25._ Bible

According to the tradition that we have received, that man in whom incarnated God was Jesus of Nazareth, twenty centuries ago, and His town was the Jewish people, the historical Israel. In the Bible --the books that interpret in religious key the events of the life of Jesus and the history of Israel--, has therefore to be content the message of salvation and the testimony of its accomplishment.

The Bible attributes to God, to the direct action of God, each one of the eventful journeys and acomplishments of the Israelite town: its political and social foundation, its laws, its structures, etc. The triumphal times are interpreted like gifts of God, and the defeats like punishments. Any custom, legal or social norm, material and spiritual wealth, etc, were attributed or oriented to God.

Is this compatible with our points of view? Is this one the God of the Redemption, the Incarnation, the loving, kind, benevolent God towards His small creatures, who wants to be made like them to engage in a dialog with them and to save them? Or is only a protector-dominating god of tribes and nations, a projection of the human necessities of security, power and dominion, to whom offerings are made to appease his wrath and to obtain his favors, to whom to entrust the success of the harvests and the battles?

Evidently, the answer is not easy, because it seems to exist a great confusion. According to our tradition, the God of Jesus has all the characteristics of the true benevolent God; not thus, apparently, the God of the Old Testament. Nevertheless, for Jesus and his disciples is the same God, that before was only partially revealed, and after, in Jesus, has been manifested such as He is truly. In this new key –the one of Jesus--, and under this new light, we must interpret the narrations and prescriptions of the Old Testament.

But also the facts and messages contained in the New Testament are referred to the Old one, are understood correctly only to its light. It is a matter of interpretations mutually related, and interpretations of interpretations, forming a species of network, of which it brings forth an elaborated meaning, a message free at last of noises and deformations. The Old and New Testaments, and the historical facts related to them, conform a "context of interpretation", a "hermeneutic scope". In this scope have located not only we, to obtain our knowledge, but all the prophetic figures of history of Israel, and until the same Jesus and his disciples.

We can consider ourselves privileged because we have received the message purified, the true picture of God and the exact statement of His plan, like precious inheritance of that very long elaboration through the centuries, and thanks mainly to His manifestation in the person of Jesus.
However, we do not have to be satisfied only with that; in order to contemplate it in all its depth, in all its relief, at total light, we must investigate in that tradition, continuously reinterpretating the texts of the Bible, to go discovering, like in a species of puzzle, the characteristics --more or less obtained-- of that divine face that already we know to recognize.

It is clear that, --we must admit it and to denounce it--, the message continues being threatened of deformations and noises. Ever since it was expressed in Jesus until now has undergone continuous misinterpretations and manipulations. Even the Gospels, the most trustworthy source by their proximity to Jesus, had testimonies of second or third hand, and were, naturally, influenced by the mentalities and the events of the time --later in a half century to the time of Jesus--, in which they were written. The message of God is always immersed in the "noise" of the men. For that reason that "scope", that "interpretative context", turns out inapreciable to continue purifying it, by means of the exegesis and the hermeneutics of the implied texts and traditions.

26._ Myths

Of course, we, as good rejectors of "the miraclemongering" God of certain deism, cannot accept direct interventions of God in history nor in the natural phenomena. Less we can attribute the responsibility of the books of the Bible to the "dictation" of God, as suggests the ingenuous vision that even maintains a meticulous literal inspiration -- word by word -- of "sacred" texts.

No; we know, without a doubt, that the books of the Bible are a collection of literary pieces, of diverse sort, made by human. They include mythical and fabulous stories, epic poems and legal pieces, chronicles, speeches, wonderful reflections and meditations, legend, allegories, parables, narrations, fantastic visions, lyric songs, poems, etc. They reflect the whole life of a town through the centuries, in the version of many chronists of diverse tendencies and schools, that gathered the innumerable communicated oral traditions of generation in generation, by the old ones to the young people, the mothers to the children, the teachers to the disciples, the priests to the communities; perhaps to the heat of bonfires of the campings, in the tents, the towns, the palaces, to the border of the rivers, in days of peace like military, in years of victory and prosperity like of captivity and sufferings.

It is not matter, by the way, of the work of historians nor of scientists; not even of theologians, although in it appears always, continuously and throughout, a protagonist: God.

It is normal, in chronicles and stories of the antiquity, to refer the events to the intervention of the gods. These represent the forces of the nature, the ancestors, the stars, the fortune, the destiny, and the personification of the emotions and human passions; they are the protective and dominating gods of the town, that to him their laws impose, they grant his favors to him, they endorse to his authorities, they help him in his wars and companies, obtain their victories, demand their observance, gifts and sacrifices.

