Sword & Fire, Spirit & Silence:
Reflections on the Prophetic Line from Elijah to Jesus

Prof. Theophus “Thee” Smith,
Emory Univ. Dept. of Religion Faculty profile: http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/RELIGION/faculty/smith.html
Atlanta, GA.USA • June 8, 2008

“You do not know what spirit you are of, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy the lives of human beings but to save them.” (Lk. 9.55)

That declaration from the gospel of Luke in the Christian scriptures climaxes the story of the disciples James and John becoming angry on Jesus’ behalf, so angry they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village that rejected Jesus—“the way Elijah did,” adds the old King James Version of the Bible. Then Jesus “turned and rebuked them,” the text says. But also consider this paraphrase:

‘Call down fire from heaven? No! For I have come to save human lives, not destroy them.’ That’s Jesus’ punch line in the Samaritan village story. And
like James and John, contemporary disciples of Jesus don’t always incarnate God’s spirit. We constantly forget whose Spirit we are. Again and again we want to call down fire from heaven on behalf of God, don’t we?

Now here’s my question: how do we tell the difference between the holy fire of God and ‘unholy fire’ (cf. Num. 3.4, 26.61; Lev. 10.1): that is, the fire of our own human anger, the consuming fire of our own resentments, and the destroying fire of our uncontrolled desires?

It is those desires, St. Paul told the Galatians that cause us in the church to “bite and devour one another.” “Take care,” said Paul, “that you are not consumed by one another” (Gal. 5.15-17). Instead of ‘consuming’ one another, Paul claimed, the church has access to the Spirit of God—the Spirit that brings forth this nine-fold fruit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal. 5.22-23.)

Admittedly some scriptures are confusing about this difference between the consuming fire of God and the consuming fire of our human desires. As René Girard has observed, the Bible is a ‘text in travail between myth and gospel’ [source?] On the one hand we have St. Paul’s exhortation about the fruit of the Spirit in the passage just quoted above. On the other hand we have disturbing passages such as this one in the book of Hebrews about God being “a consuming fire.”

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking [it says]. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven . . . for our God is a consuming fire. Heb. 12.25, 29

What! Is this consuming fire also the God who speaks “graciously” to us in the ‘good news’ of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

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Consider in this connection the spectacular events surrounding the life of the prophet Elijah. Elijah was the prophet of sword and fire, you remember, who actually did call down fire from heaven in that contest of power with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Recall how he challenged them: ‘Let’s see if you can call down fire from Baal to ignite your sacrifice.’ From morning to noon they ‘raved and limped’ around their altar, the scripture says, but no fire came down to consume their sacrifice. So Elijah mocked them to their faces, ‘Maybe your god has gone on holiday, or has fallen asleep and can’t wake up.’

Then he turned to his own sacrifice, and drenched it on the altar with gallons of water. Finally when he called on the name of the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,” fire fell down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, the altar, and the trench full of water around the altar. When the people saw it they fell down and worshipped the Lord as the one, true God. Then Elijah commanded that the prophets of Baal be killed by the sword; all 450 of them, the scripture says. (1 Kings 18.20-40.)

Yes, Elijah was the prophet of sword and ‘fire from heaven’ whose zeal wrought the destruction of human life. But precisely here I like to imagine that in his afterlife the prophet Elijah learned that the wrath that led him to destroy the prophets of Baal was not the fire of a holy God; that it was the all-too-human fire of unholy desires—the kind of desires that lead us also today to consume one another.

I like to imagine that Elijah began the long process of learning the difference between these two fires on that day on Mt. Horeb when God caught up with him—40 days after he began running for his life from Queen Jezebel. This was the second time, according to Ecclesiasticus, that Elijah brought down fire.

You remember the story: At first he experienced a great wind, then an earthquake, then fire, and “after the fire,” the scripture says, “a sound of sheer silence.” Now God was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, it also says emphatically, but only spoke to him out of the silence. (1 Kg. 19.11-12). On that day Elijah encountered not the God of consuming fire, but the God who speaks out of holy silence.

