This is John Collins from Bible Project and today we're starting a brand new series.

Now if you were to go to the ancient world, you would run across temples.

These are sacred spaces where the God that your people worship lives.

It's a place where the realm of your God meets the realm of humans.

And these temples were buildings, but interestingly, the Bible begins with a temple that isn't

building. The conception of the cosmos in Genesis 1 is that of a cosmic sacred space

where heaven and earth are one. Eden.

Now in the ancient temples, you would have priests who work there. They take care of the temple.

They receive the sacrifices and gifts from people and they give the blessings of the gods to the people.

Also in the temple, you would find inanimate icons. These are idle images that represent the rule and authority of the God.

But the cosmic temple in Genesis merges these two roles into one.

The statue at the center is not a statue. It's an animate icon.

And here we're very close to the priestly dimension of the image of God.

The representation of God and human as one in the sacred space.

And that's essentially what the at least the biblical priesthood is meant to be all about.

We're beginning a brand new series on this podcast on the role of priests in the Bible.

Now if I were to ask you about priests in the Bible, you might think of Aaron.

He was the brother of Moses, the very first priest of Israel.

Or you might think of all the other priests that came after him that work in Israel's temple.

But in this episode, we want to explore how the very first priests in the Bible

were none other than Adam and Eve in the cosmic temple.

Thanks for joining us. Here we go.

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