When we study celestial ascents, in other words times when humans interact with the heavens, and visit the heavens, or when we read about experiencing Celestial descents, from either direction there is communication between the spheres. Four principal characters that have major roles who are interacting and overlapping in various roles are Metatron, Melchizedek, Michael and the Messiah. What the canonical scriptures teach and what the non-canonical scriptures teach regarding these beings are different, yet they tie in together in interesting ways. What the overall roles, processes, and accomplishments of these figures are, can teach us amazing lessons about ourselves, the heavens, God, the Council of the Gods, and give us new found meaning in our lives.
Metatron is an intriguing figure found in the re-discovered books of Enoch, and in fact, is claimed to be Enoch, the 7th Patriarch in the Old Testament record. Metatron is the most important angel in the book called 3rd Enoch. There he is called the Lesser Yahweh.[1] Enoch describes to Rabbi Ishmael the Holy One making him a resplendent robe, a glorious brilliant bright cloak, and a crown with 49 shining gems in it to put on his head so that God’s proclamation became “My name is in him.” He is God’s vice-regent in the heavenly pamalya, household in the heights.[2] Gieschen has said the meaning of “my name is in him” is that Metatron is unequivocally identified
here as the Divine Name Angel of Exodus 23:20-21. This is why he is called “the Lesser Yahweh,” though his common title in 3rd Enoch is Sar Hapanim, the Prince of the Divine Presence.[3]
What this shows, without any quibbling, or special pleading of the case is quite startling for us to consider. It is the human being (Enoch) being made into a God, although not replacing, or threatening in any way the station of God, the Higher Being. Quite bluntly, mankind can be divinized. This doctrine resonates with Joseph Smith’s understanding of the Gospel of God as he received it by revelation. Is it any wonder that the schoolmen threw out the books of Enoch from the canon (to use an expression I call a Nibleyism - Hugh Nibley, the great LDS scholar, said things like this all the time)? Scholarship has not only noted this amazing development which is almost contrary, if not actually so, to the classical Christian theological dogma of mankind being creature, God Creator, therefore the gap is unsurpassable. That particular doctrine has never convinced me since the whole point of the mission of Christ, the Atonement, is to reconcile us to God, that is bond us back, so the gap is simply not impossible for God to fill, and He has done so through Christ’s atonement. But there are other more amazing doctrines and ideas concerning Metatron which recent scholarship has brought out for us to consider.
When we encounter the name Metatron (Enoch’s “New Name” interesting that eh?), we can’t help but wonder why this name? What does it mean? Here we have several interesting choices. Metatron, like the High Priest who entered the Holy of Holies, shares the Throne of God, hence the name can mean “Sharer of the Throne.”[4] “Eusebius writing in the fourth century CE, described the God of Israel as Christ, who was appointed to this station. He is the Beloved of the Father, and his Offspring, the eternal Priest, and is called “Sharer of the Father’s throne.” This was the promise made to the angel of Laodicea, he too, would become like Enoch and like Jesus, exalted and enthroned.”[5] This coincides with Saul Lieberman’s thinking that Metatron’s title reflects his enthroned position with God as the metathronos = sunthronos.[6]
Andrei Orlov has discovered an intriguing possibility with the Slavonic (Russian, since one of the copies of Enoch was from Russia, probably taken there by pilgrims centuries ago) term prometaya, which is a governor, someone having power, or a leader of peoples.[7] The Merkabah tradition stresses this role of Metatron as the Governor over the nations, kingdoms, and rulers on earth. Orlov noted the element “meta” in the word Pro-meta-ya, and discussed the possibility of the Greek term metron = “measure, measurer.” which makes sense because Metatron not only carries God’s name with him, but he also measures Him; he was the Shiur Qomah (the measurement of the Divine Body).”[8] There are serious new developments in understanding this intriguing aspect of the Divine, to which I shall return later.
