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Speaker 1: And then when we look at scripture and we ask

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the question, what's the unifying vision behind the whole Bible,

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Scripture from beginning to end pertains to the divine in

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dwelling of the world in sanctuaries. And so if you

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want to see the entire world at once, we go

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to Exodus twenty five to thirty one, because this is

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where Moses enters into God's presence. And what does he

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see when he enters into God's presence. He doesn't just

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see a bright light, He doesn't just have a numinous experience,

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though he does have those things. He sees a vision

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of a blueprint of a building with furniture or more

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prosycial furniture. And that tabernacle is the architecture of the

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entire creation because it takes the totality of the cosmos

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and it compresses it down into a way that can

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be seen by one person. And so when we look

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at the structure of the Tabernacle, we are looking into

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high heaven and beyond, and we see the relation that

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everything in the Tabernacle has with everything else. And in

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doing that we can then look at the real world

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and see it as an Exejesus of the actual creation,

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and the whole Bible is fundamentally about this principle.

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Speaker 2: This is Jonathan phel Welcome to the Symbolic World. Hello everyone,

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I'm here with Saraphim Hamilton. If you paid attention to

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the channel he has been discussing with me before, he

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has a very fascinating and powerful vision of scripture. He

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has his own YouTube channel. You can look him up,

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Sarah fham Hamilton. But we're excited that he is going

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to be teaching a class for us called Scripture the

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Key to Reality. The Bible as a symbolic world, you know,

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and obviously this is something that anybody who watches this

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relieves to be true. But it's exciting to also get

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people's minds and people's thought into the scripture because there

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are all kinds of ways in which that's the case.

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It's not just one single way there. You know, the

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Bible is polysemic, and there's all of these powerful structures

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inside and and and people's different tax on. It is

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enriching for each of us. And so Sah Saraf and

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thanks for doing this with us.

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Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much. I'm really excited.

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Speaker 2: And so that's a bold statement. You know, obviously I

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also believe it. But you know, the idea that the

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Scripture is the key to reality. Maybe tell us a

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little bit about what is your perception on that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so when you look at the world, you're not

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really looking at the totality of the world. In one case,

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the world is a lot bigger than what you can

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see around you. And so the question is, how do

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we understand if we think there is some unifying purpose

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of the world, if there's some unifying principle which undergirds

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the relation between everything and everything else, how do you

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see it all at once? Well, the ultimate answer to

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that question is you see it in the person of

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Jesus Christ. You see it in the Logos, through whom

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everything has its particular existence in communion with everything else.

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But Saint Maximus the Confessor draws a very interesting analogy

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between the Incarnation, the Creation, and then the Scripture. So

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all three of these are expressions of the one person

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of the Logos in a kind of totalizing way. And

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then when we look at scripture and we ask the question,

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what's the unifying vision behind the whole Bible Scripture from

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beginning to end, pertains to the divine in dwelling of

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the world in sanctuaries. And so if you want to

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see the entire world at once, we go to Exodus

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twenty five to thirty one. This is where Moses enters

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into God's presence. And what does he see when he

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enters into God's presence. He doesn't just see a bright light.

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He doesn't just have a numinous experience, though he does

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have those things. He sees a vision of a blueprint

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of a building with furniture, or more prosychial furniture. And

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that tabernacle is the architecture of the entire creation because

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it takes the totality of the cosmos and it compresses

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it down into a way that can be seen by

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one person. And so when we look at the structure

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of the Tabernacle, we are looking into high heaven and beyond,

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and we see the relation that everything in the tabernacle

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has with everything else. And in doing that, we can

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then look at the real world and see it as

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an exegesis of the actual creation. And the whole Bible

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is fundamentally about this principle, the way which God is

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disclosed as the unifying principle of the world and the

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way in which God intends to bring the world to

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perfection through his relation and dialogue with the human race

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as a single organism. So that's kind of the overarching vision,

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no pun intended of the class stepping into the Tabernacle,

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stepping into the temple, seeing it as the architecture of reality,

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reading the whole Bible in terms of that, And then

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in the last couple of classes, and then and that

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brought us sense throughout them all, we're going to concretize

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that a little bit and see how this isn't just

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some abstraction which we make ourselves believe. It actually cashes

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out in the concreate stuff of the world.

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Speaker 3: Mm hmmmm.

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Speaker 2: Because you said something really bold at the outset that

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I'm sure some people might freak people out. Is that

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you said, Sam Maximus draws this relationship right. He says,

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he talks about, of course, the person of Christ as

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the incarnation, talks about scripture, and then he said, he

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talked about all of creation as being the fullness of

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the logos. And so maybe I mean, because I know

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some types of people are going to get really shocked

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if you express the creation as an extension of incarnation.

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Speaker 3: But maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

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Speaker 2: And help people understand why that is the case and

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why that's useful to understand.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but we don't want to see God as kind

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of a foreigner in his own world. So when we

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look out at the world, you know, we see it

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having all kinds of positive qualities. It has color, and

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it has sound, it has tastes, it as all of

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these things. And when we consider what we believe about God,

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God is the one who is self exists, meaning he

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has all existent qualities to an infinite degree, and so

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there's no thing in existence which could possibly come from

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anything other than God. You know, in order to have equality,

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if you don't have it intrinsically, you need to get

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it from somewhere else. While we believe as Christians that

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the creation does not exist intrinsically, it is derivative of God.

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So if the creation has the qualities that it has,

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and it receives its existence and its life from God,

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then that simply means that the creation has to derive

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or express those qualities which belong intrinsically to God. But

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we acknowledge that there is of course an ontological distinction

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in the nature of their existence between God and the world,

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not because they're utterly unlike each other in every sense

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of that phrase, but because the things that we see

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in limited form in the Creation, we see an infinite

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form to an infinitely greater degree in the life of

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God himself. And one of the things that we recognized

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when we think about God's relation to the world is

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that all of these relations and qualities are instantiated to

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their fullest degree in the Father's relation to the Son.

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So we have this thing called the God world relation.

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God relates to the world as something other than himself.

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But we say that everything that the world is expresses

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or echoes something in the life of God. So what

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about that idea of relation. Well, the reason that God

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can have a relationship with the world is because relation

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itself is something which is infinitely possessed by the Father's

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relation to the Son. So that's why the Gospel of

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John says all things were made through him and says

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that in the context of the Son's being begotten of

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the Father, the Son is begotten of the Father. God

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creates the world. Those aren't the same thing, but their analogous,

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and thus the creation is brought to its perfection through

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the incarnation of the world. And it's not an accident

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that it's in this context where the Gospel of John

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evokes the language is thanctuary. The word became flesh, and

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Tabernac owned among us, and we have seen his glory.

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Glory is the only son from the Father. So that's

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that we enter into that life of God.

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Speaker 2: So what what is the This is the question, you know,

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in some ways the question that I hear all the time,

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even base the things that I say. You know, if

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what you're saying is true, then what is the difference

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between the Christian vision of the world and you know,

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a kind of pantheism or a kind of imminentism where.

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Speaker 3: God is the world?

