Now I might add that later on today at 1:30 in this talk on "Mary, Ark of the Covenant," we're going to be focusing upon another set of Old Testament passages related to the Ark of the Covenant, which was, in a sense, the most sacred object in all of ancient Israel on the one hand. It's what made the temple holy, it's what made the Holy of Holies the holiest thing around for that's what the Ark was, but it also, in a sense, was the most strategically powerful weapon that Israel possessed because whenever they went into battle, they had the Ark lead the way. When they encircled Jericho for six days and on the seventh day they blew this trumpet seven times, it was the Ark of the Covenant that led the priests and the soldiers.
So the Ark of the Covenant is very significant and most scholars say that what it is, is a kind of throne because many other cultures had temples with arks. The only thing weird about Israel's Ark is that it was empty. It was a throne with two cherubim over the top, but nobody sat on it. In fact, you can actually discover, and I'm going to unpack this a little bit more later on, that in the Ancient world, it was usually the throne for the Queen Mother. For instance, one of the greatest German scholars in his book, Symbolism in the Biblical World, speaks about the great popularity of cherubim thrones, box thrones with cherubim angels over top. It goes on, in Canaan and in Phoenicia during the late Bronze and early Iron Ages, excavators describe it "as a female figure sitting in a square armchair." Odd? Why would these ancient cultures have an ark on which sat this female figure on kind of a throne posture? And why did they also just like Israel often lead that ark out into battle ahead of the troops? Because it was a kind of Queen Mother figure perhaps.
I mean, let's face it, ladies and gentlemen, if your mother was out in the front lines, would you be tempted to fight a little bit harder? Yeah. So consistently, the Ark of the Covenant was what produced all of these miracle victories. Jericho, which was sort of like the Moscow of the ancient world -- it was the central stronghold of the Promised Land and it went down like a house of cards, with the Ark going around it seven times and the seven trumpets of the priests blowing.
So there is clear evidence that Protestant, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican, as well as Catholic scholars acknowledge that the New Testament deliberately depicts Mary in terms related to the Ark of the Covenant. And we'll discover in Revelation after 580 years without an Ark, Jewish Christians look up and see a sign. It's the Ark of the Covenant in heaven which had not been seen in 580 years approximately. This is where "Raiders of the Lost Ark" comes from. It's been lost for that long. John sees it in Revelation up in heaven and the very next thing he sees is a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars, a Queen Mother. The Ark is no longer an empty throne.
So I just want to throw this out to tantalize and perhaps tease a little bit because we don't have the time to go through all the Ark of the Covenant passages, but there's a great deal of exciting and, I think, impressive evidence from the literary artistry of Hebrew narrative as it prepared the way for the Davidic kingdom being fulfilled with the Son of David, Jesus Christ, and his Queen Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
What do I mean by this Queen Mother stuff? Now we will take a look at a key passage. Let's turn now to 1st Kings, chapter 1. This, I believe, is the missing link. I really am convinced that this is the most important exegetical Biblical piece of evidence that we have to go on. It was one of the best-known institutions in ancient Israel's monarchy or after the Civil War ancient Juda's monarchy and in fact, the idea of the Queen Mother was ubiquitous. You don't find ancient monarchies in the Near East or the Middle East that don't have Queen Mothers. I'll refer you to a key article written by N.A. Andrieson in Catholic Biblical Quarterly in 1983, pages 179 through 194. It's entitled, "The Role of the Queen Mother in Israelite Society." This note card, incidentally, comes from about six years ago because it was right after the article came out that I was beginning to do some Old Testament research and opening my mind up to some Catholic ideas. Even though I had been very anti-Catholic I had already begun to accumulate some evidence for this Queen Mother tradition, but it was all piece- meal and scattered.
When I read this article, it was like a thunderclap striking me. I knew I had to really pay close attention to the evidence. What evidence? Well, this is known as the gebirah. The gebirah is the Hebrew term for the Queen Mother. I found in another book, The Graphic History of the Jewish Heritage, that the gebirah, the Queen Mother "occupied a unique and powerful position" throughout the history of ancient Israel's monarchy. He gives as an example Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, who was enthroned, which we will look at in just a moment.
