Twice Hidden

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.


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The Gospel Ring (1)

It’s been quite some time since my last post. Perhaps I should apologise but it wouldn’t be entirely sincere. I’ve been enjoying myself far too much to even begin to be sorry.

The fun started when I forgot a significant item of information I wanted for my next book. I could remember reading somewhere that John the apostle identifies himself as the author of the fourth gospel by using a unique placement. His signoff as ‘the disciple Jesus loved’ mirrors the testimony of John the Baptist at the beginning. This bookending identifies the writer as John.

Well, being unable to remember where I’d read this, I tried googling it. No joy. I remembered the technical name for this mirror technique was chiasmus and tried that as well. Lots of different examples of mirror episodes in John’s gospel turned up but not the particular matter I wanted. After quite a bit of searching, I began to realise that the lists of chiastic scenes were rarely the same. So I created my own list by putting together the ones I’d found. And that’s when I noticed something fascinating: the names almost always match.

It’s not just the testimony of John the apostle mirroring that of John the Baptist.

It’s a scene involving Mary the mother of Jesus mirroring one with Mary Magdalene.

It’s a scene with Nicodemus matching another with the same Nicodemus.


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Constriction and Wasting

Constriction.

Wasting.

Recognise them?

Many of us find that, as we try to enter into our true calling in God, we suffer unexpected constriction or wasting. We are pummelled financially; crushed to such a degree that we can’t go on. Despite a desire to push on, despite our faith that God will come through for us at just the right moment, there comes a time when we simply have to call a halt. We know we’re putting ourselves in harm’s way. Sometimes the squeeze is so severe the best course of action is cut our losses and just suffer the wastage of all the time, effort and money already invested.

Constriction.

Wasting.

When we’ve met them once or twice, we find ourselves assailed by doubt: didn’t we hear from God? Because when we prayed, a whole set of amazing signs, confirming prophecies and even miraculous openings all lined up. Before they slammed so brutally shut.

Could the problem have been our lack of faith? Not if all we need is the size of a mustard seed. The very size of the financial loss testifies on our behalf: no, it wasn’t lack of faith.

If you’ve ever been in this situation, you know how soul-destroying it is. Some people, after being flattened by the steam roller more than once, feel God has abandoned them and throw over their faith entirely.


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Seventeens in Scripture (14)

This is not numerical literary style at all. It is simply an example of 17 occurrences of the same name. But since the name has a reference to joy, that wonderful word found 17 times in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, I think it’s worth making an exception.

Abigail means my father is joy. In Hebrew, the word for joy alludes to a crown. I guess it’s appropriate that Abigail is one of the queens of Israel.

  1. Abigail…was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband, a Calebite, was surly and mean in his dealings. 1 Samuel 25:3
  2. One of the servants told Nabal’s wife Abigail: “David sent messengers from the desert to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them. 1 Samuel 25:14
  3. Abigail lost no time. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. 1 Samuel 25:18
  4. When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. 1 Samuel 25:23
  5. David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. 1 Samuel 25:32
  6. When Abigail went to Nabal, he was in the house holding a banquet like that of a king. He was in high spirits and very drunk. So she told him nothing until daybreak. 1 Samuel 25:36
  7. Then David sent a proposal to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 1 Samuel 25:39

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Transit of Venus

At lunchtime yesterday, I got out my ‘solar eclipse’ glasses to check out the transit of Venus. The weather was perfect for observation and my boss, lured by the winter sunshine and the simplicity of the glasses (he’d already tried the pinhole technique without success), decided he’d try to photograph the event for posterity.

He just wasn’t sure he’d be around for the next transit in 105 years. It took considerable ingenuity to rig up a suitable system, using only cardboard off-cuts, but his efforts were worth it. One of his photos is featured.

All of this recent focus on the planet Venus has a bit of extra fascination for me. I’ve been collecting names for the ‘morning star’ recently. This is because I’m in the middle of writing up some teaching material for my latest fantasy novel, Daystar.

Yes, there’s quite a few by that name at the moment but I’ve been working on this one decades, so it’s hard to change. Daystar is an archaic term, which is actually disputed in meaning: some places say it refers to Venus and some say it’s another name for the sun.

One thing’s for sure: in a transit of Venus across the face of the sun, you’re definitely observing the ‘daystar’, whatever it originally was.

