You got me curious to see if the ark/mother/Mary typology is continued explicitly anywhere else in Scripture. Perhaps you’ve studied this, but Isaiah 54 is very interesting. After the reference to Noah and the flood in v. 9 ( “For this is like the days of Noah to me: when I swore that the water of Noah would never flood the earth again”), the imagery of the flood is applied to Jerusalem (city) in v. 11 “Poor Jerusalem, storm-tossed, and not comforted”. Flood imagery is used in v. 8 (“in a *surge* of anger”) and v. 10 (“though the mountains move and the hills shake”). And at the beginning of ch 54 God promises to the “childless one” that “ the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of the married woman.” So there is the image of the fruitful woman (54:1), the tacit allusion to the ark (54:9), and the image of the fortress city (v. 11) which will be rebuilt from precious stones (vv. 11-12) and fortified against danger (vv. 14-15, 17).
Such good connections, Aaron. Zion Psalms 46 and 48 definitely have these themes. In antithesis to the life and peace of Zion, Ps. 48’s kings are seized with fear and the pangs of childbirth, overcome at the mere sight of God’s city. Their boats are broken. And in 46, the city withstands the upheaval of the flood. Outside the city is death; inside the city the river of life makes glad her people, and her people live in peace.
Thanks for writing your continued reflections on this theme. I read Schmitt's article and also found it very interesting. A different angle that I am taking is to compare this with, e.g., Plato's concept of the Soul as a microcosm of the City (which in turn is a microcosm of the cosmos). What stands out immediately is how individualistic that is compared to what Schmitt argues. It's not Individual Soul > City but Man:Woman::Son:City. I honestly don't know what to do with that yet, but I think there might be something interesting there.
I appreciate the insights of Van Til on the perennial problem of the one and the many. According to Van Til, without the ontological Trinity, one must choose between between ultimate unity and ultimate diversity. As I understand it, if our starting point for understanding all things is God as triune, then we understand that unity and diversity are equally ultimate. It makes sense of ourselves and the world we live in. Both the Son and the City have individual and corporate aspects. For example, his one corporate bride is made up of his called-out people from all nations and tribes and tongues, and yet each individual soul that composes that bride is also his beloved. The antithesis is not individualism but rather radical individualism that discounts the equal ultimacy of ourselves as a corporate unity. Van Til writes about this in his book, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, chapters 3- 4. There he analyzes Plato's thought and concludes that Plato thought that "all things at bottom are one even after they have come out of the one" (45).
A few things about Noah's Ark that may explain why women were backgrounded in scripture. Blogger and author, Deidre Havrelock, made an observation that when God commanded Noah to board the Ark, he told him to board in the order of Noah and his sons, Noah's wife and son's wives and all male-female pairs of animals. When God commanded Noah to come off the Ark, it was in order of Noah and wife, sons and wives, than male-female animal pair. Instead, Noah came off the Ark the same way he went on with Noah and son's first than the wives. God than blessed Noah and his sons with blessing of dominion where all living things will live in fear of them. Compare this to original blessing of male and female in Gen. 1. Very different. It shows that although Noah was considered righteous, he still had a hardness of heart from the sin of male domination which was not so in the beginning. This is why God chose to operate within this framework as Noah was too hard of heart to notice what God was really commanding him to do. St. Peter said Noah's Ark was a primordial baptism, but a baptism formula in Christ in Galatians has since reversed this in the church. Unfortunately, men still have that old hardness of heart and want everything about them.
You got me curious to see if the ark/mother/Mary typology is continued explicitly anywhere else in Scripture. Perhaps you’ve studied this, but Isaiah 54 is very interesting. After the reference to Noah and the flood in v. 9 ( “For this is like the days of Noah to me: when I swore that the water of Noah would never flood the earth again”), the imagery of the flood is applied to Jerusalem (city) in v. 11 “Poor Jerusalem, storm-tossed, and not comforted”. Flood imagery is used in v. 8 (“in a *surge* of anger”) and v. 10 (“though the mountains move and the hills shake”). And at the beginning of ch 54 God promises to the “childless one” that “ the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of the married woman.” So there is the image of the fruitful woman (54:1), the tacit allusion to the ark (54:9), and the image of the fortress city (v. 11) which will be rebuilt from precious stones (vv. 11-12) and fortified against danger (vv. 14-15, 17).
Such good connections, Aaron. Zion Psalms 46 and 48 definitely have these themes. In antithesis to the life and peace of Zion, Ps. 48’s kings are seized with fear and the pangs of childbirth, overcome at the mere sight of God’s city. Their boats are broken. And in 46, the city withstands the upheaval of the flood. Outside the city is death; inside the city the river of life makes glad her people, and her people live in peace.
Thanks for writing your continued reflections on this theme. I read Schmitt's article and also found it very interesting. A different angle that I am taking is to compare this with, e.g., Plato's concept of the Soul as a microcosm of the City (which in turn is a microcosm of the cosmos). What stands out immediately is how individualistic that is compared to what Schmitt argues. It's not Individual Soul > City but Man:Woman::Son:City. I honestly don't know what to do with that yet, but I think there might be something interesting there.
I appreciate the insights of Van Til on the perennial problem of the one and the many. According to Van Til, without the ontological Trinity, one must choose between between ultimate unity and ultimate diversity. As I understand it, if our starting point for understanding all things is God as triune, then we understand that unity and diversity are equally ultimate. It makes sense of ourselves and the world we live in. Both the Son and the City have individual and corporate aspects. For example, his one corporate bride is made up of his called-out people from all nations and tribes and tongues, and yet each individual soul that composes that bride is also his beloved. The antithesis is not individualism but rather radical individualism that discounts the equal ultimacy of ourselves as a corporate unity. Van Til writes about this in his book, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, chapters 3- 4. There he analyzes Plato's thought and concludes that Plato thought that "all things at bottom are one even after they have come out of the one" (45).
A few things about Noah's Ark that may explain why women were backgrounded in scripture. Blogger and author, Deidre Havrelock, made an observation that when God commanded Noah to board the Ark, he told him to board in the order of Noah and his sons, Noah's wife and son's wives and all male-female pairs of animals. When God commanded Noah to come off the Ark, it was in order of Noah and wife, sons and wives, than male-female animal pair. Instead, Noah came off the Ark the same way he went on with Noah and son's first than the wives. God than blessed Noah and his sons with blessing of dominion where all living things will live in fear of them. Compare this to original blessing of male and female in Gen. 1. Very different. It shows that although Noah was considered righteous, he still had a hardness of heart from the sin of male domination which was not so in the beginning. This is why God chose to operate within this framework as Noah was too hard of heart to notice what God was really commanding him to do. St. Peter said Noah's Ark was a primordial baptism, but a baptism formula in Christ in Galatians has since reversed this in the church. Unfortunately, men still have that old hardness of heart and want everything about them.