Kolob: A Fresh Approach
In this article
I will give a possible interpretation of “Kolob” as found in the Book of
Abraham. This does not, however, exclude
other possible interpretations, In
Jewish Hermeneutics, a passage can be understood on any of four different levels:
Pashat (literal), Remez (hinted), Drash (Homiletical) and Sod (Hidden,
mystical). Moreover each passage is said
to have seventy facets of understanding, meaning that a passage can be seen
from several possible points of view.
There are
several examples of passages in the Scriptures which have more than one valid
interpretation, For example “My son” in Hosea
11:1 can refer either to Israel (Ex. 4:22 & Hosea 11:1) and to the Messiah
(Matt. 2:15); Jeremiah 31:14(15) can refer either to the tragic events of the
fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, or to the slaughter of the innocents (Matthew
2:18); the “abomination of desolation” (Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11) can refer
either to the desecration of the alter by Antiochus Epiphanies (1Macc. 1:41-64
& 2Macc. 6:1-6) or the anti-Messiah (Matthew 24:15) and the two sticks of
Ezekiel 37:15-17 can refer either to the reunion of the two houses of Israel
(Ezekiel 37:18-22) or to the growing together of two scriptural records (2Nefi
2:4).
So as I expound
upon Kolob in the Book of Abraham, keep in mind that I am presenting one
possible interpretation of Kolob, which does not necessarily have to be the only
interpretation of Kolob.
Philo’s Two
Worlds
In a recent blog, I demonstrated a correspondence between Philo of Alexandria’s concept of
two worlds and concepts laid out in the Restoration Scriptures. If you have not
already read that blog, you should read it in order to fully understand this blog.
In that blog, we learned that the
Restoration Scriptures seem to agree with what Philo says when he writes:
IV. We must mention as much as we can of the matters
contained in his account, since to enumerate them all is impossible; for he
embraces that beautiful world which is perceptible only by the intellect, as
the account of the first day will show: (16) for God, as apprehending
beforehand, as a God must do, that there could not exist a good imitation
without a good model, and that of the things perceptible to the external senses
nothing could be faultless which wax not fashioned with reference to some archetypal
idea conceived by the intellect, when he had determined to create this
visible world, previously formed that one which is perceptible only by the
intellect, in order that so using an incorporeal model formed as far as
possible on the image of God, he might then make this corporeal world, a
younger likeness of the elder creation, which should embrace as many different
genera perceptible to the external senses, as the other world contains of those
which are visible only to the intellect. (17) But that world which consists
of ideas, it were impious in any degree to attempt to describe or even to
imagine: but how it was created, we shall know if we take for our guide a
certain image of the things which exist among us. When any city is founded
through the exceeding ambition of some king or leader who lays claim to
absolute authority, and is at the same time a man of brilliant imagination,
eager to display his good fortune, then it happens at times that some man
coming up who, from his education, is skilful in architecture, and he, seeing
the advantageous character and beauty of the situation, first of all sketches
out in his own mind nearly all the parts of the city which is about to be
completed–the temples, the gymnasia, the prytanea, and markets, the harbour,
the docks, the streets, the arrangement of the walls, the situations of the
dwelling houses, and of the public and other buildings. (18) Then, having
received in his own mind, as on a waxen tablet, the form of each building, he
carries in his heart the image of a city, perceptible as yet only by the
intellect, the images of which he stirs up in memory which is innate in him,
and, still further, engraving them in his mind like a good workman, keeping his
eyes fixed on his model, he begins to raise the city of stones and wood, making
the corporeal substances to resemble each of the incorporeal ideas. (19)
Now we must form a somewhat similar opinion of God, who, having determined to
found a mighty state, first of all conceived its form in his mind, according to
which form he made a world perceptible only by the intellect, and then
completed one visible to the external senses, using the first one as a model.
