And the Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of Kings College London and the LMU in Munich online at

www history of philosophy. net. Today's episode, Chariot of Fire, Cabalah. I think I won't be offending

anyone's religious sensibilities if I point out that the Bible contains some

passages that are, shall we say, hard to understand. Just last week we saw the deep moral and

theological puzzles posed by the book of Job.

And in the past, we've seen people worrying about physical descriptions of God in the Bible,

and even about an episode in which Noah drinks himself into unconsciousness.

But for sheer tantalizing incomprehensible, it is hard to beat the beginning of the Book of

Ezekiel.

It begins where the Book of Job ended in a storm, with the Prophet Ezekiel

beholding a cloud full of flame. Within the cloud were four figures with four faces and

four wings apiece, the faces those of humans, lions, bulls, and eagles. These beings moved next to the wheels of a great domed chariot bearing a throne upon which sat a fiery brilliantly shining figure, the Lord himself.

If you're hoping that I'm going to explain this vision to you, then I'll have to disappoint you. I don't know what it means, and if I did, I wouldn't

be allowed to tell you. The Mishna and Talmud lay down the following restriction. The laws of incest may not be expounded in the presence of three people, the story of

creation in the presence of two, nor the chariot in the presence of one unless he is a sage.

I know that my listeners are very wise, but you might not qualify

as sages, and I certainly hope there's more than one of you. Despite this prohibition

on teaching, or perhaps in part because of it, a genre of interpretive literature

devoted to the chariot or Merkaba already developed in late antiquity. These esoteric treatises describe the journey of the mystic to behold

God sitting upon his throne. Such texts help to inspire the most famous tradition of writing produced by medieval Jews

Cabala. The Hebrew word Cabala means tradition. It refers to the fact that

mystical ideas and interpretations of scripture were handed down through the generations.

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