Fr. Stephen: was making this cloud so that he wouldnt actually see Yahweh when he appeared. All right, so weve covered the basics of the Day of Atonement ritual and the two goats, here on Goat Week on The Lord of Spirits, and were going to get back in just a moment, but first were going to take a short break, so well be right back. Andrew: Yeah, right, exactly. And when we were talking about this, you mentioned that, in terms of the actual construction of the language there, its a parallel construction, that Yahweh and Azazel are being used in parallel. Andrew: So this is not a sacrifice in the meal sense that weve been talking about. And it should inspire us to cry out to the Lord for mercy with gratitude and thankfulness for all that he has done, and then that we would enter into that and to participate in it ourselves. Just read the passage, and you can see that that stuff is just simply not there. Andrew: Yeah, another super-important point, that the goat that gets the sins is not killed and cannot be killed as a sacrifice. Fr. How does God see it working? Fr. [Laughter]. Stephens deep learning and years of study, not that the book is academic. Fr. Fr. Thank you. Fr. Photius: No, they dont. To cover the taste of bad food? Stephen: Yeah, so I dont want to get too granular about this, because theres actually, when you get into literature about thisI did my dissertation related to this, so I read all the literature on this. Once again, I am delighted to announce that I was mistaken. I am the biggest nerd anyone will ever meet. Fr. So sin brings the chaos in, or you could say it turns what has been made orderly and beautiful chaotic again. Stephen: I know you really want Goat Week to be a thing. Fr. It was dedicated with blood; now its purified again and made holy again with blood. Fr. Stephen De Young | Ancient Faith Ministries He holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. You know who you are. And then theres this weird And then at the end of Luke: They worshiped him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the Temple, blessing and praising God. [Disgusted noises] All this disillusioning. What theyre translating as ours should actually be translated as our sins. Theres a whole bunch of lexical stuff about that. Just to set a the latter two of those preserved for us in Slavonic. I mean, that is just an overarching commandment of the whole Scripture: no idolatry, ever. Fr. Andrew: Yeah, thats cool. And if they did, what was that signifying when they laid hands on it? Fr. Andrew: Yeah, right, because there is not just the problem of the sins of the people. Fr. This video is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. This kind of thing is fun, and it can be very easy, when exposed to theology, especially theology of this kind, thats trying to explain how everything works and how everything fits together and see things from Gods perspective, to approach our Christian life from that perspective, that its about me figuring things out; its about me piecing things together: its about this intellectual construct that I want to form in my mind, where I have the perfect theology and I understand everything. Fr. What do you do with it? Fr. Stephen: Let me throw you one quick correction here. Romans Chapter 11 - The Whole Counsel of God - Ancient Faith Does it have anything to do with suffering or punishment? What we reliably know about them is, "Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. And so then, logically enough, when you find this in its noun formthese same roots are used for both verbs and nouns and also for adjectiveswhen its a noun it means a cover or a covering. Repeat after me. It says that Christ is the atonement or the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only but also for the whole world. But when Judaism was invented in the 6th century, they rejected much of their heritage that overlapped with Christianity, from the Septuagint to the doctrine of God being more than one person. Fr. Fr. Stephen De Young and Ancient Faith Radio Subscribe This podcast takes us through the Holy Scriptures in a verse by verse study based on the Great Tradition of the Orthodox Church. Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Right. The whole goat is burned after the blood is extracted. Fr. Stephen: He had to purify himself before he could come back into the camp. Fr. So if you were to translate Azazel as the goat that goes away, then the other one becomes the goat that is who he is and makes things come into being. [Laughter] Like, it doesnt, Fr. He is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of the Whole Counsel Blog, as well as co-host of the Lord of Spirits podcast. Stephen: And the way hes said to do that, in 1 John 3:8, is that Christ appears to destroy the works of the devil.. Fr. How Fr. Stephen De Young's book, "The Religion of the Apostles The blood of that goat is used to purify the sanctuary, to purify sacred space. Fr. Fr. So, yeah, its literally the Day of AtoCovering. Stephen often asks is not What does this mean? but What does this do? And that is the most important question to ask when youre looking at ritual in Scripture, and then, of course, as ritual gets repeated and reused and all of this kind of stuff in the rest of Scripture and in the Church Fathers and the divine services and so forth, what does this actually do? When I received my copy of The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century by Fr. Hey, its the sin-goat!, Fr. So to prepare for that, he has to offer a special sin-offering for himself, because he needs to be, because hes going to go all the way in, he has to be at this state of purity and holiness that is unsurpassed. Fr. Fr. They have to be the best goats, both of them are the best goats. Stephen: the altar, the ark of the covenant, the other fixtures of the tabernacle in order to purify them, in order to remove that taint thats been left there, thats gathered there because of the sins of the people, because of the sins of the community over the course of the year, to purify it again. Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah! So St. Luke is doing this narratively, and Hebrews is just giving it to us theologically, explaining it to us. Fr. Fr. Semitic words, Semitic lexemes have what are called triliteral roots, meaning theyre based on three consonants, and then you give the verb meaning, or the noun meaning, by the way its inflected, meaning literally the way its pronounced, because they didnt write the vowels at all. Stephen De Young continues the discussion of Revelation, Chapter 13. We welcome you. And if youre listening to us live, you can call in at 855-AF-RADIO; thats 855-237-2346, and we will get to your calls in the second part of todays show. Stephen: Yeah! And then as you go out to the holy place and then to where the Levites are dwellingthe Levites and the priests have to maintain this higher level of discipline and holinessand then you get to the Israelites, who have to do this even higher level than the nations. This is Christ as being the goat for Yahweh. Stephen: And all the Ethiopians will rejoice because theyre like: [Whispered] Weve got it!. Ill take it. Fr. I have people who dont believe me about that, but you can look it up. Andrew: Which is not the way confession works either, by the way, in case anyones thinking, Wait, what? Theres a wonderful parallel, in some ways, between these things. Theres like cheering going up across the country now because we mentioned Azazel. These are just a few examples of how Fr. Amazon.com: Stephen De Young: books, biography, latest update Theres a text variant there as to whether it says monon or monn. Stephen is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of the Whole Counsel Blog. So thats why we say this is an Angel of the Lord figure in the technical sense in the Old Testament: the Son of man, the Angel of the Lord, this second Person of Yahweh. Stephen: So the whole thing is burned. All right. There are also some folks who want to suggest that Azazel isnt a being. It doesnt matter if someone in the back was complaining; it doesnt matter about fake coughing: he had to do a lot of incense, because the incense was covering. But we have As we talked about last time, the sin-offerings that are being offered every day are not transactional. Its never going to catch on. Its remembered as being the decisive battle of the American Late Unpleasantness. Lets be clear on that. Stephen: Right, but that opens up Fortnite references. Here's the link to the Revelation 7 episode that he mentions: ancientfaith.com/podcasts/wholecounsel/revelation_7_1_8. Someone could stand there and say, Hes turning the page; what does that mean? The Lord of Spirits | Ancient Faith Ministries Andrew: I suspectyeah, thats right. Andrew Stephen Damick, Richard Rohlin, and Ancient Faith Radio. The lake of fire that gets mentioned in St. Matthews gospel and in the book of Revelation has no Old Testament precedent, but the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels, as St. Matthews gospel says, is taken directly from the Enochic literature. Fr. Fr. So theyre taken out of the world. Stephen: Right, we have to have it perfect, because hes going to appear, and if he appears and its imperfect, then this is going to get bad for us, for Israel. Fr. Since I have always wanted to understand ancient texts through the lens of their original context, I have taken a keen interest in Judaism. When it comes to the biblical context, there are at least four issues to consider: Some English versions translate two Hebrew words by using the one vague, generic, subjective, and, I submit to you, un-biblical term giants. Defining terms at the outset is key to any cogent consideration and yet, many people dive into such discussions midstream, in a manner of speaking, by discussing "giants" without defining that about which they are speaking. Andrew: Thats fine. Stephen, I know how dear this is to you. Fr. [Sigh], Fr. Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, Rebuttal to Dr. Michael Heisers All I Want for Christmas is Another Flawed Nephilim Rebuttal, Ancient Tales of Giants from Qumran and Turfan Contexts, Traditions, and Infl uences, A Brief Survey of the Pre-flood and Post-flood Origins of the Nephilim, Ninurta-Nimrod, Son of Enlil-Satan, the First Post-Flood Hybrid, The Origin of Evil and the End of the World, Incidental Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Scrolls and its Importance for Study of the Second Temple Period, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Of Demigods and the Deluge: Toward an Interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4. [Laughter]. So now were going to talk about how, number one, they actually didnt get it quite right, but what is the concept that that word is attempting to point to? Fr. So that works is brought in there, that hes doing the works of his father, the evil one. He says they put a reed in his hand; its the exact same word for reed. And then they took the reed from him and struck him with it. Fr. [Laughter] But, yeah, okay, so to wrap up, then, just some final thoughts. So when we look at the Day of Atonement we have to start with the fact that it is doing something different than the sin-offerings are doing. I had always assumed that the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity took time to develop, and that the apostles wouldnt have been explicit Trinitarians. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. Fr. Other sacrificial rituals where you see the laying-on of hands, thats to designate the animal as a sacrifice. The blood is used, the blood is smeared, wiped, used to cover. Now the thing that has been done in part is now being done totally in full. although not Pennsylvania, but the Emmaus that my Emmaus is named after. You can get super in the weeds! So in short, because our first two halves were already more than half of our time this evening, so were not going to go through the whole work, St. Athanasius talks about atonement as happening through the Incarnation, that by God becoming man, he, by virtue of his holiness as Godthat same holiness that they couldnt see and live on the Day of Atonement in the Old Testamentby becoming man he purifies humanity, not just in terms of, like We tend to think of this in quasi-spatial terms, almost like the human body seen as a physical thing. . Fr. [Laughter]. The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Stephen: Yes, involving metallurgy for weapons of war and those kind of things. Stephen: Right, and taken outside the camp. Fr. But were going to talk about the goat for Yahweh first. Stephen: So he does this sin-offering, and then the sort of Day of Atonement ritual proper begins. Andrew: Yes, maybe well do that in a future episode. Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. But where did this word come from? But its the only is an adverb, not an adjective. So thats what this is about. He holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. Andrew: Yeah, his single most popular and famous work. Thats absolutely a blessing! Stephen: And the next verse in 1 John, verse 13, says that the reason he killed Abel is that Abels works were good and Cains works were evil. We have Dan from New York, and he has a question specifically about the Day of Atonement ritual. Fr. Fr. Fr. So, just what is a giant? He also discusses Chapter 10 in its entirety. Andrew: Okay, well, so related to that, actually, we have a caller. Fr. Length: 2:12:00. [Laughter]. Fr. Fr. Andrew: Yeah, which makes no sense if you think atone means make up for or pay off or whatever, some kind of satisfaction theology. [Laughter] So instead, now, this goat, this completely corrupt goat, has to go outside the camp, the city, outside, back out into the bad place, and its going to Azazel. Stephen: Right, and you especially dont need to bring any livestock to the church. Fr. Fr. Fr. Stephen: Yeah, and this was very clearly understood by the earliest readers, because every extra-biblical source we have from the Jewish world treats Azazel as a spiritual being. Fr. interject to be respectful and listen. Stephen: Yeah. [Laughter] But theres literally a text variant there. Fr. Stephen: Yeah, and St. Johns going to say this has happened. Fr. ), Ancient Tales of Giants from Qurman and Turfan: Contexts, Traditions, and Influences (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), The Landscape of Memory: Giants and the Conquest of Canaan. Fr Stephen explains it a way that finally makes sense. So we have again in Leviticus 16 a fair amount of detail describing exactly whats going on. Where there post-flood Nephilim, were Nephilim "giants," was King Og the result of "demonic fornication," etc. Fr. Two Orthodox priests, Fr. He is the pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church (Antiochian) in Lafayette, Louisiana, and holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. So I think thats hopefully the important take-away, beyond all the fun stuff and interesting Bible tidbits; that this isnt just about knowing the right interpretation, thinking the right thing, but its about experiencing the reality of Christ. Stephen: Right, and through theology that had developed in Latin, they had an idea of what that was supposed to mean, or what it had come to mean theologically, and so they were really translating that. Fr. Stephen: And so, yes, theres the figure, especially in the Apocalypse of Abraham, hes named Yahoel, this Angel of the Lord figure, who serves as the high priest for this eschatological Day of Atonement. The idea of aliens, giants and mysterious monolithic structures has become popularized. Get that goat out of here. Fr. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel . As talked about in the book of Enoch, this would be Cains line. Fr. Stephen: Or even mercy-seat bands, if we want to be really old school. Andrew: Yeah, just list off the commandments. I mean, St. Matthew is himself a Jewanti-Semitic?hes writing the most Jewish of the gospels, the most Hebraized of the gospels! Hes clarifying; hes making it abundantly clear: This is not a sacrifice to Azazel. Stephen De Young host this live call-in show focused on enchantment in creation, the union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Andrew: Nothing to do with that. Disclaimers. It has this sort of importance as a major battle site. So theres this orderly, beautiful, purified, sacred space where God dwells with his people, and then chaos is whats on the outside. Two ancient sites, the Pergamon Altar in Berlin, as well as Rujum el-Hiri in