Also, another example, Maacah, in 1st Kings 15:13; Jezebel, who is the only Queen Mother in the rebellious northern kingdom of Israel. In fact, the northern kingdom of Israel is conspicuous because it lacked the Queen Mother. Father DeVoe, one of the greatest Old Testament scholars of the century said, "This was due to a lack of dynastic stability." They kept getting overthrown up north. They didn't have the Davidic covenant to anchor the claims of these potential kings. That's in 2nd Kings 10:13. And then Athaliah, the very cruel and wicked queen who ruled for six years, trying to suppress the cult of Yahweh in the Temple. Mehushta over Johoachin in Jeremiah 13:18. Another scholar in Scandinavia, Ostrum says, "The Queen Mother's position was essentially cultic in nature," that is she actually had a position or a role to play in worship. It wasn't priestly but it was important and it was cultic. It's still left undefined.
In the ancient Near East it goes on talking about how, "The Queen Mother throughout all these ancient Near Eastern monarchies sat beside the king on a throne, survived the death without being deposed. If the king died, the Queen Mother continued to reign without being deposed. There was a cultic role for her in leading the songs and so on in worship but also she had an essential role in political, military and economic affairs of court. In fact there are records of where the Queen Mother could oppose the king on issues of state. This is found in the Eplah tablets and Uhr Hittite records, Egypt Marri tablets, Assyria and other Arabian documents, as well. And the Queen Mother usually began her reign, just as an interesting incidental detail, after menopause.
What's really interesting from Andreason's perspective is that even after the prophets are sent by God to purify the Jerusalem cult and the kingdom of all of these pagan encrustations, the institution of the gebirah continues with reforms by Hezekiah and Josiah. The fertility cults are suppressed and these ashora poles and so on are torn down, including sacred snakes, you know the nahushta and so on, but never the Queen Mother, that's allowed to remain. The central role for Andreason's research is that she was to be the king's wisdom counselor. Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is sort of like a personification of the Queen Mother, or visa versa.
It goes on listing several other examples. I won't bother you with all these examples but of the sixteen Queen Mothers named, seven explicitly seem to be Jerusalemites. It just runs throughout the whole gamut, the whole historical span of the monarchy and actually, the only chapter of the Bible that we know was written by a woman, Proverbs 31, was written by a Queen Mother as instruction for her son before he accedes to the throne and finds himself a wife, she says, "This is the kind you've got to find." Andreason concludes that "This is the theological paradigm for Mary's Queenship. Jesus is the Son of David and the genealogy in Matthew links Mary to the Davidic line. Being the Son of David makes her the Queen Mother." There are some other works too, The Nature of the Queenship of Mary, published in 1973, The Royal Son of God, published in 1979 and so on. But I can share these sources with you , if you are interested, afterwards.
Let's take a look at an example of the function and authority of the Queen Mother in 1st Kings. In chapter 1 there is an intense fraternal rivalry between Solomon or Jedidiah, whose throne name is Peace, Solomon, and his half-brother, Adonijah, who by the way is older and was born to one of David's wives whom he had married before Bathsheba. So Adonijah seemed to have a kind of prima facia claim to the throne before Solomon, except that Bathsheba had exacted from David an oath to the effect that her son would get the throne. You can get it in Psalm 110 especially. So, anyway, Adonijah approaches Bathsheba in order to approach Solomon. We're going to see how this goes. But first of all we see King David asking Bathsheba, verse 17, " What is it you want the king asked? She said to him, 'My Lord, you yourself swore to me your servant by the Lord your God, Solomon your son shall be king after me and he will sit on my throne. But now Adonijah has become king and you my Lord, the king, do not know about it.'" And it goes on talking about this palace coup attempt.
Then King David says over in verse 28 and 29 calling Bathsheba. "So she came into the king's presence and stood before him. The king then took an oath, 'as surely as the Lord lives,'" and he goes on promising and swearing that "Solomon, your son, shall be king after me and he will sit on my throne in my place," even though the majority of the people were going after Adonijah at the time, several key priests, as well. And so she rejoices.
Now turn over to 1st Kings 2. There's where David gives his royal charge to Solomon and Solomon asks for wisdom, but just browse and just go through that as quickly as you can and just see what is going on here because it is very unusual. Let's take a look in particular at verse 13. "Now Adonijah, the son of Haggith, went to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. Bathsheba asked him, 'Do you come peacefully?' He answered, 'Yes, peacefully,' then he added, 'I have something to say to you.' 'You may say it, she replied.' 'As you know,' he said, 'the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king. But then things changed and the kingdom has gone to my brother for it has come to him from the Lord. Now I have just one request to make of you. Do not refuse me.' 'You may make it she said. So he continued, 'Please ask King Solomon, he won't refuse you, to give me Abishag, the Shunamite as my wife.'" If you understood palace politics, you'd see what this was. "Very well," Bathsheba replied. "I will speak to the king for you."