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Excursus on Elijah as John the Baptist:
Reincarnation and Karma

However to tell the full story we must also reflect on Elijah as the prophet of sword and karmic retribution. And here we can do no better than quote from a contemporary online discussion of these matters:

A Case Study Of Elijah’s Karma

Outline of the case:

1. Elijah kills the prophets of Baal by the sword
[1Kings 18:20-39; 19.1-2]

2. The repeated prophecies of Elijah’s return (reincarnation)
[Malachi 3.1, 4.5]

3. The announcement of Elijah’s return (reincarnation)
[Luke 1.10-17]

4. The arrival of the prophesied messenger as John the Baptist [Matthew 3.1-3]

5. Jesus’ confirmations of Elijah’s return as John the Baptist [Matthew 11.1-15; 17.1-13]

6. Elijah reaps what he sowed: John is beheaded.
[Matthew 14.1-12]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

VI. Elijah reaps what he sowed and is beheaded by Herod

Matthew 14:1-12 tells the story of John the Baptist’s death. Herodias, the wife of Herod’s brother, wanted John imprisoned and Herod did just that. On Herod’s birthday, Herodias’ daughter beckoned Herod for the head of John the Baptist to be delivered to her on a platter. It was done.

(I wonder if Herod’s niece who wanted John beheaded wasn’t the reincarnation of the vengeful Jezebel, fulfilling [her] vow almost a thousand years later for Elijah’s killing of the Baal prophets by the sword. The concept of karma does not justify vengeful behavior. As the concept of Grace indicates, we must rise above and eradicate karmic debt through forgiveness. We are, in fact, bound to karma until we do this very thing.)

So there you have the law of karma in operation in the life of the soul who lived as Elijah and John the Baptist as told in the Bible. The measure you give is the measure you get. As you sow, so shall you reap. He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. How did Elijah kill those prophets of Baal in1Kings? By the sword. This obviously [is] not in harmony with the Law of Love. Elijah, zealous as he was in his beliefs, came back as John the Baptist, and in the end reaped what he had sown. How was John killed? His head was cut off! He who kills with the blade dies by the blade. Coincidence—or the law at work?

What Herod and Herodias did to John wasn’t right, but neither was John an innocent victim. As great as Elijah/John may have been, he wasn’t perfect and was as bound to the law as anyone else. Additionally, Elijah mocked the Baal prophets at Mt. Carmel and was in turn mocked in the courts of Herod. Jesus knew this law well [and] spoke strongly about it.

[Source: Ken “Funraker,” at: http://members.nuvox.net/~on.funraker/reincarnation.htm#A%20Case%20Study%20Of%20Reincarnation%20In%20The%20Bible. Cf. the author’s additional references to John 1:19-22, 24-25; Luke 9:7-8; and Matthew 16:13-14. See a related discussion of Elijah’s reincarnation and “karma” as part of a larger treatment of “Reincarnation and the Bible” at: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen03.html; both sites accessed online by this author on 6/8/08.]

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Now learning the difference between the authentic voice of God and counterfeit voices is a very ‘long lesson’ to learn. It can take millennia to learn how to hear the voice of God in the silence and not to prefer finding God in ‘fire.’ (In that connection see the “Two Voices of God in Torah” in Michael Lerner’s Jewish Renewal.) Some of us may not learn it until we reach our own afterlife. Even holy scripture itself is not always clear about the difference between finding God in fire and listening for God in the silence.

In particular there’s the stunning passage from the Apocrypha that celebrates the life of Elijah as the prophet of fire. It’s found in the book of Ecclesiasticus or Sirach, known to most of us by that familiar preface: “Now let us sing the praises of famous men” (Sirach 44.1). Consider this excerpt from Sirach 48:

1: Then the prophet Elijah arose like a fire, and his word burned like a torch.
2: He brought a famine upon them, and by his zeal he made them few in number.
3: By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens, and also three times brought down fire.
4: How glorious you were, O Elijah, in your wondrous deeds! And who has the right to boast which you have? . . .
8: who anointed kings to inflict retribution, and prophets to succeed you.
9: You who were taken up by a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot with horses of fire . . .

11: Blessed are those who saw you, and those who have been adorned in love; for we also shall surely live.
12: It was Elijah who was covered by the whirlwind, and Elisha was filled with his spirit; in all his days he did not tremble before any ruler, and no one brought him into subjection.
13: Nothing was too hard for him, and when he was dead his body prophesied.
14: As in his life he did wonders, so in death his deeds were marvelous. (Sirach 48.1-4, 8-9, 11-14)

Well even in his death Elijah still prophesies to us. And I imagine him saying to us today, after hearing this scripture from Ecclesiasticus,

‘In all my days I did not tremble before any ruler?’ Don’t believe it! I fled from Jezebel like a rabbit from a fox. Likewise be careful when you read scriptures about me being a prophet of fire. It was on Mt. Horeb that I learned my lesson about fire. Ever since then I have preferred the voice of God that speaks out of the silence.

