Hello every one welcome back to Critical Thinking Aloud’s continuation of Yahweh as the Bibles main character. This teaching is yet another installment of our foundational What is the Bible Series.
As always we will be building off of the other material in this series. To get the most out of this teaching it will be helpful for you to have gone through the previous content so if you haven’t had a chance to do so yet review those teaching first by clicking here.
The goal for this series has been to equip us with a portfolio about the ancient Near Eastern context of the Biblical authors to keep in the forefront of our minds while studying the scripture. Since God chose to use this culture to solidify His love story to Humanity. Therefore the more familiar we are with this culture, the better chance we have to properly interpret the authors intending meaning and apply that truth to our lives.
In this Installment we will start our study on how the invisible Yahweh reveals Himself visibly to Humanity in the form of a man via theophany.
How we are going to learn
Today we will be looking at the topic of the Bibles main characters in light of the ancient Near East. As I have done in the past with other teachings I want to quote from scholarly sources to make my point. I do this in hope that you will see this isn’t just my interpretation of the Scriptures but that this view is steeped in academia.
We will be using two amazing sources which we highly recommend.
- Faithlife Study Bible: This is an amazing resource that is free if you download the app or use it online. To download the app or use this resource online visit their website here. This resource is also available in print which you can purchase here.
- The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: This is my favorite resource for gaining a better understanding for the ancient Near Eastern worldview of the Biblical authors. This is available in a multitude of variations all of which you can find on our resource page here.
Let’s get started
Ancient Near East Context
The ancient Near Eastern biblical authors view of God was similar to all of those in the ancient Near East.
All of the nations which inhabited the ancient Near East believed that the creator god reigned from on top of a mountain with a second god at his side as his second in command. The names of these deities change within the different cultures of the ancient Near East but the roles of these two deities remains roughly the same.
The ancient Near Eastern Biblical authors believed in a single God on top of the mountain who is revealed in distinct ways.
The Ugaritic deities of EL and Baal are perfect examples that even casual readers of the Bible may be familiar with. El the creator and Baal the “most high” is his coregent.
“Orthodox Yahwism replaced the coregent slot that Baal occupied with a sort of binitarian Godhead, In which Yahweh occupied both slots. The OT in fact describes Yahweh with the titles and abilities that Canaanite Literature attributes to both EL and Baal… Within Israelite religion, Yahweh’s occupation of both the two highest tiers resulted conceptually in two Yahwehs- one invisible, the other visible. At times both speak as characters in the same scene, but more frequently, they are virtually interchangeable.”
Faithlife Study Bible: in the Article: Old Testament Godhead Language
Theophany
While discussing how Yahweh reveals Himself to humanity we will be looking at the ancient Near Eastern view of theophany and the role it plays in the pantheon of a nation. Theophany is a visible manifestation of a deity revealed to humanity.
“Since people cannot possible process God’s nature as a disembodied, formless spirit, theophany allows God to make His presence known in a physical way that people can discern through their senses.”
Faithlife Study Bible: in the Article: Theophany in the Old Testament.
There are many forms of theophany that God uses to make his presence known to people. Whirl winds, smoke, fire are just a couple examples to name a few.
Throughout the duration of these teachings we will be focusing especially on the ancient Near Eastern belief about theophany as a person and its counterpart in the belief of the Godhead (more than one personage) of the ancient Israelites.
For the first week of the Visible Yahweh as the Bibles main character teaching we will be looking at the Ancient Near Eastern Biblical authors use of the theophany of Yahweh as the Word of God.
Visible Yahweh as The Word
It is very likely that you have interpreted the passages that we are going to look at today as the audible word from the Lord coming to these bible characters. This is how I interpreted these scriptures for a long time. No doubt this is the case in many scriptures but not all of them.
Abrahams Experience
In Genesis 15:1 it reads “The Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision”.
Look again what the passage says. The Word of the Lord “Came to Abraham in a vision”. If it only said “came to Abraham” we would have precedent from other prophets that it was an audible word.
“In a vision” should catch our attention here. You see something in a vision and I believe that here Abraham saw the visible Word of God.
Here is a quote from our trusty resource to help us understand this concept better.
“These appearances culminate in Genesis 18, where the embodied Yahweh eats a meal in Abraham’s presence. That Abraham appears to recognize one of the men as Yahweh suggests he had seen this man before.”
Faithlife Study Bible: in the Article: Theophany in the Old Testament.
When Yahweh shows up with two other spiritual beings, Abraham recognised one of them as Yahweh. This is because Abraham had already seen the visible Yahweh in the vision of Genesis 15:1.
Samuels Experience
Here is another example from The Book of 1st Samuel
Again in this Chapter we see that “In those Days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.”
After hearing the audible word of the Lord it says this “The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, Samuel! Samuel!” Finally its says “The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.”
Here is another quote from our resource
“Samuel’s sleep is disturbed by a voice calling for him. The voice ends up being the ‘word of Yahweh’ in human form. Samuel’s experience of the ‘word’ is both visual and auditory.”
Faithlife Study Bible: in the Article: Theophany in the Old Testament.
Jeremiah’s Experience
“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’ ‘Alas, Sovereign Lord,’ I said, ‘I do not know how to speak; I am too young.’ But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am too young.” You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,’ declares the Lord. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.’ “
Jeremiah 1:4-9
At first glance this encounter may seem the same as any of the other times when the audible word of the Lord came to a prophet in the Old Testament. But here in the first chapter of Jeremiah if we think critically about the text we discover there is more going on here than we may have initially thought.
“Then the Lord reached out His hand and touched my mouth and said to me…”, The visible Yahweh is described in anthropomorphic language which interacts tangibly with Jeremiah. The invisible Yahweh nor His audible word, cannot be described with bodily terminology. That is reserved for the man theophany of Yahweh.
Jeremiah is not only hearing an audible disembodied voice of the invisible Yahweh but He is standing in the presence of the visible Yahweh revealed through the man theophany as The Word.
Conclusion
The word of the Lord comes audibly to a lot of people in the Old Testament. In these passages as well as others, Jeremiah, Samuel, and Abraham experience way more than just hearing the audible voice of the Lord.
In these instances they are encountering the physical manifestation of the embodied Word of the Lord.
The Trinity that we have come to know as Christians is rooted in Old Testament theology. From the beginning the Invisible God has chosen to reveal Himself to humans through His Visible appearance in the form of a man.
Before His incarnation, Jesus, the Visible Yahweh, was known in the Old Testament as the second person of the trinity by four different descriptions. These four descriptions are The Word, The Angel of the Lord, The Name, and The Rider on the Clouds.
We have seen today that the invisible Yahweh is embodied via His man theophany as The Word. Over the next 3 weeks we will learn more about the other descriptions of Yahweh’s theophany in the form of a man.
I want to leave you with this last quote.
“Theophanies set the precedent for Jesus. They help make sense of why and how God chose to appear in human form.”
Faithlife Study Bible: in the Article: Theophany in the Old Testament.
Check out this short video series on Spiritual beings by our friends over at The Bible Project by clicking here. They are amazing and super helpful to better grasp what we will be covering in this series.
Citations:
Faithlife Study Bible. J. D. Barry et al. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2012.
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