Genesis Session

2024-04-16 - 2025-02-07

Let’s begin “in the beginning”…

Genesis 1

v1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Link to original

God, heaven, earth

We begin with God, and 2 biblical axioms:

Heaven
Earth

“on Earth, as it is in Heaven” - Earth should embody the Heavenly pattern(s)

We then attempt to derive other meaningful categories from these axioms based on the biblical narrative and stories.

For example:

Time, where “Heaven and Earth” DO NOT unite
Space, where “Heaven and Earth” DO unite

*Time and Space*

See also

Heaven and Earth and Time and Space

v2

The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
Link to original

Mirror

The pattern of the Mirror; the Spirit of God hovering over the “face” of the waters

https://www.aidanharticons.com/

7 Days of Creation

Days 1-3 are for that which will host
Days 4-6 are for the creatures which inhabit and multiply
Day 7 is the remainder, it is Sabbath

Time As Irrationality and Space As Rationality

Day 1

v3

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Link to original

v4

God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.
Link to original

v5

God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Link to original

Day 1 begins at night (counter-intuitive to our modern worldview, some might even say “inverse”): - Darkness before Light (to this day, the Hebrew concept of a new day begins at night)

See also

Light and Dark

Day 2

v6

God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”
Link to original

v7

God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.
Link to original

v8

God called the expanse “sky”. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
Link to original

Waters Above

Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.”

Gen 1:6

Praise him, you highest heavens

and you waters above the skies.

Psalm 148:4

Dry Land

Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” And that is what happened. God called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas.”

Ref: Noah sending the birds out to verify that the Flood Waters have receded

Day 3

Structure

Life comes from the Waters (the feminine); the waters giving birth (the water of baptism giving rebirth)

Distinction between Grasses/Herbs and Trees? Higher and Lower. We would expect the snake to be in the grasses, not the tree? (Winding snake representing time)

Trees

Dentrocentric (many ancient traditions believed this). Fractal pattern (Hierarchical). Trees in the Garden, Kingdoms as Trees (Earthly and Heavenly), Moses Staff, the Cross, “I see humans as trees walking”, “So that you bear much fruit”, Tree of Life in Revelation.

After their Kind

Grass (Herb) and Tree (and the Fish and Animals and Humans)

Church Fathers emphasize everything was created instantaneously (having its history, and seed, within itself). St Ephraim quote. Humans and neural nets as encoded, compressed memories. Born with experiences not our own.

—

Day 4

(Missed the notes)

—

Day 5

The living things to populate Day 2

Champ (and JP): The Ancients perceived the Heavens ABOVE us, and so they symbolized order and pattern and exactness - a spiritual “space”. Now, we perceive it as a physical “space” to explore. More like seafaring where we cannot breath and live and require many garments of skin to survive and encounter monsters.

William: Seed (Tree) where everything begins in unity and expands? Instantiates? Into multiplicity to be unified by God. He says it much more clearly (need to capture it)

—

Day 6

Humans

Distinction between herbs (eaten by animals) and fruit with seed (eaten by humans, including herbs)

Supposedly the Forbidden Fruit (from TKGB) does not have its seed within it! Sarah: kind of like an eternal fruit, no change, renewal. Matthew: Forbidden Fruit as a sphere (literally pointless)

“After its KIND”. Every creature has its seed (logos)

Hierarchical movement: God → humans → creeping things

“In OUR Image”. God and Christ, or Christ and Divine Council. If the latter, the concept of the hierarchy of governance makes sense. Only Humans, Angels, and God have governance in hierarchy. Animals and Plants and Creation do not.

—

Day 7 - Sabbath

Christopher: Hebrew numbers 1-5 do not have an article (unordered). Ordinals, not cardinal, like 6 and 7

Genesis 2

v4

This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
Link to original

A retelling (from human-centered perspective)
https://www.cormacjones.com/bible-fractals/genesis#h.q6uo052yc1k9
https://thesymbolicworld.com/content/the-cosmic-chiasmus

TKGB is a hybrid (good and bad)

No plants, like Mars, no working the ground. Chialistic outer pattern is being gardeners in Eden, until they eat of the TKGB and then they have to till the outer ground

α. The generations of the heavens and of the earth, before plants: no rain or man to till (2:4-5) β. Mist from the earth waters the ground (2:6) χ. Man made from dust and breath; Eden planted and man placed there; God makes trees, including those of life and knowledge (2:7-9) o. River of Eden parts into four to water the garden (2:10-14) ω. Man placed in Eden to be the gardener; commandment not to eat of the tree of knowledge, lest death (2:15-17)

TKGB is something from outside the garden (foreign).

TKGB is Ornamental; it is not to be eaten (even tho it is good for food)

 Eve is created: Adam must die (sleep) to receive his help

#EDIT Joseph and Solomon, and Christ. Joseph enters and leads his family into Exile (for telling the dream inappropriately), but ultimately seeds his people’s renewal. Solomon attempts to unify the nations, but instead of renewing the nations (with the worship of the One True God), his people suffer from the idolatry. Christ does all things perfectly and is exiled into death, but is the seed whose resurrection and life brings renewal and is (in time) the true unifier of the world

James: Tree of Life: No veiling, no trick, no confusion. Appearance follows the essence. You reap what you sow. There is a deterministic expectation

William: TKGB: An indefinite reality that acts like a “mirror”. You cannot use it for naming things according to their essence, you only see your own naming scheme mirrored back at you

Matthew: Saving the Appearances (Owen Barfield). From Platonism, ideas and forms.

James: Link between TKGB and creation of Eve. When Adam is alone, everything is reinforced as it is. The goal of Eve is to renew Adam. She is associated with death via sleep (God causes sleep to fall on Adam to create Eve).

Matthew: Naming things is associated with killing them. Without Eve, Adam endlessly names everything, and it is a closed death loop?

William: Her name comes from the Hebrew that is used most often as “deliverance from death.” Eve (“Living”) is her new name after The Fall. Previously, she was called Woman.

Christopher: the Scientific enterprise is an attempt to name without including the Namer in the system. Impossible?

William: Eve and the opposition serve to prove the original principle. For example, you cannot prove truth exists, but a truth by contradiction serves to prove it.

Ethan: Discussion on consciousness, death and immortality

James: Why is Eve created from within Adam (as opposed to outside of him)?

Matthew: The Incarnation

Christopher: it’s an inversion bc Christ comes from within Mary.

William: Adam is seeing himself from a foreign perspective (a feminine/higher perspective). Seeing the TKGB as a Meta Tree of Life. Movie: “Howell’s Moving Castle” Miyazaki?

Carter: Why does the TKGB act as a veil?

Matthew: God is Lord of both Space and Time, not Space only (eg, Garden only)

James: Veils can make you want what is behind it more (like on a veiled woman)

Sarah: Veils give some form to the invisible

Christopher: Like Job, “I heard of you”. You can hear from behind a veil, but not see through it

Genesis 3

Serpent: Negates God’s statement.

Serpent: “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

James: Eve responds by saying “we can’t touch it” (something to do with touch related to destruction). You cannot simply destroy all of your temptations.

James: Serpent says “Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil”. Verse 7: “At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness

Matthew: TKGB cannot be named. It’s Good and Bad

Sophia: Serpent is more “cunning” (Hebrew play on the word “naked”), “and they realized they were naked”. Gilgamesh and a special life giving plant, and is naked (and asleep)?, and snake eats the plant and sheds its skin (supposedly a symbol of immortality.

TKGB: If you grasp at it (root word of “knowledge” is to grasp), you have to have death with the “transforming life”. vs. Tree of Life as a “direct life”? Why do we want to grasp it? Bc it is a special knowledge that only God has (so snake is a reliable narrator). Christ then incarnates and overcomes death

(missed 45 mins)

A lot of discussion about naming and nakedness (missed)

Matthew: Serpent not having limbs, and being the opposite of mediation, and the connection to Garments of Skin

William: Serpent and Nakedness, relationship to a circle and how you cannot derive the circumference from the center and the need for irrationality

Nicholas: Subtlety (“crafitness”) of the Serpent related to “worldview” in Greek Septuagint (“Phranemas”)

James: Snake is lowest, closest to the earth, but also has some mysterious latent intelligence or pneuma/nous?

Joshua: Christ’s statement that we need to be “wise as serpents, harmless as doves”

Christopher: Per Christ’s statement also consider “Birds of the air, bests of the field”

James: Nakedness and a feeling of hostility from God

William: You’re ashamed of nakedness in the presence of a stranger

Carter: Was the serpent (and Eve) incorrect about what would occur from eating? It is kind of secondary bc either way it was a violation of the command of God not to eat from it

Discussion on morality, the serpent and “when” the serpent initiates the deception. Was it after the recognition of Eve’s growth in wisdom (per Nicholas: restating Seraphim Hamilton)

James: Relationship between nakedness and the serpent

William: Serpent represents complete but inconsistent knowledge. The dove and descending on the flood water (and innocence). Circle, power, …

Lily: Matthieu’s Left/Right eye perspective of knowledge

Carter: Why is snake hosting Satan?

William: Because Adam could not cover the snake, he becomes a candidate for hosting. Adam naming the animals is creating a Tree of Life. The unnamed animals represent the TKGB. He cannot name the fish for example. The serpent represents both is and is not. If you name it as Satan, then you cut it off (perhaps Adam’s inclination). Eve recognized the TKGB having an important purpose. “Do not touch” (“Do not do violence”).

Joshua: Matthieu saying Adam names the animals, but Eve listens to the animals (and advocates for them?). Pharisees being unable to name Christ

Nicholas: Satan plays the role of the accuser in the heavenly council

James: Lower waters being a reflection of the higher waters. Matthieu equates the serpent with time

Carter: TKGB missing in New Earth

Christopher: Consideration of veils

Lily: “Their eyes were opened”. Eye lids are a veil. TKGB and the Cross. We eat the fruit of the cross in the Eucharist. Partaking without understanding is unto damnation.

2024-05-21

(missing first 15 mins)

“Seeking ascendance, but only as given by God”

…general discussion about snake. Lack of legs, ground-level, etc…

Benjamin: birds having (2) legs

William: connection between Eve and technology and serpent and nature, and the enmity between them

Matthew: Kundalini references; Serpent needs humans to be “upright” and empowered, and needs to “trick” humans in order to move up; wings and the dragon in Revelation (snake → dragon is an ascension)

Nicholas: Rev 12: ancient serpent, who through subtlety takes human crown, but undone by Christ and serpent caste down, seeks to make war with the Woman, Woman GIVEN (not a self-achievement) 2 wings like an eagle (to ascend)

Matthew: concept of “when pigs fly”. If you attempt to ascend by your own means… many spiritual practices around the world take this approach. Grass (strives to move upward) vs. mushrooms (down there, but ppl attempt to use it to reach the high places - hallucinogens). Fairy tale about escaping the devil by tricking a bird into giving its wings; the importance of the ascending stories: Christ, Elijah, Enoch

Nicholas: the serpent is cursed to consume humans (forever, if eschaton is considered), which is inverse of his desire to climb up and above humans

James: What does it mean for the woman to suffer in childbearing after being intoxicated by the fruit? Renewal will now be painful. The body has now been poisoned by the fruit.

Benjamin: childbearing vs. simply labor; not only physical but also a “nun” giving birth to spiritual children or giving birth to ideas

James: contrast the curse of Eve with the immaculate conception of the Virgin

Gages: connection between ouroboros and childbearing; ascending out of the closed circle of the serpent

William: pain in childbearing is related to the beginning and the end of the cycle. The curse of the serpent and male is death related; the woman is birth, but is seems to be a mix of to die you must be born again

Carter: before modern times, A LOT of babies died in childbirth

Benjamin: tradition of not bringing infant to church for 40 days bc of the commonality of loss

Ethan: the pain of motherhood; ex., of the Virgin watching Christ suffer

Benjamin: part of St. Simeon prophecy (a sword will pierce your own heart); its a curse on all of motherhood to some extent; Pieta is the height of feminine courage (releasing your child to the world in sacrifice)

Nicholas: Rev 12: “the woman was pregnant and cried out in pain and agony as she was giving birth”

James: a giving away of an identity that you were attached to

Christopher: analogy to the creative process (iterations and tests before it is completed or functioning in the world); potential remnant of the serpents knowledge remaining

James: the nakedness implies naturally/instinctively following God, but now that foreign things have been integrated into the body, we require rule (“therefore Adam shall rule over her”).

