Yes, you CAN see the face of God

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan. And

Dan Beecher I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Eh.

Dan McClellan I knew that was coming one of these days. It was good.

Dan Beecher I mean, I'm, I'm all right. How are you doing?

Dan McClellan Yeah. Uh, I'm, I'm doing well. I think I may be, uh... My, one of my girls was sick while we were at, uh, Disneyland. She had a bit of a cold.

Dan Beecher Oh, no.

Dan McClellan And, um, and I'm starting to get a little tickle in my throat, so I might be coming down with a cold myself, so.

Dan Beecher I mean, every time you go away, you come back a- and you get a, you, you got some sort of gamboo going at you.

Dan McClellan Ah, yeah. I, I gotta stop drinking the water down there in LA, you know?

Dan Beecher In California, it's not safe. Yeah. Right? It's all of, it's all of our downwater anyway, so- ... it's like, eh, I don't trust it.

Dan McClellan I'm given to understand, based on some racist uncles in, on Facebook, that- ... uh, Gavin Newsom is, is the cause of, of, uh, everything that's going wrong in California, so yeah.

Dan Beecher All the bad things in the whole wide world. All right. Uh, well, today, uh, we've got a fun thing to talk about. It's, it's an It's the Law, and, uh, and, and, and we're gonna see if we can, if we can see the face of God. So- ... uh, let's just dive into It's the Law. All right. So this week's It's the Law, you had sent me a whole bunch of different, uh, places where a certain, uh, Hebrew construction occurs- Yes ... uh, in a bunch of different books, in Deuteronomy, in Exodus, in Isaiah, in Samuel. And, uh, uh, uh, t- talk to me about what, about this phrase and how it's translated, because what you sent to me is not what I see when I'm, uh- ... when I'm looking at it.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Yeah. So this is a, a commandment. I think the, it's most clearly given as a command in Deuteronomy 16:16. Um, but the, it's always mistranslated. It's always knowingly mistranslated. Uh, and it's, I think it's so fascinating. But Deuteronomy 16:16, I'll read it, and then I'll talk a little bit about what's going on with, uh, with some of the Hebrew. I'm not gonna get too technical, but, um, but the- I think you- I, I

Dan Beecher don't believe you. I just, I think you are, and I like it.

Dan McClellan I think this is fascinating. "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose, at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, at the Festival of Weeks, and at the Festival of Booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed." Dun, dun, dun. So this is, this is a commandment to, to come up and appear before the Lord three times a year at specific festivals. However, what's going on in the Hebrew is, is a little peculiar.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, because it says, um, literally the Hebrew is, uh, "Three times in a year will see all of your males the face of Adonai your God." And the, the consonants of the Hebrew say, uh, have it in the active. You will see the face of God. The vowels have altered it to make it passive. Now, in the consonants, they can be understood in the passive, but the way the rest of the construction works with the particular, uh, particles and prepositions and everything, the consonants want you to understand this in the active. So the verbal root rah means to see, and so in the active, it means you see the face of God, but if you twist it into the passive, it's be seen to the face of God, which is translated as appear before God. Um-

Dan Beecher Now, when you say God, you're substituting the, it's the tetragrammaton. It is- It's the tetragrammaton. It is the named God of Israel.

Dan McClellan Yes. And then appositionally it adds your God, Elohecha. Okay. Um, you see this in Exodus 34:24 as well, but in Isaiah, I think it is the most revealing, because in Isaiah, it doesn't use, uh, a regular, uh, finite verb. It uses an infinitive, and a specific kind of infinitive, the infinitive construct. And in the finite form, the active and the passive can have the same consonants. In the infinitive construct, they do not have the same consonants, and the consonants that we have in Isaiah 1:12. I'll read Isaiah 1:12 from the NRSVue. "When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more." So the idea is coming to appear before God, me, this is God talking, means coming un- into my temple. Uh, but the appear before me actually cannot mean that. The consonants can't mean that. Mm. Uh, the consonants are, uh, uh, lerot, which would be, uh, when you come to see my face. Lerot panai. That means to see my face. But the, the Masoretes have, um, added the vowels of the passive form. So it's leha'ot, but it should be lehera'ot. So here, here's where I'm getting technical. But, but in, in short, the consonants very definitely are intended to be active. When, uh, when you come to see my face, who asked this from your hand? Uh, and so I think, and there are a lot of scholars who, who acknowledge this, that this original commandment was not to appear before God. The original commandment was to see God's face three times in a year. And as we see in Isaiah, this is about coming into the temple, and so most likely this was a kind of ritualistic, um- A beatific vision where you go into the temple and you see the face of God, probably by looking at a divine image.

