Abraham, and ascension

James Tabor has a post seconded by Jim Davila.

For some reason, my comment did not 'take'. Lots of blogs don't accept my comments. Some kind of plague on IP addresses in the Pacific North West.

Here it is:

Surely this post and its many comments takes more study than I have given it. But in all these notes and comments on that page, there is no mention of sacrifice.

Ascend / burnt offering / and leaf are the same letters. They are homonyms in Hebrew. What is given to God (burnt offering, Psalms 20, 40, 50, 51, 66) is accepted by God (ascension, Psalm 47, 68, the Psalms of Ascent) and does not wither (the leaf of Psalm 1). This mixed image takes in all sacrifice from Abraham to Jesus. The 'proof texts' of this are in the structural role of Abraham in the Psalter - Psalm 47 - God is gone up, and Psalm 105 where Abraham frames the whole Psalm.  It is worthwhile studying the psalms. They undermine the commonplace.

You will find in my book a sufficient scoring of the knobbled skin of the Psalter to enable you to imbibe, a sip at a time, of its inebriating liquors.