It’s been a real treat for have an excuse (as if I needed one, being a name ferret) to look up more names meaning the morning star.


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The prologue and epilogue to John’s gospel are clearly defined literary sections. The opening, sometimes called the Hymn to the Logos, is composed of 496 syllables while the ending is 496 words in length. So far we’ve looked at five reasons why John might have chosen to highlight this number in order to make a persuasive and compelling ‘numerical literary’ apologetic. It might not impress the average post-modern thinker who grew up in a world where arithmetic and language are completely different subjects. However, even two millennia after it was written, its word-number fusion still retains enough of the ‘wow!’ factor to stop more than a few skeptics in their tracks.

So far we’ve looked at five reasons why John might have chosen to feature 496:

(1)   It’s a ‘perfect’ number.

(2)   It’s a ‘triangular’ number.

(3)   The mathematical structure recalls that of the Immanuel prophecy.


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Traditionally the last words of John the beloved disciple were ‘Little children, love one another.’ It seems a likely story because, after all, he says just that so often in his epistles.

However, it’s worth remembering that Jesus gave him and his brother James the nickname Boanerges, usually translated Sons of Thunder, but perhaps more correctly rendered sons of rage.  So the story that he grabbed his clothes and fled the public baths when he realised the Gnostic teacher Cerinthus was in the same building, just in case God’s wrath was about the turn the place to a cinder, is not altogether far-fetched.

The gospel of John was, in the second century, of uncertain status. Helms points out that some Christians believed it had been written by the apostle as an anti-gnostic anti-Cerinthian work while others considered it had been written by Cerinthus himself!


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It’s not particularly difficult to write in numerical literary style. The last three posts in this series were about the significance of the number 496, so naturally they were all 496 words long. It’s as simple as that to make a start.

One day, I’d like to emulate my hero—the author of the fourteenth century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—but I’ve a very long way to go before I reach the exalted heights of numerical artifice he achieved.

Numerical literary style has its detractors. They come in various ilks. Some critics agree that some ancient texts show a mathematical architecture, but think the motive is numerological. Others simply deny outright that any premeditated arithmetic design exists, preferring to explain away structural details as scribal error. ‘Why would anyone,’ they scoff, ‘mix words and numbers?  Why would anyone restrict the creative impulse by confining themselves to a rigid mathematical framework?’

I’d like to try these questions on a Japanese master of haiku, the 17-syllable poem of three lines in a 5-7-5 pattern. Behind the blank inscrutable stare I’d get, I’m sure there’d be the incredulous thought: ‘Don’t you get it? A true craftsman doesn’t find strict form a restraint, but freedom.’


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Some people find it almost impossible to make the mental shift required to think of numbers and letters as marriage partners. The very idea of mathematical metaphor is a stretch too far, so they automatically assume numerology, not numeracy.

However numerical literary style is as far from numerology as astronomy is from astrology. Even Jesus makes a passing reference to it in a famous passage: ‘…till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled…’ Matthew 5:18 NKJ

It’s no coincidence that just one verse removed from this remark, He refers to the scribes, known in Hebrew as the Sopherim. A scribe’s three main tasks were:


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There’s a famous story about Karl Friedrich Gauss, one of the most distinguished mathematicians of all time.  His talent was evident from an early age. His teacher told the class to add up all the numbers from one to 100.  Moments later, Gauss appeared at his desk with the correct answer: 5050.  The boy later to be known as ‘The Prince of Mathematicians’ had figured out a short-cut. His cunning method of calculation actually works for all similar situations or for so-called ‘triangular’ numbers. Triangular numbers have this name because, if they are arranged in rows of dots on paper, they form perfect triangles. However, they can also be found by adding successive whole numbers together. For instance, 171 is the eighteenth triangular number because all the numbers from one to 18 add to 171 while 153 is the seventeenth triangular number because all the numbers from one to 17 add to 153.


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Mention the word ‘mathematics’ and most people tend to squirm.  But I love the subject and I delight in finding it in unexpected places. I’m always thrilled to discover a new spot where God has pulled out all stops in a virtuoso display of numeracy.

Most people don’t cope well on being told the Bible is full of mathematics. They think numeracy equals numerology. But they are as different as astronomy and astrology.


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