 Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, episode 166, Melchizedek, part 1A, I'm the layman, Tray Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Hey, Mike, how you doing? Well, I'm doing pretty good, better since getting back home, things can return to the normal level of chaos, I guess, but I like that. What sounds interesting, Mike, is what we're going to be covering here over the next three weeks, Melchizedek. There's so much information to cover. I don't even know what you're going to do. Yeah, it's going to be three parts, you know, it might as well jump into it. There's just so much material about Melchizedek, and the reason there's a lot of materials is because there's so many problems. There are so many points of confusion, so many points of ambiguity, so many things you can see in the text, and then go down two or three trails and trajectories and really rabbit holes in this case, that it's a challenge to basically just cover it all, much less try to reach any sort of conclusions about a number of things, but we'll, you know, we'll do our best. We'll chop it up into three parts, and I don't think any of them are going to be short, but I know this one's not going to be short, so in this first part we're going to focus on Old Testament material. So we're not going to get into Second Temple Jewish stuff, that's going to be part two, and then of course New Testament material, part three, but obviously parts two and three are going to build on this one. And you're going to see, I can telegraph this much here, you're going to see how certain elaborations are made on the Old Testament material, and some would even use the word alterations in Second Temple Jewish literature and in the New Testament. The Old Testament stuff is adapted in a number of respects by Second Temple Jewish tradition and New Testament, and that's not the same. We'll hit an example or two today that the New Testament or any of this other material is making stuff up. It's just that they'll seize on a particular trajectory and then kind of run with it or apply it in a different way that, you know, it could be a legitimate application, but you could apply it in two or three other ways too. So there's just a lot here that there is to consider. This is one of those topics that is kind of a vortex. A simple question like who was Melchizedek turns into a dozen other questions, most of which don't have clear-cut answers. And I would say, again, this is easily one of the most complex topics in biblical studies. Let's just jump into the passages where Melchizedek is actually mentioned. We're going to start with Genesis 14. The other one is Psalm 110, but I'm going to stick here with Genesis 14, and we're going to spend a lot of time here. Then we'll pick up Psalm 110 at a certain point. So Genesis 14, 17 through 24 reads as follows, and I'm using the ESV. After his return from the defeat, of course, the person spoken of here is Abraham. After Abrams returned from the defeat of Kedor Leimar and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shavah, that is the king's valley, and Melchizedek, king of Salem or Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God most high, and he blessed him, that is Melchizedek blessed Abraham and said, Blessed be Abram by God most high possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And Abram gave him a tenth of everything, and the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself, in other words, the people that Abram had saved. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted my hand to the Lord God most high possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich, I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me, let honor, ash, coal, and mammary take their share. That's the end of the parikope, the little section there in Genesis 14. Now there are a number of issues that arise just from what we read, and really even just a handful of the verses that we read. Each has a bearing on how later literature, Second Temple, Jewish literature, and New Testament material, ought to be understood or how they can be understood. And it has a bearing on whether the other literature reinterprets what's going on here in Genesis 14 in a manner consistent with the original Old Testament passage. Now this in turn has a bearing on Christology, we'll eventually get there when we get to the New Testament material, and that'll actually build on some Second Temple material too. Since the book of Hebrews links Jesus and Melchizedek in some way, and that's a little vague for right now, but we'll eventually get there. What I say in part three, I hope will be sort of evident from what we cover in parts one and two. So for our starting point here in Genesis 14, we're going to begin with the name, just the name Melchizedek. And I think, well, what's the big deal about that? Oh, there's just a lot going on there. Now in Hebrew, we have Melchizedek, basically two parts of the name. And I should note, I'm going to try to remember to do this for Brenda, who does our transcripts, that sometimes academic works will take Sedek and write it, T-S-E-D-E-Q or E-K, or they will instead of T-S have S with a dot underneath, it's the sound. T-S combined, and nobody follows the same convention all the time. So either one of those is correct, it's the T-S sound. So the name Melchizedek. Now in the course of discussing the name, here's what we're going to hit. So just keep these things in your head. We have to talk about the type of name this is in terms of historical Semitic analysis. We'll talk about what the name means. And we also need to talk about the theology that's sort of glommed onto or packed onto this name. And that's going to take us into the issue of Israelite religion. And that in turn is really going to be focused on the second half of the name Sedek, because I will telegraph this at this point and we'll eventually return to it. Sedek is a deity name. It's the name of a god, a Canaanite god. And so that is going to factor into what we have here, what we're looking at when we see Melchizedek in Genesis 14 and elsewhere. Now many presume that Melchizedek means king of righteousness, since that is a wording adopted in the New Testament, Hebrew 7-2, interprets Melchizedek's name, again Hebrew, Melchizedek as king of righteousness. And you can translate it that way, but the Hebrew is actually more flexible than that. Here are some questions to ask as we try to analyze the name. Is the name a Northwest Semitic personal name or not? If not, it might be a royal epithet that is a title. So do we have a person's name here is Melchizedek, Melchizedek. Is that a personal name? Is it actually the name of a person? Or is it a title? It could actually be either. I'll explain why in a moment. Another consideration is if it's not a name at all, again, and if it's a title, is there precedent for that view in the Old Testament where you have something that looks like a personal name that might be a title? If on the other hand it is a personal name, is it a theophoric name or a descriptive name? Now I need to unpack both those terms. Theophoric names are names that have a divine element in them, a deity name as part of them. So, you know, in Melchizedek, if it's supposed to be understood as a deity name, then Melchizedek would be a theophoric name. One component of it would be a deity. Kind of like Jeremiah, Jeremy, Yahoo. Yahoo at the end is the divine name Yah, okay? You know, Zedek, Yahoo. Okay, we have all these sorts of names in the Bible that part of the name is the divine name or some other deity name. Is Melchizedek one of those? Or is it just merely descriptive? In other words, going back to Hebrews 7-2, King of Righteousness, maybe Zedek, that second part of the name, is not a deity name. Maybe it's just an adjective and therefore it's descriptive. My king is righteous or King of Righteousness. So there's all sorts of things, even with the name to think about, and all of those things are possibilities. So let's take the name apart, as scholars would do, and start thinking about each of them. So we have Melchizedek, two parts. We'll start with the spelling. The New Testament King of Righteousness presumes that the name is what is called in Hebrew grammar a construct phrase. That means two nouns next to each other. There's noun X, and then there's noun Y. So you have an X of Y relationship, this noun of that noun. So in this case, it would be the word for King, Melch in Semitic, and then we'd have the word for Righteous or Righteousness. So King of Righteousness. Noun of Noun, X of Y relationship. So that's possible. It's possible. However, there's actually something that's kind of in the way of this. The first part of the name is Malki. It's a noun, MLK, plus a suffix, that little E on the end, the little I letter. You cannot have, by rule of Hebrew grammar, a suffix in between two nouns in a construct phrase. So it looks like the last little letter, that little I letter, it's a Yod in Hebrew. That shouldn't be there. It messes up the construct phrase. And if it's not a construct phrase, then what in the world is going on? It wouldn't be King of Righteousness. It would be My King. There's the noun plus the suffix, Malki, My King, is Righteous or My King is Satech, the deity. So which one do we have? Is it a construct phrase or not? Now, there's a way to sort of get around this. There's something called the Chiric compagnus, which is sort of an arcane point of Hebrew grammar and syntax that in most simple terms, the Y that is a suffix could actually be kind of a... Again, this gets so technical so fast. It could be the vestige of a case system. In other words, it may not be a suffix after all, even though 99% of the time when you have this little Y on a noun, it's going to be a suffix. There are apparent exceptions. And so you might have this little letter in there that messes up the normal construct phrase. It might be okay. It might not be a suffix after all, and you might actually be able to translate it, king of righteousness. But odds are, again, that wouldn't be the normative way to understand the phrase. So what do we do with this? Well, let's just go back here and say, okay, we've got two choices where we're at right now in our discussion. King of righteousness. Right now, if we just look at the name, that's possible, but less likely. And that means we don't have an X of Y, king of righteousness. We don't have that X of Y relationship between nouns. We have something like, my king is fill in the blank, either righteous or seduct. So we either have a theophoric name or a deity's part of it. My king is seduct, whoever seduct is. And again, we're going to talk about seduct as we continue. You either have that situation or you have some description. My king is righteous. And seduct is either an adjective or a deity name. That would be the normative way of reading this. Now let's take the second one. My king is seduct for a moment. Seduct is a deity. This is a known deity from Canaanite religion. And of course, Melchizedek is not an Israelite. He's not a descendant of Abraham. He is a Canaanite. So if we look at it as my king is seduct, and we'll again talk a little bit later about who seduct was and how can that be reconciled with the most high? Isn't that Yahweh? Who's the seduct guy? So we have to address that. We'll return to it. We're just focused on the name here. If we take it as my king is seduct, then we have something to not to worry about, but something to consider and try to parse. There are other names like this. There are examples of the euphoric names in the Old Testament, as I mentioned. And a little bit of a wild card here. The first part of the name, MLK, that's also a deity name from Canaan. So you might actually have two deity names here. You could have my king is seduct, or if we take MLK as a deity name, you could have Melch, or Melch. This wouldn't be Molech. That would be something different, but you have MLK is righteous. So we have an MLK deity known from Canaan, and we have a seduct deity known from Canaan. So what do we do with all that? Now let's take a look at the Old Testament. I'll just give you a couple examples. It'll probably, I hope, sort of unravel the complexity here. You have names like Malkiel in the Old Testament. Genesis 46, 17. That could be translated my king, Malkiel. That's Hebrew for my king is L. L is a deity name. You could also spell it, or have a variety, a derivative, something similar as Malkiela. We have Ezra 10, 31, Jeremiah 38, 6. That would be my king is Yahweh, or Yah. We also have names like Yehoed Sadaq, or Yehoed Sadaq. That would be the first part of the name, Yeho, or Yeho. Again, in Hebrew, I can't explain why Yeho is still a divine name in a podcast, but either of those would mean Yahweh is righteous. Haggai 11, Ezra 3, 2, you get those examples. And if you're paying attention, you might think, well, couldn't it also mean Yahweh is Sadaq? Yeah, it could. Again, so what in the world are these people in the Old Testament? What are they thinking when they take these names? Were they names given at birth? Or are they titles later? Do they make theological statements? Are they titles that just sort of telegraph some belief that the person has? And we don't really get that the true name of the person, you know, what's going on here? And again, all these things are possible with Melchizedek. It could be, my king is righteous, my king is Sadaq. It could be king of righteousness. It could be something like, Melch is righteous, or Melch is Sadaq. It could be any of those five things, just in this one little name. Another example from the book of Joshua, Joshua 10-1, Joshua 10-3. The closest example is Adonai Sadaq. In Hebrew it would be Adonai, my Lord, and then Sadaq. Sadaq is my Lord, or my Lord is Sadaq. Now, this particular guy in the book of Joshua, in Joshua chapter 10, verses 1 and verse 3, is the king of Jerusalem at the time of Joshua, which at the time of Joshua is a Canaanite city. And Sadaq, again, as we're going to see a bit later, is a well-known Canaanite deity. So it makes sense for the king of Jerusalem at that particular time. Remember, Jerusalem is only going to become the capital of Israel when David conquers it. You know, we're not even near David's time yet. Originally it was this Canaanite city, and so here you have a king that, again, is this really his name? Is this his name his mom and dad gave him, or is it a title? But either way, we know him as Adonai, my Lord is Sadaq, which would make a lot of sense given in context. Well, if it makes sense for him in the days of Joshua, why wouldn't it make sense in the days of Abraham to have Melchizedek mean my king is Sadaq, Melchizedek? Again, taking on this name of a Canaanite deity, because he's a Canaanite. Again, he's not an Israelite. Now, I realize when you get into discussion, you look at this and you go, well, that makes me a little uncomfortable because in Genesis 14, this guy is supposed to be priest of the Most High God, and if his king is Sadaq, then how in the world does that work? What happened to El-El-Yon, God Most High, the God of Israel? Who's this Sadaq guy? Again, these are difficult questions, and in today's episode, we're going to have to get into those things, but we're still at the name. So I'm not done with that yet, because there are other things to consider here in relationship to what we've already said. Now, as far as, again, Adonizedek, just so that you fix it in your mind, because we're going to come back to this more than once, we have in him sort of a, what some scholars would say is kind of a template example, a very convenient parallel. My Lord is Sadaq. He's in Jerusalem. That's in the land of Canaan proper. It's Canaanite territory. Again, Joshua's in there to conquer things, but he doesn't actually conquer Jerusalem, because Jerusalem, by the time of David, is still not in Israelite control. David is the one who has to conquer it. So we could have a thoroughly Canaanite context for certainly Adonizedek and very likely Melchizedek. So if we presume Melchizedek is a proper personal name, it's probably theophoric. It's probably my king is Sadaq. Now, we can't say that conclusively. It might be descriptive. It might be my king is righteous, and then referring to some unknown king that Melchizedek was beholden to, we just don't know. But if we look at Adonizedek as this sort of really convenient example, a lot of scholars are sort of steered into the direction because of Adonizedek and Joshua Tent. They're steered toward the notion that Melchizedek and in Hebrew, Melchizedek is a theophoric personal name that this guy, again, is either given a name that honors the God Sadaq by his parents or he takes it himself, and then it would also function as a title. Now, in the dictionary of IVP's dictionary, dictionary of the Old Testament that the Pentateuch volume, S.J. Andrews notes the following in this regard. So this is a short section from his entry on Melchizedek in the Pentateuch volume. He says, Melchizedek and Adonizedek may have been Canaanite royal epithets. So he's going to try to defend the epithet view that this is not necessarily a personal theophoric name. So here's the other side. E.A. Spicer has argued that Melchizedek is just the Canaanite equivalent of the Mesopotamian title, Shahr Meshaarim, which means the just king or the righteous king. This would suggest that Melchizedek is a royal title rather than a personal name. The use of MLK and then Sadaq as a descriptive title is actually attested a few times in the Northwest Semitic world. A 14th century BC letter addressed to the king of Egypt discovered at Ras Ibn Hani, that's going to be an Ugaritic context, contains several royal epithets applied to the pharaoh. Included in this salutatory list are such titles as MLK, that's the word for king, again in Semitic, MLK and then RB, Ra, the great king, and MLK Mitzrayim, king of Egypt, as well as the phrase MLK Sadaq, the just king. So that again just to interrupt Andrew's little essay here, that's precedent again for taking this as a descriptive epithet, the just king. So here you have this guy come out to meet Abram, he's a priest of the Most High God and his name happens to be Melchizedek and it just means his name, his title is the just king, or my king is just. So it could refer to some guy we don't even know, rather than a deity, that's possible. But again, based on the analogy of Adonai, it's a deck. Most scholars gravitate toward the theophoric name option, but you got, this is a legitimate possibility, even though it might be a minority view. Back to Andrews. He writes, the 10th century BC inscription of Yechimilch, king of Biblos, claims that he is MLK Sadaq, and then the conjunction and MLK Yashar, so that he is a just and upright king. So there you get the MLK Sadaq in that inscription from Biblos. Later in the 5th century BC, the inscription of Yechimilch, also king of Biblos, contains the phrase, for he is a just king, a MLK Sadaq, just king. That's the end of Andrew's entry. So I think he marshals a decent amount of evidence there that the elements of Melchizedek's name might be a royal title, might be an epithet, might be some descriptive phrase about some guy that we don't even know who it is, because it wouldn't be the guy standing in front of Abram. And he's a priest of the Most High God, and his name, again, would be honorificly given to him to honor his king, whoever that is. Or it could be a theophoric name. My king, you know, the guy who's standing in front of Abraham, his name is a theological statement. My king is the deity, Sadaq. Those are your two major options. Again, Hebrews 7-2, king of righteousness. You can sort of get there from my king is just or my king is righteous. It's just a little, not a play on words, but it's just another way of saying the same thing. So the New Testament, you know, rendering of this isn't inaccurate. It just doesn't inform us about what the other options are. Now, let's go to, again, the way that this is described. Because now we have another element here that might, again, make us gravitate away from one option and toward another. Genesis 14-18 actually does describe Melchizedek as a king. He is the Melch Shalem, the king of Salem, king of Shalem. Okay, so if he's the king of Shalem, and his name is Melchizedek, it's kind of weird because the guy standing in front of Abraham is a king. He's the king of Shalem. But his name, does his name mean my king is righteous? Well, if he's the king, who would his king be? Again, this is another reason why, even though this idea of my king is righteous, that it could be an epithet that refers to some other person. Even though that's possible, it just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense if Melchizedek himself is a king. Because then he'd have another king who's referred to as right. It just makes more sense to have Melchizedek as a priest of the Most High God and a king of Shalem. And his name means my king is Cedek. In other words, it's a theological statement. It's a theophoric name. This is why most scholars gravitate toward that view. Not only is it possible, not only does it have a good precedent in the Old Testament and in lots of other Semitic languages as well, but it also seems to make better contextual sense rather than the alternative. So let's talk about King of Shalem. You know, SH or kind of interchangeable here in Semitic, at least at this stage. We have here this description. Melchizedek is the king of Shalem. I'm going to try not to say Salem since that's such an anglicized pronunciation here, but I'm going to try to say Salem. Psalm 762, in the Maseridic text, that would actually be verse 3. So if you're looking in Hebrew, you need to know that. So in English, English Bible, Psalm 762 places Salem in parallel with Zion. Let me just read you the verse. His abode has been established in Salem, his dwelling place in Zion. And if we actually click out to that verse, his abode, well, the prior verse is in Judah, God is known, his name is great in Israel. So the hymn there, his abode, being referred to as obviously the God of Israel. So Psalm 762 places Salem in parallel with Zion suggesting that Salem is to be identified as Jerusalem. And you say, well, duh, isn't that obvious? Well, actually it's not because you have some other things going on here. This identification is affirmed in the Targums, which