Sapphiric God: - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

2. Yahoel and the Divine Body
In the Jewish document The Apocalypse of Abraham, believed to have been written sometime during
the first or early second century, 37 we meet what appears to be a most exalted angel named Yahoel, sent by
God to lead the patriarch on a journey to heaven. Yahoel introduces himself as “a power through the
medium of his (i.e., God’s) ineffable name in me (10:3-9).”
And I (Abraham) stood up and saw him who had taken my right hand (Yahoel) and set me on my feet. The
appearance of his body was like sapphire, and the aspect of his face was like crysolite, and the hair of his
head like snow. And a kidaris (was) on his head, its look that of a rainbow, and the clothing of his garments
(was) purple; and a golden staff (was) in his right hand. And he said to me, “Abraham…Let my appearance
not frighten you, nor my speech trouble your soul. (11:1-6).”
The exact nature and identity of this angel has been the subject of significant disagreement. Is Yahoel
merely an exalted angel, ontologically distinct from the divine 38 ? Is he the result of a “bifurcation” within
the Godhead-i.e., is he an aspect of God that has been split from God and personified 39 ? Is he the
personification of the Divine Name itself or the Divine Glory 40 ? Or is he God himself, maybe in his
“Angel of the Lord” disguise 41 ? The text shows a tension between the first and the last suggestions. First,
Yahoel’s very name is twice-theophoric, composed of both Yahweh (Yahu) and El ("El). In 17:13, this
turns out to be God’s very name, as is the case in the Apocalypse of Moses 29.4 and 33.5. This seems to be
accounted for, however, in 10:3, where we are told that he and God are of the same name and (10:8) that
the ineffable name dwells in him. 42 This may identify Yahoel with the Name-bearing Angel who
personifies the divine Name and mediates God’s divine presence to creation. 43 The confusion between God
and this Name-bearing Angel is rooted in the patriarchal הוהי ךאלמ tradition. This “Angel of the Lord”
37
R. Rubinkiewicz, “Apocalypse of Abraham (First to Second Century A.D.),” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols., ed.
James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1983) 683f; idem, L’Apocalypse d’Abraham (Lublin: Société des Lettres et des
Sciences de l’Université Catholique de Lublin, 1987).
38
As argued e.g. by Peter R. Carrell, Jesus and the Angels: Angeology and the Christology of the Apocalypse of John (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997) 53ff; Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish
Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988) 79ff.
39
Christopher Rowland, “The Visions of God in Apocalyptic Literature,” JSJ 10 (1979): 137-154; idem, “The Vision of the Risen
Christ in Rev. i. 13 ff.: The Debt of an Early Christology to an Aspect of Jewish Angelology,” JTS 31 (1980): 1-11; idem, Open
Heaven, 101ff; idem, “A Man Clothed in Linen: Daniel 10.6ff. and Jewish Angelology,” JSNT 24 (1985): 99-110.
40
Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, 196; Fossum, Name of God, 318f; Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents
and Early Evidence (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 142ff.
41
As argued by David B. Capes, Old Testament Yahweh Texts in Paul’s Christology (Tübingen: Mohrs-Siebeck, 1992) 170f.
42
According to Andrei Orlov (“Praxis of the Voice: The Divine Name Tradition in the Apocalypse of Abraham,” JBL 127 [2008]: 63
[art.=53-70] “Yahoel can be seen as both a manifestation and a nonmanefestation of the divine name.”
43
Hugo Odeberg, 3 Enoch or The Hebrew Book of Enoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928; repr. New York: Ktav
Publishing House, Inc., 1973) 139, 144.
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