Samuel: both tendencies are disordered: to rebel and to dominate

Sarah: inversion of the creation (a sort of anti-creation). Now there is a submission of man to earth (vs being born/created from/of the earth), and woman to man

James: difficulty of holding the seed (ie, not wanting to raise the seed in accordance to Adam’s principles)

William: the woman represents the kingdom to come (as opposed to the man rep current kingdom), but it is too early. Hagar’s early, rebellious child causing problems

Christopher: the woman representing the form that mystery can take (ex of Eve listening to foreign voice vs God)

Oliver: Eve was supposed to talk to the animals, and mediate with Adam, but the sin is in disobeying God. This is the pattern of reality, so the serpent will inevitably be speaking

Olivia: the snake and fruit aren’t the problem, it is a turning away from the love and satisfaction of God. We broke the relationship

James: the serpent is the fact that there is a remainder outside of an identity seeking to destroy it (an archetypical reality)

Matthew: someone needs to not take caution. “Scandal will come, but woe to those by whom it comes”. Pigs: feed first slop, second the excrement of the first, the second healthier over time

Oliver: Divine Mother gives birth to the Seed who crushes the serpent’s head (vs having conversations)

Benjamin: Christ speaking with Satan in the wilderness recites “as it is written”; Christ became a snake on the “tree”

Oliver: Fathers saying that Adam and Even saw Christ crucified when they ate from TKGB but could not bear that solution

James: curse of Adam; prior to the Fall, we ate fruit with the seed (principles of God), but now we are eating what was given to animals. Why the division of eating plants vs sweat of the brow and bread?

Oliver: the “sweat” is a kind of an artificial rain

Benjamin: crying (and childbirth), and forced renewal

Lily: an aspect of renewal: by the renewal of your head, you will be fruitful. Sweat is a refreshment

Carter: Contrast of needing sweat to make bread vs manna from heaven “like dew” taken up from ground and eaten

Samuel: thorns are a rebellion of the ground, like tiny weapons. Points are the most basic tool, and are now contrary to humans. Crown of thorns. (Contrast with turning swords into ploughshares). Tools turning to weapons and vice versa

Benjamin: thorns and thistles: “too many points”

Oliver: things got extremely bad (movement to cities and violence) prior to God using technology for good (Tabernacle)

Lily: the importance of everyday tasks having incredible meaning and teach you about spiritual mysteries. Christ’s parables about working the ground

Oliver: mindless work activities bringing renewal to the mind

Sophia: Is sweat “renewing water” if it’s salt water? Or is it bitter waters of chaos?

Benjamin: Some bitter waters can still be renewing water: wine for example. Sweat renews your skin, but you don’t drink it; woman’s curse related to community; man’s about purpose

2024-05-28

(missing first 40 mins)

James: holy of holies in the tabernacle/temple, and the human heart

Samuel: the shame of garmentlessness and Christ

Nicholas: the connection between the tabernacle coverings and the garments; Christ’s cursing of the fig tree and the fig leaves of the Garden

James: the distinction between the leaves and the garments of skin. God gave the garments of skin, whereas the leaves were “taken”

Lily: Nous, logos, and spirit. Your heart, identity. The place where you offer Eucharist to God from the Tree of Life (your heart) (vs. taking of the TKGB which is self-exile to your identity)

William: not eating from the Tree of Life is similar to the prohibition of not eating the blood (bc “the life is in the blood”)

James: Why do we think it says that “humans have become like one of us”? Is it some sacred knowledge? Or is it a simulacra?

William: God is able to make use of bad to accomplish good. Adam and Eve were attempting to obtain this knowledge by eating from TKGB

James: Does Joseph demonstrate how to do this properly?

William: Matthieu contrasts “to be like God” vs. “to be in the image of God”. 3.14 is “like” pi (an approximation)

Tom: Adam and Eve are only “like” God bc they are not leveraging the bad for the highest good

Carter: TKGB as taking the capability? Of blessing and cursing. Mt Ebal and Mt Gerazim. More than the ability to make moral observations, but to effect change in the world based on blessing and cursing. (See the loose connection between Balaam and blessing and cursing and the angel with the sword preventing it)

Sophia: Adam’s good and bad (work); Eve’s good and bad (husband, birth)

James: Is Solomon asking from discernment the same as eating from TKGB? Discerning good and bad is the way to fix the problem that occurred under improperly eating TKGB. Discernment is dressing oneself. Confusion occurred, so then humans need to make distinction between good and bad so that the problem can be fixed.

Lily: TKGB leading to murkiness and darkness; hybridity of the cherub is a lack of separation; the flaming sword divides and illuminates (ability to see and to name); Ezekiel’s vision (explain more…). 4 gospels going to the 4 corners of the earth, answering the enigma.

James: guarding and preserving (enabling you to mediate heaven and earth by enhancing your both - ie, technology), but unable to access the Tree of Life in a “naked manner” (it becomes an obstacle)

Lily: a sphinx (enigma) that will consume if it is unable to be “properly balanced” (George asks about the contrast of water and flaming sword). Hybrid cherub, hybridity is an enigma (an aspect of time) whereas the flaming sword is an aspect of space. Not in balance (James: mirror reflected back upon you and attempting to consume you)

James: Christ trampling death by death. You don’t show a sword to the cherub

Carter: a loose connection between cherubim and flaming sword and Balaam’s donkey and the angel standing in the way with a drawn sword. “Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides.” (Numbers 22:24). relation between the angels with sword, both in the “vineyard”, standing in the way of the human effecting some permanent change, on punishment of death. God not permitting Israel to be cursed

Lily: Solomon and Joseph using deception for good. Faux separation to real unity. The hybrid cherub carrying the flaming sword guards the place where humans can achieve the full dominion of blessing and cursing, when that pertains to Christ.

Samuel: if Christ solves the riddle by taking the sword. In Ezekiel, Christ is driving the chariot. He is the Lord of the riddle.

James: To get back to the Tree of Life after exile, you need to face the cherubim (this huge unnameable riddle). Christ rules over death. If you attempt to reaches paradise by your own force or will, the cherub is a monster to you

Lily: to enter paradise, you must pass through water and fire (the hybrid cherub)

Carter: there was no way for humans to solve the enigma, only Christ could solve it

Samuel: the cross is the Tree of Life

James: the role of the cherub preserving the Tree of Life in exile (in addition to protecting us)? Pageaus: artificial mediation when in exile

Carter: cherubim in the tabernacle and the commandments (Exo 25:22) ‘God specified that He would meet with Moses above the cover and between the cherubim “and give you all my commands for the Israelites”’ The commands are more than just a moral code of pronouncing good and bad. It is this prophetic blessing and cursing capability, and the link between the cherubim and the TKGB and the commandments (and Mt Ebal and Gerazim)

The Fall

2024-06-04

Genesis 4

James: Children after the Fall

Logan: it is difficult to experience fatherhood and not think “heaven” (to be in the Garden) is to be present with your children

James: Sexual union and the Garden? Matthieu’s discussion on Joseph renewing Jacob vs. his wife

William: consider a king and prince: if a king has complete knowledge, then he doesn’t have to die. For a son to renew you, he has to replace you (and the goal is that he does not forget you, and retains the same God)

Henry: we’ve gone thru the Fall, a change has occurred, and children now exist; a renewal via legacy

Olivia: the Fall is about the choice for knowledge vs. satisfaction in the One True God, so now they are acting through “knowledge” (“knowing”; sexuality). (George) a consequence of this is shown with the brothers

William: your knowledge is the choices that you make (flip of Forrest Gump: “stupid is as stupid does”)

Logan: via Mattheiu (p34,45), “knowledge is…”

Henry: Adam is a microcosm, and each son has the potentiality of Adam; often where there’s 2 there is conflict (and often 1 plays out the proper role better than the other); is Seth a 3rd person? born after some new kind of sin

Lily: a continued descent down the mountain of Paradise

Logan: continuing this idea of a “continued descent” eventually finding themselves in slavery, then in a desperate desert with no direction out, etc…

Henry: Moses and Pharoah as Cain and Abel

James: Cain (in Hebrew ?) and Abel (noun in Hebrew meaning “vanity”; book of Ecclessiastes); occupations: Cain is a worker of the ground and Abel is a keeper of sheep; via the cursing of the ground in the Garden, Cain is responsible to the bad aspects of reality (in charge of the problems) and Abel is responsible for the good (that which follows and fits the identity); this possibly explains the acceptance of Abel’s offerings

Matthew: on the point of vanity, it can also be vapor and myst. Difficult to grasp. Nothing practical about it. “Meaninglessness”. Interesting that it’s a meaninglessness in the good. Solomon makes this connection. Myst is here and gone quicky (like Abel). Real meaning is a connection with theory and facts, not soley heaven

William: Gen 2:6 (… a myst went up grom the earth); part of the solution of no plant and no herb before the garden narrative. Cain is the tiller. Abel is the rain

Samuel: the emphemerality of Abel’s life; we should take the understanding of “vanity” from Abel and read that into Eccles (not the other way around). (Gage) agrees, the descent down the mountain idea is a multiplicity moving down/outward; shepherds have to follow where the grass leads (vs. Cain who is fixed and tills the ground)

Joshua: reminded of Martha (Cain, the active) and Mary (Abel, the contemplative)

Lily: the kingly and priestly classes; Adam represents all roles, but his children are specialization (Cain as kingly, associated with location; Abel with priestly, nomadic given inheritance among other tribes); later issues around kings offering priestly sacrifices (sourced from Seraphim Hamiliton)

William: verses 3-6 written in an interesting way; “after Abel’s offering, God rejected Cain’s offering”; Abel doesn’t become a problem for Cain until his offering is received with greater respect than his own. Adam represents naked mediation; Cain represents man who is able to till the earth; Abel gives a more glorious offering supplanting Cain’s mediation; Cain was supposed to learn the art of fermentation, rather than burning his offerings; Cain creates a problem that isn’t solved until Noah; Abel is able to ruminate (but it’s personal, and Cain should invent that as a public “thing” - fermentation); Rumination (Olivia: example of cow) is solving a problem for yourself; Fermentation is solving the problem on behalf of others.

Henry: Abel is the prototype of leaven, and is replaced by Seth

James: what is the connection between fermentation and ruling over sin?

(screenshot)

(missing last 1 hour)

2024-06-11

Murder, the exile and the mark of Cain

1st (Cain) and 2nd (Abel) born. “Elder shall serve the younger”. Cain has the urgency to solve the problems of the world, while Abel is able to ruminate and wait. Cain represents innovation/civilization (kingly), while Abel represents the tradition (priestly)

Samuel: Western movies. Cowboys hostile to the Farmers

James: counterintuitive that the one who is a herder and whose name is vanity is he whose sacrifice is accepted

Joshua: Cain seems to want to create his own sacrifice, while Abel (with help of time) “receives” the proper sacrifice. God provides the sacrifice

James: Abel is content to not have a lot of “body” and willing to be more heavenly. Faith that things will eventually fit (Zach) like waiting to eat from the tree. Is Cain killing Abel like eating from the tree?

Carter: God warns Cain not to sin (like he warns Adam not to eat from TKGB)

(missed 15 mins)

Winston: How could Cain have gone about it differently?

Henry: a conversation between the 2 brothers and a pattern of a debt to be paid (Rumination leading to a sort of misspent time as a reverse debt); If you’re thinking you may not be farming - one must do more than till the soil to be fruitful

Joshua: reference to the parable of the talents; self-rumination

James: Cain should accept that he won’t be able to name/solve everything at once, and leave room for the margins (and killing Abel is how he refuses it) - the desire to merge the kingly and priestly roles; remnant is being accepted, while the first-born is rejected. “Am I my brother’s keeper?!” It has become such a colloquial phrase

Lily: Yes, it is the kingly role to “host” the priest(s). Hebrews 12 (“and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel”)

James: Matthieu says that the blood of Abel begins the renewal (by forcing Cain into exile). Cain could have waited and been “covered” by the offerings of Abel - the renewal

Lily: Nebachaddnezur is also forced into renewal (for not properly hosting the people of God)

James: the paradox of the 2nd born as the more spiritual

Matthew: fascinating how Cain is intuiting Christ. He knows that he needs blood to renew himself (Noah uses wine). Plants always wait. If you don’t want to wait, you ingest a vegetable to take the waiting of the plant and gain its power. The requirement for renewal is too much to bear, and the judgement is too much to bear as well (similar to the Judges of Israel who judge and save). Christ is also the judge and savior. The pattern of the World pretending that there can be a peaceful co-existence, but acting like Cain “behind the scenes”, while only Christ can bridge the 2

Samuel: Romulus and Remus, and the impact of the Rome myth on modern society

Winston: David would be able to write the end of this story appropriately. God’s correction to the situation is the mark

James: Blood vengeance and the mark

Samuel: the mark representing the covenant and the law (shortly after the first city is formed by Cain)

Oliver: the appearance of God in this time of exile is designed to stop the cycle of vengeance while at first glance seems to empower it (similar to the garments of skin)

Joshua: the mark is an identity

Lily: 1 John comments on Cain being of the Wicked One who hated and murdered his brother

Genesis 5

Oliver: imagine a father who sees his 2 sons fighting over a toy, each wanting to submit the other, the father establishes his identity and dominance (“7 fold vengeance is God taking it to the limit). Relationship to Jericho and the link of the number 7 to time

Carter: Cain and Abel are specializations of Adam. Where is Eve?