are late, the Dead Sea Scrolls, again, which are also later than the Old Testament. That's inter-testamental material. Also in Josephus and early rabbinic and Christian literature, they all, again, say that Salem is Jerusalem at Zion, six, one half is another. In the Amarna tablets, Jerusalem is spelled Uru Salem, possibly reflecting a combination of the Sumerian word for city, Uru, and the name, Salem. Now, in 397 AD, Jerome, again, the famous person, famous translator, who gave us the Latin Vulgate, Jerome rejected the view that Jerusalem was Salem. Of course, this is going to be, since it's Jerome, it's going to filter down into the church tradition. He argued that Genesis 1418 referred to Salem, a town located in Samaria northeast of modern Noblesse. It is also noteworthy that Hebrews 7.2 appears to interpret MLK, the King of Shalom or Salem, as a title. It doesn't interpret it geographically because in Hebrews 7.2 we have the phrase King of Peace. It doesn't say King of Jerusalem. It doesn't say King of Uru Shalom. It doesn't say King of Zion. It says King of Peace. So here we have another problem. So not only do we have a problem with the name, and again, Hebrews 7.2 can be in the ballpark. Saying that Melchizedek's name means King of Righteousness is linguistically possible. It's unlikely that's what's going on in the Old Testament story originally because Melchizedek is himself a king. And again, because of that, we sort of lean over, at least I do. We lean over to the theophoric name option. My king is ascetic. So the writer of Hebrews doesn't get this wrong. He is taking one possible trajectory and sort of playing on it. And he does the same thing with this King of Shalom phrase. Because he doesn't interpret it as King of a geographical spot, King of a particular city. He actually takes that phrase and translates it, renders it as King of Peace. So we have both connection points in the book of Hebrews back to Genesis 14, obviously, because they're talking about Melchizedek. But we also have points of disconnect. We have a sort of intentional use of these phrases by the writer of Hebrews, again, to make a certain theological point. I don't want to drift into the New Testament too much, but I want you to see that when we get to the New Testament, we're going to have to come back to this issue. Again, the name itself and this descriptive phrase, King of Shalom, aren't really precisely reproduced in the book of Hebrews the way people in the time of Abraham or in the biblical period of Israelite stuff. They probably would have read it differently than the writer of Hebrews does in chapter 7 of that book. Again, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. Let's talk about more on the Shalom-Jerusalem connection. I'm going to quote now from Anker Bible Dictionary at length here, Philip King's Entry on Jerusalem. Because it's kind of interesting. It gives you, again, some of the backdrop here. To the term, he writes, It was the name of the city from early times. Jerusalem is mentioned for the first time in the Egyptian execration texts, which are 19th to the 18th centuries BCE, where the form of the name is probably to be read as The name appears again in diplomatic correspondence, this time as Shalom in Acadian in the Amarna letters, 14th century BC. Abdi Heba, a vassal of Egypt, who was reigning in Jerusalem at the time, sent letters to the Egyptian Pharaoh, Ammonophus or Ammonhotep, the fourth, who was Akhenaten, affirming his loyalty again to the Pharaoh. Later, Assyrian texts also refer to Jerusalem. For example, in the records of Sennacherib's Siege of Jerusalem in 701 BC, the form or Salimu or other variant spellings appears. The name, Jerusalem, Hebrew Yeru Shalayim, is of uncertain etymology. Although it is apparently of West Semitic, i.e. Canaanite origin, it appears to be composed of two elements. Yeru, YRW, which means to establish, and Shalom, SHLM, the name of the West Semitic God, deity, Shalom. So here we run into another deity name. Shalom is a deity in Canaanite religion. We keep running into Canaanite deities here, don't we? We have Malk, we have Zedek, and now we've got Shalom. Again, that shouldn't disturb you because look at the context. We have Abraham, he's in Canaan, we don't have the conquest yet, we don't have anything, it's Abraham. We don't have any of this territory under the dominion of Yahweh, the God of Israel. We have Canaanite location, and you would expect Canaanite names, and if people are naming things in Canaan, they're going to be naming things after deities because hey, that's what you do. It's honorific. So we have here, again, it could mean Yeru to establish and then Shalom or Shalom, the name of the West Semitic God, Shalom. Patron of the city. The meaning, continuing now with ABD, the meaning may be foundation of Shalom, in other words, foundation of the God, the deity, Shalom, mentioned in a mythological text from Ugarit. Genesis 14.18 refers to Melchizedek as king of Shalom or Shalom, likely Jerusalem. If so, this shortened form is the first biblical allusion to Jerusalem. In other words, if it really is Jerusalem, it's the first time it's mentioned. In Psalm 76.3, Shalom is used in synonymous parallelism to Zion, referring to the Divine Dwellin. Joshua 10.4 contains the first specific biblical reference to Jerusalem whose inhabitants were Canaanites. Again, in the days of Joshua, there it relates to Adonidesedek, king of Jerusalem, who formed a coalition with neighboring kings and attacked Gibeon. Joshua defeated them, but Jerusalem was not taken. According to Judges 1.8, the Judah Heights captured Jerusalem and destroyed it by fire. The text is historically, let's put it this way, the writer here, Philip King, says the text is historically unreliable. He doesn't take this as a historical statement, because he continues, Jerusalem was not conquered until the time of David. Well, let me just editorialize here. You can burn the city and not occupy it. It's not real complicated. Back to the selection. Some Old Testament texts, Joshua 15.8, 1828, Judges 19.10, so on, equate Jebus, J-E-B-U-S. The name derived from the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Jerusalem, with Jerusalem. Again, this is me now interrupting. Wait a minute. How can you have Shalom and have this be Jerusalem and who's this? What's this Jebus? The Jebusites, original inhabitants of Jerusalem. How does this term fit in with these other ones? Well, King continues. He says, Jebus is the name derived from the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Jerusalem. Conveyed the impression that Jebus, Hebrew Yavuz, was the pre-Divitic name for ancient Jerusalem. The city was never actually called Jebus, though it had been a Jebusite settlement. The Amarna tablets attest that Jerusalem, not Jebus, was the name of the city. Nor does Jebus appear in other ancient Near Eastern texts, whereas we just read a bunch of examples. Urushalom, Jerusalem, actually does show up in ancient texts. Despite the lack of extra-biblical evidence, King says some would argue that Jebus and Jerusalem designate the same city. Others suggest that Jebus may be identified with Shaphat situated slightly north of Jerusalem. So that's the end of King's entry. Now, Stephen Reid, also in the same publication, Anchor Bible Dictionary, in his entry on Jebus says this, some scholars have been troubled by this identification of Jebus and Jerusalem for several reasons. First, this identification is found in each case in a parenthetical note, which could be a later redactional identification as editorial or scribal addition to the text. Second, while the name Jerusalem occurs in the 14th century El-Amarna texts and in the 19th-18th century BC, execration texts, no reference is ever made to Jebus. Third, Jerusalem seems to be too far south to be located on the southern border of Benjamin. While the Jebus sites inhabit and control Jerusalem, this does not necessarily mean that Jebus was Jerusalem. Miller contends that Jebus prescribes misidentified Jebus with Jerusalem on the basis of the Jebus site control of the city and suggests that Jebus should actually be located at present-day Shafat. If Jebus was actually used as a name for Jerusalem, it must have been a temporary name and must have existed alongside the older name, Jerusalem. So I read those two selections again to alert you to the fact and to alert listeners to the fact that we're well aware here of the Jebus Jerusalem issue. We're well aware of the Urushalam really the focus on the Jerusalem name in other ancient Near Eastern texts. So we're not skipping any of the thorny details here on the podcast. We don't do that. But what it really comes down to is most likely, again not because of the Bible or because we have something to defend here, it is most likely that Jerusalem, Urushalam, is the original name and the only name actually of the city and Jebus could have been something very close to adjacent to it and the people of that area moved into the city, took control of it for a while and that's where the association came from. So back to Melchizedek, you've got him as king of Shalom, king of Salem and that would make sense that that would be historically accurate because of what we just read back in the days of Abram this place would have been known not as Jebus, it would have been known as Urushalam, the city of Shalom or the foundation of Shalom and again, Shalom is a Canaanite deity. So what do we have to this point? Let's just summarize a few things. We have somebody named Melchizedek in Genesis 14. He's both a king and a priest. So his name is probably Theophoric. My king is Cedek because my king is righteous as the title that would make this king Melchizedek referring to some other king which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We have a king priest then of a Canaanite city city is Salem, Shalom, Jerusalem for all practical purposes here in pre-Divitic days prior to the Israelite occupation under King David. We have a Canaanite orientation therefore and that makes sense in light of Joshua 10 and Adonai Cedek being the king there. A little bit later we still have this place under Canaanite control. That makes good sense historically. It's clearly a Canaanite name and it's arguable that the name of the king of this same place, remember Adonai Cedek is the king of Jerusalem and Melchizedek a few hundred years whatever prior to him was king of Shalom. So he would have been king of the city and then Adonai Cedek is the king of the same city and Adonai Cedek's name is my lord is Cedek so again we take that back to Genesis 14 it makes sense to have Melchizedek's name mean my king is Cedek Adonai Cedek is my lord is Cedek so you have two guys likely king over the same place at different time periods and both of their names have this Cedek element in it and it's a Canaanite context so that's what we have to this point. Alright that concludes part 1A Welcome to the Neck and Bible Podcast Episode 167 Melchizedek Part 1B I'm the layman Tray Strickland and he's the scholar Dr. Michael Heiser Hey Mike, how are you? Pretty good, pretty good looking forward to getting back into Melchizedek Alright it sounds good, alright Michael I'm ready for the second half of Melchizedek in the Old Testament. Yeah absolutely let's get into that so who in the world is Cedek it's time to focus on who's this deity, why don't we have this deity name here what looks like a foreign deity name associated with this guy whom Abraham is talking with, who's blessing Abraham in the name of the Most High God because that kind of suggests that Cedek is the Most High God, not Yahweh see that's the issue here for a number of scholars and a number of readers so that's where we have to focus now I'm going to read extensively from Bernard Bato his article on Cedek in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible it's very good, again this is going to be an extensive quotation and he goes through the material then I'll make some comments typically like I do as we go and then also afterwards so here's Bato again a lengthy excerpt from D.D.D. He writes, the West Semitic deity Cedek or Cedek righteousness is found in the Bible only in personal names Malki Cedek Genesis 14, Psalm 110 and again the book of Hebrews obviously and secondarily Adonai Cedek Joshua 10, 1, and 3 both of them are Canaanite kings of pre-Israelite Jerusalem Cedek is probably to be identified with the deity known as Ishar among the Amorites and Ketu in Babylonian and thus a hypostasis or personification of the God Shamash's function as a divine overseer of justice. Now that's two sentences in and we've already got things done rave, so this is Mike now basically you have a deity that went by different names among different people groups and among those different people groups the names that they used were indicative of the sun gods Shamash that's a Semitic word for sun of Shamash's role as divine overseer of justice. Now think about this way just think about what I just said if you have the sun god for some Canaanites being the god of justice well doesn't justice isn't the Canaanite word for that Cedek well yeah it is you know so you could you could refer to the different role of the deity by different terms and this is how you get this sort of like round robin of terminology in ancient Dereastern deities this happens all the time where different people groups would refer to a deity by different names but assigned to him the same properties and it creates confusion for us because of the different names so that's what you have going on here back to Batto. The cult of Cedek appears to have been well established in pre-Israelite Jebusite Jerusalem some aspects of this cult apparently were translated into Yahwism worship of Yahweh in a number of texts righteousness with a capital R appears either as a member of Yahweh's court his council or as a personification of Yahweh's concern for justice kind of like Yahweh himself evidence for the West Semitic deity Cedek is mostly indirect but nonetheless compelling most decisive is a statement by Philo of Biblos that the Phoenicians had a god name Cedek or in other words Cedek Philo who claimed to get his information from the Phoenician writer San Kunyat I always mess this name up San Kunyaton noted that the Phoenicians numbered among their gods quote Misor and Cedek correspond to Hebrew Mishor which means justice and Cedek which means righteousness Cedek is not directly attested elsewhere as the name of a deity but indirect evidence comes from two sources the Amorite and Babylonian Pantheon and of course West Semitic personal names the West Semitic god Cedek seemingly corresponds to the deity known as Qitu in the Babylonian Pantheon and as Ishar in the Amorite Pantheon in Mesopotamia the preservation of truth and justice was considered to be the particular domain of the sun god Shamash truth and truth capital T or right capital R was personified and deified as the god Qitu which means truth or right from the Akhating root Kanu and the Hebrew root Kone Qitu was often invoked together with the god Misharu justice one or both of these deities were described as ceded before Shamash in other words they were Shamash's attendant or ministers of Shamash's right hand it appears that the deity known as Qitu in Babylonia was known further to the west under the names Ishar and Cedek all three names having essentially the same meaning but operative in different linguistic communities West Semitic personal names contain the root Cedek are attested at many sites including Elamanna Ugarat, Rima and Mari in the Bible the god Cedek appears only in the personal names of two Canaanite kings again this is familiar territory Melchizedek and Adonai Zedek fueling speculation that Jerusalem was a cult center for Cedek in pre-Israelite times Melchizedek is identified not only as king of Solomon but also a priest of God most high today usually understood to mean that Melchizedek was a devotee of the god El head of the Canaanite Pantheon others argue though that Melchizedek was a priest of the god Cedek again I'll just stop there for a moment that's understandable because of what we've talked about before his name might be you know my king is Cedek back to battle one hypothesis suggests that Cedek is to be identified with the god Shalom his name is embodied in Jerusalem support for this hypothesis may come from the eugridic personal name Cedek Shalom there's a eugridic personal name that actually combines the two okay that's me talking now so support for the hypothesis may come from the eugridic personal name Cedek Shalom should this name mean Cedek is Shalom rather than the more probable Shalom is righteous Shalom certainly has connections with a solar cult aspects of which may have been incorporated into Israelite Yahwistic religion a long standing cult of Cedek at Jerusalem could account at least partially for the fact that even during the Israelite period Jerusalem laid special claim to such titles as the city of righteousness city of Cedek that's Isaiah so it's much later Isaiah 121 verse and also 126 Jerusalem is called the city of Cedek city of Cedek righteousness and pasture of righteousness that's Jeremiah 31 23 pasture of Cedek Cedekah righteousness although evidence of a solar cult in the temple of Jerusalem has been exaggerated in the past by some scholars nevertheless some form of a solar cult was practiced in the temple in Jerusalem right up to the time when the temple was destroyed the 6th century BC that's Ezekiel 8 16 and in our series in Ezekiel we talked about that one we hit chapter 8 about people worshiping as a sun deity and again you can see how they could do that we talked about that then but God wasn't real happy with it because you're not supposed to worship the objects and the celestial objects in the sky so that's familiar territory at least to long term podcast listeners here back to battle it is unclear that this solar cult is traceable back to Jebusite times however it may be that Manasseh introduced this ritual only a century earlier under Assyrian influence Josiah's reforms circa 6 20 BC during which quote the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the house of the Lord unquote were removed and quote the chariots of the sun unquote were burned that second kings 2311 again this could indicate that these things you know that these these reforms of Josiah were in part aimed at destroying the symbols of Assyrian hegemony over Judah namely these the sun worship symbols aspects of the west submitted God said we're absorbed into Yahwism at some point rather than remaining as an independent deity said righteousness was translated as a quality of Yahweh thus at times said we are found in synonymous parallelism that's an important thought because for the biblical writers when when think of it this way when Jerusalem is taken over by David and obviously think about well just think about biblical history okay so here you got Abraham let's just go all the way back there Abraham worships Yahweh it's just Abraham and he has some kids he's got some servants I mean those are the Yahweh worshipers around they're living in Canaan because God told him to go there everybody else is a Canaanite so of course you're going to run into people who are Canaanites and they're going to be like this Melchizedek guy who is a priest of the Most High God and at the time just think about what we have to deal with here could we say that Melchizedek at the time considered the Most High God Cedek in other words that was his name for the Most High God if you walked up to Melchizedek and said hey who's the Most High God he would say Cedek alright so that doesn't mean that it's a different deity than Yahweh necessarily okay it means that we have a different name for the same deity and it can go either way and then scholars are divided what we know for sure though but we know for sure is that by the time you get David come in there take control of the city there's no ambiguity as to who David is worshiping and when the historical books again get written they're going to reflect a theological revolution that no we're not going to come into this place called Jerusalem and okay we're coming in here as Yahweh worshipers and yeah you guys are doing your Cedek thing over here no we're here to tell you that the Most High God is Yahweh and you have this sort of textual merging that reflects this sort of what's the term I'm looking for kind of a theological statement I don't want to say theological takeover but that might be a good way to put it. David goes in there and says we are claiming this turf because this was given to our ancestors by Yahweh the Most High God we are claiming this turf this city this is going to be my capital capital I am the one chosen by God to be king and this is going to be his place and we're not messing around with all these other deity names if there's talk of the Most High going on here we're going to use the term Cedek we're going to use the term Yahweh because he is the Most High so it's difficult for us looking at this to think how this system kind of worked again maybe this is a poor analogy but think about the way we refer to God we refer to God as God as Yahweh as El as El Shaddai as Father if we really sat down and thought about it we probably got 10 or 15 ways we refer to God and we don't theologically have any other deity above him but yet we use all these different names and what if we were doing that in a historical context where some of the people who heard us use these names thought we were referring to other deities that's the kind of thing you have going on in biblical times it's really confusing to know who's thinking what about a single deity or more than one deity at any given time and so what the biblical writers try to do is they try to consolidate they're making theological statements they have to include some of these other names because they're just parts of history they're historical events they're historical deities this is the way things were but the biblical writers make an effort to make a theological statement and sort of merge all of these things into Yahweh or they they take these other names and they align them with Yahweh as the most high God and when you do that and when you codify it when you actually produce a written document this thing we call the Bible or the Old Testament anyway that's the thing that your people are going