Torah and Nondualism

Diversity, Conflict, and Synthesis

James H. Cumming

• Publisher: Ibis Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780892546831
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

Torah and Nondualism is a commentary on the Torah, or Pentateuch, meaning "five books, " written in the form of five essays—one for each book. It reconciles modern biblical scholarship with the Jewish hermeneutical techniques recorded in the Zohar and shows that the meanings these interpretive techniques reveal are so consistent and illuminating throughout the Bible that they must have been intended by its redactors. By combining these traditional methods with modern insights, the book uncovers hidden themes in the Bible that other commentaries have overlooked.

Specifically, Torah and Nondualism discovers a syncretistic subtext in the Pentateuch aimed at reconciling two religious cultures: one rooted in Egyptian esoteric tradition and the other in Canaanite mythology and practice. In later times, these two religious cultures corresponded roughly to two rival kingdoms, Judah and Israel. The Torah ingeniously harmonizes this spiritual and political rift. When this subtext is fully appreciated, it is recognizable in all the Torah's most obscure rituals. Even those priestly rites associated with temple worship are understandable. The bitter rebellion against Moses and Aaron's leadership is presented in terms of the Torah's effort to harmonize conflict, sometimes by demanding great personal sacrifice.

Illustrated to make the complexities of scribal hermeneutics readily accessible to the nonexpert, Torah and Nondualism requires no prior knowledge of Hebrew and introduces the reader to an esoteric level of Bible interpretation previously known only to a small group of trained Hebrew scribes. Its intelligent and well-supported analysis promises to change the way you think about the Bible.

PART ONE

Myths, Gods, and Syncretism A Commentary on Genesis

The road is long

With many a winding turn

That leads us to who knows where,

Who knows where.

But I'm strong,

Strong enough to carry him.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

—Bob Russell (1914–1970 C.E.)

1. “And Jacob said to Joseph, ‘El Shaddai appeared to me in Luz, in the land of Canaan, and He blessed me’”

In the second millennium B.C.E., people from the Levant—which includes the region the Bible calls “Canaan”—began migrating to the Nile Delta in northern Egypt.¹⁰ Some came as traders or refugees from famine; others came as prisoners of war, or as slaves offered as tribute. The Egyptians called these people “hyksos,” which means (roughly) “foreign rulers,” reflecting the fact that some of these migrants eventually rose to political power in northern Egypt, ruling there as pharaohs for more than a century. The Torah relates the story of one clan among these Asiatic immigrants—Jacob's clan—and the Torah asserts that Jacob's clan was the specific clan that assumed political power. Jacob's son Joseph, for example, asserted that God had made him “father to Pharaoh” (Gen 45:8), indicating that Joseph's descendants were Egyptian pharaohs.

According to the historical evidence, the Hyksos were worshipers of the Egyptian storm god Set. More accurately, the Egyptian storm god Set was the “translation” into Egyptian culture of their Canaanite storm god Ba‘al, although the respective mythologies of these gods differed in their details.

In ancient times, “gods” were sacred images located in specific temples, but “gods” also represented archetypes that were not place specific, and just as the name for “water” could be translated from one language to another, so too the name for the “mother goddess” or the “storm god” could be “translated” from one pantheon to another. According to this logic of ancient religion, the Egyptian storm god Set was the “translation” of the Canaanite storm god Ba‘al, and historical records tell us that the Hyksos who migrated to northern Egypt from the Levant (Canaan) worshiped Ba‘al/Set. But is that true specifically of Jacob's clan, the progenitors of the Israelite people? Did Jacob's clan worship Ba‘al/Set?

The Torah relates that the god of the Israelite patriarchs was El Shaddai, a god that the Torah expressly connects to the land of Canaan. For example, when the patriarch Jacob was near the end of his life, and his son Joseph came to see him, Jacob said: “El Shaddai appeared to me in Luz, in the land of Canaan, and He blessed me.” Likewise, God told Moses: “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob [(that is, to the patriarchs)] as El Shaddai, and with my name YHVH, I was not known to them.” (Exod 6:2–3.) What, then, does history tell us about the god named El Shaddai, and what if any connection is there between El Shaddai and Ba‘al/Set?

