On the Hevel Level - A Blog About Nothing

Excursus: Hilasterion and Hilasmos Reframed by the Story of Restoration Welcome back for part 2 (If you missed part 1, you can read it here:   link For a clear understanding, we need to address the key Greek terms usually rendered as "atoning sacrifice": hilasmos and its foundational partner, hilasterion . The frequent theological engagement tends to reduce these words to a debate between "expiation" (taking away guilt) and "propitiation" (turning away wrath), when their real roots run back to the Greek translation of Exodus.  To understand why that matters, we have to recognize that words derive their meaning from the narrative that inhabits them.  Take the word “bad”, what does it mean?  The answer is ‘it depends’.  The meaning is based on how it is used in a narrative.  For example what does the phrase “That is one bad car” mean? If someone said “My new car goes from zero to sixty in under three seconds and outperforms anything I’ve ever owned…...

The Odyssey recently came out, providing a fresh version of the story passed on through generations and captured in written form by Homer. In response to the recent release, I picked up a copy of the Iliad . When reading Homer’s epic poetry, recorded in the eighth century BC, about events set in the 13th century, it’s hard to not notice structural similarities in the biblical narrative. The telling of Israel’s pre-exilic existence reached its final form in the 6th century BC, but it concludes a history that goes back beyond the 13th century. The histories in either case are not told for the first time. Both are bringing prior oral traditions and written records into a fixed form that has persisted. While there are differences for sure, it’s hard to miss that both narratives come from a similar cultural river.  On the surface one obvious place to look is the human-divine interactions. In both narratives, these interactions between divinity and humans are often mediated through proph...