to read from and so that act of codifying this theological thinking this theological how do I want to say it this theological statement this theological corrective point of clarification this theological clarification about who it is we're worshiping when you do that and you codify it in a written document again the Old Testament that is sort of at the forefront of the transition of theological thinking so it's really hard to say again even with certain biblical characters what they were thinking about at any given point theologically because all we have is a particular story about them they might bear a name like Melchizedek we don't really know who he was thinking about or what he was thinking but we do know what the biblical writer is thinking the biblical writer is going to make sure that names like Zedek or El or El this and that should die whatever the biblical writers are going to make sure that their readers know that who we're talking about is the God who made a covenant with Israel his covenantal name is Yahweh he could go by these other names and did and we have biblical evidence for that their agenda and I'm using that in a good way they're trying to teach theology by this strategy of subsuming all this other deity stuff these deity language these deity names subsuming that into Yahweh of Israel the covenant name of the God who brought us out of Egypt and all that sort of thing the Bible itself in its creation is a theology lesson we're looking for the theology now let's go back to Bato pick up where we left off he says again rather than remaining as an independent deity Zedek righteousness was translated as a quality of Yahweh in other words it's not a biblical writers transform the name away from being possibly understood as a separate deity and they make it a quality of Yahweh they bring it they subsume it with Yahweh there's other deities like Devere and Ketev they don't the Canaanites would think these are big time deities in certain past this is just me now rabbit trailing in certain past is Devere and Ketev again are depicted as servants of Yahweh again that's a theological statement like Habakkuk 3 they follow in Yahweh's retinue you know Devere and Ketev is plague plague language and disaster language they serve Yahweh they're subservient they're lesser they're part of his own heavenly entourage they do his bidding for him and both those terms have to do with natural disasters so it's a theological statement deities other deities are reduced to servants of the most high who is Yahweh or their attributes get absorbed into Yahweh as the most high this is the Biblical writers do this all over the place because they are teaching theology that's what they're doing so again back to back to again I'll try to get through this section rather than remaining as an independent deity Satec righteousness was translated as a quality of Yahweh thus at times Satec and Yahweh are found in synonymous parallels here's some examples Harken to me you who pursue righteousness Satec you seek Yahweh it's Isaiah 51 one they're used in tandem there another example they will be called the oaks of righteousness Satec the planting of Yahweh Isaiah 61 3 Satec and Yahweh used in parallel Psalm 4 6 sacrifice sacrifices of righteousness and trust in Yahweh at other times Bato continues righteousness and capital R seems to be used as part of a compound name Yahweh righteousness that is in Psalm 17 verse one you have ESV has here a just cause oh lord and in Hebrew you could actually translate that here oh Satec Yahweh you could combine those names there attend to my cry sometimes Bato continues it's also used as a substitute for Yahweh for unto righteousness unto Satec will judgment return at Psalm 94 15 in some instances righteousness Satec appears as a hypostasis of the divine sovereign's invincible right arm by which he rules the world and protects his devotees Psalm 48 11 righteousness Satec fills Thy Yahweh's right hand fills Yahweh's right hand Isaiah 41 10 I Yahweh will support you with my right hand of Satec my right hand of righteousness Isaiah 51 5 my Yahweh's righteousness is near my salvation has gone forth and my arms will rule the peoples in Psalm 118 the two typologies are joined after a reference to vindication through the quote right hand of Yahweh unquote in verses 15 and 16 the Psalmist praise in verses 20 open for me the gates of righteousness Satec I will enter them praising Yah praising Yahweh this is the gate to Yahweh through which the righteous enter poetic parallelism here allows no doubt that the gates of righteousness is the semantic equivalent of the gate to Yahweh Yahweh is Satec the defender of righteous persons Jeremiah 33 16 also played on this theme declaring that in the end time Jerusalem will be known by the name Yahweh is our righteousness Yahweh is our Satec now one more section from Bato here Satec and Meshor again remember those righteousness and justice is what those terms mean Satec and Meshor were attendant deities of Shamash they also have their reflexes in Yahweh worship as dual qualities of the God of Israel Isaiah 11 4 says that the spirit of Yahweh will possess the messianic king with the result that quote he will judge the weak with righteousness and defend the poor of the earth with justice he will judge the earth with Satec and defend the poor of the earth with Meshor it's at Psalm 45 7 and 8 other passages substitute the plural Meshareem for Meshor as the parallel word to Satec but the concept is the same example Psalm 9 9 he judges the world with righteousness Satec he judges the peoples with justice and Meshoreem Psalm 58 2 contrasts the righteous rule of Yahweh with the chaotic rule of the false gods quote do you truly oh gods speak righteousness Satec do you judge humans with justice Meshor Meshoreem in Psalm 98 9 even the normally rebellious waters of chaos acknowledge the kingship of Yahweh quote he will judge the world with righteousness Satec and the peoples with justice Meshore in Isaiah 45 19 Yahweh derides the gods of the other nations and proclaims that he alone is capable of salvation I am Yahweh who declares righteousness Satec who announces justice Meshore unquote and that's the end of those entry at least what I'm going to use from it so you see what the biblical writers are doing you know what where does all this leave us biblical writers polemically associated Yahweh and Satec they merge them they combine them they're teaching theology consequently Melchizedek could bear the name of Yahweh or Satec and not violate the theological proposition that you know Yahweh or Satec because in the final form of the biblical texts they're one of the same he could bear the name Satec and refer to him as most high because Satec was Yahweh okay it's not a problem you know in its historical setting again do we really know that Melchizedek comes out to meet Abraham and he's hey hi I am Melchizedek my name is my king is Satec and I really know that that's your Yahweh is Melchizedek thinking that well we don't have any way of knowing that but again let's stick with what we do know and what the biblical text shows us what we do know and what the biblical writers do is they make it clear that look we got this plurality of names going on here but it's Yahweh who is the most high and all of these other names are going to be subsumed into him because that is our theology that is what we believe that is the truth that we are putting forth that Yahweh is king of kings and God of gods and at one time you know we may not have cared what name you used at one time you know we wouldn't have batted an eye because you know it's kind of like inside baseball we all know what we're talking about here but now that we're codifying this we're writing this down for posterity we want to make a theological statement and that's what they do that is what the biblical writers do everywhere now I'll add just one thought again this might be a little bit controversial but hey that's what we do here in the podcast this whole proposition this whole way of understanding this again to take all these names and sort of merge them and you know present a unified theology you know that's good news that's theologically consistent I think that's completely understandable but guess what that doesn't work very well with mosaic authorship you know how would we assume that moses knew any of this or moses strategically did this because Jerusalem hadn't been conquered it's not conquered by joshua's day okay we still have a king night out of night's a deck in joshua's day rule you know sitting as king over Jerusalem so you know what we have here again I'm not saying again if you're listening to the podcast you know my view I'm what used to be called a supplementarian I accept a mosaic core of what we call the penit tube and then I think there was a lot of things added to it and of course an editorial hand over all of it to produce the Torah in its final form that makes a lot of sense and it helps us to understand you know things like all this name merging and how different names you know plotted out at different points of biblical history is really talking about the same most high god that's easy for us to understand in hindsight but it's tough to assume it's tough to get there if you think Moses wrote every word of the Torah because there are just things going on in the text to produce this theology that Moses just didn't know and Moses had no reason to even think about so again I'm just throwing that out there here we are again the simplistic view of mosaic authorship that I've talked about before on the blog or on the podcast I understand it but it gets in the way of clarity it gets in the way of talking about what we actually find in the text in a coherent sort of way again to me I don't really care to parse out who wrote what when and all that kind of stuff I'm just saying that to sort of get there in a coherent presentation you've got to think about mosaic authorship you've got to think about the authorship of the Torah a little bit differently than we typically do in practical terms you know I think this is kind of evident at this point in the podcast as we move along here Israelite religion is messy again if you take a providential view of inspiration which I've argued is the most defensible view and the most coherent view then you have God prompting people all along the way to do good theology as they wrote and as they edited the whole point of the enterprise was theological messaging and if we believe there was a God behind it all the God of the Bible then the mission was accomplished they did the job so to summarize to this point Melchizedek's name again my king is Cedek or my king is righteous allowing for that possibility his title king of solemn associate him personally with kingship Jerusalem righteousness peace and priesthood that's what we have in the Old Testament it doesn't matter if we have Cedek as a theophoric name because in biblical theology in the big picture of biblical theology Cedek is Yahweh that's what the biblical writers are presenting you know in the bigger picture so here we have this guy again he's associated with the most high God Cedek Yahweh he's the king of Shalom Salem Jerusalem we've got themes of righteousness going on you know injustice going on he's also a priest he's a king priest you see what I'm doing here there's a profile now building that people in the Second Temple period are going to use they're going to talk about what's the meaning of this character you know what he gets picked up later in Psalm 110 again associated with messianic kingship they begin to talk about Messiah along the lines of these themes that derive from the name and from the historical setting in Jerusalem I'll say secondly at no point in all of this is there any sense that this man Melchizedek was a divine being I know that that's popular with a lot of Christians you know because of the New Testament phrase about Melchizedek in Hebrews without beginning or end we'll get to that what I'm telling you is you can't get a divine being out of any of this and so my predilection is to view Melchizedek not because I don't have anywhere to hang that hat on now if Melchizedek is a type a prototype you know we'll use that word I might be more familiar in English but if Melchizedek is a type of Christ well okay we get that and Christ you know as the second person the Trinity is eternal without beginning without end all that kind of stuff but that doesn't mean Melchizedek has to match the analogy at every point a type again is a prefigurement it's not a one to one equivalent in all aspects so I'm just saying so let's turn now to the second Old Testament issue Psalm 110 it's almost as gnarly but we're not going to spend as much time on it because we'll pick up with it later when we get to Messianic stuff put in the form of a question why does Psalm 110 connect the dynastic line of David and hence the Messiah with the priestly order of Melchizedek the answer is going to be David's association with Abraham in terms of lineage genealogy and how the original Melchizedek material frames the account of Abraham eschatologically believe it or not there's eschatology in the in the Book of Genesis in the Torah and the specific link is the rule of the son of David the rule of a descendant Yahweh produces over all the nations that's the eschatological part so in Psalm 110 we read this the Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool the Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter rule in the midst of your enemies your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments from the womb of the morning the dew of your youth will be yours the Lord has sworn to change his mind you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek that's the first four verses and now Psalm 110 turns eschatological the Lord is at your right hand he will shatter kings plural on the day of his wrath day of the Lord he will execute judgment among the nations filling them with corpses he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth he will drink from the brook by the way therefore he will lift up his head now again there's lots of technical argumentation based on intertextuality throughout the Torah and with Melchizedek and Abraham and this Psalm all these points of linguistic connection it's not going to translate well to a podcast but I'm going to pick a few out think about it this way ask yourself this question is it a coincidence is it a coincidence let me set it up this way we just read Psalm 110 we have this statement about hey messianic guy ok the Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your foot stole so the messianic king is going to have a scepter he's going to rule in the midst of his enemies he's sent forth from Zion he's a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek and then it turns to this day of the Lord language about the conquest of the nations now is it a coincidence that talk about the most high divide the nations outside of Psalm 110 that this language shows up in Genesis 14 with Melchizedek and Deuteronomy 32 verse 8 when the nations most high divide the nations again that Deuteronomy 32 worldview here it is again Melchizedek and Abraham the priest of the most high Melchizedek blesses Abraham the one whose seed will be the linchpin to reclaiming and ruling over the disinherited nations I think you can see that there are obvious theological connections here when you talk about Melchizedek and Abraham you're also half again if you're tuned in to the theology again you're reading the Bible you have the whole Bible of the whole Torah at least let's say you've read Deuteronomy 32 oh that's just terrible you know God disinherited the nations how's he going to get him back you know then oh Genesis 12 right after the Babel event he calls Abraham and he says to Abraham it's through you through your seed that all the nations of the earth will be blessed so Abraham has something to do with getting the nations back and then when Abraham meets Melchizedek well it turns out Melchizedek is priest of Elion the most high God and Melchizedek blesses Abraham well that's kind of interesting again these connections are deliberate and there's a lot more if you go to Numbers there's another coincidence that in the Balaam Oracle Numbers 24 verses 16 through 18 Balaam seeks quote the knowledge of the most high unquote and then he launches into an eschatological prophecy in Numbers 24 of how the Abraham that is Israel of course the Messiah by extension will defeat its enemies and possess their lands look at what Balaam says in verse 17 it's Numbers 24 I see him but not now I behold him but not near who's the him who does Balaam see but not now who does he behold but he's not yet near a star shall come out of Jacob and a character shall rise out of Israel that sounds like Psalm 110 yeah it does and it's not a coincidence this star shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth and then if you keep going in verse 18 guess who else gets conquered Edom and Seer remember our episodes on Obadiah remember our series on the podcast on Obadiah and how Edom and Seer how these places were emblematic of Babylon oh yeah Deuteronomy 32 that Babel was the place where the nations were disinherited does Scepter rise out of Israel sound familiar from Numbers 24 17 and of course you get that language in Psalm 110 in verse verse 2 the Lord sends forth from Zion the body scepter where does the scepter rise out of Israel what's the other passage it's Genesis 49-10 the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples the nations did you ever look for the context of Genesis 49 if you go back to verse 1 the context is quote in days to come in Hebrew it's literally the last days I look at Numbers 24 14 back to Numbers back to the Balaam oracle behold I am going to my people come I will let you know what this people will do to your people in the last days in the latter days there's something going on here between Genesis 49 Numbers 24 Deuteronomy 32 Psalm 110 Genesis 14 Abraham and his seed and Melchizedek all of these things are tied together and the context for tying them together is reclaiming the nations that were disinherited Deuteronomy 32 world view again there's something going on here with this talking and of course it's situated in the last days in the conquest of the nations the defeat of Babel the children of Abraham Melchizedek gets thrown into the mix because the name Most High is intertwined in several of these passages and the fate of the nations coming back to Yahweh is tied to all of them so in Psalm 110 the Davidic king is described this way you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek on the right hand he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath he will execute judgment among the nations the last thing we want to talk about here is why the priest language why does the king need to be a priest what about the priest of Aaron I'm sure you've asked that question the short answer is that the evidence in the text that Melchizedek's kingship remember he was king of Jerusalem no less and again is that a coincidence you know since it was David remember David the one who produced the Messiah the messianic line is that a coincidence since it was David who conquered the city and made that same place the place where Melchizedek was king David made it his capital is that a coincidence no Melchizedek's kingship is connected to Abraham it legitimizes the rule of Abraham's seed and I think of it this way Melchizedek was king of Jerusalem David is going to be king of Jerusalem Melchizedek was priest of the Most High so by connecting Melchizedek to David by means of Jerusalem it also connects both of them to David because David is a descendant of Abraham and it legitimizes the rule of Abraham's seed who is David and of course ultimately will you could say the same thing about the seed that David produces it's also a descendant of Abraham that's the Messiah it's Jesus another one of the reasons why we have Jesus genealogy going back through both of these guys it would seem reasonable to think that this original kingship the original kingship of Jerusalem doesn't go back to David it goes back to Melchizedek the original kingship of Jerusalem also entailed a priestly role and the priestly role would not be inherited by the sons of Aaron it would be inherited by the sons of the descendants of Abraham and it has chronological priority over the Aaronic priesthood so the Aaronic priesthood split the role between it gave Israel two leaders political leader was Moses priestly leader was Aaron the argument that Aaron's priesthood catch this, I mentioned this before in Q&A about Melchizedek but we have to bring it up again think about this, this is kind of a radical thought there is a good argument to be made that Aaron's priesthood was a divine concession to the lack of faith on Moses part in other words it was plan B the idea is that plan A would have been to make Moses both the political leader and the priestly leader but Moses was weak and lacked faith so God allowed Aaron to enter the picture certain things in Exodus 3 and 4 it's kind of striking Exodus 3 18 let's just start there they will listen to your voice, this is God speaking to Moses and you and the elders of Israel should go to the king of Egypt and say to him the Lord, Yahweh the God of the Hebrews has met with us and now please let us go three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God then in Exodus 4 1 you have the statement Moses answered but behold they will not believe me or listen to my voice for they will say the Lord did not appear to you God just told him in Exodus 3 18 look, they're going to listen to your voice and Moses says no they won't and this happens all the way there's a lot of this going on in Exodus 3 and 4 where Moses takes literally takes what God says and just says no I don't believe it that's not going to happen and again you have a series of faithless statements on Moses part and God being patient you know puts up with it to a certain point but note the point at which God becomes angry and what he does this is Exodus 4 Moses said to the Lord oh my Lord I am not eloquent either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant but I am slow of speech and of tongue then the Lord said to him who has made man's mouth who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind is it not