and feminine darkness v. Arturo Schwarz, Kabbalah and Alchemy (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 2000), 37. Rosenberg, Anatomy of, 6. On Tiferet and Malkhut as soul and body v. Zohar III, 152a; Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, III:1127, n. 30; Hallamish, Introduction, 137 425 On the parufim v. also Idel, Kabbalah, 128-136. 426 It is often assumed that Arikh anpin is a disembodied head (v. Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar I:297) because his head is in fact the focus of attention in Idra Rabba. But a full anthropomorphic body is presumed (Sholem, On the Mystical Shape, 50), and his Divine Form, (III, 134b) including the spinal column (III, 131b), shoulders (III, 129a), heart and navel (III, 130b) are explicitly mentioned. 427 Arikh Anpin and Zeir Anpinn are respectively white and dark red. Idra Rabba mentions the bright whiteness of the Ancient One (i.e., Arikh Anpin)(Zohar III, 128b), the white visage of his face (128b), white cheeks (131a), and hair and beard that are white as snow (131b). Arikh anpin is thus called the White Head (129b). Zeir anpin is described with black hair and beard (129b, 139a), eyes that look entirely black (136b), but with a red face (forehead, cheeks, lips, 136b, 139a, 140b). This red is a black red, as the two colors are twins (137a). The red iridescence denotes severity and wrath (cf. the red garments of Yahweh as his treads the winepress of nations in Isaiah 63:1-4), both characteristic of Zeir anpin, the impatient one. On the color red v. Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar I:291; Scholem, Colours and their Symbolism (Part I) 108ff. 428 On Arikh Anpin concealed within the body of Zeir Anpin v. Zohar III, 141b, which notes that the two yods found in wayyier of Gen. 2:7 (YHWH Elohim formed, wayyier, Adam) denotes the two forms of Arikh Anpin and Zeir Anpin, a form within a form.

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8.1. The Catastrophic Blackening of the Shekhinah In the color symbolism of the Kabbalah Tiferet is variously depicted as white, yellow, or purple.429 Malkhut is variously black, blue or red. The classic picture however is of the luminous white Tiferet enthroned within the black Malkhut. When the two are in harmony, a blue iridescence is produced, giving a blue-black appearance. This, we are informed, is the secret of the blue tassel.430 On the other hand, when judgment is Gods business, a red iridescence is produced. The locus classicus of this doctrine is Zohar I, 50b-51b, which reveals the mystery of (divine) unification (sod ha-yihud), i.e. between the luminous Tiferet and the dark Malkhut:
Rabbi Simeon began by saying: There are two verses written: For the Lord your God is a devouring fire (Deut. 4:24), and it is also written there, And you that cleave to the Lord your God are alive, all of you, today. We have reconciled these verses in several places, and the companions have an understanding of them. Come and seeWhoever wished to understand the wisdom of the holy unification, let him look at the flame that rises from a glowing coal, or from a burning lamp, for a flame rises only when it takes hold of some coarse matter. Come and see. In the rising flame there are two lights: one is a radiant white light (Tiferet) and one is a light that contains black or blue (Malkhut). The white light is above, and ascends in a direct line, and beneath it is the blue or black light, which is the throne for the white, and the white light rests upon it, and they are connected together, forming one whole, and the black light, or [that which has] blue color, is the throne of glory for the white. And this is the mystic significance of the blue.431 And this blue-black throne is joined to something else, below it (the material world), so that it can burn, and it stimulates it to grasp the white light. This blueblack [light] sometimes changes to red, but the white light above it never changes, for it is always white. However the blue changes to these colors: sometimes blue or black, and sometimes red. This [light] is connected on two sides. It is connected above to the white light, and it is connected below to what is beneath it, to what has been prepared for it, so that it might illuminate and grasp it432