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Speaker 2: Because you hear people say things like that, right though

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I hear people now all the time who who are

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constantly trying to avoid saying that they pray and they

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say things like I asked the universe or whatever, that

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kind of language. And so what is the difference? Why

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do we still have then? If God is fully manifested

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through the world's qualities, why do we need the you

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could say, the distinction of God as a as as

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a separate being or a separate source of being.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, I think that we wouldn't say necessarily

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that God is fully manifested in the qualities of the world.

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We would say that the world runs downstream of God

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in the sense that God gives it life and existence

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and being. But then what the world does is it

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points us upwards and outwards. It points us out of itself.

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And so let's see, we see light in the world,

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and light makes us able to know the things on

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which it shines. Light is beautiful, it has infinite color

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inside of it, but it points outside of itself. And

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this is an important point I think about. You know,

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what we as Orthodox Christians call apathetic theology, that we

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speak of God in terms of what he is not

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rather than what he is. That apathetic theology is not

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a statement that God cannot be known. It is a

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statement that there's always more of God to know. And

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so when we look at the finite world, it points

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outside of itself as one which comes from God. But

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then when we enter into God, we see more of

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that to an infinitely more beautiful degree than we could

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see looking at the world in itself. And then this is,

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you know, another part of the way that Scripture frames

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its concept of reality, which is that, Okay, the world

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is a temple and it's a sanctuaryous place where God

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lives at the place which reflects the qualities of God.

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And God has made man as his partner to bring

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God into the world. So if you look at the

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way that the Tabernacle is consecrated, well, the Tabernacle is

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a nature representation of creation and the language of the

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Tabernacle is filmed with illusions back to Creation Week. But

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one of the things you find that's really interesting is

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that at the end of Exodus, Moses and God both

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are using verbs that belong to God in Creation week,

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that Moses finished the work whereas God was the one

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who finished the work in Creation week. That God rested

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in the Tabernacle in his glory, just as he did

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in the seventh Creation Day. And so what that means

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then is that man, as the one who knows God,

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who exists in relation to God, is then given the

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mission to bring God more and more fully into the world.

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So the world isn't that which just directly immediately reveals

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God to us, but the world points us to God.

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And then when we turn and gaze upon the God

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from whom the world comes. We can look back on

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the world and bring God's glory more and more fully

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into that world, which is what we're going to be

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doing for all eternity.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting that you see that.

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Speaker 2: Obviously, in Genesis at the beginning, when God creates man,

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you can see that he is giving him a role

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which is similar to his He's saying, now name the animals,

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which is an expression of what God was doing in

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the world in Genesis one. And so you really have

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this sense that the purpose of the human is to

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kind of continue to be like an emissary of God

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in the world and to continue his work in reality.

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But then maybe, yeah, we can ask this question, which

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is that Again it's related to the question I asked before,

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and it's something that people say all the time, which is,

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if creation is this, If creation in some ways is

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a tabernacle, Creation is this place in which God reveals himself,

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then why do we need why do we need temples?

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Like why do we need to build Why was there

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this need to build a tabernacle rather than to live

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in God's creation?

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Speaker 1: Let's say, yeah, yeah, well, I think that the answer

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to this is related to the mission that we're given right. So,

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as you mentioned in Genesis one, you know, God shapes things.

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He takes unformed, void matter and he molds into different things,

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and then he leaves it intentionally and complete, so that

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man is going to perpetuate that work, and man is

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going to bring creation to its perfection. And so then

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I think what we want to do is we want

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to ask the question of what we're doing when we

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actually build specific sanctuaries. What we're doing in building specific

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sanctuaries is not taking something that's utterly unlike the world

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and just like popping it into the world. Instead, what

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we're doing is we're taking the matter of creation and

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we're shaping it so that it becomes more fully itself

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by reflecting God. So this derives from kind of the

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first principles about which we spoke that the world derives

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from God as the creation of God. It therefore reflects

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or expresses symbolically some character of God. Therefore it finds

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itself when it comes to more and more fully express

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the life of God. And so this is something that

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we see in Exodus as well. So the instructions of

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the tavern given in seven speeches corresponding to the seven

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Creation days. The sixth speech talks about a guy named

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Bezilel from the tribe of Judah, the same tribe as Jesus,

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and Bezilel is thus an ex to Jesus of what

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Adam is meant to do. So God gives Bezilel the

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spirit justice he gave Adam the spirit. And what he

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does is he takes all of this stuff that they've

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gotten out from Egypt. So they came out with lots

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of spoils. There's a lot of back pay that they

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weren't getting when they were slaves in Egypt, so they

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got their back pay. And then God says, give me

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a contribution from it. And what they do is they

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take the matter of the world and they shape it,

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and they mold it in such a way that more

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fully expresses symbolically God's character so that God can come

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and dwell in it. And then then the language of embodiment.

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This is one of the beautiful things about scripture that

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it uses different patterns of language to express different different

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aspects of God's life. But you see these patterns being

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married consistently the scripture, so that they're not just separate.

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They stand alongside each other. The Tabernacle and the Temple.

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They're not just spoken of as a static building. They're

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spoken of as things like a tree of life or

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an organism. And so what we see is that man.

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Man's mission is to guard and cultivate the garden. He's

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an agriculturist, and man plants the seed in the world

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and then grows the environment of the temple like an

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organism until it totally permeates all things. And that's where

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you get the image of, you know, the cosmic tree.

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When God speaks to Daniel and Nebekinezer in the Book

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of Daniel, he sees his empire as this tree which

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extends over all the nations, and then Jesus uses that

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image for the Kingdom of God and the Gospels. But

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the Temple itself is as a treehouse is built out

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of this kind of material.

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Speaker 2: One of the things I've noticed and that has fascinated

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to me, you know, and it's been part of the

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thing that I talk about, is that it seems that

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there is a shift that happens at the fall, and

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that there is an aspect of the consequence of the fall,

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which is this idea of work. Right, it seems that

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Adam before the fall, his role is to name. It's

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almost like an effortless thing. Effortless in the sense that

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we think of effort right, in the sense that it

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was a more natural process of him naming the animals,

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whereas after the fall there's this sense in which he

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actually has to mold, like physically shape things, and that

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there's a relationship between that and the fall, which you

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see in the fact that human activity in human craft

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then develops in the Line of Caine until the flood.

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And so it's something that I've been really thinking about it.

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I definitely see in some ways the Tabernacle, the end

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of city of Jerusalem, and ultimately the heavenly Jerusalem in

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some ways as God covering or i'd say, transforming the

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fall into something glorious, right, transforming the results of the

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fall into something positive. But I wondered if you've thought

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about that, if you have ideas about that relationship between

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the fallen world and the Tabernacle, let's say.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So, one of the things that's really interesting about

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what you see in the Line of Cain is that

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many of the things which are described in the Line

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of Cain implicitly would be necessary for Noah to build

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the world into an arc. And so what we see

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I think in the Fall is, you know, Man goes

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into schism from the life of God. And because the

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life of God is the principle of all reality, that

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means man goes into schism with the communion in which

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he would know everything else in God. And what you

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see in Genesis too, as you point out, is Adam

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is ruling the world as it were through speech. God

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has spoken to him, and now Adam speaks out to

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the world, and the animals just approach Adam. They freely

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offer themselves to Adam so that he can rule over them.