I the Lord now therefore go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak Moses comes back verse 13 but he said oh my Lord please send someone else I mean he just can't believe then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said is there not Aaron your brother the Levite I know that he can speak well behold he is coming out to meet you and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do he shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as God to him and take in your hand this staff with which you shall do all the signs that's the end of the passage verse 17 so it's at this point that Aaron's status is elevated to co-leader and that will be his status again that his status will be what leads to him becoming the high priest now again this is the proposal and it's not new with me you know scholars have talked about this a lot this would mean that the Aaronic priesthood is at best a concession or an accommodation to Moses at worst it's a punishment in other words it's not allowed to approach the most holy place later on but Aaron is Moses apparently leaves for Egypt without Aaron Exodus 4 24 through 27 you know in that whole funky episode of his Zipporah where God's going to kill Moses he apparently left for Egypt without Aaron and incurs God's wrath at least you know in part for that there are other things going on there as I blogged about the episode also has something to do with Moses failing to circumcise his son okay but you know at the end of it he links up with Aaron you know and it's like okay now we can go so apparently after all of this Moses just disobeys or is just incompetent and he leaves without Aaron in Exodus 4 29 Moses and Aaron gather the elders quote unquote precisely what God had told Moses to do alone in Exodus 3 16 Aaron also repeats signs that God originally told Moses to perform Exodus 4 30 example Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs Aaron did the signs in the sight of the people Aaron acts in the place of Moses at other times frankly in two chapters Exodus 4 and 5 for example and chapter 6 in Exodus 6 12 Moses again does not believe the people will listen to him he says it again he doesn't believe the people will listen to him if he speaks God's words to them so Aaron is brought on the scene in verse 13 to get the job done in the rest of Exodus 6 we get the genealogy of Moses and Aaron and then the next and then the text adds what feels like an explanation for why both genealogies are there here the genealogies this is verse 26 or at least the comment on the genealogies so you have the genealogies then you run into verse 26 and it says this Exodus 6 these are the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord had said bring out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts it was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing out the people of Israel from Egypt this is Moses and this Aaron on the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt the Lord said to Moses I am the Lord tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you but Moses said to the Lord behold I am of uncircumcised lips how Pharaoh listen to me you know the writer here you know is this Moses here we are back to the mosaic authorship here but the writer here right after giving the genealogy of both basically explains has to explain why Aaron is there and he does he does so the leadership think about the flow of the biblical history the leadership up to this point up to Moses had been one guy and he was like you know you can almost count Joseph but he will just stick with the major patriarch then he hit Moses they are single leaders and single mediators they are the go between themselves and the rest of the people between God and the rest of the people and here with Moses it splits Aaron's priesthood is the result of Moses' unbelief from the very beginning it is a concession and incidentally doesn't that make the golden calf incident tragic because that's Aaron's fault Moses will eventually step up but by then the Aaronic priesthood is in place now presuming the Melchizedek priesthood is legitimate because it predates Aaron and it goes back to Jerusalem and it's linked to Abraham whose seed will bring back the nations okay assuming all that presuming the Melchizedek priesthood is legitimate it was the ideal it was political leader and priesthood combined and it was God's original pattern some very obvious connections to the apocalyptic Old Testament framework again spring from this look at the passage go back to the passage the Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool it's kind of interesting because that means that the one who the Lord says to my Lord until I make your enemies your footstool he's already reigning he's already seated at the right hand but not yet he's not yet triumphant over the nations verse 2 the Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter ruled in the midst of your enemies Zion is Shalom it's Jerusalem the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek the Lord is at your right hand he shall shatter kings on the day of his wrath he will execute judgment among the nations over the wide earth so you have this sense even in Psalm 110 that a descendant of David blessed by Melchizedek is already reigning but not yet there's this sense that we have this already not yet thing going on so again to wrap this up who is Melchizedek in Old Testament thought we're just focused here on Old Testament we've gone through a number of these things there are lots of issues here as long as we've taken it it's still just touching touching the basics you could drill down further on any number of these points but we've got a situation here where we have again these passages connected we have these two individuals Melchizedek and Abraham Abraham again is connected to the nations because it's his seed that will bring them back Melchizedek is connected to the fate of the nations because he is the priest of the most high God he is the most high God divorced the nations in the first place back in the days of Babel these themes are connected these textual links in and among all of these different passages you had to bail them language about the scepter about the star that will rise he's seeking the knowledge of the most high all this stuff that we've been through who is Melchizedek well other than being a person in history in the life of Abraham he is the prototype for the human king priest he's a human leader but he also has a mediatorial role to all other humans and back to the nations again this is a post fall story so we have the restoration of human priest kingship ruling in God's stead in other words Melchizedek is kind of yeah he's the prototype for the king that will come but he's also emblematic of what Adam was to the original king steward ruler and Edom and he was the mediator between God and all the other humans that would be born from Adam and he you know from the union of Adam and his wife so Melchizedek again is part of that template and that template was consistent you have one ruler you have one figure that God is sort of using as a priest to the rest of his descendants the patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob that extends again all the way up until Moses when you hit Moses you know it bites the dust let's just put it that way it fails it fails because of Moses God has to make a concession but Melchizedek again is the template and that's why he is referenced as the ideal if you're going to have the Messiah and the Messiah is going to be the second Adam and the Messiah is going to be a king and a priest the only touch point back to Adam is this guy Melchizedek you have to go there you have to validate the combination of king and priest in the Messiah you can't validate that with Moses and Aaron you have to go back to the original template you have to go back to Melchizedek again who blessed Abraham there you have the connection to ruling the nations bringing the nations back because the Messiah just happens to be one of the seed of Abraham so it's a complex matrix of ideas and you get these Melchizedek prophecies Psalm 110 and elsewhere showing that God planned a return to the priest king idea and he connected his rule with the reclaiming of the nations and the priest king would be the seed of Abraham and later the seed of David the conquest of Jerusalem by David shows God's intention as the blessing of the priest king of the most high in Abraham's own day showed God's intentions as well the descendant of Abraham would follow in the steps of Melchizedek so again it's complicated it's a matrix of thoughts and we're only in the Old Testament 2nd temple Jews are going to see all of these things that we just overview they're going to see it all and they're going to talk about it and they're going to think messianically with these data points and they're going to say some amazing things in 2nd temple texts and that's what we're going to cover next because what they say is going to bleed into the New Testament just like the Old Testament is going to bleed into the New Testament so that when you get the guys like the writer of the book of Hebrews he's thinking about the Old Testament but he's also thinking about the way his own ancestors and contemporaries thought about that Old Testament material and it's going to influence him he's going to see things they're going to help him think they're going to help him make connections and those connections are going to wind up in our New Testament Mike, is there any new ideas that you're presenting here about Melchizedek or are there other scholars out there that are connecting dots like you? Oh yeah, there's a pile of information on Melchizedek I'll list a few things in the bibliography or on the episode page some of it I should a small portion of it is accessible to the normal person but most of it's in literature there's a whole I'm trying to think of what might be a really it's cheap, it's a cheap little paperback there's a book called Melchizedek and Melchira Shah who's sort of the bad guy he's going to be the Satan figure has a lot of this in it journal articles I can put a few journal articles the ones I list on the episode page I'll try to put those in the protected folder I might list some things on the episode page that aren't in the protected folder but listeners will at least get some of that there just isn't much popularly written that ever is text based it really all springs from the book of Hebrews and it says oh by the way about this Melchizedek guy shows up in the Old Testament you don't really get all the stuff we talked about here in popular discussions of Melchizedek Is there anyone at the top of your head that you can think of or recommend that's trying to pin down who wrote what and when in the Torah? Oh as far as the Torah, that's a mess it's kind of like it's kind of like Hebrew and Greek teachers everybody wants to write their own grammar it's kind of a joke everybody thinks they can do it better this is what you got here there are lots of theories about Torah almost as many as there are scholars it's a bit of an exaggeration but there's really no one volume I could think of something like who wrote the Bible by Friedman but he takes the classic J-E-D-P thing which I think is based on circular reasoning again you read something like that and it sold over a million copies because it was written to the lay person people were interested in it but it's the standard view and again it has some serious logical flaws to it but it does point out interesting things that you have to deal with so to me it's not a total loss but I think probably the best thing within the grasp within the reach of a lay person would be like a dictionary entry maybe in one of the intervarsity press dictionaries but all that's going to do is give you an overview what the problems are and what people have proposed there's nothing that's just going to oh that ends that debate thanks we don't have to think about that anymore there's nothing like that that sounds good well real briefly again Mike what can we expect in part 2 part 2 is going to be inter-testamental 2nd temple Jewish literature how did they think about this whole testament stuff what are some of the things they noticed and their speculations about Melchizedek alright sounds good well we knew Melchizedek was going to be information overload which personally I enjoy these are my favorite episodes when you get into the nitty gritty like this and I love it welcome to the Nekka Bible Podcast episode 168 Melchizedek part 2 I'm the layman Tray Strickland and he's the scholar Dr. Michael Heiser hey Mike we're out of the Old Testament into some new the 2nd temple period yeah 2nd temple period again and both the Old Testament stuff and in this episode today are going to be the necessary backdrop for the New Testament material we're going to drift into New Testament a little bit today like we sort of did a little bit earlier on talking about the Old Testament but we're going to be talking about some things today that I think listeners will you know sort of it'll perk up your ears because some of this stuff is going to sound New Testamenty more than even the Old Testament stuff but for by way of a summary I guess a little bit of a recap for the Old Testament stuff some of the sort of summary statements that we had for that material I'm just going to try to re-summarize here and then we'll jump into 2nd temple literature again and for those who may not be familiar with that term 2nd temple literature 2nd temple period is what we more popularly refer to as the inter-testamental period so that period between Old Testament history and the beginning of the New Testament there's lots of stuff going on there lots of stuff being written and there's some of that devoted to Melchizedek so by way of again summarizing where we've been we have Melchizedek again his name could either be some sort of description you know my king is righteous or it could be a theophoric name my king is Cedek we talked a lot about that we have this guy with the title the king of Salem or Solem and he was associated with some really important themes kingship obviously priesthood again those are the two most apparent but also Jerusalem he was the king of Solem we talked about how that's Jerusalem even if his name is the theophoric Cedek who would be Yahweh in Israelite religion anyway he is still associated with righteousness and peace because of the Cedek term and the Solem term in those either proper names or topographic name you know place name at no point in the Old Testament material any of it was there any sense that Melchizedek was more than a man we never ran into anything that would indicate that people thought or he was portrayed is probably a better way to say it in the Old Testament as a divine being he just he just isn't so he you know when we look at him the you know how we need to sort of focus on him at least to this point is just as a human being he is chief, royal and priestly representative of the Most High God that's who he is in the Old Testament the divinity aspect of Melchizedek is something that's going to begin in what we cover today in the Second Temple period now you know since he is I mean think of it abstractly since he is the chief, royal and priestly representative of the Most High God and that think about the wording there he is associated with kingship and priesthood he is focused in Jerusalem all these things those items those terms and the motifs the symbols all the baggage you know the theological baggage that goes with that priesthood and kingship that's invariably going to get linked to Messiah to a messianic figure a deliverer figure once you're into messianic territory then you start to be thinking a bit more again abstractly, theologically the way you think about those things is going to sort of transcend normative time and place for a number of Jews and so it's not an abnormal thing that people would be thinking of Melchizedek as some sort of divine figure later on because again he's really the representative of the Most High God then you know maybe God is going to be behind this person in a special way or is going to send him in a special way and as people are speculating on who the Messiah is going to be and what's the Messiah going to be like and there you know if you've read Unseen Realm this is going to be familiar to you but if we're thinking about the covenants and certain things in the Old Testament that involve the second Yahweh figure the visible form of Yahweh as a man the angel of the Lord and how that terminology and certain episodes in which the angel plays an important part how those sort of overlap with again important themes of covenant and kingship and even priesthood and you know fighting Yahweh's battles all these things again I use the phrase a lot that's what we're dealing with here and Melchizedek becomes part of this matrix of ideas and since that matrix contains not just kingship and priesthood but also again this figure of the second Yahweh at some point you know again depending on what passage you're in all of those things get thrown into the blender and so when Jews in the Second Temple period look at all that they look at the whole matrix all these passages that are interconnected and the ideas go along with them there's going to be a few of those Jews that start thinking about the Messiah in divine terms and since again Melchizedek is connected to the Davidic dynasty that would produce the Messiah Allah, Psalm 110 they're going to be thinking about Melchizedek as a divine being too that maybe he is prototypical or a type of the Messiah he's a prefigurement of the Messiah and once you start thinking those thoughts or to viewing Melchizedek as more than just a normal guy and that's what's going to happen now we also talked about in the Old Testament how the priesthood of Aaron was essentially a concession by God plan B if you will in response to Moses' unbelief again that is not something we're necessarily going to return to until we get to the New Testament when the priesthood of Melchizedek is compared to the Aaronic priesthood that's something we'll return to not so much today but in our New Testament episode we will and that's the mix that we're dealing with again Melchizedek is linked to Abraham is linked to Abraham's seed is linked to Eleon the most high is linked to Deuteronomy 32 which is linked to the divorce of the nations which is of course linked to the reclaiming of those nations through the Abrahamic covenant the Abrahamic covenant would produce a seed which of course takes us to David again the Davidic dynasty and of course Melchizedek is a priest and once we start talking about the priesthood of Melchizedek being elevated or considered more ideal than the priesthood of Aaron you throw all that into the hopper and this is again the matrix of ideas that we're dealing with the evidence in the text is that Melchizedek's kingship is connected to Abraham it legitimizes the rule of Abraham's seed and of course the original Edenic king was ruler and mediator he was king and priest in a very broad theological sense on earth because he was the guy that sort of stood between God and the rest of humanity the rest of what would be his descendants and he was again put there in Eden to be a steward king a ruler of the earth in a positive sense that all continues through the patriarchs up to Moses and Moses it divides because of his unbelief God makes a concession and brings the priesthood of Aaron into the picture it would seem reasonable to think again that having both those offices operating one person was God's ideal because that again harkens back to Adam and that is God's consistent plan God is meeting with a person a patriarch and that patriarch is the go between God and the rest of the people in the picture the rest of the people that are concerned but that breaks apart when we get to Moses again so that the ideal would have been to have them both in one and since this Melchizedek figure is the oldest figure sort of continues that the patriarchal idea better than Moses did he gets referenced in Psalm 110 and connected to David's line and ultimately the Messiah so you have to be thinking about all these things sort of at once and how they touch each other in the sense of what of how Melchizedek is portrayed in the Old Testament and even more importantly how he's thought about once these ideas again are all in the blender and that brings us to the Second Temple period so today we want to get into the literature here and we're going to end up focusing mostly on Dead Sea Scroll material but we'll hit a few other things Melchizedek is mentioned in a number of Second Temple works again works or at least works that scholars figure date back into the Second Temple period I say it that way because of issues with books like Second Enoch now I have no idea if any of you have a dictionary of the New Testament background I have no idea why DNTB has Second Enoch as quote the earliest instance in the Second Temple literature of a mention of Melchizedek because the text just doesn't date itself into the Second Temple period but I thought I'd throw that out in case one of you has that resource it might just sound odd because it honestly does sound odd the manuscript evidence for Second Enoch is Slavonic which is the 14th century and if you look at Charlesworth Old Testament pseudopigrapha volume where he talks about Second Enoch could be volume one the guy who wrote the chapter on Second Enoch is Francis Anderson and Anderson suggests a Greek work that Second Enoch was a Greek work no older than a thousand AD which is well after the Second Temple period nevertheless you know everybody figures hey you know it's Enoch in material there's a lot of that stuff that's really old so Second Enoch kind of becomes part of the picture here we're not going to because of the textual issue the manuscript issue I'll admit again that Second Enoch has things in it that are probably as old as the Second Temple period because hey that's where first Enoch is and there's going to be overlap there but I'm not going to spend really any time on Second Enoch here I'm going to go right to sources whose manuscript evidence placed them firmly in the Second Temple period so let's start with Josephus Melchizedek has mentioned in Josephus his sixth volume of his war his book about the wars the wars of