1 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:26,719 This is Jonathan Peshel. Welcome to the Symbolic World. So hello everyone, 2 00:00:27,039 --> 00:00:31,800 we are back with another episode of Universal History. Today we are going to 3 00:00:31,839 --> 00:00:36,119 talk about the Tower Babbel, something that I find very interesting that I've been 4 00:00:36,119 --> 00:00:39,359 thinking about for years. I can't wait to get Richard's take on it. 5 00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:44,479 But before we start, I want to make a big announcement, which is 6 00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:47,719 that, as you know, Symbolic World Press has had some problems in the 7 00:00:47,759 --> 00:00:53,479 past month or so and myself, just for the couple, just myself discovering 8 00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:57,200 that things were not what they seemed in the way was represented to me, 9 00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,640 and that things were a lot worse than what we thought. And I went 10 00:01:00,679 --> 00:01:04,959 to Dallas and Richard saved my life, like literally, but he helped me. 11 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:10,799 He was We drove around town for days trying to figure things out, 12 00:01:10,920 --> 00:01:15,640 connect with lawyers and accountants and you know, get stock. His house was 13 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:22,319 full of books first for weeks, you know, trying to get organized so 14 00:01:22,359 --> 00:01:27,239 that we could send your books to you. But it's weird in that moment, 15 00:01:27,319 --> 00:01:30,840 and even a little bit before that, I discovered I had an insight 16 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,280 which I can't believe I had had before, with just how close Richard and 17 00:01:34,319 --> 00:01:38,359 I thinking is in terms of storytelling, in terms of the way we see 18 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:42,560 universal history and the way we see the cosmos. But also Richard has a 19 00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:46,400 lot of skills that I do not have. He is a he know, 20 00:01:46,439 --> 00:01:51,439 he has a computers thinking like, he's a he's a manager. He's able 21 00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:56,799 to deliver projects. And so we've decided to partner up in the Symbolical Press, 22 00:01:56,840 --> 00:02:00,799 and so we will be working together very closely in the next few months. 23 00:02:00,519 --> 00:02:06,359 So so Richard, welcome to Symbolic World. Thank you. It's you 24 00:02:06,359 --> 00:02:08,520 know, I when we were talking about all of this, I said, 25 00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:12,639 you know, it feels like everything that I'd done in my life up till 26 00:02:12,639 --> 00:02:15,159 this point was was maybe for this, like you know, the weird mixture 27 00:02:15,199 --> 00:02:22,120 of I'm into all these ancient stories but also like project software, project management, 28 00:02:22,199 --> 00:02:24,479 and you know, I don't know anyway, it's it's it's been a 29 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:27,599 whirlwind so far, though, Jonathan, I have to say, like, 30 00:02:27,719 --> 00:02:30,199 you know, it's already been, you know, one of the more interesting 31 00:02:30,240 --> 00:02:32,719 things that I've under ever undertaken. It's only been you know, basically a 32 00:02:32,759 --> 00:02:37,960 month. But yeah, there was so much crazy stuff that happened, and 33 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:42,120 it all happened right on Candle Miss, you know, and we spent all 34 00:02:42,159 --> 00:02:45,800 of Candle Miss, like you know, driving around in the pouring rain trying 35 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:49,919 to you know. Yeah, it was just I don't know, it was 36 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:54,919 just it was a whirlwind time. And I said this on on Derek's channel 37 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:59,759 recently. But like I remember, we were having this this conversation, you 38 00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:01,080 and I we were talking about some various things, and you were like, 39 00:03:01,159 --> 00:03:04,400 yeah, mystical things don't really happen to me. I mean, I believe 40 00:03:04,439 --> 00:03:07,680 that they happen and whatnot. And then like there's just all of these insane 41 00:03:07,759 --> 00:03:10,759 things happening the entire week that you're down here, and I was like, 42 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:15,319 oh, yeah, mystical things don't happen, sure, uh huh, yeah, 43 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:17,360 but no, it was. It's it's been a crazy time. My 44 00:03:17,439 --> 00:03:23,599 house has essentially been a warehouse for the last two weeks now, and so 45 00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:25,759 I know a lot of people have been posting on Twitter saying they're getting their 46 00:03:25,759 --> 00:03:29,719 snow white stuff. I know that a lot other a lot of other people 47 00:03:30,039 --> 00:03:31,439 still haven't gotten it. But we're on it now. We're on the case, 48 00:03:31,479 --> 00:03:35,479 so we're gonna we're gonna make sure it gets done. So I've I 49 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:38,879 think I've only got like six big boxes left in my office here and then 50 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:42,039 uh and you know, then the rest will be coming out from the warehouse 51 00:03:42,479 --> 00:03:46,560 relatively soon. But yeah, so I'm excited about this. I'm excited about 52 00:03:46,199 --> 00:03:51,039 the potential of getting to tell some stories that have been living rent free in 53 00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:53,400 my head for a long time and and now maybe we'll get to share them 54 00:03:53,439 --> 00:03:57,560 with the world. So yeah, and so, and also before we start, 55 00:03:57,759 --> 00:04:00,240 don't forget next week, I mean, Rich and I are going to 56 00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:06,159 be together in Florida, Tarpin Springs the Symbolic World Summit. Jordan Peterson's gonna 57 00:04:06,159 --> 00:04:11,319 be there, Father Stephen de Young, Neil de grad If, Deacon Nicholas 58 00:04:11,599 --> 00:04:14,879 Vesper Stamper, and a bunch of people that are not on the roster like 59 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:17,519 Andrew Gold going to be there, Father Siloe and Justiniano. Just it's going 60 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:23,480 to be absolutely crazy. Jordan Hall is coming. I don't even remember all 61 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:26,680 the people that are going to come. And so there are still a few 62 00:04:26,720 --> 00:04:29,920 tickets left for the actual event, so you can get those on the Symbolic 63 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:32,519 World But if you cannot come, which I understand, then we've decided to 64 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:38,600 offer virtual tickets that are deeply discounted until the very day of the conference, 65 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:42,720 because we're going to release the videos during the days that the conference is on, 66 00:04:42,839 --> 00:04:46,279 and so go to the Symbolic world dot com. And because this might 67 00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:48,519 be a once in a lifetime opportunity to be honest, because it's crazy. 68 00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:51,839 But I'm not sure. I'm not sure we're ever going to do this again, 69 00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:57,920 all right, And so Richard, take us, take us, Take 70 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:01,279 us to the Tower Babbel. Okay, So I thought that it would be 71 00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:04,600 fun. We were talking about what video we should do for Universal History this 72 00:05:04,759 --> 00:05:08,800 month. Obviously, the Dragons one came out. What people don't know is 73 00:05:08,839 --> 00:05:12,079 that we recorded that back in like November or something. And because life has 74 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:15,759 been crazy, we haven't recorded one of these in a little while, and 75 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:18,319 I thought it would be fun to do something. It would kind of tease 76 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:25,160 the stuff I'm going to be talking about at the conference. So the title 77 00:05:25,399 --> 00:05:28,720 of my talk is, or one of the talks I'm giving is called the 78 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:31,160 Shadow of that Hideous Strength, which sounds like it's a C. S. 79 00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:33,959 Lewis reference, But the title of the C. S. Lewis book, 80 00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:38,879 which is one of my favorite books, is actually a reference to the Tower 81 00:05:38,959 --> 00:05:42,360 of Babel, and so we're going to talk about the Tower of Babel today. 82 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:46,279 I'll talk a little more about the connection to that hideous Strength and the 83 00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:49,639 poem and that that's a reference to and all this stuf. I'm going to 84 00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:51,720 talk about that at the conference. It's not going to talk about that today. 85 00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:55,959 But basically what I'm going to do at the conference is really focus on 86 00:05:56,079 --> 00:06:03,480 Genesis and really focus on all of the things about Genesis which in the ancient 87 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:08,079 world and in the Middle Ages, people took for granted when they were reading 88 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:12,000 Genesis. And it's not to say that some of these things are completely universal, 89 00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:15,000 but there's definitely, like you could say, a constellation of ways to 90 00:06:15,079 --> 00:06:20,480 read and ways to understand Genesis. What pretty much everybody in the ancient world 91 00:06:20,519 --> 00:06:26,360 agreed on is that Genesis is the most important book of the Old Testament when 92 00:06:26,399 --> 00:06:30,680 it comes to just understanding why everything is the way that it is. And 93 00:06:30,319 --> 00:06:33,839 this is one of the beautiful insights that your brother Matthew brings out in his 94 00:06:33,959 --> 00:06:38,279 book. And this is one of the actually, to me, one of 95 00:06:38,319 --> 00:06:41,639 the really cool things about God's Dog. That God's Dog, too, by 96 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:44,959 the way, is on Kickstarter. Now I know we have a lot of 97 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:47,199 things going on, people, But there's going to be I've already gotten to 98 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:49,720 see some of the stuff from God's Dog too. It's going to be actually 99 00:06:50,199 --> 00:06:55,279 some of the stuff we're talking about today and which I'm not going to like, 100 00:06:55,439 --> 00:06:57,839 and then other things which you might here explained if you come to the 101 00:06:57,879 --> 00:07:02,279 conference. So anyway, but there used to be this way of reading Genesis, 102 00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:09,199 and that way of reading Genesis was lost, particularly in the West, 103 00:07:09,439 --> 00:07:15,079 because a lot of the books which contained it were rejected ultimately rejected as apocryphal, 104 00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:16,000 and at some point in the West. We don't need to go into 105 00:07:16,079 --> 00:07:23,639 why right now, but the idea apocrypha became associated with this is bad and 106 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:27,199 evil and wrong and potentially dangerous to read, right, And this is not 107 00:07:27,319 --> 00:07:30,199 the That's not what that word actually means in the church, right historically, 108 00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:35,639 