HOME                                                            
johndbrey@gmail.com
© 2015 John D. Brey.

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the

και  αυτος  εστη η κεφαλη του σωματος  της εκκλησια δς εστιν αρχη

firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

πρωτοτοκος εκ των νεκροσ ινα εν πας αυτος γινομαι πρωτευω

Colossians 1:18.

Perhaps in no single verse in scripture is the genius of a Jewish exegete so concise, compact, and self-evident, as here in the eighteenth verse of the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Colossians. When Rabbi Gamaliel read this verse written by his former star student he knew the glory of Israel had for a time and a season taken up residence amongst the Gentiles.

And he is the head of the body, the church

και  αυτος  εστη η κεφαλη του σωματος  της εκκλησια

For Paul's' theology, the "body" is the virgin church (2 Cor. 11:2). Rabbi Gamaliel's astonishment, like Professor Scholem's later amazement, revolves around Paul's preternatural ability to mutate Hebrew concepts in a manner that makes them appear to have been part and parcel of Paul's Gospel all along:

And he is the head

                       ראש

of the body, the [virgin] church

                        בת  

who is the beginning

                    בראשית

Firstborn from the dead  [necross νεκροσ]                          י     

Paul brings the Greek, the Hebrew, and all the symbolism of the Hebrew scriptures, under his power in a manner that boggles the mind. He claims that Christ is the "firstborn from the dead." The Greek word he uses is nekros, as in the necrotic scar that marks the initiation of the Abrahamic covenant, through which a unique birth will produce the "Jewish firstborn," who is the first human born, as the first living creature (the adam) was created, without sin or death being part and parcel of the covenant they're born into.

But look what Paul is doing. He's unifying the Hebrew words, the Hebrew concepts, the Hebrew symbolism, so seamlessly that it's breathtaking.

The "rosh" ראש is the "head" (the word means "head"). But the rosh is also a Hebrew symbol for the "firstborn"? ----- Paul is making the "firstborn" --- first (head)--- before the very "body" (the virgin church) through which the firstborn must come. Paul says "he is the head [the first] of the body" --- the head comes before the body: the firstborn is before the body through which it must come (“the origin is hidden in the beginning” Elliot R. Wolfson).

The "body" -- in Paul's theology--- is a virgin (2 Cor. 11:2). So for Paul, the firstborn, the "rosh" is the "head" (the origin) and is ahead of the very "body" בת, through which it --- the head ---- must come (Gen. 2:4-5). Paul is using every iota of Hebrew theology and symbolism to point out the miraculous nature of the Torah such that he, Paul, is causing his own Gospel, the new Torah, to emanate seamlessly from the dead-letters that form the shetiya stone from which the living world emanates. He’s showing that his Gospel is the “head” of the Torah, hidden in the dead letters; but now born into the world through an unannounced arrival that opens what was previously closed.

If the original sin is phallic-sex between Adam and Eve, as the Talmud, with most other Jewish scriptures, implies, then circumcision makes it impossible, at least symbolically, for a Jewish daughter to be anything but a sealed-garden, a virgin, since circumcision, as pointed out by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, represent pre-phallic-sex-- space/time. Similarly, if circumcision returns the Jew to prelapsarian times, then phallic-sex hasn't been initiated for circumcised Jews, at least symbolically, such that the original sin hasn't occurred, there's no original sin, no need for salvation.

Jewish commentators note that the yod is the mark of circumcision. Of all the Hebrew letters, the yod is the one most representative of circumcision.

The Hebrew word for a "house," and a Jewish groom's bride is his "house" (Yoma 2a; Shabbat 118b) is the word for a Jewish daughter, bat בת and the mark of circumcision, the yod, בית. The Jewish house is the Jewish bride, is the virgin daughter, with the mark of circumcision in her womb, as the emblem of the Jewish firstborn (the head/origin), who is in the Jewish womb because of circumcision rather than because of phallic-sex.