Dr. Orlov (he helps maintain an outstanding scholarly webpage you would do very well to visit and visit often
http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/
Tell him the backyard professor sent ya, he'll laugh.....) also describes how Matthew Black traces the etymology of Metatron to an overlooked item in Philo. One of Philo’s terms for the Logos was praemetitor, which can be traced to the Greek word metretes, which is the Greek equivalent to the Latin metator, “measurer,” which is applied to the logos.[9] The logos, as Euclid used the term, meant the use of a ratio between commensurables, i.e., a ratio which could be expressed. It is a relationship [logos] between two numbers when using mathematics.[10]
Remarkably, in the Book of 2 Enoch, Enoch describes how he measures and calculates time, space, etc. In chapter 43, as Dr. Orlov has noted, Enoch measures days, hours, seeds, scales, etc., and he measured them and recorded them. And then shows how Philo used the Logos as the “Just Measure,” measuring principles, numbers, proportions in harmony, etc.[11] Interestingly enough, 2 Enoch uses the identical term “Just Measure” (mera pravedna) immediately after the passage which described Enoch as the measurer.
But Enoch is also the measurer of persons at the judgment as well. So this measurer as Metatron/Enoch holds some interesting ideas. For one, as P. Alexander has noted, Metatron presides over a celestial law court, which court, [yesibah] Metatron’s court, is analogous to God’s heavenly law court [bet din][12] This fits in well with the situation of Enoch as the “scribe of righteousness” appointed by God to write down the sins and righteous deeds of mankind in the Testament of Abraham, which also has a judgment scene and a law court, based on Egyptian originals.[13]
Interestingly, Enoch’s sister is the Sibyl. She also admonishes Enoch not to write down mankind’s sins too hastily. She is with Enoch at the judgment, helping out with his measures of the sins of mankind. “In our Enoch fragments the judgment process includes the weighing of sins and good - deeds on a ‘scale of righteousness.’ The scale is administered by an angel referred to as ‘the Archangel.’ or the ‘angel of mercy.’ Both designations belong to the archangel Michael. In Coptic Christianity Michael‘s role as Mediator between God and man is so great that he occupies a place analogous to that of Jesus Christ himself in western Christianity.”[14]
“Since the name Metatron may be related to metron, ‘measure,’ he could be the measure of God’s Body as in Shi’ur Qomah mysticism. Enoch, for example, becomes very large in the process of his transformation into the angel Metatron according to 3 Enoch:
[9.2] I [Metatron] was enlarged and increased in size till I matched the world in length and breadth. [3] He made to grow on me 72 wings, 36 on one side, and 36 on the other, and each single wing covered the entire world. He fixed in me 365,000 eyes and each eye was like the Great Light.
I would also include the final line! There was no sort of splendor, brilliance, brightness, or beauty in the luminaries of the world that he failed to fix in me. And the note "e," describing the glory and fullness of him covering the world , the expression “The Prince… is the fullness of Zebul,” compares with Isaiah 6:3 “His glory fills the whole world.”[15]
The implication of this, even the declaration of this is brought out by Gieschen:
“Indeed, so similar is Metatron to God and so alike his trappings and authority and power, that one is left with the impression that we have a figure here who is so like God that he virtually acts as the very embodiment of divinity.”[16]
With Enoch’s enlarged size as Metatron, and Isaiah’s seeing the Glory of the Lord filling the whole earth, we have an interesting theology here. In the Dead Sea Scrolls Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, we read of beings called the gods, and their worship in the Holy of Holies before the throne. “They are luminous spirits, spirits mingled with colors, figures of the shapes of divine beings engraved… glorious images (4Q405)… the Holy of Holies comes alive… the same experience as that of Isaiah 6... A temple vision He saw beyond the veil because he saw the throne and the angels. The creatures of the Holy of Holies had come alive… those who were able to pass through the veil passed beyond the limits of the material world.”[17] Barker notes the importance of passing beyond or through the veil.
