According to apostate Ed Babinski, “taking the Bible at its word also means thinking in terms of a flat earth…Stories of ascents and descents from heaven appear throughout the Bible,” TCD, 130.
One of the obvious problems with this claim is the assumption that stories of ascents and descents necessarily refer to physical locomotion. Although that’s sometimes the case, this imagery can be both a literary convention as well as a description of the mystical experience. Take the following:
In visions of God he took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose south side were some buildings that looked like a city (Ezk 40:2).
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God (Rev 21:10).
But this is conceived in visionary or out-of-body terms, and not a literal ascent to heaven.
Locomotive imagery is also employed in mystical literature. The mystical “rapture” represents the upward motion, the mystical “ecstasy” represents the outward motion, while God’s descent into the soul of the contemplative represents the downward motion. And this corresponds to the phenomenology of the mystical trance. Cf. Nelson Pike: Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism (Cornell 1994), chap. 2.
Spanish mystics like Bernardino de Laredo (Subida del Monte Sión) and San Juan de la Cruz (Subida Al Monte Carmelo) also utilize the mountain motif in depicting the spiritual progress of the soul it its pilgrimage to God. So there’s a mystical cosmography. Yet a contemplative wouldn’t confuse this picture language with real space or real motion. Rather, this picturesque literary depiction is what Joseph Maréchal calls "the spatial localization and exteriorization of an interior representation," Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics, 104.
Steve wrote: "According to apostate Ed Babinski, 'taking the Bible at its word also means thinking in terms of a flat earth…'"
ReplyDeleteI could be wrong but doesn't the Bible teach that earth is an 'orb' hung on nothing? [Job 26:7]
"After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
ReplyDeleteThey were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 'Men of Galilee,' they said, 'why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.'"
Yep, totally metaphorical. Metaphors get hidden behind clouds all the time.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteThat's inept on so many levels:
i) I specifically said that in "some cases" the stories of ascents and descents refer to physical locomotion. Do you not know how to read?
ii) If, for the sake of argument, the Ascension account were metaphorical, then to be hidden behind a cloud would be entirely consistent with the metaphorical character of the account inasmuch as both the cloud and what it hides would both be part of the figurative imagery. You don't do the cause of infidelity any favors with such klutzy objections.
iii) I've repeatedly discussed the Ascension account. And even liberal commentators like Howard Kee understand that the cloud was the Shekinah. Jesus didn't go straight up to heaven. Rather, the Shekinah took him to heaven. He levitated to a point within eyeshot of the observers, then he was enveloped by the Shekinah.
So the Ascension account doesn't give you a triple-decker universe. No more so than watching a firecracker elevate a certain distance.
The divine is neither “up there” nor “down here”; it is not outside nor is it inside; it is at the infinite here. The divine is neither before birth nor after death; it is not yesterday, today nor tomorrow; it is in the eternal now. There is no place where the divine is not, there is no time when the divine is not, because the divine is not related to space or time. The divine is; all other words are insignificant.
ReplyDeleteἐκκλησία said...I could be wrong but doesn't the Bible teach that earth is an 'orb' hung on nothing? [Job 26:7]
ReplyDeleteThere is an extensive endnote on that verse in Job in "The Cosmology of the Bible," near the end of the very chapter that Steve is attempting to rebut.
Ron Krumpos said... The divine is neither “up there” nor “down here”; all our words are insignificant.
ReplyDeleteHi Ron, I was dealing in my chapter (the one Steve is critiquing) with the words of the Bible, mostly the pre-600 BCE words of the Hebrew Bible (though some NT passages as well), and the cosmic geography that they entailed. I wasn't dealing with all words and all ideas of God.
Steve, Whether the story is about a person taken up to heaven in the spirit in a vision or in a physical body, the point is that they are taken UP. (While Paul tells us that he believed in beings that exist "under the earth.") That's three-tiers.
ReplyDeleteAs for the earth's shape,
and its immobility ("it shall not be moved") that God ensures by His power,
and the earth's movement depicted only as having been "shaken" directly by God as in an earthquake (shaken, not stirred, not whirled round), a God who not only holds the flat earth firmly in place so that it cannot be moved, but who also shakes it from time to time via an earthquake, both being praised as direct applications of His power to make immobile and to shake,
and add to that the verses that assume the relative nearness of God's heavenly abode above the earth,
and the creation of the earth prior to the creation of the sun, moon and stars which are secondarily made and set in the firmament above it, in order to light the earth below, and placed there to set up periods of time between religious ceremonies/festivals,
and the power of God in moving many objects above the earth, from clouds to lightning bolts to constellations, and also praising God for being able to "stop the sun" if He so wishes. . .
how do you put all of that information together from my chapter and conclude that so many Bible scholars who are experts on ANE cosmology, along with several respectable Evangelical Christian OT scholars who are likewise learned in ANE cosmology, are all missing out by not adopting your lame excuses?
Babinski, Babinski, Babinski:
ReplyDeleteSteve, Whether the story is about a person taken up to heaven in the spirit in a vision or in a physical body, the point is that they are taken UP. (While Paul tells us that he believed in beings that exist "under the earth.") That's three-tiers.
That's corny!
I believe what the Scripture teaches us when we read it to understand the Spiritual Truth about a people's Spiritual natures once born again.
I believe there are beings that exist "under the earth" and I have no trouble believing in three-tiers!
Just turn the T.V. on or rather the computer on and go online to the media services providing access to live feeds or clips of those Chilean miners strapped and living down a couple of miles under the earth right now! Those too are beings living under the earth, are they not? :)
But rather, since you know, could you explain this about the mystical nature of the Spirit filled man, here:
1Co 5:3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.
1Co 5:4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
1Co 5:5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
Col 2:5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
Col 2:6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,
Col 2:7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.