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But then in the event of the Fall, the schism

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from God is manifesting a schism from the world, so

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that the world begins to resist the natural operation of man.

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The world rises up and rebeunds against Man. I mean,

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you wouldn't be able to name a lion in the

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way that Adam named the lion in the garden. You'd

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have to go wrestle it to the ground and do

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all this kind of stuff in order to find it

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and study it and figure out an appropriate name for

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And so there's this schism between God man and the world,

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which has then manifest in. I don't know if I

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would call it work per se. I think it would

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call it toil. Right, It's a specific kind of work,

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because God works during the six creation days. But creation

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just responds immediately to his word, and he invites us

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to enter that work and thus enter his rest. But

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then there's a toil which arises out of the conflict

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between man and the world. And this is where you

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can then get the image of dominion, which was something

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to into Adam being expressed in terms of violent conquest.

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Man begins to go out and take a sword and

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cut things down and bring destruction into the world in

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order to rule over it. And then in the prophetic books,

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this is one of the things that I'm really going

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to talk about and emphasizing a lot of detail in

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the class the importance of all of the specific phrases

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that we find in scripture. The prophetic books take that

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idea of warfare, and they don't just destroy swords and spears.

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Isaiah does not say that in those days man will

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melt down all his swords and break his spears. Rather,

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the swords and spears are turned into plowshares, and pruning hooks.

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That man has been reconciled with the world through God

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and therefore is able to rule over the world in

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a way that evinces the harmony between God, Man and

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the world, and that is ultimately rule through the divine word.

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The word goes into our mouth, we then speak in

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the world is harmonized with us. And we actually see

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this in some of the lives of the saints. There's

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one story about Saint Seraphim where people came, they visited him,

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and he spoke and he calmed a plant to rise

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up out of the ground. That the spirit of God

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gives life to all the plants was in him in

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such a way that it was on his breath, and

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the world toply responded with obedience.

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Speaker 3: And so.

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Speaker 2: We were kind of going somewhere with the idea that

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those skills were needed to.

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Speaker 3: Build the Ark.

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Speaker 2: And so what were you trying to what we're trying

375
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to point out in that idea, Like, what is it

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about the arc that makes it special or different from

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the cities that Cain's descendants built.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so when Cain builds his city, it's built on

379
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the blood of his brother. So there's that idea of conflict, right,

380
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Cain goes into a conflict with his brother, and then

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he forms a whole society, takes the matter of the

382
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world and builds it to facilitate that kind of relation

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with the world. It's a breakdown of our mode of

384
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relations with the world, and then that creates a whole civilization.

385
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And the things that he does with the world are

386
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built out of that principle of violence and destruction and bloodshed.

387
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But ultimately, what it is is like any sin, it's

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not just something that's out of the clear blue sky.

389
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It's a distortion of a mode in which we are

390
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meant to relate to God in the world. And so

391
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what God does then in Noah is he brings that

392
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distorted relation with the world back into the life of

393
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the righteous human family. And so then Noah is, and

394
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this is a major theme in the story of the flood.

395
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What Noah does is he is first obedient to God.

396
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God gives him the architecture of the ark just and

397
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if you read that text, it resembles the architecture, and

398
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he looks at that and then he takes the matter

399
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of the world and he build owns a new world

400
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out of it. So the old world is Caine's world.

401
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It's a mess, It's filled with violence. You have the

402
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,920
breakdown of every appropriate relation. Right, Heaven and earth are

403
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:12,480
meant to relate in a harmonious, beautiful way. But then

404
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we get the nephilimb Heaven and Earth come together in

405
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this really twisted way. So God takes that world and

406
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Noah takes out of it those things which belong to Cain,

407
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and then builds it and structures it into something new.

408
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He builds a new world, and then that new world

409
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gives birth to the world after the flood. And this

410
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is all an image of Christ, right, because think about

411
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the way that Christ not only saves us from sin

412
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but brings the world to glory. It was through a

413
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brutal execution by his own family members, the Jewish nation

414
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and the nations of the world that he united heaven

415
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to earth and man to man on the cross. You

416
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reconcile all things through those very principles of violence and

417
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bloodshed and destruction which came into the world after the fall.

418
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Nothing here I think about, you know, divine providence, right,

419
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the way in which God turns all evil to good.

420
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's an interesting in the story of the

421
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arc there is also an interesting hint at that in

422
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the fact that you see, like you said, that Noah

423
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doesn't compel the animals to come into the arc, right,

424
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the animals, like Adam at the beginning, you know, are

425
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become subject to his will in a manner that is

426
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not compelled. That is almost like they're offering themselves up.

427
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They're coming to him, And there's a reflection. Obviously it's

428
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not exactly the same, but there's a reflection in some

429
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ways that if Adam names the animal at the beginning,

430
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Noah is recognizing them right and letting them into this

431
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to this art to create a new beginning. So there

432
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is this, There definitely is this sense of the transformation

433
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of the of the work of Cain. One of one

434
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:54,240
of my insights has been to to think that there

435
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seems to be that all through, like even the salvation,

436
00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,359
even the saving of Rome, how Christ ultimately saves Rome,

437
00:25:00,759 --> 00:25:03,640
seems to have that image in it, right, because Rome

438
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was of course the greatest civilization based on the blood

439
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,799
of his brother, you know, the blood of a murder

440
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:13,240
of a brother, just like Cain, but that Crist kind

441
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of from the inside, you could say, right, without compelling,

442
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like an inner transformation which kind of transforms Rome into

443
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something that it wasn't before.

444
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's really beautiful. And I think, you know,

445
00:25:26,039 --> 00:25:29,079
to allude to stuff you've done with Richard Roland, this

446
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is like the grand vision of the universal history, right

447
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that this polity is the polity of Cain and that

448
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has a history through the scriptures, and you see the

449
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way the ancient chroniclers talk about this as well. You know,

450
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you have Assyria first rules the world in the days

451
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of Ninus, and then you go through a sequence of

452
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other world powers, but then Ninus's empire ultimately comes into

453
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the hands of Rome, and then it's that single world

454
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empire which is converted by Christ. But in the biblical

455
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person respective, Ninus is empire the first Assyrian state, which

456
00:26:03,599 --> 00:26:06,000
is founded by Nimrod, the same Dudeh was involved with

457
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Babel that was a refoundation of the city of Kane.

458
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And so Christ takes the city of Kane. He takes

459
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the place which is the bloody city, and he remolds it,

460
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and he shapes it, and he baptizes it and makes

461
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it in to the new Jerusalem, or a type of

462
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the New Jerusalem in which God's glory dwells with man.

463
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Speaker 2: And so what do you think of this, because this

464
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is something that I've been pondering too, in terms of

465
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the in terms of the idea of the tabernacle or

466
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the temple, right like in the heavenly Jerusalem, like it

467
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:41,000
says explicitly there is no temple. There is no temple

468
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in the heavenly Jerusalem. And there's this sense in which,

469
00:26:43,079 --> 00:26:44,920
in some ways the structure of the temple is no

470
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longer needed because all of society, or the entire communion

471
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of the saints is a temple.