She noted that “Those who passed through the veil passed beyond the limitations it represented; they passed beyond space and time into eternity, the place beyond. The Hebrew word for conceal, ‘alam, is closely related to this word for eternity, ‘olam, which in fact means antiquity and futurity as well as continuous experience.”[18] Enoch/Metatron, having passed through the veil, hence into the unlimited futurity of eternity, is the High Priest of the Holy of Holies. He is garbed with the High Priest’s garment, and is in the heavenly tabernacle of light.[19] The reason this is so important to understand is because the human High Priest, representing all the people in the earthly temple Holy of Holies, which tied into the heavenly ‘olam, was himself, considered the embodiment of the LORD. He was divine, as all humanity can so become. “In the ritual of the temple he was the LORD, and the ritual par excellence which he performed as the LORD was that of atonement, ‘creating’ the world.”[20]
He could do this because he had become ‘olam, eternal. The word is fascinating! He is the mlk ‘lm, “The King of Eternity.”[21] It can also mean a long time, or the farthest, remotest time. It can also mean enduring, perpetual. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, it means forever and forever. The combinations with qedem , and other Hebrew words makes the emphasis in the scrolls more eschatological focused, that is concentrating on the last times, the end of times. In the Temple Scroll it meant “everlasting ordinances.”[22]
In short, we are dealing with the theological reality of our destiny as humankind, not a destiny of self-arrogance and pride, but a destiny of Divine fulfillment, which in the Book of Moses says is the Work and Glory of God to bring about mankind’s own immortality and eternal life. “The salvific relationship between the once human Enoch and his own divinized higher self, the mystical knowledge of their unity experienced archetypal as the Throne vision, that is the ultimate truth enshrined in the Jewish mystical tradition.”[23]
The heavenly figure in the Similitudes of Enoch was a heavenly reality and Enoch was his earthly counterpart. “Fragmentary texts from Qumran identify the heavenly figure as Melchizedek and invest him with the power which the Old Testament reserves for Yahweh. Whatever underlies this heavenly figure there seems to be one ideal; the Metatron figure has divine authority, the Melchizedek figure is described by texts which referred originally to Yahweh.”[24]
So we have hints of what is going on in the visions and celestial ascents of the prophets, whether it be Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls Teacher of Righteousness, Adam, Levi, Enoch, or Jesus Christ himself. The amazing thing the Books of Enoch are teaching us is that we are literally divine. How they show this has been hinted, but now its time to see the full teaching. It is a most interesting doctrine and theology.
A human figure had been elevated to heaven and enthroned as the divine judge; he had been given the name Yahweh and had worn the sacred name on his crown, exactly as did the high priest in the temple. He sat behind the curtain on a throne at the gate of heaven, exactly as Philo’s Word had been enthroned between the cherubim behind the veil in the temple. Metatron, the human figure, the second power in heaven, was at the centre of the two powers controversy.”[25]
Leonora Leet has shown that the Jewish work called Shi’ur Qomah, “The Workings of the Chariot,” is about becoming ben haolam haba, that is, becoming “sons of the world to come.” What this means, literally, is the humans becoming divine, i.e. gods.[26] Keith Norman has shown that the Jewish as well as early Christian doctrine of divinization for humans was based upon the scriptures they possessed, both Old and New Testaments.[27] The most stimulating thing about the visionaries’ ascents to heaven and beholding the “Son of Man,” is that it is a vision of themselves! It is their Higher Self they see on the throne, as God! Humanity when Deified becomes the “Son of Man.” This theme is based on the visions of Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah, and Enoch.