Henry: Eve is present within the children, and this is where Seth is important. Seth integrates elements of Eve and Abel.

Sophia: Maybe the missing feminine is in the statement from God, “sin (feminine) lies at the door (female symbol) and its desire (feminine) is for thee, but you must master over it. Just like the curse on Eve, “desire for husband, but he will master”

Oliver: The initial narrative is Male and Female. After the Fall, most narrative pairs are males. Perhaps in a place of exile and violence, the women and children are protected

Winston: what about the physical manifestations of Cain’s mark? Horn? Tetragrammaton?

Henry: likely an inversion of something already seen in the Garden

Carter: the association of marks and angels (Exodus and the death angel; Ezekiel and the marking of the heads; Apocalypse)

Oliver: mark as a branding of an animal; Nebachaddnezzur living as a beast; it’s shameful, but protecting

Winston: Cain’s connection to the earth; by dumping Abel’s brother into the ground, his identity is forced into renewal (and exile)

Henry: Cain, Israelites, and Christ in the wilderness. What about Cain’s inability to look up? James:: “Why has your countenance fallen?”. Cain names, Abel hosts. Seth does both

James: the pattern of the mark and the corresponding vengeance will play out within Cain’s own lineage (symbol of the Cherubim flaming sword)

Samuel: why “7 fold”? Being killed is complete. Is it more than a completion of a cycle? (RJ): sound of the 7th Hebrew letter and its relationship to power

William: 7th generation (the cutting off of the entire family line); Cain has the spirit of Abel return to him in the 7th generation (Jamal and Jubal, who are herdsman and musician “in the spirit of cain”)

Sophia: If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?

If you do well, will you not be Seth?  

2024-06-18

Sarah: we see specific (and progressing) kinds of sin (sin of a couple, sin of brothers/siblings, sin of cities, etc…)

Sarah: Cain’s sacrifice coming from the earth as fig leaves; Abel’s sacrifice of death and blood related to the garments of skin (and a requirement after sin)

James: Abel sacrifices the first born of his flock and later Abraham will proceed to sacrifice the first born (Isaac) (and later Jesus, the first born)

James: Any comments on Lamech?

Carter: Tradition of Lamech killing Cain. This could explain the exponential increase in curse.

Dallas (from previous session): Jabal (herdsman) and Jubal (musician) are the 7th generation of Cain, and the return of the renewal

James: What are the distinctions between Jabal and Jubal?

Carter: Jabal is a herdsman, so that is Abel; Jubal is like Seth (who is the ancestor of David, the most well known biblical musician)

James: clarification on the tradition of Lamech killing Tubal-Cain (young man) and Cain (old man)

Carter: Is Lamech boasting or repenting? St. John Crysostom introduces the repentance idea

James: the relationship between boasting, repentance, and renewal. Why 7 fold?

Dallas (from previous session): renewal arrives in Jabal and Jubal in the 7th generation (Carter: so the curse would be being cut off prior to the renewal?)

James: there are implications of Cain’s self-naming pattern; those below you will rebel against you and destroy you

Carter: Jubilees 4:31 - “At the close of this jubilee Cain was killed after him in the same year; for his house fell upon him and he died in the midst of his house, and he was killed by its stones; for with a stone he had killed Abel, and by a stone was he killed in righteous judgment.”

Sophia: Christ’s response to St Peter about forgiving 7 x 70

Sophia: If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?

If you do well, will you not be Seth?

Sophia: this is before Seth is even a “twinkle” in Eve’s eye, suggesting there was another path for Cain

James: Why is it with Seth and his sons that “they began to call upon the name of the Lord”?

Sarah:

Sophia: calling upon God and walking with God (“Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.”

Carter: St Ephraim: “After Seth begot Enosh, Moses wrote ‘at that time he began to call on the name of the Lord.’ Because Seth had separated himself from the house of Cain, the Sethites were called by the name of the Lord, that is, the just people of the Lord.”

James: Seth or Shem (son of Noah)

Olivia: Shem means name and relationship to HaShem

Sophia: Israel later exiled for calling on the Lord in vain

James: the relationship between distance and calling out to the name

Matthieu Pageau (LoC): “Seth, symbolizes a return to the image of Adam, which is also the image of God. In general, Seth’s lineage represents a new and more successful attempt at finding an agreement between heaven and earth.”

James: interesting that it is “Lamech” (shared identity by name) who is the father of Noah. Any more to say on genealogy?

^ prophecy of the Messiah in the names of the 10 initial patriarchs?

Sophia: the Sumerian Kings list shows the Bible being more modest with respect ages, and relationship to gematria: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_King_List

Genesis 6

James: Nephilim and the relationship between the heaven and earth; a bypassing of Adam’s mediation; in St. Paul’s epistles of women being covered/veiled bc of the angels

Carter: hybridity of the Nephilim contrasted with the separation/holiness of Seth (and Shem); it brings the Flood Judgement (transhumanism is the modern hybridity that will bring the Fire Judgement)

James: Why does God shorten the length of life at this point? It seems like a secondary fall. The flesh cannot bear the spirit of God any more bc it is being attracted to other spirits that are not God (foreign spirits; no longer hosting God properly).

Sophia: this is similar to the limitation in the Garden to not reach out and eat from the Tree of Life

Carter: Jubilees 5:6 - “And against the angels whom He had sent upon the earth, He was exceedingly wroth, and He gave commandment to root them out of all their dominion, and He bade us to bind them in the depths of the earth, and behold they are bound in the midst of them, and are (kept) SEPARATE” James: the idea of separation and the veil

Carter: Church Fathers and the 120 years related to the time appointed for the Flood; our lifespans are now roughly the same (1 life to repent before your own personal flood destroys you).

Sophia: that relates back to the Garden, and 12 is the number of repentance (a full turn around of the annual cycle) x 10.

James: sin is multiplying; it seems we are on a different scale now. What is new that we need a Flood (vs just the destruction of the lineage of Cain)?

Henry: (future discussions about relationship between Japheth and Joseph)

James: it is interesting that God regrets

Matthew: “regret” is linked etymologically to the word “weeping”; God is weeping so as to renew the world (His flood of tears). Humankind needs to be renewed.

Sophia: yes, to 2nd that, the primary meaning is to “breath, sigh” (regret); the spirit/air brings about the renewal after the flood

Sophia: hybridity mixing of above (angels) and below (women); the above and below waters mix to bring about the flood. Similarly, when we sin, if we tear away the veil, we open the flood gates

Carter: the pattern of renewing the people through Noah is something that nearly plays out with Moses after the Golden Calf (and thru Christ as the Church is “born again”?)

Henry: Walton’s work about how prophets progress from the direct commands of God to all peoples to the people of God, to the priests, to the kings, to the communities, to the individuals

Carter: Noah making distinction on the ark (according to kinds, kosher laws)

Henry: in Hebrew “hybridity” = “mixed multitude” (fabrics, kosher laws)

James: the lack of a uniting principle between heaven and earth = hybridity

Matthew: David is a positive spin on hybridity (the Giant killer); the king and the musician

Sophia: David had his own mighty men of renown

Henry: Talmud doesn’t look for a unifying principle, but rather places the opposites near each other in the narrative

2024-06-25

James: what do we think about the Nephilim?

Jackson: we should look at Enoch to understand the Watchers; humans were also corrupt, not only the giants (who were also “heroes” being cheered on by the humans)

Samuel: modern man hates limits

Joshua: AI, robotics, a higher intelligence merged with humanity

Carter: transhumanism, Nephilim a bastardized immaculate conception

Genesis 7

James: God later saves Noah and his family via this “giant” (ark). what do we think about the ark?

Olivia: it is a creation story

James: yes, the naming power is lost on the earth

Joshua: Noah’s name means comfort/repose, and it signals a starting over

Samuel: numerology (I didn’t catch it all); the ark and the relationship of the ark of the covenant (Mary carrying the Offspring)

Jackson: reminder to see things in a Trinitarian way, not a dichotomy. Not simple Nephilim/Cain/technology = evil. God invites Noah to participate in (re)creation

James: the creation of a world includes a washing away of what’s old (see St John the Baptist, and today is his holiday!). Then you need material to offer up for a new world (seed), and you meet God with a baptism of fire

Samuel: a return to the 2nd day of creation with work to be done

Jackson: the ark is like a moving earth between the waters. A little space within time. Today we have the opposite (“time flies”)

Samuel: the ark is 6 sided, a cube like the New Jerusalem (created by Christ the carpenter/tekton). We bring furnishings into the New Jerusalem

Joshua: Christ’s redemption changes everything. Technology, cities

Samuel: work is prior to the Fall, the curse is the thorns, toil, and sweat. In the New Jerusalem, we have clothes, not going back to nakedness

Jackson: transhumanism is evil bc it seeks to go beyond the humanity that God created. Augmenting humanity, healing, prosthetics, these are often very good things

Carter: we often recall the curse, but let’s also remember that God blesses

Samuel: the elements of the curse show up at the cross: the thorns, the sweating of blood, the “work” of the cross

James: kosher animals on the ark (and the ratio).

James: the lifespan shortening and the connection to “the going down”, except Noah who is 600 (Samuel: 6 is building and Noah built a righteous life)

Samuel: God shuts Noah into the ark. A statement of God’s work (Christ: “you did not choose me, I chose you”)

James: Noah shutting himself in would be self-naming

Carter: significance of 40. Moses, Christ, children in the wilderness (even Goliath taunting Israel)

James: what to make of the animals?

Jackson: in our humanity, we have animals within us as a microcosm. The bible is to be embodied in a human body, it is incarnational. It’s all about covenants and agreements, and it has to be lived out in Christ’s humanity and divinity

(missing last 1 hour)

2024-07-02

Genesis 8

(The story of Noah and the rainbow covenant)

James: the beautiful idea of God “remembering” Noah; a more involved human participation after the Flood

Joshua: Genesis “8” (the number of recreation)

Carter: Noah is the 8th from Adam, according to 2 Peter (but 10th in the Genesis genealogy)

James: the raven (the left eye; that which explores what cannot be named) and the dove; the eyes that see from above; what do we make of the bird not returning?

Samuel: extending the olive branch symbolizing peace

Joshua: the dove is represented specifically as “she”

Sophia: do we think there is any connection between this raven and the ravens that feed Elijah? (usually ravens take food away, not bring it)

(Discussion about ravens in general)

Lily: for Matthieu, birds represent the search for knowledge

James: at first the dove returns (heaven and earth are not meeting yet), and later the dove settles on the structure of the olive branch

Lily: when the Bible speaks symbolically associated with dreams, there is talk of trees and birds (Nebachaddnezzur, Isaiah, Christ and the Kingdom); space and structure which can support higher ideals (knowledge)

Samuel: if the 2nd day is an environment which is just sky and water, then that is relevant here; Christ’s baptism in the waters and the Dove descending; dove = white/light; raven = black/dark; clean and unclean

Lily: Christ’s baptism - theophany

Winston: the Urim and Thummim (divination stones) (being black and white)

Noah commanded to disembark from the ark

Winston: for humans to properly mediate, we need to be on dry ground (the earth)

James: why the animals on the ark?

Samuel: the ark foreshadowing Mary

Carter: the rainbow is a bridge; Noah and the animals represent a bridge between the old and new world - seeding the new world. (But why not specific plants?)

Lily: humans and animals representing the logos; humans are in the womb for “40” weeks

Henry: there tradition of others surviving the Flood (see more Giants fought later); the plants, peoples, and animals that survive at the mountain top; similar to the peoples who live outside of The Garden. Adam is lifted out from the clay. Noah from his generation. Gathering of animals (like a Pentecost)

Lily: the text states that the flood covered all mountain tops and nothing with breath survived

Jackson: look at the ark like a seed; there was a rain but now it is opening up

Samuel: considering those on the ark as 2 + 6 or as 4 + 4 and its relationship with renewal

Henry: sacrifice is Noah’s immediate action

Jackson: we have to think about sacrifice in the context of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation; setting the tone for the new world

Carter: Noah is serving as a priest (Jubilees 6:2: “And he made atonement for the earth…”) like Abel, even tho prev he has been a man of the earth like Cain. This is an example of the important pattern of merging the kingly and priestly roles (see Christ as prophet, priest, and king)

Genesis 9

James: according to the genealogy, Noah will bring the rest. He inherits the earth and its problems, like Cain, but he deals with it differently. (Noah is able to wait)

Lily: Matthieu’s tweet: the rainbow covenant is God saying “take all the time you need” (a positive spin on the TKGB)

Samuel: significance of Noah being 600 yrs old (I missed some of this…). what is being said about the curse?

