Basically, that turf is going to be overtaken by God. And he's going to lead
It's supernatural beings like captives in a train.
Now, I think there's a reference to this scene about the powers of darkness,
thinking they've won at the crucifixion. It's my reading of Psalm 22.
And I'm not alone in this, but let's just click out to Psalm 22.
And close this one here. Some of these things are a little distracting at this point.
We have in Psalm 22. This is the famous Psalm that has
crucifixion suffering imagery in it.
And part of the Psalm says this: «Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones
are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast;
my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.» And so on and so forth. Again,
Christians for centuries have recognized and, the New Testament quotes,
dips into this passage here and there, that this is crucifixion imagery.
And you get this weird reference to the "bulls of Bashar."
Now, there are some who would say, you know, this doesn't really have
any reference to supernatural beings, "bulls of Bashan" it's just like a...
comparing, you know, they're just cows. You know, it's a pejorative.
And they'll go to Amos 4:1, which I referenced in Unseen Realm,
which is Samaria, it's not Bashan in that case, but you have
a reference to the bulls of Bashan there, or the cows of Bashar in that case.
And they'll say, Look, you know, Amos 4:1
that's just the prophet, most commentators will say, that's the prophet
calling the women of Bashan cows. It's just pejorative.
It's a slap in the face. Well, yeah, sure. But you also have in that region,
specifically of Jeroboam's golden calves, according to 1 Kings 12, in Dan,
which is in Bashan. And it was a Baal cult in the Old Testament.
So maybe there's something a little bit more going on here.
But again, this isn't Samaria, it's Bashan.
Read a little bit here again, about this area: «In Ugaritic mythology
and in Canaanite iconography, the calf was associated with Baal.
Later, Jeroboam I constructed golden calves at Bethel and Ai,
which he associated with the worship of Yahweh.»
It's a corruption of Yahweh worship.
«Construction of silver images and the worship of calf images is condemned by Hosea»
And Hosea 4:1 reference the cows Bashan, Hosea 13 here,
and Rick Hess, in his book Israelite Religions,
very, very conversant with the archaeology of the period,
says, we had a Baal association here with the cows and the bulls and all that kind of stuff.
But what I think is going on is a little more literary than that.
The context of Bashan. Let's just click out there.
If we are in this is the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible.
«The geographical indication Bashan functions as the depiction of the divine abode
in Psalm 68.» Again, it's the rival to Sinai.
«Related possibly to Canaanite mythology which places here the
heavenly/infernal dwelling place of its deified dead kings.»
These are the Rephaim, we talked about this in the last class period,
with the Caesarea Philippi episode.
Up there, in Caesarea Philippi, it's in the region of Bashar.
This is where the gates of the dead were thought by Canaanites,
and you know, other religions as well. But this is rooted in scholarship.
«Biblical geographical tradition agrees with the mythological and cultic data
of the Ugaritic texts.» And I'm not going to read this whole section here,
but he mentions King Og, one of the survivors of the Rephaim, so on and so forth.
«For the ‘Canaanites’ of Ugarit, the Bashan region, or a part of it,
clearly represented ‘Hell’, the celestial and infernal abode of their deified dead kings.»
Okay, it just did. I'm not making this up. And you got on a Psalm 68;
«is plainly asserted that Bashan is a har ʾĕlōhîm, the same expression used
in the Bible to designate Yahweh’s abode.» iIf you go to Psalm 68.
You know, the Psalmist says, hey, you know, Bashan, mountain of Bashan.
Why are you complaining? And it's because God has chosen Sinai,
but he references mount Hermon there
as the mountain of God, and then he describes the conquest
of this mountain; God's gonna take it for his own.
We get the fulfillment of that in Ephesians, with Jesus,
if that sounds really weird, again, you may have read, you know, part of that
in Unseen Realm already, or.. we're getting a little ahead of our content here.
But Paul is actually going to quote in Ephesians 4,
he's going to quote Psalm 68, about the conquest of supernatural beings.
He quotes that in line with the conquest of Bashan.
Basically, that turf is going to be overtaken by God.
And he's going to lead it's supernatural beings, like captives in a train.
We'll get there in a moment. But I just want you to see again, that there's a certain,
absolutely certain association with the underworld here.
And I think when it comes to Psalm 22, that there are a lot of scholars there
who really don't think, they don't think widely enough.
They don't think about the role of Bashan in Canaanite thinking.
And I think if they did, they would see these associations.
Now, one exception here has been Charlesworth. And it's ironic, let me just
go out and find my Charlesworth here. Open him up.
It's my link don't work there.
Charlesworth is actually an Old Testament scholar,
his focus is on the Second Temple period. And, again, he's still active,
still teaches at Princeton, but I want to show you a few things in this article.
He says here: «The purpose of the present essay is to publish discoveries that appeared
as I was completing a six-year project that seeks to comprehend
serpent iconography and symbology in antiquity.
This search led me to the appearance of Bashan in Psalm 68».
I'm glad to see he got there. Again, he's not alone. I'm not alone.
But there are a lot of scholars who... they never get there.
Again, the «noun bashan may appear in the Hebrew Bible only twice:
Deut 33:22 and Ps 68.» He goes on and starts discussing it.
And he mentions Og, again the territory east of the Jordan, so on and so forth.
«“I will bring back from Bashan, I will bring them back from the depths of the sea"»
Again, parts of Psalm 68. This is about God reclaiming Bashar and so on and so forth.
But you get down here; «What is the poet thinking when he links "Bashan" and "the sea"?»
Again, the sea is a familiar chaos metaphor in Scripture.
We've talked about this earlier in the last semester of the class.
And here the two things are linked in Psalm 68.
«Should the mythology behind [this part of the psalm, this bicolon, one of the stances]
be enunciated so that Bashan (symbolizing the land) is parallel to Yam (symbolizing the sea)?»
Again, Yam is the deity that Baal defeats to become king of the gods
and King of the Underworld.
There it is in Psalm 68. «Should "Bashan" be translated "dragon-snake"?»
This is something I don't know, I think I mentioned in Unseen Realm,
but I want to throw it in here. Just in case I didn't.
«Does this noun Bashan have a meaning in addition to the place?»
Is there something else going on here with a term other than geography?
Well, it turns out there is: «The most help in comprehending Bashan
as having a second meaning, "dragon-snake," comes
from cognate languages [the related languages] Ugaritic brn.»
They pronounce their sh as / th / th in Ugaritic.
«Bathan, and the Akk. basmu are cognate to the Heb. bsn and the Aram. ptn.
These terms are equal to the Arab. bathan.
All these nouns denote some type of "dragon" or “snake.”» Serpent.