The Shadow of God - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

Margaret Barker‟s work to reconstruct the mythic tradition of the Jerusalem Temple, while not
convincing in all of its details, is nevertheless noteworthy. 1 Particularly notable is Barker‟s suggestion that
incarnation had a place in this tradition. 2 Relying mainly on the allegorical exegesis of Philo of Alexandria
(Spec. I.81; QE II.85) and Josephus (Ant. III 151-186), both of whom explained the four colored fabrics
used in the manufacture of the temple veil and high priestly garments (Exod. 26:1, 31, 36; 28:6, 31, 33) as
symbols of the four natural elements and noting that the high priest wore the Tetragrammaton engraved on
his golden diadem (Exod. 28:36), Barker suggests that the veil and sacred vestments are “the earliest
expression of the idea of incarnation, the presence of God on earth in material form.” 3 A radical thesis, but
Barker is not alone in positing a Jewish tradition of incarnation. 4 In a fascinating article Crispin Fletcher-
Louis similarly outlined the “relevance of this Temple theology for the early Christian belief in the
incarnation.” 5 The symbolism of the high priestly garments play an important role in both reconstructions. 6
Exodus 28 prescribes for Aaron and his sons an elaborate costume whose outer vestments included a long
dark blue robe (me’îl), 7 the hem of which was lined with cloth pomegranates and flowers and gold bells; an
1 See especially Margaret Barker, Temple Theology: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 2004); The Great High Priest: The Temple
Roots of Christian Liturgy (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2003); On Earth as it is in Heaven: Temple Symbolism in the New
Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995); The Great Angel: A Study if Israel‟s Second God (Louisville, Kentucky:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992); The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem (London:
SPCK, 1991); The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early
Christian (London: SPCK, 1987).
2 Temple Theology, 30-31;On Earth, ix.
3 Gate of Heaven, 105; Temple Theology, 30, 58; Great High Priest, 136-140.
4 For various views on the place, or lack thereof, of incarnation in Jewish tradition see Alon Goshem-Gottstein, “Judaisms and
Incarnational Theologies: Mapping Out the Parameters of Dialogue,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 39 (2002): 219-247; J. Andrew
Dearman, “Theophany, Anthropomorphism, and the Imago Dei: Some Observations about the Incarnation in the Light of the Old
Testament,” in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, SJ, Gerald O‟Collins, SJ (edd.), The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium
on the Incarnation of the Son of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 31-46; Alan Segal, “The Incarnation: The Jewish
Milieu,” in ibid., 116-139;Elliot R. Wolfson, “Judaism and Incarnation: The Imaginal Body of God,” in Tikva Frymer-Kensky et al
(edd.), Christianity in Jewish Terms (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000) 239-254; idem, “Neusner‟s The Incarnation of
God,” JQR 81 (1990): 219-222; Jacob Neusner, The Incarnation of God: The Character of Divinity in Formative Judaism
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988); idem, “Is the God of Judaism Incarnate?” Rel. Stud. 24 (1988): 213-238.
5 “God‟s Image, His Cosmic Temple and the High Priest: Towards an Historical and Theological Account of the Incarnation,” in T.
Desmond Alexander and Simon Cathercole (edd.), Heaven on Earth: The Temple in Biblical Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004)
81-99.
6 On symbolizing these garments in Jewish tradition see Michael D. Swartz, “The Semiotics of the Priestly Vestments in Ancient
Judaism,” in Albert I. Baumgarten (ed.), Sacrifice in Religious Experience (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 57-80.
7 7 Since the demise of the tekhelet production industry ca. 500-750 CE, its dye source, method of manufacture and hue are unknown.
The modern attempt to rediscover these secrets began with Rabbi Gershom Henoch Leiner (1839-91), the Hasidic Rebbe of Radzyn,
Poland, who thought the source was a cuttlefish and its color blue-black (see his Sefrei HaTekhelet Radzyn [Bnei Brak, 1999]).
Today, scientists such as Irving Ziderman and Baruch Sterman have proclaimed the “miracle rediscovery” of the biblical tekhelet and
its source, though both have proffered differing hues for their “authentic tekhelet.” Sterman and P‟til Tekhelet, the Israel-based nonprofit
organization he co-founded which manufactures and distributes this tekhelet, argues that the source of the dye is the Murex snail
found in the Mediterranean off the coast of northern Israel and that the hue is a rather bright indigo blue. Ziderman, on the other hand,
posits the same source (the Murex snail) but argues that the authentic hue is violet or blueish purple (purpura hyacinthine). See Irving
Ziderman, “A Modern Miracle – The Rediscovery of „Blue‟ Dye for Tallit Tassels,” Israel Yearbook 1988, 287-292; idem, “Revival
of Biblical Tekhelet Dyeing with Banded Dye-Murex (Ph. Trunculus): Chemical Anomalies,” in Dyes in History and Archaeology
16/17 (2001): 87-90; idem, “First Identification of Authentic Tĕkēlet,” BASOR 265 (1987): 25-33; idem, “3600 Years of Purple-Shell
Dyeing: Characterization of Hyacinthine Purple (tekhelet),” in Howard L. Needles and S. Haig Zeronian (ed.), Historic Textile and
Paper Materials. Conservation and Characterization (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1986), 190; idem, “Seashells
and Ancient Purple Dyeing,” BA June (1990): 98-101; Ari Greenspan, “The Search for the Biblical Blue,” Bible Review (February
2003): 32-39; Baruch Sterman, “The Science of Tekhelet,” in Rabbi Alfred Cohen (ed.), Tekhelet: The Renaissance of a Mitzvah,
(New York: The Michael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University Press, 1996). For critiques of both Ziderman‟s and Sterman
et al‟s tekhelet v. P.F. McGovern, R.H. Michel and M. Saltzman, “Has Authentic Tĕkēlet Been Identified,” BASOR 269 (1988): 81-84
and Ziderman‟s response BASOR 269 (1988): 84-89. The most serious challenge to Sterman et al, and Ziderman indirectly, is from
Mendel E. Singer, “Understanding the Criteria for the Chilazon,” Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society (hereafter JHCS)
42 (2001): 5-29. See the debate that ensued between he and Sterman: JHCS 43 (2002): 112-124; 44 (2002): 97-110 and Rabbi
Yechiel Yitzchok Perr‟s contribution to the debate, “Letter to the Editor,” 44 (2002): 125-128.
Whatever the dye-source of tekhelet turns out to be (if ever that secret is rediscovered) it is clear that in rabbinic tradition the color
was dark blue, even blue-black. Rabbi Isaac Herzog demonstrated this in his D. Litt thesis submitted to London University in 1913 on
the subject tekhelet (now translated and published as “Hebrew Porphyrology,” in Ehud Spanier (ed.), The Royal Purple and the
Biblical Blue, Argaman and Tekhelet [Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House Jerusalem Ltd, 1987]). As he shows, the classic Talmudic
description of tekhelet as the color of the sky and sea must be understood against the background of its Palestinian-Mediterranean
locale where the cloudless Palestinian sky in bright sunshine is dark blue “closely bordering on black (ibid., 64, 67, 81, 89-90)” and
the Mediterranean along the Palestinian coast was likewise deep, dark blue appearing “almost black to the eye (Ibid., 90).” The early
Palestinian midrash Sifré to Numbers 115 describes tekhelet as like the “deep blue of the night.” See also Num. R. 2.7 where sapphiric
blue is described as black. Both Philo and Josephus, who lived during the Second Temple and therefore likely witnessed the curtains,