the Golan Heights in Israel, will be included to demonstrate the possibility that these fallen ones may be loosed upon mankind during the time of the Time of Jacobs Trouble on earth. How do you put sins on a goat? Fr. Theres a lot of people standing around; this is the person whom were setting apart for this purpose. Andrew: Thank you very much, and God bless you all. Mike Schmitz), Let's Read the Gospels with Annie F. Downs, Fr. Facebook So at the beginning thats Eden or paradise, but then everything outside of it, in comparison. Well, again, weve got you coveredand no, I will not get tired of that joke. [Laughter]. Im going to give you this job, so look this up, Richard. He is also the author of The Whole Counsel Blog on . It is very common for all kinds of, shall we say, advanced theological ideas, that have come into being over time, through a long history of development, to all be read back into usually the Greek word in the New Testament. I did believe the doctrine of the Trinity was in the OT, but in a latent or implicit form. The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Fr. Academia.edu uses cookies to personalize content, tailor ads and improve the user experience. Dont the daily offerings cover it? Andrew: No, I dont think so, but yeah [Laughter] Hello, all of you Jonathan Pageau fans out there. And if you read a lot of recent Old Testament scholarship, because of how loaded the word atonement has become, they try to call it something else. But the problemand we already talked about this a bit with Fr. Andrew: There you go: the Day of the Covering. [Laughter] Its the opposite! Andrew: Amen. The books subtitle, preface, and publishers blurb on the back seem to over-promise what the book actually delivers. Mr. The idea Theres a presupposition there that its somehow mechanical, that God saving us is like an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine in an OK Go video or something, where he puts things in motion and at the end somebody gets saved. And then, through the sinning thats going on around them and even within them, they develop this taint where they are made common again. Fr. Stephen De Young, I felt I had finally come home. Fr. So, in fact, youll see someIm trying to remember if the King James does thisa lot of older English biblical translations, instead of saying, They will choose a goat for Azazel, says, Its one for Yahweh and one for a scapegoat. And this is what theyre doing; theyre translating it rather than taking it as a name. I will not. Stephen De Young Easily the most important work in Pauline Studies, and likely in Biblical Studies as a whole, of the current decade is Matthew Thomas' published Oxford dissertation, Paul's "Works of the Law" in the Perspective of Second Century Reception. Stephen: Weve talked about that theres kind of an anti-theosis that happens. It sounds like were FBI profilers. Augh! The second thing that happenedand I was explicitly taught this in the Protestant church I used to attendis that because the apostles were worshiping Jesus as the Messiah, they inferred He must be God because you cant worship a merely created being. I have all these details from the Day of Atonement ritual, and Im just going to ascribe that to whats happening with Christ. The only other place where the phrase for the whole world, or the phrase the whole world, tou olou kosmou, occurs in 1 John is in chapter 5, the verse we read: The whole world lies under the power of the evil one. So if you want to interpret the whole world in 1 John 2:2 as referring to the people in the world, then St. John is saying that all the people in the world lie under the power of the evil one, which would include himself and the Church, and that makes no sense in the context of the epistle where hes clearly distinguishing between two groups of people. I dont think theyre such long questions. Fr. Also considered is the possibility that the Biblical Nimrod, a descendant of Ham, was the Sumerian king Gilgamesh, and that he also was genetically Nephilim. Andrew: [Laughter] That is true, but you cant have the parallel with Shark Week then. I am coming to understand that the Orthodox view is the correct one. But 1 John is actually the book of the New Testament that uses the actual word, ilasterion, atonement, most frequently. Stephen: But so if we go back, then, to the Semitic root thats behind all this, you end up with what are called kefir verbs. And I think this is really important to notice this because we say that Christ is the fulfillment of all things in the Old Testament, and here you have this Second Temple Jewish literature, a lot of it preceding, some of it being at the same time as the New Testament, essentially pointing to this: theres this big eschatological version of this thats going to be happening. Andrew: Did you have a second question? They have also referenced three human falls which Fr. Its about the reality of when the rubber meets the road and how each of us approaches our Christian life. They would all say: the gospel of John and the epistle. Stephen: So this isnt transactional, so its not an issue of, like, Oh, well, maybe there were some sins that got missed during the year, so were going to do this sort of catch-all Day of Atonement to pick up those ones that were missed. Those were being done perpetually to cover all of the sinning that was going on, that everyone knew was going on in Israel. Stephen: So the name of this angel is Yahweh-God. Andrew: Yeah [Laughter] So they just kind of perpetuated what had been done before. They