“The Similitudes of Enoch seems to entertain the idea of the heavenly twin (counterpart) of a visionary when they identify Enoch with the Son of Man… the Jewish belief, attested in several ancient Jewish texts, [was] that a creature of flesh and blood could have a heavenly double or counterpart.”[28] Leet has elaborated on this saying the twin is a Kabbalistic concept as well. “At the highest level of mystical ascent the face one sees on the throne will be one’s own.”[29]
This was the teaching of Moshe of Narbonne who said “When the sages teach that the prophets ‘liken a form to its Creator,’ they mean that they liken the form which is in the prophet’s own soul… to God. It is thus written, ‘Over the form of the Throne there was a form like an image of a Man’ (Ezekiel 1:26).These forms and images exist in the soul of the prophet.”[30] Hence, as Philo also taught, Enoch was transferred to heaven from a mortal life to one of immortality.[31] Howard Schwartzs has noted that there have been Jewish groups through the ages who have understood that Adam, Enoch, Jacob, Moses, David, and others are divine figures who rule in heaven with God.[32]
And rather than being dissolved into an infinite sea of being, the translation and exaltation of Enoch teaches that “If Enoch can become transfigured into Metatron, the lesser YHVH, then the answer does not seem to be a simple dissolution of identity into a primordial divine unity. It seems rather to betoken its divine empowerment.”[33] With the unification of the lower humanity with the higher Godhood, “consciousness achieves the unification of its lower, humanly deprived self, and a higher, divine self, of those aspects characterized as Enoch and Metatron.”[34] The Dead Sea Scrolls understanding of Melchizedek, Michael, and the Messiah is such that they are divine figures. The high priest in the Holy of Holies was considered the LORD “There can be no doubt that it described [the ritual in the Holy of Holies] the most crucial aspect of the ancient Royal cult, namely, how the king was believed to have become divine…”[35] Philo says of Moses “For he was also called the god and king of the whole nation…he established himself as a most beautiful and Godlike work, to be a model for all those who were inclined to imitate him.”[36] Notice this. If anyone wants to imitate Moses’ actions, life, etc., they can become “Godlike” also. “It was known that a human could become divine when he stood in the presence of God. He was reborn, presumably as Son of God, as Psalm 2 and 89 testify…Psalm 89 gives a similar picture, … the king became the firstborn and he called the LORD his Father. These are exactly the themes of Psalm 110, and must have been the king making rites in the holy of holies. Resurrection, Sonship, and Messiahship (i.e. anointing) were all elements of the same process.”[37]
The “Angel Priesthood” was such, that through the rites mankind become divinized. “There is not just one Angel of the Presence, there can be several.”[38] More startling still is Barker’s showing that what happened in the temple in the holy of holies was the making of the humans into gods, and this was transmitted in Judaism as Kabbalah. Metatron as the god hooding, as I shall put it, was the proof that “mystical union is presented as a process of assimilation to the Divine.” The scripture used is Psalm 2:7, “Thou art my son, this day I have begotten thee,” the secret teaching being that this is a cleaving to the divine power. Idel taught that “I, I,” and “I, even I am he,” stand as the union of the divine with the human.”[39]
The perfect man was the pneumatikos, the spiritual man, and as such was the microcosm of the universe, that is “the Kingdom of God is within,” in a literal sense. This “original man” as microcosm “shares all the powers of the macrocosm.” The perfect analogy, according to Jung, is Metatron, who, along with the Messiah, and perhaps as such, is symbolized as the central column in the Kabbalah Tree of Life.[40] In conjunction with this, with Metatron as a symbol for all mankind’s deification, it is amazing that the Jewish understanding of the “Primordial Metatron” is that he is the Son of the Shekhinah, who is the wife of God the Father. Son of Man indeed![41]
In line with this idea that the mystic, prophet, worthy human has a heavenly twin, his higher divine self, not only Enoch sees himself, as did Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah, but Jacob “is also identified as the human face that Ezekiel saw on the Divine chariot (Merkavah) (Ezekiel 1:10, 26). The Targum Neophyti says that Jacob saw his likeness is set above the divine throne. The Genesis Rabbah (68:12) also says of Jacob, “You are the one whose features are engraved on high.” Jacob is distinctly made divine and “made into an angel, or even a second power in heaven.”[42] After all, Jacob, whose new name was Israel, was particularly claimed to be God’s own Son! It is Israel who was God’s chosen. And it is Israel who gets God’s ultimate love, the reward, the growth of and into Godhood, to be prophets, priests, and kings, lovingly enjoying everything that the Father has, including being what God is, namely, Divine, Immortal beings. This is the secret doctrine of the Kabbalah and the scriptures, which only spiritually inclined humans can penetrate, learn of, and become.[43]
This is not because the spiritual minded are arrogant and conceited, but the carnal minded simply won't find anything of worth or value with spirituality, hence they will not seek the relationship.