The point of this passage is clearly to describe the relationship between Tiferet, the luminous anthropos, and Malkhut, his black body.433 The body, or blue-black light, serves as the throne of glory for the luminous anthropos. When Tiferet and Malkkut are joined in unity, a blue iridescence envelopes the Shekhinah. The blue therefore indicates the unity or covenant between the upper and lower potencies.434 After the occurrence of a divine tragedy, however, when the connection between Tiferet and Malkkut was broken (referred to as the exile of the Shekhinah, the cutting of the shoots, and the Fall of Adam), the
See also Idel, Kabbalah, 135. Zohar III, 128b refers to Zeir Anpin as the aspect of the Divine Form that is more external. Cf. III, 133b. On the veiling of the divine luminosity Tishby (Wisdom of the Zohar, II:455) explained: It is as if the divine light, which spreads out and thickens during the process of emanation, clothes itself in garments from stage to stageWere it not for the garments that conceal and limit the flow of emanation, the non-divine substances could not survive, because every area of direct radiation from the divine light belongs to the realm of the Godhead. It is only when the divine light is filtered by the various barriers that the gradation required for the building of the worlds can be effected.; Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 273f. 429 On the kabbalistic color symbolism v. Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, I:290ff.; Scholem, Colours and their Symbolism, op. cited; idem, Colours and their Symbolism in Jewish Tradition and Mysticism (Part II), Diogenes 109 (1980): 64-76; Moshe Idel, Kabbalistic Prayer and Colors, in Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times, Vol. III, ed. David R. Blumenthal (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1984) 17-27. For a much more speculative look v. Dorren and James Sturzaker, Colour and the Kabbalah (Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Thorsons Publishers Limited, 1975). 430 On Malkhut and the blue tassel v. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar III: 1183; Aryeh Kaplan, The Bahir. Translation, Introduction and Commentary (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1989), 153ff; Bokser, The Thread of Blue, 19ff; Scholem, Colours and their Symbolism (Part II), 67. 431 In the Tabernacle, the vestments and on the fringes of the prayer shawl. 432 Translation in Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar I:319. See also Gershom Scholem, Zohar: The Book of Splendor. Basic Readings from the Kabbalah (New York: Schocken Books, 1949, 1977)14-16. 433 Or as Scholem says, the hieros gamos or sacred marriage between the upper and lower worlds. Gershom Scholem, Colours and Their Symbolism (Part II),: 73. For an analysis of this passage v. also Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, I:319ff. 434 On the covenant as hieros gamos between the upper and lower divine potencies v. Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 286f.

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lights went out and all that was left was the black material body of Shekhinah.435 Again, as in the SQ and rabbinic tradition, the blue iridescence or surrounding rainbow presupposes an underlying black body. Zohar III:25b takes the maidens statement in Cant. 1:6, You may not look upon me, because I am blackened, because the sun has tanned me, as a reference to the exiled Shekhinah.
Rabbi Judah began by quoting: You may not look upon me, because I am blackened, because the sun has tanned me (Cant. 1:6). This verse has been explained. But when the moon (the Shekhinah) hid herself in exile, she said, You may not look upon me. Not that this was a command, not to look at her, but since she saw how Israel yearned to look at the light, she said You may not look upon me-you are not able to see me-it is impossible to see me. Why is this? Because I am blackened-because I am in darkness. Why does it say shearoret (blackened)? It should have said sheora.436 But there are two darknesses. One is because the sun has tanned me, because the sun (Tiferet) has withdrawn its light from me and does not look on me, and the other is caused by the fact that my mothers sons (i.e. the husks, the forces of retribution)437 burned in anger against me.438

Separated from the light of Tiferet, the Shekhinahs appearance becomes black and tiny, and this black appearance is represented as the black garments that the Shekhinah wears in exile.439 What is significant about the kabbalistic doctrine of the darkening of the divine body is that, as in rabbinic tradition, it is associated with Adams sin and subsequent exile, the destruction of the temple and the breaking of the Tablets.440 8.2. Primordial Torah and the Divine Skin Related to this tradition of the luminous deity and his black bodily veil is the imagery of the primordial Torah. Haggadic tradition placed the origin of the primordial Torah two thousand years before creation; it was in fact the instrument of creation.441 In Kabbalah this pre-mundane Torah was identified with the anthropomorphic form of God, Adam Kadmon.442 A number of midrashim describe this Torah as black