that's not always how we've used it. So these ways of reading Genesis got 109 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:43,519 lost. And then the twentieth century comes along, especially to say the last 110 00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:47,079 twenty thirty years that the twentieth century comes along, and with the emergence of 111 00:07:48,959 --> 00:07:56,560 you have an emergence of maials materialist readings of Genesis. In response to let's 112 00:07:56,560 --> 00:08:01,639 say you know, atheists basically trying pick it apart, right, and so 113 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:05,360 then Christians come back, but they come back on the same terms the atheists 114 00:08:05,399 --> 00:08:07,920 are using and try to defend Genesis in a materialist way. And so one 115 00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:11,680 of the things that ends up happening is when somebody like you or your brother 116 00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:16,240 tries to talk about Genesis in a let's say, like a more of a 117 00:08:16,319 --> 00:08:22,040 mythical register, people are like, are you saying you don't believe God created 118 00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:24,800 the world in six days? Or something like this? So what I want 119 00:08:24,879 --> 00:08:31,319 to kind of do. What I want to do is to kind of introduce 120 00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:37,360 people to a selection of these readings and or these traditions is really the right 121 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:43,039 the correct word about Genesis and explain how this actually still affects the way that 122 00:08:43,159 --> 00:08:46,600 you live today. For instance, if you're an Orthodox Christian, there's certain 123 00:08:46,639 --> 00:08:48,879 things that you believe, for instance, about the liturgy. I'm not going 124 00:08:48,919 --> 00:08:52,279 to explain this today, you have to come the conference, but there are 125 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:54,320 certain things that you believe about the liturgy and about the feasts of the Church 126 00:08:54,840 --> 00:08:58,360 that are true because of the way that we've inherited, because of this tradition 127 00:08:58,399 --> 00:09:05,759 about Genesis that we've inherited. So if you find yourself in the Orthodox Church 128 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:07,600 or in a more traditional branch of Christianity, there's a lot of the stuff 129 00:09:07,639 --> 00:09:11,600 that you'll still assume to be true. Actually, even if you don't, 130 00:09:11,799 --> 00:09:13,559 there's still a lot of the stuff that you assume to be true. Most 131 00:09:13,639 --> 00:09:20,200 evangelicals, for instance, take it as more or less fact that evil spirits 132 00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:24,960 are fallen angels. There's actually nothing in the Bible to say that directly. 133 00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:28,679 There are things that you can infer, but you only infer them kind of 134 00:09:28,759 --> 00:09:33,399 in the light of these older traditions about how to read those scriptural passages. 135 00:09:33,639 --> 00:09:37,000 So that's kind of one example. But so today I thought we had talked 136 00:09:37,039 --> 00:09:39,679 about the Tower of Babel. Obviously, this is one that's very interesting to 137 00:09:39,759 --> 00:09:43,360 me as a linguist, and it is to me, like most of the 138 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:48,559 stories in Genesis, it is one that is impossible to say everything about, 139 00:09:48,639 --> 00:09:52,399 like it's impossible to exhaust. So we're going to say some things about the 140 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:54,200 Tower of Babbel today. But if you're out there watching and you're one of 141 00:09:54,240 --> 00:09:58,480 the people who knows all these traditions, I didn't mention XYZ, You're right, 142 00:09:58,559 --> 00:10:01,720 I did not, But maybe we will on a future video. Maybe 143 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:05,480 there's actually more stuff about the Tower of Bubble I'm going to talk about at 144 00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:09,840 the conference, so come to that. But so I thought we would talk 145 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:13,799 about, first of all, just what a tower is. Uh, if 146 00:10:13,879 --> 00:10:16,679 you look at traditional images of the Tower of Babble, the one that's most 147 00:10:16,799 --> 00:10:22,720 well known is one it was I think it's like a sixteenth century image. 148 00:10:22,799 --> 00:10:24,519 Yeah, that's right, it's from the it's from the Renaissance, and it 149 00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:33,159 basically shows kind of a spiraling tower going upwards. And that's essentially correct. 150 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:35,759 Now you can say, you know, it is a zig rot, which 151 00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:39,679 is kind of like a stepped pyramid or something. It's the same thing, 152 00:10:39,759 --> 00:10:41,360 though, like it's the it's the same thing. It's doing the same kind 153 00:10:41,399 --> 00:10:46,559 of the same kind of thing. So a tower is, I mean, 154 00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:48,360 and you can probably explain this better, but a tower is you could say, 155 00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:52,759 it's a fixed point in space, right, and and it's a way 156 00:10:52,840 --> 00:11:00,600 of literally nailing something down right, whereas the spiral is. And I love 157 00:11:00,679 --> 00:11:03,759 that you just did that video on the Leviathan and the Ouroboros and all that 158 00:11:03,799 --> 00:11:09,480 stuff, because it's because that idea of the spiral as kind of like time 159 00:11:09,600 --> 00:11:13,360 and change, right, and then but then also kind of this cyclical or 160 00:11:15,759 --> 00:11:20,279 say like undulation in time. So when you have the combination of those two 161 00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:26,799 things, and there's this wonderful the opening sequence of the first volume of God's 162 00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:28,440 Dog. Maybe we can put that up here for people to see. But 163 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:33,000 the opening sequence of God's Dog is actually the Tower of Babel, but in 164 00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:37,159 a in a good context. Yeah, right, And this is the thing 165 00:11:37,240 --> 00:11:41,639 to say about symbolism, And you mentioned this in your Leviathan video that just 166 00:11:41,720 --> 00:11:46,960 dropped that symbolism is uh, it's I don't want to say neutral, but 167 00:11:46,039 --> 00:11:50,360 it's not like it can be positive or negative, right, It can have 168 00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:54,879 positive or negative aspects depending on the consequence, depending on the context. Right, 169 00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:58,159 Yeah, And so there's this moment in those I was trying to find 170 00:11:58,200 --> 00:11:58,919 my copy of God's Dog, so I could just show it here to the 171 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:03,000 screen, but we will put it up where you see the overlap of that 172 00:12:03,159 --> 00:12:05,720 image of the tower with the spiral going up, which is like the stylight's 173 00:12:05,759 --> 00:12:09,399 pillar. And then oh, you got it right there. Yeah, I 174 00:12:09,519 --> 00:12:13,440 always have a copy of God Doug's Yeah you're by so yeah right here, 175 00:12:13,879 --> 00:12:16,480 Yes, it's right. Yeah, So there's the there's the tower with the 176 00:12:16,519 --> 00:12:20,759 spiral going up and then the stylight's pillar at the top. But then if 177 00:12:20,799 --> 00:12:24,440 you flip a couple more pages, you see the overlap of that with the 178 00:12:24,679 --> 00:12:31,519 candle, right, and it's it's funny because one of the the yep, 179 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:35,559 there it is right there. Yeah, yeah, So it's funny because one 180 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:41,440 of the questions that I get asked the most often in my capacity as a 181 00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:46,000 catechist is why do you light a candle when you pray? What's going on 182 00:12:46,159 --> 00:12:50,399 there? And that is the easiest thing to into it and the hardest question 183 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:56,320 to answer, Like, there is something that's just very intuitively right about Obviously 184 00:12:56,399 --> 00:12:58,919 you would light a candle when you prayed, but it's really hard to explain 185 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:05,720 to somebody why right. But it's actually connected with the symbolism of the tower, 186 00:13:05,879 --> 00:13:09,799 including the Tower of Babel. So the idea of the ziggurat or the 187 00:13:09,879 --> 00:13:16,559 tower is that it's a It's an artificial mountain, right, is another way 188 00:13:16,559 --> 00:13:20,600 to think about it. It's an artificial mountain, and you know there's there's 189 00:13:20,679 --> 00:13:24,000 overlap between like a mountain and a pillar. So it's an artificial mountain because 190 00:13:24,039 --> 00:13:26,720 God lives at the top of a mountain is everybody in the ancient world knows 191 00:13:26,879 --> 00:13:31,519 it's a hierarchy. I mean people because people take a wise appillar like a 192 00:13:31,559 --> 00:13:33,519 mountain. It's a it's a connection between heaven and Earth. It's what's right 193 00:13:33,759 --> 00:13:37,240 the vertical. It's a hierarchy, and you could see it like a right, 194 00:13:37,279 --> 00:13:39,559 you can see it this way as Earth coming closer to Heaven. But 195 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:43,360 you can also have it added a ladder, as a pillar, as a 196 00:13:43,480 --> 00:13:46,879 rod yet, etcetera, etcetera. It's something that you can ascend and it's 197 00:13:46,919 --> 00:13:48,879 got its base on the earth, but its top in the heavens, right, 198 00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:54,279 yeah, and there's this uh and then at the very top there is 199 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:58,360 an altar or a flame. Right. And one of the things we were 200 00:13:58,360 --> 00:14:03,639 talking about for video started the Latin word focus. Right, when we say 201 00:14:03,639 --> 00:14:07,879 the focus of something means like a hearth or an altar. Now, you 202 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:11,440 can commit the etymological fallacy and say every time that the word focus is ever 203 00:14:11,559 --> 00:14:16,759 used, then it actually means this other thing. But also that's not an 204 00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:20,440 arbitrary connection between those two things. Like if you can think about I mean, 205 00:14:20,639 --> 00:14:24,600 especially if you've worshiped in any kind of a traditional space where the focus 206 00:14:24,799 --> 00:14:26,679 is the altar, right, and those two things become the same thing. 