Manhattan Gospel of Henry Rutgers

This Sunday (March 11th, 2012) we talked about "Our Daily (EPIOUSIOS) Bread". Our Gospel Lesson were two pericopies from Mark 2:13- 17 and 18-20. To illuminate Jesus' attitude to eating and feasting, we also listened to these apocryphal stories:

Three newly discovered fragments of the Manhattan Gospel of Henry Rutgers.

       One day, Jesus took Martha, Mary and Peter and they went to pick up groceries. After the last evening party bible class in Martha’s home, their fridge was almost completely empty. And so they stopped at the local farmers market and then on to their regular store. Just as they were about to go home, they were intercepted by the self-appointed moral policemen of any religious movement, those self-righteous nitpickers who always know best. 
       They said: “Just look at these snobs! Jesus and his followers only pretend to be friends of the poor people! On their own, when they think nobody is looking, they are elitists who shop in this exclusive and expensive organic stores!”
       Jesus calmly replied, “You have got it completely wrong! We are determined not to buy cheep junk. We value the farmers, and the health of our planet and of ourselves. That is why we buy local and organic food, and the fair trade stuff! Our meals are more expensive, but they are not payed for by health of our planet.”


       On another day, Jesus again gathered a large group of his followers and they went down to the City Hall and palaces of banks and corporations. They were loud and protested against the unfair and crooked priorities of the government. After the demonstration they sat down and ate their lunches seasoned with some pepper spray.
       That is when some unfriendly onlookers commented: “No wonder you are so agitated and angry all the time if you eat this stuff! We see you are eating vegetarian risotto and chickpeas, and drinking mineral water and herbal teas! Just take look at those happy Southern Baptizers; they love hamburgers, deep fried meals and loads of corn-syrup coke! They are well fed, well shaped, and happy and thus the bible belt is still expanding its waistline.”
       Jesus replied: “Don’t come to me in decade or so with a metabolic syndrome; I have other things to heal rather than sloppy eaters!”


      Another time Jesus went to Alaska and visited an Inuit village. Some paparazzi caught up with him in helicopters and snapped a few pictures of him sitting at their meal and celebrating with the locals. The media were full of speculations; some accused him of being a hypocrite: "We always thought you were vegetarian, and look! Here you are eating meat with the Inuits!"
       Jesus said: "Let the media be, it does not make much sense to argue with them." But when they were alone, he said to his disciples: "It's a matter of judgement and priorities. For the Inuits meat and some berries are their only food, and if they kill a seal, it feeds their whole extended family and they will use every last bit of it, and they don't throw away a single thing. They don’t kill for pleasure nor do they waste food. And being vegetarian? It is not my ideology! Friendship with the locals is what matters most.”
       And then he added, “I would wear a kilt and even eat haggis and survive the bagpipe serenades, if I knew I could save at least some of those stubborn Scottish Presbyterians!”
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I know, these stories are little cheeky, provocative, perhaps gently disrespectful to certain traditions or ways of life. But in this respect, they are not unlike original sitz im leben of real biblical stories (how they would be perceived/experienced by the original hearers).

And here is the gentleman after whom our church and these apocrypha are now named:

Outrageous Biblical Patriarchs

The Charm of Biblical Polytheism
Short outline of the presentation

Outrageous Biblical Patriarchs (and to a lesser degree matriarchs) - Myths in the Bible
or why is it that Biblical characters act so often so strangely?

Especially in Genesis and some other narrative Biblical books (such as Judges) we find the main characters acting in a very controversial manner. On this slide there is a short list of morally questionable behavior from the book of Genesis. I always smile when Conservative Christians point vaguely to the Bible as a source of their “family values”. I am tempted to ask, “Do you mean pimping your wife like Abraham and Isaac, or of Jacob’s deception of his disabled father, or surrogate motherhood in that entire family?”
Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi - What is appropriate for god (Jove) is not appropriate for oxen (bovine).

Higher Textual Criticism has been analyzing these texts for centuries. Scholars soon recognized that in these stories we are not dealing with regular mortals . The Biblical characters are clearly larger than life. These stories are not simple moralistic tales. Biblical scholars across the centuries and continents agree that these stories have a complex and long religious pedigree. They disagree on details of exact origins and development. I quote an example more than a century old. Unfortunately, there were also detractors driven by different ideological motives (religious or nationalistic) who wanted to prove bible correct -like W.F Albright, Yigael Yadin/Sukenik. and others.

