Friday, March 27, 2020

The Showbread and The Eucharist

So a few years ago I did a post on the Biblical Hebrew Precedent for The last Supper, and said the Bread representing the body was the one piece of the puzzle I didn't have.  Well I think I have a handle on that now.

I mentioned how Christians tend to view the beginning of the Bread and Wine theme as Genesis 14, but I had ignored the significance people like Chuck Missler saw in Genesis 40.  Where the two fellow prisoners Joseph interprets dreams for are Pharaoh's "Butler"(winebibber) and Baker.  The Baker winds up "Hung on a Tree".  So here Bread is associated with a body dying the same basic kind of death Jesus will.

But I shall go deeper then that and say the Showbread/Shewbread also prefigures the Bread of the Eucharist.  What appears in English Bibles as a single word is actually the Hebrew phrase "lechem haPānīm" which means "bread of the presence" or "bread of the faces" or "bread of The Face" or even "Face-Bread".  This Bread was not eaten while it was kept in the Holy Place, every Sabbath it was replaced with new fresh Bread and then what had just been removed could be eaten as happens in 1 Samuel 21:6.  And there were 12 Loaves of the Showbread, representing the Tribes of Israel.

This Bread was the most significant piece of Organic Matter kept in the Holy Place, it makes sense to me to speculate it was always meant to represent the physical incarnation of YHWH whether that was understood at the time or not.  Christians at some point started doing on Sunday what was originally for The Sabbath, so connecting the Showbread to the Eucharist makes a lot of sense.  In the Torah usually only the Priests could eat the recently removed Showbread (David and his men were a special case) but the New Testament has the doctrine of the Priesthood of all Believers.

Also the word translated "cakes" in Leviticus 24 can also mean "punctured" or "pierced", being a form of the word for "wounded" in Isaiah 53:5.

The Table of the Showbread had at least four kinds of vessels kept on it according to Exodus 25:29-30, 37:16 and Numbers 4:7-8.  The KJV calls them "dishes", "spoons", "bowls" and "covers".  Why four types of vessels when only one kind of food was kept on it?  "Spoons" is the most probably inaccurate translation, this Hebrew word is often used of types of Perfume jars, they probably were for containing the Frankincense Leviticus 24 says to put on the Showbread and/or Incense for the Altar of Incense.  The word for "covers" means something for pouring and "covering" or "cover withal" means pouring and in it's other uses is mostly associated with drink offerings of wine, though also sometimes of pouring Oil as well, which could also apply to the Oil for the Menorah.  The Strongs describes the word for "bowls" here as a container for carrying Blood, meaning this may refer to what The High Priest used to carry the Blood of the Sin offering into The Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur as instructed in Leviticus 16, the word is not the same as that chapter but seems like it could come from the same root as the word for the bowls used in Exodus 24:6.

The Mosaic Table and it's Vessels like the Mosaic Menorah and Altar of Incense were never in Solomon's Temple, Solomon created new versions of them according to 2 Kings 7:48 and 2 Chronicles 4:19.  Only The Ark in Solomon's Temple had also been in the Tabernacle of Moses.  The last we hear of the Tabernacle of Moses it was at Gibeon in the early chapters of 2 Chronicles which has been associated with Nob, both locations in Benjamin.  There is a theory out there that Nob is the location known in The New Testament as Bethphage which I now think is correct.

Shishak King of Mizraim never took anything in the Holy Place, Rehoboam's willing submission to him was to prevent something that bad from happening.  And everything taken out by Nebuchadnezzar was returned by Cyrus, so at first the Second Temple had (minus maybe the Ark) the same Sacred Relics as Solomon's Temple.  In the Apocrypha 1 Maccabees 1:21-24 (also II Maccabees 5 but less specifics of what was taken) we are told they were taken away by Antiochus Epiphanes to his homeland, probably referring to Antioch.  I'm suprised there isn't more speculation on what happened to these relics taken to Antioch?  Could they still be seen there during the events Acts and Galatians tell us happened at Antioch?

