When the Scriptures speak about the underworld, the realm of the dead, they use identical terms to those used by the surrounding culture. This includes the names Sheol or Hades, as well as references to the realm under or beneath the earth. This is not just the use of certain borrowed words or terms or even analogies. In the ancient world, there was a well-developed sense of the underworld, of places in this world in which it became present, and of points of access in this world which led there. Again, this sense did not consist of an ever-increasing series of metaphors and analogies or of cleverly-spun symbolic tales. The ancients firmly held that their descriptions of the underworld in…
Christ’s baptism by St. John the Forerunner in the Jordan is narrated in all four Gospels. One element of the telling of this event found in all four is the descent of the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). In each of these cases, the Spirit’s descent is compared to a dove. Possibly because this comparison is conveyed in traditional Orthodox iconography through the depiction of a literal bird, it is often misunderstood. The text is not meaning to convey that the Spirit turned into a bird or made some sort of bird manifestation. In some less traditional iconography, the Spirit is even depicted as a bird in other generalized settings. Two details, however, are here…