435 See Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, I:219f, 373f, 416, III: 1091, 1143. On this divine tragedy v. especially Wolson, Divine Suffering, 116ff; idem, Left Contained in the Right: A Study in Zoharic Hermeneutics, AJS Review 11 (1986): 27-52, esp. 37ff. On the separation of Tiferet and Malkhut and the ensuing severity v. also Scholem, On the Mystical Shape, 64ff. On the casting of the Shekhinah/Adam from heaven v. Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 55, 57. 436 The common word for black. Shearoret is an intensive form. 437 On the husks v. Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, II:461ff; Scholem, On the Mystical Shape, 73; Alexander Altman, The Motif of the Shells in Ariel of Gerona, in idem, Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969) 172-179. On the victimization of the Shekhinah by these demonic powers and its place in Kabbalistic teleology v. Elliot R. Wolfson, Light Through Darkness: The Ideal of Human Perfection in the Zohar, HTR 81 (1988): 73-95. 438 Translation and annotations in Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, I:416. 439 See Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, I:219f, 416, III:1091; Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 54. 440 See Schwartz, Tree of Souls, 57, 425; On kabbalistic interpretations of Adams sin and exile see Morris, Exiled from Eden, 128136. 441 Genesis Rabbah 1:1, 4. On the Primordial Torah in Jewish Mysticism v. Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, III: 1079ff; Gershom Sholem, On the Kabbalah and its symbolism, trns. Ralph Manheim (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 40f. See also Elliot R. Wolfson, The Mystical Significance of Torah Study in German Pietism, JQR 84 (1993): 43-77 and Moshe Idel, Infinities of Torah in Kabbalah, in Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick (edd.), Midrash and Literature, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 141-157. 442 Thus the anonymous 13th century Castilian text Sefer ha-Yihud (The Book of Divine Unity) states: All the letters of the Torah, in all their shapesall of them constitute the very shape of Godlikewise the Torahis the shape of God. (This text is printed and discussed in Moshe Idel, The Concept of the Torah in Heikhalot Literature and its Metamorphoses in Kabbalah, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1 ([981] 62-64 [Hebrew]). The shape is anthropomorphic, as the Sefer ha-Temunah (Book of the [Divine] Image,) affirms: The Torah is, therefore, the wholeness of the grand and supernal Anthropos, and this is the reason it comprises the 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments, which are tantamount to the number of the limbs and sinews of lower

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fire written on white fire.443 Many Kabbalists took the two fires to refer to Gods internal and external forms.444 The black fire, the Hebrew letters written in continuous black script with no breaks between the words, was the outer body to the white fire, the soul.445 The latter was equated with the luminous sefirotic Anthropos (Adam Kadmon), the hidden glory (Tiferet), while the black letters represented the visible, publicly disclosed anthropomorphic form of God (Malkhut/Shekhinah).446 This understanding of the Torah antedates the public emergence of Kabbalah in 13th century Provence (southern France). A pre-kabbalistic, possibly 10th century midrash explicitly identifies the white fire with the divine limbs of Yahweh.
Before the creation of the world, skins for parchments were not in existence, so that the Torah will be written on them, because the animals did not yet exist. So upon what was the Torah written? On the arm of the Holy One, blessed be He, by a black fire on [the surface of] white fire.447

As Moshe Idel has pointed out in a learned study of this midrash, the quandary here is what the primordial, i.e. pre-mundane Torah could have been written on since the animal hides necessary for parchments do not yet exist. According to the author of this midrash the parchment upon which the pre-existent Torah was written was the divine skin, to use Idels term, consisting of white fire.448 But the term divine skin is somewhat misleading here. The white fire was generally understood to denote the inner, hidden form of God, analogous to the soul. It was the black fire that denoted the external form, i.e. the body.449 The term divine skin is therefore more appropriate in relation to the black fire. In any case, this dark Torah is, as in the early traditions, the divine schattenbild: God created man in his own image, this [image] being the Torah, which is the shadow of God, blessed be he.450