All the towns of the humanity have had mythical gods, because they respond to necessities of the human mentality, as opposed to the fears and uncertainties that feel when facing the nature and the vicissitudes of the life and the death. The mythical gods are imaginary anthropomorphic projections; they are not aspects of the trascendent God nor of His immanence in the Nature, although they could constitute in certain way a stage search towards Him on the part of the Humanity; but when are observed these mythical projections from a more mature mentality, having progressed in the knowledge of the true immanence: the Nature and the Humanity "by themselves", with their own creative capacities; or of the true trascendence: the emergent end, the Last Newness of the cosmic process; then, all those gods are recognized like mere imaginary, rejectable and detrimental beings as soon as they prevent or they distract of the true knowledge of the Nature, the Humanity, and God.

27._ Unique

Is therefore a mythical god the God of the Israelites? Doubtlessly, judging by the stories of the Bible, he often has all its characteristics; as it could be expected, since Israel is a town of the human history, like all the others. But, there is something more in that God? We think that yes, basing us on such Biblical texts.

We think that the revelation and the message of the trascendent God are contained in the Old Testament, as a hidden harmony in the middle of the "human noise"; that it is only perceived by who listens with attention and knows "to filter" those disturbing noises. Nevertheless, when it is noticed, it is clear that the message and the characteristics of the true God are not secondary nor marginal, but central and outstanding aspects of Biblical writings.

The God of Israel is not a god among other gods; He does not coexists, neither He fights, nor He agrees, nor He dominates or is dominated, nor becames related, with other gods of Israel nor of other towns. He is an emphatically unique, jealous, God, that detests of those "idols". He does not admit figurations nor representations of Himself either, of any kind; nor He tolerates that His Holy Name is pronounced with lightness. No man can be able "to see" His face, nor to stay in His presence.

We think that these characteristics are revelations of the trascendence; no mythical god is that "unique"; no mythical god is so irrepresentable for the human knowledge; but the Last Newness, is not the "whole" and the "very uniqueness", is not the emergence of which cannot be conceived from the previous levels, is not the complete and absolute aim of the human ethical and aesthetic tendencies, that as so does not admit partial and intermediate alternatives, alterations, or stagnations?

28._ Exodus

A narration of the Bible exists where the God of Israel reveals Himself with special intensity: we talk about the book of the Exodus, the story of how the tribes of Israel were released of the slavery of Egypt and lead to the Promise Land. God manifestes Himself to Moses in the mount Sinai (or Horeb), in the middle of a bramble, or shrub, that burns without being consumed; He assigns to him the mission to release the Israelite town of the slavery in Egypt, and let be known as the God of the ancestors, that now reveals His name: "ehyeh'asër'ehyeh", that said in third person is: "Yahveh".

This event, narrated as the beginning of the foundational myth of the nation of Israel, shows to us Moses like a "prophet", inspired by God, a receiver/emissary of the message that comes from trascendent God, from the future of the Last Newness.
The physical details of the story: the mount, the bramble, the voice of God, are not important in themselves, nor the event as a concrete and real fact in history, but as soon as they form part of the message and of its correct interpretation. We think that the top of the mount is an image of the peak of the process of cosmic evolution, that the bramble burning is an image of the emergence of the trascendence, and the name, that according to the translation maintained by some philologists and experts would be: "I will be who I will be '" (better than the traditional "I am who I am"), in third person: "the One that will be"--, expresses the definitive future of the Last Newness.

It is left the liberation mission: it is an image of the plan of salvation of God, to release all the humanity -- represented by Israel-- of her least and ephemeral condition --represented by the slavery-- in the temporary universe --represented by Egypt-- to take it to the eternal life --represented by the Promised Land.
Therefore, "Yahveh, in the top of the mount Sinai, sets out to release to Israel of its slavery in Egypt to take it to the Promised Land", must be interpreted like: "The-One-that-will-be, from His trascendence in the peak of the cosmic process, sets out to save the Humanity of its temporary and mortal condition, to give it the eternal life with Him".

Later the known episodes come: the plagues, the prodigious escape, the march by the desert, the alliance in the Sinai, the construction of the sanctuary, and the conquest of Canaan. We do not think that there are in them miraculous interventions of God, but, as soon as they have an historical base, that are "normal" episodes narrated in mythical key; they represent legends and ancestral, foundational traditions of the nation of Israel, transmitted first orally and transcribed at very later times to the narrated facts, with the consequent legendary fabulations, but conserving an essential central message.