207 00:14:26,799 --> 00:14:33,559 And it's why even in like a like an Orthodox home, you have a 208 00:14:33,720 --> 00:14:37,600 hearth or you know, and you usually people put their icons over the top 209 00:14:37,639 --> 00:14:41,919 of a hearth, right, It's just it's a natural thing to do because 210 00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:46,879 the layout of the house is centered around the fireplace. Actually, the layout 211 00:14:46,919 --> 00:14:50,240 of modern houses is now centered around where the TV is supposed to go. 212 00:14:50,559 --> 00:14:54,440 Right. This is why I tell whenever catechumens ask you know, where should 213 00:14:54,440 --> 00:14:56,799 I put my icons? Do they have to go on in east wall or 214 00:14:56,840 --> 00:15:00,840 anything like that? What I usually tell people is figure out where in your 215 00:15:00,879 --> 00:15:05,279 house the TV was intended to go, and then I put your icons there 216 00:15:05,320 --> 00:15:07,559 and put the TV somewhere else, like if you like, I'm serious, 217 00:15:07,639 --> 00:15:11,080 it'll change the way that you pray and like the way that you live your 218 00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:18,720 family life. So anyway, so, the the altar is a point of 219 00:15:18,879 --> 00:15:22,799 focus, it's a point of intention. It is a place where you could 220 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:26,480 say the meaning of time and space is brought together. Right. So if 221 00:15:26,519 --> 00:15:31,360 you've got space is this fixed point uniting Earth and heaven, and then time 222 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:35,679 is this movement and change. The alter is the is the is the focal 223 00:15:35,759 --> 00:15:39,639 point that brings those two things together and kind of reconciles the meaning. And 224 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:45,159 again you can we could talk about how the liturgy does this. The way 225 00:15:45,200 --> 00:15:50,279 that liturgy transforms you know, chronos into cairos, and the way that it 226 00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:56,679 transforms space into place and all those different things. Those things actually happen in 227 00:15:56,799 --> 00:15:58,519 the liturgy. And even in the like the Eastern Liturgy, there's even the 228 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:04,919 circular or movement that's constantly happening. We go around the altar in a process 229 00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:10,639 of ascent as we move upwards towards the kind of the culmination of the sacrifice 230 00:16:10,679 --> 00:16:14,720 that's on the altar. So anyway, all of this to say, this 231 00:16:14,919 --> 00:16:17,679 is what the Tower of Babel is. I mean, if you want to 232 00:16:17,759 --> 00:16:21,000 get some more on the religious connotations of what the Tower of Babel is, 233 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:23,879 you can go and listen to the episode The Lord of Speirs Guys did on 234 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:30,600 it, which is really great. What I want to kind of point out 235 00:16:30,679 --> 00:16:33,840 is before we talk about why the Tower of Babel was wrong, you need 236 00:16:33,919 --> 00:16:37,240 to understand that the essential idea, the essential shape of it, is not 237 00:16:37,399 --> 00:16:42,120 wrong. That's just an unavoidable shape. This is what essentially what worship, 238 00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:45,759 what meaning looks like if you want to have meaning, if you want to 239 00:16:45,879 --> 00:16:49,960 not be scattered, yeah, then this is what you have to do. 240 00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:55,440 And it's important to know that because what happens is people have readings in scripture 241 00:16:55,919 --> 00:16:59,840 and they'll see, for example, God's telling the Israelites to take down the 242 00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:03,599 high places, to remove the sacred poles and like. So there's this language 243 00:17:03,599 --> 00:17:07,720 that's really there in scripture. But then they take it as a general rule 244 00:17:07,799 --> 00:17:11,440 that high places are wrong in themselves and that you know, these these pillars 245 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:14,440 are wrong in themselves. And then you have the cross, and then you 246 00:17:14,559 --> 00:17:18,319 realize that the temple itself is actually on a mountain, and that you know 247 00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:21,240 it's like and then Moses goes up the mountain, and so you you have 248 00:17:21,359 --> 00:17:23,559 to be able to understand the fullness of the symbolism to see when it's when 249 00:17:23,599 --> 00:17:26,559 it's off, and when it's wrong, that's right, that's right. So 250 00:17:27,720 --> 00:17:32,200 I want to so with that kind of said, and with kind of putting 251 00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:36,599 in people's mind the polyvalance between the Tower of Babbel and the idea of like 252 00:17:36,759 --> 00:17:40,480 a mountain, the mountain of God, the ziggurat, the stylight's pillar, 253 00:17:40,839 --> 00:17:45,440 the candle offered in prayer. These are all kind of overlapping images. We 254 00:17:45,759 --> 00:17:52,359 can talk about the Tower of Babel in specific and I've got here uh the 255 00:17:53,400 --> 00:18:00,880 uh a copy This is from Charles Worth's oldestimates to do Pigrifa, a copy 256 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:03,680 of the Book of Jubilees. And the traditions that i want to talk about 257 00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:07,480 today in reference to the Taro Babbel specifically come from the Book of Jubilee. 258 00:18:07,559 --> 00:18:12,920 So Jubilees is a text which is not in your Bible unless you're Ethiopian, 259 00:18:14,319 --> 00:18:18,400 and then it is. But this is not lucky Ethiopians. They get all 260 00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:22,839 the good stuff. But but I mean, this is not a problem for 261 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:29,559 us because of course, and actually Father Stephen Young has a book called Apocrypha, 262 00:18:29,599 --> 00:18:30,920 which you can just go and read if you want to know about the 263 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,440 reception of Jubilees in the Eastern Church. So go and read that. I'm 264 00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:37,119 not going to repeat all the things that he says there. But but the 265 00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:42,960 thing to note is that it is quoted in the New Testament multiple times. 266 00:18:45,279 --> 00:18:48,880 There's one really cool example which I'm going to save for the conference. People 267 00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:53,279 have to come because it's really awesome. But but for instance, Jesus you 268 00:18:53,319 --> 00:18:57,119 know, famously, Jesus quotes himself in Jubileese. Right, So in Jubilees, 269 00:18:57,519 --> 00:19:00,759 the Angel of the Lord what he's given the law to Moses, but 270 00:19:02,839 --> 00:19:06,759 Jesus quotes that and says basically that was me right, And so yeah, 271 00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:11,480 so Jesus quotes himself in Jubileese. Saint Peter quotes Jubilees. H Saint Stephen 272 00:19:12,359 --> 00:19:18,240 when he is giving his kind of summary of the Old Testament in his sermon 273 00:19:18,279 --> 00:19:25,160 before he's stone to death, he refers to traditions that are if they didn't 274 00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:26,680 come from Jubilees, they came from the same place that the guy who wrote 275 00:19:26,720 --> 00:19:30,279 Jubilees got them. So anyway, all that to say, all that to 276 00:19:30,359 --> 00:19:34,400 say it is it is, it does have a place in our tradition and 277 00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:41,079 the account that's given in Jubilees of the building of the tower Babbel. I'm 278 00:19:41,119 --> 00:19:42,599 not going to read the whole thing here, but I'll just kind of summarize 279 00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:45,759 it. So first of all, we get we get the clarification. And 280 00:19:45,839 --> 00:19:49,200 that's how to think about Jubilees is it's a sort of it has a frame 281 00:19:49,319 --> 00:19:53,039 narrative, but it's it's almost like a commentary on Genesis, or it expands 282 00:19:53,119 --> 00:19:56,880 the parts of Genesis that you might like have wondered about, like okay, 283 00:19:57,319 --> 00:20:00,200 Moses, you did not give me enough, and from here, what's going 284 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:04,400 So one of my favorite examples of this is like Juda's repentance after the Judah 285 00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:10,200 and Tamar incident, which is like this crazy thing that happens in Genesis and 286 00:20:10,279 --> 00:20:14,240 then you're like, so, how were family dynamics? What was that like? 287 00:20:14,319 --> 00:20:18,759 After this? You know exactly awkward, awkward, grow awkward Christmases and 288 00:20:18,839 --> 00:20:25,039 stuff together. So so but if you know, so there's some details like 289 00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:29,279 that, and some more details about how did Joseph resist temptation in Potiphar's house 290 00:20:29,319 --> 00:20:33,079 and so on and so forth. So that's kind of what Jubileese is doing. 291 00:20:33,799 --> 00:20:37,240 And so we get an expansion here or just like kind of an explanation 292 00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:41,920 of what's going on with the Tower of Babel, which is that it's not 293 00:20:41,079 --> 00:20:45,279 just a tower. It's a city surrounding a tower. Right, So it's 294 00:20:45,319 --> 00:20:47,680 a tower in the center and there's a city around it, and then there's 295 00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:53,599 a wall around the city. And this is something that you have to think 296 00:20:53,599 --> 00:20:57,920 about when you start to think about the descent of the city in the apocalypse 297 00:20:59,039 --> 00:21:02,799 right in the Book of Revelation. Right that that and I know that this 298 00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:04,559 is one of the key ideas that you've talked about in your videos over the 299 00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:10,079 years, and probably worth revisiting because it might have been a while since people 300 00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:12,559 have really heard it or thought about it. But the idea of the city, 301 00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:15,480 right, and all these people in Genesis who go and build cities and 302 00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:21,480 what's going on there. But they take they build it with the the the 303 00:21:21,799 --> 00:21:23,839 bitumen, right, the mortar that they use, they take it from the 304 00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:30,720 nearby sea. So this is another kind of important, uh element of the 305 00:21:30,759 --> 00:21:34,319 symbolism here because it's really the rising up of the dry land out of the 306 00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:38,480 sea, right, And so in that way it is it's an attempt to 307 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:42,559 recreate the world. And of course this is in the context of it's just 308 00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,880 after the flood. Humanity has been scattered. They don't want to be scattered 309 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:48,759 again if the flood waters come. They need a you know, like a 310 00:21:48,799 --> 00:21:53,440 safe place to go. And so they build the city. And you know, 311 00:21:53,559 --> 00:21:56,640 we get the dimensions of the Tower of Babbel here are given in ju 312 00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:03,559 Belieze. The numbers are in interesting I don't know if they're significant. I've 313 00:22:03,599 --> 00:22:07,279 never I've never been able to. What I really want to find is a 314 00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:12,759 really old tradition that like attributes significance to the numbers, like so many cubits 315 00:22:12,799 --> 00:22:15,559 in so many stadia and so on and so forth. But I've never found 316 00:22:15,599 --> 00:22:21,039 it, so we'll pass over that for now. But it's surrounded by this 317 00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:22,599 wall. So a city with a tower in the center, or like a 318 00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,640 zigguratt in the center, surrounded by a wall. And in the account that's 319 00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:30,279 given in Jubilees, right, Obviously, the way that it's translated in most 320 00:22:30,319 --> 00:22:33,839 modern accounts of Genesis is weird, and it's because the Hebrew is super old 321 00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,279 and very difficult, right, And so the way it's usually translated in English 322 00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:42,759 is something like and now nothing will be impossible for them, right, And 323 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:52,599 so the story gets turned into this kind of like this retelling of a narrative 324 00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:56,279 in which God