Sapphiric God: - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

(emphasis original),” Morray-Jones argues. 145 He highlights a statement attributed to R. Joshua b. R.
Nehemiah as the key to unraveling this “confused” midrash: “They were of miraculous construction, for
they were rolled up. They were of sapphire 146 ”.
This association of the tablets with Cant. 5:14 seems to have originally pivoted around the term
sapphirîm. 147 As Morray-Jones points out, tradition held that the tablets were cut from the sapphire
pavement of the firmament beneath God’s throne. 148 While this accounts for the sapphiric tablets, it still
does not elucidate their identity with God’s hands as Morray-Jones is given to believe. 149 We are thus still
at a loss in terms of the connection between the sapphire tablets and the divine hands. But if indeed
‘sapphire’ is the link, it is reasonable to assume that the hands, like the tablets, are “of sapphire.” In fact, if
the hands are the tablets, then the hands must be “of sapphire.” Indeed, a related midrash in TanÈuma’
(#eqeb, §9) declares: “as it is said: ‘His hands are rounded gold…wrapped with sapphires,’ for they were
made of sapphire.” 150 The tradition lurking beneath Cant. R. 5:12 might therefore be a tradition that
included speculation on the divine sapphiric body. This very passage (Cant.5:14) seems to confirm this:
“His (i.e., God’s) body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires.”
4.3. Garments of (Divine) Skin
There is a long tradition, going back at least as far as Philo of Alexandria (15 BCE-50 CE), of
interpreting the “garments of skin” of Gen. 3:21 somatically, i.e. as Adam and Eve’s fleshy body. 151 There
is also a long tradition associating these ‘garments of skin’ with the high priestly garments, particularly the
long blue robe (me’il) and golden/multicolored ephod. 152 As Gary Anderson has shown, Gen. 3:21 was
145
Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 207.
146
Morray-Jones’ reading of ןוניריפנס לש: Transparent Illusion, 206.
147
Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 207.
148
See e.g. TanÈuma’, #eqeb, §9; Sifre Num. 101; v. also Ginzberg, Legends, vol. 7, index s.v. “Sapphire.”
149
Morray-Jones, Transparent Illusion, 207.
150
See also Morray-Jones’ discussion, Transparent Illusion, 208-9.
151
On the somatic reading of these garments in rabbinic literature v. especially Gary Anderson, Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve
in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001) 117-134; idem, “The Garments of Skin in
Apocryphal Narrative and Biblical Commentary,” in James L. Kugel (ed.), Studies in Ancient Midrash, (Cambridge: Harvard
University Center for Jewish Studies, 2001) 110-125; Stephen N. Lambden, “From fig leaves to fingernails: some notes on the
garments of Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Bible and select early postbiblical Jewish Writings,” in Morris and Sawyer, Walk in the
Garden, 86-87 [art.=74-90]. On Philo see QG 1.53; Leg. All. 2:55-56; Somn. 1.43; Jung Hoon Kim, The Significance of Clothing
Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (London and New York: T&T Clark International, 2004) 44-52; April D. De Conick and Jarl Fossum,
“Stripped before God: A New Interpretation of Logion 37 in the Gospel of Thomas,” VC 45 (1991): 123-150, esp. 128-130;
MacDonald, There is no Male and Female, 24.
152
On Gen. 3:21 and the high priestly vestments v. Num. R. 4:8; TanÈuma (Buber), 12. See also Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the
Jews [7 vols; Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1911, 1939], 1:177, 332, 5:93; Stephen D. Ricks, “The Garment of Adam in
Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Tradition,” in Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes and Fred Astren (edd.), Judaism and Islam:
Boundaries, Communications and Interactions (Leiden: Brill, 2000) 209; M.E. Vogelzang and W.J. van Bekkum, “Meaning and
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