The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Stephen: Sin leaves a taint, not just on us. You guys are all asking the wrong questions! Fr. Andrew: Okay, Matthew 8. But the problemand we already talked about this a bit with Fr. Andrew: Yeah, I know. And by the way, those handful of later Greek usages seem to be based on the Jewish use of it, meaning its used in contexts where someone is making some kind of offering to a supernatural being, to a spiritual being. The Whole Counsel of God on Apple Podcasts Fr. Fr. He heals them, and thats how Matthew interprets that passage from Isaiah 53. Why is that mentioned? Okay, all right, well then, well dip back into Hebrews which references all of this. Andrew: [Laughter] Thats right. They werent sitting there with the knife, and keep the fire going at the burnt-offering altar, because someone might show up with a pigeon. Email Newsletter, Terms of Use Privacy Policy Permissions Content Disclaimer, The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century, The Whole Counsel of God: An Introduction to Your Bible. Immediately after they are mentioned, Genesis goes on to discuss how the heart and minds of people became continually evil, and Gods flood judgement in response. And from that perspective, it just doesnt make sense. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. Stephen: Everyone loves to read Leviticus. So it had this prominence beyond those other books. There are many economic and health benefits to a love relationship, yet if a man holds his wifes hand merely to experience those benefits, then we rightly say this is perverse. Andrew: In the noun form, right, when its used for the thing on the top of the ark of the covenant, as mercy-seat, which is lovely. And he arguedone of his most prominent arguments that he repeated again again was that penal substitutionary atonement is the only theory of how it works that has a mechanism of how it worksthats his word. Stephen De Young inquires into what they reveal about the nature of Christ and His creation. Author: Fr. Stephen De Young - The Whole Counsel Blog Sometimes, yeah, thats interpreted Anytime someone puts their hands on an animal, thats interpreted as meaning that theyre putting sins on it. Fr. Fr. I mean, this is how granular this gets. He purifies and atones, coverscovers it by virtue of being here, by virtue of becoming human and going I dont know. The whole goat is burned after the blood is extracted. Praise for God is a Man of War. Stephen DeYoung takes an axe to the root of the tree of Neo-Marcionite misreadings of the Old Testament prevalent in academic and popular-level biblical studies literature.Fr. But, right, so atonement, at-one-ment: I looked this up, so I have on my desk a gigantic dictionary called the Oxford English Dictionary. Fr. [Laughter]. Fr. Stephen De Young finishes up the discussion of Revelation, Chapter 12, and starts on Chapter 13. Its just a good, good word for one thing, but yeah, yeah. 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? Andrew: Yeah, thats cool. Fr. These. How does God make it happen?. Just so you all know, its really good. Stephen De Young concludes St. Paul's letter to the Galatians, by discussing chapters 5 and 6. The real question we want to know is which Christian tradition has faithfully carried on the legacy of the apostles. Like, what did the altar do that it had to atone? Follow Stephen De Young and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Stephen De Young Author Page. Andrew: Yeah, which means its just a random toss, basically. Islam, in: Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (EBR), vol. Fr. Andrew: Like a lid, yeah, or the top. I had always assumed that the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity took time to develop, and that the apostles wouldnt have been explicit Trinitarians. [Laughter]. ,The Whole Counsel of God: An Introduction to Your Bible [Laughter]. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel . Its about the reality of when the rubber meets the road and how each of us approaches our Christian life. When he says that Christs blood is going to be upon them and upon their children, thats a blessing! But the Bible indicates that the Nephilim reappeared after presumably being killed off in the Flood. Andrew: Yeah, right, exactly. Another fun thing from Sunday school, ruined by Fr. We have a text in the New Testament that says that those very verses were fulfilled in Christs ministry. And that is so so heart-rendingly beautiful. Fr. Stephen: And consecrate them as sacred space. Yeah, and then again Hebrews 10: How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of Godand heres the important part here, for our purposesand has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace. So, again, the blood of the covenant does this sanctification. 