Here is an attempt to use a modern metaphor of modulating a radio signal (amplitude modulation) to explain the complex process of tradition.
1) We have a carrying wave (with high frequency) - that would be language (grammar and syntax, vocabulary and basic metaphors).
2) The modulated signal represents the original story (an ancient mythical or legendary story)
3) The original modulated signal can be re-modulated. The original story can change some characters or their names, and/or it can be set in a different place. Characters could be “democratized.” Originally divine characters could be morphed into human characters (heros or ancestors). A theological or moralistic point could be added etc. Such re-modulation often leaves some inconsistencies as remodulation is not thorough. Inconsistencies can be used to uncover the original signal and understand the intentions behind remodulation.

One example of remodulation is for instance a story of the incest of Lot. On the surface it is a moralistic judgmental story about shameful origins of the ancestors of difficult neighboring nations of Moab and Amon.

In history this story of Lot’s incest has been a popular material for painters. We can also observe cultural changes and trends by the amount of skin exposed. (I used a painting by Hendrik Goltzius from 1616 as a wallpaper for most of the slides in this series - Picasa software and this blog automatically censored it clearly for being too explicit ;-)

 

After the discovery and decipherment of texts from the North Syrian city of Ugarit, scholars realized that one of the texts constitutes a close mythical parallel to Lot’s story.

Another biblical text about twins became of some interest. It is probably a different reworking of the similar mytheme, with few changes. In all probability it was originally a North Semitic (Canaanite) story intended to preserve and defend the forces of fertility over against the human attempt to manipulate and limit them. In this respect Conservative Christian bioethics shares so much with those whom they would call despicable polytheistic pre-Isralite Semites! ;-)

The final example is a story of the intoxicated and stripping Noah. In the Bible this story functions to cast in bad light the ancestors of Canaanites as those who took advantage (probably also sexual advantage) of an intoxicated father-figure.

Direct sources from these polytheistic Levantines/Canaanites show, that although they were aware of the intoxicating powers of alcoholic beverages, and probably drunk a lot. They had a well-developed code of conduct and ethical norms for such situations. The Levantine/Canaanites themselves would be horrified at the behaviour of Ham. The story itself could be of pre-biblical (Canaanite) origin. While blessing and curse or probably as little as some changes of names of characters could be parts of the remodulation.

 

 

Holy Materialism

What is meant by “daily bread” for which we pray every time we say the Lord’s Prayer?

       Martin Luther in his Small Catechism has a very comprehensive answer: “Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as meat, drink, clothing, shoes, house, homestead, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful magistrates, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”

       Late professor of theology Jan Milíč Lochman from Basel in Switzerland called it “Holy Materialism” and he was right. We live in bodies, and any religion which offers “pie in the sky” is a blasphemy.

       On the other hand, there is a connection between the material and the spiritual, because the choices we make about these basic necessities (what we eat, how we eat, with whom we eat...) have profound spiritual consequences.

       That is why Jesus made eating such an important part of his ministry. He taught people the message of the Kingdom of God in words, and then he put those words, that same message, into practice by healing people and inviting them to his table, which he opened for everyone.

       Those who were hungry, he fed. To those who were burdened by ideological or religious scruples, he offered liberation. Those who were excluded by prejudice, he welcomed.

       Food in Jesus’ hands became a divine medicine, medicine of hunger, medicine of individuals, medicine of society. It is not a coincidence that a meal with the resurrected became the major characteristic of his followers (and the sacrament of his religion).

       This Sunday we will talk about and be invited by Jesus to his healing feast.

Did YHWH have a wife?

The Charm of Biblical Polytheism
Short outline of the presentation

Written sources for the history of ancient Palestine.
The historical axis is diagonal and outlines the main historic epochs.
The lower register attempts to capture (recreate) what used to be called “Biblical history”, while the upper section captures some historical and epigraphic artifacts.