The Wisdom of the Kabbalah coincides with the Sapientia of Alchemy. Adam Kadmon is identified with the filius philosopher. This figure was originally the anthropos photeinos, the “Man of Light.” The “Man of Light” is an echo of the Christian doctrine of the Primordial Man, who, for Paraclsus, was the Astral Man, “the true man is the star in us.” He consists of the four elements (Josephus notes this of Adam in his Antiquities) for “he is the Great Cosmos.” This Anthropos was of Cosmological size, being Prajapati in India, or Purusha. He was Gayomart in Persia, a youth of dazzling whiteness, who also was the alchemical Mercurius. In the Zohar he is Metatron. The celestial man is whom we also meet in the visions of Daniel, Ezra, Enoch, and in Philo Judaeus.[44]
The Son of Man in the three prophetic writings, Ezekiel, Daniel, and even Enoch "implies God's adoption of the human Ezekiel (an Daniel, Enoch, etc.) as His Son, a name that has the most significant history in relation to the prophet Daniel, the legendary Enoch, and finally Jesus. The face in Ezekiel's vision may be identified as that of a glorified man on the throne... the deepest meaning of this vision of deified man by a divine son is of their identity that Ezekiel is recognizing the man on the divine throne to be his own higher self, the identity of the seer and the seen... throne visions include a supernal figure called son of man, a term angelically applied to themselves [Daniel, Enoch, Jesus, etc.]. The son of man in Enoch's vision also was with the Head of Days... it is his own final transfiguration in the World to Come, as it is with all righteous who have followed the path to divine sonship."[45]
The mystic would propose that the Son of Man in heaven (Daniel, Ezekiel, Enoch, etc.) has a heavenly twin, and that the Ancient of Days is his own divine higher self, whom he/she meets when one gets to the Throne of God. So, the Ancient of Days is properly Adam, as Joseph Smith properly taught. But he left off, so we could connect the dots, that is, Adam = all of HUMANITY, (For that is what the Hebrew word Adam means! Koehler, Baumgartner, Bilingual Dictionary of the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament, E. J. Brill, 1998: p. 12, Adam - die Menschen d. Typus Mensch - "mankind" )
and we are ALL it......... Metatron is called the youth because he is the youngest of the angels, and a further extended notion is that he is a youth as the human part of him, but the Ancient of Days can be understood to be the Divine Higher Self in heaven, i.e. an eternal being with God, as God, representing all deified human beings, which is also what Joseph Smith taught. After all, the names Yahoel, Yah, and Yahoel Metatron the archangel used to be Enoch, who now is deified.[46] Man is co-eternal/co-equal with God, having no beginning and no end....an amazing Kabbalistic doctrine.
Endnotes
1. James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Doubleday, 2 vols., 1983; 1:265.
2. Charlesworth, Ibid., p. 265, note f.
3. Charles A. Gieschen, Angelmorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence, E. J. Brill, 1998:147.
4. Margaret Barker, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, AT&T Clark, reprinted 2003: 110. She contends that 3 Enoch is a Jewish text with a temple setting.
5. Barker, Ibid., p. 110.
6. Gieschen, Ibid., p. 147.
7. Andrei Orlov, “The Origin of the name Metatron and the Text of 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, 21 (2000): 22-26.
8. Orlov, Ibid., p. 24.
9. Orlov, Ibid., 24.
10. The Elements: Books I-XIII Complete and Unabridged, Euclid, translated by Sir Thomas L. Heath, Barnes & Noble, 2006: 375.