V. (20) As therefore the city, when previously shadowed out in the mind
of the man of architectural skill had no external place, but was stamped solely
in the mind of the workman, so in the same manner neither can the world which
existed in ideas have had any other local position except the divine reason
(Logos) which made them; for what other place could there be for his powers
which should be able to receive and contain, I do not say all, but even any
single one of them whatever, in its simple form? (21) And the power and
faculty which could be capable of creating the world, has for its origin that
good which is founded on truth; for if any one were desirous to investigate the
cause on account of which this universe was created, I think that he would come
to no erroneous conclusion if he were to say as one of the ancients did say:
“That the Father and Creator was good; on which account he did not grudge the
substance a share of his own excellent nature, since it had nothing good of
itself, but was able to become everything.” (22) For the substance was of
itself destitute of arrangement, of quality, of animation, of distinctive
character, and full of all disorder and confusion; and it received a change and
transformation to what is opposite to this condition, and most excellent, being
invested with order, quality, animation, resemblance, identity, arrangement,
harmony, and everything which belongs to the more excellent idea.
(Philo; On Creation IV, 15b-V, 22)
In other words, Philo is saying that the incorporeal world
is a world of idea perceptible only to the intellect, which served as a sort of
blueprint in the mind of the Creator, for this corporeal world in which we
live. (Again, read my earlier blog to
see how this is the same thing taught in the Restoration Scriptures).
Kolob
In his same book “On Creation” Philo
writes:
(30) And air and light he considered
worthy of the pre-eminence. For the one he called the breath of God, because it
is air, which is the most life-giving of things, and of life the causer is God;
and the other he called light, because it is surpassingly beautiful: for that
which is perceptible only by intellect is as far more brilliant and splendid
than that which is seen, as I conceive, the sun is than darkness, or day than
night, or the intellect than any other of the outward senses by which men judge
(inasmuch as it is the guide of the entire soul), or the eyes than any other
part of the body. (31) And the invisible divine reason, perceptible only by
intellect, he calls the image of God. And the image of this image is that
light, perceptible only by the intellect, which is the image of the divine
reason [Logos], which has explained its generation. And it is a star above the
heavens, the source of those stars which are perceptible by the external
senses, and if any one were to call it universal light he would not be very
wrong; since it is from that the sun and the moon, and all the other planets
and fixed stars derive their due light, in proportion as each has power given
to it; that unmingled and pure light being obscured when it begins to
change, according to the change from that which is perceptible only by the
intellect, to that which is perceptible by the external senses; for none of
those things which are perceptible to the external senses is pure.
(Philo; On Creation 30-31)
Anyone familiar
with the Book of Abraham will immediately recall these words from the
explanation to Figure 5 in Facsimile 2:
5. Is called in Egyptian
Enish-go-on-dosh; this is one of the governing planets also, and is said by the
Egyptians to be the Sun, and to borrow its light from Kolob
through the medium of Kae-e-vanrash, which is the grand Key, or, in other
words, the governing power, which governs fifteen other fixed planets or
stars, as also Floeese or the Moon, the Earth and the Sun in
their annual revolutions. This planet receives its power through the medium of
Kli-flos-is-es, or Hah-ko-kau-beam, the stars represented by numbers 22
and 23, receiving light from the revolutions of Kolob.
(Book of
Abraham Facsimile 2 Figure 5)
Here the
explanation to Facsimile 5 says that the Sun “borrows its light from Kolob” while
Philo says the Sun derives its light from the Logos. It seems very likely that Philo was familiar
with the Book of Abraham. (This is not a
surprise, since Philo was a Jew who lived in first Century Egypt, and the Joseph
Smith Papyri and mummies date to the Ptolemaic period of Egypt, from sometime
between 300 and 100 BC).
If we interpret
Kolob in the Book of Abraham in light of this corresponding statement in Philo’s
On Creation, in context of the prior material in Philo’s On Creation, Kolob is
not only identifiable with the Logos (“The Word”; “The Divine Reason”) but was
the blueprint for the Sun, Moon and stars.
Kolob, then, does not exist in the temporal world perceptible to the
external senses, but only exists in the world perceptible only to the intellect. Kolob is the original idea of a star in the
mind of Elohim, it is the blueprint for all the heavenly bodies in our
universe.
The Greek word Philo uses for “divine
reason” is “Logos” which is the “Word” (as in the Greek text of John 1:1-3)
There is also a
close parallel between the material in the Book of Abraham, and the Jewish
concept of Creation through four stages and the resulting four “worlds”.