After a profound paradigm shift in the ancient Near Eastern historiography it is becoming clear that the Biblical Texts cannot be used as historical sources. (The process of the written fixation of biblical texts is complex and relatively late. Growing academic consensus observes that a true writing and editing of the Bible took place in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. This process was strongly influenced by later ideological interests. Certain parts of the tradition are undoubtedly very old, other parts are just the intentional projections back into history.
      Inaccurate biblical archaisations are responsible for a large number of biblical anachronisms: Texts were written and or edited in the Hellenistic period, they reported Early Iron Age events, and pretended to be old by using Iron Age realities.
      The Bible cannot be used as a primary source for our understanding of the history of Palestine or the development of religion in this region. Datable historical artifacts and epigraphic documents should be the main source of any serious study of Palestinian religion.

The Biblical self-portrait (Deuteronomistic theological thinking) or religious situation is quite schematic:
      The Israelites received a distinct, revealed religion. It was revealed first to the patriarchs and then in a comprehensive way to Moses.
      There was a completely foreign, fallen, polytheistic, and magical religion of the indigenous population “the Canaanites” in existence.
      Some Israelites succumbed to the lure of Canaanite religion. They corrupted and polluted their unique religion thus initiating the Israelite fallen popular religiosity. 

Growing scholarly consensus sees the development of biblical religion in more complexity. All three groups greatly overlap. Polytheistic West Semitic religion was a substrate from which local varieties and ultimately biblical monotheism grew. Traces of this process are discernable in archeology, epigraphy as well as in biblical texts.

Asherah in the West Semitic Pantheon: Biblical texts often couple the Semitic goddess Asherah and the god Baal. Thus, in biblical scholarship Asherah and Baal were considered divine partners until the beginning and occasionally as late as middle of 20th century. With the development of archeology and especially with the discovery and decipherment of the Ugaritic religious texts (discovered in 1920's and dating from 1200 B.C.E.) it became clear this was an obvious misrepresentation. The Goddess Asherah was a partner of the Semitic head of pantheon god El. Baal belonged to very different level of the Canaanite pantheon.

Khirbet El Qom inscription: In the 1960's a series of drawings and inscriptions were found in the tomb located between Hebron and Lachish. Paleography (an art of dating of writings) pointed to the late 8th century. Inscriptions were faint, broken, and difficult to interpret. At the time of discovery this find did not attract much attention.
       One inscription was accompanied with a blessing (magical) hand of protection and was accompanied with a written apotropaic (protective) blessing for the entombed. The blessing was made in the name of YHWH and (his) Asherah/Asheratah.

Kuntillet Ajrud discovery: In 1970's another intriguing discovery was made in east Sinai in a place called Kuntillet Ajrud. Several drawings and inscriptions were found in the ruins of what is often described as an ancient caravanserai (a rest house for caravans), dating around late 9th early 8th century BCE. The writings again mentioned YHWH and (his) Asherah. The inscriptions and drawings were on the remnants of two large clay storing jars and on some broken plaster.

Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions: There is a lengthy scholarly discussion as to whether and how the inscription should be interpreted; that is, together with the drawings or independently. One matter is certain: People (associated with royalty) bearing Israelite “Yahwistic” names are blessing and are being blessed by YHWH and Asherah. In addition, and also interestingly, YHWH is being portrayed not as a universal deity but as localized deity, associated with geographic places and sanctuaries (YHWH of Timna and YHWH of Samaria)

 Asherah iconography: Some of the drawings also conform to well-established or at least suggested iconography of the goddess Asherah. Some conservative scholars used to make a distinction between Asherah the goddess and Asherah as an cultic object (sacred pole). This distinction is clearly artificial. For millennia there was a fluctuation between different depictions and concepts. The Ancients could deify what we would consider inanimate objects. For instance the god “Lyre” was clearly a deified musical instrument which in Ugarit received regular sacrifices. If Asherah, as a “sacred pole” was able to extend or sponsor blessings, she was clearly a goddess no matter how she was portrayed.

Here are some plain, direct mentions of Asherah in the Bible. One example of her presence was as sacred poles, and one example of her close connection with the god Baal as we talked about it earlier.

Asherah in disguise: Here is another presence of the goddess Asherah in the Bible. This time the goddess is disguised as a personified Wisdom. This translation highlights the original features of a divine partner of creation. This poem represents at least partly creation as cosmogony (divine procreation of the world). I am providing slightly different tanslation (with some explanation) and more discussion of this text in this blog entry "Lady Wisdom")

Biblical divine androgyny: And finally here we have some examples, where the deity (either El or YHWH) is depicted in a clear androgynous role. Some features of androgyny of the head of pantheon, god El, are discernable also in other ANE speculations. It is possible that these archaic features were temporarily highlighted in the process of monotheization of the West Semitic religion.

