A Transformation of Tradition (Feast of All Saints)

Harry Attridge and Joel Baden discuss universality, immortality, hope, and intertextuality in Isaiah 25:6-9 and Revelation 21:1-6a. These texts are appointed for the Feast of All Saints, in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary.

More Yale Bible Study resources, including a transcript of this episode, at: https://YaleBibleStudy.org/podcast

Harold Attridge is Sterling Professor of Divinity at Yale Divinity School. Joel Baden is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School. 

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Transcript

Voiceover Voice:

This is an eschatological vision because it’s not simple about what’s going to happen tomorrow or today, but it’s when God will destroy death forever.

Helena Martin:

This is Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study. Join us each week as two Yale Divinity School professors look at an upcoming text from the Revised Common Lectionary.

This episode, we have Joel Baden, Professor Hebrew Bible and Director of the Center for Continuing Education, and Harry Attridge, Sterling Professor of Divinity.  They’re discussing Isaiah 25:6-9 and Revelation 21:1-6a, which are appointed for All Saint’s Day in Year B. Here are the texts:

[Isaiah 25:6-9]

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

[Revelation 21:1-6a]

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. 

Joel Baden:

 Harry, this week we've got two texts, one from the Hebrew Bible from Isaiah and one from the New Testament from Revelation. What do these texts have to do with each other? Is there, it's not always the case that lectionary readings are paired, but these seem to have some sort of relationship. What do you see here? 

Harry Attridge:

Right. I think both of these texts deliver strong messages of hope. Hope that God will finally set things right in some significant way. The Isaiah text just a beautiful bit of poetry, “on this mountain the Lord of hosts will prepare a banquet of rich fare for all the peoples.” For all the peoples. A universal message of hope which is something that runs through the Isaiah tradition.  Very, very concrete. You think about some of the things in the New Testament. The Jesus feeding the multitudes. In some ways that's making this vision real in a very concrete way. And the Christian tradition I think has tried to do that. In any case, this is an eschatological vision because it's not simply about what's going to happen tomorrow or today, but it's when God will destroy death forever, In Isaiah, 25:8, “and God will wipe away every tear from every face throughout the world.” It's a wonderful message of hope.

Joel Baden:

Yeah. I mean, it's a little extreme even for Isaiah. I mean, Isaiah is pretty good about this sort of thing, and as you say, Isaiah is very much part of this universalist kind of tradition of what's going to happen in like the days to come or the day of the Lord is, all the other peoples of the earth are going to figure it out finally, right? They're all going to come to Zion, that's on this mountain at the beginning of our reading. And it's not really so much a sense of conversion, but there is a sense of a universality of what Israel has long been practicing and believed now everyone else is going to get on board. No more death. That's, I mean, now you're into something completely different. That to me feels like a sort of full blown, sort of full-blown eschatology in a way that other parts of Isaiah are like, they're looking forward to a future but it's not quite as advanced as deathlessness. Is deathlessness at stake in Revelation? Is that what's at stake in this passage?

Harry Attridge:

Yeah. I think both of these texts, both Isaiah as a whole, which has its universal dimensions. Especially in the last chapters where all people from all nations are going to be coming, and some of them are going to become priests.

Joel Baden:

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Harry Attridge:

Pretty amazing vision. But the elimination of death is certainly an eschatological hope. And what you get in the book of Revelation is a really interesting combination of intense eschatological hope and also a sense that some of that hope has been realized in the present with the victory that Christ has won over death with his resurrection. So, in chapter 21 of Revelation, you have a vision of a new heaven and a new earth and the new city of Jerusalem coming down from God. This is something that we can appreciate here at Yale in particular, because it was a notion that inspired some of the people who founded the city of New Haven. New Haven, the new heaven. And it's imitation of the Temple of Jerusalem with its nine square center, et cetera. So, here you have an eschatological vision all right, but it's also a vision that's being realized as God dwells with his people in the here and now. So, Revelation does an interesting job analogous to what goes on in Isaiah of holding out a hope for a really totally transformed future, but somehow, it's being realized in the present.

Joel Baden:

Is there more, are these sort of more positive eschatological visions than most? I was just saying, I mean, I think we talk about eschatology and visions of the world to come or the heavenly, this new heavenly era. Of course it's positive. And yet, I mean, you sort of started by saying this is a really hope-filled eschatology. Is there not hope-filled eschatology or like, less hope-filled eschatology? 