Abishag happened to be David's last lover and wife. She was the one young woman who kept him warm in his old age, sleeping next to him at all times. To have David's last wife would be to have official claim to the throne. This is why Absolom publicly slept with David's concubines after he threw his father out of Jerusalem, because if I have the Queen Mothers, if I have the king's wives, who do you see as your king? Solomon is no fool. When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, look what happens. The king of Israel, the son of David, the supreme head of God's covenant people in the whole world, according to Psalm 2 stood up to meet her, bowed down to her and sat down on his throne and he had a throne brought for the king's mother and she sat down at his right hand. "Sit at my right hand," Psalm 110. That's the position of authority. I have one small request to make of you. She goes on and makes the request. Solomon sees through it. Says no, of course, and executes Adonijah.
But look at the beginning of the institution of the gebirah. It's something that continues. When the Queen Mother walks in, the king, because he is her son, pays filial homage to her and establishes her at his right hand, upon a throne as Queen Mother. If I am the father of the family of this kingdom, if I am the shepherd of this flock, that makes you the mother. Not only my mother but the grandmother of us all. That institution persisted down through the ages of the Judaite monarchy. There is no evidence of it ever being suppressed by the prophets or criticized by Yahweh or ever falling into hard times and being replaced because it was seen as something that was meaningless.
So what? So the Jews who had been waiting and waiting and waiting for five hundred years for the Davidic line to be reestablished at the time of Christ's coming knew all this. They knew it like the back of their hand. We don't. Many Biblical scholars aren't even aware of it. But every Jew did. I mean Joe Six-pack or Joe Sixpackstein, they all knew it. They all knew that God had sworn an oath that there would always be a Davidic king and that the kingdom of David would be restored in its former glory, and in fact, greater glory.
But the last time we hear about the Davidic kingdom, it's fallen upon hard times. We won't go through all the passages in Chronicles and Kings but when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 586 and even prior to that, they had captured the king. They had killed all of his sons before his eyes, they drilled out his eyes and they sent him into captivity in chains. From there on the fortunes of the Davidic dynasty only went down and for hundreds and hundreds of years, for decades at a time, the Jews wondered, "Is there even a Davidic descendent?" I mean sure the Hasmonians claim some Davidic dynastic relations and so on, but never was it sure and whenever any claimant to Davidic authority would rise up, what would happen? Like Jerubabaal in coming back from Babylonian captivity, he went straight to Jerusalem and the High Priest is there and all the people were saying, "At last the Davidic throne is going to be restored." Only what happens? He's recalled to Persia and we never hear from him again. The Davidic kingdom is not restored.
So for centuries and centuries the Jewish people keep reading Psalm 2, keep reading Psalm 89, keep reading Psalm 110, keep reading Psalm 132 and all these other Davidic Messianic psalms that promised an ongoing, unbroken line of Davidic succession and glorious, glorious power. It would be sort of like if all of us took a refresher course on the promise that Jesus gave to Peter about the rock and the keys and the gates of Hades not prevailing and we reminded ourselves and we reinforced our conviction that the papal line would always be unbroken. Then all of a sudden we hear that the Pope has been assassinated and all the Bishops have been rounded up and assassinated as well.
What would happen? I'll bet you some people's faith would be shaken. I'll bet you mine would be, and if yours isn't, I don't understand. I mean that's an oath that Jesus swore, in effect. It was an oath that God swore in effect. Is there a Davidic line? Has God forgotten? Has he fallen asleep at the wheel? What is going on? Turn with me now to Matthew 1.
... continued
What a horrible sentence! It's almost impossible to read and very slippery in it's suggested use of the bible.
Not true at all. It's so untrue it seems to be an outright lie allowing for what I expect to be a ton of typical RC name dropping.
I think Scott comes across better either in a recording (audio or video) or in a book. His verbal lecture style doesn’t convert too well to a written format.
One reason that I love his tapes is that I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth, because he talks so fast and includes so much information :-).
Paragraphs 4-8 sure proved my point. He went straight to name dropping rather than to scripture.