see this as a kind or type of atonement. Stephen: And without going down the whole rabbit-trail of when you can and cant touch the ark, because thats a whole separate thing. Kuehn, S., Monster. Why does this need to be added on? Fr. Its this annual thing, so it must be a really big deal. What is spiritual reality like? Fr. Fr. Fr. Andrew: Yeah, which means its just a random toss, basically. A lot of them who didnt know 2 and 3 John existed accepted 1 John. Fr. Andrew: Yeah, so the goat is sent to Azazel. Andrew: It was. This element of the eschatological Day of Atonement, that Azazel is finally defeatedits not just sending him back his sin while he continues to control the rest of the world out there, but hes done away with and disposed ofis, as we said Hebrews is going to be peppered all the way through here. So I dont think they were putting their sins on presbyters. For those of us in the Byzantine rite of the Orthodox Church, which is most Orthodox Christians, this last Sunday was the Sunday of the Last Judgment, in which we heard Matthew 25, where we heard that sheep go to heaven and goats go to hell. Fr. So were going to talk about some Second Temple literature. You guys are all asking the wrong questions! Fr. The more I learned about scripture, the more I felt the need for additional guidance on both the holy messages and the contextsculture, history, languages, geography, etc. That is that part of the ritual. Andrew: Yeah, like the altar has be reconciled to God? Fr. Fr. We appreciate hearing from you. Fr. Here is another misconception Fr. Amen. Which is kind of a weird way to end the gospel. How do we engage with it well? (Ok, technically the Orthodox Church denies penal substitutionary atonement while affirming substitutionary atonement, but most people, including well-meaning Orthodox who deny substitution completely, are not familiar with this distinction.) And a very well-known biblical scholar and a very good biblical scholar, Simon Gathercole, who wrote the magisterial material on the Gospel of Thomas, for example, amongst many other great things, did a book a few years ago on atonement, trying to defend the particular atonement theory of penal substitutionary atonement. You get these atonement theories that are then theories of how it works from Gods end; how God does it. This is like Joseph in Genesis. Fr. To actually go in there to purify that space. Fr. I mean, this is how granular this gets. Stephen: Yeah, I mean you may have to deal with this mercy-seat stuff, but now you know how that works, so youre all set for Leviticus. The killing of this goat is not ritualized in any way. Stephen: So both of them have to be perfect and unblemished, because theyre going to be used for two different purposes, but which one is used for which purpose is decided by lot. Stephen De Young Archives - Rule of Faith En (James A.) . Were going to see, to tip our hatsspoilersthat in the New Testament, Christ is both goats. Not machines taking over and acquiring agency, and not machines evolving their own intentionality, but human beings creating a world customized for the flourishing of machines? Fr. All right, well, lets talk about St. Lukes gospel, and, of course, Acts; these two kind of form a single narrative together, with just the In the former treatise, O Theophilus, at the beginning. In what manner is the atoning work of Christ mediated to the world, or could we say that it is mediated to the world by the Church? Paul's "Works of the Law" in the Perspective of Second Century Fr. Stephen De Young The V. Rev. Stephen: John 17, 18, and 19 also talks about this same idea, where Christthis is in the contextthis is part of the long reading on Holy Thursday eveningwhere Christ isthis is sometimes referred to as Christs high priestly prayer, appropriately enoughand Christ says in verses 18 and 19, As you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world, and for their sakes, I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. And of course the truth in St. Johns gospel is Christ himself. Fr. The answer, according to Fr. [Laughter] where it describes what Tubal-cain created. Andrew: [Laughter] Thats right. Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century Stephen: In fact, its canonically forbidden to bring livestock into the church. 13-26. Review of Richard B. Sorensens paper Was Hams Wife of the Nephilim?, Partial review of Marco Romano and Marco Avanzinis The skeletons of Cyclops and Lestrigons by Ken Ammi, The Nephilim and Rephaim: Satans Seed from Creation and Emergence in the Great Tribulation, Exegetical Discord in Genesis 6.1-4 Hermeneutics: Etiology of Evil Obscured, Open Review of the Center for Rational Theologys Abarim Publications on Nephilim and Giants in the Bible, by Ken Ammi, Response to Richard Sorensens review of my paper Review of Richard B. Sorensens paper, Were the Nephilim Genetically Psychopathic?, Angels in the Targums, An Examination of Angels, Demons, and Giants in the Pentateuch Targums, How Nephilim Absconded from the Tanakh and Invaded Folkloric Territory, A review of Adrienne Mayor's paper "Giants in Ancient Warfare" by Ken Ammi, When Gods Roamed the Earth: Thematic Parallels to Gen. 6:1-4 from the Ancient Near East, Review of Richard B. Sorensens paper, Were the Nephilim Genetically Psychopathic?, The Council of the Titans: The Old Greek Gods Among the Amorites, "The Giant in a Thousand Years: Tracing Narratives of Gigantism in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond," in Goff, Stuckenbruck, and Morano (eds.
