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A Sabbath Day's Journey

By: Rev. Paul Landgraf
What is a Sabbath day's journey? First of all, it is a Jewish expression. We measure distances in meters or yards. The Jews had a certain distance that they could walk on Saturday before it would be considered work. So their synagogues that they went to on Saturday could not be very far away. The word appears only in Acts 1:12 and indicates a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.

With that in mind, I think it is important to remember the origins of Christianity. Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'. Much of the Old Testament has a literary structure that we are not aware of because of our modern emphasis on chapter and verse divisions. Within many of these blogs, I try to get the reader to see a bigger picture, a larger perspective that often includes the Old Testament and the environment that was present when the New Testament was seeing the Light of the day.

Second, a Sabbath day's journey is intentionally short. These 'journeys' with a text, almost always one of the three readings for that Sunday, are deliberately brief discussions. This blog was never designed to be a comprehensive look at any text. Sometimes a specific word is studied in detail. But, as a whole, a blog entry, by itself, is meant to be quite brief.

Finally, since the term 'Sabbath day's journey' appears in Acts, it is meant to appeal to a wide variety of people. This blog is meant for those who cannot come on Sunday mornings. And it is also for those who do come on Sunday mornings but would also like a further study of the text. It is also for those who live somewhere else in the world (besides Drake and Freedom, Missouri, USA) and would simply like a further study of the text. It was meant to get these different groups of people to start thinking about the biblical texts. Part of the reason for this blog is that I am not able to have a bible class on Sunday mornings with either congregation, and so, to have a blog like this seemed like a good idea. I hope it is helpful for you, in whatever situation you may be.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. And thank you for taking the time to read this!

June 5th, 2021

6/5/2021

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Last Sunday it could be said that the focus was on seraphim, and we looked at the only passage that mentions this type of angel, Isaiah’s temple vision in chapter six of his book. This Sunday, the Second Sunday after Pentecost, the Old Testament reading focuses on the fall into sin [Genesis 3:8-15], but soon after that text is the first time that another type of angel appears. This time we will be looking at the cherubim.

A word somewhat similar to cherub is chubby, but please do not think of these angels as chubby and cute. Their first mention is in Genesis 3:24, and they have some serious business on their hands. And here is a somewhat-literal translation:

And he [Yahweh God] drove out the man and caused to dwell on the east to the garden of Eden the cherubim and the flame of the sword, the one turning every way, to guard the path of the tree of the life.

There are obviously many more passages about cherubim, and we will be looking at some of them in the next few weeks. But this one is special. This one is the first. And it seems as though you might also say that this one is ‘popular’. Here is a quotation from Stephen Cook, who is connected to the Society of Biblical Literature, to give you an idea as to the extent of their popularity:

In the ancient Near East, cherubim were winged, composite beings (“sphinxes”), regulating access to the center of the cosmos and divinity. They guarded temples and royal thrones, prime earthly access points to the transcendent (page 179 of “Cosmos, Kabod, and Cherub: Ontological and Epistemological Hierarchy in Ezekiel.” This chapter is by Stephen L. Cook, pages 179-197, in Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality; SBL Symposium Series, number 31; Brill, 2004.)

What is interesting is that these cherubs in other cultures not only have the job of guarding, but they are sometimes seen guarding a tree. Here is a much longer quote from the same work and from the next page (page 180), but hopefully it is helpful:

Parallel imagery of monstrous, guarding beings positioning themselves symmetrically about a holy, divine axis is common both in the ancient Near East and in the mythologies of world cultures. In these images, the cosmos’s axis often appears as a highly stylized, symbolic tree, which marks paradise, or Eden, where God is present (cf. Gen 3:24; Ezek 31:9). Earthly temples aim to model this locale (cf. Ezek 41:18), presenting themselves as Eden, God’s mountaintop garden….

A cylinder seal from northern Syria (Alalakh level I-Ii, 1225-1175 B.C.E.) shows seated, winged sphinxes flanking a sacred, cosmic tree. They have raised their paws, forming a shield against all encroachers. Similarly, two ram-headed sphinxes mirror each other across a palmette tree on an ivory carving from Arslan Tash (ninth century B.C.E.). Antithetical sphinxes, from about the same time, also appear on an ivory panel from Nimrud. They flank the same voluted tree, which rises heavenward in tiers.

From farther west, winged male sphinxes guard the cosmic center on five cast plaques from Mycenean Cyprus (twelfth to early eleventh century B.C.E.). The plaques form part of a tripod’s ring-shaped top. On each one, sphinxes sit upright, at attention, arrayed about a stylized, lily-like tree. They are lean and hungry, and wear round helmets with knobs and plumes.

This quotation seems to say that there may be something to this biblical text, and having cherubs and trees appear in so many other places, it may actually be true!
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