11. Orlov, Ibid., p. 24-25. This measurement has a strong Biblical basis, according to Margaret Barker, “The secrets of the older holy of holies had concerned the mystery at the heart of creation, and this was the measurements of creation and history, and the rules for society. The older biblical accounts also centered on measurement (Prov. 8:22-31; Isaiah 40:12-24; Job 26, and 38: the weight of the wind, the measure of the waters, Job 28:25. The dimensions of the foundation of the world, and the number of the clouds, Job 38:5, 37. Measurements were important, limit, height, depth, breadth, Job 11:7-9. Isaiah 40:12, 26, Habakkuk 3:6, Deuteronomy 32:8. See her Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy, AT&T Clark, 2003: 278-280.
12. P. Alexander, “2 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in Charlesworth, Ibid., p. 243, and note d at 3 Enoch 16:1, p. 268.
13. Birger A. Pierson, “The Pierpont Morgan Fragments of a Coptic Enoch Apocryphon,” in Studies on the Testament of Abraham, ed., George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jr., Scholars Press, 1976: 237-238. See also Andrei Orlov, "Titles of Enoch-Metatron in 2 Enoch," in Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, 18(1998): "Metatron is the Prince of the World who pleads in favor of the world." p. 83.
14. Pierson, Ibid., p. 243-245, 249 and note 60.
15. Alexander, Ibid., p. 263.
16. Gieschen, quoting Rowland, Ibid., p. 148.
17. Barker, Revelation of Jesus Christ, p. 21.
18. Barker, Ibid., p. 20.
19. Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish & Christian Apocalypses, Oxford University Press, 1993: 132, notes 73 and 74.
20. Margaret Barker, On Earth as it is in Heaven: Temple Symbolism in the New Testament, T&T Clark, 1995: 62.
21. See Mark S. Smith, Untold Stories: The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century, Hendrickson Publishers, 2001: 236, note 163 for various meanings such as “eternity,” “something hidden or concealed,” “Knowledge,” “world.”
22. H. D Preuss, ‘Olam, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, William B. Eerdmans, 1999: Vol. X: 530-545.
23. Leonora Leet, The Kabbalah of the Soul: The Transformative Psychology and Practices of Jewish Mysticism, Inner Traditions, 2003: 67.
24. Margaret Barker, The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity, Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2005: 14-15.
25. Margaret Barker, The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem, SPCK, 1991: 168.
26. Leet, Kabbalah of the Soul, p. 61. She confirms the literal translation with the Jewish scholar Martin Samuel Cohen, p. 341, note 57.
27. Keith Norman, Deification: The Content of Athanasian Soteriology, FARMS Occasional Papers, 2000: 1-30.
28. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition, Mohr-Siebeck, 2005: 83.
29. Leonora Leet, The Universal Kabbalah: Deciphering the Cosmic Code in the Sacred Geometry of the Sabbath Star Diagram, Inner Traditions, 2004: 194.
30. Leonora Leet, Ibid., p. 194.
31. See C. D. Yonge, The Works of Philo Complete and Unabridged, Hendrickson Publishers, 1993: “On the Change of Names,” p. 344: #38. He further notes that the prophets are “mad with this divinely inspired madness,” (#39).
32. Howard Schwartz, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, Oxford University Press, 2004: 158.
33. Leet, Universal Kabbalah, p. 203.
34. Leet, Universal Kabbalah, p.195.
35. Barker, The Great High Priest, p. 218.
36. In Yonge, Philo, “On the Life of Moses,” 1:158, p. 474.
37. Barker, Great High Priest, p. 219.
38. Barker, Great High Priest, p. 111.
39. Barker, Great High Priest, p. 112.
40. Carl Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, Princeton University Press, 5th printing, 1978: 212-215.
41. Schwartz, Tree of Souls, p. 195.
42. Schwartz, Tree of Souls, pp. 364-368.
43. Leonora Leet, The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah, Inner Traditions, 1999, discusses this extensively as she works through the Sacred Geometry, Music, and scriptures of becoming Gods ourselves. The process, the journey, is the whole point of being. It’s a most beautiful doctrine.