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.. Stephen: like Brass Against and Cybertronic Spree, we refer to cover bands as atonement bands.. Fr. Stephen: So what you see, after that indictment is read, in 1 Enoch and in Slavonic Enoch and in the Apocalypse of Abraham, the same thing happens to Azazel in all of them: Azazel gets bound and chained up and thrown into a hole in the ground and imprisoned there until the end of days, until the day of the Lord, at which point he will be released briefly and then thrown into the lake of fire. So Ill take the heat for that one. Fr. Fr. Fr. Im like, why dont we start with: What does the Bible say? And that can lead to a lot of despair. Stephen has blogged about previously here as well. Fr. So we have again in Leviticus 16 a fair amount of detail describing exactly whats going on. Dan: Okay. Stephen: So hes seen in 1 Enoch, or the book of Enoch, when Azazel appears, Azazel is sort of the leader of the bad guys, the leader of the rebellious watchers, who are responsible for corrupting the line of Cain and leading them to destruction that results in the flood. Fr. Genesis, 6:1-4. 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. For we did not follow cleverly imagined stories when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 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. Welcome to The Lord of Spirits podcast. Fr. Fr. Andrew: Yeah! This is like Joseph in Genesis. Andrew: There you go: the Day of the Covering. Stephen shows convincingly that, as far as world religions go, Judaism is the newest kid on the block, having originated in the 6th century. So this is about that. He then has broken Azazels hold over the world, and so now the whole cosmos, the whole creation can become sacred space, can be purified and can be sacred space. But hes appropriately describing it to help you make that connection, because what are the gospels? Stephen: Let me throw you one quick correction here. But, yeah, the goat for Azazel has sins placed upon it, in contrast for the goat for Yahweh. Andrew: Yeah, what is it about that blood that actually has that purifying effect? Fr. Fr. It becomes this mechanism that I sort of get benefited that benefits me, rather than something that I ritually participate in. It doesnt say that it was fulfilled by Jesus absorbing their diseases and becoming sick, or absorbing their demons and becoming possessed himself; he doesnt take it on himself in that way. Atonement - The Whole Counsel Blog Fr. Well, weve looked at this one particular ritual, and now we know what it does, and it does the same thing in us, for us, around us, throughout the whole cosmos. Stephen: And the pivot-point, when we go from the end of St. Lukes gospel to the beginning of Acts, is the story he tells twice, and thats Christs ascension into heaven, which he tells at the end of his gospel, and then again at the beginning of Acts he narrates Christs ascension again. All right. Stephen: [Laughter] So well start with the good goat. Andrew: Aw man. [Laughter] Its very literal. Stephen: This goat-spirit of the wilderness is then picked up in a lot of later imagery, probably the most famous being Baphomet, this sort of Satan-figure or devil-figure. All right. Fr. [Laughter] where it describes what Tubal-cain created. Fr. Fr. Yeah, thats not in the Greek. The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Fr. All right, well, lets just kind of mop up now. So all of this is being done on this day because of his appearance. So theres a whole bunch of things like that, where weve picked it up and we assume its there in the text, and it actually isnt when you go check. So the Torah and its rituals, including the Day of Atonement, cant be an end in themselves. The poor goat. And it turns out that, before it ever got into the Bible, there was occasionally this contraction of the word at and the word one, so you get at-one, however it would have been pronounced back in, like, the 14th century. Andrew: And freedom being given by Christ from that. Fr. Yeah, so why? He picks up this idea of the eschatological Day of Atonement, and he says, Its Christ. Fr. Andrew: Yeah, so we have in our notesbecause everyone loves it when we read from Enochic literature1 Enoch 10:8. Andrew: They are not, and most people who have breakfast are not breaking a fast. These are just a few examples of how Fr. Fr. And St. John picks up pieces of this verse; elements of this idea form part of the structure of the book of 1 John. Stephen: So, easy way to prevent that: push him off a cliff, dump him in a hole. So, yeah, its literally the Day of AtoCovering. Stephen is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of the Whole Counsel Blog. How do you do that? Im going to describe this. Right. So then what does the actual ritual itself look like? [Laughter] Yeah, not all goats are the same in every reference in Scripture, but Fr. Andrew: I feel like that could be on a t-shirt. And so, of course, as weve mentioned before in a previous episode, this is over against the Apkallu myth and other similar storiesPrometheus in the Greek tradition. Stephen: And youll see it in even Orthodox translations, because a lot of our early Orthodox translations were either utilizing or aping the King James Version language, and so you can kind of see how you can get there, like if you go from a very developed theological idea, where you dont really know what the Hebrew word means, so youre thinking, Well, okay, God is enthroned behind the ark of the covenant, between the cherubim. Stephen: Yeah, weve covered a lot, and a lot of big stuff, so this one is kind of the hardest button to button. Fr. Fr. Fr. He could have used a word for stick.. Yetzer Anthropologies in the Apocalypse of Abraham (WUNT, 1.438; Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020). Fr. Dont wait: go buy yourself a copy of The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century. They would all say: the gospel of John and the epistle. Fr. Andrew: Doesnt everyone? Fr. But where did this word come from? The blood is used, the blood is smeared, wiped, used to cover. All right. Fr. Stephen De Young, goes back to what I explained earlier: our understanding of the Judaism of Jesus' day has been tinctured by Rabbinic Judaism, which we anachronistically assume reflects the tradition of the Pharisees. Fr. Fr. Its a direct reference. Fr. If you go through something, for instance, and you experience it as a kind of harrowinga purification, a cleansing, a cleaning-outas were now about to enter into Great Lent, its is a process of purification, I mean, that is what Great Lent among other things, that is what Great Lent is. You can get super in the weeds! Amazon.com: Stephen De Young: books, biography, latest update Stephen: Right, and what St. Matthew conveys there with His blood be on us and on our children in narrative theology, Hebrews just comes out and says, in Hebrews 9:18-22, that says, They were sprinkled with the blood. 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. So hes being directly connected. Photius: Im sorry. Just to set a the latter two of those preserved for us in Slavonic. What are the actual, original words? Sorry, whats your question? He holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. Andrew: Nothing to do with that. And if hes of Azazel, this one whos teaching this forbidden knowledge, then hes doing the works of his father, so to speak; hes imaging Azazel. That is the place where it is most key that this happens within the sanctuary. Fr. Fr. En (James A.) Andrew: Yeah, because doesnt the name literally mean have something to do with goats? I dont know. They and their children were sprinkled at the blood at the beginning of the old covenant, and now we have been sprinkled and purified with the blood of Christ. So thats the non-narrative theology way to say it. And in a ritual, if something is not ritualized, when you have a detailed ritual, and it says, Before the ritual, wash your hands, for example, and it doesnt say, Heres the prayer when you wash your hands, that means the hand-washing isnt ritualized, and it means it doesnt mean anything. Andrew: Yeah, and theres this distinction, then, that is made I mean, this comes in the creation, where youve got the whole sort of world of chaos versus the ordered space that God sets up. I know people are being moved to sympathy for the goat in all this. Andrew: Thats fine. The ark of the covenant is like a footstool, so theres a throne involved there, and were thinking of atonement as at-one-ment and peace and mercy. So you come up with this mercy-seat thing. Its not about some abstract concept or mechanism of salvation; its about the ritual that everyone that the people receiving this Gospel would have known, or, if they were coming in from the nations, they would have been told about this: it was part of their inheritance now, because theyre becoming part of Israel. 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. Stephen: Do you have to pay royalties now that you said that? They have to be the best goats, both of them are the best goats. I know weve said this several times already, but when atonement is talked about in the New Testament, its not referring to some abstract theological idea of atonement; its referring to what happened on the Day of Atonement and comparing, specifically, as were going to see, what Christ does, to that. Finally, Judaic and Christian mindsets will be considered to discern the differing views on the etiology of evil (angels, demons, Nephilim, giants), their interpretations of canonical and apocryphal documents, and the basis of their theological tenets. Johannes U. Ro and Diana Edelman, BZAW 534 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021), 263-88. And thats what described, like in Daniel, as the abomination of desolation, because it rendered Yeah, they couldnt use the Temple any more after that. God Is a Man of War: The Problem of Violence in the Old Testament: De Weve got a few things that we kind of need to sort of mention, and its interesting actually: the first thing thats on our list, which is in our notes, was something someone actually sent to me saying, Hey, you guys going to mention this? and thats the image of whats called the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. 