is like trying to keep us from achieving our potential essentially, 325 00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:59,519 right, he's threatened by us. Right. The way that it's framed in 326 00:22:59,599 --> 00:23:02,440 Jubilee, I think is maybe a little more helpful, because what it says 327 00:23:02,519 --> 00:23:06,240 is the Lord looks down on what mankind is doing actually looks on us as 328 00:23:06,319 --> 00:23:10,279 we finish, like as as the tower is finished, and says, now 329 00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:14,880 nothing will escape them, right. And I think that's probably a much more 330 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:18,359 helpful way of understanding what's going on with the Tower of Babbel, because it's 331 00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:23,000 about this, this, uh, the creation of a totalizing system, right, 332 00:23:23,079 --> 00:23:26,200 the creation of something. Again, you think about the idea of like 333 00:23:26,279 --> 00:23:30,559 the pillar or the mountain fixing space in place, right, and this is 334 00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:36,480 one that's so big it's going to dominate over any other system. Yeah, 335 00:23:36,799 --> 00:23:40,359 And that's why the idea that they only have one language is part of the 336 00:23:40,839 --> 00:23:44,799 question. Like it's it's a it is a it's a tyranny in the in 337 00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:48,160 the way that we ultimately get, you know, the final image of the 338 00:23:48,319 --> 00:23:52,000 totalizing system in Revelation, Right, it's like it tries to be one thing, 339 00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,640 and that's what God told them not to do. Yes. So one 340 00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,799 of the things that we then get in the account in Jubilee is that after 341 00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:04,200 the confusion of the tongues and we'll come back to the confusion of the tongues 342 00:24:04,279 --> 00:24:08,759 thing, because this relates in an important way to something that happens with Abraham 343 00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:12,880 later on. In Jubilees, but after the confusion of the tongues, the 344 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,200 Lord sends a wind and the wind knocks over the tower and destroys it, 345 00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:22,039 which is not something you'll find in the Genesis account, but is very very 346 00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:29,119 important for understanding the story in the way that the apostles understood it, which 347 00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:30,200 is the argument I'm going to make in a sense. Yeah, but it's 348 00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:34,480 interesting because if you ask most people like if the Tower of Babbile fell, 349 00:24:34,599 --> 00:24:37,759 they'll probably say yes, But it doesn't say that in scripture, right. 350 00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:44,240 I think that I always say the way that I absorbed the story, and 351 00:24:44,279 --> 00:24:47,240 people talking about the story growing up, I always sort of thought, well, 352 00:24:47,279 --> 00:24:49,480 they were like halfway building it and then just abandoned and it fell apart, 353 00:24:49,599 --> 00:24:52,599 right, But this is the tradition in Jubilees, is that the tower 354 00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:56,640 is actually completed and then a wind comes and blows it over. I would 355 00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,880 love some day just to talk about the symbolism of wind, because it's a 356 00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:10,960 weird thing like wind is is. Obviously it's like related to the idea of 357 00:25:11,079 --> 00:25:14,599 chaos, right and storms and all so on and so forth, but it's 358 00:25:14,839 --> 00:25:22,880 it's unique because it comes from above and one of the interesting things about in 359 00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:26,599 the Old Testament, especially when you're going through Leviticus and so on, and 360 00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,720 you're getting like that, don't do this awful thing, don't do this awful 361 00:25:30,759 --> 00:25:33,599 thing, all of these things which we're essentially doing now in our society. 362 00:25:34,039 --> 00:25:37,960 And but but certain kinds of sins. It says, if you do this, 363 00:25:38,559 --> 00:25:45,799 the land will spitch you out. And then other sins, importantly idolatry 364 00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:49,839 says if you do this, then God will scatter you. H And so 365 00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:56,440 it's like some sins are going to cause the potential that's beneath you to actually 366 00:25:56,559 --> 00:26:00,279 reject you, right because it because that and there are always things that have 367 00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:04,200 to do with let's say, like the fertility of the land, right like, 368 00:26:04,319 --> 00:26:08,960 there are always sms that render what's below us infertile. And then there 369 00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:15,079 are other sins that are let's say, like this is like a this is 370 00:26:15,279 --> 00:26:18,039 this is something I was thinking about literally just last night, and I'm so 371 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:23,240 I haven't tried to express it before, but it's something like there are other 372 00:26:23,319 --> 00:26:30,559 sins and again, in particular idolatry. That's that's about looking upwards and the 373 00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,440 way that you should be, you know, the way your focus should be 374 00:26:33,559 --> 00:26:37,240 right, that focus that alter that flame at the top of the structure. 375 00:26:37,319 --> 00:26:45,400 When that's directed wrongly, then then you get the wind right. So there's 376 00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,839 like the floodwaters or the land spitting you out or something like that, and 377 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,519 then there's the wind the scattering that comes from above. Yeah, so it's 378 00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:56,759 it's really the same thing that you see in Genesis in the Fall, because 379 00:26:56,799 --> 00:27:00,519 it's pride. Really, idolatry is a form of pride because it's it's trying 380 00:27:00,559 --> 00:27:06,000 to capture everything in an object or an idea. It's like trying to capture 381 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:10,839 everything into one and not understanding that all things have to be transparent and have 382 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:15,160 to be vehicles for something that is higher. And so when human take the 383 00:27:15,279 --> 00:27:18,799 fluid for themselves, they try they kind of they think about it like something 384 00:27:18,839 --> 00:27:25,279 that tries to crystallize too much and it becomes it becomes brittle because it tries 385 00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:29,039 to hold it all together, and so then you blow on it and it 386 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:33,839 shatters because it's too it's brittle. And so in the Book of Jubileese, 387 00:27:33,519 --> 00:27:38,160 the Tower of Babble is specifically associated with idolatry. And this is really easy 388 00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:41,559 to see. For instance, if you look at the passage immediately before it 389 00:27:41,559 --> 00:27:45,160 and the passage immediately after it, which are both about idolatry and the evil 390 00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,319 spirits, right, And so in Jubileese, I mean, Jubilees follows the 391 00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,480 same tradition that Enoch does concerning the sons of God and the daughters of men 392 00:27:51,559 --> 00:27:53,319 and so forth. So after the flood, you've got all these evil spirits 393 00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:59,880 running around, and essentially they're tormenting Noah's children and grandchildren, and so no 394 00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,799 praise to God, and God binds nine tenths of them and puts them in 395 00:28:03,799 --> 00:28:08,599 Tartarus, and then he allows one tenth of the evil spirits to continue to 396 00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:15,559 roam the world and basically test mankind, right, And so Mastma is the 397 00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,920 you know, or sometimes also the word Satan is also used in Jubilees, 398 00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:22,680 but is kind of like the leader of the evil spirits, and the writer 399 00:28:22,759 --> 00:28:26,279 of Jubilees makes it very clear that he's the one that's kind of instigating all 400 00:28:26,319 --> 00:28:30,839 of this with mankind. And so there's a lot of stuff in Jubilees in 401 00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:36,480 the passage immediately following this about Abraham and about how Abraham is the first person 402 00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,599 since the fall of the Tower of be able to really worship God. And 403 00:28:41,039 --> 00:28:45,599 one of the great acts which he does is he goes and he destroys his 404 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,839 father's idols. And in a way that's kind of reminiscent of what Gideon does 405 00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:53,039 in the Book of Judges. And this is a tradition that actually gets expanded 406 00:28:53,079 --> 00:28:59,720 upon later in Judaism. But it's very clear for the writer of Jubilees idolatry 407 00:29:00,279 --> 00:29:03,240 is at the heart. It's at the center of what's going on with the 408 00:29:03,319 --> 00:29:07,240 Tower of Babel, and so that's why there's this wind that comes overthrows the 409 00:29:07,279 --> 00:29:12,079 tower and scatters it. And essentially what happens in Jubilee is that after the 410 00:29:12,119 --> 00:29:15,279 fall of the Tower of Babel, of course you get the confusion of the 411 00:29:15,359 --> 00:29:19,759 tongues and the world descends into chaos and idolatry. And what it says is 412 00:29:21,599 --> 00:29:25,200 everybody leaves and start building their own cities and towers. This is what Jubilee 413 00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:27,880 says. So it's like with the collapse of the one sort of megastructure, 414 00:29:29,279 --> 00:29:34,279 everybody goes and starts trying to build their own and then they go to war 415 00:29:34,359 --> 00:29:38,200 with each other, right because it becomes this, it becomes everyone's trying to 416 00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:44,200 do babbel again themselves. But now because there's no unity of tongues, because 417 00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:48,599 there's no unity of like opinion or approach or whatever, that you get all 418 00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:52,519 of these competing towers, all these competing attempts that idolatory and worship. And 419 00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:57,680 one of the things that Jubilee says is that at this time people that the 420 00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:06,160 building of these competing cities and towers are accompanied with the the increase of what 421 00:30:06,279 --> 00:30:10,039 you could call like bespoke religions. Right, so everybody starts making their own 422 00:30:10,079 --> 00:30:12,279 idol, they start making their own altar, they start making their own ziggurat, 423 00:30:12,279 --> 00:30:15,200 they start making their own city. Like all that stuff goes together, 424 00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:22,599 and that's basically you know that that causes the loss of the knowledge, the 425 00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:26,240 true knowledge of God. And then also for the right of Jubilees, the 426 00:30:26,359 --> 00:30:30,359 loss of the Hebrew language. Hmmm. And so the loss of the he 427 00:30:30,599 --> 00:30:33,720 So the Hebrew language was the one language. This is, this is, 428 00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:38,680 this is what Jubilees has. And it's a little tricky depending on how you 429 00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:45,440 word bit or basically how you translate a couple of words, that either Hebrew 430 00:30:45,559 --> 00:30:48,839 was lost immediately after Adam fell or it was lost after the Tower of Babel, 431 00:30:48,839 --> 00:30:52,519 but I think it's the I think it's the latter. Basically, Sometimes 432 00:30:52,559 --> 00:30:57,920 people will say there's a reference to the fall, and it says, nobody 433 00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:02,640 has spoken Hebrew since the fall, right, and the question is the fall 434 00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:07,839 of what? Right? Well, there's a modern approach that says that the 435 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:12,000 only basically Adamson is the only fall. Right, but that's not how people 436 00:31:12,119 --> 00:31:15,160 saw things in the time of Jubilees. And I think that basically they're talking 437 00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,119 about the tower falling, right, that the tower falling, but also that 438 00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,759 the Tower Babeyl was seen as one of the falls of man, right, 439 00:31:23,119 --> 00:31:26,920 and that and that it is the it is the specifically linguistic fall. And 440 00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,759 there are a couple of other things in the text that I would argue, 441 00:31:30,559 --> 00:31:36,640 really really argue for it's talking about Babel. And but this is a common 442 00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:40,240 belief in the ancient world, though in obviously in Judaism and in Christianity. 