44. Carl Jung, "Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon," in Alchemical Studies, Princeton University Press, 1983: 130-132. See also Andrei Orlov, "Secrets of Creation in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch," in Henoch, 22(2000): 46-47 for a description of the creation using the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water.
45. Leet, Kabbalah of the Soul, p. 233-234.
46. Margaret Barker, The Great Angel, SPCK, 1992: 78.
Amazing. This is rich enough to make even the most seasoned Mormon theologians squirm. I'll be thinking on what you've presented here for a while.
Posted by: Jeff Day | January 15, 2007 at 05:51 PM
My inaugural address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions!
Read My Inaugural Address
My Site=http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman
Your jaw will drop!
Posted by: Secret Rapture | January 16, 2007 at 07:13 AM
Metatron, Michael, Melchizedek & Messiah are similar in roles or overflap because they are one in the same.
Christians do not obey the cardinal Jewish laws which state not to make a figure or form out of the Bible characters or words.
One must stick to the rules not to anthropomorphizing these figures otherwise you'd stray in ways you were warned would bring trouble and confusion and false devotions.
People forget many words in Biblical times could be missinterpreted into names while names defined to their meaning thus losing the name forever.
In other words, these terms in the Bible are sometimes not names and not figures (thus not to be made into a figure or form), but have meaning which are similar to other TERMS simuilarly used in the Bible stories. We use different words to convey basically the same or variable roles. In case of 'Metatron' it's not a person but a label of being 'MEDIATOR'.
That's why in the Bible Both Enoch and Michael are deemed Metatron as Michael's role was to mediate between G0d and man (Messiah role) and mediate between the Nations.
Melchizedek has to be used in the original form and language it stems from Malakh Tsadek or
Melchi Tsadek meaning messegner and King of Righteousness both terms used for the top messenger Michael.
Many words have similar meanings:
arch angel (top messenger prophet /reflection of G0d)=The Messiah (top anointed prophet reflecting of G0d).
It is the role of the head of those congregation as high priest to mediate between G0d and man by showing us and reflecting to us what G0d is and how to manifest G0d, surely the role of Messiah deemed chief prince/head of hosts which was terms used for Michael.
So all these roles as words have basic similar meaning all describing the same individual the Bible says will stand up at this time of trouble (Dan 12:1-4)as the one who best knows the scripture of truth
(Dan 10:21).
Posted by: Anonymous Scholar | September 01, 2007 at 02:24 PM
Hi guys,
Sorry so long in replying....... life has grabbed me, and I gotta turn around and grab it back by the horns. GRIN! I shall digest the comments and get back with you all as soon as the Labor Day Weekend is over.
Posted by: Kerry Shirts | September 03, 2007 at 02:30 PM
Michael Heiser has recently written his doctoral dissertation on
THE DIVINE COUNCIL IN LATE CANONICAL AND NON-CANONICAL SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH LITERATURE
In this work Heiser identifies Yahweh's vice-regent as Melchizedek.
I believe Melchizedek is Yahweh's divine 'right hand man' who is referred to as
'the Angel of the Lord'
'the Presence of the Lord'
'Shekinah'
'the Lord'
and many other names as well. This is the divine being that Moses talks with and who leads the Israelites out of Egypt by 'a pillar of fire' at nite and by a 'pillar of cloud' by day. This Being is 'the Lord' who comes back to establish justice in the Old Testament and in the Dead Sea Scrolls 11q13 ("The coming of Melchizedek.") There are two Lords in the Old Testament Lord God and Lord Melchizedek who is God's vice regent. This would mean that Melchizedek is a divine being capable of having both a physical presence (interacting with Abraham) as well as a semi-physical presence when interacting with Moses and in leading the Israelites by pillar of fire. He also dwells semi-physically in the first and second temple between the wings of the cherubim in the Holy of Holies inside the Temple. This divine Melchizedek I believe is 'The Lord' of the Old Testament who will come again to save Jerusalem and Israel from destruction at the end of the age. He will then dwell once again in the rebuilt Temple. I believe that Melchizedek is the long awaited Jewish deliverer. Jesus is of course their Spiritual Messiah as yet unrecognized as such by the Jews. At least this is how I have put it all together. It seems to answer many questions. Comments welcome.