Henry: like the Passion, “the debt has been paid”; the ark settles on the highest point (kind of a world unto itself), then it descends

Carter: this brings to mind New Jerusalem descending from God in heaven (per Revelation)

Henry: aside about God (as opposed to the angel) potentially killing the 1st born of Egypt by speeding up time

Carter: the relationship of time and TKGB, perhaps why they lived so long; human lifespan has changed post-Flood

Dylan: Jonathan Pageau and the limit of human years being 1000

Henry: what is the significance of God smelling the sacrifice?

Daniel and Lily: NT references to sweet smelling aromas to God

Jackson: the Incarnation! not simply the anthropomorphism of language

Samuel: liturgical incense, and incense being most specific to smelling

Winston: the incense smoke is a veil; also the smell is “good” and this is about discernment

Lily: yes, example of sniffing the milk in the fridge; the relationship between the heart of the offering and the smell (the prophets relating God’s dissatisfaction at the smell of some offerings); Mary Magdalene and the spikenard

Gehenna/Hell as a trash heap

Henry: those prophetic examples speak of a smell like bad trash

James: the aroma “going into God’s body”; this covenant seems to be a new thing happening, why? (RJ) more of a “renewing” of the existing tradition

Lily: there is a connection with baptism (8 sides of baptismal font); the flood cleaning the earth of sin

Carter: St Matt 3:11-12; St Luke 3:16-17 - baptism of the Holy Spirit by fire (and connection to the fire judgement)

(missed last 15 mins)

2024-07-09

Cancelled

2024-07-16

James: Why promise of no more flood?

Olivia: relationship to the curse (and now

Flood and Fire Judgement
Water baptism and fire baptism
External and internal?
Blue and Red
Progressive Fall, Circumcision
Covenants
Clean and unclean distinctions; Noahide commandments

James: discernment; important as this is a new start

Allowance to eat flesh? simultaneously elevation (a grace for this new world) and a concession (not the intention of the original pattern); example of Moses and divorce; St Christopher
“Flesh shall not be eaten with its blood”? Example of a vampire; idolatrous per Eucharist (the only true food)
Command to not drink the blood and the relationship to the Garden command to not eat from TKGB
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah
A kind of mixture like the Nephilim
Connection to the Macabbees
Covenants:
Henry: tov mabov (form without spirit form); separation and stabilization; when God separates the water, He agrees to maintain the upper waters
Rainbow being an archer’s bow; connecting 2 things with tension (binds Heaven and Earth; “binding” of Isaac); agreeing not to shoot us with his arrows
Rainbow being a universal covenant; those to come are more specific

2024-07-23

Carter: continuity with the old world

James: renewal via the best of the old world

James: (reads the sign of the covenant). water and clouds. A bridge between worlds. Noah, the comforter is the proper person to bring heaven and earth together

(missed some time)

Carter: connection with blood and water and covenants; Moses and Christ and New Covenant

Sophia: clouds as particulates and blood (Heath’s idea)

Carter: Gemstones on priests breastplate, New Jerusalem; James Jordan and gems as solidified rainbow

Sophia: planting of a vineyard where vines are like a bridge (on earth vs rainbow in heaven)

Lily: rainbow is connected to rumination as a result of exile bc of TKGB; the wine is for rumination as well; intoxication connected with sleep (Noah in his tent) and nakedness

James: paradoxically Noah is the one who is saved in the flood via the “space” of the ark, but then is the intoxicated ruminator; outsourcing rumination

Lily: MP says that Noah is the inventor of esoteric knowledge

Sophia: fermentation and connection between esoteric knowledge

Lily: for the ancients, fermentation is about adding “time” (they do not understand the biochemical processes); foolishness, sleep, these are all related to time and how to use it

William: flour and water and time, fruit and time, even waste and time is manure (fertilizer); do not impose on the remnant

Carter: in a new world with shortened life span, consuming time is valuable

Sophia: a kind of philospher’s stone

James: a frame of Noah saying let me experience it so others do not have to

Carter: risk of consuming time (wine)

James: time has the potential to undo your identity

Sophia: wine is bitter and leavened bread is sour(dough); in Hebrew unleavened bread is sweet bread

William: the sourdough simulated bad

Lily: per walking backwards (MP says rumination/renewal is of the future, tradition is of the past), and how to unite them. It is not proper for his sons to look upon Noah in this state of ruminating esoterically on the future (the uncovered thoughts of Noah)

Carter: Ham grasping at Noah’s uncovered thoughts like TKGB

Lily: from Ham we get Babylon (Tower), Nimrod, those who simulate the Nephilim; 2nd born not waiting, ruminating

James: the father is the source of the identity; when the father is gone, I can enact my snakey ideas; the garment hiding is kind of a proper dealing with the TKGB; Adam and Eve were allowed to “look” at the tree

Lily: Absalom and David and Absalom taking his fathers wives

Sophia: Reuben loses his position; Christ and the Father done properly

William: there’s something interesting here in that Noah awoke and knew what was done to him as opposed to Lot who did not know what his daughters did

William: per sodomy, Ham is attempting to plant a seed in what Noah is attempting to discard

Lily: the rainbow and corruption by “rainbow cult”

Lily: witches riding a broom. Gather dust, that which is discarded, cause a revolution and then fly above it all

Carter: what does it mean to not impose order on the remnant at a societal sense? No renewal?

Lily: Babylon and the forced unity of the nations

Carter: Solomon; should he have ruminated (planned for the coming Messiah?) over generations

William: youngest son, not Ham; Midrash that Ham castrated Noah (you prevented me from doing that in the dark); Canaan supposed to be Noah’s son

Sophia: 1st born Shem (Semites/Nomadic/Canaan; middle hosting) meaning “name”; 2nd born Japeth (North/Heavenly) meaning “widening/seduction” (to others); 3rd, youngest, Ham meaning “hot” (William: seeing too bright of a light that he should not have seen); Canaan meaning “burned, dark”

William: blessed be Shem of the God you know by name; Japeth (like the angels that Abraham hosted) representing more esoteric, God as God of all nations; Ham of the earth

#TODO (missing Gen 10, 11 session notes)

2024-08-13

Genesis 12

Carter: why does Lot choose? and the curse of the choice

James: Abraham being able to cover Lot’s mistake

Lot’s identity. Father is gone. No sons. Plays husband to own daughters

William: Abraham takes TKBG to enlarge his body. Adam does same, and “land cannot support them”. Babel and Abel connection: Nephilim (Seth’s daughters with Cain’s sons) and Shem and Ham at Babel

Abraham is without offspring (“seed”)

James: pure potential identity before it is manifested on the earth

William: MP perspective (“seed” represents the solution to heaven and earth). Artificial mediation vs. Natural mediation. Closely related to being fruitful (fruit has its seed in it. It’s about manifesting the knowledge of God in creation).

Carter: why so many years before Isaac?

James: Tower of Babel and need for rectification in the earth; time needed to solve the problems and corruption

Olivia: to emphasize the miraculous (like Christ buried 3 days)

William: time properly integrated is glory (like gray hair)

James: MP corruption of the rainbow covenant, curse of Ham/Canaan, leads to Abraham (journeying to Canaan and circumcision - not coincidental). Let’s pay attention to the pattern of circumcision

Sacrifice is split and Abraham shews off birds of the air

Genesis 13

William: this is a separated body. Lot and Abraham splitting was the same - a separated body. Sacrificial animals represent different statuses of society. Abraham covering from birds show he can cover the body (back to covering Lot’s mistake)

Carter: is sending Abraham to Canaan a covering of that cursed land? Is the purpose of all of this to demonstrate the Messiah covering humanity? Messiah will be “cut off”. God providing the coverings in the Garden

Sophia: Lot’s name means “veil” or “covering”. Foreshadows the Exodus, and forming of a nation. 10 trials of Abraham? 10 trials. Separation of waters. Separation of Israel as a priestly nation.

Carter: command to disperse throughout the earth. Great Commission.

William: Eliezer is a servant. Ishmael is the offspring of a servant. Later Isaac looks like he will become a servant in Egypt. (vs free born son).

Sarah: an incomplete sacrifice? Bc of no fire, nothing goes up, and the birds come down

Sophia: God appears as a burning pot; calls to reminder Elijah and calling down of fire

William: Abraham is a priest. Shewing away the birds is like shewing away Pharoah and other houses in the land

Genesis 14

Carter: Melchizedek?

William: Melchizedek is the king of Salem, and is a righteous man. The other peoples sins are not filled up yet, not “ripe”

Genesis 15

Abraham falls into deep sleep

James: when the sun goes down we see the dark side of God. TKGB simulation example. Nightmarish experience. God: “you really want to see the future”?

Sophia: the difference between the one bright sun showing vision and millions of small starry lights

Olivia: circling back to Genesis with an added dimension

William: the iniquity not being full is like David and Saul. A deep sleep, close to death (like Adam)

Carter: Christ and the darkness over the land. Christians as kings and priests, sojourners in the world, seeking a heavenly city. Covering of Christ. A 3 day “sleep”

James: Flame of fire. Sacrifice is burned during the night. What does that mean? Not Abraham’s doing?

William: 400 years of slavery. The flaming pot is the fiery judgement. Sleep is not just about exile and losing control, but also about renewal (bring a new perspective). Light comes out of darkness

James: to answer the question of how Abraham views himself. God bringing light out of darkness. God solving the riddles or being the solution to the riddles

James: Why Canaan? Sin of Ham against Noah. (Carter: something must be so grievous about this in order to call Abraham to cover it, in anticipation of the Messiah)

Sophia: the first time God declares someone righteous (standing upright); Abraham becomes the pattern for the future

2024-08-20

Genesis 16

James: as in the Garden, Sarai is offering fruit (Eve and TKGB) to her husband

Carter: Hagar is a foreign perspective (like the serpent)

James: it is a controlled opposition. Sarai is not suggesting Abraham go far and discover foreign fruit, but this servant of mine

Lily: MP points out Sarai’s barrenness is a microcosm of barrenness of Canaan; barren land needs to “lay” fallow

Sophia: Abraham receives the vision of slavery ahead for his descendants, but the very next story is this imposition on their own slave

Carter: Jubilees holds Hagar to be Egyptian

James: there seems to be a blaming (like Garden, but in reverse); it’s not Abram and Sarai who are exiled, but Hagar

Sophia: combo of Cain and Abel, but with females. One of the “offerings” is accepted, and jealousy causes Sarai to send Hagar into exile. “Go back and submit to your master” is like a mark (of Cain) in a way

Lily: St Paul and Galatians: children of servant woman vs children of promise/free

James: connection between Hagar and the flesh and law vs the promise by faith and Sarah

James: son is a wild donkey of a man, like a hybrid, like Nephilim from improper union between Abraham and Hagar; even this error will bear fruit for Abraham

James: why does Abraham recv a new name now?

Sophia: the “ha” (breath of God) addition. An attempt for an heir with/out the breath of God

Lily: proper way for multiplicity to find unity is Abraham being the “Father of Faith”; an answer to the Tower of Babel

James: why circumcision (compared to Noah’s covenant)?

Sophia: related to the generated organ

James: it’s about preserving the unity in multiplicity in some way

Lily: the rainbow covenant is message of hope for the outside; the circumcision covenant

Carter: no surprise that circumcision is an issue in early church; it’s a transition from unity to multiplicity in the nations into a higher unity in Christ

Sophia: from this unbroken line, God is incarnated into the world

James: this circumcision preserves, removes the periphery; a mark that separates in an out

Lily: relationship to the sun, the dividing light, the flaming sword; MP: once the covenant of circumcision appears, the power of renewal is relegated to the female until the male power of David

Sophia: tradition that Joseph revealed his mark of circumcision to his brothers

James: circumcision is cutting off the outside but also a turning of your sword on yourself; 8th day indicates coming into a new world (Noah) and circumcision

Lily: if you have ingested something foreign to your body, this is a cutting off. Ham already ingested the foreign into the body (James: integration of Hagar?)

Sophia: Christ as the ultimate example of the flaming sword turning in on itself

James: circumcision and baptism?

Carter: St Paul and Col 2:11; Holy Spirit as a flaming fire; baptism of Holy Spirit vs water (fire and water); jailer and baptism of household (Abraham circumcises household)

2024-08-27

Genesis 17

(missed this first part of the session)

Genesis 18

Hosting of Angels

Winston: Sarah is making bread (gathering dust and refining it); hidden (feminine) and her tent is a veil

William: Sarah’s womb is “fixed” by time (promise arrives when her period stops); Abraham is 100 (Year of Jubilee); it’s the establishment of meta-space, time sealing itself off to host the identity

James: time wears things out to the point that they cannot host their purpose anymore

Sarah’s laughter? “Haha” moment is similar to an “Aha” moment

Genesis 19

Angels look “down” toward Sodom

James: what is the relationship between the “hiding” of Sodom’s judgement from Abraham and his becoming a great nation?