Because these letters and concepts come absolutely first in the written Torah, they're the source for the true meaning of the letters and words, such that it's foolhardy to try to force later meanings and lexicographical principles on the very first word in the Torah. Every Jewish woman is symbolically a virgin. Every Jewish woman begins as a bat (beit-tav). When she marries a circumcised man she becomes a "house," a beit. A beit is a bat with the mark of circumcision where the phallus would be if the woman wasn't Jewish. -----Symbolically, both a bat and a beit, are virgin since circumcision symbolizes emasculation. Since every Jewish male is symbolically emasculated, no phallus enters either the Jewish residence, beit, or wife, beit.

Since in the ktav ivri script (the original script), the tav was a cross, and a beit (the letter) represents the “home,” or “house,” of the groom, who Paul equates with Christ (the church is the virgin bride of Christ) it's ironic that the word for virgin בת (beit-tav) is pictographically speaking (hieroglyphically) a "house" beit ב with a cross (the ktav ivri tav), i.e., a church. The Hebrew word for virgin, and Paul implies the church is the virgin, is two letters that are pictographically "the house of the cross," which is to say that the church is, oddly enough, in Hebrew, the house of the cross: a house with a cross on it is a church (which Paul considers the quintessential "virgin" בת – beit-tav).

The Hebrew word בתולה speaks of a woman who's "chaste" or sexually innocent, of her own freewill, youth, or perhaps her looks. The Hebrew word בתולה speaks of a woman who doesn't have, or hasn't had sex. But since every Jewish woman is a virgin in the sense of having never had sex with anyone but a ritually emasculated man, there are two kinds of virgins in Judaism: a literal virgin בתולה and a spiritual, or ritual, virgin, every Jewish daughter בת.

Paul makes it clear that neither Jesus, nor John the Baptist, could teach his, Paul's, Gospel, since Paul's Gospel was not knowable until Christ opened the hymen of the morgue and was seated at the right hand of the Father post crucifixion. Until Jesus was seated at the right hand of the Father, certain aspects of God's overarching plan were hidden beneath the text of the Torah awaiting the day when, if, Jesus succeeded, these truths could be manifest. They couldn't be manifest until Jesus defeated the Principalities and Powers (the gods of this world), since they (the teachings of Paul’s Gospel) weren’t even true until that time. Circumcision was given as an everlasting decree (a mere ritual) to Israel since if Jesus didn't defeat the Principalities and Powers, the idea of circumcision as the means for God to be born into the world to defeat the Principalities and Powers would not have been true. And since for Jews it still isn't true, circumcision remains an everlasting ritual with no real symbolic import outside some homiletic niceties like corralling the passions.

God really did divest himself of his omnipotence to become a mere man. But to defeat the Principalities and Powers he had to show that they are merely the amanuensis of the Torah, and not the authors. To do that he had to hide the meaning of circumcision, virgin birth, in the spirit of the word, which is beneath the letter of the word (the origin hidden in the beginning), so that those who can only read the letter, and not the spirit of the Author, are ignorant of the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth's virgin birth.

Not knowing that Jesus' virgin birth meant he was born sinless, the Principalities and Powers treated him like they treat every sinner, they killed him.

But they had no jurisdiction over Jesus since they didn't practice jus primae noctis in the case of his conception. Not having jurisdiction over him, and yet attempting to kill him, rescinded the very authority of death they received when they tricked Adam into the first act of the serpent's jus primae noctis, the first case of phallic-sex. Jesus has escaped the authority of the angel of death, such that when he died, he couldn't enter the precinct of death, it could not hold him, since the jail-keeper is the angel of death, and Jesus is no longer under his authority.

Jesus is the only creature not under the control of the angel of death. He’s the only way out of the dungeon of death. He, and he alone, will decide who dies and who doesn't. . . . This is Paul's Gospel in a nutshell.

In one sentence Paul explains precisely how it is that the first word in the Torah is speaking of Christ. ראש as the "head" or "first" --- hidden in the virgin church (a beit/house with a tav בת). Since Paul makes the head ראש first, the church must emanate from the ראש, and then hide it within, as though the church is the creator of the firstborn, rather than vise versa.