These four
stages of the process of creation are Atzilut (emanation, nearness), Beri’ah
(creation), Yetzirah (formation), and Asiyyah (making/action), and can be found
in Isaiah 43:7:
Even every one
that is called by my name: for I have created (Beri’ah) him for my glory, I
have formed (Yetzirah) him; yea, I have made (Asiyyah) him.
(Is. 43:7 KJV)
The first Century Jewish writer
Philo of Alexandria speaks of these same four stages of creation or four worlds
when he writes:
We must mention as much as we can of
the matters contained in his account, since to enumerate them all is
impossible; for he embraces that beautiful world which is perceptible only
by the intellect, as the account of the first day will show: (16) for God,
as apprehending beforehand, as a God must do, that there could not exist a good
imitation without a good model, and that of the things perceptible to the
external senses nothing could be faultless which wax not fashioned with
reference to some archetypal idea conceived by the intellect, when he had
determined to create this visible world, previously formed that one
which is perceptible only by the intellect, in order that so using an
incorporeal model formed as far as possible on the image of God, he might then
make this corporeal world, a younger likeness of the elder creation, which
should embrace as many different genera perceptible to the external senses, as
the other world contains of those which are visible only to the intellect. (17)
But that world which consists of ideas, it were impious in any degree to
attempt to describe or even to imagine: but how it was created, we shall know
if we take for our guide a certain image of the things which exist among us.
When any city is founded through the exceeding ambition of some king or leader
who lays claim to absolute authority, and is at the same time a man of
brilliant imagination, eager to display his good fortune, then it happens at
times that some man coming up who, from his education, is skilful in
architecture, and he, seeing the advantageous character and beauty of the
situation, first of all sketches out in his own mind nearly all the parts of
the city which is about to be completed–the temples, the gymnasia, the
prytanea, and markets, the harbour, the docks, the streets, the arrangement of
the walls, the situations of the dwelling houses, and of the public and other
buildings. (18) Then, having received in his own mind, as on a waxen tablet,
the form of each building, he carries in his heart the image of a city,
perceptible as yet only by the intellect, the images of which he stirs up in
memory which is innate in him, and, still further, engraving them in his mind
like a good workman, keeping his eyes fixed on his model, he begins to raise
the city of stones and wood, making the corporeal substances to resemble each
of the incorporeal ideas. (19) Now we must form a somewhat similar opinion of
God, who, having determined to found a mighty state, first of all conceived its
form in his mind, according to which form he made a world perceptible only by
the intellect, and then completed one visible to the external senses,
using the first one as a model. (On Creation 15b-19)
On the surface Philo seems to only
write here of two worlds, but if we look in more detail about what he says
about each of these two worlds, we see that there are really four:
Philo says of the incorporeal world,
that it is “an incorporeal model formed as far as possible on the image of
God.” (On Creation 17)
While of his
corporeal world Philo says:
(8) But
Moses, who had early reached the very summits of philosophy, and who had learnt
from the oracles of God the most numerous and important of the principles of
nature, was well aware that it is indispensable that in all existing things
there must be an active cause, and a passive subject; and that the active cause
is the intellect of the universe, thoroughly unadulterated and thoroughly
unmixed, superior to virtue and superior to science, superior even to abstract
good or abstract beauty; (9) while the passive subject is something inanimate and
incapable of motion by any intrinsic power of its own, but having been
set in motion, and fashioned, and endowed with life by the intellect,
became transformed into that most perfect work, this world. And
those who describe it as being uncreated, do, without being aware of it, cut
off the most useful and necessary of all the qualities which tend to produce
piety, namely, providence: (On Creation 9-9)
So we can
lay out these four worlds as follows:
|
Kabbalah
|
Philo
|
|
Olam Atztilut
The World of Emanation or
The World of Nearness
|
The Image of Elohim
(The Logos)
|
|
Olam Beri’ah
World of Creation
|
Incorporeal Model
|
|
Olam Yetzirah
World of Formation
|
Inanimate Passive Subject
|
|
Olam Asiyyah
World of Making/.Action
|
This World (Animated)
|
That this Jewish Understanding of creation
thru stages beginning with emanation, parallels that found in the Book of
Abraham, seems to have been recognized by Hugh Nibley, who wrote
in his monumental work on the Book of Abraham, One Eternal Round,
which compares the Sefer Yetzirah to the Book of Abraham saying: “It even ‘denies
the popular belief that the world was evolved from nothing.’” Referencing in a
footnote Adolph Frank’s book The Kabbalah; the Religious Philosophy of
the Hebrews, page 71 in which we read Franck’s comments to the SeferYetzirah 1:9-13 as follows:
Is not this what is called the doctrine
of emanation? Is not this the doctrine which denies the popular belief that the
world was evolved from nothing? The following words free us from uncertainty: “The
end of the ten Sefiroth is tied to their beginning as the flame to the
fire-brand, for the Lord is One and there is no second to Him: and what will
you count before the One?” [(Sefer Yetzirah 1:7)]
Philo’s inanimate passive subject,
which is the material upon which the active cause of creation acts, the
primordial “material” from which the creation is “formed” in the World of
Formation, parallels the “material” from which the earth is “made” in the Book
of Abraham.