‘And yes, as the scripture says, ‘Blessed are those who saw me then, but more blessed are you who have been adorned in love; for in that love we also shall surely live.’’ (paraphrase: Sirach. 48.11)

Yes, the dead Elijah prophesies to us still even in the afterlife. And from that mystic realm his spirit testifies to the spirit of Jesus himself as the archetype of unconditional love. In this connection, finally, consider that the third time that Elijah is associated with fire is in the reading where the chariot and horses of fire separate him from his disciple Elisha, and take him away to heaven after his disciple asked to receive a “double portion” of his master’s spirit.

As a Christian theologian I like to imagine that this request to receive a double portion of Elijah’s spirit was prophetically fulfilled in the life of Jesus centuries later when, on that day on the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus was transfigured as a being of majesty and light and accompanied by the premier prophets—Elijah and Moses—appearing on opposite sides as if to acknowledge the greater majesty and holiness of the one who declared:

“You do not know what spirit you are of, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy the lives of human beings but to save them.” (Lk. 9.55)

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Sword & Fire, Spirit & Silence:
Reflections on the Prophetic Line from Elijah to Jesus

Prof. Theophus “Thee” Smith,
Emory Univ. Dept. of Religion Faculty profile: http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/RELIGION/faculty/smith.html
Atlanta, GA.USA • June 8, 2008

[HOW TO EDIT THIS ARTICLE (UNPUBLISHED AT THIS DATE) FOR BREVITY & APPROPRIATENESS? YOUR CALL...]

I think Samson, Jonah, Moses, etc. would argue a bit with this statement. Too many people hold modern prophets to a standard the Lord has never used in choosing His prophets. We get the disinfected version, even with the mess that remains. Imagine how the Bible would read if it was written by those who disagreed with the prophets.

I meant Blake Ostler. But his theory aside, I have translated things and there is always a very real question about what is meant by translation. My views and interpretations invariably affect the translation. Even in the act of reading we create a new book as Derrida would argue, but the process of translation lends itself to all sorts of mischief or insight. For example, in the same regard that NT followers of Jesus read Christology into the OT, I see no reason why this would not occur with Mormon/Moroni and/or Joseph Smith.

Joshua (57): Do you mean Blake Ostler? I haven’t read anything from him, at least anything I can remember, in this context. I’d approach it pretty skeptically based on other things of his I’ve read. Still, in the interest of learning, thanks for the recommendation.

Hawkgrrl (58): Yeah, my contention is about what “another testament” means to me if I am to be more persuaded of the Book’s authenticity, and particularly its place within Messianic belief, particularly Jesus as Christ. It doesn’t feel very ancient nor grounded, based on my studies. But I grant as a modern piece of literature that many inclined toward belief in Jesus as Christ may find that it reinforces a lot of what they already believe about Jesus, hence functioning as “another testament”. I really appreciate your thoughtful critique of my position, though. I stumble fitting the Book of Mormon into what little I know of Mesoamerica, but even moreso for what I’ve learned about Hebrew scripture and early Christian history, which is more an area of deep interest to me.

There are a couple of reasons I don’t like Ostler’s theory:

1. Joseph was not translating according to the meaning of the word in 1830.

2. Ostler’s definition requires discounting the actual text of the Book.

3. Moreover, the words, testimony and belief of the ‘translator’ must be also discounted.

I believe that given Joseph Smith’s fascination (obsession) with word derivation and translation in his speeches that it is a safe assumption that he represented his undertaking as divinely assisted translation.

have you read Ostler’s expansion theory? It addresses some of the problems you see with the BoM. I personally think that anytime a translator is involved there is a part of who they are and how they see the world that affects the translation. Such may have occurred in the BoM. Joseph never claimed it was a translation in the sense that we use the word today.

“Rather, I see him begging people to take (the Bible) seriously and accept it as a testament of Christ’s divine mission.”

You said, “That it presumes to settle the score more clearly than God did through the Prophets of the Tanakh . . .” It doesn’t presume that; many of the early leaders presumed it, and the majority of members still presume it. Imho, it is presumption.