For example, probably, according to we have heard, the "plagues" and the division of waters are legendary versions of the catastrophic repercussions, in Egypt, of an exceptional swelling of the Nile combined with the gigantic volcanic eruption that took place in the island of Tera (today Santorini) to the north of Crete (causing in addition the decay to the minoic civilization); the abnormal swelling of the Nile would have caused the reddening of waters, proliferation of frogs, mosquitos, flies and locusts, and pest (anthrax?); later, the eruption would have caused ash rains, darkenings, panic, and a great tidal wave arrived until the coasts of Egypt causing first a retirement and then an abrupt swelling of waters in the "sea of canes", by where would have passed the Hebrew tribes.

But the action of God, in our opinion, is not in any physical fact, but in the minds of those who interpreted these facts in religious key, and not exactly in its own interpretations, but in the "later interpretations of interpretations", which finally revealed the true plan of salvation, work of Yahveh --"The One that will be"-, for all the passed humanity, present and future.
The conquest of the Promised Land by Israel becomes thus, as we said, an image, an announcement, an advance of the future resurrection of all the humanity to the eternal life. The alliance of Yahveh with Israel --the Old Alliance, the Old Testament-- represents the solemn promise of God, His message of salvation for all the men.

29._ Promise

Throughout all its history, Israel (and Juda) was always essentially "the town of the Promise". The promise of Yahveh, His Alliance, conditioned all the aspects of religious, political and social Israelite organization, and influenced in all its historical events.

It is clear that the Israelite interpretation of the Promise was not ours; how could they have understood our concepts of "trascendence", "cosmic process", "eternal life", or at least of "humanity" and "individual person"? Impossible. They only could understand it in terms of "nations", "power", "victory", "kingdom": the Promise consisted for them of which the power of Yahveh would give to the Israelite nation the total and definitive victory on all the other Earth nations, and that would restore its eternal kingdom of peace and justice.

Sometimes, almost it seemed to them that this promise was going to be fulfilled, for example during the reign of Solomon, but always it lacked much to overwhelm their hopes. More often they were terrible defeats and captivities those that put their illusions on approval; but never they decayed absolutely; until in the most desperate situations there was always a group of Israelite, a "faithful rest", that maintained unharmed its confidence in Yahveh. For them, the misfortunes had their origin in the infidelity, the sins, the injustice of the people and its authorities; the kingdom of Yahveh was delayed because it was not deserved by Israel, because this one did not fulfill its part of the Alliance. So that for its arrival was needed a moral change, a conversion from the people to the justice demanded by Yahveh. It was clear that the coming of the Kingdom required that Israel obeyed the law of Yahveh.

The laws of Israel, the orders, dispositions and norms that ordered all the scopes of the life in Israel, were interpreted like "dictations" of Yahveh, whose fulfillment formed part of the Alliance.

Thus, their history (objectively "a normal" history, as the one of other towns) was for them the history of the Promise; to come near or to move away of the moment of its fulfillment, according to their greater or smaller fidelity to Yahveh; but Yahveh, in spite of being irritated and punishing them hard by their injustices --according to their interpretation--, was always merciful and faithful to His promise; the Kingdom was always in the horizon; the Kingdom would come surely in a more or less next future. This was the sense of their history.

30._ Loop

(More of somebody could ask to us: "and how it is that God did not reveal Himself at a more outpost time, in which they had understood his message in his correct terms of ‘cosmic process’, ‘humanity’, ‘personal salvation’, etc" But, would have arrived we, or anyone, to have these concepts if not because there was that revelation in the past? We have been able to understand therefore the message, and also to arrive at our present conception of the humanity, the nature, the universe, the cosmic process, only because there has been one long previous elaboration, in that "hermeneutic scope", that is born of that old one, and at its moment misunderstood, revelation of God.
In a deep and much more disquieting sense we can consider: there would be the possibility of a successful final emergency of the cosmic process if there had not been Revelation, Incarnation, Redemption? This seems an impossible paradox for a mentality that conceives the time --and therefore the causality-- as a linear, unidirectional, absolute frame, but would not have to be it for a contemporary mentality, that conceives its relativity and its curvature. We do not forget that when speaking of the Redemption we are speaking of a "loop" in the time. The spirit of God, operating in the Redemption, reinforces thus His immanent creative action in the nature, in the humanity. God "also realizes Himself" by means of the Redemption.
Not only there is (-there was, there will be) Redemption because there is Creation, but also there is Creation because there is Redemption. --In the beginning was the Verb...--.)