the Jews and in my edition that would be it would be lines 435 to 438 I think the line number is pretty consistent but I'm just going to read you the passage so this is from Josephus in the Jewish Wars volume 6 beginning in line 435 he writes and thus was Jerusalem taken in the second year of the reign of Vespasian on the 8th day of the month Gorpaius which is Elul it had been taken five times before though this was the second time of its desolation for Shishak the king of Egypt and after Hecchus and after him Pompey and after them Socius and Herod took the city but still preserved it but before all these the king of Babylon conquered it and made it desolate of course there's the reference to Nebuchadnezzar 1468 years and six months after it was built but he who first built it was a potent man among the Canaanites and is on our tongue called Melchizedek the righteous king for such he really was on which account he was there the first priest of God and first built a temple there and called the city Jerusalem which was formerly called solemn that is the the excerpt from Josephus where he mentions Melchizedek and obviously and kind of interestingly Melchizedek is considered the person who built the first temple you say well that's kind of odd because I thought Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem he built the first Israelite temple Josephus would say but Josephus is thinking well there was a temple there because Melchizedek was priest of the most high you know most high God you know there had to be a temple there so he credits all that to Melchizedek he credits Melchizedek with building the city again the Old Testament doesn't say any of that stuff but you know that's what that's what Josephus is thinking and again he's likely not alone but notice even despite all of that embellishment Melchizedek is considered a historical human there's there's no hint in what we just read that he's thought of as a divine being by Josephus so here's here's a clear second temple period example where Melchizedek is mentioned talked about again some things are added to the Old Testament but he's not a divine person not a divine being now if we go to Philo again Philo was another really important writer in this period Philo found room both for a sort of literal historical interpretation of Melchizedek as a human being and a sort of more than literal interpretation of Melchizedek as the Logos and of course Logos is the term in John 1 you know for the word the word of God you know Jesus of course was the word and if you've read Unseen Realm you know that that thinking is not just from Philo or from some Platonic this and that you have word of the Lord being the visible human Yahweh in the Old Testament and you have even more of those instances if you read the Targums you know the Aramaic translations of the Old Testament so there's a lot of evidence it doesn't force you to go out to Greco-Roman philosophy which is you know what Philo was working in a lot to get a Logos doctor you don't need that stuff but Philo certainly has his head in that and for him Melchizedek gets sort of parsed as the Logos as a divine figure now I'm going to read an excerpt here from DDD by Riling R-E-I-L-I-N-G and he has an entry on Melchizedek and he goes into the Philo material a little bit and I kind of like his summary it's pretty convenient here so he writes Philo mentions Melchizedek in three places we have if I can get the abbreviations correctly here I always you know kind of mess up the abbreviations in Philo in Abraham and then we have the book that is referred to as preliminary studies at least by scholars and then thirdly the allegorical interpretation volume three those are the three works of Philo where Melchizedek is mentioned so continuing with Riling he says in the Abraham book again on Abraham in on Abraham 235 the story of Genesis 14 18 through 20 is retold and embellished Melchizedek is called the great priest of the most high God thinking that Abraham's success was due to divine wisdom and help he stretched his hands to heaven and honored him with prayers and offered sacrifices on his behalf and entertained him and his men lavishly in the subsequent allegorical interpretation of the story of Abraham's warfare that is Genesis 14 1 through 24 Melchizedek is not mentioned again by Philo he acts as a historical person only in preliminary studies 99 Melchizedek is mentioned in an excursus on the number 10 those are lines 89 through 120 in that book of Philo preliminary studies with reference to the fact that Abraham gave him one tenth of everything that's Genesis 14 20 so I'll just stop here and pause so for Philo Philo reads this you know that Abraham gives 10% to Melchizedek and then he goes off on some excursus about the meaning of the number 10 that's the context for him discussing Melchizedek in that particular book back to Reiling here he says this is interpreted metaphorically again this tenth of everything everything quote unquote comprises the things of sense and speech and thought Melchizedek is identified as the man who obtained the self-learned and self-taught priesthood probably because no priest is mentioned in the Bible and later priesthood is not derived from him in allegorical interpretation volume 3 this is 79 through 82 Melchizedek is presented as an example of people who are honored by God without having done beforehand something to please him it's kind of interesting he was made king by God and he was the first to be worthy to be his priest in Philo's perspective catch this this is Reiling about this in Philo's perspective Melchizedek as a king and priest does not cease to be a historical person but at the same time it serves as the embodiment of the divine Logos and transcends history they say well that's the end of the quote you say well how does that work I'm trying to follow Philo's thinking here what world is he your guess is as good as anybody else's Philo's writing this is what it's like Philo will go off on these riffs of allegorical interpretation speculation about the meaning of numbers and things like this and you just wonder what set him off you know what put him on that path what suggested these things to him and again the honest answer is sometimes you can sort of figure that out because of the massive material he might be discussing at some other place but other times it's just really dense and obtuse and honestly even specialists in Philo no idea why he went in this or that direction so it's a little bit up in the air again sometimes Philo his thinking is discernible you can track with him and know why he's saying what he's saying other times you just can't but this is where he's at he associates Melchizedek with the Logos so he's an important resource in the second temple period that is beginning to think about Melchizedek as something not unhistorical but more than a man and that's why we want to mention him now third source third resource anyway kumran literature the Dead Sea Scrolls and this is where we're going to spend the lion share of our time because there's a specific text here that's really important Melchizedek has mentioned twice in the Dead Sea Scrolls there's a there's the Genesis Apocryphon that's one Q AP Genesis G E N in the 22nd column in that just look at the title Genesis Apocryphon this is a retelling of the story of Genesis so naturally you're going to hit Genesis 14 18 to 20 and in this Dead Sea Scroll that passage from the Old Testament is translated more or less literally there are a few little minor additions to the story but nothing really spectacular Melchizedek is presented pretty straightforwardly as a historical person and there's no real speculation about his name or like in Philo's case about what 10th means and all that there's none of that it's just a straightforward translation this particular Dead Sea Scroll is an Aramaic so it's put into Aramaic and on we go we move on you know through other material in Genesis so there isn't that much that's added that would be sort of speculative which is quite different you know then Philo and quite different from you know from other texts as well the big one the big deal for Second Temple Literature and I had to go through this text a lot you know from my dissertation is something called 11Q Melchizedek also known as 11Q13 as the title suggests this is from Cave 11 that's what the numbers are for 11Q 11Kumran it's Kumran Cave 11 and it gets its name Melchizedek because of the content 13 would refer to the number of the manuscripts these are all fragmentary but column 2 it's still fragmentary but column 2 has a lot of content in it and since column 2 is drawing on Old Testament texts even when there are some holes they can be filled in if you know if they're citing Old Testament verses you can just go look at what the content was now what I'm going to do is I'm going to read a translation of this text and when there is an Old Testament verse referenced I will tell you what the verse is and then we will discuss and I'm going to share again some the research of some scholars who specialize on this text and Second Temple Literature and New Testament on the New Testament just generally but I'm going to read through this text and the translation is from Garcia Martinez and Tig Killar their Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition if you have that you can follow along if you can you know read Hebrew there's going to be a couple of places here you might want to check the Hebrew but at any rate here's what it says again this is column 2 11 q-mail pizdez again I think you're going to find it really interesting again this is pre New Testament there's no question about the dating of the manuscript so line 1 is fragmentary and it doesn't really it can't be read line 2 we get into text and it says and as for what he said and then he's going to quote Leviticus 25-13 in this year of Jubilee you shall return each one to his respective property concerning it he said now he's going to quote Deuteronomy 15-2 this is the manner of the release every creditor shall release what he lent to his neighbor he shall not coerce his neighbor or his brother for it has been proclaimed a release for God it's interpretation Hebrew or Aramaic you know Pishro okay so I'll just stop there this is line 4 when you see this Pishro in a text you can tell right away it's what scholars call Midrash which it's an explanation it's sort of like a commentary even though it's not like an official there are commentaries in the kumran literature that are verse by verse commentaries in Old Testament books this text is going to actually combine a bunch of different verses and then offer commentary on the combination there but we you know again it's not verse by verse in one text but it is nevertheless a commentary it's an interpretation so back to line 4 it's interpretation for the last days refers to captives so let me just stop there he's saying well here's why I quoted Leviticus 25-13 in Deuteronomy 15-2 this whole thing about Jubilee and returning the property and everything like that the reason I did that I'm pretending to be the writer of Melchizedek is because in the last days the last days referred to captives back to the text who and then there's a gap and whose teachers have been hidden and kept secret and from the inheritance of Melchizedek for there the inheritance of Melchizedek who will make them return and liberty will be proclaimed for them to free them from the debt of all inequities and this will happen in the first week of the Jubilee which follows the nine Jubilees and the day of atonement is the end of the 10th Jubilee in which atonement shall be made for all the sons of light and for the men of the lot of Melchizedek over them and then there's a gap according to all their works for it is the time for the year of grace of Melchizedek and of his armies the nation of the holy ones of God of the rule of judgment that's the end of line nine and I'm going to stop there because of what happens in line 10 but you see this is Mike talking now you see what's going on here he's saying look he takes a concept of the Jubilee and slavery you know captives and you can tell already he's thinking that in the end times the end times is something the latter days is something about the release of the captives now if you're a Jew and you're still under Roman dominion and you know what not this is something that you expect the Messiah to do you expect the Messiah to come back and get rid of Rome and release you know you make you free everybody goes back to the land you restore the Levitical system but he's also throwing in sort of chronological marks here about the Jubilee and the day of atonement if you remember we discussed this kind of language in relationship to the book of Ezekiel and even the last episode we did which was the second episode on Ezekiel 40-48 we made the comment that over 60 times in Ezekiel 40-48 you have Jubilee language and I made the comment that that was not coincidental and we need to interpret Ezekiel 40-48 as something more than a literal temple being rebuilt we talked about all the problems with that view but if you look at it as abstractly and connect it with the Jubilee there were all sorts of ways you could connect Ezekiel 40-48 with New Testament talk about the Messiah's body being the temple and how and his followers being the temple and associating the Messiah again with the Jubilee release this is what the writer of this text 11 Cumel Kizadek is thinking he's thinking along the same lines that connecting the end of days the last times with this Jubilee release and the Jubilee cycles and just to quote him again we have here the first week of the Jubilee which follows the 9 Jubilees the Day of Atonement is the end of the 10th Jubilee again you get these these Jubilee year cycles and so he's associating that with this release now you might be thinking already well that passage about setting the captives free where have I heard that before okay well you've heard that in Jesus first sermon when he launches his ministry in Nazareth he quotes Isaiah 61 again about the release of the captives the whole Jubilee concept it's really interesting that here you have a Jew this is 200 years before the New Testament period thinking about the end of days in terms of the Jubilee year release and he associates it with Melchizedek for some reason and we've talked about in our Old Testament discussions we've talked about what those reasons might be because Melchizedek again is this ideal king priest he is tied to the Davidic dynasty from which the Messiah will come Allah, Psalm 110 so this guy here is tracking on Melchizedek I'll read verse 9 again it is the time for the year of grace of Melchizedek and of his armies his armies the nation of the holy ones of God of the rule of judgment as it is written now let's go into verse 10 this is going to be kind of mind blowing here so he's talking about Melchizedek and his armies the nation of the holy ones of God he's already talked about the sons of light okay now obviously their enemies are going to be the sons of the darkness and all that sort of stuff but here we go verse 9 again it is the time for the year of grace of Melchizedek and of his armies the nation of the holy ones of God of the rule of judgment as it is written about him in the songs of David who said and he quotes Psalm 82 verse 1 David songs of David who said Elohim will stand in the assembly of God in the midst of the gods he judges and about him he said now he quotes Psalm 7, 8, 9 and above it to the heights return God will judge the peoples as for what he said Psalm 82 again verse 2 how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked it's interpretation here's what he thinks it means it's interpretation concerns Belial who again is a satan figure and the spirits of his lot who turning aside from the commandments of God to commit evil and then there's a gap let's just stop there the writer of 11q Melchizedek associates Melchizedek with being God the capital G.O.D in Psalm 82 1 he thinks is Melchizedek who is standing in the assembly of God in the midst of the gods and judging them let me just think about that if you've read Unseen Realm you know all about Psalm 82 and you also know all about the whole two Yahweh's idea that there were two Yahweh figures in Old Testament thinking and this is the foundation for the later ancient Jewish doctrine of two powers in heaven, two good guys two Yahweh figures and I've mentioned in many cases and some of you have either seen the lecture on this on YouTube or maybe live at some place there was lots of speculation about what the Yahweh figure was we know in the Old Testament he shows up as a man, he's visible but who is that? what's his identity? I've made comment before about some thought he was an exalted Old Testament figure like David or Abraham or Moses or in this case Melchizedek Melchizedek is one of the two powers candidates that get floated in Jewish writings of the Second Temple Period and it's very clear that Melchizedek with being the one who is judging the gods in Psalm 82 and again he associates that with the release of people in bondage to the kind of misery that the gods are inflicting upon them at this point you have to suspend what you know a little bit because some of you are probably thinking well he's wrong because Psalm 82 is about the gods of the nations you know with the release of the Jubilees okay we get that we're just saying, we're just reading through a text that explains what this particular Jewish writer was thinking he is associating Melchizedek with the Lord of the Council and I've done the same thing with Jesus where in John chapter 10 Jesus quotes Psalm 82 and we did a whole episode on that can you get the idea these sorts of connections of identifying particular individuals Christians are going to do this with Jesus obviously and again isn't it a coincidence that Jesus gets compared and allogized to Melchizedek in the New Testament but there are Jews who were there before again they're thinking of Melchizedek as being more than a man and they're associating him here with Psalm 82 and Melchizedek is the leader remember verse 9 he's the leader of armies that are going to liberate the peoples of the earth okay he's going to liberate them and he's going to go to war with Belial the Satan figure and the spirits of his lot now if you know anything about Dead Sea Scroll stuff there's a very famous scroll called the War Scroll it's a 1QM his memory serves that describes the apocalyptic end of days battle and it's a war between gods and men and on both sides you have human combatants and divine combatants fighting it out in heaven and on earth for basically all the marvels this is the kind of thing that this text is alluding to this same idea where you have this warfare going on let's go back to the text now I'll pick it up in verse 12 so it's interpretation what he thinks it means concerns Belial and the spirits of his lot who turning aside from the commandments of God to commit evil and then we it just drops off there line 13 but Melchizedek will carry out the vengeance of God's judgments and on that day he will free them from the hand of Belial and from the hand of all the spirits of his lot to his aid shall come all the gods of justice and he is the one who and then there's a gap in the text all the sons of God and there's another gap isn't that frustrating I'll read line 14 to his aid shall come all the gods of justice isn't that interesting gods of justice gods of setek okay you know we've talked a lot about setek with Melchizedek in the prior two episodes but here we have this line to his aid shall come all the gods of setek in other words the rest of Yahweh's you know heavenly host army is going to come help Melchizedek win this battle line 15 this is the day of peace about which he said then there's a gap through Isaiah the prophet who said now he's going to quote Isaiah 52-7 how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace the messenger of good who announces saying to Zion your god reigns Pishroh it's interpretation the mountains are the prophets before you think that's really odd just bear with him he's a second temple Jewish guy and this is what they're thinking the mountains are the prophets line 18 and the messenger is the anointed of the spirit as Daniel said about him now he's going to quote Daniel 9-25 the messenger is the anointed of the spirit as Daniel said about him until an anointed a prince it is seven weeks unquote and the messenger of good who announces salvation is the one about whom it is written to comfort the afflicted Pishroh it's interpretation that means to instruct them in all the ages of the world line 21 has two words in truth and then there's nothing line 22 is fragmentary it says has turned away from Belial the return that it ends line 23 says in the judgments of God as it is written about him quoting Isaiah 52-7 again saying to Zion your god rules Zion is the congregation of all the sons of justice those who establish the covenant those who avoid walking on the path of the people and your god this is the way to text the column ends your god is Melchizedek from the hand of Belial and as for what he said quotes Leviticus 25-9 you shall blow the horn in all the land of and then it breaks off that's column 211 Melchizedek there's a lot of strange stuff in there and for our purposes what I want you to store away as we continue in our discussion here is that you very clearly have a second temple Jew when they think about Melchizedek they are thinking of a divine being and I would say they're thinking about the second Yahweh figure this is a candidate who is at the head of the armies of God himself and this Jew views Melchizedek as being the Elohim who is going to judge the gods over the nations otherwise known to him as the spirits of Belial the spirits of Belial's lot those who are under the power of Belial League with Satan essentially again the way scholars and myself included again Parse of Psalm 82 is a little bit different that's fine just that 11Q Melchizedek tells you what one guy one author was thinking and it's very very clear that Melchizedek is just more than a man and he even brings in verses concepts to talk about Melchizedek in ways that the New Testament writers will talk about Jesus okay Melchizedek is also mentioned his name is mentioned in 11Q 17 that's really all you get just the name there's