Part I
RETRIEVAL
Chapter 1
SCRIPTURE
Light and darkness
The light of the sun
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and the darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, âLet there be lightâ; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
(Gen. 1.1-5)
God made the two great lights â the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night â and the stars ⊠And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
(Gen. 1.16-19)
In these passages from Genesis, and in the Old Testament in general, light and sun are good and created by God. They are intimately connected without being identical. Light is daylight â âGod called the light Dayâ â and comes from the sun â âWhy is one day more important than another, when all the daylight in the year is from the sunâ (Ecclus 33.7)? All the same, the Genesis account has the sun created three days later than light, probably to rule out idolatrous sun worship. The sun is not divine but a creature serving Godâs purposes as âthe greater light to rule the dayâ determining the diurnal rhythms that mark the lives of humans and animals (Ps. 104.20-23).
In possibly the first writing of the New Testament, Paul encourages his readers in the Greek port city of Thessalonica: âYou are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darknessâ (1 Thess. 5.5). His readers were mostly recent Greek converts, and Paul was not presuming that they had a deep knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures. There are no parallels in Greek texts for Paulâs expression âchildren of the dayâ1 which seems to be an expression he coined meaning âday peopleâ or âchildren of daylightâ.2 His Greek readers will have understood it in terms of their daily experience of daylight and sparkling created sunlight. According to Paul, for Christians to avoid wrongdoing is, metaphorically, to live in daylight (Rom. 13.13) and to wake up into daylight is to cultivate joy and thankfulness (1 Thess. 5.16-18), with the risen Christ shining on them (Eph. 5.14). For the peoples of the ancient Middle East, the sky was fascinating, populated with heavenly bodies seen as living beings and often as gods. By New Testament times, however, the divinity of the sun was not an issue for the Jewish world the converts of Thessalonica had entered, and when the Jewish Christians addressed by James looked upwards at the sky, they saw the sun and other âlightsâ as changing, created things in contrast to the unchanging âFather of lightsâ (Jas 1.17).
Two varieties of darkness
In the Genesis narrative, light is brought into existence from the primaeval chaos; like darkness, it is part of creation.3 Both light and darkness provided metaphors to talk about God with light the dominant motif. God wears light like a piece of clothing (Ps. 104.2), light dwells with him (Dan. 2.22), and his brightness is âlike the sunâ (Hab. 3.4). While light is positive, darkness has two connotations, one positive and the other negative. Moses draws near to the thick darkness where God is (Exod. 20.21) and God speaks from a cloud (Exod. 24.16). âClouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundations of his throneâ (Ps. 97.2). This positive darkness complements the primary symbolism of light. It was not a major theme in the New Testament, but was taken up in Christian theology, in Origen for instance, who would talk about a âgood darknessâ, and in Dionysius the Areopagite and John of the Cross. A second metaphor is of darkness as evil and ignorance: âThe way of the wicked is like deep darknessâ (Prov. 4.19). âThe wise have eyes in their head, but fools walk in darknessâ (Eccl. 2.14). This negative darkness is the primary metaphor of darkness in the New Testament, where created light is a metaphor to express the very nature of God who âdwells in unapproachable lightâ (1 Tim. 6.16) and in whom âthere is no darkness at allâ (1 Jn 1.5).
God and the sun
Sun worship
The Old Testament expresses belief established at the time of the Babylonian captivity, after 598 bce, in Yahweh as the only God, the Creator we see in Genesis. This belief was the result of a long process of development through various forms of polytheism. Yahweh was not identified with the physical sun4 which is itself to offer worship: âPraise him, sun and moon;/praise him, all you shining starsâ (Ps. 148.3). When Joshua gives the sun orders â âSun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the valley of Aijalonâ (Josh. 10.12-13) â it obeys. Sun worship was, nevertheless, an issue. For Jeremiah, the bones of practitioners should be exhumed and scattered like dung to bake under the sun they have worshipped (Jer. 8.1-2), while Ezekiel inveighs against those who turn their backs to the Temple to prostrate themselves before the rising sun (Ezek. 8.16-18). Heavenly bodies were so fascinating that they could be a source of temptation: âAnd when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve themâ (Deut. 4.19). Examining his conscience, Job asks himself: âIf I have looked at the sun / when it shone, / or the moon moving in splendour, / and my heart has been secretly enticed, / and my mouth has kissed my handâ (Job 31.26-27).
Yahweh and solar motifs
Sometimes, however, God seems to be identified with the sun: âThe Lord came from Sinai, / And dawned from Seir upon us; / He shone forth from Mount Paranâ (Deut. 33.2). Israel gradually took over motifs from various cults, including solar cults, and applied them to Yahweh. Shamash, a Mesopotamian sun god, was a source of light, warmth and justice. In the Babylonian Shamash Hymn, he is the all-seeing eye and the guardian of justice whose âbeams are ever mastering secretsâ: âThe meek, the weak, the oppressed, the submissive,/ Daily, ever, and always come before you.â5 Israel transferred solar epithets and images from Shamash to Yahweh, without identifying the two deities. The result is a God of justice who is not literally solar, but who is described figuratively using the light and sun he created â âFor the Lord God is a sun and shieldâ (Ps. 84.11). The glory of the sun was a source of wonder. In Psalm 19, the sun is a marvel that âcomes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strongman runs its course with joyâ (Ps. 19.5). The people of Israel in turn can shine with reflected light: âArise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon youâ (Isa. 60.1).
This solar religiosity was part of the general culture of the Middle East, from the late Bronze Age (c. 1600â1200 bce) when solar language for monarchs and for divinities spread from New Kingdom Egypt to other areas including Israel.6 There were solar themes in both Canaanite and Mesopotamian cults. Probably, they were applied first to human rulers; the just ruler âis like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy landâ (2 Sam. 23.3b-4). In a second step, they were applied to pagan deities, and eventually to Yahweh7: âRestore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be savedâ (Ps. 80.7). There may have been a solar cult in the Jerusalem Temple itself (see 2 Kgs 23.5, 11 and Ezek. 8.16). Perhaps the sun was reverenced as a being in the host of heaven or even for a time with parallel cults of Shamash and Yahweh in the Temple.8 Whatever the details of the process, the result was a non-solar Yahweh described with appropriated sun metaphors.
The Sun of Justice (Malachi 4.2)
Sun and justice
âBut for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness [justice] shall rise, with healing in his wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stallâ (Mal. 4.2).9 This verse from the sixth-century prophet Malachi was taken up with enthusiasm by early Christians, at the latest from the third century, and applied to Jesus the Messiah. Now, sometimes expressions come loose from their moorings in a literary text and take on a life of their own, as with âthe slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneâ in Shakespeareâs Hamlet.10 A biblical example is Yahweh treading the winepress in anger in Isa. 63.3 which detached itself from its original context and lodged in the American consciousness figuring, for example, in the Battle Hymn of the Republic and in John Steinbeckâs novel The Grapes of Wrath. Did something similar happen to Mal. 4.2 since, in its original meaning, the verse was not messianic? It seems not. Christians were tapping into a vibrant visual tradition and into Old Testament currents of thought where God is associated with a holistic or connective conception of justice, establishing and defending right order in areas as diverse as law, wisdom, nature, cult and kingship.11 Israel used solar symbolism to link law with light, in such ...