In 1946—just on seventy years ago—three Bedouin teenagers went exploring some cliffs near the Dead Sea. There, in a cave in the wilderness, they made a discovery that would change Biblical studies forever.

Muhammed Ahmed el-Hamed, Jum’a Muhammed Khalib and Khalil Musa returned from their exploration with three scrolls covered with strange writing—the first of the literary treasures that became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The boys had found the long-lost library of the Essenes—a first-century treasure trove of testaments, visions, laws, rules, translations and apocalyptic works. There were books mentioned in the Bible but whose contents were previously unknown and lost texts such as the Hebrew version of Psalm 151. This short psalm by David, which rejoices in his victory over Goliath, was known from Greek translations but the Hebrew version had disappeared.

At least one fragment from every Old Testament book, except Esther, has been found. In some cases, far more than simple fragments have been recovered—the entire Book of Isaiah, for instance, has been retrieved.

Esther, of course, is the book in which the name of God is not mentioned. Perhaps that’s why the Essenes did not include it in their library.

Yet Esther is the book that is, in many ways, the one that corresponds to most people’s experience of God. His hand is hidden in daily life, just as it is hidden in the book of Esther.

Every name list I’ve ever consulted (dozens in all) has an entry explaining that ‘Esther’ means star and is Persian in origin. It allegedly derives from Ishtar, the name of the goddess who personifies the planet Venus.

Until this week, I never thought to question that theory. But on delving into some Hebrew, I discovered many rabbis consider that Esther is a Hebrew name, meaning ‘astir’, hidden.  This describes so many aspects of the book of Esther: her hidden Jewish background, her hidden name (her real name is ‘Hadassah’ meaning myrtle but it’s hidden behind an allusion to Ishtar), her hidden relationship to Morcedai, her hidden agenda in inviting the king and Haman to dine with her, the hidden machinations of Haman, the hidden hand of God.

Perhaps it’s not surprising the book is missing from the library of the Essenes.

One of the most interesting comments on Esther by the rabbinic sages relates to the phrase, ‘haster astir’, from Deuteronomy 31:18 ESV, ‘And I will surely hide My face [‘haster astir panai’] in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.’

But ‘haster astir’ is not simple concealment. It means hide the hiding. In other words, God not only hides Himself, He goes much further. He wipes out all trace of the fact He’s hidden Himself.

So often we wonder why the wonders of creation don’t point to a Creator for many people. We should not be surprised when we realise God has hidden His own hiding.

John’s gospel is set up with at least eleven pairs of mirror-like bookends. Some of these chiastic reflections involve numbers,  most involve identical names (though not always identical people) and all involve similar thematic episodes.

Of these episodes, the most dramatic pair held up for comparison and contrast is Jesus’ resurrection coupled with Jesus casting the money changers out of the Temple. The emptying of the tomb and the emptying of the Temple, as it were.

Because the incident where Jesus made a whip to cast out the merchants and moneychangers occurs right at the beginning of this gospel and at the end of the gospel of Matthew, many commentators believe there were two similar events. One occurring at the start of Jesus’ ministry and one occurring in the week before His death on the cross.

I don’t think that’s a necessary conclusion. John marks off the days very carefully from the moment John the Baptist is asked by the leaders and priests who he is.  ‘The next day…’ (John 1:29), ‘The next day…’ (John 1:35), ‘The next day…’ (John 1:46), ‘Three days later…’ (John 2:1). Altogether six days between John being asked about his identity and the threshold event of Jesus’ first miracle.

Another huge parallel here—though not within this gospel. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus asks Peter what people are saying about His identity, then six days later takes him, along with James and John, up a mountain for the threshold event of the Transfiguration. In fact, the six-day interval in both cases, along with specific words spoken at each event, suggest these pairs of incidents were exactly two (perhaps three) years apart.  

On this day about 1980 years ago, give or take a few, Jesus took three disciples up a high mountain. Many scholars think they climbed Mount Tabor. However I’m with those who believe they ascended a peak of Mount Hermon.*

At sunset this evening Sukkot begins. It’s the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, a time when people build temporary booths, entwining boughs and branches to make a ‘tent’. All to celebrate and remember their history, especially the time when God provided for them during their wilderness wanderings.

So, back almost two millennia ago, it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what was going on in the head of Simon the fisherman. He was only just getting used to his nickname Cephas, the threshold stone. Some of the Greek–speaking disciples—including his own brother Andrew—had fun with the new name. Turned it to Petros, the rock. Ribbed him it’s a pun on the Hebrew word peter, the first–born—nicely symbolic for the first to announce the Messiah.