Carter: Time and the “filling up” of sins (Amorites, Hittites)

Samuel: maturation of sin (acorn to tree)

Winston: spirals: double helix spiraling upward, but also the downward spiral of bad begetting bad

James: hardening of Pharoah’s heart

2024-09-03

Winston: contrast of leavened bread and the angels waiting with Abraham vs Sodom and Lot and unleavened bread; chiastic structures

Abraham’s intercession / negotiation

Jackson: discussion over tension in negotiations (urgency, pressure sales)

James: Abraham brings a foreign perspective on God; a mirror

Jackson: this is what participation with God looks like

Samuel: we like children are being trained (toward theosis)

Henry: 1st example of human agency with God; 5 and “beseigments”; numerology of 18 and “life”; 10 quorum

Carter: principle of better guilty go free than righteous unjustly punished

Jackson: Christ in the Garden and “if this cup may pass, but nevertheless…”

James: Abraham has proper balance in that he is not bringing revolution upon God’s head

Carter: the angels are offering a chance for Lot to participate in hosting them (hospitality)

(Revisit leaven/unleavened)

Henry: unleavened bread is about urgency (time); presumably the end of the day bc they are discussing sleeping arrangements

Lot bargains with his daughters, then bargains to live in a small town; the City (mentality) is “leaking in”

Sophia: salt pillars at dead sea consuming things (wedding dress that salt consumes in short time)

James: a fire judgement, the blinding of the eyes

Gabriel: parallels with Judges 19

Carter: Rev 11:4-8

Carter: the downfall of Lot; from dividing with Abraham over herdsman infighting to nothing (living in a cave and being seduced by his daughters); bargained away everything to Sodom?

2024-09-09

Genesis 20

(missed initial 45 min)

Carter: connection to promise of Isaac and barrenness of wombs of Abimelech’s household. Jubilees doesn’t mention it beyond that Abraham is tempted by wealth. Does Abraham know that he can enlist God’s help? God prevents any confusion about the promise by warning Abimelech (similar to confusion around identity/fatherhood of a prostitute’s seed)

William: MP’s comment about Abraham’s original sin being married to his sister. The land will not host him

Sarah as a cherubim keeping the way of life; she is Abraham’s half-sister (hybrid)

Henry: if Sarah is the tree, there is a question of where she can be “planted”; Abraham cannot plant in a land that’s not his. Isaac born near Petra with water and rocks?

William: dreams allow us to simulate death. God appears to Abimelech and says that “he is as good as dead”. Sarah as the forbidden fruit. Abraham turns death into renewal, and prays for Abimelech (same thing as getting Sarah pregnant)

Sophia: a psychological reading of Abraham so far is like a human who prepares for a covenant with God. Initially, heaven and earth is not meeting bc Sarai cannot give birth (first mention of infertility). Sarah represents covenant as a wife. Abraham and his family visiting is as the angels visiting Abraham earlier. Abimelech is not a nation that fears God bc rather than offering food, he asks about his woman. In this place, there can be a waking up of the sleeping king. By redeeming the land, Abraham is now able to be fruitful

William: is this land the same as where Hagar fled? If so, this is a continued rectification of the land

Gabriel: is Abimelech similar to Hagar like an attempt to fulfill the promise? (Hagar substituting for Sarai, and Abimelech for Abraham)

James: when things go wrong, we attempt artificial mediation (similar to technology) via the earth. A king is the ruler of the earth.

William: another interesting thing about this region is the connection to circumcision. Immediately following Hagar in this region, we get the covenant of circumcision. Immediately after this we get the circumcision of Isaac. Similar to Egypt and the before and after of crossing the river.

Sophia: Abimelech hearing “you’re a dead man” similar to Moses being suddenly pursued by God and then Zipporah circumcising his child(ren). Exo 4:25

William: first circumcision is associated with death/age, and then with birth (8th day), entering in to the promise

Sophia: circumcision and trees and fruit. “When you come into the land, wait 3 years, and count the fruit as uncircumcised”

Henry: circumcision is a “cutting off” and “raising up”; a sacrifice is a form of circumcision

Sophia: commentary noting that Abraham receives the thing that he prayed for Abimelech (opening of the womb)

William: “forgive us as we forgive our debtors”

James: Abraham prays (acting in a priestly role) for the king. God fixes Sarah’s womb, bc of impossibility of her age

Genesis 21

Carter: a miraculous birth of the promised son - sounds familiar!

William: Jubilee Year connection with 100. Time sealing itself off as a meta-space

Henry: Jubilee is 7 7s and a left over year “outside of time”

James: laughter is an overflowing of space (time crowning space as a meta-space)

Hagar and Ishmael, again

Henry: Beersheva - the place of the well and 7

James: Ishmael mocks Isaac (a different kind of laughter)

Sophia: Midrash about Ishmael seeking a double portion and taking Isaac hunting and shooting arrows at him (and link to Proverbs). Ties in the “bow” again. Cain and Abel. Esau and Jacob. Ishmael, Esau, and Nimrod: hunters with bows

William: the bow represents hope in the eventually resolution of TKGB. The bow represents him ruling under a strange? He shoots at the target but intentionally misses to hit Isaac (missing the mark). Rainbow cult: intentionally sinning to maintain your temporary rule that should be passing away.

Carter: this is the liberation of Ishmael (William: …and he rules by the bow) (Sophia: and he gains 12 tribes)

Henry: God is holding separate (like the bow) Isaac and Ishmael

Sophia: 70 represented all nations at Babel, now 12, will go back to 70

James: like Sarah and Abraham have same father and diff mother, also Ishmael and Isaac are same father and diff mother

2024-09-16

James: what do we think about Hagar’s experience?

Carter: on the initial exile, it was not time yet. Angel sends her back. Now it is time. “Fulness of time”. God hears the boy’s cry (not Hagar)

James: God looks on the hidden, the lowest

Gabriel: Jacob also has half of his children from servants, but they recv inheritance while Ishmael does not

Sophia: the sacrifice of Isaac comes next (this is the sacrificed son in 2 ways: Ishmael); like how Abraham went down and does sister-wife “thing” twice. Death by exposure is one way to get rid of a baby (unfavored). Death by sacrifice is another way (of a favored child). The angel calls out to Hagar before Ishmael dies. Both referred to as a “young lad”. Both have bushes: under a bush, ram caught in bush

Lily: slave and master is a Nephilim pattern (too low w/ too high)

Henry: brother pattern is playing out; in order for seed that comes from tree of Sarah to come to primacy; Ishmael being cast out (internal) so that Isaac may be raised up. Coverings of skin. Participation in the covenant

… Galatians

Abimelech, Abraham, the well and 7 female ewe lambs

James: Abraham is able to make things happen in the world via authority from heaven as mediator (vs force)

Carter: this is the pattern of exerting influence indirectly (Joseph, Esther, Daniel)

Sophia: in the tree centric universe, Abraham plants his tree here that represents negotiation with the nations

James: this is also the place where Hagar fled (she is a tree)

Genesis 22

Sacrifice of Isaac. James: why?

Oliver: God using TKGB with Abraham (like Solomon and the prostitutes and babies, or Joseph and his brothers). There is a revelation of a higher good: Abraham demonstrating his faith.

Sarah: Isaac’s willingness; Joseph. contradictory command

Carter: TKGB as a contradictory command?

Oliver: “God will provide a lamb for himself” Circular, enclosed in himself. Think Ezekiel and the cherub wheel within a wheel. Abraham is the character going up the mountain (and we would expect something at the top)

Samuel: ram is caught by its horns (shofar, the turning, the Jubilee)

James: the ascent is a moving towards a defined purpose, but Abraham experiences a question mark at the top

Oliver: somewhat ambiguous (contrast with Moses: “come up on the mount and I will give you the commands”). Abraham obeys God by not eating from the fruit (Isaac). God is using Abraham to transmute the TKGB into a Tree of Life. Abraham inhabits the paradox even if it costs you your future - extreme obedience. God renames Abraham and this new principle is passed on into the world

Carter: the riddle is answered in God (LoC reference)

Henry: Abraham is building the 3rd? altar and this is a 4th sacrifice. At the point of the sacrifice is where heaven and earth meet (covering/informing and expression) are both occurring. Akkeda “binding” or the rainbow binding heaven and earth.

2024-09-23/30 (Genesis)

William: perhaps some ambiguity implies God teaching that God wants a living sacrifice?

Jackson: Isaac was a young adult - a self-sacrifice

Sarah: ? relationship to offering and her own sister. Something about the universal act (representing the nations?)

Carter: TKGB and the simulation of offering the only son (Christ all thru the story); the psychology of Abraham (“now I know”) and Adam (“where are you?”). God already knew

Henry: this story is related to Yom Kippur (2nd day) and repentance. Also Jonah. Abraham is submitting to God

James: by offering his identity, and only 1 son, Abraham receives the promise of multiplicity (in heaven: stars, in earth: sand)

Henry: genealogies often represent a break in story (here we turn our attention to Isaac)

William: putting the knife to Isaac is a simulated death (like Adam’s sleep), and Rebecca shows up (like Eve taken from side)

Genesis 23

Henry: Abraham and Isaac are no longer together after this moment

James: Abraham is acquiring property in a strange land

Henry: Abraham negotiated a reciprocal price (less than he would have required). This is a cave, so this is giving Sarah a tomb/mosoleum

Samuel: this passage is longer. Is it the first property acquisition in The Land? (Yes)

Henry: Genesis is the pattern, Abraham is the playing out on a human level, next is…

…

Genesis 24

Henry: Isaac does not go on the journey to fond a wife bc he should not leanve the land.’ The woman from the homeland is like soil. Think of the Land like a tree

…

Henry: pattern of women who will water the stranger. We placed Sarah in the tomb and now we are drawing fresh water. Water connection in Rebecca’s lineage

James: Hagar had a water pitcher on her shoulder?

Samuel: the amount of water from a well being a symbol of fertility

(missed last 30? mins)

2024-09-30

Genesis 25

James: why is it saying that he sent his son’s “East” (children not of Sarah)?

Henry: loose connection with Eastern Religion (gave “spiritual” gifts), but probably about lineage and future peoples and making distinction with Isaac

Carter: Abraham more fruitful with new wife (he was not cause of prev infertility); quantity vs quality with promised heir

James: Isaac is unfruitful and prays to God, so it is a pattern of God providing fertility with the promised lineage.

James: “the children struggled within”; this is a MP example of the inner cycle. Rebecca is also playing tricks privately (to prevent a public war? To prevent Cain and Abel repeat?). Inner cycle, simulation

Henry: the “greater/stronger” refers to future nations

James: why do the boys have to be divided? Is this priest unable to coexist with king? “Older will serve younger” inversion of tradition (usually the case in time of renewal). A common biblical pattern

Samuel: twins are paradoxically opposites. Esau is associated with south, downward

James: why is Esau having red hair? obv beastly

William: MP refs red as “naked” earth. Can lead to corruption or renewal. Blue thread (secure seal) vs red (infiltration), look at the hand and see blue veins (red blood inside the body)

William: perspective matters. 1st creation starts from water, 2nd from dry land. Jacob is first from God’s perspective

James: relationship between heel, and snake and Eve heel and crushing head.

William: Jacob does subvert/supplant (play on his name) Esau with red porridge (sending to exile)(like red wine). Also may be “covering” Esau’s heel (later stories). Jacob is the snake that heals (!! Bronze serpent, Christ). Similar to God putting Adam to sleep to prevent him from sinning (turning you out of the bad way)

Replay of Abel and Cain?

James: why does Isaac love Esau’s game?

William: it is setting up a comparison between Isaac (naming, imposition) and Rebecca (listen to nature). Esau’s name means “to make it work” (he only has a bow/branch, not the Tree of Life), while Jacob cares more for the meaning of things

James: MP’s statement about masculine working for Eve and feminine for Adam. Jacob is working for Rebecca

William: elder shall serve younger is about making the earth work for you. Esau is working, but the earth is opposing him. When you don’t have to impose the meaning/name, then the earth works for you. Jacob gives Esau a meal, and rest, and saves him from death

Carter: Heb 12:16; connection to birth rite and Parable of Prodigal Son. Bread representing time (fermentation); high in carbs! (Sleepy time)

Genesis 26

James: a famine in the land is an example of the earth not supporting you. In response, Isaac goes to Abimelech (God tells him not to go to Egypt). A lot of repetition of the Abraham story. Sister-wife.

Olivia: connection with name of 3rd well (enough space) and the twins fighting in the womb (over space)

James: what does it mean to re-dig the wells that your father prev dug and were stopped up by others?