Dan Beecher I am really trying to get Wizard of Oz out of my head right now- ... because all I'm-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah ...

Dan Beecher all I'm thinking about right now is like, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Right. But that's not what we're talking about.

Dan McClellan Not that kind of image. No, it wasn't holographic. Uh, it would've been a, a standing stone. And we've actually found a standing stone in a, an Israelite Judahite temple, uh, in Arad. So we know that they had standing stones in, in their temples. But to see the standing stone was to see God. Mm. And so, uh, uh, I think that the idea here is you come to the temple, you see the standing stone, you see the face of God. And, and you have in, in the Psalms, you know, "When shall I see the face of God?" This yearning for the beatific vision. Uh, so it's, it's something that is, is referenced in a variety of different ways, but it always gets translated in a passive because people are uncomfortable with this idea that you could see God's face, because you're not supposed to be able to see God's face- Right ... because of a- another tradition from, from Exodus where, uh, Moses says, "Show me your glory," and God goes, "Ooh, uh, tell you what. I'm gonna put you on this rock right here- ... and then I'm gonna walk by, but I'm gonna cover your face with my hand so that you can't see my face. And then I'm gonna pull my hand away after I've passed by and you can see my back, but you won't see my face." And, and the text says, uh, "No one can see me and live." Uh, and the ancient Greek translation says, "No one can see my face and live." So- Hmm ... you weren't supposed-

Dan Beecher And then, and, and then of course there are all of these scriptures later where people do see God-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah, yeah ... and,

Dan Beecher and live and- Including Moses.

Dan McClellan Um-

Dan Beecher Including Moses, right, right.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher And al- and, like, some of his elders, too, right? I mean-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. They, they sa- That's, uh- ... Ex- Exodus 24:10. Uh, "They saw the God of Israel," and, and they were like, "And his, his feet are, like, standing on this sapphire, like, patio kinda thing." And, um, but yeah, there... It also has, uh, you have in Numbers that, um, that Moses spoke to God face to face like a man speaks with-

Dan Beecher Right ... his

Dan McClellan friend.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, and so they're, they're very clearly... They've got, uh, they're a little conflicted on, on what's going on here. He-

Dan Beecher heck, Ja- Jacob done wrestled with the guy. Yeah, Jac-

Dan McClellan Jacob. And Jacob held his own for a bit.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um, so.

Dan Beecher It was a tie. Um, I, so I... One of the things that I wanted to get to with you, because you mentioned the Psalms going, talking about when, you know, I, I, "When can I see his face?"

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "I want to see the face of God." Uh, my, one of my questions is... Because it sounds to me like the standing stone idea is, like, you call the thing at the center of the temple the face of God. Here, we've got this thing. We've got this stone. It's got some inscription on it or something, and that's just what we call the face of God. So, but it doesn't seem like those sort of plaintive cries in Psalms are about, "I want to see a rock in the middle of the temple."

Dan McClellan Yeah, so we, uh, Psalm 42:2, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, I, I think it's, it's something that, there, there was the ritual aspect to it and then there was kind of the yearning for being in the presence of God.

Dan Beecher Of the actual, like-

Dan McClellan Well, well, the... 'Cause the sta- ...

Dan Beecher incorporate being.

Dan McClellan Well, the, they, they certainly understood God to be corporeal in this time period, but to be located elsewhere.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And the standing stone was really the material, uh, medium that transmitted, uh, the divine presence. And so to see-

Dan Beecher You're still making me think of, of Wizard of Oz. I'm sorry. I'm...