24 And there stood one among them
that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go
down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials,
and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;
(Abr. 3:24)
It is important to note that the
Hebrew word “Asiyyah” means “making” or “action” indicating a verb meaning “to
make” or “to do” and implies the idea of animating an inanimate creation.
The Jewish understanding of the
process of Creation begins with a process known as Tzimtzum (contraction). Before the beginning of Creation, there was
only Eyn Sof (The Infinite One). Eyn Sof
is a Hebrew phrase that literally means “without end” or “without a
border”. Since the Infinite One was all
of everything, there was nothing that was not Eyn Sof. The first act of creation, therefore, was for
Eyn Sof to contract upon Eyn Sof so as to create, for the first time, an empty
space, and area that was not Eyn Sof for a universe, thus allowing foe, not
only a universe, but for freewill. It
was in this empty space, that our universe would be created.
It is this primordial empty space to
which the Book of Abraham refers when it says “there is space there”.
In the Book of Abraham chapter 4:1
we read that the heavens and earth were “organized and formed” and throughout
the chapter the verbs organized and prepared are used. This is parallel to the process of creation in
the Jewish tradition as laid out above.
All of these elements of Jewish understanding
and the Book of Abraham, now allow us to unlock the mysteries of Kolob.
In the Book of Abraham we also read
about Kolob:
3 And the Lord said unto me: These
are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is
near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all
those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.
4 And the Lord said unto me, by the
Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its
times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day
unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years
according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the
reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob....
9 And thus there shall be the reckoning
of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which
Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord’s time; which Kolob is set nigh
unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets which belong to the same order
as that upon which thou standest.
16 If two things exist, and there be
one above the other, there shall be greater things above them; therefore Kolob
is the greatest of all the Kokaubeam [Heb: Stars] that thou hast seen, because
it is nearest unto me.
(Abraham 3:3-4, 9, 16)
Kolob, signifying the first
creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God. First in
government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement
according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit.
One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of
this earth, which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh.
(Facsimile 2 Explanation 1)
If we now apply this understanding
to the explanations to Facsimile 2:
Fig. 1. Kolob, signifying the
first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God. First in
government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement
according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit.
One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of
this earth, which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh.
Fig. 2. Stands next to Kolob, called
by the Egyptians Oliblish, which is the next grand governing creation near to
the celestial or the place where God resides; holding the key of power also,
pertaining to other planets; as revealed from God to Abraham, as he offered
sacrifice upon an altar, which he had built unto the Lord.
Then we see that the four worlds lay
out in the Book of Abraham as:
|
Kabbalah
|
Philo
|
Book of Abraham
|
|
Olam Atztilut
The World
of Emanation/Nearness
|
The Image of Elohim
(Logos)
|
Kolob, signifying the first creation,
|
|
Olam Beri’ah
World of
Creation
|
Incorporeal Model
|
Oliblish, which is the next grand governing creation
|
|
Olam
Yetzirah
World of
Formation
|
Inanimate Passive Subject
|
“and we will take of these materials,
and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;" (Abr. 3:24)
|
|
Olam Asiyyah
World of
Making/.Action
|
This World (Animated)
|
This World – The Four Quarters of Earth (Fac.2 Fig.
6)
|
All of this information gives us a
key to help us to begin to understand the Book of Abraham and especially
Facsimile Two. This information also
opens the door to evaluate potential correspondence of these upper three worlds
with the three degrees of glory outlined in D&C 76.