472
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Speaker 3: Yeah. So I don't know if you thought about that

473
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a little.

474
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know what we're doing when you build

475
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a temple is the world is being compressed down to

476
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the size that we can engage with the totality of

477
00:27:05,279 --> 00:27:08,960
it in miniature. But God created the world obviously with

478
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the intention that in its totality, it would simply play

479
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,839
that function that whenever we see an individual blade of grass,

480
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:18,519
we will see the way in which God is uniquely

481
00:27:18,559 --> 00:27:21,119
disclosed in that particular blade of grass, in a way

482
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:24,039
that he is not in anything else in all creation.

483
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,519
And then when God becomes man in the person of Christ,

484
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:32,160
the logos of everything is compressed down to size, not

485
00:27:32,279 --> 00:27:36,079
just symbolically, but really concretely in this less and blood

486
00:27:36,319 --> 00:27:40,240
jew from Nazareth. And so then what you see in

487
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,039
the prophetic books is kind of the image we talked

488
00:27:43,079 --> 00:27:46,160
about a little bit before, where the tree is the

489
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:50,400
sanctuary which grows to encompass the totality of the cosmos.

490
00:27:50,839 --> 00:27:54,680
But we come to be more and more fully appropriated

491
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:59,079
to the life of Christ, so that the whole world

492
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:04,200
then is trans formed into what the sanctuary only pointed to.

493
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:08,759
So at that point there's kind of a breakdown or

494
00:28:08,799 --> 00:28:13,039
a unification between what we call symbolism and what we

495
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,359
call concrete reality. Like the prophets talk about the escaton

496
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:18,519
in terms of stars falling from heaven and all that

497
00:28:18,559 --> 00:28:21,440
kind of stuff, and we recognize this a spiritual language

498
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:23,759
to refer to the change in political powers and things

499
00:28:23,799 --> 00:28:27,160
like that. But as the world comes to more and

500
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:31,359
more fully manifest the logos in the world, that symbolic

501
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:36,359
language is simply concretized in terms of the actual life

502
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,279
of creation. So then when we look in Revelation twenty

503
00:28:39,359 --> 00:28:42,200
one and we see the City of God, what we're

504
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:46,119
seeing is a temple which had been planted in the

505
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,680
world that's now grown to encompass the whole thing. So

506
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,359
that and you see it in the Book of Daniel.

507
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,680
Daniel talks about a stone cut without hands, which grows

508
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:58,039
into a mountain, the sanctuary, and it fills the entire creation,

509
00:28:58,319 --> 00:29:00,440
and that's what you then see it in Revelation twenty one.

510
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:01,880
The city is the mountain.

511
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 2: And yeah, and the more you realize that that's the pattern,

512
00:29:06,079 --> 00:29:08,440
you know, you see that it's not just like you said,

513
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,160
it's not just in the Book of Revelation. It's actually

514
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,680
hinted at all through the prophetic books. I was, you know,

515
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,039
in this class that I'm giving myself on the on

516
00:29:15,119 --> 00:29:18,440
the symbolism, I was rereading the vision of Ezekiel, and

517
00:29:18,759 --> 00:29:21,759
I realized that he, like the chariot that he's describing

518
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,279
is literally the entire creation, because he says it's like

519
00:29:24,319 --> 00:29:27,160
the dome of heaven and then there are these four corners,

520
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,640
you know, and then there's the chariot here like the

521
00:29:30,799 --> 00:29:33,680
god on the throne above. And it's like, wait a minute,

522
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:37,440
he's saying that the whole world is is this chariot, right,

523
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:39,880
And like you said, it's the same with the with

524
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:41,920
the story of the of the mountain. And then you

525
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,720
see in the Church Fathers and in St. Ephroim, I

526
00:29:44,759 --> 00:29:47,359
love how how he describes Paradise because he says that

527
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,240
the limits of Paradise, that the top of Paradise is

528
00:29:50,279 --> 00:29:52,400
higher than all the mountains, and its limit is beyond

529
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,400
the ocean. And you think, yeah, wait a minute, he's

530
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:58,599
saying everything is paradise, Like the whole world is paradise.

531
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,839
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this is one of the beautiful things that

532
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:07,720
you know, we encounter when we work through scripture with

533
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:11,559
you know, an eye for symbolism. And this is one

534
00:30:11,599 --> 00:30:13,640
of the things that's really you know, interesting I think

535
00:30:14,839 --> 00:30:17,279
about your work and the work of others who are

536
00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:19,160
kind of in the same vein, is that we see

537
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:23,599
multiple people independently coming to a lot of the same correlations.

538
00:30:23,839 --> 00:30:26,200
Because this thing is, this stuff is really in the scriptures.

539
00:30:26,559 --> 00:30:29,799
And when we read the scriptures with an eye for

540
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,480
for symbolism and the correlation that one thing as with

541
00:30:32,519 --> 00:30:37,279
another thing, we find the same truths manifested in every text.

542
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's really interesting.

543
00:30:39,519 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 3: What's happening now?

544
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,119
Speaker 2: It really feels like there is an actual there's a

545
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,880
kind of a moment as well, which is you know,

546
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:49,799
coming out of this materialist period where we were we

547
00:30:49,799 --> 00:30:52,839
were such reductionists that that that we basically splinter the

548
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,559
text into a bunch of sources, whatever that is. But

549
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,480
it feels like now there's this waking up where people

550
00:30:59,519 --> 00:31:00,519
are are kind.

551
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:02,359
Speaker 3: Of almost as if after.

552
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 2: A binge, I could drunken binge, kind of just waking

553
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:09,240
up from this chaos. And we're seeing it happening, you know,

554
00:31:09,279 --> 00:31:11,880
in Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church and the Prossing Church.

555
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,160
We're kind of seeing all these people, like you said,

556
00:31:14,519 --> 00:31:18,279
interestingly enough, come to the same to the same insights

557
00:31:18,319 --> 00:31:20,480
in terms of at least the patterns that are there

558
00:31:20,519 --> 00:31:21,480
in the text.

559
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

560
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 1: There was an article that was posted recently by a

561
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,240
father damk. I think it was from Telegraph in the

562
00:31:28,319 --> 00:31:30,400
UK or something, and it was talking about people who

563
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:32,920
were encountering Christianity for the first time, and one of

564
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,319
them said, I just felt like the veil between this

565
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:37,599
world and the other world was pulled back for a

566
00:31:37,599 --> 00:31:40,880
little bit. And I think, you know, when I started

567
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:45,680
getting into scripture in a serious way about thirteen years ago.

568
00:31:47,279 --> 00:31:50,039
You know, the main I don't know, opposition or whatever,

569
00:31:50,119 --> 00:31:52,119
the main non Christian approach to scripture that you would

570
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,519
find on the web and elsewhere is you know, biblical criticism.

571
00:31:54,839 --> 00:31:56,519
You take the Book of Exodus and you say, it's

572
00:31:56,559 --> 00:31:59,039
an objective fact that a million different people wrote this

573
00:31:59,079 --> 00:32:01,960
book because you know, there's slightly different styles or I

574
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:05,720
don't understand how how this fits together with that, and.