443 00:31:40,839 --> 00:31:42,720 Uh. This, this idea that that Hebrew is was sort of like the 444 00:31:42,799 --> 00:31:48,960 Adamic tongue. Unless you ask Albanians, they'll say it's Albanian. But anyway, 445 00:31:48,759 --> 00:31:52,599 actually this this was an argument that some Albanian philologists try to make in 446 00:31:52,720 --> 00:32:00,720 the the nineteenth century. Really that Albanian, the Albanian is the original language, 447 00:32:00,319 --> 00:32:05,559 and anyway, that's some old stuff. Well, if you know anything 448 00:32:05,559 --> 00:32:08,480 about Albanian national pride, it's not even a little bit surprising. My joke 449 00:32:09,119 --> 00:32:15,480 is that even the King James Bible was originally written in Albania anyway. Anyway, 450 00:32:15,279 --> 00:32:19,240 No no hate by the way for any Albanians listening to this, I 451 00:32:19,319 --> 00:32:21,880 love you guys, but anyway, it's just just a joke. But anyway, 452 00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,480 actually, if there are Albanians watching this properly, like yeah, gosh, 453 00:32:25,519 --> 00:32:30,400 darn it, it was originally written in anyway, So you have the 454 00:32:31,039 --> 00:32:35,480 the loss of the true knowledge of God. And for the writer of Jubilee, 455 00:32:35,559 --> 00:32:37,079 that's the same as the loss of the Hebrew language, right, so 456 00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:42,160 he really equates those two things together. And one of the other things that 457 00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:46,759 happens at this time is of course that Ham's son Canaan seizes the land that 458 00:32:47,039 --> 00:32:52,799 was originally fell to the sons of shem by lots. So there's this earlier, 459 00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:54,559 a little earlier on in the story, after the flood, there's this 460 00:32:54,839 --> 00:33:00,440 this place where basically they're they're drawing lots for which son of Noah is where 461 00:33:00,039 --> 00:33:04,880 right, and the land of basically the holy land of the Levant falls to 462 00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:09,160 the descendants of Shem and then Canaan seizes it for himself. Yeah, and 463 00:33:09,279 --> 00:33:14,559 he when he seizes it for himself. Uh. This this basically everybody says, 464 00:33:14,599 --> 00:33:15,720 don't do that, You're gonna be punished by God. Right, And 465 00:33:15,799 --> 00:33:20,240 so this is setting up like the conquest right in the Book of Joshua, 466 00:33:21,039 --> 00:33:24,920 and also the curse of ham in Jenice in Genesis in Jubilee that's associated with 467 00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:30,799 with this. Soa. So then the kind of like to close out the 468 00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:37,799 Jubileese kind of Babel narrative, I mentioned Abraham. So Abraham in Jubileese comes 469 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,400 just a little bit after the Tower of Babel. There are actually other, 470 00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,680 uh traditions that are a little bit later. And when I say a little 471 00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:47,720 bit later, I still mean, you know for a second century that Will 472 00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:53,440 Will will have Abraham actually present at the time of the building of the Tower 473 00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:58,480 of Babel. Oh really yeah, yeah, and uh and like have him 474 00:33:58,519 --> 00:34:01,319 interacting with Nimrod and so like when he destroys his father's idols, he gets 475 00:34:01,359 --> 00:34:05,680 held before Nimrod and he's going to be executed. But then God delivers him 476 00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:07,760 and all this other stuff. Is it in Jubilee, No, that's in 477 00:34:08,159 --> 00:34:13,360 that's in uh Jashure the yeah, we were talking about earlier. But anyway, 478 00:34:13,599 --> 00:34:16,239 yeah, so that's so there are other uh, there are other traditions 479 00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:22,119 that will place him like basically present at the fall of the Tower of Babel, 480 00:34:22,159 --> 00:34:24,320 but that's not in Jubilee. Jubilees has him coming on like just maybe 481 00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:29,559 a little bit after, uh, but certainly as a as a kind of 482 00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:32,320 like a contemporary of Nimrod and of all these other people. Yeah. Yeah, 483 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:37,599 So because of his piety, we are told that Abraham that God sends 484 00:34:37,639 --> 00:34:44,639 an angel to open Abraham's mouth and ears so that he can understand Hebrew, 485 00:34:45,679 --> 00:34:47,440 which is the language of the heavenly Law. So one of the main ideas 486 00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:52,639 of Jubilees is that when the law is given to Moses, God's not just 487 00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:55,280 like making it up like that that the law, like when the Torah is 488 00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,880 given to Moses and all the the worship and all the things that that he 489 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:06,280 he's giving, He's giving, Christ is giving to Moses what's already in heaven. 490 00:35:07,039 --> 00:35:08,719 Right, that's it like it's a it's so the law is written on 491 00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:13,239 heavenly tablets first, and then he gives those to Moses. The law that 492 00:35:13,679 --> 00:35:15,639 that even the this is a little bit of a spoiler for my talk, 493 00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:21,719 but even the feasts, even the feasts of the of the Old Tabernacle, 494 00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,039 and we would actually say of the church, we're already things being celebrated in 495 00:35:24,199 --> 00:35:29,440 heaven for the right of jubilees that are then given to humans because it's a 496 00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,079 way to participate in the heavenly order. And this is why Jubileese is like 497 00:35:32,199 --> 00:35:36,119 really obsessed with the idea of the calendar and all this other stuff, so 498 00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,920 so so basically, there's already this idea that in some ways the feasts are 499 00:35:40,119 --> 00:35:45,599 heavenly feasts. Yes, but this is my talk. Oh sorry, No, 500 00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:49,360 it's okay, Okay, it's okay. Well, it's a really great 501 00:35:49,599 --> 00:35:52,440 it's it's really cool. It's really cool stuff. Please talk to the Symbolic 502 00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:57,880 World Conference or by the virtual ticket or something, because I'm gonna I'm gonna 503 00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,400 tell you some things that are going to be really really so yeah, people 504 00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:04,360 got to come. But I want to say one thing about about the idea 505 00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:07,599 just just before we continue, Because the idea of the wind blowing down the 506 00:36:07,679 --> 00:36:10,800 tower and the wind scattering. I think it's important to understand it. It's 507 00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:14,719 related to the idea of symbolism the way we talked about it, which is 508 00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:19,320 the position of things that they're ontologically there's there's a place where they are in 509 00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,840 a kind of map. Yeah, think about it that way. And sometimes 510 00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,960 the effect or the relationship can even be opposite. It can even be the 511 00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,440 contrary to one to the other. But if you understand their place and you 512 00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:35,880 can see what's happening. So, right, the idea that the spirit is 513 00:36:36,119 --> 00:36:39,599 blown into the inn gathering of the dust in order to create atom, right, 514 00:36:39,679 --> 00:36:44,840 that's the origin of the of man. And then you can imagine that 515 00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:50,039 you could think about it like either God takes the breath out right, and 516 00:36:50,159 --> 00:36:53,159 then the dust goes back to dust. But it still works if you think 517 00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:59,519 God also blows on it and then scatters the dust and so. But it's 518 00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:05,400 really is about the idea that God's breath and God's spirit is what is holding 519 00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:10,360 or scattering the the the phenomena and anything that has identity. It's like basically 520 00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:15,239 it's it's it's in God's will that all things are held together, you know, 521 00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:20,639 So I have to go off script here because you're talking about this and 522 00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,480 I feel like, I feel like we should talk about the crows. Okay, 523 00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:32,280 So in the Book of Jubilees in between actually in the transition transitory passage 524 00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:37,079 like coming the transition from talking about the Tower of ba Able to talking about 525 00:37:37,079 --> 00:37:44,760 Abraham, we get crows. And uh, let's see here. So when 526 00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:50,960 when when Tara uh Tara, Abraham's father, when he's born, it is 527 00:37:51,159 --> 00:37:57,199 marked by a devastation of crows, it says, and Prince Mastema, this 528 00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,960 is the devil essentially right scent birds, so that they might eat the seed 529 00:38:01,079 --> 00:38:05,199 which was being sown in the earth, in order to spoil the earth, 530 00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,119 so that they might rob mankind of their labors. Before they plowed the seed, 531 00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:14,119 the crows