The Holy Shelah: Lamb of God Demonic Lord ---Addendum.

[John D. Brey]

The original thread on the Shelah's teaching concerning the Paschal lamb as a demonic Lord has already been edited into an essay. So rather than continuing with these new remarks in the original thread, a new thread addendum is being started. The original thread ended with a quotation of Hebrews 9:28:

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

The original thread on the Shelah's teaching concerning the Paschal lamb as a demonic Lord has already been edited into an essay. So rather than continuing with these new remarks in the original thread, a new thread addendum is being started. The original thread ended with a quotation of Hebrews 9:28:

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.​

As is often the case with verses found throughout the Apostolic Epistles, the statement from Hebrews 9:28 addresses numerous important nuances floating around in the zeitgeist at the time of writing.

"I will rejoice in your salvation." Rabbi Abahu said, This is one of the five most difficult places in scripture. For the salvation of Israel is the salvation of the Holy One, blessed be He. "Our salvation" is not written here, but "your salvation." David said, Our salvation is "your salvation." Rabbi Berekhiah the priest said, Why is it written, "He is a zaddiq and saved"? "A savior" is not written here, but "saved." When they return in the future, the Shekhinah will return with them. As it is written,"And YHVH our God will return." "And He will cause to return," is not written here but "He will return."​

The Shelah presents the statement above as a quotation from "Midrash Tihillim [sic]." It seems to be the Shelah's own composite from various parts of Midrash Tehillim. Nevertheless, the statements quoted are conceded to be extremely difficult to put into a traditional Jewish context. Israel's savation comes, so that the sages wring their hands, from Hashem's salvation? Hashem isn't said to be a savior, but is said to be himself saved? Hebrews 9:28 speaks of Christ appearing a second time, i.e., he will return. The Jewish sages scratch their heads about Hashem returning as though he had gone some place to affect His own salvation prior to offering salvation to those looking forward to his return.

All of this segues directly into the Shelah's attempt to posit the Paschal lamb of God as representative of a pagan deity rather than, ala the Gospels and Apostolic writings, a precursor of the Christ. In both cases (Passover and Golgotha), it's the commonwealth of Israel acting as priests to God in the sacrificial act through which salvation is granted by means of the sacrifice of what the Shelah presents as a demonic lord worshiped by the pagans. In the Shelah's mind the sacrifice of the original Paschal lamb of God parallels and presages Israel's role in the elimination of another latter day, would-be, Lamb of God (another demonic imposter), offered up just prior to Passover in the third decade of the Current Era.

In effect, it's difficult to reject the idea that the latter offering on Passover (in the third decade of the Current Era) is affecting the way the Shelah chooses to think of the sacrifice of the original Passover lamb prior to the Exodus. The Shelah's brilliant mind appears to realize, more than most, the necessity of addressing the link between these two Passovers, and these two purported lambs of God.

Because of his deep attachment to kabbalistic thought, the Shelah appreciates the truth that there's too many correlations between the original Passover, and the events just prior to the destruction of the second temple, to just assume the events that in short order led to the destruction of the second temple are irrelevant so far as the broader picture of the inner-working of God through the nation of Israel. The Shelah knows the importance of linking Golgotha with the original Passover. Lesser sages assume there is no linkage, while most dare not go there. The Shelah's quotation from Midrash Tehillim is no doubt part and parcel of the Shelah's strong desire to establish a disconnect between any possibility that Hashem has come, gone (and this within the annals of Jewish history), and is set to "return," "saved," and a "Savior." Concerning his quotation from Midrash Tehillim, the Shelah says, "They [kabbalistic sages] treated this at length, for it is well known throughout the entire range of kabbalistic writings."



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Because of his deep attachment to kabbalistic thought, the Shelah appreciates the truth that there's too many correlations between the original Passover, and the events just prior to the destruction of the second temple, to just assume the events that in short order led to the destruction of the second temple are irrelevant so far as the broader picture of the inner-working of God through the nation of Israel. The Shelah knows the importance of linking Golgotha with the original Passover. Lesser sages assume there is no linkage, while most dare not go there. The Shelah's quotation from Midrash Tehillim is no doubt part and parcel of the Shelah's strong desire to establish a disconnect between any possibility that Hashem has come, gone (and this within the annals of Jewish history), and is set to "return," "saved," and a "Savior." Concerning his quotation from Midrash Tehillim, the Shelah says, "They [kabbalistic sages] treated this at length, for it is well known throughout the entire range of kabbalistic writings."

The idea of Hashem cleansing himself prior to becoming God's salvation to the world segues into numerous avenues of theological thought. In Isaiah 52:10, we read that God's holy arm will be made bare, naked, in front of the eyes of all nations such that the very ends of the earth will see the salvation of Israel's God. Paralleling the problematic passages the Shelah quotes from Midrash Tehillim, Isaiah 52:10 appears to make the same problematic claim: that all the earth will see the arm of the Lord in the process of his own salvation, or in the process of becoming salvation, rather than all the earth seeing the arm of the Lord saving the world. Parroting the language of Midrash Tehillim, "see our God saving," is not written here, but "see the salvation of our God."

In one of the most difficult verses in the difficult text (Is. 53, 10), YHVH states as a condition of the future life and work of the servant: “if his soul makes a guilt-offering.” Some scholars see in this a “clear and definite” expression of “vicarious expiation.” But the wording does not allow such an interpretation. Asham, “guilt-offering,” means compensation and not expiation. It is the name of the gift which the leper had to bring on the day of his purification (Lev. 4, 11ff). We have no indication as to how we should picture in our minds the future purification of him stricken with the leprosy of the world; but we are told that he must purify himself before he enters upon his duty of bringing to the nations the order of righteousness, and of linking them together to a people of peoples in his capacity as “covenant.”​

​

Martin Buber, The Prophetic Faith, p. 228.​

Martin Buber seems to address the issue in the crosshairs of the quotation from Midrash Tehillim: the Savior must purify himself from the leprosy contracted from contact with the sins of the world, he must offer himself as a "guilt offering" (asham), not as a korban offering, before he can become the salvation for the world. The Savior must save himself (from having contracted leprosy from those whom he would save), before he can save. His initial public offering (so to say) must be a "guilt offering," before he can be offered a second time as a korban offering. In effect, he'd need to be capable of saying "It is finished," i.e., the guilt offering is affected and effective, before he could give up the ghost to be recognized as the yeshua of the world. The asham offering saves the the one "stricken with the leprosy of the world." The korban offering takes advantage of the one saved, in order to save someone, or ones, other than himself.



John