575
00:32:06,839 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 2: Like the limit of my intellect is the measure by

576
00:32:09,279 --> 00:32:11,279
which I'm going to decide what this text.

577
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: Really exactly it. And it's a remarkable thing because, you know,

578
00:32:17,359 --> 00:32:19,759
without wanting to be dismissive, because the academy I think

579
00:32:19,759 --> 00:32:21,319
has a lot of really really good things, and they've

580
00:32:21,359 --> 00:32:23,880
made a lot of really cool discoveries. But you know,

581
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:27,400
one of the things that I remember seeing is reading,

582
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,640
you know, a biblical critic was talking about the different

583
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,799
sources of Exodus, and he said, there's clearly multiple contradictory

584
00:32:33,839 --> 00:32:36,599
sources here because God calls Moses up the mountain, and

585
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:38,640
then when he's already on theat on the mountain, God

586
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,480
calls him up again. And I was just stunned, because

587
00:32:41,559 --> 00:32:43,880
you know, these are kind of your Bible symbolism. Maybe

588
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:48,200
sees that the mountain has three different levels. There's the base,

589
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:50,559
there's a middle part, and then there's a top part.

590
00:32:50,599 --> 00:32:52,400
So of course God calls them up again, and you.

591
00:32:52,559 --> 00:32:54,039
Speaker 3: Just read Sene for him, you would know.

592
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,359
Speaker 2: That's why the Tabernacle has three parts, and that's why

593
00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:59,799
it's like it's there all true, like you said, it's

594
00:32:59,839 --> 00:33:02,079
just it is in some ways because they don't want

595
00:33:02,119 --> 00:33:05,559
to believe that this text has an intercoherence. You know

596
00:33:05,599 --> 00:33:08,079
that they almost find it. It's for them, it's like

597
00:33:08,079 --> 00:33:11,079
a sacrilege to look at the other text in order

598
00:33:11,119 --> 00:33:13,680
to get a sense of why this particular text is

599
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,079
structured the way it is, which is just to me,

600
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,519
it's so hilarious because you can literally do that with

601
00:33:20,599 --> 00:33:21,759
like Marvel comics.

602
00:33:22,079 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, so why so you can.

603
00:33:24,039 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 2: Do it with Marvel comics, but you can't do it

604
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,720
with like the most important text in the history of

605
00:33:30,559 --> 00:33:34,400
Western civilization. And so it's it's I don't know, I

606
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:37,920
think that you said, I don't want to be dismissive,

607
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,279
but I think it's time to be dismissive about this stuff,

608
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:42,079
to be done with it.

609
00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:45,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's what's really exciting for me is that

610
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:48,720
I felt like when I was getting into scripture, like

611
00:33:48,759 --> 00:33:51,599
maybe I'm just just nuts because so much of this

612
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:54,359
stuff that I'm reading from people who are the experts

613
00:33:54,359 --> 00:33:56,960
on this. It just seemed nonsensical to me. So what

614
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:58,599
am I missing? What am I missing? I must be

615
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,880
missing something. Then eventually I became comfortable with the idea

616
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,079
that actually, those who operate in the paradigm of biblical

617
00:34:05,079 --> 00:34:08,599
criticism shopping things into sources and stuff, they're just missing

618
00:34:08,599 --> 00:34:12,360
the point in a dramatic way. But now I think

619
00:34:12,559 --> 00:34:17,559
you're seeing more and more people become comfortable with that,

620
00:34:17,599 --> 00:34:20,000
and more and more scholars because there's always been you know,

621
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:24,119
at least a minority report within biblical scholarship which thought,

622
00:34:24,119 --> 00:34:26,000
you know, this isn't really convincing, but they felt they

623
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:27,920
had to treat it really seriously. You're seeing more and

624
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:30,440
more scholars come out and say, look, there's just nothing

625
00:34:30,519 --> 00:34:35,760
to this. But one of the things for me that

626
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,639
I felt from an apologetic point of view, because a

627
00:34:38,639 --> 00:34:40,360
lot of people at crises of faith over this is

628
00:34:40,639 --> 00:34:44,079
you can't be the best defense is a good offense? Yeah,

629
00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:46,519
we want to show people what the Bible does say,

630
00:34:46,639 --> 00:34:48,960
rather than going point by point through what the biblical

631
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,159
critics say it says and just refuting those points.

632
00:34:51,599 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, and showing how like you said, how the things

633
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:58,320
that we've been told are incoherent, you know, and that

634
00:34:58,519 --> 00:35:01,360
you know the and the reason the doubling is just

635
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,880
because it's different sources that are like glued together randomly

636
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,559
for no reason, and to show that there are these

637
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:10,000
like it's so weird because like in the text, there

638
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:14,280
are these these fractal structures like in the text itself.

639
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,400
But that's interesting because that's the way that the world

640
00:35:17,559 --> 00:35:20,079
is described in the Bible. So the fact that the

641
00:35:20,119 --> 00:35:23,840
text does what it describes the world to be shouldn't

642
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:27,039
surprise you. My brother Matsyr was talking about the cherub

643
00:35:27,079 --> 00:35:29,159
in Ezekiel, and he has a great He had this

644
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:31,480
amazing take because there are two descriptions of the cherub.

645
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,199
One is that the cherub has four faces, right, so

646
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:36,519
a bull, a man aligned, and an eagle. And then

647
00:35:36,639 --> 00:35:38,840
later he describes it again and he says, he has

648
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,480
four faces, a man align, an eagle, and a cherub.

649
00:35:43,519 --> 00:35:46,519
Those are his four faces. So he has a fractal face. Basically,

650
00:35:46,559 --> 00:35:49,119
it's like basically one of the faces is the cherub.

651
00:35:49,159 --> 00:35:51,519
And then it just goes and he says, it's like

652
00:35:51,599 --> 00:35:53,719
these structures are there everywhere in the text, and so

653
00:35:54,159 --> 00:35:57,800
when you see a repetition that is something somewhat different

654
00:35:58,159 --> 00:36:01,119
in the text, just pay attention to that difference, because

655
00:36:01,119 --> 00:36:04,280
it's really important, pay attention to why those texts exist

656
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:06,840
if you just tried to. And even it's so funny

657
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:10,639
because to me, even the whole sources thing, it's just

658
00:36:10,679 --> 00:36:15,079
so irrelevant because even if there are different sources, who cares,

659
00:36:15,119 --> 00:36:18,599
Like why why is it that you think that finding

660
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,480
some trail outside of scripture to the source is more

661
00:36:22,519 --> 00:36:25,800
relevant than realizing why they were put together in the

662
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,760
first place. It's like that seems more relevant, you know.

663
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:31,440
And I say that I was joking about Marvel comics before,

664
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,000
but I think that, like, imagine if I did an

665
00:36:34,039 --> 00:36:37,760
interpretation of like Infinity War, and I said, oh, this

666
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,800
particular strain in the text comes from like some comic

667
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,320
series in like the nineteen seventy seventies, and this one

668
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,639
comes from the nineteen eighties, and this particular version, and

669
00:36:45,679 --> 00:36:46,760
that's what's.