picked it off the surface of the earth. And therefore he 532 00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:19,000 called them. It called him Tehra, because the crows and birds were impoverishing 533 00:38:19,039 --> 00:38:22,480 them, and they ate their seed, and the years began being barren because 534 00:38:22,519 --> 00:38:24,519 of the birds, and they ate all of the fruit of the trees from 535 00:38:24,559 --> 00:38:28,519 the groves. If they were ever able to save a little from all the 536 00:38:28,559 --> 00:38:30,119 fruit of the earth in their days, it was with great effort. So 537 00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:35,159 then Abraham is born, and Abraham is born, and he is born with 538 00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:42,719 he's pious to the point that even when he was two weeks old, you 539 00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,239 know that he refuses to worship the idols, right, And it says that 540 00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,800 he began to pray to the Creator also that he might save him from the 541 00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:52,519 strain of the sons of men and so that his portion might not fall into 542 00:38:52,639 --> 00:38:57,679 strain after pollution and scorn. And then the next part is Abraham versus the 543 00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:00,159 crows, which I think is maybe, you know, not something most of 544 00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:04,320 us woke up this morning thinking about. I mean I did, because I 545 00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:06,639 was getting ready for this video, and I was like, we're probably not 546 00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:08,719 going to talk about the crows because it's a little off topic. But then 547 00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:14,840 you started talking about the scattering, and this is clearly what's going on here, 548 00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:19,599 right, And so so basically what happens is that Abram when he goes 549 00:39:19,679 --> 00:39:23,960 out he when he's fourteen years old, he is trying to plant, and 550 00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,239 the crows are coming after him and they're trying to get the seed and he's 551 00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,480 he's scaring them away. And eventually what he does is he comes up with 552 00:39:32,559 --> 00:39:37,760 a way to plant the seed, and he does this through a use of 553 00:39:39,159 --> 00:39:44,719 techne right, and so I mean this is the other kind of thing that's 554 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,800 going on, is the in jew believe as an eenoch, right, the 555 00:39:49,559 --> 00:39:52,639 technology comes from like the demons. But then there are these uses of technology 556 00:39:53,079 --> 00:39:57,320 that are like counter to the activity of the demons. I'll give you another 557 00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,639 example is that earlier on, when Noah is like dealing with all the demons 558 00:40:01,639 --> 00:40:07,440 that are plaguing his family, He's basically given the knowledge of how to use 559 00:40:07,559 --> 00:40:12,840 herbs from the earth to counteract the basically the diseases that the demons are. 560 00:40:13,199 --> 00:40:16,159 So he's given like metal pharmacaea, right, you know, which is like 561 00:40:16,639 --> 00:40:20,519 medicine, but also sorcery, right, and and so this is one of 562 00:40:20,559 --> 00:40:23,920 the things that Noah is given this knowledge to essentially cataract what the demons are 563 00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:31,719 doing. I assume it was essential oils, but anyway, anyway, homeopathy. 564 00:40:34,519 --> 00:40:38,079 So now Abraham, the way that Abraham solves this is that in the 565 00:40:38,119 --> 00:40:42,000 first year of the fifth week, Abram taught those who are making the implements 566 00:40:42,039 --> 00:40:45,000 were Oxen, the skilled carpenters, and they made implements above the ground facing 567 00:40:45,079 --> 00:40:49,320 the handle of the plow, so that they might place seed upon it, 568 00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,960 and the seed would go down from within it onto the point of the plow, 569 00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,159 and it would be hidden in the earth. And therefore they were not 570 00:40:54,199 --> 00:40:59,280 afraid of the crows. And they did likewise upon all the plow handles above 571 00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,599 the ground, and they sowed untilled all of the earth, just as Abram 572 00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:05,599 commanded them. And therefore they were not afraid of the birds. And so 573 00:41:05,679 --> 00:41:09,679 this basically solves the crow problem. That's a really I mean, it's a 574 00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:15,039 really interesting image because again we can see how this structure. Right, and 575 00:41:15,199 --> 00:41:17,920 I mentioned this before, but the idea that heaven is only good, right, 576 00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:23,440 Yeah, sometimes heaven is dangerous because it takes meaning away, right, 577 00:41:23,519 --> 00:41:28,519 It takes the seed, It takes the seed away from the from the earth. 578 00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,360 That's a good example. But sometimes that's a good thing. God does 579 00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:37,559 that destroy a world. For example, when he takes Elijah and he takes 580 00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:39,440 Enoch. When he takes Enoch away from the earth, he's basically saying, 581 00:41:39,599 --> 00:41:42,679 all right, I'm gonna take the best away from you guys. Sorry, 582 00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,679 I'm taking the seed out, and now the thing is gonna crumble. It's 583 00:41:45,679 --> 00:41:49,400 like I'm taking the breath out of a person. I'm taking the saint out 584 00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:52,639 of the world, so that now the world will will crumble. That's what 585 00:41:52,679 --> 00:41:59,480 happened with Elijah too. There's there's a people forget that one of the names 586 00:41:59,519 --> 00:42:02,559 for the enemy is the Prince and power of the Air. Yeah, right, 587 00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:07,000 and and that's clearly I mean, that's what's going on with with mastermy 588 00:42:07,079 --> 00:42:08,840 here. Which is the name of the enemy in this passage, right, 589 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:14,800 is that he's he sends the crows right, which are which are of the 590 00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,280 air? Right, and so they're they're heavenly in that way. But then 591 00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:23,400 also crows are you know, they eat dead things, you know, which 592 00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:27,199 also has an interesting connection in the story of Elijah. But anyway, it's 593 00:42:28,039 --> 00:42:30,760 it's it's like we could go I know, I know, let's go back 594 00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:32,639 to Babel, Okay, all right, so we go back to Babel, 595 00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:35,960 all right. So the last thing that I wanted to mention in here is 596 00:42:36,199 --> 00:42:39,119 basically right after this incident, because of Abraham's piety, so he's fighting against 597 00:42:39,199 --> 00:42:43,519 the work of the works of the evil one, right, and he's refusing 598 00:42:43,559 --> 00:42:45,079 to worship the idols and so on and so forth, that God opens his 599 00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:51,239 ears and his mouth so that he can understand Hebrew and when he does this, 600 00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:53,119 he's able to read the books of his father. So his father Tera 601 00:42:53,519 --> 00:43:00,840 has the books which are its basically the Law of God and in Hebrew, 602 00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:05,519 and of course these have basically been passed down from Enoch, but Tera can't 603 00:43:05,599 --> 00:43:09,679 read them because he can't read Hebrew, and he's worshiping idols, right And 604 00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:15,519 so basically this gives Abraham the secret knowledge, which is actually the knowledge of 605 00:43:15,599 --> 00:43:20,920 the calendar, it's the knowledge of the feasts which he's supposed to celebrate, 606 00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:24,119 it's the knowledge of circumcision and all these other things that this is going to 607 00:43:24,159 --> 00:43:29,679 give him that knowledge so that he can essentially rightly order the world. And 608 00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:31,800 one of the things that I want to mention here when we talk about Abraham's 609 00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:37,280 mouth and ears being opened so that he can understand Hebrew. Right that and 610 00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:40,159 again the Lord of Spirits guys have done a whole bunch of stuff on this. 611 00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,800 But sort of the last thing you do in the ancient world when you 612 00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:51,960 build a temple is to there's a basically a perform a ritual to open the 613 00:43:52,079 --> 00:43:55,880 nostrils of the idol, and basically so that the spirit of the God that 614 00:43:55,920 --> 00:44:00,880 you're worshiping can inhabit it, and there are examples. We have a like 615 00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:05,159 basically a liturgy for this from ancient Egypt, for instance. But and of 616 00:44:05,199 --> 00:44:07,760 course you can draw a lot of parallels to like the creation of the world 617 00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,639 in Genesis, with man being the final thing that happens that God breathes into 618 00:44:10,679 --> 00:44:15,280 him and opens his nostrils. Right, So here's Abraham's mouth and ears being 619 00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:20,119 opened so that he can essentially become the focal point for the worship of the 620 00:44:20,199 --> 00:44:23,519 One True God. Right. And then when he does this, when this 621 00:44:23,639 --> 00:44:30,039 happens, he is able to and it's the same it's exactly the same thing 622 00:44:30,159 --> 00:44:34,199 as him being able to save the seed, right, because what he ends 623 00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,880 up doing is is now there's this hidden seed, which is the law of 624 00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:42,800 God which has been hidden and lost and forgotten, but he's able to actually 625 00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,440 use that to begin to rightly order the world. And then that basically is 626 00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:49,920 the introduction to Abram. And from there it goes into the story of Abram 627 00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,760 as you basically know it from Genesis, although with a lot more sort of 628 00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:57,800 calendar stuff thrown in. So with all of this set, with everybody kind 629 00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:01,119 of thinking about along these terms, what I want to do is talk really 630 00:45:01,199 --> 00:45:08,039 briefly about Pentecost. Now, Pentecost is chevaute. It's the the feasts of 631 00:45:08,079 --> 00:45:13,400 the First Fruits. It's one of the Old Testament feasts that we continue to 632 00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,679 celebrate in the Church today. And again a little bit of a spoiler, 633 00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:20,599 but if you read in Jubilees, you'll see that they were celebrating this in 634 00:45:20,679 --> 00:45:23,800 heaven first, which is going to be you know, there's a lot of 635 00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:29,360 interesting things there that we'll talk about. But the feast of the First Fruits, 636 00:45:30,159 --> 00:45:34,800 right, is one of the most important feasts in Jubilees. It's commanded 637 00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:39,119 and celebrated first in heaven, and essentially it celebrates the renewal of a covenant. 