31._ Ancestors

Yahveh, the God of the Promise in the Sinai, was identified with the ancestral God of the mythical ancestors of Israel: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph; and also the Promise had been announced to them.

To Noah, in a pact of peace, appeared by the dove that return with the olive tree branch, and the rainbow that indicates the end of the storm; indicators of the protection of Yahveh for a renewed humanity. (We see in the Noah's Ark, which preserves his family to die in the deluge, a prefiguration of the Alliance --also with its Ark--, that preserves the "faithful rest" of Israel for the future of the Promise, and --in a deeper sense-- a figuration of the Spirit which leads the process of cosmic emergence in the middle of the chaos until its goal, as much as of the "Mystical Body" of Christ that incorporates the people, saving them of their mortal condition, to give them the eternal life.)

To Abraham, in the blessing that grant him a numerous and imperishable descent, and the future possession of a Holy Land. Yahveh calls Abraham and carries him to a new country, as Israel will be carried from Egypt to Canaan, as the humanity will be saved and carried to the eternal life.

(We interpret to Isaac --the "son of laughter"-- like figure of the improbable, unpredictable, surprising ones, rejoicing, creative solutions of the Spirit --such as the life and the same human being-- that come to overwhelm the hopes when everything seemed lost and impossible; nevertheless, once appeared, their sacrifice, as soon as aspires individually to being permanent, seems demanded by the God of the process, but this God will finally rescue them by means of its own personal intervention. In the "sacrifice of Isaac" we see moved an image of the God that feels sorry Himself of His creatures, destined to being -- like Isaac -- "victims of the process for the sake of God", and He supports with them, stopping their sacrifice to provide He Himself a suitable victim: He will be now the father who will sacrifice Himself-Son.)

To Jacob, the "fort with God": Israel, who directly receives the Promise of Yahveh, from the top of a scale of dream that leans in earth and arrives until the sky, by which journey the angels of God. (Here we see an image of the "ascending scale --o chain-- of the Being" of the cosmic creative process, by which "journeys" the Spirit in His immanence and emergence, from and towards the Last Trascendence, for the Creation and now, specially, for the Redemption.)

To Joseph, the beloved son, dreamer and interpreter of dreams, the Promise is announced in facts: God saves him of the hatred of his brothers, and gives him the power to lead to his people to the prosperity. (Impossible not to see in him an allegorical announcement of the beloved Son of God, which will be revived of the death inflicted by his brothers the men, and will receive the power to lead them to the eternal life.)

Thus, Israel also conceives its passed history, tribal, ancestral, as history of the Promise, which prefigures the Alliance of the Sinai.

32._ Universe and evil

On the other hand, their conception of Yahveh as absolutely "unique" God takes to Israel to consider all the towns, and to all the things, as dependant of Him, although not able to recognize Him. Yahveh is not only the God of the Israelites; He is also the God of all the Earth towns, is also the God of the Universe. There are no other Gods, neither other last causes, nor other supreme powers. Therefore, it attributes to Yahveh the mythical stories of the creation of all the things.

(In the Biblical stories of the Creation, we see an allegory, a wonderful poetic image --that of course could not be deliberate... or yes?-- of the cosmic creative process; with that moving reference to the spirit of God "fluttering" over the primigenial chaos, and the succession of the "seven days", that suggests us the emergent evolution of the degrees of the being; in special that so anthropomorphic "rest" of God to the seventh day, seems to us that it insinuates His emergence for the trascendence.)

But if everything is work of Yahveh, how it is that they exist evil and the suffering? God had created all good, because He is good.
The explanation is the same one that occurs for the retardation in the fulfillment of the Promise: it is a matter about the sin, the injustice, the infidelity of the men, deserving this punishment. Thus the "fall" of the Creation is conceived, from its state of original kindness, to the full imperfect state of badness, suffering and death, that we know. It has been fault of the first men, who sinned disobeying God, and transmitted his sin to all his descendants.

This is narrated in the legendary story of Adam and Eve, of the "original sin".
(We see here an allegory of the awareness of the human conscience of its temporary individual condition: the individual, not content with collaborating simply in the cosmic happening towards God, and thus "obeying", wants to be he himself "like God", to enjoy in and for himself of the "science of the good and badly", but it experiences that resistance, that inertia, that regressive tendency that is against the Spirit, which exists inevitably in the temporary things, and particularly in the human will, and that makes feel imperfect to the person; a tragic feeling of culpability and futility, of "unfinished project". Of course, as we have said previously, evil exists inevitably because the Creation never was finished, but is immersed in the creative process; we are and we will be in the "sixth day" until the final emergence and the disappearance --only then-- of evil; in the "seventh day", when God will trascend, and, thanks to His benevolence, finally "we will be ourselves".)