Dan McClellan So to, um, to be in the Holy of Holies was to be in God's presence. Mm. But you're, you're more sensing it than you are, um, gazing upon it.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But the, the standing stone represented the material manifestation of that. And interestingly, I, I, I said that we have a standing stone found in a Holy of Holies in a Judahite temple. Uh, we also have two incense altars that were found right, just a few feet away from that standing stone, and they tested the substances that had been burned on those incense altars 2,700 years ago, and there were three different kinds of cannabis that were being burned, uh, in the incense there. So, so I'm sure that played a role in the- ... uh, you know, the psalmist is like, "I gotta get back there, man," um- ... because I'm sure he had a, a lovely experience being in- Yeah ... God's presence and gazing at-

Dan Beecher I mean, depending on what they were, uh, burning at the altar, he might have seen the face of God. I don't know.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I, I think it was, it was a mysti- It was probably considered kind of a mystical experience.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You go into the Holy of Holies, you have this, this mystical communion with God, and you see the material representation of God's presence, and that is, you know, l- like gazing upon the face of God. And, and there's been a lot of research on, on how, um, the divine images kind of represent that gaze. 'Cause there's, there's this a- idea also that when you are looking at God, God is looking back at you. And so- Sure ... there's, there's an in- intimidation that is also- Uh, probably felt by folks there. What, what's the saying? Uh, don- don't look into the abyss or, or something like that 'cause the-

Dan Beecher 'Cause you'll see what's looking back or something.

Dan McClellan Well,

Dan Beecher or

Dan McClellan yeah, 'cause, like, the abyss stares back or something like that.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan I've, I forget what it is. My, my closest, uh, exposure to it is, is from the animated show Amphibia where one of the characters quotes that, but I wish I could remember what it was. But, um, so this is a spiritual, mystical experience to be able to- Right ... to do that. But, but yeah, it was, uh, I think it's incorporated into this commandment in Deuteronomy 16:16 as a way to require that the males actually present themselves at the temple. This was part of costly signaling, but also there were almost certainly offerings that were, um... And in fact, it even says that, uh-

Dan Beecher It says, yeah ...

Dan McClellan at the end, "You shall not s- see God's face empty-handed."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So it's, it's being worked into this demand for offerings that are supposed to be three times a year. So it's ti-

Dan Beecher And it feels like- "...

Dan McClellan It's time for your quarterly offering."

Dan Beecher Right. Yeah. Uh, I mean, one of the things that it feels like is that, uh, because when I think about something that feels as important as the idea of seeing God's face, that feels like you take your time with it.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But if they're doing it on the festivals, meaning everyone has to do it at the same time-

Dan McClellan Yeah, there's a line forming ...

Dan Beecher it's, yeah, you're not taking your time with this. You're, like, you're, you're seeing the face, you're dropping off- ... your, your offering, and you're getting out of there, so.

Dan McClellan Yes. Yeah. And, and there's a, there are other parts of the Hebrew Bible where the, you're burning all this incense and all this stuff going on. There's even a degree to which it seems like the, your ability to see the divine image is, is probably obscured by the smoke- ... as well. So, uh, the, there's also, um, you know, when the, later on, when the high priest is the only one who can goes, go into the Holy of Holies on one day a year, it's basically, like, fill the place with smoke, and then the high priest is going in, like, "Okay, I'm trying not to run into anything." Um, and so there's, there's also some obscuring of, of God's presence, uh, and God's- Hmm ... face as well, which, which could probably lend to the mystical experience if you just see a, a hazy outline of something in, in the mist, uh, while you're getting stoned off your gourd- ... then, um, maybe you do come out of there going, "I saw God."

Dan Beecher And, uh, and, and when, when you go into him, make sure you breathe deep 'cause, uh- ... it's gonna be a more fun experience.

Dan McClellan Yeah, just take a deep breath and then hold it for as long as you can, and-

Dan Beecher Man, every time I fe- see the face of God, I get real paranoid. I just feel like I-

Dan McClellan Why is it like doing a Whippet?

