Three Bodies, Page 9

Scriptures Readily Suggestive of “Three Bodies”

24. Gen 1,2: As Steiner recognized in Genesis (GEN), the first three elements (water, air and fire) exist in this passage in their formless etheric nature: water(s) is expressed; air is the meaning of the Greek pneuma or Hebrew ruach (“spirit” or “wind” RSV); and fire is expressed by the concept of spiritual warmth in God’s “brooding” like a setting hen over the waters (1 Interp 466; Barc, Genesis, Vol. 1, p. 35; AMPB and LB). The “Spirit of God” may, in this respect, be deemed to embody the element of “Fire” which is generally present throughout scripture where a recognized spiritual being appears or is actively involved (e.g., see “Bush”). These three elements represent the recapitulation of the prior three Conditions of Consciousness (Old Saturn, Sun and Moon) the three bodies before they condensed further by mineralization into Earth (solids), Water and Air, respectively, to receive the human Ego during Earth evolution. See I-22.

25. The Bible’s recurring motif, particularly in Genesis, of precisely three sons surely suggests the three bodies:

a) Gen 4: Adam has three sons, Cain, Abel and Seth.¹⁵ Notably, Adam and Eve are not said to have had any female children until after the birth of all of Cain’s named descendants and Seth (Gen 5,4), so unless Cain sired offspring from his own mother, an unlikelihood, these archetypal scriptures suggest a meaning deeper than that associated merely with individual persons (though they may also have been such). They can be seen to represent the three bodies as follows:

b) Gen 4,20-22: Lamech has three sons, Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-cain. See fn 15.

c) Gen 5,32; 6,10: Noah has three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. The normally assumed fact that these three are listed in the order of their births would accord with the order of creation of the three bodies on Old Saturn, Sun and Moon, respectively. Beyond that, however, as in a), their “Names” also suggest that relationship:

A somewhat different perspective is taken on these meanings from those in #20, to be compatible with the order of their ages.

d) Gen 10: Noah’s son, Ham, had four sons, Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan (vs 6). However Put is nowhere else mentioned in the Bible, and the other three sons are the progenitors, respectively, of the three principal Old Testament civilizations, namely, Babylon (and Assyria), Egypt (and Philistia) and Canaan (including Sodom and Gomorrah). See the discussion on these in “Egypt.” Considering the early evolutionary stage Ham represented, Put could easily be seen as the incipient Ego, then too premature to yield offspring. The other three sons would then equate to the three bodies, as with so many other generations that list “three sons.”

e) Gen 11,27: Terah has three sons, Abram, Nahor and Haran.

f) Gen 38: Judah has three sons, Er, Onan and Shelah, before giving birth through his deceptive daughter-in-law, Tamar, to Perez, ancestor of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 1,3)¹⁶ ; Perez was born as a twin (Gen 38,27-30), as was Jacob.¹⁷ The “twin” could be a reference to the zodiacal influence of Gemini (see “Zodiac”), which can be twofold in nature, i.e., two-faced. In spiritual parlance, Jacob was rather a prototype for each human being, the microcosmic reflection of the “First and Second Adam,” in which the higher Ego must overcome the lower. Judah was the fourth son of Jacob (as well as being the fourth generation in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus), thus numerically fitting the image of the human Ego which comes as the human being’s fourth component.