The prefiguration of the Promise is also discovered here: Yahveh will send a Rescuer who will destroy evil for ever.

33._ Humility

Nothing farther from God that the concept of a dominating, prepotent, overwhelming rescuer, who "saves you, if you want or you do not want", by the force, like so many "providentials rescuers", dictators in fact, and tyrants, of history.

On the contrary, as it was shown in Jesus, God is "meek and humble of heart", pacific and kind, like a father --or a mother-- comprehensive, loving and indulgent, who respects the freedom of His human creatures, whom He loves, to save them requesting their consent, convincing them, seducing them, putting Himself at their level, engaging in a dialog with them, supporting sincerely with them.

The power and the Majesty of God are beyond our capacity of understanding or imagination; we can perhaps watch it in the moving immensity of the Universe, or in the wonderful complexity of the Life. All human power and majesty are derisory before Him. Nevertheless, His benevolence is so great that He was arranged to humiliate Himself being made one of us to request us "from you to you" that we accept Him.

34._ Presence

Therefore He seted out "to incarnate Himself" in an individual human person, who totally and authentically represented Him in front of all the other human beings, and prepared this by means of His alliance with the town of Israel.

For that reason in the Promise to Israel the announcement of the presence of God in the middle of the men is included; firstly between the tribes, "encamping" with them, putting His tent in the middle of their camping; accompanying them, in form of column of cloud or fire, during their escape of Egypt, and in thunderous and smoky mountain form during the "theofany" of the Sinai.

Later, making construct His sanctuary, His dwelling, His temple, where He resides symbolically by means of the Ark of the Alliance, guarded by figures of cherubs, in the "Saint of the Saints". His trascendence and majesty are always preserved, in spite of their proximity to the men, by the inviolability of His sanctuary, the inaccesibility to His sacred enclosure, and by that great veil that separates His seat of honor of the human presence.

In an Israel that had become a civilized nation, God lives symbolically in His temple, the Holy City: Jerusalem, on the mount Zion.

35._ Anointed

Besides to be present in a place, God also was represented symbolically by some selected people: prophets, religious or political leaders, kings, priests. That special consecration was often expressed ritually, by the solemn application of an "unction" in the forehead of the chosen one; for that reason such person was called "anointed", who in Hebrew says "messiah" and in Greek "christ".

But no one of those anointed represented totally and authentically to God, but only symbolically, since God was always infinitely over the human condition of those people.
Neither one of those anointed could make the exact fulfillment of the Promise: to construct the eternal kingdom of peace and justice. The other way around, Israel finished imprisoned of the foreign domination, sunk in the oppression.

However, the hope held fast of which a "definitive" anointed would come, that would bring the Kingdom of God for always, which would be the liberating one, the good shepherd, the prince of the peace, the faithful servant of Yahveh, the instrument of the saving power of Yahveh, that he would at last establish to Israel at the top of the nations, and he would consecrate it like his "Holy Nation". This man would be the true one anointed; no longer only symbolically; between all, the only authentic representative of God: "the" Messiah by antonomasia. The "Immanuel": God with us.

Thus, then, the more deep intention of God was revealed to Israel: His incarnation.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Prophecies

Yahveh then said,
‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.
I have heard them crying for help on account of their taskmasters.
Yes, I am well aware of their sufferings.
And I have come down to rescue them’.
(Exodus 3:7-8)

Therefore, behold, I will seduce her,
And I will bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her to the heart.
And she will respond there, as in the days of her youth,
And as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

I will betroth you to me forever.
Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in lovingkindness, and in compassion.
I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahveh.
(Oseas 2, 16-17b. 21-22)

For I, Yahveh your God,
will hold your right hand,
saying to you: don't be afraid;
I will help you.

Don't be afraid, you little worm of Jacob,
and you caterpillar of Israel;
I will help you, says Yahveh,
and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

The poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue fails for thirst;
I, Yahveh, will answer them,
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and springs in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.

I will put in the wilderness the cedar,
the acacia, and the myrtle, and the oil tree;
I will set in the desert the fir tree,
the pine, and the box tree together:

that they may see, and know, and consider,
and understand together,
that the hand of Yahveh has done this,
and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
(Isaiah 41; 13-14 and 17-20)

This says Yahveh:

You remember the former things, you consider the things of old?
Behold, I will do a new thing;
now shall it spring forth; shall you not know it?
I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
Then the town that I have formed will proclaim my praises.
(Isaiah 43, 18-19)

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