Lecture 1: The Matrix of Meaning: Scripture and the Sanctuary (June 10)

This lecture will introduce the themes of the course by contextualizing Scriptural revelation in the landscape of the biblical sanctuary. We will discover that the temple is far from simply a place where one offers sacrifice. All biblical imagery is framed in the context of the sanctuary, which is the place where God condescends to meet with and converse with His children. Scripture is, in short, an exegesis of God in relation to the world. It unveils the meaning of creation by linking creatures in relation to each other on the stage of the sanctuary, in which each object plays a specific and fitting role in relation to each other object - and in relation to both God and man. Moreover, the Bible itself as a sacral object belongs in the setting of the temple, as it is residence in the sanctuary which marks Scripture out as the Book of Books and the word of God.

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Lecture 2: The World as Temple: Trees, Beasts, Priests (June 17)

The temple is not an object in the world. The temple is the world, as the world declares the reality and character of God. It is the air through which the speech of God reaches our ear. In this class, we will study the specific sanctuaries described in the Bible and observe the ways in which they tie together the threads of the cosmos in God’s divine purpose. The lampstand is the sun, the moon, and the stars. The sacrificial beasts are all beasts. The priests are the human family. Their garments are woven from the threads of all creation. We will see, through sacral eyes, how the reality of the world is genuinely disclosed in the setting of the sanctuary.

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Lecture 3: History as Liturgy: The Liturgical Structure of the Biblical Story (June 24)

If the sanctuary is the microcosmic representation of the world, the liturgy is the microchronic representation of all history. In this light, we will observe the ways in which the specific sacrifices of Israel both replay the pattern of the biblical history which precede them and disclose their meaning in view of the history which follows- culminating in Jesus Christ. In view of this point, we will study the broad shape of the Biblical story arc in light of sacred categories: Israel grows and matures from priests to princes to prophetic rulers in God’s heavenly council. The story of the Bible is the story of one sanctuary, which is continuously deconstructed in order to be reconstructed in a more glorious form.

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Lecture 4: The Body of Christ: The Incarnation as the Telos of the World (July 8)

Christ is both the center and goal of the Scriptures. In this class, we will look at Biblical Christology- in both Testaments- finding the Incarnation both in the total shape of the Scriptural story as well as in specific passages, applying our developing hermeneutic to appropriately read the prophetic imagery of the Old Testament so that we can see Christ’s fingerprints through each letter of the text. We will discover not only the fact of the Incarnation, but the purpose of the Incarnation: God has built a house for His children in the very act by which He has built a home for Himself, adopting the children of Adam into divine sonship as children of God. We will discover that the imagery of the Church as the Body of Christ who is the temple of the Holy Spirit is not simply one allegory among many - it is rather the unifying image engraved into the fabric of reality, an image which both emerges out of the collage of Old Testament imagery and throwing light on that imagery.

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Lecture 5: On Earth as in Heaven: Walking in the Biblical World (July 15)

Biblical symbolism is more than an interesting exercise in literary criticism. It is the revelation, in words, of the logoi which constitute the inner meanings of creatures, of whom we- the human family - are the crown. And the Biblical story, patterned liturgically, does not conclude with the incarnation of Christ. Rather, it opens outwards through the Church - specifically, the liturgy of the Church - to enfold all nations within its sacred boundaries. In this class, we will observe the way in which the Scriptural story and symbols frame the Church’s liturgy and life, and how assimilating its imagery to our own guides us to live in the world as it truly is and fulfill our divine commission within it. As the class draws to a close, we will explore some fascinating convergences between the symbolic account of reality and the concrete structure of reality with which we are familiar - if trees link heaven and earth, what does that say to the botanist?