Simon’s not sure he’ll ever hear the end of it. He’s happy to be away from the jokes but he’s still concerned. It’s Sukkot, the Feast of Booths. He’s supposed to be building a little hut. But Jesus doesn’t look like he’s about to stop anytime soon to collect wood. And once they get above the treeline and into the snow, the building of a booth’s going to be even harder. Wait. This is Jesus. Five thousand people fed from a few loaves of bread. Perhaps just a dead twig will be enough: Jesus could make it sprout branches like Aaron’s rod once budded with blossoms.

My garden has never been the same since the drought of three years ago. The flowers wilted and the rose bushes died and, although we’ve had a flood of rain since, I’ve never got around to replanting them.

One surprising survivor is a cluster of storm lilies that comes up every time there’s a sunshower. A soft blend of translucent cream and lilac, they are—unfortunately—rarely there more than a day. They epitomise to me the wonder of life in all its transience, fragility and beauty.

I have a serious addiction to wonder. It’s probably the reason I’ve never outgrown that child-like asking of, ‘Why?’ Sooner or later, that is the question which leads to a moment of spellbound awe. CS Lewis admitted to the pursuit of joy; for me, it’s wonder.

It was Martin Luther who said, ‘If you truly understood a grain of wheat, you would die of wonder.’

Back when I was at school, algebra was taught as a symbolic language. Over the years, the emphasis changed and, by the time I left mathematics teaching, it was being introduced through arithmetic patterns. Somehow I got the best of both worlds: I was equally at home with algebra as a language or as a system of recognising numerical relationships.

These two ways of thinking about the nature of equations could not be more different but I was fortunate in being able to move from one system to the other without missing a beat. Despite the disdain of modern mathematics educators for symbolic language, I’m deeply grateful I was brought up with it. Because the day came when I realised that, once you are fluent in one symbolic language, you have the essential grammar of them all.

Dream symbols operate according to the same rules of language as algebra; literary symbols often do too, especially when those symbols are ‘invented’ names within a ‘made-up’ plot.

In Discovered or Invented?, I looked at the question which perplexes some very eminent mathematicians: Is mathematics a construction of the human mind or does it exist somewhere ‘out there’, just waiting to be found?

In Discovered or Imagined?, I looked at a similar question in relation to fiction: Do storytellers make up their ‘secondary worlds’ or do the stories exist somewhere ‘out there’, just waiting to be told?

On an even deeper level: Are the names we think we ‘make up’ for characters simply a random conglomeration of suitable syllables or are they already ‘out there’, just waiting to be exposed?

Last Sunday I was in church singing Be Thou My Vision when a couple of lines leapt off the page and grabbed my attention:

Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;

Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my armour, my Sword for the fight;

Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight

The first two lines are from the end of the second verse and the next two from the beginning of the third. I was entranced. How could I have missed this before? It was about the making of a covenant. It was about oneness, about the exchange of armour and weapons, about offering dignity through the swapping of mantles. An eighth century hymn that preserves the notion of covenant we in the twenty-first century have lost entirely—how exciting!

As soon as I got home, I typed these words into Google and… …how very odd! Not a single instance of them were to be found anywhere in the entire world.

There are nearly 2.7 million results on Google for Be Thou My Vision but not one of them with these exact words. For a moment I thought I was seriously losing my memory but then I decided to change the spelling of ‘armour’ to ‘armor’.

Aha! One result. On YouTube. Hmm, the account was closed. It was just baffling. One occurrence in the whole world and it was no longer verifiable. How could there be just one and no more?

I decided to check out the 2.7 million results for Be Thou My Vision to see why this discrepancy existed—no, not all of them. Just a few. I quickly realised that, in a significant number of cases, ‘armour’ had been changed to ‘breastplate’, ‘dignity’ had been changed to ‘armour’ and ‘delight’ had been changed to ‘might’.

Van Morrison, Rebecca St James and Máire Brennan all have recorded the second version. At this rate, it won’t be long before this is the most common wording.

Does it matter? I think it does. To change the symbols of covenant to symbols of battle results in a profound loss. Instead of being about unity and defence, it’s about force and attack.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

One of my favourite websites for exploring the meaning of names offers this definition of what a name is: ‘Generally a name is a label for a noun – a person, place or thing. More specifically a name is a label for a specific person, place or thing.’

Oh, really? Just a label?  Surely not!

It seems this very popular site would agree with Shakespeare’s famous assessment about the rose and the sweetness of its perfume: That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Now I disagree with both the Bard and the website.