The biblical word El is often translated as if it meant “God” in the modern generic sense, but archaeological records confirm that El was the proper name of a specific god, the divine “father” of Canaan's seventy gods and thus the chief God of the Canaanite pantheon. As the progenitor of the gods, however, El's name was sometimes used to indicate divinity in the more generic sense. Hence, the name El Shaddai might refer to “El in the aspect of Shaddai.” But who or what was Shaddai?

The Hebrew word shad means “breast,” but in ancient Hebrew, the word shaddai may have meant “mountain” (from the Akkadian word shaddu). Therefore, El Shaddai might have been “God of the Mountain.” The name Shaddai, however, might also have been related to the Hebrew word shadad, which means “to plunder,” “to ravage,” or “to despoil.” In a few places, Hebrew scripture refers to a divine being called “Shodeid” (“the Despoiler”) (see Isa 16:4, 21:2; Jer 6:26, 15:8, 48:8, 48:18, 48:32, 51:56; Job 15:21), and the name Shodeid might be a variation of the name Shaddai. The latter conclusion is supported by an examination of Shaddai's character. Shaddai almost always appears in Hebrew scripture as the fierce aspect of God—the aspect that sets limits or metes out punishment. (See, e.g., Isa 13:6; Joel 1:15; Job (passim); Ruth 1:20–21.) For this reason, English-language Bibles sometimes translate the name Shaddai as “the Almighty.”

In Hebrew scripture, Shaddai is also a divine name that is widely invoked by non-Israelites. Excepting the patriarchal narratives, the primary places in the Hebrew Bible where the name Shaddai appears as a reference to God are the “Bala‘am passages” of the book of Numbers (Num 22–24), the book of Job, and the book of Ruth, all of which quote the words of non-Israelite prophets. In Job, moreover, Shaddai appears to be the same as the divine being called “Satan” (the “adversary” or the “accuser”), a being who is presented in later texts as a demonic enemy of God but who in earlier, less dualistic texts lacks the characteristics of an anti-god.

The book of Job includes a main section, written in a distinctive poetic style, and a prose prologue that may have been written at a different time. The prologue tells us that the “sons of God” (i.e., the seventy gods) were assembled before YHVH, and Satan was also present. (Job 1:6.) Thus, Satan is presented in Job as one of the gods included in the divine assembly. This same divine assembly is described in the book of Psalms: “God stands in the assembly of El; in the midst of the gods he judges.” (Ps 82:1.) In the prologue to the book of Job, however, YHVH (not El) is the name used for the presiding deity of the divine assembly, and Satan is presented as a member of the divine court.

Nonetheless, Satan acts as YHVH's arm of justice; he is the divine force that YHVH uses to inflict punishment. Hebrew theology is thus radically nondual. Satan is presented as a divine being that is subordinate to YHVH (God), which makes YHVH the ultimate author of both good and evil, both mercy and punishment. According to this theology, there is no independent second power in competition with God, responsible for the things a person might dislike. Many examples from Hebrew scripture illustrating this nondual theology are cited in the footnote below,¹¹ but one of the most explicit is from the book of Isaiah, where YHVH declares: “I make peace, and I create evil; I, YHVH, do all these things.” (Isa 45:7.)

In the prologue to the book of Job, Satan acts as YHVH's agent of affliction sent by YHVH to test Job. (Job 1:12, 2:6.) Significantly, however, the main section of the book refers to this same divine afflicter as “Shaddai.” By implication, then, Shaddai is Satan, the fierce and punitive aspect of the nondual Godhead, which of course is consistent with Shaddai's role elsewhere in scripture as the aspect of God that metes out punishment.