another fragment 4Q401 Fragment 11 it just there's three lines there's only a few words it has priests of and then there's a break and then gods of knowledge break and then line 3 Melchizedek Priest in the Assembly of God again it's hearkening back to Psalm 82 again so that's what you get you know with 11Q Melchizedek otherwise known as 11Q 13 now what I want to do at this point is I want to read you some excerpts from a couple of papers one is published in the journal for the study of Judaism in the Persian Hellenistic and Roman period it's by Delcor the title is Melchizedek from Genesis to the texts and the epistle to the Hebrews and then a little bit from Jim Davila's SBL seminar paper back in 1996 Delcor's article by the way is 1971 but 20 some years later in 1996 Davila gave an SBL paper entitled Melchizedek, Michael and the War in Heaven and I want to quote a few things from both of those papers okay we'll start with Delcor and this is on pages 124 and 125 again just just reading his commentary on what we just read he's talking about 11Q Melchizedek so he writes the character Melchizedek appears in an incomplete text of cave 11 of Qumran published by Vanderwood in this fragment written in Hebrew Melchizedek appears as an eschatological savior who has a heritage his mission is to bring back at the end of days the exiles to announce to them their liberation and the expiation of their sins the fragment here takes up in part Isaiah 61.1 and at least conceptually which Luke applies to Jesus in Luke 4.18 Melchizedek appears also as a celestial being Elohim who stands in the assembly of God and on this occasion will judge the heavenly ones okay in the midst of the gods he passes judgment Psalm 82.1 those are the ones he's judging Delcor continues he participates in the vengeance of the judgment of God here we find though with some modification taken up Psalm 82.1 and Isaiah 61.2 Melchizedek is thus apparently identified with Michael who also appears in Qumran as a celestial being in the war scroll on QM in fact Melchizedek is helped by the celestial armies in his struggle against Belial and his angels we will see later the interest of these speculations on the person of Melchizedek as a celestial being for a better understanding of the epistle to the Hebrews as the scriptures speak neither of the birth nor the death of this person Melchizedek it is easy to imagine him to be eternal and therefore that this priest should be present in the heavens the author of the Qumran fragment did not hesitate to indulge in these speculations Adavila writes this the theme of the eschatological war in heaven between the angelic forces of good and the demonic forces of evil was a topic of great interest in early Jewish and Christian literature the focus of this paper is the reflexes of this story which name Michael or Melchizedek as the leader of the heavenly army skipping ahead to the next paragraph when a leader of the battling angels is mentioned in these texts he is almost always either Michael or Melchizedek it seems clear that the two were identified at least in some circles in Qumran sectarian literature each appears as the head of the angelic hosts at the eschatological battle in different texts based on this fact as well as contextual considerations Melch suggested that a fragmentary passage in the visions of Amram 4Q544 originally listed them together as names of the angel of light so let's also just break in there there's this character in this text the angel of light and what Davila is saying is these might be named Michael and Melchizedek might be names for that particular angel again because the texts have related content now let's go down a little bit to another third paragraph for Davila the relationship of these two angels Michael and Melchizedek or Michael and the angel of light again it's not really clear what Davila was referring to there a little bit obscure but the relationship of these two angels and how they came to be associated with one another he's probably referring to Melchizedek here even though Melchizedek's not an angel but maybe he's saying an angel in this text anyway but their relationship is one of the issues to be considered in this study and he spends a lot of time trying to explicate this moving on he says the narrative of column two which we just read describes the eschatological conflict fought by the divine being Melchizedek and his angelic allies against Belial and the evil spirits of his lot and then Davila goes on to compare the language of 11Q Melchizedek with the war scroll and some other things where Michael is the picture so basically what his article is going to be about at least in this section is how Michael and Melchizedek sort of play the same role and they're in this battle that's described the same way in various texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls we're done with the quotations I don't believe that Michael was the second power in other words was the second Yahweh figure or I don't believe that Michael is the angel of the Lord now some do about Seventh-day Adventists in particular take that position they're not the only ones but they certainly take it I think the idea is contradicted actually by two places in Daniel and that's kind of material for another episode but just so that you know I don't think Michael is the angel of the Lord I think there's problems with that the point for our purposes here are that some Jews made that equation some Jews thought that now I think personally that this thinking is tied to the second power in heaven second Yahweh figure we have here an exalted angel again cast as the second power in heaven and the most obvious candidate is Michael some Jews again thought this was Melchizedek exalted to some sort of heavenly state and he becomes glorified or something like that now Michael is Israel's prince Melchizedek was a priest king now I think in part the way they're sort of thought about together is because the captain of the Lord's host remember Joshua 5 the captain of the Lord's host is clearly divine if you remember Joshua 5 the captain of the Lord's host and he says who are you dude, what side are you on he says I'm the commander of the Lord's host and he says hey the place where you're standing is holy ground take off your sandals it's the same language that you get in Exodus 3 with the burning bush exactly the same the commander of the Lord's host is a divine being and since we have this connection back to Exodus 3 I think he's the angel of the Lord I think he's the angel of the Lord for a different reason and I discuss all this in Unseen Realm because the description of the commander of the Lord's army there in Joshua 5 describes the commander there as having a drawn sword in his hand the Hebrew phrase for that exactly the exact Hebrew phrase occurs only two other times in the Hebrew Bible one is in 1 Chronicles 20 16 the other one is in Numbers 22 I think it's 1st 24 but they both explicitly in those two other passages say that the person with the drawn sword in his hand is the angel of the Lord so I think there's a really really powerful case here to identify the commander of Yahweh's host in Joshua 5 as the Malak Adonai as the angel of the Lord now if that's the case it kind of makes sense at least to some Jews to think of that figure the angel of the Lord as Michael because he's the commander of the armies on behalf of Israel and Michael is called Israel's prince so they sort of conflate those two things that's how people argue that Michael is the angel of the Lord again I think there's problems with that when you get into some passages in Daniel but nevertheless I just want you to know how would you would get there how the thinking would go they also again if you're the prince of Israel that sounds kind of messianic messiah talk prince of Israel and so once you go there then you do start thinking about Melchizedek why? because Melchizedek the Davidic king in Psalm 110 is declared to be after the order of Melchizedek and so this is how if you're a Jew you could justify thinking angel of the Lord, Michael, Melchizedek they're all the same guy this is how you would get there but the messiah is your leader at the great eschatological battle I mean who else would it be so again you have these ideas that are very I think pretty easy to see how Jews would have conflated all of these things into one figure and so when you have Jews writing in the second temple period you have some of them use Melchizedek some of them use Michael you got that one that says angel of light maybe he's just the odd ball out here but everybody else is talking about Melchizedek or Michael and if you're thinking of that figure in those terms again tying it back to Joshua 5 being the guy in charge of Yahweh's armies well then you could look at Psalm 82 and say well look what's being described here in Psalm 82 judgment of the nations and a Jew would look at that and again this particular Jew who wrote 11 Q. Melchizedek associates the reclaiming of the nations in a final eschatological sense and the death of the gods in a final sense with the release of the captives Israel is released from exile the separation from God is over our captivity is over we're forgiven and the Messiah is here again you have to get rid of the New Testament in your head none of that's happened yet and so this is your vision as a Jew and when the Messiah returns of course we're going to be liberated everything's going to be set right it's the day of the Lord kind of thinking they're not thinking about he's going to come, he's going to go and die on a cross he's going to rise again we've discussed this at length in Unseen Realm and at length on this podcast how the plan of redemption was cryptic they weren't supposed to know what they're thinking the anti-anarche deliverance the restoration of the kingdom and quite frankly that's what the power of the darkness is thinking too because it's like, well he's back here the son of the most high is back here to reclaim his turf and the silly talk about restoring Eden well this is our turf now we're going to kill the guy I mean this is what they were expecting this is what they knew the redemptive sort of aspect to it the salvific sort of aspect that is fragmented in lots of places it's never spelled and they miss it and here you have second temple texts that are tracking along the militaristic theme and if you're doing that and you see again going back to Joshua 5 here you have the commander of the Lord's host obviously divine being Michael's the prince so these two guys must be the same and who else would lead the battle in the last day but the Messiah so Michael and this guy must be the Messiah as well and hey if it's the Messiah we've got to bring Melchizedek into the question because the Messiah, the son of David and Psalm 110 is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek so you can put all these things together and that's what they do they don't have any of the stuff that is probably lurking around in our heads about the New Testament because we're not even at the New Testament yet this is pre-Jesus stuff in the second temple period but this is how you get the portrait that a guy who's writing in 11 Cume Melchizedek this is how he would get there now from reversing Hermon I want to read a little bit that relates to this again just to bring that material into this discussion this is from chapter 10 again this is talking about how another element getting to this portrait is to focus on who the enemy is again the Belial figure and the bad guys on the other side of the apocalyptic war what I'm doing here is I'm just fleshing out for you how would you think about this material and how they get to this profile where Michael Melchizedek Messiah they're all the same guy and they're fighting the sons of Belial and the big bad guy on the other side and all that so here's another element to it from reversing Hermon chapter 10 in a pseudopigraphical work known as The Assumption of Moses a work whose content shows up in the New Testament book of Jude we read the following passage this is chapter 8 verses 1 through 3 actually I'm just going to give you one and there will come upon them punishment and wrath such as never happened to them from the creation to the time when he stirs up against them a king of the kings of the earth who having supreme authority will crucify those who confess their circumcision and the interesting line here is the reference to quote a king of the kings of the earth the writer is clearly citing Psalm 2 verse 2 a messianic Psalm about how the kings of the nations will rise up against the Messiah and he transforms the verse to point to a great leader of those kings so Psalm 2 talks about the Gentiles rising up against the Messiah but the writer of the assumption of Moses turns that phrase into a king of the kings of the earth so you have a great end times enemy that's in view in the assumption of Moses here now Horbury who's a New Testament scholar writes Jewish sources from the end of the second temple period which describe an antichrist like figure without using the term name him rather as the wicked one or Gog or Beliar these sources can be said to bridge the gap between the biblical passages already noted which attest to the expectations of a messianic victory and of a final arch enemy of Israel Horbury's point this is me now is that while a developed doctrine of antichrist is indeed of Christian origin the component of that Christian teaching that had the antichrist as an imperial tyrant bent on opposing the rule of Messiah is pre-Christian and of Jewish origin Horbury's reference to the wicked one Gog or Beliar brings us to a third background element again this is chapter 10 in reversing Hermon so I'm referring to something earlier brings us to another element in the discussion of the beast the antichrist Belial also spelled Beliar in some Dead Sea scrolls is the leader of the powers of darkness okay that's pretty obvious now I quote a fellow named here Torleif Elgin or Elgin and he summarizes how you know how this works the great end times enemy how this works in Jewish expectation he writes the New Testament concepts of Satan and his host are closely related to ideas that develop in inter-testamental period and are found in early Jewish literature in their interpretation of Old Testament passages various books among the pseudopigraphy and kumran literature give different explanations to the presence of evil in the world some writings describe the struggle between good and evil as a cosmic spiritual struggle and anticipate the ultimate annihilation of evil and the evil powers in some texts the evil powers have an angelic leader named Shemhaza or Mastimah or Belial or the Prince of Darkness the earliest post-biblical source that elaborates on evil angelic forces is probably the inocic book of the Watchers 1st Enoch 6 through 16 these chapters interpret Genesis 6 1 through 5 the angelic Watchers cohabit with earthly women and bring magic sin and violence to the earth Enoch has shown the coming judgment on the angels who in vain ask him to intercede for them their leader is Shemhaza but he is not portrayed as a cosmic opponent to God or the elect again in that text but later on again he will be people will take that name and apply it to the great end times enemy who will oppose and confront and battle with the Messiah now Elgin's view of the data, overview of the data shows that for 2nd temple period Jewish theology the leader of the Watchers went by various names Shemhaza Mastema Belial the Prince of Darkness and the last title has obvious overlap with the way New Testament writes of Satan so this is how, again on the flip side this is how Jews were thinking this is why you have this final war described the way it is when you see in these texts Belial, Beliar Mastema, Shemhaza these are all in the mind of certain Jewish writers they are all other words for Satan and so naturally at the end of days his opponent will be the Messiah and you know you have this messianic profile that has Messiah as a warrior well that's the captain of the Lord's host in Joshua 5 and he's a son of David that brings Melchizedek into the equation because of Psalm 110 and of course Michael is the prince of Israel so it must be all the same guy this is how you get the end times eschatology or at least the apocalyptic battle who the characters are and what's happening and why this is how you get there in Second Temple Jewish thinking now again you know I'm not going to take all those positions again I think there's a problem with the Michael Melchizedek equation Michael as the angel of the Lord and so on and so forth and we'll hit that at another time probably when we hit the New Testament maybe I'll bring some of that in or we'll do an episode of its own on that but if we go back to 11 Q Melchizedek with all this thing we've got the good guy it goes by various names we've got the bad guy goes by various names and in 11 Q Melchizedek the good guy the leader the chief combatant the Elohim of Psalm 82 is Melchizedek who is also for Second Temple Jews the angel of the Lord who is also Michael again this is how they're thinking when they get to that passage now 11 Q Melchizedek brings other passages into the profile Jubilee chronology is a big deal you've got Isaiah 52 Isaiah 61 and that is connected of course with the day of atonement because the day of atonement comes after again the end of the Jubilee cycle and so on and so forth so that's interesting obviously and I've already alluded to it because of what happens in Luke 4 isn't it odd or isn't it interesting isn't it fascinating that when Jesus starts his ministry okay when Jesus starts his ministry he's there in Nazareth he goes into the synagogue and he takes the scroll from Isaiah okay Isaiah 61 and I'm gonna go there and a lot of you will know this but I think it's just more effective if I actually you know sort of read it and then you get to hear what's left out but he goes to the synagogue there in Luke chapter 4 and this is what what we read here he says at verse 17 we'll go back to verse 17 the scroll the prophet Isaiah was given to him he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written I mean he's doing this intentionally he found the place where it was written the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of a slight upside to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him and he began to say to them today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing you know and he gets a mixed reaction but he says today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing well look at this he references the poor he references the captives he references the oppressed now he's quoting Isaiah 61 but some of those terms are in Psalm 82 the writer of 11 Q Melchizedek understood that they knew that I think Jesus knew it too because later when we get to the episode John he's going to quote Psalm 82 you know we don't want to rabbit trail back into that but here's the point isn't it kind of fascinating and if you're familiar with Isaiah 61 you know he stops set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor what he leaves out okay the next line in Isaiah 61 right after to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor which is where Jesus stops the next line is and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn to grant to those who mourn in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress and so on and so forth but he leaves out the day of the Lord's line why well it's kind of obvious he knows he knows why he's there and it is not for conquest he's there to die but that's what they don't know so if you know if you're comparing what Jesus does let's just imagine that you've got a few people there on Nazareth that day who have read 11 Q Melchizedek or they think of the same thing they're expecting by virtue of that text and the quotation of Isaiah 61 they're expecting a deliverer they're expecting military conquest they're expecting the final battle because that's just the picture that's the picture that's in their head and if you have this guy from Nazareth show up in your synagogue and he says today this is fulfilled in your hearing and then what's he going to do is he's going to go out from that point and start doing those things he's going to heal people he's going to preach the gospel he's going to talk about the kingdom of God and eventually he's going to die and provide redemption and atonement which is associated with the Jubilee cycle is it not you just look at that picture and he's both you both get a holy cow moment out of people in the room there in Nazareth and you'd also get doesn't he know the scripture or maybe he's a pretender he's not going to deliver us you get all these sort of thought patterns going now when we I'm going to end on this note because we are drifting in the New Testament territory and I think we've said enough about how conceptually you could go from Melchizedek of the Old Testament and come out thinking of him as a divine being because of again this matrix of ideas and here you have a classic example in 11cumelchizedek of Jews doing this doing this very thing and how they get there I think we've said enough about that but back when we did Ezekiel 40 to 48 part 2 you know when we talked about New Testament temple talk associating with the body of the Messiah Jesus body was the temple his followers were the temple the church is the temple basically arguing in favor of a more than literal approach and in the first part we did two episodes on Ezekiel 40 through 48 first part we talked about the problems that a literal approach brings but fundamentally a literal approach ignores over 60 references to Jubilee language Jubilee concepts and other concepts that have to do with cosmic geography and you know associated ideas in those chapters that you can look to the New Testament and you can see how those things play out again abstractly somebody emailed me after we did that and asked this question and they asked hey is there any all this Jubilee stuff was the day of Jesus' birth that September 11, 3BC was the day of Jesus' birth a Jubilee year I went and asked Mantello again my astronomer and he said no it wasn't a Jubilee year but he gave me the math on how to calculate from that date when the Jubilee year fell and believe it or not the Jubilee year fell in the year that Jesus began his ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth when he quotes Isaiah 61 which was really stunning again if you're tracking on if you're a Jew not every Jew is going to be tracking all this stuff but if you're an educated, literate Jew and maybe you've heard the birth traditions or something like that but certainly if you're toward the end of the first century where you have this information and you can look back you're going to have a couple of the gospels written there maybe all of them by that time and you have this episode in the synagogue and you have this citation of Isaiah 1 and you know the Jewish tradition of Messiah and you know what Jesus did and all this sort of stuff that kind of thing is really remarkable it shows Jesus in all the good sense of the word Jesus is so calculated he walks into that synagogue in the Jubilee year and he takes the scroll and he finds the place he finds Isaiah 61 and he quotes it but he doesn't include the day of the Lord stuff and he just rolls it back up and hands it off and says today today all this stuff is fulfilled in your hearing and he knows the range of reactions that's going to draw in part because of the way people thought about not only Messiah but Melchizedek and later on when whoever wrote the book of Hebrews when he connects Jesus to Melchizedek it's all part of a consistent picture this is not novel when it comes to Jewish thinking Jews were mentally there the book of Hebrews Hebrews is written to a Jewish audience they understand because they have these categories in their thinking already and you know when you can show what Jesus did theologically you know what the result of the crucifixion was again in hindsight how the chronology of his life was intentional in certain ways we're given certain pieces of information like the birth I talk about this in Reversing Herman like the genealogy we've got all this material out at this point when whoever writes Hebrews and writes to that audience a Jewish audience they're either struggling with their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah teetering on the edge of doing that and all this stuff these are not random things that the writers pull out because they don't know what else to put on the piece of papyrus the animal skin they're building an intelligent profile that shows what Jesus did with intention how God had this planned how Jesus acted according to plan and how it's consistent with their own reading in many cases of the Old Testament it's not novel the only thing missing for you people is who the second power really was you have all of the boxes to put these things in you've got all the file drawers you understand the concepts but it wasn't some other guy it was this guy it was Jesus of Nazareth who did these things here is the playing out of his life chronologically, historically and here are the theological concepts again the file drawers that you've already got open in your head you need to believe in the case of the book of Hebrews you need to not forsake the faith you need to not surrender your belief you need to not drift back into unbelief and so again there's just a lot of intentionality going on here I'm going to stop here because we will pick up some of the thoughts again in our next episode of the New Testament we get into the book of Hebrews but again the purpose of this episode is to help you to see how again what the New Testament says what you've been taught, what you've heard probably at some point in preaching it's not a contrivance Jews thought these ways about this person and hopefully it makes sense to you now how they could get there how it would make sense to think this way and to wind up where they did and again it works if there's legitimately a second power in heaven who fits this profile and there was and that's what we'll get into next time more pieces to the puzzle Mike more dots more pieces more points to the music whatever metaphor it helps or hurts less maybe you answered some people's questions out there and just a quick reminder don't forget to be gathering your thoughts because after part 3 airs you'll have about a week to send me any questions you have because we're going to do a tire Q&A dedicated to your questions about this subject matter now because of the deck so and also go vote for the next book that we're going to cover Mike the poll is live as we speak I just sit there and hit refresh refresh just to see what the status is but I shouldn't laugh I'll do that a couple times too I hear you well next week we're going to take a break from Melchizedek and we got an interview lined up you want to tell us we have the authors there's two of them surviving and thriving in seminary an academic and spiritual handbook I know the authors Danny Zacharias and Benjamin Forrest we're not doing this book because I think everybody who listens to the podcast is going to run out and take a seminary class we're doing this book because I really like the way it sort of offers really good advice on how to be a good student and secondarily again not because it's less important just number two thought here how to again not maintain your faith while you've got your head in all this academic stuff even though there's an aspect to that but just how to be thinking in terms of application both Danny and Benjamin have again a mind to serve the lay person with content this is why we pick the things we do on this podcast we are interested in promoting the work and the effort rewarding the effort of people who try to help you all of you out there in the audience good students of scripture and then transmit that to somebody else apply it to your own life and help people apply it to their life this is a nice little handbook it's got seminary in the title but don't be put off by that they just have good advice in both areas Melchizedek at least sort of the Q&A anyway absolutely well I'm ready for part three if you are well let's just start with the summary I mean we've been through three previous episodes we had parts part one A, part one B and then of course part two one A and one B were Old Testament Old Testament material about Melchizedek and part two was the second temple literature that was relevant to Melchizedek and just by way of summarizing a few points that we hit along the way we talked about how Melchizedek's name and his title his title was the king of solemn or Salem and the location of course of solemn is associated with Jerusalem that the name and that title sort of associate Melchizedek with kingship obviously Jerusalem again obvious righteousness peace and of course priesthood those are all sort of ingredients for how the Messiah gets talked about and so they're factors for what we're going to talk about today with respect to what the New Testament does with Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews in chapter 7 so you know there's congruence there we also talked about how the Aaronic priesthood is cast in Scripture as a concession by God in other words it was sort of a plan B because of Moses' unbelief and again we've trodden over this territory before so I'm not going to make too much of it here but the priesthood of Melchizedek is a legitimate priesthood and we will talk a little bit more about that specifically that idea anyway it's consistent with what we've already seen that hey even though we have the priesthood of Aaron the tribe of Levi and all that sort of stuff this other priesthood the priesthood of Melchizedek was legit it's not this isn't what the plan B was it was the Aaronic line that was the plan B and Melchizedek again combines kingship and priesthood all into one and that as we talked about earlier was sort of the ideal and we're going to get that in the Messiah in the Messianic profile we're going to get both sides both elements we also talked about the content matrix this is a term I've used for sort of all the things that kind of glom on to Melchizedek in terms of theological content so we've got Melchizedek who of course is associated with Abraham and Abraham's seed of course are the Israelites and one particular seed is going to be the Messiah Melchizedek is associated with Elyon the Most High which is the term that's also associated with Deuteronomy 32 again that term shows up in Deuteronomy 32 the divorce of the nations and of course the flip side of that is the reclaiming of the nations which is something that the Messiah would accomplish so we have that set of data points in relation to Melchizedek also because of his association with Abraham and if we bring Psalm 110 to the picture we have an association with David in the Messianic dynasty so he's associated with both of those major figures David again would himself actually do some priestly things but not a priestly line but what God does is associate Davidic dynasty with the priesthood of Melchizedek the line of Melchizedek so that's why the Messiah gets associated with him so we've got all these mutual associations we've got again this thing that I refer to as a content matrix all of these subjects sort of converging when it comes to Melchizedek so that we have again this priest king figure again associated with Jerusalem as well and it is again just kind of an obvious profile we have this combination of things we said earlier was consistent with kind of the Edenic ideal as well think of Adam we have the original Edenic king in Adam and we call him king because he was the one who was supposed to subdue the earth he was supposed to rule the earth on God's behalf and this is what the covenantal language associated with Adam says his status also made him sort of a mediator on earth between God and the rest of humanity his own descendants again that was the original profile that idea of combining rulership and mediation in one person continues through the patriarchs all the way up to Moses Melchizedek becomes part of that profile again because of the incident with Abraham but when you get to Moses it splits again the Aaronic priesthood is a concession it's plan B it's something that has to operate in the background or alongside because of Moses unbelief so all of those things are important when we come to again what how to think about Melchizedek the last element that I should mention though is that at no point in the Old Testament material do we get any impression that Melchizedek was a divine being he's just he's a human being he's a priest he's a king I made a comment in a previous episode that he was the chief royal and priestly representative of the most high God that idea is actually going to become important for what we talk about today really in explaining how in the world certain Jews during the Second Temple period began to view Melchizedek as a divine being but again the point that this juncture right here is the Old Testament itself doesn't really say that it doesn't really call Melchizedek a divine being but the fact that he is this main chief royal and priestly representative of the most high God again in theory between most high God and not just Abraham but just generally that is a significant idea but it sort of gets misapplied or thought about incorrectly by some in the Second Temple period now we know in the New Testament which is what we're going to get into today that Jesus and Melchizedek are going to be compared but I'm going to argue again that the point of the comparison is to compare Melchizedek to Jesus not Jesus to Melchizedek and that this is going to be why we get some of this divine being sort of language and really how to parse it so that it's consistent with the Old Testament because again the Old Testament does not have Melchizedek as a divine being now in order to sort of straighten this out and both talk about why this error was sort of made at least by certain Jewish writers as a way to both deal with that and then segue into what the New Testament actually does we need to camp for a few minutes at least on how Second Temple Jewish writers sort of made this association how they how they came to see Melchizedek as a divine being so how did this happen how does that trajectory occur well there's really sort of two things we need to be thinking about in tandem one is the fact that Melchizedek by virtue of his role as priest and king again and his relationship to this scene with Abraham Melchizedek is sort of thought about because of that stuff as being the chief representative of Israel before God and you know we can see how that would happen you know this chief priest, chief king the main priestly figure the main dynastic ruler figure well naturally if he is that in God's eyes then he would sort of be thought of as the chief representative of Israel to God and before God now once that association is sort of entrenched in your head that Melchizedek represents Israel before God as its king and priest figure then another association gets factored into it and here's where the problem happens and that is there is the Prince language of the Old Testament this association of priest king with Prince language Prince of Israel language is how Melchizedek becomes a divine being in the minds of certain Second Temple Jews now we need to unpack that here's how it's done in passages that use Prince of Israel language Daniel 1021 who is Israel's Prince in Daniel 1021 well it's Michael it's the Archangel Michael now Michael of course isn't called an Archangel in the Old Testament he gets that title in the New Testament and also in the Second Temple period but Israel's Prince is Michael in Daniel 1021 you get the same idea in Daniel 121 where Michael is the great Prince who has charge of your people again speaking Angel speaking to Daniel so there you have Michael is the great Prince of the people of Israel and so mentally there were certain Jews that said okay Michael is the Prince of Israel and Melchizedek is the chief priestly representative and the chief royal ruling representative this must be the same way three different ways of talking about the same person and so Michael becomes Melchizedek there's another verse that gets factored into this and this is in Joshua 5 Joshua 514 where we have the Prince of Yahweh's host some translations in English will have the captain of the Lord's host or the commander of the Lord's host or the commander of the Lord's armies something like that and this is clearly in Joshua 5 this is clearly a divine being because when Joshua asks hey who are you he says well I'm the Prince I'm the Tsar it's the same word as in Daniel 10 and Daniel 12 of Yahweh's host take off your shoes from on your feet because this is holy ground it takes you mentally back to Exodus 3 the burning bush where we have the Angel of the Lord so this is how this sort of concatenation of ideas happens you have this notion that because Melchizedek is the chief prince and priestly figure the chief representative to God not just to Abraham but to the people of Israel that chief representation idea gets merged or glommed onto or conflated with the language of the prince of Israel that occurs a couple times in Daniel 10 and Daniel 12 and so that's how Melchizedek and Michael sort of get fused or united in the mind again of some interpreters in antiquity and also you know to be fair some interpreters nowadays now do you see the problematic assumption though do you see what the problem is if you think that way the figure in Joshua 5 is the prince of the Lord's host he's the prince of the heavenly host whereas Michael in Daniel 10 Daniel 12 is the prince of Israel which is earthly they're actually talking about two different things but nevertheless they get conflated as though it was the same thing and that's the problem that's the mistake you cannot presume the figure of Joshua 5 and Michael are the same just because they're both called prince but some ancient Jewish interpreters did and some modern interpreters do as well now the identification of the figure of Joshua 5 and Michael is also marred or messed up by the description of Michael in Daniel 10 13 here's why it's wrong here's why this association cannot be the case on one hand there are princes of different things there's a disconnect Joshua 5 that is the prince of Yahweh's host his heavenly host and Daniel 10 Daniel 12 Michael is the prince of Israel which is an earthly people so you have that disconnect but there's another problem that's Daniel 10 13 the way Michael's there Michael is described as one of the chief princes in Daniel 10 13 now if Michael is the prince the commander of Yahweh's host in Joshua 5 if he's that guy then that commander is but one of the commanders of Yahweh's host because Michael is just one of the chief princes so any of those other chief princes that aren't named could have been the captain the commander of Yahweh's host back in Joshua 5 it just doesn't work you don't have Michael elevated to a unique position he's just one of you know a small group for sure but if he's one of the chief princes then the guy back in Joshua 5 and there and by extension the one in the burning bush is just one of several that hold that position have that high status and if that figures just one of several princes could have had any number at least more than one divine being occupying space with Yahweh in the burning bush and that is just not the way that the angel of Yahweh is portrayed in the Old Testament so that's actually a significant problem having Daniel 10 13 tell us that Michael is just one of the chief princes and he's not this unique status by himself Michael is clearly put it another way he's clearly the highest authority in the heavenly sphere he assists the divine man quote-unquote who speaks to Daniel in Daniel 10 13 Daniel 10 21 and again he's just one of the chief princes now that divine man just a little bit of a rabbit trail here the divine man back in Daniel who's speaking to Daniel I think is the prince of the host from Daniel 8 11 and also the prince princes in Daniel 8 25 and that guy is not Michael he ain't Michael that figure out ranks Michael who is just one of the chief princes and again the prince not of the whole heavenly host but he's the prince of Israel the prince of the host the whole heavenly host of Daniel 8 11 again is not Michael and frankly that prince the prince of the host the prince of princes Daniel 8 11 Daniel 8 25 that guy sounds an awful lot like the guy back in Joshua 5 who is the prince of Yahweh's heavenly host Yahweh's army so to sum that up begin to try to summarize all that Michael is not the highest authority in heaven under God he is not the second Yahweh the second Yahweh figure out ranks him and if that's the case then Jesus who is aligned with the angel of Yahweh who is the second embodied Yahweh cannot be Michael and I know like traditions like 7th the Adventists want to fuse Jesus and Michael there are significant problems to it especially Daniel 10 13 Michael is just one of the chief princes I'm sorry but Jesus is unique the second Yahweh is unique because he is Yahweh and I realize I'm using unseen realm lingo here if you're new to the podcast you need to go back to the same realm you need to the chapters on the word and the angel and the name and all that stuff because this is where the idea of two Yahweh figures comes in this is the Old Testament basis for the later Jewish teaching of two powers in heaven two good guys one of which was the lesser Yahweh you have that figure and that is not Michael and so you have some significant disconnects and to sort of marry Melchizedek kind of compounds the problem you don't need Melchizedek to be Michael or any other divine being to make sense of what the New Testament says about Jesus and Melchizedek you just don't need it but a lot of people sort of go down this road because they're thinking based on what they read in Hebrews 7 that we have to have Melchizedek be a divine being or else Hebrews 7 is wrong or something going on there and so well who is Melchizedek be that's a divine being and some people will land on Michael like they did in the ancient world and then you've got significant problems because then you've got the captain of the Lord's host back in Joshua 5 being just one of several equal guys in heaven and then you got real problems when you have to import that back into the burning bush with the angel of the Lord because the same language take your shoes off from off your feet because you're standing on holy ground the same language these things really on the basis of the word prince okay you've got problems so where I'm at here is Michael is different than Melchizedek Michael is different okay then the prince of the host and the prince of princes Michael is just what the scripture says he is he's the prince of Israel he has never called the prince of Yahweh's host the whole thing he is not the prince over the whole host he is the prince of Israel that's what he's called so let's not conflate these figures and we can avoid some serious theological problems and then going back to Melchizedek to repeat what I just said you don't need Melchizedek to be a divine being in the Old Testament to have Hebrew 7 make sense and that's where we're going to go now again this is an episode that we need to orient to the New Testament and the two passages are the end of Hebrew 6 and on into Hebrew 7 so let's read those I'm going to read Hebrews 6 13 through 20 which says this for when God made a promise to Abraham since he had no one greater by whom to swear he swore by himself saying surely I will bless you and multiply you and thus Abraham having waited patiently obtained the promise for people swear by something greater than themselves and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation so when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose he guaranteed it with an oath so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast the hope set before us we have this as a shore instead fast anchor of the soul a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek now on into Hebrews 7 starting with verse 1 for this Melchizedek king of solemn or Salem priest of the most high God met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything he is first by translation of his name king of righteousness and then he is also king of Salem that is king of peace he is without father or mother or genealogy having neither beginning of days nor end of life but resembling the son of God he continues a priest forever see how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils now I'm going