670
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:48,320
Speaker 3: My interpretation of the story. I write this.

671
00:36:48,199 --> 00:36:52,119
Speaker 2: Huge, like four hundred page book about every single line,

672
00:36:52,119 --> 00:36:54,599
how it's taken from all these different authors and everything,

673
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:56,559
Like who cares?

674
00:36:56,599 --> 00:36:59,039
Speaker 3: Like why would anybody care about that? Yeah?

675
00:36:59,039 --> 00:37:01,559
Speaker 2: I don't even understand the people that go into these fields,

676
00:37:01,559 --> 00:37:03,960
Like what is it that you're doing? I don't understand

677
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,039
what what is the thing that's animating you?

678
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, Sorry sor right.

679
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:12,599
Speaker 2: If you get me into rant mode about biblical criticism,

680
00:37:13,559 --> 00:37:14,960
I'll never stop me too.

681
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,519
Speaker 1: It's it used to be for me worse because everybody

682
00:37:19,559 --> 00:37:21,440
around me seemed to take it really seriously. But I

683
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,400
got to tell you, it's so satisfying to watch, you know, to.

684
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:25,199
Speaker 3: Watch it crumble.

685
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and so also watch like this kind of

686
00:37:29,559 --> 00:37:31,360
in some ways it's interesting. This is the thing that

687
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:33,519
I've been finding the most interesting, is into some ways.

688
00:37:33,559 --> 00:37:35,119
When I was young, I remember, when I was in

689
00:37:35,159 --> 00:37:38,840
my twenties, like this kind of Second Temple scholarship stuff.

690
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:43,599
You know, it was being used to deconstruct Christianity, right

691
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,920
like when when the when the even Kuman, like they

692
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:49,599
were saying, oh, they were trying to use it to deconstruct.

693
00:37:49,639 --> 00:37:53,000
But now as things have kind of moved forward, it's

694
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,360
like the opposite is true. We actually are finding things

695
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:59,480
that are enlightening our perception of our own Christianity in

696
00:37:59,559 --> 00:38:02,679
ways that had been maybe not forgotten, but maybe a

697
00:38:02,679 --> 00:38:04,280
little bit put to the side that it had been

698
00:38:04,559 --> 00:38:05,000
that had.

699
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 3: Been less in the center.

700
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and like all of this kind of

701
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,039
Council of God theology that obviously Father Stephen talks about

702
00:38:12,039 --> 00:38:13,760
in Michael Heizer and all of this, like this is

703
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,760
so enlightening to Orthodox Christianity. It really brings in it

704
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,000
kind of fills in some of the little gaps sometimes

705
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,199
in the references that we struggle to understand what is

706
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:23,639
going on.

707
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is you know, this is something that you

708
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,079
see when you look at second type of literature. A

709
00:38:29,079 --> 00:38:31,119
lot of people look at parallels between the New Testament

710
00:38:31,119 --> 00:38:34,159
and second type of literature, and basically their comment is, well,

711
00:38:34,159 --> 00:38:36,199
Paul got this from his Jewish background. That's not the

712
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:39,119
interesting question to me. The interesting question is why did

713
00:38:39,119 --> 00:38:41,280
they read the text this way? What did they see

714
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:43,800
in the text which led them to this conclusion. If

715
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,280
they say, and this is something I'm stealing a shamelessly

716
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:48,800
from Peterleitheart, who I know you had on the channel,

717
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,800
which is awesome. You know, Paul says that the rock

718
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:55,800
which gave Israel water followed Israel in the wilderness, and

719
00:38:56,199 --> 00:38:58,360
that's something that that you find in the mid Rash

720
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:00,639
as well. And you find it in Jewish traday and

721
00:39:00,679 --> 00:39:02,199
people say, well, that's where Paul got it. But the

722
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:06,920
question is you know why. It's because God is identified

723
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:08,599
with the rock. He stands in front of it, and

724
00:39:08,639 --> 00:39:11,280
then he goes around with him in the wilderness.

725
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because that rock becomes very similar to

726
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,199
like the Delphic, the rock that is in Delphied. Like

727
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,440
this idea of of a of a stone as a

728
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,760
central thing you this is somewhere there are many actually

729
00:39:24,079 --> 00:39:26,880
traditions where you have this idea of like this kind

730
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,000
of stone that is the central place.

731
00:39:29,039 --> 00:39:30,199
Speaker 3: And and it makes sense.

732
00:39:30,079 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 2: Because that's how Christ talks about this too, like he

733
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:34,599
talks about this idea of the foundation stone and all

734
00:39:34,639 --> 00:39:36,280
of these these these images.

735
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,800
Speaker 1: So well, yeah, it's another place which I was thinking

736
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:42,320
about recently, is you know, in Daniel you have the

737
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,360
image of the stone comes down from heaven and cut

738
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:46,599
without hands and it grows to fill the whole creation. Well,

739
00:39:46,679 --> 00:39:48,480
Luke loves the Book of Daniel, and both Luke and

740
00:39:48,519 --> 00:39:49,920
Axe he makes a lot of reference to it. And

741
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,360
that's the theme of Acts, is the growth of the

742
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:55,159
temple where the spirit dwells to grow to fill the

743
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,639
entire Roman world, and Paul has this little encounter with

744
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:03,280
folks in Ephesus who venerate this sacred stone which came

745
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,800
down from heaven. And what Luke is saying is the

746
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:10,440
Apostolic ministry is the actual expression of that. And then

747
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,119
this is one of the awesome things is that when

748
00:40:12,119 --> 00:40:14,760
you realize that connection, it illuminates other things, like why

749
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,880
are the apostles described as a foundation because they have

750
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:21,039
that correlation the idea of the stone which came down.

751
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:21,760
Speaker 3: It came from heaven.

752
00:40:22,159 --> 00:40:24,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, interesting because that's by the way, like people

753
00:40:24,679 --> 00:40:26,920
know that that's what's in the kaba, like that's what's

754
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,159
they're in the in it is basically it's a stone

755
00:40:30,199 --> 00:40:31,920
that fell from from heaven.

756
00:40:32,159 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 3: Yeah.

757
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 2: And so this imagery of the stone that fell from heaven,

758
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:37,440
I mean it's it's like you said, it's a powerful image,

759
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:41,000
but it only finds its it only finds its fullness

760
00:40:41,039 --> 00:40:43,880
in some ways in the incarnation that like this this

761
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:46,760
stone that comes from heaven, like it's it's of course

762
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:49,199
there's a there's a ritual aspect to it, which is

763
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:52,599
which is not impossible, but ultimately it has to be

764
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,880
anchored in something that is life giving, truly you know.