The foregoing conclusions are confirmed by an important extrabiblical source, the Deir ‘Alla inscription, which dates to about 800 B.C.E., earlier than any known manuscript of the Bible. This plaster inscription was discovered in 1967 during archaeological excavations at Deir ‘Alla, in western Jordan, near the Jordan River. The plaster fragments had fallen from the wall of a building (perhaps a sanctuary) that had been destroyed by an earthquake. Pieced together, the text describes a time when the social order, including even the natural hierarchy of the animal world, had somehow become subverted, and in response, “the gods gathered together; the shaddai-in [(plural of ‘Shaddai’)] took their places as the assembly.”¹² The gathering of the divine assembly and the arrival, too, of the shaddai-in is strikingly similar to the scene depicted in the prologue to the book of Job: “And the sons of the gods came, . . . and also the Satan came in their midst.” (Job 1:6.) The Deir ‘Alla inscription thus supports the apparent identity between Satan and Shaddai. The use of the plural form of Shaddai (i.e., the “shaddai-in”) in the Deir ‘Alla text is of no moment; it merely suggests that Shaddai acted through a host of divine minions. We find similar plural forms of Shaddai's name in some biblical passages, particularly in older passages written in poetic form. (See Deut 32:17; Ps 106:37.)

The Deir ‘Alla inscription also gives an account of “Bala‘am son of B'eor,” a non-Israelite prophet who appears in Hebrew scripture as an enemy of the Israelites (see Num 22–24). The biblical Bala'am and the Bala'am of the Deir ‘Alla inscription are both called “Bala'am son of B'eor,” and both refer to God by the name “Shaddai.” In addition, their manner of prophecy is strikingly similar.¹³ Thus, the two sources clearly refer to the same person, making Bala'am the only major figure in the Torah whose historical existence and role is confirmed by a contemporaneous extrabiblical source.

After describing the convening of the divine assembly, the Deir ‘Alla inscription relates the gods’ response to the subversion of the social order that has overtaken the earth: “And they [(i.e., the shaddai-in)] said to sh[agar]: ‘Sew up, bolt up the heavens in your cloud, ordaining darkness instead of eternal light!’” Here, assuming the reconstruction of the text is correct, the shaddai-in (plural of “Shaddai”) are clearly presented as gods who have directory power over storms and who act as a divine disciplinary force, not unlike the disciplinary role Satan/Shaddai plays in the book of Job (see, e.g., Job 37).

One more detail from the Deir ‘Alla text merits attention. Although the text is fragmented, and its translation is the subject of continuing debate, it appears to describe a grim ritual by which El (and, indirectly, the shaddai-in) is placated through child sacrifice, thus restoring order to the world. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence confirms that child sacrifice was practiced by Near Eastern peoples in ancient times,¹⁴ and there are several references to it in the Bible (all condemning the practice).¹⁵In the book of Jeremiah, for example, YHVH decries the worship offered by the inhabitants of Jerusalem to the Canaanite god Ba‘al, saying: “They built the high places of Ba‘al to burn their sons in fire as whole offerings to Ba‘al, which I never commanded, nor spoke, nor even thought in My heart.” (Jer 19:5.)

The Deir ‘Alla inscription seems to refer in broken fragments to a similar ritual. These fragments include the following: (1) “his boy, full of love [ ]”; (2) “Why are the scion and the firepit containing foliage [ ]?”; (3) “El will be satisfied. Let him cross over to the House of Eternity [ ]”; (4) “I will put [ ] under your head. You will lie down on your eternal bed to perish.”; (5) “The scion sighs in his heart.”; (6) “Death will take the newborn child, the suckling [ ]”; and (7) “The heart of the sci...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION: “An Egyptian man saved us”
• PART ONE: Myths, Gods, and Syncretism A Commentary on Genesis
• PART TWO: The Secret of the Name Yahweh A Commentary on Exodus
• PART THREE: The Enacted Metaphor A Commentary on Leviticus
• PART FOUR: Moses' Sin at the Rock A Commentary on Numbers
• PART FIVE: The Death of Moses A Commentary on Deuteronomy
• Appendix One
• Appendix Two
• Bibliography of Cited Works
• Index
• About the Author