Harry Attridge: 

I think some eschatological predictions emphasize the judgment that will take place. If you think about Mark 13 or Matthew 25, there's hope there all right, but there's also judgment on those who are not.  And that's not where these texts are going.

Joel Baden:

Yeah. I mean, Isaiah also has this a very robust day of the Lord tradition. Which often is, on the day of the Lord, really bad stuff is going to happen but there's going to be a remnant. And that's sort of, that's the eschatology. And you're right, here what we have in both of these cases really is, hey, there's like a pall of like potentially there was some bad stuff that happened to get us here. I mean, I'm thinking here, Isaiah, “he will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations.” That suggests that something bad has been going on. 

Harry Attridge:

And there's certainly imagery of heavenly warfare and retribution on those who were evil in the book of Revelation. That's for sure. But at the end we have this very positive vision.

Joel Baden:

When you see the new Jerusalem, to what extent is that a criticism of the current Jerusalem? 

Do you know what I mean? Like, is there a sense of, a new heaven, a new earth, a new Jerusalem. What's wrong with the current ones? 

Harry Attridge:

Well, there's a critical element in the book of Revelation about those who reject the message of Jesus and the notion that he has overcome death with his resurrection. And some of those are people who live in the current Jerusalem, all right. So, there is tension between early Christians and their Jewish brothers and sisters who don’t buy their message, and that's reflected.

Joel Baden:

So, in that sense, is that a way in which the New Testament text is picking up on that universalism of Isaiah? If Isaiah is imagining everyone is going to come around to what we would, as scholars, call sort of Israelite religion but maybe think of as Judaism. Isaiah’s vision is, they’re all going to be Jews. Is Revelation, maybe we're overreading here, I'm overreading here, but is there sort of a like, a cheeky, like not all Jews, but Jesus followers. Which is maybe not the same thing. 

Harry Attridge:

Hmm. I think what you get in the book of Revelation is certainly the emphasis on people coming in from all nations and all parts of the world, and they're worshiping the God of Israel and the son of the God of Israel, who is now resurrected from the dead. And doing so in this new Jerusalem, this holy city. Which is just one metaphor that describes their reality because right next to that is the notion of like a bride adorned for her husband. And so it's the new social reality rather than a particular place that's important. And the new social reality is one that's totally inclusive. I think that's one of the things that Revelation is trying to get across. 

Joel Baden:

Yeah. I find it fascinating the way, the more we talk about it the more it really looks to me like Revelation is in fact picking up from, if not this text, the Isaiah text, at least something very much like it. There's a lot of connection between the two but even, I mean, it seems to me sort of expansion. The Isaiah vision is a sort of like, yes, and more. 

Harry Attridge:

I think that's right. And it's not simply Isaiah. The Book of Revelation is just full of allusions to all sorts of Old Testament passages. Ezekiel looms large too. Very large. And so, the combination of ingredients, as you say, points to a new understanding of what the reality is that all of this imagery finally points to. 

Joel Baden:

Yeah. And I think that, for me as a scholar, as a Jewish scholar, one of the things that I find so fascinating about the New Testament is the way that it, by taking up especially prophetic material from the from the Old Testament, from the Hebrew Bible, it both sort of affirms that material, that older material, as having validity and importance and also transforms it into something new and thereby reflects back onto it. Such that, how many readers over the millennia have now read things like Isaiah 25, like this chapter, and hear in it, Revelation. As opposed to hearing Isaiah in Revelation. Do you know what I mean? 

Harry Attridge:

Mm hmm. Yeah, and, you know, as many people have suggested, it's important to read all of the Bible together, in order to see what's going on with it. And there's certainly an affirmation of tradition in the New Testament, but also a transformation of that tradition.

Helena Martin:

Thanks for listening. For a transcript of today’s episode and lots more, check out YaleBibleStudy.org.

Chapter, Verse, and Season is a production of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School. It’s produced by: Creator and Managing Editor, Joel Baden; Production Manager, Kelly Morrissey; Associate Producer, Aidan Stoddart; and I’m your Host and Executive Producer, Helena Martin. And our theme music is by Calvin Linderman.

We’ll be back with another conversation from Chapter, Verse, and Season.