I will warn sensitive Protestants that these rabid Catholics do not have kind words to say but I do feel they are justified in their analysis. I would say that Thurian was not as Reformed as Hahn tries to portray and probably less Catholic than he supposes.
Beautiful thread.
Love this quote:
“Never apologize for the Blessed Virgin Mary!” ~~Mother Angelica
The question, then, as you read through this narrative is not based upon anything that is explicitly stated, but rather that which is so conspicuously unstated, and that is, where the heck is Adam in all this? By the end of the narrative you discover that he's right by the woman because she just turns and gives him the fruit to eat; but the question is, where was he all along? This loving covenant head, this loving covenant partner who is to show the great love that he's willing to lay down his life for his beloved? Well, he was probably rationalizing his silence by saying, "Well, if I oppose such a serpentile monster as this, I stand no chance."
Scott Hahn things Adam was afraid of this snake/serpent/dragon...Perhaps Scott should just believe the bible...
Gen 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: ...
Good ole Lucifer wasn't a snake til AFTER he beguiled eve...The fact that he was referred to as a snake in the bible is because the Garden of Eden account was written 1500 years after it took place...
So here we go...
(Silliness for silliness.)
bookmarking.
Not so fast, hot shot. Isaiah says nothing of the kind.
I kind of assumed that the great theological arguments from the lofty magicsterical based GRAND ARCHETYPAL SEMINARY OF MM THEOLOGY would be a kind of fun thing to respond to . . . but this is ridiculous.
It appears that we have left of with BRAZEN ASSUMPTIONS, BRAZEN INFERENCES, BRAZEN EXTRAPOLATIONS AND BRAZEN INVENTIONS OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH and made some galactic leaps into fantasized theological postulations from the mystical ethers.
I don't find a shred of a hint in Isatiah that says anything of the kind. The author may as well have referenced that THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL TRETISE:
"THE PERPETUAL PROFUNDITY OF BRIEFLY VIRGINAL VERACITIES FROM THE DAYDREAMS OF THE GREAT SAINTS OF HOLLYWEED" BY HOWDY DOODY, GONZO, GOOFY AND DAFFY DUCK.
Actually, the latter treatise would probably make more sense and have more accurate historicity to it.
The declaration that Isaiah's mention of a virgin to bring forth the Messiah . . . EQUALS . . . perpetual virginity is akin to . . . what . . . from the GREAT SEMINARY OF MM THEOLOGY . . . ? ? ?
Let me think . . . ponder, ponder . . .
1. Yogi Bear Being the archebypal Great Father with Boo-Boo as John the Baptist. Or perhaps . . .
2. Don Quixote as contractor of the Twin Towers with a new assistant--Inspector Clouseau. Or perhaps . . .
3. The great spiritual truths outlined in that magnificently miraculous biography of that galactic love story: SPOCK MARRIES HELLO DOLLY. . . or maybe . . .
4. The perpetual wisdom of Opie, Barney Fife and Roger Rabbit.
Any of the above would have AT LEAST AS MUCH theological historicity as the postulations, wild haired extrapolations and bounced-off-the-moon theological fantasies from the ESTEEMED GRAND ARCHETYPAL SEMINARY OF MONOPOLY MONEY THEOLOGY . . . outlined in the doc originating this thread.
Sounds to me like an OPPOSITE kind of “support” for a QUEEN MOTHER figure. God has HIS people carry around an EMPTY ARK DEVOID OF, ABSENT, EMPTY OF any hint of a QUEEN MOTHER FIGURE—in STARK CONTRAST to the PAGAN customs of the heathens round about. And this is supposed to convince us that the QUEEN MOTHER is . . . BIBLICAL?????
GTTM! ROTFLOL! What a humor break these docs are! What robust laughter they foster. So good for the immune system. . . . Until the gravity of the deception sets in.
There's no viable, authentic, remotely significant hint of Jesus' Mother in Revelation. It doesn't matter how many clueless sorts from how many denominations pretend otherwise. It's sad that the metaphors in Revelation confuse so many. Though I have to believe that it is more evidence of God hiding things in plain sight and confusing deliberately those who refuse to PUT HIM AND HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON FIRST, FOREMOST AND ALONE IN SUPREME MAJESTY, GRACE, FORGIVENESS, GODLY COMFORT, POWER, . . .