ראש

ב–ראש–ית

In the first word in the Torah a virgin בת emanates from a firstborn ראש to form the word "beginning" ב–ראש–ית. "And he is the head, of the virgin church, who is the beginning [bereshit]" Paul claims Jesus is the firstborn from the necrotic scar of the covenant. Jesus is the firstborn from the necrosis (circumcision: ritual emasculation). The portion of the animal tissue that is circumscribed in circumcision is the phallus. Jesus is the firstborn from that necrosis, that dead organ. He’s the first person actually, rather than symbolically, born from a necrotic phallus that’s no longer capable of being used in such a way that the serpent gets first dibs on the Jewish bride.

Paul claims the Church emanates from the rosh, the head ראש, which is the origin through which the beginning, the Church as pregnant virgin bride, must emanate. Every Jewish woman is ritually speaking a perpetual virgin (a church בת a "house" ב, with a "cross," ת the ktav ivri tav), since ritual circumcision symbolizes emasculation. This suggests that symbolically every Jewish woman is a perpetual virgin even if the membrane of virginity is pierced since the piercing of that membrane would need to be pierced by the firstborn’s hand rather than the emasculated organ of profane procreation.

Colossians 1:18 states that Christ, Jesus, is the firstborn of creation when historically speaking he's nothing of the sort?

Jewish mystics note that the name of the letter mem, which letter represents the womb, has no other letter inside it (which makes it unlike most other names of most other letters). They point out that this represents a "sealed-garden" (Song of Songs 4:12), since the womb is empty. But they note a couple other things that are incredible within a more comprehensive theological context. For instance they note that the closed-mem ם is related to the arrival of Messiah? Why that? . . . If the mem represents the womb, as it does within the symbolism of mystical Judaism, then it seems peculiar for Jews to say that a closed womb represents the arrival of Messiah?

Secondarily, the name of the letter mem מם is constructed of an open-mem and a closed-mem. That's how the letter is spelled (with no other letter inside). But the open-mem precedes the closed-mem justifying the strangeness of Paul (Col. 1:18) claiming that the “firstborn” of creation, born of a closed womb, could be born after the opening of the womb that birthed the first murderer Cain. The open-mem, the open womb, represents Cain and all those conceived in his image (the original sin: phallic-sex) while the closed-mem, the closed womb, represents those born (or reborn) through a virgin conception mechanism associated with the unique birth of Messiah.

There's an element of the letter mem that segues with Paul and Colossians 1:18 which has to date not yet been discussed. Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh says this about the letter mem:

Our Sages interpret the two mems (opened and closed) to refer to two "sayings," "the open saying" and "the closed saying." . . Chassidut explains that the first verse of Creation: "In the beginning . . . " is the "closed [concealed] saying" of Creation, for it is not preceded with the explicit phrase "and G-d said . . .." The first "open" [revealed] saying" is: "And G-d said `Let there be light.'". . In the time of the coming of Messiah, "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea," even the closed final mem will become revealed. (Bracketed statements are Rabbi Ginsburgh's.)

Rabbi Ginsburgh says that the first statement in the Torah: "In the beginning . . ." which is actually "bereshit" בראשית, is a closed-saying awaiting the arrival of Messiah for its meaning to be openly revealed. On the other hand, Paul claims that time has come. That in the very word bereshit בראשית (the closed statement of Creation) we have the hidden meaning now revealed: the "head" ראש is hidden in the virgin בת who has a closed mem ם because hidden away inside her sealed-garden (Song of Songs 4:12) she hides the secret of the yod י, the secret of circumcision: the fact that Messiah will "open the womb" (Ex. 13:2) since it's miraculously closed at the time of his birth, as it was at the time of his conception. ----The first word in the Torah is the "house of the head" beit בית with the rosh ראש hidden inside a closed house ב–ראש–ית. The Gospel in a word-shell.

And he is the head ראש of the body, the church בת: who is the beginning ב––ראש–ית, the firstborn from the dead [phallus]; that in all things he might have the preeminence [as the first member of the actual circumcision].

Colossians 1:18.