DeConick A.D

241
SPIRITUAL AVATARS
The Shocking Truth
For the convert, such a teaching would have come as a shock, initially, because
it contradicted everything the convert had known as true up to that
point. Ptolemy’s handling of Flora’s questions reveals her conflict about
this teaching. She is unsettled about this new view of reality.
If true, what would it mean for the Bible and the commandments
she had been taught to follow as a Christian? She feels that the scripture
has added value to her life, particularly the Ten Commandments, which
Christians like herself had salvaged as the moral core of the Torah while
discarding the rest of the laws. In light of this new orientation, she is
struggling to understand where the Torah really came from and what its
purpose really is.
Ptolemy is nuanced in his response, careful. He does not want to scare
Flora away from initiation, so he does not want to make YHWH out to be
the devil, as he knows other Gnostic teachers are doing. Instead of highlighting
YHWH’s arrogance and cruelty, his irrationality and arbitrariness,
Ptolemy focuses on YHWH’s righteousness. He softens YHWH’s rough
edges by telling Flora that YHWH is a God who operates by enforcing
laws that he instituted to govern his creation. Although he is a lesser God,
he is a fair ruler. He is the God of justice, whose nature is somewhere
between the good nature of the transcendent Father and the evil nature
of the devil (Epiphanius, Panarion 33.7.2–5).
From this stance, Ptolemy is able to reason thoughtfully through
Flora’s concerns about the Torah, knowing full well that the Ten Commandments
in the Jewish scriptures have been foundational to Flora’s
faith. He asks Flora to leave behind biblical literalism and weigh the options
for authorship, given that some laws have more moral value than
others. Although the Ten Commandments are good laws, other scriptural
laws aren’t so good, particularly when they require retribution that contradicts
the Ten Commandments. When we are commanded in Exodus
20:13 not to kill, for instance, we should not be handling homicide by
killing the murderer, as Leviticus 24:17 mandates. There was no allowance
for the death penalty, in Ptolemy’s opinion.
This inconsistency in the laws found in the five books of Moses, Ptolemy
says, suggests that the commandments were not put on the books
by the same legislator. Because YHWH is a just God, he is responsible for