638 00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:44,760 So the first time that it's commanded for humans is after Noah offers the 639 00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:50,960 sacrifice following the following the flood, right, So he gets out off the 640 00:45:51,079 --> 00:45:54,519 art and offers a bunch of animals to sacrifice, and God smells the sacrifice 641 00:45:54,599 --> 00:45:59,039 and is pleasing to him, and he institutes the feasts of the First Fruits 642 00:45:59,119 --> 00:46:01,320 for those on earth. But it's the idea is the angels are already celebrating 643 00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:06,039 it in heaven, right, And there's no hint of that in scripture, 644 00:46:06,039 --> 00:46:07,800 though this is really from Jubilee, the idea that that, yes, the 645 00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:14,760 Pentecost is when Noah offered the sacrifice. Well, Pentecost, you could say 646 00:46:15,679 --> 00:46:21,000 historically used in the worst sense possible, but you could say, like historically 647 00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:23,159 it celebrates the giving of the law, because this is what I mean, 648 00:46:23,199 --> 00:46:27,280 this is what Pentecost celebrates, is the giving of the law to the people 649 00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,840 of Israel. But remember that the there's a nodic laws. Yeah, yeah, 650 00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,400 there's there's there's already a covenant, right, there's already a law and 651 00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:38,159 a covenant that's given a Noah. And basically the whole premise of Jubileese is 652 00:46:38,239 --> 00:46:42,079 that when Moses is given the law, it's not like some new thing. 653 00:46:42,519 --> 00:46:45,679 Yeah, but that is actually a revelation of who God has always been. 654 00:46:45,599 --> 00:46:47,960 And by the way, this is still as Christians, this is how we 655 00:46:49,039 --> 00:46:52,239 understand the law, not as something that is prescriptive, but it's something that 656 00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:54,480 is descriptive, right, something that describes this is what God is like. 657 00:46:55,280 --> 00:47:00,880 And if you sort of align yourself on this pattern, then and your world 658 00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:04,519 will cohere, right, And if you don't, then you'll be scattered or 659 00:47:04,519 --> 00:47:06,599 the land will vomit you out, et cetera, et cetera. Right, 660 00:47:07,199 --> 00:47:12,320 and so and so it's celebrated again in Jubilees with the giving of the Law, 661 00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:15,079 which which you have to remember, that is the frame narrative for all 662 00:47:15,119 --> 00:47:22,199 of Jubilees, is the Word giving the Law, which includes Genesis. Genesis 663 00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:23,920 is part of the law. It's one of the five books of the law. 664 00:47:24,079 --> 00:47:29,239 Right, the Word giving the law to Moses on Sinai, and so 665 00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,840 everything is told in the first person, or but it's the Angel speaking, 666 00:47:34,039 --> 00:47:36,519 right, the Angel of the Lord. He's he's telling. And then I 667 00:47:36,679 --> 00:47:38,159 did this, and then I told Noah this, and then I told Enoch 668 00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:40,239 this, and then I told Moses, you know, so on and so 669 00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:45,920 so. So that's the frame of Jubilees. Is is the actual giving of 670 00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:49,119 the law. So the thing that Pentecost celebrates is the giving of the law, 671 00:47:49,519 --> 00:47:52,960 which is what Jubileese is all about. And so it's this really significant 672 00:47:52,079 --> 00:47:58,800 feast all throughout the book of Jubilees. And it's a at some point it's 673 00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:02,440 sometimes referred to as like a the twofold celebration or the celebration that has two 674 00:48:02,559 --> 00:48:06,599 aspects, and it's this is as far as I've been able to find, 675 00:48:06,639 --> 00:48:08,760 this is never explained in Jubilees, but I think it's something like that the 676 00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:12,800 giving of that the Covenant is given twice, the Law is given twice, 677 00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,679 first to Know and then to Moses. Something like that. But all this 678 00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:21,840 to say, it's the most important feast in Jubilees, and we get some 679 00:48:22,599 --> 00:48:24,400 in a way. There are some really fun connections that again I'm going to 680 00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:30,480 save for my talk. But essentially, what I think everybody knows, or 681 00:48:30,559 --> 00:48:32,840 maybe not everybody knows, but everybody could know. You know, if you 682 00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:37,280 go to church on the night, you know, Saturday night before Pentecost, 683 00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:42,159 right, is that Pentecost is an inversion of Babel. So Pentecost is the 684 00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:45,039 first feast of first roots. But the Church sees it and has really always 685 00:48:45,079 --> 00:48:47,360 treated it and seen it. I'm going to argue, all the way back 686 00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:51,840 to the Book of Acts, has seen it as a reverse of the curse 687 00:48:52,199 --> 00:48:55,360 of Babel. So the apostles are all gathered together. Where are they gathered. 688 00:48:55,360 --> 00:49:00,119 They're gathered in a city on a mountain in an upper room, right, 689 00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:06,480 and at the top of that room they are creating an altar, a 690 00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:13,039 focus point. Right, and that is that they are gathered together I'm gonna 691 00:49:13,079 --> 00:49:19,000 say, to serve the liturgy. There's a very ancient tradition that is still 692 00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:23,159 you can still find in like the Malankara churches, like the Syrian churches, 693 00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:28,079 the Coptic Church, and so on and so forth. There's a very ancient 694 00:49:28,119 --> 00:49:31,599 tradition that when the church is gathered together in the upper room, you know 695 00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:35,639 it's and it's an upper room, it's not a basement. They're gathered together 696 00:49:35,679 --> 00:49:38,000 in the upper room to serve the liturgy. That when they're gathered together, 697 00:49:38,159 --> 00:49:44,280 that they are serving the divine Liturgy for the first time. Now, somebody 698 00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:45,480 out there wants to say, well, we don't know, we don't have 699 00:49:45,559 --> 00:49:50,039 a single liturgy written down from the first entry, blah blah blah. This 700 00:49:50,159 --> 00:49:52,960 is the tradition. Though, this is the tradition, and certainly you know, 701 00:49:53,039 --> 00:49:55,440 the liturgy of Saint James, who was the first Bishop of Jerusalem, 702 00:49:55,559 --> 00:50:00,239 is most people agree is the oldest Christian liturgy that we have. And so 703 00:50:01,039 --> 00:50:07,320 the tradition is that they're serving the liturgy together for the very first time since 704 00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:13,159 the resurrection m HM. And that the Lord appeared after his resurrection to James 705 00:50:13,199 --> 00:50:15,519 and some of the other apostles and essentially gave them the liturgy. So Saint 706 00:50:15,599 --> 00:50:21,320 James is serving the liturgy there as the first Bishop in Jerusalem in the upper 707 00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:24,360 room. And during the Anaphora, which is the moment in the liturgy when 708 00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:29,199 we call the Holy Spirit down upon the gifts on the altar. That that's 709 00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:32,440 when the Holy Spirit comes down at Pentecost. And this is still still in 710 00:50:32,519 --> 00:50:37,360 our liturgy. By the way, like the right before the Enophara, the 711 00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:39,519 priest praise and you can't hear it if you're out in the nave because it's 712 00:50:39,559 --> 00:50:44,079 said quietly, but the priest praise, you know, O Lord, as 713 00:50:44,119 --> 00:50:47,199 you sent down your Holy Spirit on the apostles, right, take them not 714 00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:50,519 away from us, and so on and so forth right, and so there's 715 00:50:50,599 --> 00:50:54,000 this, So there's this calling down of the Holy Spirit with a reference to 716 00:50:54,159 --> 00:50:59,599 Pentecost that happens right before that part of the liturgy. So anyway, if 717 00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:01,320 even if you're you know, you want to argue, it's impossible to prove 718 00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:05,000 any of this like textually or whatever. I'm just saying, this is the 719 00:51:05,079 --> 00:51:08,199 tradition, and it's a tradition that is still implicit in the the liturgy of 720 00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:15,039 all of the Eastern churches. Okay. And and so as he calls down 721 00:51:15,079 --> 00:51:19,360 the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit descends, and he descends not just on 722 00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:21,480 the gifts, but upon the whole church, which is, by the way, 723 00:51:21,599 --> 00:51:23,239 it's what we always ask for. Send down your Holy Spirit upon us 724 00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:28,239 and upon these gifts set forth right. And so the Holy Spirit comes down. 725 00:51:28,559 --> 00:51:30,760 And how does he come down? He comes down as a wind, 726 00:51:32,079 --> 00:51:36,960 right, which is this really important aspect of the Babbel story as it's told 727 00:51:37,079 --> 00:51:42,079 in Jubilee. The Holy Spirit comes down as a wind, and tongues of 728 00:51:42,199 --> 00:51:44,960 fire, right, which is that? Which is I mean, they become 729 00:51:45,079 --> 00:51:47,719 candles. I don't know how it's to say it, right, The tongues 730 00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:52,599 of fire come and they hover over the heads of each of the apostles, 731 00:51:52,639 --> 00:51:53,840 and over the head of the Mother of God, who is also present there 732 00:51:54,280 --> 00:52:00,119 in the Book of Acts, and they make each of the apostles in to 733 00:52:00,599 --> 00:52:05,400 a tower or a candle or a pillar, like however you want to think 734 00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:08,079 about it, right, that's exactly what is happening there. And then what 735 00:52:08,239 --> 00:52:13,719 happens is that the tongues, the confusion of tongues is resolved and It's very 736 00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:17,119 tricky in the text actually how it is resolved, because it sounds at one 737 00:52:17,199 --> 00:52:21,480 point like the apostles are just speaking and you know, probably aramic, but 738 00:52:21,559 --> 00:52:24,440 then everybody's hearing it in their own tongue. But then some people can't understand 739 00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:29,440 what's going on. And those people who can't understand what's going on, they 740 00:52:29,599 --> 00:52:36,079 just hear what the babel, right, they hear babel and they accuse the 741 00:52:36,119 --> 00:52:39,320 Apostles of being drunk. And I will just say this is another video, 742 00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:45,199 but there is some weird stuff going on with Pentecost and the symbolism of like 743 00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:50,519 Pentecost and its relation to drunkenness. I mean, I'll just give an example. 