1 Maccabees 4:47-49 tells us Judas Maccabeus had a new Altar and Menorah and Table of Showbread made.  These were probably still the ones in the Holy Place when Pompey entered it and all through the New Testament's history, and were then taken away by Titus after he captured Jerusalem and destroyed The Temple in 70 AD to be carried in his Triumph in Rome in 71 AD after which they were placed in the Temple of Peace (Pax in Latin).  The Arch of Titus erected by Domitian to commemorate Titus's deification in 81 AD depicts the Menorah and the Table of Showbread and some fire-pans and the Silver Trumpets, but the Altar of Incense appears to be missing, maybe there just wasn't enough space.  What fascinates me is when you look close at the depiction on the Arch, specifically at the Table, it has a Bowl of some kind on it, could that be the Bowl that carried the Blood of the Sin Offering? or the Showbread itself?

They remained in the Temple of Peace until 455 AD when the Vandals "sacked" Rome under Gaiseric who then carried them back to North Africa.  Decades later when Balisarius conquered the Vandal Kingdom for Justinian he takes these relics from a ship attempting to carry them off.  They were paraded in Belisarius's Triumph in Constantinople in 534 AD.  Meanwhile in 531 Justinian had began some major construction projects in Jerusalem following the end of the Bar Sabar revolt, the most significant of which was the Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos which Porcopius clearly described as being meant to echo Solomon's Temple.  So Justinian had these relics of the Second Temple returned to Jerusalem where I suspect they eventually wound up in the Nea which was completed in 543 AD.

What's interesting here is that the early 530s AD is contemporary with the traditional time-frame of King Arthur.  The Annals Cambraie placed Badon in 516 and Camlan in 537, but later Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Brute Tyslo would date Arthur's demise to 542.  In Chretien de Troyes Percival the first appearance of the Grail in literature, it is not yet specifically the Cup, it is thematically associated with the Eucharist but with the Communion Wafer rather then the Wine, and there is no claim it was actually used at the original Last Supper.  And I've theorized before that this part of Percival is modeled after David during the reign of Saul with the Fisher King as Ahimelech and the Communion Wafer in mind here the Showbread, a Candelabra was also in the procession which could have been inspired by the Menorah.  That would also make the Grail Sword the Sword of Goliath, and the Grail Spear perhaps the Spear of Goliath.  However in the Sixth Century there was also a claimed Spear of Longinus in Jerusalem.

What happened to these Second Temple relics following all the events of the Seventh Century is uncertain.

Update 4/4/2020: Since I first wrote this I've done some more research on the Showbread issue, and it's Table.

What's really interesting is how I decided to watch some YouTube videos on how to make homemade flatbread.  I was suprised how simple it was, I watched a few different recipes.  And what I noticed is how it starts with flower which has a consistency kind of like dirt, and then becomes dough which is a lot like clay.  So it's a good symbolic representation of how God made Adam's flesh in Genesis 2, which I view as also echoed in how Jesus heals the blind man in John 9, essentially creating new eyes from clay.  So the logic of Bread representing the Body now makes perfect sense.
[Note: after trying it myself it's not as easy as they made it look.]

The common statement I repeated above and in the past that in Chretien the Grail is the plate with the Communion Wafer is a mistake, the Grail and the plate are separate objects borne by separate Maidens.  All we know about the Grail in Chertien is that it's called the Grail, or Graal originally.  It's not even called Holy.  [Update 2022: Another correction, Chertien does call the Grail "A Holy Thing" I was simply looking for the exact two word phrasing of "Holy Grail".]

Graal is a French word believed to come from Grazel which comes from Gresal.  It's believed to originate from the Medieval Latin Gradalis or Gradale which comes from the Ancient Latin Crater or Cratus which in turn comes from the Greek Krater.

In the Greek New Testament Crater is not used of the Cup of the Last Supper, instead it's Porterion which is also used of the Cub referenced in Genesis 40:11 in the Septuagint.  In the Latin Vulgate this Cup is a Chalice.  However the Vulgate does use Crater of one of the vessels on the Table of Showbread in Numbers 4:7.  It is also used of the bowls containing the Oxen blood in Exodus 24:6.  And it's the word for "Goblet" used in Song of Songs 7:2.

It's also maybe interesting that in Numbers 4:7-8 the Table itself is instructed to be covered with a Blue cloth but the vessels on it to be covered with a Scarlet cloth.

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