Carter: Abraham was a more fruitful people, the wells were unoccupied by Abimelech, then Isaac was blessed with fruitfulness by God and they reopened them

William: you don’t want to leave wells open for your enemies

Henry: pushes back bc Philistines are traditional enemies

(Carter: Abraham and Isaac are “blessing those who curse them?” like Christ)

Carter: pattern of Abraham offering a priestly healing to Abimelech’s women and following fruitfulnes, and Isaac offers a priestly blessing and immediately we hear the report of water

William: (Beer)sheeva is related to 7, Sabbath. Isaac is a stranger flooding the land (digging all the wells)(Philistines reestablish space by filling in the wells). Then they make and agreement and leave Abraham’s well (and altar)

2024-10-07

(missed a lot)

Olivia: the covering that fooled Isaac and the Incarnation of Christ (God “covered” in humanity) to “deceive” the tyrannical powers of darkness

Genesis 27

Carter: Esau and daughters of Ishmael (a buffer on the margins, not foreign; kind of acts like a filter of the foreign)

James: stone is a stumbling stone causing Jacob to sleep and then becomes a foundation stone

Carter: ladder in NT (“you will see angels ascending and descending on Son of Man”)

Samuel: reaffirmation of the covenant (offspring will be like the dust of the earth)

Carter: this occurs when leaving Isaac’s house (same happens with Isaac - Gen 26:4, and Abraham - Gen 15); and with Christ being “the Rock” (stumbling and foundation stone)

Genesis 28

Gabriel: (Jonathan Pageau): Jacob is in the wilderness and raises a pillar and anoints it with oil (like a liquid light), and now the place has an identity

Hannah: similar to the fiery pillar in the wilderness in Exodus; phylagratic? (Phallic) James: stone was in the earth, potential; not imposed

Sophia: pattern of “drawing out and drawing up”; God’s purpose to reconcile people to himself

“How awesome is this place?” (Temple established here)

Ma-Norah: menorah, anointing oil, burning bush, tree of life, cross

Hannah: very relevant reading from Bulgakov “The Holy Grail” (Eve and the wound from Adam’s side; Christ’s side wound that heals)

“The spear wound, not the breaking of His bones, is the conclusion of Christ’s salvific sacrifice for the redemption of humankind. This blood and water wash human sin and create the New Testament Church, with its grace-bestowing mysterious gifts: baptismal water and eucharistic blood. Out of the side of the old Adam was created woman, who tempted him to fall. But the wound delivered to humankind from Adam’s side is healed by the spear wound in Jesus’ side. The blood and water that flowed into the world abide in the world. They sanctify this world as the pledge of its future transfiguration.”

“Through the precious streams of Christ’s blood and water that flowed out of His side, all creation was sanctified-heaven and earth, our earthly world, and all the stellar worlds. The image of the Holy Grail, in which the holy blood of Christ is kept, expresses precisely the idea that, even though the Lord ascended in His honorable flesh to heaven, the world received His holy relic in the blood and water that flowed out of His side; and the chalice of the Grail is the ciborium’ and repository of this relic. And the whole world is the chalice of the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is inaccessible to veneration; in its holiness it is hidden in the world from the world. However, it exists in the world as an invisible power, and it becomes visible, appears to pure hearts who are worthy of its appearance.”

— The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, Bulgakov.

Genesis 29

Callback to the wife being found drawing water from the well (at “high day”)

James: why this interaction?

Winston: Jacob is a master of sheep

Sophia: it foreshadows Jacob being duped with Leah (Rachel means sheep; Leah means cow; Jacob is eager to water the sheep - and marry Rachel)

Tears of renewal

Olivia: “and Jacob kissed Rachel. As Nahum Sarna notes, there is a pun between “he watered (wayashq) and ‘he kissed’ (wayishaq). the same pun is played on by the poet of the Song of Songs.”

Winston: the weeping of love is similar to Esau desiring the meal

Winston: analogy with the striking of the stone by Moses and the waiting

Samuel: deception with Esau and Laban; weak eyes of Isaac and Leah

Carter: Hagar and Leah, both sympathetic (a timing thing); what comes after?

Samuel: the years are like days. 7 years as 7 days. A creation story

2024-10-21

Sophia: Jacob is very flamboyant and emotional (see his end of life and lament over short, evil years; brothers’ concern for Jacob’s emotional well-being over Joseph and Benjamin); too much spirit (not enough body) being “blown around”?

James: anything to the ordering of the sisters?

Carter: Leah gives birth to the Messiah (Judah)

Sophia: also Messiah as “Son of Joseph, Suffering Servant” thru Rachel

Olivia: inversion with Rachel giving water; rolling stone away (Lazarus); Rachel “weeping” for her children

James: usually woman joins males family, but Jacob is living with his in-laws

James: Rebecca did the tricks on Isaac, and this is her family (Laban) performing tricks on Jacob

Samuel: 7 days are prob a wedding week; like a re-creation

James: Leah has the week eyes, but it is Jacob who is deceived (an inversion)

James: names of patriarchs?

Simeon: eyes

Olivia: Hagar (“the God who sees”)

“But God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Do not be afraid! God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.” v17

Olivia: Naphtali struggles in the womb, grabs the heel; a lot of “heel” grabbing

Carter: Per the Jill, and the recurring “heel”, not sure whether we covered this in Gen 3, but Satan is later associated with the serpent, so an angel is taking on animal body to strike the heel of the woman. Strikes to the heel are strikes from below. Strikes do not come from above? Possession is taking on body too. Speculative

Genesis 30

Hannah: wrestling with technology

Jackson: Compared me As Leah treacherously got my husband, so I have craftily surmounted the difficulties of barrenness; I have struggled earnestly, and have got the victory. Patal, means to act with cunning. (Psalm xvii. 27.) (Calmet) Nephtali, “a crafty wrestler. “(Menochius)

Henry: The usual PG interpretation of gen30:8 is that rachel and lea were competing and then reconciled after naphtali

Samuel: technology is alchemy: mandrakes are shaped like a human body; the sticks and cows later; divination?

Hannah: Technology, alchemy, magic, surrogacy

James: Jacob requires payment to be present with Leah; Leah viewing her productivity (as Earth) to her value

Sophia: the mandrakes are Rueben’s and Reuben later “defiles his mother’s couch”?; improper virility

Hannah: Here is the birth order of Jacob’s children, along with an indication of whether their mother is Rachel (R) or Leah (L), including the children born through their handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah:

Reuben - L (Leah)
Simeon - L (Leah)
Levi - L (Leah)
Judah - L (Leah)
Dan - R (Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid)
Naphtali - R (Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid)
Gad - L (Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid)
Asher - L (Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid)
Issachar - L (Leah)
Zebulun - L (Leah)
Dinah (daughter) - L (Leah)
Joseph - R (Rachel)
Benjamin - R (Rachel)

Rachel’s direct sons are Joseph and Benjamin, while her handmaid Bilhah bore Dan and Naphtali on her behalf. Leah bore six sons and one daughter, and her handmaid Zilpah bore Gad and Asher.

Here we are seeing jacob’s descendants (including women) as we see the genesis pattern refine and fulminate through each generation of the patriarchs from abraham to jacob

Like jacob and his own brother there is strife and reconciliation between the sisters and the children as well

NoRegret: if it were up to Jacob, he would have had only 2? sons; God had other plans

Jackson: Happily, fortunately. Gad, or Bonaventure. (Haydock) “Good-fortune “was acknowledge by the pagans for a divinity; (Isaias lxv. 11.) perhaps for the Sun, or Oromagdes, the Gad of Aram. He was opposed to the wicked Arimenes in the Chaldean theology, by Zoroaster, (Calmet) the inventor of the Two Principles. Whether Lia intended to attribute this child to the influence of the planet Jupiter, the Sun, or some other tool, we cannot determine. (Haydock) Her naming may be simply; Behold I am now a mother of a troop, or little army, Gad; and to which (Chap. xlix. 19.) Jacob evidently alludes. (Calmet)

From me. Lia was aware that Jacob’s affection lay entirely towards Rachel; particularly now as she had ceased to bear children herself. (Haydock) This might, when it is my turn to have him. To prevent any jealousy, the husband visited his wives one after another, as was the case with Smerdis, the king of Persia. (Herodotus iii. 79; Exodus xxi. 10.)

“Nothing is really more efficacious than meekness and nothing more powerful than it. See at any rate how, by a disarming use of meekness, Jacob also brought Laban to reply to him with great deference. “Laban replied to him,” the text goes on, remember, “If I have found favor in your sight, and the omens do not deceive me, God has blessed me in your coming. Name your wage to me, and I will pay.” “I am not unaware,” he is saying, that in the wake of your coming I enjoyed favor from God more richly. So, since I recognize the kindness done me in your coming, “name any wage you care to mention, and I will readily pay it.” Consider what a great”

Saint John Chrysostom Gen 30:26

William: Dinah, the 7th, the remainder of the cycle/circle; later she will be raped by ? (foreigner); a piece that isn’t covered; MP: Joseph was supposed to fix the problem that happened with Dinah (Setchum); in response to Dinah’s birth, God remembers Rachel and she gives birth to Joseph (who should later fix the problem)

Carter: “Laban: I have learned thru divination…” Kelly’s reference to divination stick earlier seems like a repayment for the sin of divination (ref)

Henry: Jacob (manipulator) vs Israel (mediator); Jacob is telling the truth to his advantage (“pay me what’s mine… but give me the males, secret best”)

Carter: Abraham and Lot: “take whatever you want, I will be blessed”

Henry: Abraham is the seed and Jacob is a fruit, he has some faith, but he is also operating like his mother

Carter: Jacob is practicing divination on Laban to counter Laban’s divination; (Hannah: it’s also a form of techne)

Henry: the types of trees (eg, poplar) show up later in important ways; the manipulative pattern plays out with Jacob and Esau and Laban and Jacob; Aaron will hold almond; twice generative rods near the breeding process

Olivia: Jacob is searching for vigorous cows, not weak. Leah was a “weak eyed” “cow”

Carter: like the pattern of blood vengeance, God marked Cain to stop it; here we have a pattern of manipulation vengeance and later God will mark Jacob on his hip

James: what do we make of Gen 31?

Henry: the wages are like a wages of sin

— 2024-10-28

Jacob is joined to “Rachel’s” house (inverted, where daughter joins husband). Saul/Laban, David/Jacob

Genesis 31

Sophia: similar to Jack and Beanstalk. Jacob is the golden goose. Laban is trying to put Jacob to sleep to continue recving God’s blessings thru him

Samuel: Laban means “white”, and he has settled in the north, and Jacob is attempting to gain body here

William: refined flour; returning to the household identity (Terah); Rachel takes the “teraphim” !! (idol)

Gabriel: connection to Exodus story

James: Laban is a vampire

William: leaving Egypt is leaving the grave; leaving Laban is leaving the false heavens (place of demons); speckled (yin yang)

Sophia: yes, tyranny of earth and tyranny of heaven

William: (earlier) white rod represents Laban (artificial fallice; artificial heaven); Jacob exposes Laban’s artificiality; Babel; the rod is being used to fool the sheep to mate (hybridity); Nephilim similarity

Sophia: God instructs this in a dream; usually God wants “unspotted” and “unblemished” animals, but not here?

Hannah: exposing the spiritual “artifice”; unity in multiplicity is a miracle

Carter: without the presence of God, you have a Babelian approximation; 666 unable to reach 7

William: God appears as a stumbling stone to prevent Laban from sinning

Sophia: Jacob says the one with whom you find the idols will die, and Rachel later dies in childbirth to Benjamin; connection to God telling Laban to say nothing (good or bad); Jacob makes a rash vow (like the man who vowed to kill next thing out of tent - it was his daughter); Benjamin and the cups (inverted), Jacob, and Joseph later

William: promising on something you do not know; Benjamin is son of right hand (overreach?)

Henry: Rachel is playing a trick, but with the left-hand; a secret place

James: what does it say about Laban’s identity that it ends up in this private place? Using the period/time cycle to get out of the situation

William: mixing notions of defiling and renewal. The blood is renewing the tradition of Laban, but also defiling it? Change happens in the secret, dark, hidden place

James: why did you leave before I could play music for you?

William: Laban was trying to put him in a holding pattern

Hannah: “the way of women is upon me”; darkness, mystery, change, replanting

Henry: Rebecca tricks Isaac, Jacob tricks Esau, Laban (Rebecca’s brother) tricks Jacob, Jacob tricks Laban, Rachel tricks them both (w/ the idols)

William: camels permit you to pass thru exile (like the garments of skin)

Olivia: it was the women who took the idols and jewelry from Egypt

Carter: this is a grave betrayal. Abraham called out of Terah’s house of idolatry. renewing these teraphim is a betrayal of Abraham

Henry: Rachel is the first example of a returning to idols; later we see acts of establishing a pillar (Gilead); sacrifice/worship (kind of repentance)

William: later Joshua recalls the teraphim and says “me and my house will worship The One True God”; this is also pillaging your enemy of knowledge. It can be useful, but also dangerous

James: an establishment of Space; an artificial fixing; temporary? (bc God told him not to say good or bad)

Sophia: perhaps “don’t say anything good or bad” meaning do not “bless or curse”

William: father kissing his daughter(s) is a good image of heaven and earth; swearing on the “fear of Isaac” (means “mocking”)

Winston: Jacob’s character is transformed

William: Jacob is a suffering servant and Laban is a type of false accuser; Job; Christ

Sophia: beauty in the ambiguity of the Torah; being able to consider it from both perspectives (“good and bad”)

2024-11-11 (Genesis)

Genesis 32

James: What are we to make of the camp being divided?