744 00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:52,800 So the Pentecost is a celebration of the giving of the Law and the 745 00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:55,719 giving of the Covenant. Right, So the first time in Jubilieze that this 746 00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:02,960 happens is after the Noah plants a vine and gets drunk, and he gets 747 00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:07,840 drunk. And then the second time that this happens is on Sini Moses receives 748 00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:10,280 the law and he comes down the mountain. Then everybody's drunk, yeah, 749 00:53:10,679 --> 00:53:15,199 right, And then the third time is when the Holy Spirit comes and he 750 00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:17,760 gives it the law of flesh in our own hearts, and the apostles begin 751 00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:23,119 to prophesy, and the people who can't understand them, and this is a 752 00:53:23,159 --> 00:53:27,159 weird thing about the miracle, like it's not just that some that it's not 753 00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:30,199 that everybody can understand them. The people whose hearts are ready, they understand 754 00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:34,639 in their own tongue, but for everybody else that sounds like babbel and those 755 00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:38,920 people again accuse them of drunkenness. There's something about this descent like drunkenness at 756 00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:44,159 the bottom. I don't know, yah no. But the way to understand 757 00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:49,000 it is to understand what Pentecost is doing is something similar to what the Crucifixion 758 00:53:49,159 --> 00:53:53,360 is doing. Is that it is collapsing all the symbolism into one place, 759 00:53:53,440 --> 00:54:00,119 and it's basically gathering it together in a way that both resolves the whole question 760 00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:04,079 but also does it in a way that if you try to capture it in 761 00:54:04,159 --> 00:54:07,360 your mind, you really struggle to hold all the pieces together, because, 762 00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:13,159 like you said, it's like, is the Holy Spirit scattering them? The 763 00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:15,039 answer is yes, yeah, because it's going to scatter them to the four 764 00:54:15,159 --> 00:54:19,400 corners of the world. Yeah. And is the Holy spirit gathering them. 765 00:54:19,519 --> 00:54:22,639 The answer is yes, of course they are, because they're all speaking in 766 00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:29,480 one mind and in one voice, but everybody's hearing them in their particular voice, 767 00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:31,719 and so what it's doing, and also there's confusion on the edges, 768 00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:37,880 and so it's actually a cosmic image of the whole thing simultaneously, both the 769 00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:43,199 uniting of Babel and the splintering of Babel and the confusion of it, but 770 00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:47,079 all done in a manner that transforms it into a proper hierarchy, like an 771 00:54:47,159 --> 00:54:53,039 actual, true hierarchy of unity, in the togetherness of multiplicity, in the 772 00:54:53,199 --> 00:54:58,920 way in which it can contact it relates to the particular, but then even 773 00:54:59,519 --> 00:55:04,559 room or a kind of chaos and fluidity on the edge. So it's like 774 00:55:04,639 --> 00:55:09,760 it's recasting the entire world in that moment. And in this way we see 775 00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:14,679 the way that the saints become the pillars that are now upholding the world and 776 00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:16,760 uniting, having to earth together, and like each one of them becomes that 777 00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:21,559 little image of the candle or the tower or the mountain or whatever it is. 778 00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:24,960 Right and even like in our hymnography in the Orthodox Church, we often 779 00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:29,400 refer to the Mother of God as being like the the the you know, 780 00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:32,159 the uncut mountain, right like like like as being the mountain of God, 781 00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:37,119 you know, and then you know the basically the place where God makes himself 782 00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:40,960 known, the place where he's manifest. But every single member of the church 783 00:55:42,079 --> 00:55:44,800 is supposed to be that, right, and so you have that happening at 784 00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:49,000 Pentecost. I'll just kind of close this out by saying two things. One 785 00:55:49,079 --> 00:55:52,239 is that thinking back to Abraham's mouth and ears being opened so that he can 786 00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,679 understand the law of God, right, that this is really this is what's 787 00:55:55,719 --> 00:55:59,800 going on. But now it's not just Hebrew, right, it's the idea 788 00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:02,719 of that there's there's a it's not about the language, right, it's but 789 00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:07,599 it's about the content, right. But our mouths and ears are open so 790 00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:12,239 that we then become the sons of Abraham. Right, That's the that's the 791 00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:15,119 kind of the key image there. And then the other thing that I want 792 00:56:15,159 --> 00:56:20,440 to do is just to show that the I mean, I just I don't 793 00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:22,920 see how you could like see see the connection the very careful order of the 794 00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:27,320 story in the Book of Acts and say that this is that the connection to 795 00:56:27,559 --> 00:56:31,000 babylist arbitrary. But in case anybody was wondering did the ancient church make these 796 00:56:31,039 --> 00:56:35,199 connections as well? I have. This is this is my big, big 797 00:56:35,559 --> 00:56:39,400 Pentecostarian which is like all of our our hymns, the ancient hymns and and 798 00:56:39,559 --> 00:56:45,119 and the stuff around Pasca and Pentecost is our essentially our most ancient hymnography in 799 00:56:45,159 --> 00:56:47,320 the Orthodox Church. We're talking about, uh, most of the stuff going 800 00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:51,880 back to third and fourth century. Okay, I'll just read a couple of 801 00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:55,119 hymns, uh this, These are from These are from Vespers. I'll read 802 00:56:55,159 --> 00:56:59,559 one from Vespers and one one from Mattens. For the feasts of Pentecost, 803 00:57:00,119 --> 00:57:04,280 says of old the tongues were confounded because of the audacity in the building of 804 00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:07,519 the tower. But now the tongues are made wise for the sake of the 805 00:57:07,599 --> 00:57:12,199 glory of divine knowledge. So there's a connection there with the divine knowledge. 806 00:57:12,639 --> 00:57:14,800 And that goes back to this. I'm going to argue that goes back to 807 00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:17,840 this tradition with Abraham. There God condemned the impious because of their offense, 808 00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:22,679 and here Christ hath enlightened the fishermen by the spirit. At the time, 809 00:57:23,039 --> 00:57:27,559 the confusion at that time, the confusion of tongues was wrought for punishment, 810 00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:31,159 but now the concord of tongues hath been inaugurated for the salvation of souls. 811 00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:37,320 And then also the hymns, even in Greek, they do make a lot 812 00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:39,719 of puns between the confusion of tongues and then the tongues of fire. Yeah, 813 00:57:39,920 --> 00:57:44,280 right, that's like people really like that pun In the ancient world, 814 00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:49,000 it says once when he descended and confounded the tongues, the most High divided 815 00:57:49,039 --> 00:57:52,679 the nations, and when he divided the tongues of fire, he called all 816 00:57:52,719 --> 00:57:57,199 men into unity. So like there was like one tongue and then division, 817 00:57:57,360 --> 00:58:00,119 and now there's a division of tongues because it's the tongues of fire, but 818 00:58:00,199 --> 00:58:02,760 that actually brings us into unity. He called all men into unity with one 819 00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:07,599 accord, we glorify the all Holy Spirit. So there's actually a lot more 820 00:58:07,719 --> 00:58:09,880 in the Hindography of Pentecost, but I thought I would just read a couple 821 00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:16,360 of examples to show how it's really what I'm arguing for is how we have 822 00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:22,960 always like in our tradition, this is how we've always read the scriptures, 823 00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:28,199 right, and this is going to be basically what we're going to be talking 824 00:58:28,239 --> 00:58:30,599 about at the conference, at least in my track is we're going to be 825 00:58:30,679 --> 00:58:36,199 looking at some other ways that the church has always read and understood Genesis and 826 00:58:36,239 --> 00:58:37,960 the way that it actually affects the way that we still think about God, 827 00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:40,960 who he is, how we worship him, what it means to serve him 828 00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:46,760 today. So any that's my pitch for the summit, or at least get 829 00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:51,840 the ticket as virginal ticket. So thanks Richard. This is awesome. I 830 00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:54,400 mean, I see a lot of amazing things in the future everybody, you 831 00:58:54,480 --> 00:59:00,400 know, Richard and I already as we try to get through this logistical chaos, 832 00:59:00,519 --> 00:59:04,760 we're all already planning out all these wonderful stories of how to connect the 833 00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:08,599 ancient stories with modern storytelling tropes with you know, we won't we won't spoil 834 00:59:09,519 --> 00:59:12,960 what we're gonna do, but it's gonna be it's gonna be wonderful. So 835 00:59:13,440 --> 00:59:15,280 so everybody, thanks for your attention, thanks for supporting everything we do. 836 00:59:15,800 --> 00:59:19,320 Hopefully we'll see some of you at the summit, and if not, there 837 00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:22,360 will also be online places to discuss the summit if you get the virtual ticket, 838 00:59:22,519 --> 00:59:25,039 like we'll have spaces where people can and I think that we're gonna do 839 00:59:25,159 --> 00:59:29,400 like some kind of like a big live Yeah, we'll do a live thing 840 00:59:29,519 --> 00:59:31,559 after at the end. Yeah, So all right, everybody, thanks for 841 00:59:31,559 --> 00:59:37,239 your attention. Thanks everyone. If you enjoyed these videos and podcasts, please 842 00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:40,920 go to the Symbolic world dot com website and see how you can support what 843 00:59:42,039 --> 00:59:45,119 we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers with perks. There are apparel and 844 00:59:45,159 --> 00:59:49,519 books to purchase. So go to the symbolic world dot com and thank you 845 00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:50,639 for your support.