Mormon was very clear in his statements that he edited the records in his possession to do two main things: 1) bring people to Christ; and 2) convince people of the truthfulness of the Bible (the record of the Jews). When I read his own words, especially in the last chapters of his own “book”, I simply can’t see Mormon “presuming to settle the score more clearly than God did through the Prophets of the (Bible).” Rather, I see him begging people to take it seriously and accept it as a testament of Christ’s divine mission.

Moroni continued this supplication. In probably the most under-analyzed verse in the entire BoM, he sets the stage for his final invitation to pray by saying:

“Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.” (Moroni 10:3)

Think about it: He “exhorts” people to “remember” things that are not included in the record he is compiling – or, at least, included only tangentially by reference. He is asking people to use a desire to know of the validity of the BoM to base their “pondering” on a remembrance of the mercy of God as recorded in the Bible. Without the foundation “score” that is “settled” in the Bible, Moroni’s entire invitation lacks foundation – and the spiritual condition he fills is necessary for an answer to the subsequent prayer is not fulfilled.

That is a subject for a whole different post, but the point for this discussion is that I just can’t see Mormon or Moroni “presuming” ascendancy of the BoM over the Bible.

“Messianic evolution” may not be the best term. What I mean is this: I agree there is a complete break between the Tanakh and the New Testament for setting Messiahship–and valid for debate on that issue. But you have Nephi quoting Isaiah in a (Jesus) Christological sense, when Isaiah wasn’t even widely studied, not even a codified part of the Tanakh until ~150 years later than Nephi. As Isaiah was known, it was largely considered as fulfilled condemnation of Judah or soon-to-be-fulfilled prophecy. The Suffering Servant comes to be seen as a metaphor for Judah itself, collectively, not an individual figure. Later on as the Songs of Isaiah came to be accepted by Messianic Jews as predictive, it was still considered, including by the Savior’s own disciples, that such is a predictor of a political Messiah. It took the oral tradition following Jesus’ death for the seeds of Christology to really take root soon becoming the Gospel of Mark. It takes Paul, as the major influencer, to take Christianity into high Christology. While the earliest epistles are dated within two decades after Christ’s death certainly the oral tradition, particularly using the Tanakh to interpret Jesus as the Messiah, sprung up right away. And even then you _still_ had the whole division on whether Jesus’ mission was to essentially “reform” Judaism or whether it could be taken to the gentiles.

Now that’s not proof, for certain, for Jesus’ Messiahship. And I allow your contention that on that basis there is “valid cause to question Christianity entirely”. But really, it’s quite compelling evidence I think that we have that Jesus is divine and was raised from the dead is the oral tradition –rigorous, imaginative, mystical, cultural– Jewish Christian oral tradition that sprung up immediately after his death. Now virginal birth, priestly lineage, some of the other stuff took time to mature. But the Passion belief is an early, foundational historical constant. Even if Jesus really didn’t rise form the dead, believers believed He did enough to revolutionize a sect of Judaism into a new branch of religion. Pretty compelling to me. But I agree, not historical proof.

The Book of Mormon assertion is that we have Nephi cherry-picking Isaiah to establish a Christology ahistorical to Jewish understanding of a Messiah, while we completely miss significant contributions from the the other greater prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah. (And for that matter duplicating Isaiah errors of the KJV.) To me, the Book of Mormon just doesn’t answer any questions that it doesn’t confound to a greater degree, settle any debate, on whether Jesus is Messiah. That it presumes to settle the score more clearly than God did through the Prophets of the Tanakh, centuries before God could manifest Himself in Jesus to reveal His intent to His people, and later for humankind, is a big red flag to me for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

On the other hand, this is similar to the discussion about white-washing one’s journal. Is it best to only present the “good parts” or better to portray yourself as a human being with a full range of experience, mistakes and learning, warts and all?

My point? The Book of Mormon was written blatantly and openly and directly as “The Good Parts Version” – ignoring years (many years in some cases), fairly important historical characters (Sam, every holder of the records between Enos and Mosiah, Lehi – the brother of Nephi, etc.) and much individual analysis in favor of sweeping spiritual narrative. Within that narrative, there is evidence of the weaknesses and imperfections and humanity of the prophets, but they take more careful reading than in the OT. The *relative* lack of such detail, imo, makes those that come through even more intriguing – proof that these characteristics and weaknesses can’t be covered completely even in “The Good Parts Version”.