The plausibility of such purport is enhanced by three additional considerations: 1. The tribe of “Judah” is central to the Old Testament mission of creating a fitting physical body for the Christ to enter (see “The Nativity”), thus further fitting the role of the struggling human Ego. 2. Substantiation is given to this picture by the names of Judah’s three sons. While ABD does not give the meaning of either “Er” or “Onan,” it does for “Shelah,” and meaning can to some extent be surmised for the first two. Thus, “Er” is presumably the primeval sound, indicating a beginning, inasmuch as its identical sound “Ur” is “a prefix meaning original, primitive” (WNWD), and identifies the geographical beginnings of the Abrahamic line (Gen 11,28-12,1), thus fitting the role of the human physical body. “Onan” probably takes its meaning from the same root as “onus,” meaning “burden,” thus signifying the karmic structure of the etheric body which reflects the “burden” of past sins, comporting with the second consequence of the Fall, “Toil” (Gen 3,16-19—pain-toil-death). Since of old the name signified one’s nature (see “Name”), the event for which Onan became known (see “onanism,” WNWD) is described in Gen 38,9 and clearly recognized as a “sin” (as discussed in 5 ABD 20), comporting with the idea that sin results in an “etheric” onus, as in the Fall. Additionally, the etheric body is the life, healing, and creative agent of the physical body, and this was Onan’s failed mission under the levirate law (Gen 38,8; Deut 25,5-6). In 5 ABD 1191, “Shelah” is seen possibly to equate, etymologically, to a “weapon, a canal, or even a divine name,” and the “Pool of Shelah” (Neh 3,15) is identified as the Pool of Shiloah (Is 8,6), which means “to send” as in the case of a stream of water. All of these tend to relate to the function of the astral body. 3. Finally, Perez is the son of a widow (vs 14; see “Widow’s Son”), suggesting that he, like the ancestral twin Jacob, was initiated into the Mysteries, and thus a fitting ancestor for Jesus.

g) Lev 16: Aaron had four sons (see Lev 10,1,12) so the prevalent “three son” motif is not here used. There is nevertheless a pattern that may still bespeak the human situation reflected by that motif. Two of Aaron’s sons (among his four-son, or fourfold nature) disobeyed the Lord’s commands and died (Lev 10,1-2; 16,1). In the “ritual of atonement” prescribed here Aaron is to offer a “bull as a sin offering for himself” and is then to make further atonement for both himself and his house by taking two goats upon which lots shall be cast and one sacrificed; the sins of the people shall then be placed upon the head of the other, which shall be sent into the “Wilderness.” The two sons who died by reason of disobedience might be taken as the human physical and etheric bodies, which are infected to death (Gen 3,19-20) by virtue of the infection of the astral body in the Fall. The bull may here be taken for the astral body, which represents the astral nature of feeling (see I-62). By sacrificing the bull “for himself,” Aaron, now representing the astral body, is kept alive, and by the sacrifice of the one goat “for himself and for his house” and the release of the other, bearing their sins, into the “Wilderness,” their atonement is accomplished. Now the goat is related to sheep (see WNWD, “goat”) but in general has a more objectionable character; thus the relationship of Goat/Sheep is analogous to that of astral body/manas. The implications for the eventual “Lamb of God” thrust themselves irresistibly upon us. The goat, representing the astral nature, is two-fold, and one is sacrificed so that the other may go free into the “Wilderness.” The merit of this concept is strengthened when one considers that the zodiacal realm of Capricorn (goat) equates to the astral body (see I-18). The only one of the three bodies over which a human being has direct control in the present Epoch is the astral body. To the extent that it is purified through the action of the “Lamb of God” it moves toward the manas state of the future Jupiter Condition of Consciousness, portrayed in Revelation as the Holy City. The Ego is thus thrust into the “Wilderness” to follow there the lead of the “Lamb of God,” which takes the place of the scapegoat in bearing the sins of the human being.

h) 1 Sam 2,21: Hannah had three sons besides Samuel.

i) 1 Sam 17,13: The three eldest sons of Jesse, namely, Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah, i.e., the three bodies, had followed Saul into battle. Then David, the “I Am,” who had prevailed over the lion and the bear (see “Wild Animals”), thereby transforming his astral body into manas (Manna), killed the giant Philistine (cf. the “sons of Anak” in #11 above) by striking him on the “Forehead” with a stone before cutting off his head.

j) 1 Sam 31,2,6: The three sons of Saul, namely, Jonathan, Abinadab and Malchishua, were killed along with him by the Philistines, who then cut off Saul’s head, i.e., his “I Am,” or Ego.