and supernal manand since the Torah has the shape of man it is fitting to be given to man See discussion in Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001], 74) See also Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar, III: 1080f; Sholem, On the Kabbalah, 44ff. Wolfson, Judaism and Incarnation, 246ff; idem, Through a Speculum that Shines, index s.v. Torah. 443 y. Sheqalim 6:1; Deut. R 3:12 444 On the kabbalistic interpretations of these fires v. Idel, Absorbing Perfections, Chapter Two; Moshe Idel, Torah: Between Presence and Representation of the Divine in Jewish Mysticism, in Representation in Religion: Studies in Honor of Moshe Barasch, ed. Jan Assmann and Albert I. Baumgarten (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 202ff; idem, The Concept of the Torah, 43ff. 445 Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 51ff; Idel, Torah: Between Presence and Representation, 205; Elliot R. Wolfson, Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), 58. 446 Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 55f; Wolfson, Circle in the Square, 59. 447 On this midrash and its implications v. Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 47ff; idem, Torah: Between Presence and Representation, 203ff; idem, The Concept of the Torah, 45-46. On this midrash and esoteric doctrine v. Wolfson, Judaism and Incarnation, 247. 448 Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 48. 449 In as much as the white and black fires were taken to represent the soul and the body respectively. See Wolfson, Circle in the Square, 58f. 450 Quoted from the 13th century kabbalistic auther R. Shemaiah ben Isaac by Idel, Kabbalah, 247.

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9. Conclusion Ben Zion Bokser pointed out that Jewish mystics deemed the color blue a representation of the deity.451 We now have a better understanding why. We have uncovered an ancient, probably esoteric tradition concerning the god of Israel and his blue body. This body, identified with the dark theophanic cloud of the Wandering Narrative, was a dark bodily veil enveloping Yahwehs Kavod or luminous anthropomorphic glory. This cloud-like body, by refracting and filtering the divine radiance that would have otherwise scorched finit creation, serves as a shadow providing a measure of coolness from the heat of the sun.452 The radiance of the Kavod shinning through the black veil produced a beautiful blue iridescence or surrounding rainbow, like sunlight passing through a rain-cloud.453 This blue iridescence was symbolized by the dark blue sapphire/lapis lazuli, the stone most closely associated with the body divine in ANE myth. Cultically this sapphiric body and rainbow-like surrounding splendor were represented by the long blue robe and ephod of the high priest. On this reading the covenant marked by the rainbow (Gen. 9:13-17) would mystically signify the covenant or agreement between the higher and lower glories, the luminous spirit and dark body. When the two are in harmony the rainbow is visible from the clouds. When the covenant is broken, however and the connection between the higher and the lower is severed the rainbow disappears, leaveing only the exiled Shekhinah in her black garments. This sapphiric body of glory was the subject of great esoteric and mystical speculation. The earliest extant witness to this Jewish theologoumenum may well be the Priestly redactor of the Pentateuch. Ps theological anthropology, implicitly identifying Adam as the divine schattenbild, hypostatic form and sanctuary, seems to be the source of Philos HPL doctrine. The evidence of other Second Temple priestly traditions invites us to uderstand the high priestly garments in P corporeally. The rabbinic recption of this priestly theological anthropology continued the somatic reading of the high priestly garments. This highpriestly body was a sapphiric body and rabbinic literature gives evidence of an esoteric tradition concerning the divine sapphiric body, a tradition found in Heikhalot and kabbalistic materials as well.

451 452

The Thread of Blue, 14. On the biblical shadow as providing shelter from the heat of the noon-day sun v. ISBD 4:440 s.v. Shade by Chamberlain. 453 See also Platos description of the origin of Blue: White and bright meeting, and falling upon a full black, becomes dark blue. Timaeus 68 (trns. Benjamin Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, Volume III [Third Edition; Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1997] 368).

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This tradition of the blue body divine connects Philo, the Rabbis, the authors of the Shiur Qomah materials, and the medieval Kabbalists. This gives weight to the latters claim of being no late innovators, but conveyers of an ancient esoteric tradition. In this case, there is good reason to believe that we are dealing with an ancient priestly or Temple tradition. If this is indeed the case, the current reconstructions of First Temple Israelite religion should be reconsidered.454 Was this tradition part of what Margaret Barker dubbed the Older Testament, suppressed aspects of the ancient cult, which survived in sectarian Judaism, early Christianity and medieval Kabbalah?455 We cannot answer this question with certainty, but the sustaining power of the tradition (over a millennium) and its appearance in many divergent settings suggest that it was regarded as quite an important element of Israels religion.

We find no hint of such a tradition, for example, in Bernhard Langs, The Hebrew God: Portrait of an Ancient Deity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002). 455 See her The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1987).

454

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Figure 1 Lvis Great Seal of Solomon (Left) and Magical Head of the Zohar (Right)

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