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. Our sins came back to us!. Fr. Fr. Stephen De Young and Ancient Faith Ministries. Related Episodes Violence in the Old Testament: Sin, Death and Justice in the Bible Lord of Spirits: Blessings and Curses What exactly is a blessing? Coming from a Protestant background and having read Revelations a couple of times. Dont mention that! Fr. 1 John 2:1 talks about 1 John 2:1-2 is talking about the Day of Atonement. Andrew: It was. We cannot really begin considering "giants" unless and until we define that vague, genetic, subjective term (and I can think of 5-6 definitions). Stephen: Right, that was later. [Disgusted noises] All this disillusioning. Fr. And so when the lots are cast, one of these two goats is designated as the goat for Yahweh, and the other goat is designated as the goat for Azazel. 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. Fr. And so, start with a verse near and dear to my heart, because I spent a chunk of my life with it, and thats 1 John 2:2. It makes no sense. This is. Now that dome is expanded to encompass the whole world, because Christnot only does he not just send the stuff back to Azazel, he gets rid of Azazel. This video is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. Hes coming; we have to get ready. although not Pennsylvania, but the Emmaus that my Emmaus is named after. So I dont think they were putting their sins on presbyters. Thats where the feast comes from, the feast of lights. Fr. He took our infirmities upon himself. And, as you can imagine, thats taken in a certain direction. 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? Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah! Andrew: No, I dont think so, but yeah [Laughter] Hello, all of you Jonathan Pageau fans out there. It has this sort of importance as a major battle site. 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. And so thats one significant element of this eschatological Day of Atonement, and this is the one thats particularly emphasizedits all in Hebrewsbut this is particularly emphasized in the Johannine literature. Stephen: That would be like an inception; yeah, that might be good. Now, a couple notes. 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. He also discusses Chapter 10 in its entirety. Fr. Stephen: Yeah Heres where I have to say thats a mis-translation. And, one way or another, thats going to kill the goat. Fr. Stephen: No, it has nothing to do with that. Andrew: Yeah, so theres that sense of domination of demons in the world, especially Azazel. Stephen: Ruined, yeah. So those are some of my take-aways from our conversation this evening. I always wanted to better understand it. The Nephilim were said to be a race or a group of people that had distinct physical characteristics of large size and great strength. Stephen De Young Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century Kindle Edition by Stephen De Young (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 357 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle $9.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook $0.00 Free with your Audible trial Great on Kindle Great Experience. [Laughter]. Stephen? Stephen: You mean butterflies arent curdled dairy products? Dan: Yeah, the second question was: What was it about their understanding of the goats blood that was understood to have a cleansing or sanctifying effect over the various parts of the holy of holies and the Temple that you guys discussed? Andrew: Awesome. Fr. I mean, St. Matthew is himself a Jewanti-Semitic?hes writing the most Jewish of the gospels, the most Hebraized of the gospels! Stephen De Young concludes Revelation, Chapter 9. Fr. Fr. Photius Avant: I am. Andrew: Indeed. Amen. And then what happens next? Fr. I mean, obviously he has to touch it, but theres not this ritualized laying-on of hands thats going on that Im seeing here, unless Im just missing it, Father; I dont know. Fr. Stephen: In fact, its canonically forbidden to bring livestock into the church. So I mention all that because, as we read Scripture more and as we live the Christian life more, if we understand what it is that Christ is doing and how the Scripture tells us what hes doing, then that gives meaning to so much of our lives. That might sound familiar to some folks who have read the book of Revelation, because this is exactly what happens to the dragon: hes seized by an angel, hes bound, hes thrown into a pit, hes kept there, and then on the last day hes released briefly and then thrown into the lake of fire. Is the ecclesial body of Eastern Orthodoxy the most orthodox (faithful to the apostles), or is the most faithfulness to orthodoxy perhaps found in a Protestant denomination, or maybe Roman Catholicism? The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century It sounds like were FBI profilers. Fr. But 1 John is actually the book of the New Testament that uses the actual word, ilasterion, atonement, most frequently. Fr. 1 John 2:1 talks about Christ as the high priest who intercedes in prayer, and then 2:2 says that Christ is the atonement, not only for our sins but also for the whole world. Foiled again! The important thing is just: you have to get the blood out of it. Fr. And then, when eventually Israel makes its way to the promised land, its Israel, and then the nations are out there. Andrew: Yeah, which I love that verse, because if you ask people sometimes, Why did Jesus come to earth? theres all kinds of things they might say, some true and some not so much, but I love that: He comes to destroy the works of the devil.