Short summary:
El and Asherah were the original ruling divine couple of the West Semites.
After the god YHWH was assimilated (theologically merged) with El, he also “inherited” goddess Asherah as a divine consort. For period of time, YHWH and Asherah existed and were worshiped as divine couple. In the process of monotheization of Jewish religion in Persian and especially in Hellenistic period, different techniques were used to eliminate this important goddess: direct negation and deletion from texts; re-labeling of the original practices as heterodox and illegitimate; attempted secularization of the goddess as just a cultic object, or as the personification of Wisdom; and highlighting archaic androgynous aspects of the most senior deity also played some role.

In Defense of Theocracy

Kingdom of God - Kingdom of Social Justice
Ancient roots of protecting the most vulnerable.

       Our contemporary society more and more resembles the form of government which could be called oligarchy or even plutocracy. (Oligarchy stands for rule of tiny minority over majority of society. Plutocracy is a rule of the powerful and wealthy.) A small group of wealthy and powerful people is designing (rigging) rules and laws so that these rules would fit their own narrow and short-sighted interests. At this time, when we are experiencing a substantial crisis of democracy (rule of people), it might be interesting to look into older models and structuring of society.
       Historically our civilization originated in monarchy. But it is worthy of mention that the excesses of monarchy were controlled and moderated by powerful religious and theological mechanisms which kept monarchy in check. In ancient times these mechanisms were traditionally verbalized (expressed) as protection of widows and orphans.

In the epilogue of the Code of Hammurabi (circa 1770 B.C.E.) we read:
   I made an end of war;
   I promoted the welfare of the land;
   I made the peoples rest in friendly habitations;
   I did not let them have anyone to terrorize them.
   The great gods called me,
   so I became the beneficent shepherd whose scepter is righteous;
   my benign shadow is spread over the city.
   In my bosom I carried the peoples of the land of Sumer and Akkad;
   they prospered under my protection;
   I always governed them in peace;
   I sheltered them in my wisdom.
   In order that the strong might not oppress the weak,
   that justice might be dealt the orphan and the widow,

   in Babylon, the city whose head Anum and Enlil raised aloft,
   in Esaglia, the temple whose foundations stand firm like heaven and earth,
   I wrote my precious words on my stela,
   and in the presence of the statue of me, the king of justice,
   I set it up in order to administer the law of the land,
   to prescribe the ordinances of the land,
   to give justice to the oppressed. 

                                           (column xxiv lines 31-75)

In the Ugaritic texts (written roughly at 1200 B.C.E.) a legendary hero Danel (Daniel) is depicted as an ruler of his city state and thus he is also an administrator of justice:

   Then Danel the ruler of Rapha,
   at once the hero, the man of Hrnmy,
   arose and sat in the entrance of the gate,
   beneath the mighty (trees) by the threshing-floor.
   He tried the case of the widow,
   he judged the cause of the orphan. 

                                             (KTU 1.17.v.5-8)

And in another text we can observe that failure to administer justice and protect the most vulnerable is considered as the most persuasive reason for the dethronement of an ineffective king:
   Crown prince Yasib looked for courage,
   and he prayed.
   He came to his father,
   he lifted his voice and cried:
       Listen, I besiege you, O Kirtu, the noble,
       listen, and let your ear be alert!
   Can you command your armies?
   Are you really a commander in chief?
   You certainly don't behave like it!
       You have not tried the case of the widow,
       you have not judged the cause of the powerless!
       You have not stopped the plundering of the poor.
       You did not feed the orphans in your presence,
       you didn't pay attention to the widows around you. 

   And for all of this you are sick and weak,
   and your dominion is undermined!
       Step down from your kingship - I shall be king!
       From your dominion - I shall be enthroned, I!
                                (KTU 1.16.vi.26-38 parallel 1.16.vi.41-54)

The Biblical tradition which is even closer to our Euro-American civilization continues in the same tradition. The protection of the weak and dispossessed is clearly at the center of the Judeo-Christian tradition and is backed by powerful theological arguments and warnings.
Here is an example from the book of Exodus:

   You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way.
   Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt!
   You must not exploit a widow or an orphan.
   If you exploit them in any way and they cry out to me,
   then I will certainly hear their cry.
   My anger will blaze against you,
   and I will kill you with the sword.
   Then your wives will be widows and your children fatherless. 