to stop there in part because again it looks like we're going to be doing Hebrews I want to focus on the language here used about Jesus and Melchizedek for this particular episode because frankly this is really what the episode is about there are two interpretive options in scholarship for what I just read we can either take what I just read literally or we can look at it allegorically or analogically might be a better way to say it and I'm going to just read a few excerpts from some commentaries here just to see the difference between those two options so the first one here is from Peter O'Brien his commentary the letter of the Hebrews in the Pillar New Testament commentary series he writes these remarkable words have been understood in two significantly different ways the first approach interprets without father or mother as divine predicates which were well known in Hellenistic sources without genealogy signifies unbegotten or uncreated and therefore of divine generation while the crucial statement without beginning of days or end of life means that he was truly God and not merely a divinized mortal on this view Melchizedek is a divine figure a heavenly being who is not part of this world so again that's one way that's the end of the quotation this material in Hebrews 7 of course the problem is there's no hint of any of that in the Old Testament Second Temple you run into it here and there like 11 Q Melchizedek but if you remember the episode we did on Second Temple period there were other Second Temple writers who didn't think Melchizedek was divine at all they just cast him as a normal guy so there was a difference of opinion there but again if you can read Hebrews 7 that way now picking up with O'Brien again here's the second way you can read it takes the author statements as an example of an argument from silence in a typological setting so now we're talking about typology here and again for those who may not recall or don't know a type is a nonverbal prophecy it is something in the Old Testament a person, an event, an institution that foreshadows or prefigures something yet to come it's an analogy to something yet to come back to this quotation, I'll just start from where I was at the second approach takes the author statements as an example of an argument from silence in a typological setting if the first clause without father or mother without genealogy is understood in purely human terms within a Greco-Roman context then this would discredit Melchizedek without father meant being considered illegitimate without a mother was the child of a woman of low social status and without genealogy meant that one was disqualified from being a levitical priest according to Numbers 3, verse 10 and verses 15 and 16 so that's the end of the quotation what do we do with this? because neither alternative seems really that great the keys to unraveling this passage the end of Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 7 without disrespecting Melchizedek without making him a legitimate kid or something like that but yet also honoring the fact that the Old Testament does not cast him as a divine being the keys to sort of navigating this there's really two things let's just start with the first one again in my view and those are the words without genealogy that's an important qualifier because the point would be priestly qualification not having a genealogy does not refer to a supernatural nature of Melchizedek that he had no parentage or something like that we'll get to the other phrasing here but without genealogy refers to the lack of a priestly qualification now O'Brien back to him says this although Melchizedek could not have qualified for the levitical priesthood he wasn't a levitical there was no tribe of Levi this is Abraham's time could not have qualified for the levitical priesthood he was still priest of God most high and Abraham recognized this moreover since Genesis says nothing about Melchizedek's birth or death his priesthood is cast as having no beginning or end it was a divinely appointed priesthood that never ended so you see the point here you can take the language and say it refers to Melchizedek's origin as a human being you know he's not really human because he didn't have parents he's a divine being you can take it that way but what O'Brien is saying and again where I'm landing is that no this description refers to a priesthood God created that has no beginning other than when God had Abraham encountered this meaning it had no genealogical beginning it isn't rooted in parentage it isn't rooted in tribal affiliation it is a priesthood because God says it is it has nothing to do with human origin or human lineage or human tribal affiliation and that is the point when we get this description about having no father or no mother the point is not to claim that Melchizedek is a supernatural being but to claim that he doesn't have a genealogy that fits the priesthood and it doesn't matter he is a priest of the most high God because God said so God approved of him it had nothing to do with his birth circumstances at all and not only that by not giving us the father and the mother by casting it this way this is O'Brien's point by casting it this way it creates the implication it suggests that this priesthood has no end to it if it is not linked to human lineage then by definition it is not going to be terminated when that tribal lineage dies or that tribal lineage can't be determined by whatever historical circumstance it is independent of that so again if you read it that way again you sort of avoid some of the other problems in its context now again if I would summarize this in my way again this is me talking here just by way of summary the implication is that Melchizedek was still the priest of the most high regardless of ancestry that's the fundamental point there's no need to worry about Jesus therefore not being from the tribe of Levi and still being called a priest this is a different priesthood approved by God one that is cast the way it is because it didn't originate with a tribe and it's never described as having ended the Old Testament is silent on Melchizedek's lineage and parentage for that reason again this is the argument it's silent on his mother and father because his priesthood does not depend on human lineage or tribal affiliation it's not silent so that we can claim that or think that Melchizedek was a divine being now as such the physical succession to Jesus of Nazareth is not an issue we don't even have to have Melchizedek related to Jesus to make the connection with Melchizedek legitimate it doesn't matter because God has chosen this priesthood that's why in Psalm 110 when God says to the dynasty of David you know you're going to be a priest forever Melchizedek God just decided that that's God's decision I'm going to make you son of David David dynastic offspring I'm going to make you a king but I'm also going to make you a priest and I'm going to select for the analogy for the legitimacy of your priesthood this guy Melchizedek because his priesthood was something I decided it had nothing to do with physical lineage so don't worry about it you're a king and a priest these are God's decisions and what it really tells you in my mind anyway it really does speak again to the issue that the ironic priesthood was sort of an afterthought or a plan B or a concession because of Moses' unbelief God doesn't let that defeat his template his ideal going back to Adam where you have king and priest in one person that is still what God wants regardless of the fact that he made a concession to Moses because Moses just couldn't believe and said okay we'll make Aaron your spokesperson then Aaron becomes the high priest God was merciful to Moses and that's where we get the ironic priesthood God doesn't need to stick with plan B to get what God wants God goes back to the order of Melchizedek to merge the office of king and priest into one God's allowed to do that because he's God he endorses what he endorses so we don't need to worry about questions of physical succession for Jesus to Melchizedek or anything like that this whole thing was dictated by God alone the silence of the Old Testament creates the impression deliberately that Melchizedek did not inherit his priestly service from a predecessor and he remained a priest without a successor his priestly line in God's mind is still in place and legitimate it doesn't depend on a predecessor or a successor and that's why the Old Testament is silent on Melchizedek's lineage that's why the writer of Hebrews 7 says without father or mother having no genealogy that's the point the point is not to pain him as a supernatural being now back to O'Brien just another little snippet from him he says consequently Melchizedek foreshadows the priesthood of Christ at that point where it is most fundamentally different from the Levitical priesthood in other words it is a priesthood not dependent on tribal lineage end of quote so that I think is the first thing that really helps understand unravel what's going on in Hebrews 7 without making Melchizedek into something he's not he's not a divine being and he's not a legitimate child either this is how we need to approach it and read it and it makes good sense the second item in Hebrews 7 is in verse 3 there's a phrase in verse 3 where we read that resembling the Son of God he Melchizedek becomes a priest forever I note the wording it is Melchizedek who resembles the Son of God the point is not that Jesus resembles Melchizedek and because Melchizedek resembles Jesus his priesthood is to be understood as being independent of lineage again it's just another way of arguing the same thing his priesthood is one begun by God and never terminated and so while second temple texts thought about Melchizedek in divine terms and the reason for doing so was wrong it was just misguided the notion is still valid if one sees how the Messiah was a priest according to Melchizedek's priesthood and that the Messiah not Melchizedek was the one who was divine in other words the idea that Melchizedek has something to do with a divine Messiah there's some relationship between Melchizedek and a divine Messiah that's on target but not because Melchizedek himself was more than a man it's on target because Jesus the Son of David was more than a man again that's sort of flipping it on its head but I'm hoping again that you see the coherence of approaching it this way a different commentator here Lane in his word biblical commentary on Hebrews he talks about a little bit about some of the finer grammatical points in Hebrews 7 and for those of you who have a little bit of knowledge of Greek I think you'll appreciate this Lane notes quote the events in Genesis have been read from the perspective of the eschatological reality they pre-figured Melchizedek has been assimilated to the Son of God this is me breaking it now again it's not that Jesus gets assimilated to Melchizedek it's that Melchizedek gets assimilated to Jesus okay back to Lane this implies that the predicates applied to Melchizedek have been colored by the writer's conception of the eternal Son Jesus that explains why the description of Melchizedek in verse 3 appears singularly stylized the perfect passive participle and the Greek here is aphomoiomenos is a divine passive this is me breaking it now that's a grammatical term that some commentators use okay the perfect passive participle is a divine passive translated having resembled more literally having resembled the Son of God having been made by God to resemble the Son of God the term presupposes God's appointment of Melchizedek as an illustration I actually like the word of foreshadowing or a type an illustration of the higher priesthood that the writer finds in the Old Testament record the Genesis 14 narrative thus implies the kind of priesthood that was intended by God to displace the Levitical priesthood namely the service of an eternal priest who exercises his priesthood continuously it anticipates the appearance of a high priest who does not have any successor because he doesn't require one unquote and again this is what the writer of Hebrews sees he's looking at Jesus first and then he's thinking about Melchizedek he's not looking at Melchizedek and then thinking about Jesus so we need to be careful again how we articulate this how we read it and articulate at the point again is that Melchizedek was made by God to resemble the Son of God who would come down the road Melchizedek is a type a prefigurement of the Son of God who would come this doesn't require Melchizedek be divine any more than we have to see Adam as a divine being because he functions as a type a prefigurement of Jesus in Romans 5 remember Romans 5 Jesus and the first and second Adam all that talk well Adam wasn't a divine being he was a human but Adam is a type of Christ Adam doesn't need to be divine to function as a type of Christ well neither does Melchizedek Melchizedek was not a divine being in the Old Testament and he doesn't need to be to do the job of prefiguring the Son of God who would be an eternal priest an eternal mediator between God and men the writer of Hebrews is thinking about Jesus in those terms and his mind is taken back to Melchizedek not the other way around so the part about Abraham paying ties to Melchizedek I think validates the point this Melchizedek was a legitimate priest of the most high who deserved the tithe just like Levi would later he preceded Levi and his priesthood didn't extend from tribal lineage and never met an end he resisted once the Levitical priesthood appeared it never went away and the fact that it did again suggests that the Aaronic priesthood was a concession lastly had any reader of Hebrews in antiquity known the chronology of Jesus' birth and we've talked about this a lot on the podcast I think that point this point about his priesthood being transcended to Levi would have been driven home even more that Jesus was the one who atonement and set the captives free by means of the connection of those ideas to the Jubilee cycle would have been highlighted by God's eternal foresight and use of Melchizedek to foreshadow someone who would be both the son of David and a priestly mediator considered by God to be superior to the line of Aaron now how, how does that work and what about the birth well for this you need to be familiar with again my position this is not just my position that Jesus was born on September 11th in 3 BC now we devoted a whole podcast episode to that episode number 138 as to why that's the case and we provided newsletter subscribers anyway so please subscribe to the newsletter you get access to this we provided newsletter subscribers with scholarly literature that validate that this position is not a contradiction it's not irreconcilable with Herod's death there's a way to fact read the chronology there so that it works based on Herodian coins and a few other things that are problems in Josephus that other scholars have tackled in the peer-reviewed literature so if you want that stuff subscribed to the newsletter you'll get it go back and listen to episode 138 so given that little bit of context after the second Ezekiel 40 through 48 podcast that we did that was about me arguing really that the temple vision there should be viewed as non-literally to get our heads inside the Jubilee idea because there are 60 references to Jubilee stuff in Ezekiel 40 through 48 60 of them actually a little over 60 that's not an accident folks when you do it that many times there's something going on there there are over 60 links between the idealized temple and the Jubilee cycle idea after we did that episode I got a question from Matthew in California that asked whether 3 BC again the birth year of Jesus was a Jubilee year and the idea he was angling for was that the birth of Jesus would have marked the Jubilee cycle so what I did was I asked my astronomer friend and for those of you who read my fiction this is my Mantello character I asked my astronomer friend about it and got back a really really interesting answer okay so here's part of his answer he wrote the year from 2 BC to 1 BC would have been a sabbatical year 27 to 28 CE or that's another way to mark AD was also a sabbatical year and a Jubilee year which means the birth year could not be a Jubilee year so that was the answer to Matthew's question in California and I sent that to him but my source my astronomer continues he says the 27 28 CE or AD period the Jubilee period coincides with the beginning of Jesus' ministry which was inaugurated at the event in the synagogue at Nazareth in Luke 4 14 through 16 even a little bit more beyond that this is where Jesus quotes Isaiah 61 about the Jubilee language being fulfilled today in your hearing that's what Jesus said today today in your hearing this passage has been fulfilled now there's some variability here some scholars, this is me talking now some scholars namely Troc May and Yoder have the Jubilee year at 27 or 26 as opposed to 28 27 Jesus in Auguril Sermon would have probably have begun either in 26 or 27 let's just put it in either one of those years we'll overlap both those figures because at any rate either of those dates align with a 3 BC birth and the statement in Luke 3 23 where Jesus when he began his ministry was quote about 30 years of age so it aligns actually pretty nicely now think about the implications Jesus walks into the synagogue in Nazareth to launch his ministry in a Jubilee year he knows it's a Jubilee year then he quotes Isaiah 61 stopping at Isaiah 61 verse 2 the first part of the verse this is one of the passages that was central to 11 Q Melchizedek we talked about this in our last Melchizedek episode they viewed 11 Q Melchizedek the writer there viewed the coming of the Messiah was the coming of the Elohim of Psalm 82 who was about to set the captives free in fulfillment of the Jubilee idea they read all of that they read Psalm 82 if you remember the 11 Q Melchizedek stuff it gets into the war of gods and men and the allotment of the lot of Belial and a lot of Melchizedek the good guys and the bad guys having this great conflict again because the Messiah is supposed to set the captives free set the nation free that requires conquest and overthrow of their overlords so they're processing the whole thing militarily they process Psalm 82 Isaiah 61 all that through the vengeance of God but that's actually where Jesus stopped let me just read you let me just go to Isaiah 61 to get our memories refreshed here's Isaiah 61 the spirit of the Lord God is upon me and this is the passage Jesus reads and as he inaugurates he begins his ministry because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and that's where he stops the very next line is and the day of vengeance of our God and that's what Jews of the period had in their head but Jesus actually stops he doesn't quote that part of Isaiah 61 why because what he's there for his liberation of the captives is wider and frankly more significant than military conquest humanity was to be liberated from spiritual darkness and estrangement from God because of what he was going to do he quotes this passage but excludes the day of vengeance of our God because what he's thinking about is much bigger than that so now think about all that and what we said earlier about the content matrix with Melchizedek yeah Melchizedek he is he blesses Abraham he blesses Abraham seed he is priest of El Yon the most high most high God was the one who disinherited the nations in Deuteronomy 32 this particular seed of Abraham Jesus son of Abraham also son of David was the one who would reclaim those nations because he was also the son of David the son of Abraham remember that the passages we read in the old Testament sections about how these references to the scepter by virtue of Psalm 1 10 the scepter not departing you know from the king he is the he's the son of Abraham he's the son of David he's a king and a priest he gets associated with Melchizedek who was also a king and a priest and he Melchizedek was the king of you know of Jerusalem the priest of Jerusalem so there you get the Zion association there all that together again this is what the Messiah the messianic dynasty was supposed to be Jesus was a high priest a mediator and a king he's the mediator according to Melchizedek's priesthood the king according to the dynasty of David he is the mediator between humanity and the most high he was the specific seed of Abraham who would reclaim the nations for the most high he was the son of David whom Psalm 89 verse 27 said would be made the most high son of David over the nations and his ministry all of that that's who he is and it all began the enactment of who he was and what it meant all began in Nazareth in a Jubilee year with Jesus quoting Isaiah 61 now that sort of planning that sort of having all those threads converge and come together in this person Jesus of Nazareth if people were aware of that or even part of it they're going to be looking at Jesus just like the writer of Hebrews did this guy is superior in every way to the line of Aaron and the tribe of Levi his dynasty was promised again to be an eternal dynasty and never ending dynasty in other words it's not going to be terminated and his priesthood is also never ending because he is a priest after the order of Melchizedek by God's own decision and that priesthood had no predecessor and again you look at all of these circumstances all of these threads converging again if we had these things in our head we would look at Jesus just the way the writer of Hebrews did like I just said that this is something greater far greater both in terms of who he was and God's unbelievably magnificent planning to bring all this together this one is greater and represents a greater truth than Aaron and the law and the ritual and the priesthood of Levi there's just no comparison and that's really the fundamental point in Hebrews 7 about Jesus and his relationship to Melchizedek all right Mike well that's a lot of Melchizedek yeah there's more in Hebrews 7 again to talk about all right sounds good Mike we'll be looking forward to that Q&A and I guess with that I just want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast God bless thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast to support this podcast visit www.nakedbibleblog.com to learn more about Dr. Heiser's other websites and blogs go to www.brmsh.com