Dan Beecher I just, I, I guess part of my... Okay, so I have one question. It might sound stupid. Is there a chance that these standing stones, that some, that there was an, a physical, like a face carved into them?

Dan McClellan Um-

Dan Beecher Have they ever found, like, representative imagery? Or is that, that, that's actually not even okay, right? Like, that's what the,

Dan McClellan like- Well, a- according to the Hebrew Bible, even the standing stones are, are, um, not allowed.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Or at least parts of the Hebrew Bible. You're not supposed to have that kind of divine image. Okay. Uh, in, in Genesis you have it. Uh, it's really, in parts of Genesis you have it. It's really later on, in particularly Deuteronomy, where they're like, "You heard a voice, but you didn't see any image, so, you know, don't go making divine images." So it's not like the standing stone was, was the approved version, and then anthropomorphic statuary was the non-approved version. Uh, they, they were all unapproved, but- Okay ... I think that just, a, a lot of scholars would suggest that just shows that the anti-idol polemic is a later developed thing- Okay ... because we clearly have divine images from earlier periods in Israel and Judah. Now, when it comes to anthropomorphic stuff, if, if there was, there could've been painted onto the standing stone-

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. Sure ...

Dan McClellan uh, something. We, we haven't recovered any- ... anthropomorphic statuary.

Dan Beecher Now I, now I'm just picturing a stone with a smiley emoji on it. I, I don't think that's right either.

Dan McClellan Well,

Dan Beecher you know, I- I think I'm right about all of the things.

Dan McClellan The, when, uh, if you ever have the, the privilege to travel to Malta, the, and you go to Marsaxlokk, which is this little fishing, uh, village in the southeastern corner of the island.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, they, the boats are very colorful, and they paint eyes on the boats.

Dan Beecher Oh, fun.

Dan McClellan And, uh, yeah, it's, it's very cool. But I, I, you know, that could've been part of it, eyes. We don't have any anthropomorphic statuary from ancient Israel and Judah. There is anthropomorphic statuary from Egypt and from Mesopotamia. It, uh, there's a, a scholar, Tryggve Mettinger, who argues that in ancient Israel and Judah, there was a de facto aniconism in the sense that the divine imagery seemed to be non-representational- Hmm ... not because there was actual opposition to, n- institutional opposition to anthropomorphic statuary, but just because the market wasn't there. They didn't have the resources. They probably didn't have the materials. There wasn't as much demand for it, and so it's more s-

Dan Beecher Carving is hard, man.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and, and- ... the, the representations are more symbolic. Uh, but, you know, you do have the, the, uh, Adonai and his Asherah thing, the-

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah. Right ...

Dan McClellan uh, drawing. So that, that's the face of God, and it's represented with bes imagery, so it's kind of bovine in appearance. Uh, and, and there's, um, there are things where people have argued, oh, this might be a, a depiction of, of God's face. We don't have anything anthropomorphic because it doesn't seem like that was the in thing- Right ... at the time for these smaller territorial states like ancient Israel and Judah. They didn't have near the complexity and the resources and the market that you had in Babylon or in Egypt. So th- but that's an ongoing debate as well.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, was there anthropomorphic, uh, representation of, of the God of Israel? We don't know for sure. Um, so yeah, that, that's a question I would love to have answered as well. I, I think-

Dan Beecher Interesting

Dan McClellan ... it would be absolutely fascinating to go see what was going on around 1000 BCE in these temples, so what kinds of-

Dan Beecher Yeah, I guess, I mean, I guess it's just so clear that it's, like, the face of G- It's not, it's not like the image of God or the, you know, it's, uh, the, the, the idea of God or whatever. It, it-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... I think that's what I was flashing on, is-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... just that it keeps saying the face, and it's-

Dan McClellan Well, you know what, what do we have in the, in the priestly blessing that we have on the Ketef Hinnom, uh, silver amulets that we've talked about? Uh, it says, "May his face shine upon you," which is, uh, which is probably a reference to the sun.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan And so, you know, if the sun is on the divine image, and the sun is the symbol of the face of God, y- like, there are a variety of ways that could be understood.