765
00:40:56,119 --> 00:40:58,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And you know, this is one of the

766
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:01,559
things that that I find really exciting about scripture is,

767
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,840
you know, just when there's concrete language like a stone,

768
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:06,880
I think what you want to do is you want

769
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,400
to ask what if I pick up a big stone,

770
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:13,079
you know, what is it? What am I experiencing? A

771
00:41:13,119 --> 00:41:17,199
stone is very heavy and it's very solid, and this

772
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,079
is who the logos is. He's got more stuff in

773
00:41:20,159 --> 00:41:23,639
him than anything else because he's infinite, that he's the

774
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:28,159
heaviest possible subject that could come into the world. And

775
00:41:28,199 --> 00:41:30,639
that's the language that's used in the Old Testament where

776
00:41:31,079 --> 00:41:35,280
the word glory a covode is a play actually on

777
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,639
the word for weight, because God is so full of

778
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:44,159
existence that he overcomes everything else. And if you try

779
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:48,320
to smash yourself against a diamond, you're the one who's

780
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:50,239
going to smash it. And that's the same with God.

781
00:41:50,559 --> 00:41:53,360
God is the one in terms of which everything else

782
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,840
is molded. He is not himself molded. And that's I mean,

783
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:58,599
this is one of the things that is so cool.

784
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,719
I think that we both experienced about this way of

785
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:06,360
thinking symbolically and then just dogmatic theology, is that we

786
00:42:06,559 --> 00:42:10,400
get in the scriptures and in these patterns of thinking,

787
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,719
the very same theology that you find in the Church.

788
00:42:15,199 --> 00:42:19,159
It's spoken of in really really concrete in particular terms,

789
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,360
but the philosophical tradition of the fathers, it's all there.

790
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:28,039
It's just spoken of in a distinct accent. You might say, yeah, yeah.

791
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I have a big question for you,

792
00:42:30,039 --> 00:42:34,840
because this is something that I'm thinking about. I think

793
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:38,719
I have like an idea I think I have, but

794
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:40,559
I'd like to hear your take on it. Which is

795
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:45,000
one of the things we see in Christianity is where

796
00:42:45,039 --> 00:42:48,199
there's a transformation to some extent in the shape of

797
00:42:48,199 --> 00:42:53,159
our temple. And this transformation appears in the Book of

798
00:42:53,199 --> 00:42:57,679
Revelation where you find the lamb on the altar, and

799
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:02,480
that the procession is around the altar. And so in Christianity,

800
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:04,320
in some ways what we have is that the in

801
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:08,960
the Holy of Holies we have something which is at

802
00:43:09,039 --> 00:43:12,679
least part alter. It's not the ark, right, because in

803
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,519
the Tabernacle, the ark is in the Holy of Holies, and.

804
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:17,559
Speaker 3: The the.

805
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 2: The sorry the altar is on the in the outer court, right,

806
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,159
and there's almost there's like this exchange, right, you sacrifice

807
00:43:23,159 --> 00:43:27,280
and the glory comes down. But in Christianity that that

808
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:29,679
place is the same. And so I don't know if

809
00:43:29,679 --> 00:43:31,280
you've thought about that, and if you have some insight

810
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:31,679
about that.

811
00:43:32,519 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of the things that we see

812
00:43:34,559 --> 00:43:36,400
when you look at the structure of the sanctuary in

813
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,840
the Old Testament, is that there are gradations in terms

814
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,800
of which the divine presence is more or less distant. Right,

815
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:44,960
so if you're in the outer Court, you're farther from

816
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:47,039
the Divine glory than you would be if you were

817
00:43:47,039 --> 00:43:49,800
in the Holy Place, and you're farther there than you

818
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,840
would be if you walked into the Holy of Holies,

819
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,039
where you're so close that you're probably gonna die unless

820
00:43:54,079 --> 00:43:56,400
you take precautions before going in, as the high priest

821
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:58,679
does on the day of Atonement. But then when you

822
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,639
look at the strike of these three layers, and these

823
00:44:01,679 --> 00:44:04,800
three layers are consistent across a variety of sanctuaries, you

824
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:09,079
find that the structure of them corresponds to each other. So,

825
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:11,960
for example, in the Holy of Holies, you have the

826
00:44:12,599 --> 00:44:15,840
ark of the Covenant over which God sits, and you

827
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:18,719
have the manna from heaven. So this is the man

828
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:20,360
of the bread that came down from heaven and gave

829
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,599
life to the nation of Israel. Well, in the Holy

830
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,920
Place you have an altar. You do have an altar

831
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,119
of incense, which leads you up to God. And what

832
00:44:31,159 --> 00:44:33,480
does God appear in when he comes into the Holy

833
00:44:33,519 --> 00:44:37,199
of Holies. A cloud's going around the altar of incense.

834
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:39,719
It is a cloud of incense. And then where as

835
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:42,880
you have mana from heaven in the Holy of Holies,

836
00:44:43,079 --> 00:44:46,440
in the Holy Place, you do have twelve loaves of

837
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,199
face bread, and you have overlooking those twelve loaves of

838
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:54,280
face bread, you have a menora, a lampstand, which represents

839
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:56,840
the Israelite priesthood. And then you look at what you

840
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:59,360
have in the Holy of Holies. You have angels. You

841
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:02,199
have cheribah, which are overlooking God's throne, and priests and

842
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:04,159
angels correspond to each other. And then you see the

843
00:45:04,159 --> 00:45:07,519
same thing when you go out to the courtyard where

844
00:45:07,519 --> 00:45:10,280
you've got a bronze alter on which you offer what

845
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,400
gets called burnt offerings, but it means something like ascension offerings,

846
00:45:13,599 --> 00:45:16,159
and it gets burned all up as smoke. And so

847
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:19,840
you're going through the layers of the Tabernacle up to God.

848
00:45:20,159 --> 00:45:21,920
And then as you point out, and this again is

849
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:24,280
one of those really cool things that you described you

850
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,360
when your brother talked about the relation between the two

851
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:29,480
visions of the chariot. Looking at the details, seeing how

852
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:31,719
they correspond to each other, you find so much cool stuff.

853
00:45:32,079 --> 00:45:36,119
Well here as well. The New Testament isn't just being sloppy.

854
00:45:36,199 --> 00:45:39,559
It's not being sloppy when it combines these images together,

855
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:46,679
because God, as it were, unfolded himself in a creaturely way.

856
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:50,719
He unfolded himself to create a created analog of himself.

857
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:54,440
And then what he does, having extended himself outwards, he

858
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:59,119
pulls us inwards, and so it folds back in without

859
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:03,519
losing any of the particularity which develops throughout creation history,

860
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,239
so that, as Saint Denysius the Areabaga you talk about

861
00:46:07,519 --> 00:46:12,559
procession and reversion, things process outwards from God as he

862
00:46:12,679 --> 00:46:16,840
extends himself creatively to give the world a contingent life.

863
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:20,000
And then, in virtue of its source in God, things

864
00:46:20,199 --> 00:46:24,360
revert inwards so that they return to God in a

865
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:28,519
simultaneous motion. But us, who live in time, we experience

866
00:46:28,639 --> 00:46:32,519
this in sequence. God extends himself out in creation, draws

867
00:46:32,599 --> 00:46:35,599
us back in and the scriptures are filmed with images

868
00:46:35,639 --> 00:46:38,400
which concretize that like a river which flows out from

869
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:41,679
the sanctuary. Isaiah says that that river flows out from

870
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:44,559
the sanctuary, it accumulates the wealth of the nations, that

871
00:46:44,639 --> 00:46:47,480
is their productive energy, and then it goes back and

872
00:46:47,519 --> 00:46:50,639
it carries all that stuff back into the life of God,

873
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:52,000
and that is all of history.