   (Exo 22:21-24)

And here another example from Deuteronomy:

   True justice must be given to foreigners living among you and to orphans,
   and you must never accept a widow's garment as security for her debt. 
   Always remember that you were slaves in Egypt
   and that the LORD your God redeemed you from your slavery.
   That is why I have given you this command.
   When you are harvesting your crops
   and forget to bring in a bundle of grain from your field,
   don't go back to get it.
   Leave it for the foreigners, orphans, and widows.
   Then the LORD your God will bless you in all you do.
   When you beat the olives from your olive trees,
   don't go over the boughs twice.
   Leave the remaining olives for the foreigners, orphans, and widows.
   When you gather the grapes in your vineyard,
   don't glean the vines after they are picked.
   Leave the remaining grapes for the foreigners, orphans, and widows.
   Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt.
   That is why I am giving you this command. 
                                       (Deut 24:17-22)

Prophets are constantly calling their society, and especially their rulers to keep these ancient principles. Here are just few examples:
   This is what the LORD says:
   Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right!
   Help those who have been robbed;
   rescue them from their oppressors. 
   Quit your evil deeds!
   Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows.
   Stop murdering the innocent! (Jeremiah 22:3)

   At that time I will put you on trial.
   I am eager to witness against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars.
   I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages,
   who oppress widows and orphans,
   or who deprive the foreigners living among you of justice,
   for these people do not fear me,
   says the LORD of Heavenly Armies.  (Malachi 3:5)

       When Jesus and the Early Church called for the Kingdom of God, their primary interest was not in Kingdom (monarchy). Their main demands were for theocracy, a divine rule which would protect widows, and orphans, foreigners and the oppressed. Social justice and natural societal cohesion are clearly among the organizing principles and main roots of our Judeo-Christian tradition.

“Abba” isn’t “Daddy!”

“Abba” isn’t “Daddy!” it is so much more and so much more precious!
       Abba is a famous Christian Semitic loanword (together with for instance Alleluia or Amen). Abba means “father”, not “daddy” as  popular opinion would often like to have it. Sentimental theology came up with the idea that Abba was a word from the children’s vocabulary and that it corresponded with Jesus’ unique relationship with God. This idea became quite widespread and deeply rooted in the popular imagination. It is attractive, but it is wrong! This idea needs to be challenged because it represents only a shallow veneer of sentimentality, while true reality beneath is deeper, truer, more transformative and radical.
       There is no question that Jesus called God father. He even might call God Abba, although that is not altogether certain. Jesus’s family circumstances of a fatherless child and most likely also a childless and landless man (the very bottom of the social hierarchy) certainly gave him a unique perspective on life. He had first hand experience, deep understanding and heightened sensitivity and a bond with the small, weak and marginalized. And to this unique relationship Jesus invited and introduced his disciples by encouraging them to call God father.
       In this Lenten season our Sunday sermons will be dedicated to refreshing and re-hearing the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer which we say so often so casually. It opens with a simple address of God as father. It is not an endorsement of any patriarchal domination system. Quite the contrary, if we repeat it from the lips of Jesus with understanding, we consciously and emotionally bond and side with all the societal underdogs. It offers us a new perspective; it has power to transform and change our lives, and so much more!

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And for those who read this far here is some background information.