The Hebrews favored spiritual teaching transmission strongly with a rigorous oral tradition; we owe the benefit of our primary written evidence largely to the process of the Greek cultural influx to Alexandrian Jews (the Septuagint). And even when the Tanakh was written before and after this time, it was the oral transmission of the vowel “decryption key” that brought God’s breath to Man to life. This strong tradition effectively rendered scripture, as Hawkgrrrl has stated, a compilation of moral and spiritual teachings liberally intermixed with propaganda. Therefore we miss the mark when we read modern literalist sensibilities for historical transmission into Hebrew culture. Nonetheless it isn’t entirely complete to merely dismiss the writings (even respectfully) as imaginative myths because of the oral discipline behind the memorization and transmission of the law, the nation and the prophets (Tanakh). Yes, it’s mythical, but much more than that, which gives us a “history” both extremely colorful and shaded.

We have to remember that even Paul, even more heavily influenced by this time by Hellenized culture than those contributers to the creation of the Septuagint, only favored the composition and distribution of written records, epistles (which he wouldn’t even have considered scripture at that time), when it was not possible to deliver such teachings orally.

This is one thing that rubs me when some LDS apologists go on and on about Hebrew influence in the Book of Mormon, citing brief poetic passages, irregular chiastic structures, etc., when the record really is silent, in my opinion, of louder, clearer, overt and tell-tale signs of Hebrew practices, observations and necessary oral transmission of the Law. The absence of such obvious evidence is summarily side-stepped by the mysterious and nondescript influence of “Egyptian” “Assyrian” or other gentile cultural influences that favored the creation of “reformed Egyptian”. Furthermore, in my opinion, Nephi’s unique contribution is lifeless and polar compared to the more vibrant, mythic, messianic writings of Hebrew spiritual contemporaries of their day.

Secondly, a related and major anachronism for me is the pre-Jeshua high Christology, rather than messianic evolution, evident throughout the BoM– but that’s another topic not primary to the discussion at hand.

Nephi wrote his own story near the end of his life looking back. That comprises what is now 1 and 2 Nephi. I doubt that Nephi would be outlining his weaknesses in such an effort.

Most of the rest of the Book of Mormon is a compilation made an editor (Mormon and then Moroni), and much of that is direct editorial summary of large swaths of history and time. Again, it is unlikely that such an editorial work would be focused on capturing the nuances of character of the prophets involved, especially to the satisfaction of twentieth or twenty-first century sensibilities.

Perhaps the difference is due to authorship. The BOM was largely written by BOM prophets for a righteous purpose (to edify future generations). The authorship of the OT is muddier and the motives seem to differ more dramatically from book to book.

I agree with Ray.

Perhaps the individuals come off like George Washington only in our collective minds and culturally. I think the scriptures at least give us more shadows. I find it interesting that we rarely approach BoM characters with the same suspicion as we do those in the OT. I think its pretty clear that Nephi had issues with his brothers and that much of his history was arguing for a Nephite political agenda. One of my favorite parts in the BoM is where we read that the Lamanites were savages and only a few verses later are told the Nephites slaughtered so many Lamanites they couldnt even number them.

Samuel the Lamanite, whose words are endorsed by Christ, gives us a much more negative view of the characters in the BoM accusing them of killing prophets and deconstructing much of their national narrative including their status as chosen much in the same way John the Baptist challenged the regime of his day as a precursor to the savior.

I think we also miss that the reason given for the destruction of the Nephites and Lamanites prior to Christ’s descent is specifically murdering prophets and saints. This applied equally to the Nephite culture.

Rachel steals her father’s idols, sits on them and then lies that she has her period so he won’t search her. Dinah’s brothers (who fathered the twelve tribes) lie about their intentions and then massacre her boyfriend and his people. Jonah hates the Ninevites so much that he would rather have a pity party than be glad when they are converted by his preaching. Isaac and Rebekah clearly choose favorite sons and Rebekah and Jacob conspire to deceive Isaac, robbing Esau of his inheritance. Joseph, who is morally very commendable, boasts and is kind of a twit to his entire family.

Perhaps it is the style in the OT that I find more unapologetic, their shortcomings less rationalized. They are not redeemed in the text by their penitence or self-awareness. They continue to stumble their way through.