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan Uh, so yeah, I, I wish we had more details about all of this, but what we can say is that, uh, Deuteronomy 16:16, Exodus 34:24, Isaiah 1:12, um, and, and I think also the story of Hannah and, uh, and Samuel in, in 1 Samuel, is, uh, the Hebrew there is saying that they're there to see the face of God, and it's just been reinterpreted as, uh, appear before or just be in the general proximity of or presence of God.

Dan Beecher It does speak to the, uh... I, I don't, I don't want to assign, like, an agenda to all of these translators or whatever. A tradition maybe, but it's interesting that none of, none of the translations that I checked are saying the face of God.

Dan McClellan Oh, no, they, they won't. That's, that's just, that's widely agreed upon. We're understanding this to mean appear before. And the Masoretic tradition vocalizes it that way, and so you're kind of overturning what the Masoretes wrote when, when you, uh, translate it differently, so-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... not a lot of folks are-

Dan Beecher So when, when you, when you do the, the, the McClellan translation, are you gonna-

Dan McClellan The DMV, yeah.

Dan Beecher Are you, are you gonna put the, uh, the face of God in there?

Dan McClellan Hell yeah, I am.

Dan Beecher Nice.

Dan McClellan Um.

Dan Beecher Nice.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and-

Dan Beecher That's what I like to hear

Dan McClellan ... and then there will be explanatory notes. I mean, if you look in, uh, if you go in the NRSVue to Deuteronomy 16:16, um, or maybe it... No, it's not Deuteronomy. It's Isaiah. If you go into Isaiah 1:12, uh, there's a footnote marker. "When you come to appear before me," footnote B, and you go down, and it says, "Or see my face." So they're, they're acknowledging that this is going on in, in the Hebrew, even though they're relegating it to the footnote of just one of the passages where, where that's-

Dan Beecher I'm, I-

Dan McClellan ... more clearly what the Hebrew is saying.

Dan Beecher I'm fascinated that the NRSVue doesn't have a footnote. They've got a footnote for booths.

Dan McClellan I mean-

Dan Beecher Festival of Booths and/or-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... Tabernacles.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But no note about, about face of God.

Dan McClellan Well, I think, I think it's because, in Exodus 34:24 and in, um, Deuteronomy 16:16, the consonants could go either way.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan Now, now when you look at the particles, 'cause it's a, it's a direct object marker and then my face, you don't appear to my face. You appear before me. It should be lefne, but it's etpenai. Um, and so it works. It, the consonants of the verb could be active or passive.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan But in the context, I think, uh, we gotta throw the weight of the evidence in the direction of understanding it as active, but I think that's why there's no note.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because they're like, "Eh, the consonants could go either way in the verb, so we're just gonna take the passive reading."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But with, with Isaiah, you can't. The, the consonants very clearly, of the, of the infinitive construct, have to be active. So, uh, they're like, "All right, just put it in the footnotes there."

Dan Beecher Okay. Well, I, that is, that's a lot of fun. There you go.

Dan McClellan Hopefully not too technical.

Dan Beecher Go see the face of God if you want to, I guess. Uh-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... it probably won't kill you. Uh-

Dan McClellan Smoke him if you got him. But, uh-

Dan Beecher Enjoy the smoke while you're in there. All right, friends. Well, that's it for, for this episode. Thank you all so much for tuning in. If you would like to become a part of making this show go, and, you know, g-

Dan McClellan get

Dan Beecher over and, and listen to the, uh, the, the after party over on Patreon where we, you know, we, we talk, we... One of the things we do is we answer our patrons' questions. So if you have a personal question that you'd like us to address, you can make us do it by becoming- ... a $10 a month or more patron over at patreon.com/dataoverdogma, and, uh, and we will, we'll, we'll answer your questions for you. Uh, thanks so much for, uh, to Roger Gowdy for editing and to JJ for, uh, being our producer, and we will talk to you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.