Posted by: Edmund Roache | September 20, 2008 at 07:26 PM
Shalom,
Nice study. As a Jewish person who believe's Y'shua (Jesus) is the Messiah I will say Metatron is Y'shua (Messiah) also known as Melchizedek. The book of Ivrit (Hebrews) written by a Hellenized Jew not Sha'ul explains his mystery that Y'shua who is the inner image of YHVH came into this world to teach Israel their true spiritual image in YHVH.
Christianity only hijacked the Jewish scriptures and made Jesus a Romen-Greco pagan as well as his followers.
The focus of the Temple is our bodies which are the Temples to G-d's Spirit. Israel's exile into the nations is a symbolic meaning of humanities soul being exiled away from G-d. The gathering of Israel through the Messiah is symbolic of mankind gathering their soul back to G-d as the Zohar explains.
In this day and age mankind lives as slaves locked into the limited areas of their 5 senses only able to grasp G-d through institutionalize religions and their spirits are weak with their temples being immoral. As Sha'ul (Paul) taught Messiah came to deliver us from the power of Sin not our mistakes. Through the spiritual realm Messiah has take power over death and extended that to us which is why Y'shua taught "Greater works shall you do."
The human body is a holographic image designed as bio-electrical not bio-chemical able to allow our spirits to tap into the unseen realm to draw it's power from G-d to live beyond the 5 senses of this 3 dimensional universes (height, width, & depth) which is how Y'shua and his talmidim (disciples) were able to walk on water, walk through walls, and travel in faster time. Students of the Baal Shem Tov also experienced this.
The universe is Holographic, ever expending. Once we live in our Spiritual image we can transcend all of these natural elements which mankind falls slave to daily.
Messiah/Metatron/Son of G-d/Melchizedek/Y'shua is the key which we go through to obtain the secrets of the mystery.
After all when Y'shua said "No one goes through the Father except through me" he was no talking about salvation but obtain the true knowledge of spiritual power and understanding. Y'shua was only a image manifested from the inner voice of the Almighty, known as the Memra or Word, who is none other then G-d Himself able to transmit a form of Himself through a dimension as His energy is unlimited to showing us this revelation. This same revelation came to Moshe as the Burning Bush, to Avraham as the Memra, or El Shaddi, etc.. Different manifestations but 1 source.
Christianity twist this as a trinity, 3 separate forms. Y'shua said make disciples in the NAME of the Father/Son/Spirit not names. These 3 are the top of the Tree of Life, (Keter/Chomah/Binah) Male,Female,Nutergender.
The Zohar says this is a mystery but only with our eyes closed through the Ruach HaQodesh (Holy Spirit) do we come to understand this mystery as the audible voice speaks from within us.
Blessings in Messiah
Yehezqel
Posted by: Yehezqel | October 13, 2008 at 12:54 AM
Edmund Roache - I came across the web site for your book Kingdom of Heaven last night, and though I am no biblical scholar of any sort, I find it hard to believe that you have not made the link between your own research and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If you were to only plug the name of Joseph Smith into your "Final Prophet" section, and research his life - you would surely see it. If you plug the LDS church into your "Church of Philadelphia", again, I think you should see it. I'll be honest, I'd never heard of you or your book, and was just looking for info on the Dead Sea Scrolls on a whim when I found your site. A few pages in, I was convinced that you must be LDS, and were trying to show how obvious these facts and links were laid out in so many different books. I hope you will give this an honest, open-minded chance - pray about it, and let your heart be opened.
Posted by: F. Price | December 25, 2008 at 12:56 AM