874
00:46:52,639 --> 00:46:53,599
Speaker 3: Hmm. That's awesome.

875
00:46:53,639 --> 00:46:55,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've been talking a lot about that

876
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:57,880
recently in the I mean in the class that I'm

877
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:01,360
giving about the side of creation, breathing in and breathing out,

878
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:03,599
and like all this imagery of how things kind of

879
00:47:03,599 --> 00:47:06,280
move out from God and then come back. But that's

880
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:10,199
also fractal, like we also do that. We are constantly

881
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:12,960
like extending ourselves out into the world and then bringing

882
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:15,960
things into ourselves. And like you said, it's interesting because

883
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:18,920
it in some ways it is a simultaneous moment. You

884
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:21,159
can experience when you make something that it's actually a

885
00:47:21,159 --> 00:47:25,639
simultaneous thing because as you're forming reality outside of you.

886
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,159
Let's say you're building I don't know, a table, that

887
00:47:28,199 --> 00:47:30,559
you are both extending yourself into the table, but you're

888
00:47:30,599 --> 00:47:34,519
also taking the wood and bringing it into yourself. It is,

889
00:47:34,599 --> 00:47:36,920
it becomes an extension of you, like a part, like

890
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:38,599
an extension of your body in that way.

891
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:41,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really beautiful image because we see it

892
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:44,440
in you know, in the language of clothing. Christ clothes

893
00:47:44,519 --> 00:47:47,519
himself in our nature. What's he do. He fashions the world,

894
00:47:47,599 --> 00:47:50,400
He creates the things which are going to become linen,

895
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,000
threads and all this kind of stuff, and then he

896
00:47:53,159 --> 00:47:55,639
takes that into himself and he wears it. And when

897
00:47:55,639 --> 00:47:59,280
you wear clothing, when your arm moves, your sleeve moves,

898
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,159
the motion is simultaneous because you're so close to united

899
00:48:02,159 --> 00:48:04,920
with your clothing that it's identified with you. And now

900
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:06,039
with the incarnation.

901
00:48:06,519 --> 00:48:09,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a priest was telling me recently about how

902
00:48:09,199 --> 00:48:12,119
important it was in fact in the transfiguration, like that

903
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,760
it's the clothing, Like it's not just him that that

904
00:48:16,159 --> 00:48:18,800
was white, it's his clothing, and it means us, like

905
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,800
it means everything when it says it's clothing. The fact

906
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,119
that his clothing is transfigured, it means that all of

907
00:48:24,159 --> 00:48:30,039
creation is transfigured, not just his own, let's say, integral body,

908
00:48:30,079 --> 00:48:31,679
And that's an amazing hope for us.

909
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and this is one of those other things

910
00:48:35,079 --> 00:48:38,920
about biblical language, which we always want to pay attention to.

911
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:41,000
We can pass it over because we're so used to

912
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:43,880
talking in these figures of speech. So we talk about

913
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:46,039
a body. Why is it important that Jesus' body was

914
00:48:46,119 --> 00:48:48,280
raised from the dead. Well, body has a series of

915
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:51,199
extended meanings. Right. You can talk about the physical body

916
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,400
in which your soul lives and animates itself in relation

917
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:58,440
to the world. But you can also talk about a

918
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:04,000
body politic, which is constituted around a central state, and it,

919
00:49:04,079 --> 00:49:07,400
as it were, moves as one. And we want to

920
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:12,039
fold these things together and understand why when scripture uses

921
00:49:12,039 --> 00:49:14,159
the language of the church as the body of Christ,

922
00:49:14,639 --> 00:49:17,039
it again is not just using a cute figure of speech.

923
00:49:17,039 --> 00:49:19,159
It's not coming out of the clear blue sky. It's

924
00:49:19,199 --> 00:49:21,800
something which if you pursue the whole language of embodiment

925
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:23,880
through the Bible, you're going to find so much beautiful,

926
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:24,679
beautiful stuff.

927
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome. I can't I can't wait. This is exciting.

928
00:49:28,679 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 1: You know.

929
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:30,840
Speaker 2: One of the things that I like about your work,

930
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:34,559
like even just in compared to mind, is just how

931
00:49:35,199 --> 00:49:37,760
meticulous you are, like an attentive and you're able to

932
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:39,719
you provide the sources and the references.

933
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,079
Speaker 3: And you have this approach because I'm.

934
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 2: My eye when I talk, I just kind of things

935
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:48,039
are a little they're not as they're not I know

936
00:49:48,079 --> 00:49:49,719
where it comes from. Like I kind of know, but

937
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:52,360
I'm not always saying, well, this, this, this.

938
00:49:52,519 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 3: And what I love about the way you do it

939
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:55,079
is that you really.

940
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:58,239
Speaker 2: In some ways are training people through the scripture itself.

941
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:00,840
You're giving people references, You're helping them get through the stories.

942
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:03,039
And so I think it's going to be it's just

943
00:50:03,119 --> 00:50:05,320
going to be great and at a great addition to

944
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:08,199
our courses and for people that love what I'm talking about.

945
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,440
Speaker 3: You know, this is if you want it to be

946
00:50:10,519 --> 00:50:10,840
kind of.

947
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:13,199
Speaker 2: Anchored, like especially a lot of you who are saying,

948
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:17,320
what do I say to my Protestant you know, family,

949
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:19,639
how do I defend this? And I and I give

950
00:50:19,639 --> 00:50:21,840
you a few ideas, but Serafim can really kind of

951
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:24,519
give you all you need, all the references to kind

952
00:50:24,519 --> 00:50:28,559
of show how there is this beautiful symbolic and imagistic

953
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relationship between the Old Testament in the New Testament, in

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both the history of the people, but also the prophetic

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stories that go all the way and travelation. So I

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am definitely excited about this and Sefron, thank you for doing.

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Speaker 3: This for us.

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00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,159
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be, you know,

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00:50:44,239 --> 00:50:47,119
after a fashion part of the Symbolic World body.

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00:50:48,119 --> 00:50:49,639
Speaker 3: That's amazing, all right, thanks everyone.

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Speaker 2: So so we all have a link in the description

962
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:54,000
you can sign up.

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00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 3: Do you ever know when the dates are for the course?

964
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Speaker 1: It starts on June tenth.

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Speaker 2: So it starts June tenth, and how many weeks?

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Speaker 1: It'll be five weeks total, but on July one we're

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going to miss a week.

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Speaker 2: That's a bit of a break, all right. So everyone

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00:51:09,599 --> 00:51:11,840
sign up and I can't wait to see you there.

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00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:13,679
Speaker 1: Bye bye bye, thank you.

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Speaker 2: If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to

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00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:20,000
the Symbolic World dot com website and see how you

973
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:23,159
can support what we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers

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00:51:23,159 --> 00:51:26,119
with perks. There are apparel and books to purchase. So

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00:51:26,199 --> 00:51:28,320
go to the Symbolic World dot com and thank you

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for your support.