I AM, Page 11

You may ask, Even if the above be true, how is it that “Yahweh” appears as “Lord” as far back in the Biblical account as Gen 2? Though it is not, indeed cannot be, seen on the basis of traditional theology as it has come down to us before (and even since) Steiner, the answer is actually quite simple in the light of anthroposophy. As we know, the entirety of the Pentateuch account is ascribed to Moses, who came into his spiritual vision as a result of his prior initiations and the revelation to him on Mt. Sinai, which included that of the “I Am.” Thus, Moses, recognizing the prior existence of the “I Am,” albeit unknown to human beings before Seth (Gen 4,26), and not called by such name until Moses himself (Ex 6,3), could go back and ascribe to “Yahweh,” the “Lord,” those prior acts performed by him. In its simplest form, this can perhaps best be seen in I-16 where we see that the Elohim (Exusiai) are the rulers of Earth evolution. Yahweh-Eloha was the only one who descended to, and took up abode in, the Moon sphere (the other six staying in the Sun sphere); thus he was the hierarchical being charged with the entirety of Earth evolution. We see from OS, the Commentary on Genesis, and “Alpha and Omega > Creation and Apocalypse” (Vol. 2, “What Is Man?”), that the portion of the creation account represented by Gen 1,1-2,4a took place prior to a point in the Lemurian Evolutionary Epoch of Earth evolution (see I-1 through I-4). At that point, the development of the first three Elements (Fire, Air and Water, as represented in Gen 1,2) as well as the human being’s “Three Bodies” (physical, etheric and astral), had already been prepared during Earth’s first three Evolutionary Epochs (Polarian, Hyperborean and Lemurian), though in far less dense condition than now, and as yet without “Form,” as indicated in Gen 1,1 and 2,4b-5. Inasmuch as the Elohim (Exusiai) are the “Spirits of Form” (I-6), it is they who take over at the point where everything but “Form” had been accomplished, as indicated in Gen 1,1 and 2,4b-5. It is at this point that the Yahweh-Eloha comes into the picture at Gen 2,4b to stay. The reflection by the Moon of the light of the Sun is simply a manifestation on the physical level of the higher spiritual reflection by Yahweh-Eloha of the Christ who had descended by then far enough to take up abode in the Sun sphere (see “As Above, So Below). The true “I Am” was approaching, but could not enter into the human being until there was “Form” and the time was right (see “Right Time”). All of this was preparatory for the primary purpose of Earth evolution, namely, the infusion of the Ego, the “I Am,” into the previously existing “bodies” as summarized in I-14.

The newcomer to anthroposophy will, of course, have much wrestling to do with the above until he or she is able to assimilate the basic tenets of Spiritual Science (i.e., Occult Science). Only the above brief summary can be given here. But when, with the necessary spiritual toil, that basic knowledge is taken into one’s soul by one who is karmically ready (and I am certain there are vast numbers of human beings presently at that point—if they are willing to devote themselves in this incarnation to it), then all distinction between “Lord” (“Yahweh”) and the higher Ego (“I Am”) disappears, and Ex 3,14 (when translated “I AM the I AM”) is seen as a perfect expression of the spiritual reality. Until Steiner, there was, to use lawyer language, “a distinction without a difference.”

The recent ABD follows the commendable practice of giving the etymological meaning of the Biblical terms it expounds. Notably, by contrast, in regard to “Yahweh” it says (6 ABD 1011), “The meaning of the name is unknown.” Steiner takes us back to the origins implicit in Gen 11,1 and Acts 2,8, and shows us that depth of soul-meaning (understanding) carried by the primeval sound thereof.

It is not a matter of indifference, but of salvific necessity, that a sufficient portion of humanity come to see the above-disclosed anthroposophical insight that the “I Am” is the “Name” of God. There is an immense tendency, anchored in the group-soul roots from which humanity has evolved, for human beings to coalesce into groupings for mutual support. And groups, to various degrees politically powerful, have a great ability to persecute those who go into the “Wilderness” of spiritual loneliness. But the prophets all went there, as did the Christ himself, and it is to those who do that the future of Christianity belongs (Mt 5,10-11), for there is where the “I Am” is found.