Olivia: perhaps there is something a missing remainder

Mia: a going to a back, he returns with 2 wives, 2 sets of children

Jacob wrestles with God

James: the context is that all of his family (his body) is sent away, Jacob is left alone, and it occurs at night

Hannah: sending gifts ahead; what is it about the physical-ness of wrestling? Surrender, relinquishing body, to receive a higher name

Carter: similar to Judges 13:18 (“Why do you ask my name?” the angel of the Lord replied. “It is too wonderful for you to understand.”)

James: MP refers to Jacob’s limp as the small curse that is beneficial for you; it forces him to slow down

Carter: relationship between Cain and Abel; Jacob’s offering is recvd in a sense by wrestling with the Angel; the younger shall serve the older

James: by offering himself as a servant to Esau; the “body” that Jacob received was in exile

Carter: what do we say about the hip? Is it a circumcision?

Winston: the intimacy of the hip; it’s a changing of identity

Hannah: the explosive force that comes from the hip

Sophia: circumcision is symmetrical; this is asymmetrical. Power and intimacy

Carter: I assume this would take place on a mountain, but it doesn’t say it

Henry: typically messengers of God are encountered along the way as you would experience others

Carter: Joshua 5:13 (Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”)

Genesis 33

James: callbacks to Abraham

Henry: Jacob’s name means something like “pulling the wool over someone’s eyes with the truth”; this encounter on the road has helped him learn from his mistakes and prepare him for this reconciliation; he is continually turning for the better (his name has not changed yet in the text)

Winston: the movement is like a child walking

Henry: we are moving from Jordan towards Egypt, where Jacob is establishing a new central point (El-Elohe-Israel)

Carter: why the route(s)? And the retracing of the steps? MP’s “Time Machine”? Jacob is a different person on the return. Egypt (South) to the Paddan-haram (North), then a return.

Genesis 34

Carter: the sons speak on behalf of their father; they are going ahead of Jacob (overreaching); they play a trick (relearning the lesson of Jacob) to achieve vengeance (Cain)

James: in contrast to Jacob’s ruminant nature

Owen: it’s not for Jacob or anyone to transmute the TKGB into a Tree of Life, only God does this. It’s their responsibility to ruminate; MP’s tweets per Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim (blessing and curse; raw TKGB) being in Shechem

James: perhaps they should have ruminated on the foreigner rather than cut it off completely; Jacob “held his peace until [his sons] arrived”

— 2024-11-18

Genesis 35

James: a return to Bethel, and a stripping off of clothing

Samuel: the idols are being hidden, why not destroy them?

Carter: Schechem is a very important site; it’s a valley that lies between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim

Henry: Jacob is further “refining” the demarcation and naming of the place (Beth-El (“I encountered divinity in this place”) → El-Beth-El (“This is God’s place”))

Hannah: initially an altar is made to “the God that (familiar) appeared” to you, and then to “the God who is with you”; refinement

Carter: why doesn’t Jacob seem to draw on knowledge (about God) from Abraham? https://www.amazon.com/God-Anatomy-Francesca-Stavrakopoulou/dp/0525520457 Hannah: the cycles of generations and the need for refinement (adornment)

Samuel: Job (I have heard of you by the ear, but my own eye has seen)

Carter: it’s not until Moses that we see this knowledge of God as both familiar and universal

Samuel: established in the law (via oral tradition)

Samuel: Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, as mediator

James: Rachel’s death in childbirth calls back to the curse of Eve; Benajamin’s birthing place and Rachel’s dying place

Sophia: this place: Bethlehem Ephrata is the place where Christ will be born (according to Micah); King David consecrates the property to the Temple, and raises sacrificial lambs there

James: why the renaming of Benjamin?

Samuel: the psychological consideration of renaming the child to not be associated with the death of his mother

Winston: now all the players (sons) are “on the board”, so we see more reference to Israel

Henry: sexual connoations with “son of my right hand” meaning Jacob is done having children (the wife he loved has died; Leah is barren).

Sophia: “oni” in Hebrew later connected with idol worship; kind of like Rachel is saying “this is what those idols have brought me”

Henry: also the vanity of not being able to raise your children

James: God told Laban not to speak good or evil, he does anyway, Jacob is forced to make an oath that whoever stole the idols “will surely die”

James: Rueben sleeps with Bilhah (Rachel’s handmaiden);

Carter: Joseph will later correct this, and receives the double portion that belonged to Rueben

Genesis 36

Henry: moving from the external of the family of the covenant, to now the internal of the family; reconciliation with his brother, and brother exits the scene; transitioning to the 4th patriarch (Joseph); Jacob has dreams, but Joseph is able to interpret dreams; a long lineage is like a break in the text

William: Joseph is a rainbow bridge; he is seeing with his left eye and bringing a bad report about the future

Samuel: Joseph’s strength in Egypt is his management capability; here is is managing (judging) his brothers

James: what is relationship between the old age and the beloved son?

Henry: the youthfulness that you cherish as you age

NoRegret: after his hip injury, he is spending more time at home?

Samuel: 17 yrs, Jacob 17 years in Egypt; Noah and flood and 17th day

Joe: Joseph is the son of Rachel, the favored wife; the other children disinherited themselves at Shechem (and Reuben with Bilhah); relation to the Noahide covenant and rainbow

Henry: the coat is an investment (and a vestment); the multi-color coat represents work and it is inherited early. There is an earthyness to Joseph, but he is also the dream interpreter

Samuel: also the relation to Noah and Joseph saving the family and seeding the new world

Hannah: relationship between the covenants

Carter: Jacob clothes his son prior to exile (callback to God clothing Adam and Eve prior to exile)

Gabriel: also the pattern of Christ as the beloved son who is betrayed by his brothers and comes out of Egypt (Carter: the clothing? “A body you have prepared for me”)

Joe: Joseph is not just a Messiah figure, but also a prophet. We see how prophets are treated. Joseph is stripped of his glory and left in a well (Jeremiah)

James: Joseph told the judgements to his father in private; should he have done the same with the dream(s)?

Sophia: we have this typical Genesis ambiguity where we are not privy to the details, so we ruminate; we see God’s involvement

2024-11-??

Genesis 37

Hannah: https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/large-scale-chiasmus/the-joseph-cycle/

Joseph’s coat being an adornment; rainbow covenant 🌈

Hannah: messianic setting apart; credit and investment (predestination, foreshadowing)

Samuel: when Jacob met Esau, he “layers” (garments) the other brothers and family in front of Rachel and Joseph

Henry: Joseph is going to be accepted in Egypt (and given a new name); related to Dinah

Matthew: Joseph giving a bad report to his father is a callback to Cain and Abel; a pattern of jealousy and how it gets acted out, and how it is leveraged to bring them back; Israel provoking the nations to jealousy and Church provoking Israel. Jealous of the original identity

James: the younger brother can take the foreign perspective looking back at his family

Hannah: at worst Joseph is a braggart, but when compared to brothers and Shechem and Bilhah; a story of refinement

Samuel: the 2 dreams represent earth and the other heaven

James: Matthieu and the exile that comes from telling the dream publicly

Matthew: in the context of the coming famine in Canaan, it is about food collection; self-fulfilling prophecy?; is there a progressiveness? Jacob is included in the 2nd

Samuel: sheaves represent the multiple bound as one (like the tribes)

James: heaven and earth are not meeting; the status quo is being disrupted; a cosmic realignment; jealousy is the catalyst

Samuel: the dreams provoke that which they predict; sun, moon, and stars representing archetypes (like in Genesis)

James: Jacob keeps the dreams in the private space; he cannot publicly admit at this point that the theory is correct (fact and theory not meeting); the facts will rebel against Joseph (and his dream theory)

Winston: Dotham means double… feasts, wells,… , moving away from the father

James: Jacob wants Joseph to report on Shechem (fallout from the event?), but they are not there; they move on to Dotham

Sophia: the first born(s) missing their opportunity wrt to Joseph; Joseph’s son means twin ash-heap or twin fruitfulness

Henry: this is not the homeland; we are distancing from Bethel; these areas in the north have (false) temples, nomadic traders, no city-like hierarchy (we will next head to Egypt, the opposite); extremes of the foreign; the brothers are manipulating “the merchants” (Carter: see Babylon!!), and lion imagery; wilderness (see Revelation)

Samuel: the first pit is here, the second is Potiphar’s prison

Sophia: Joseph’s story is the most chiastic

Henry: the brothers who intervene is noticeable: Reuben (first born) and Judah (first born of servant); intervention saves Joseph’s life but leads to exile

Gen-37 :18-36

Henry: the Ishmaelites are chosen among other traders; Joseph is involuntarily disrobed by his own family

David: Hagar is an attempt to control the Egyptian exile, now Ishmael will be the means that causes the exile by rescuing (or smuggling?) him to Egpyt

Carter: symbol of resurrection; reply of the Shechem pattern where the other brothers go ahead and take some bad action (revenge for Dinah); in this case Reuben wanted to deliver Joseph, but he has been sold when he arrives (tears his garment, like Jacob, standing in his place)

Samuel: Jacob associates the pit to Sheol (grave); the later prison “pit” is a 2nd heroes journey

James: at first the brothers worry about concealing their brothers blood, and then they manufacture it (by killing a goat); Joseph being an ornament (like the traders’ gum, balm, and myrhh) to be profited from; the conspiracy changes

Matthew: when you try to hide something, it ends up creating an artifice of some sort

Sophia: Rachel’s name means “sheep” and she hid something with “blood”; and now we have this with a goat

Winston: there is a unity in a coat of many colors; it is destroyed thru this process (Reuben wants this, Judah wants that)

Matthew: the coat of many colors being a problem, and needs to be removed? Joseph as scapegoat; an attempt at unity that is too quick? Joseph achieves his purpose without the coat

Olivia: an uncovering, a nakedness, a stripping away

Sophia: like the red thread (vs blue) to detect intrusion, the coat is dipped in blood; the Judah and Tamar story is next too; also Rahab and the spies

Henry: regardless of precise amount of 20, it is a counterweight of value against the life of Joseph

Samuel: Potiphar is protecting Pharoah, and is the one who encounters potential dangerous strangers, and Joseph ends up in Potiphar’s position and protects and elevates Pharoah (too highly?) via the grain

Winston: Moses flees to the Midianites after killing an Egyptian

https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/large-scale-chiasmus/the-joseph-cycle/

James: relationship between Reuben and Joseph, the tearing of the clothes (uncovered, vulnerable); related to the mandrake story; something to do with his mother Rachel (mandrake is a “man under the earth” like Joseph is in the pit)

William: tearing of the coat means that he cannot cover his family as the firstborn

2024-12-02

Genesis 38

James: MP sees a relationship with Shulamite woman in Song of Songs. Isaac and Rebecca worst nightmare was children marrying Canaanite

Samuel: spilling of seed is like a pre-Flood spilling of blood (violence)

George: God asks him to renew the lineage of his brother, but Onan refuses

Carter: Judah is the line of the Messiah; he was not “supporting” his lineage; it’s more than simply wasting his identity

James: he doesn’t care about the foreign perspective wrt to identity

Olivia: “support” is important bc like the widows in the NT, they must be supported

James: Tamar hiding herself is that which appears to Judah as a stranger but is not

Winston: Onan may be selfishly trying to “hide” his procreation capabilities to inherit the birthrite

Carter: this is a pattern where the masculine doesn’t fulfill his duty; the feminine must capture him in her web;

James: the feminine setting up a world of illusion to trick the identity to back in the proper direction.

James: what to make of the shearing of sheep?

Carter: away from home, more “turnable” (kids going to college)

Samuel: wool and garments and veiling

Hannah: prostitutes are non-committal, do not further your identity; Rachel connection

James: his name (ring) and staff are not with him

Samuel: not only identity but authority, and the line of David

Lucas: Judah is Leah’s son, she had not recvd the deposit; later Judah will put his lineage on deposit for Benjamin (and for his stomach bc of famine, like Esau)

James: something interesting about her not being found; unknowingly his lineage is being renewed

Samuel: by saying “let her keep these”; he is authorizing her authority

James: inner cycle of the womb

Samuel: pattern of older serving the younger

Carter: Zerah is an ancestor of Achan (the “spy” who smuggles in the idols of Ai); the red string is infiltration; v3 (Tamar and Perez in the genealogy of Christ)

Lucas: Achan sets up an false altar, while Perez is an ancestor to the Messiah

James: the burning and the flaming sword that turns on itself

Hannah: that defines the Fall, the judgment that falls back on yourself

Carter: very NT words of Christ “with the judgement you judge it will be judged to you”

Carter: the feminine seems to be able to properly be selfish and bring renewal; the masculine selfishness is destructive (stealing renewal)

Hannah: yes, like a divine right to dissolution

William: what do you make of the Adullamite’s role in this story?