       The Gospel of Mark offers us a rare unintended glimpse into Jesus’ childhood. The people in Nazareth dismissed him, asking derisively: Isn’t he that carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Judas, and Simon, and don’t we all know his sisters? (Mark 6:3)
       It offers us surprising and powerful insight:
Jesus was poor - I think that Mark correctly states that he was a carpenter, while the later tradition in Matthew tries to amend it into "carpenter’s son", but at this point it really does not matter. Jesus was TEKTON which was not a cabinet maker nor a craftsmen erecting buildings and roofs. It simply meant that Jesus was not a farmer. He did not own (inherit) land or did not have enough land to support him. He was just another landless day-laborer.
Jesus was an illegitimate child - he was clearly born out of wedlock (Even if you take miraculous stories seriously). Mockery in Nazareth reveals something more. In patriarchal society which measured status by a long list of male ancestors, Jesus is called the “son of Mary”. It is so unusual that the closest biblical example of a son being publicly identified by his mother is in Judges 11:1 "Now Jephthah from Gilead was a mighty hero, he was the son of a prostitute, fathered by whole Gilead." Thus reference to Jesus as “the son of Mary” appears only in the oldest tradition and is quickly omitted and edited out later.
    This is further supported by ancient extrabiblical tradition which is almost as old as some of the New Testament writings. In the second century a philosopher called Celsus penned the first known attack against Christianity. In it he alleged that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier called Panthera.
    Interestingly, a Tombstone of a roman military officer called Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera was discovered in 1859 in Germany. This Pantera died near Bingerbrüg in Germany around year 40 C.E., but he was born around 20 B.C.E. in Sidon in Phoenicia. We cannot be certain that this Pantera is identical with the Pantera mentioned by Celsus, his name was common among soldiers, but it is certainly an interesting coincidence. Celsus clearly touched a live nerve with the early Christians, because almost a century later the famous theologian Origen still considered it important enough to attempt refuting Celsus’ hearsay.
    I do not know why church started to conceal and embellish Jesus’ origins as if they were ashamed of it. For me the truth is always powerful and revealing.
    Only when I discovered this non-legendary origin of Jesus, did I finally start to understand him. It clicked in! Jesus was born in an obscure Galilean periphery, in a small insignificant village, a poor and illegitimate child at the very bottom of the social pile. Finally I saw and understood how and why in his ministry he had such a weakness for the weak and all those despised and marginilised, how and why he had such a heightened sensitivity for injustice! And we can also understand why his calling God father was so radical and transformative. This God Father shares the same interests in the lonely, forgotten, marginalized, and oppressed. 
       And finally Jesus (or early Christians) was/were patently subversive to the Roman imperialism. Just think about it all against the background of the Roman Imperial Ideology where Father of the Fatherland (PATER PATRIAE) was one of the highest and most desirable titles of the Roman Emperors. (See for instance self-laudatory propaganda of Augustus in his Res Gestae Divi Augusti §35 - Final paragraph of his monumental "Acts of Divine Augustus".) 
       The Romans trumpeted their emperors as fathers. These fatherly emperors epitomized Roman patriarchal system, imperial power (understand - imperial toxic masculinity) wealth and military might. Christians, on the other hand, with every prayer did something very subversive, they invoked the exact opposite, the Father of compassion, forgiveness, justice and peace. The true father of humanity is not a self-promoting tyrant in Rome but the Heavenly Father of all the despised, marginalised, oppressed and exploited. 

Acts of Divine Augustus - Fascist replica of Roman imperial propaganda

Ash Wednesday - Phoenix' Day

When I studied at the Protestant Seminary of Charles University in Prague, for my first two years every day to and from school I walked past the Prague New Jewish Cemetery. Through one of the side gates I could easily see the simple gravestone of Franz Kafka and his family. And just as I was learning Hebrew; above the main gate I was able to read the large Hebrew letters, a stark and powerful reminder, which read: 'APHAR 'ATTAH W'EL 'APHAR TASHUB. “You are dust and to dust you will return!” (Genesis 3:19b That was the first Hebrew sentence I read.)
       Ash Wednesday is often misunderstood. Ash Wednesday’s primary focus is not sinfulness or misery. Ashes are not a metaphor for dirtiness of any kind. Dust or ash is a powerful biblical metaphor of our shared human mortality, and therefore it is a call to repentance (knowing our proper place).
       And just as the Ancient Greeks had their stories of the Phoenix who is born again from ashes, Jewish and Christian believers should hear the powerful message of the legendary, archetypal (larger than life) sufferer Job: “I know one thing, My redeemer lives, and at the end, will stand up for dust.” (Job 19:25) 

       I have several dozen English translations and all translate the words imprecisely as “standing up on the Earth” which is probably influenced by the Septuagint (ancient Greek translation). However, 'APHAR is clearly “dust” not “Earth” and only the Jewish Publication Society translates correctly.

       On Ash Wednesday we mark our foreheads with ash crosses. It is a doubly powerful statement. The cross was the gallows for terrorists and seditionists, and ash was a symbol of mortality. The Christian protest (“pro-test” meant originally “giving witness for”) transformed the cross as well as the ash/dust into the hope for resurrection.
       Ash Wednesday is our phoenix day. We mark ourselves with ashes, thereby taking seriously both our mortality and our penitence in the hope of being reborn into the new flame.