Sophia: there’s a connection between Joseph’s coat, Tamar, and the other Tamar who was violated by her brother. That Tamar wore a coat “of many colors”, the only other time that phrase appears

And she had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the king’s daughters that were virgins apparelled. Then his servant brought her out, and bolted the door after her. v18
And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her garment of divers colours that was on her, and laid her hand on her head, and went on crying. v19

2024-12-09

Genesis 39

Carter: interesting thread about Joseph probably thinking he was the “Esau” of his generation/story:

Why doesn't Joseph write home to his father?

James: Joseph is able to prosper even in exile (bc the Lord is with him)

Samuel: another going south to gain “body”; interesting number of references to “The Lord”

Carter: Jewish prophets placed in positions of power in world empires

Hannah: “mater” (material, abundance, matter); similar to Laban and Jacob; a golden goose

James: Adam’s curse is that it will be difficult to work the land; for Joseph (and Jacob) the land produces abundantly with ease

Carter: Reuben (1st born) and Joseph (inherits double portion). Joseph denies wife of the master of the house, whereas Reuben took her

James: Potiphar’s error (and later Pharoah’s error)

Samuel: separation of the head and the body

Olivia: Potiphar is a eunuch

Carter: callback to Judah leaving staff and signet with Tamar; callback to having your servant raise up children for you

James: parallel with Judah and Tamar story; Tamar could have publicly exposed Judah, while Potiphar’s wife uses the garment to falsely accuse

Carter: the feminine vengeance, like blood vengeance is at odds with the law; the feminine calls upon others to take vengeance

Hannah: the feminine calling upon more body to swallow up Joseph

Samuel: the feminine power is persuasion

Winston: second time Joseph has lost his coat and been thrown in a pit

James: and the different lies: the brothers and Potiphar’s wife

2024-12-09

Lucas: Perez holds back Zarrah (ancestor of Achon); Zarrah means “to hold back”; Joshua 7:1 (“unfaithful”); same words used in Acts with Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5:1); Leah used to “hold back” Rachel; good and bad holding back and “tricking” (Tamar tricks Judah into renewal); (Judaism as the older brother to the Church and the struggle for the younger brother)

William: Joseph’s story is about being joined with the earth (Sheol, Shula); Egypt

God is able to rule with limited and unlimited

Olivia: like 6 and 7; 6 is the work of man, 7 is approximation (William: the Master’s touch)

James: Laban (north) and Jacob compared to Potiphar/Pharaoh (south); the danger for Jacob is “giving up” and the danger of Joseph is being “dragged down”

Matthew: Joseph’s garment being torn (layers pulled off) as he attempts to “preserve the seed”

William: Joseph needs to rule with the unlimited

James: the seed and drowning

Matthew: MP: Abraham’s seed taken and drown in Egypt; you wouldn’t call baptism a drowning

William: it is the sign of Jonah (being saved from drowning)

Matthew: the scandal of the sowing of the seeds where some are thrown into fertile dirts and places of bugs, not on the firm ground or rocks; Adam and Eve could not find the seed in the fruit (of TKGB)

William: the purpose of the tree is not to eat it

Hannah: Potiphar’s wife is like a siren; placing seed in her is like sowing it on solid ground or drowning it; purpose of the siren is to lure “seamen” to their death

Lucas: the seed has water, but is not deep enough in the ground (in Potiphar’s jail)

Samuel: Joseph dies 2x; dying and reaping and multiplying

James: Joseph is dealing with the unlimited (everything they do not know); the only way to rule/surf the unlimited is with God on your side (resisting Potiphar’s wife is staying with God)

William: Joseph is faithful to the incorruptible seed (God); so he keeps “rising up” regardless of circumstances

Gabriel: the parallel of Daniel and living in exile

Matthew: the Church is the seed in the world that resists and is holy, preserved in order to be spread out; going in the dark places; tension “wrestling” of preservation and dissemination

Carter: tradition of Enoch spending more time with God than disseminating and being taken up to heaven

Matthew: Joseph is able to preserve and disseminate simultaneously

William: in prison, Joseph is learning to rule over the remainder; in Potiphar’s house, he learns Egypts space; the dreams come when the prison guard stops “watching”; by trusting Joseph, renewal comes to Egypt

Genesis 40

Lucas: the chief bakers body is broken, but the cup bearer continues to pour the wine (Christ)

Matthew: Samuel and witch at Endor and “ghost pits”

William: “familiar” spirits (do not renew bc they are familiar)

James: what do we make of the dreams? Bubbling up from below

Hannah: Joseph is working for Eve

Sophia: In three days pharaoh will lift up…

3 days in the belly of the fish…
3 days in the earth and the son of man is lifted up

Carter: why do we say that Egypt is being renewed? It is eventually flooded

William: another Pharoah who doesn’t know Joseph, and who rules over the whole world

Lucas: the language for placing the cup in the hand is next used wrt to placing items in the ark

Matthew: from death to glory, that which is below or hidden becomes crowned

Lucas: witch of Endor is a reverse passover; listening to the dead, listening to his men; eats unleavened bread; no new message is given; results in his death

Matthew: Egypt’s attempt to resurrect the dead

William: Pharoah is looking to the future (cupbearer and renewal) vs the past (baker and bread/space)

Sophia: Remember and Seed are similar words. A seed can remember its identity once dried and stored for thousands of years in some cases. I think they are a genuine symbol of remembrance but that’s completely different from saying “it’s the same word.” So just doing due diligence. Certainly the idea of being planted in a pit, being remembered, and storing up grain are interwoven in the Joseph story.

Carter: false renewal vs real; did Joseph remember the prophecy to Abraham

Lucas: some Egyptians leave with Israel (seeded into a renewed Israel)

William: vine represents real, living renewal; the forgetting represents the diviner is limited; it is being blessed by the strange (if the cupbearer has brought it before, it would be too strange). When Pharoah has the dream, it was from his body

Carter: similar to the Esther story where the king has the histories read to him and remembers that Mordechai saved him

Caleb: Pilate’s wife

James: different ordering for good and bad news for Abraham vs Pharoah

Matthew: interesting point about the doubling of Pharoah’s dream as being “fixed by God”

Lucas: sacred and profane

William: the transition from life to death and the coffin of Joseph

Lucas: the dream and doubling (Adam being put to sleep and Eve being created)

Winston: a double dream exiles Joseph; now (years later) he understands dreams are from God

Matthew: a magician not of technique (like Christ)

2024-12-16

Samuel: link to Pharoah’s birthday (and the beheading of the baker) and Jewish traditions around birth and death around birthdays (Moses); John the Baptizer beheaded on Herod’s birthday

James: John is the bridge to the New Temple; separation of the head from the body and renewal

Olivia: a repetition of not remembering and forgetting (Gen 40:23); zachar? (verb of memory; you plant the “seed” in memory)

Nolan: the delay in time between planting the seed and it sprouting to bear fruit (and the delay for Joseph to be elevated)

Genesis 41

Hannah: the sprouting of the seed and the sprouting of Joseph as a reinforced

Carter: Daniel and Joseph receive the dreams when they are “exiled” (like a seed in the ground) and then they give the interpretation and are rewarded (sprouting up); on the 2nd dream interpretation of Daniel, it seems he has gone from a ruling elite to forgotten (“we remember this guy who used to interpret dreams”)

James: the dreams as a loss of earth (the cows) and a loss of heaven (seed, the mind)

Matthew: the world doesn’t know how to preserve its seed past 1 cycle (ex. Noah); Joseph is making a way to harvest beyond 1 cycle - inviting the world onto the Ark (the first inklings of this); relation between Noah and Joseph and the divination cup

Hannah: a closed loop vs. an open loop, and the opportunity to live with the unlimited; abundance

Matthew: 12 represents a completion of worlds, and there is a need for the 13th to be an opening in the closed circle of the 12 (lotus petals); Christ is the 13th when he is present (“Father take this cup from me”); Jonathan Pageau on how identity exists by self-emptying

Carter: St Paul is the 13th; the apostle to the nations

Olivia: “spiritual significance of the number 13, which as reflected by the 13 attributes of Mercy relates to a transcendent dimension of G-dliness. This transcendence enables one to infuse spirituality within our material world. 12 is the number of maximal differentiation. It is the number of lines that border a cube, and according to Chazal, all of reality.”

James: from Pharoah’s perspective, he cannot conceive of Egypt being poor and ugly (“never seen in all of Egypt”)

Matthew: that phrase recalls the Flood (“never before seen in all of the earth”)

Samuel: 7 years is a complete cycle; 1/5th is a double “tithe”

Olivia: it’s a reversal of using credit (taking less than you have and storing for the future)

James: during the cycle life, Joseph is offering a sprinkling of death so as to not have the death (famine)

Olivia: what do we make of the shaving Joseph’s head and changing his clothes

James: it’s a cleaning (removing the old identity and receiving a new one)

Carter: Joseph is not renewing Egypt; they will be pummeled and only a remnant (but not one sufficient to preserve the identity?) is goes with Israel and the gold (a commodity); Joseph is a stumbling block and bc Egypt fails to integrate him properly (another Pharoah “forgot” about him) ultimately Egypt is flooded; Christ is a stumbling block; Joseph is a proto-Messiah (Israel represented by the brothers; The Suffering Servants)

Samuel: Joseph represents the feminine?

Olivia: the gold on the neck is important wrt to the feminine and the neck turning the head

James: Joseph listens to the dreams of the other prisoners and is responsive

Lily: parallels with Daniel- I believe both are given a necklace of gold and dominion over the kingdom after interpreting the king’s dream

Samuel: language about sands and sea is a callback to Abraham

Olivia: covenant language

James: always leave a remainder for the future

Hannah: Christ emphasized abundance in spite of scarcity

Samuel: Joseph is 30 years, David was 30 when he assumed kingship?, Christ was 30 when he began his ministry

Matthew: forgetfulness supports re-membering

Hannah: re”member”ing (to put back together)

Olivia: Christian perspective on the sons and the burden of laboring under your sin; the experience of suffering and forgiveness prior to the fruitfulness

Sophia: baptism is a kind of immersion in the river of forgetfulness, the one that separates the living and the dead. Except we’re moving from the land of the dead (here) to the land of the living (new life)

Matthew: the baker kind of had to be killed bc he would use up the grain! (and perhaps also so that Joseph would be forgotten)

Samuel: elder son serves the younger (again); it’s interesting that Joseph marries a priest’s daughter

Sophia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_and_Aseneth

Samuel: the storehouses are ark-like structures; a 6-sided cuboid structure (a symbol of 6 in both good and bad senses)

Olivia: asceticism (fasting); “forgetting” to eat

Hannah: Joseph as a proto-Messiah reminding of the little deaths that lead to life

Matthew: if you remember everything about something, you actually don’t know anything about it. You are trying to account for all of it to know it. Forgetting allows you to know it truly. Quality vs Quantity; “For it could not be measured.”; Sand of the sea. Sea covers the sand beneath so that it is not to be measured. The sea instead reflects vision back towards heaven to know the lowest things beneath the sea. Forgetfulness is a solution to the desire to know things in the improper way. Christ calls us to die so that we may live. Forget so that we may remember. Antichrist on the other hand encourages us to live that we may live and remember that we may remember.

Carter: language reminiscent of the nations going up to Jerusalem (Isaiah, Revelation)

James: How does this differ with the story of Noah? (Avoiding the death of the world)

Matthew: it’s avoiding death, but showing you how to die; reflecting back to that which is above is why the lower things can serve the higher things; Egypt will either participate in Israel’s identity by supporting it or by being discarded; like Christ and all hearts (things against Him are for him)

Carter: “whoever would save his life must lose it”; “if you judge yourself, you would not be judged”

Hannah: a transfiguration of death

Samuel: triumph over death by death

Matthew: “I have come that you may have life and have it to the full”; the incorporation of death leads to Life (as opposed to lowercase life)

James: had Joseph not taken the death of the pit on himself, Israel would have starved

Matthew: Solomonic wisdom and how do you use TKGB to allow that which is on the outside participate

Matthew: the forgetfulness of the fool and who is able to “forget” that the TKGB is being used against him

2024-12-23?

Symbolic Notes

Genesis Session

v1

v2

7 Days of Creation

Day 1

v3

v4

v5

Day 2

v6

v7

v8

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7 - Sabbath

v4

Graph View

Table of Contents

Backlinks