HOW MANY STEPS ARE ON JACOB'S LADDER?

jacob's ladder

 

Dee Finney's blog
start page July 20, 2011
Today's date October 28, 2011
page 59

TOPIC:  JACOB'S LADDER - THE LOST NOTES
IS IT EVIL TO PLAY A NOTE ON A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT THAT ISN'T ON THE LADDER?
ARE WE USING THE CORRECT FREQUENCY IN OUR MUSIC?

NOTE FROM DEE: This topic was brought to my attention by a discussion between two friends of mine who shall remain anonymous.  One likes Hindu music played by Sitar similar to Ravi Shakar and the other won't play such music, considering it evil because Hindu music contains more notes than Western music.

I am aware of another problem neither one of them know about is that the note with the frequency of 440 Hz, should actually be played at 432 Hz, which means all other notes are obviously off frequency as well.  I will give a link to that discussion below. 

So, one needs to ponder whether arguing about this issue at this point is worth getting hot and bothered about when the basic frequency of the notes themselves is under debate?

Since the topic of Jacob's ladder was brought in question, below you will see a variety of opinion brought forth from various groups of belief.  The reader can make up their own minds which one to accept or reject.

If the reader would like to comment on this page, please feel free to e-mail me at GrailLdy @aol.com .  I  will use that address for this page so as not to lose the e-mails amongst the thousands I'm already behind on reading.
Dee

Jacob's Ladder

Portions 9f this page are from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacob's Ladder (Hebrew: Sulam Yaakov סולם יעקב) is a ladder to heaven, described in the Book of Genesis, that the biblical patriarch Jacob dreams about during his flight from his brother Esau.

he deDescription of Jacob's ladder appears in the Book of Genesis (28:10–19):

Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it [or "beside him"] and said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you." Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it." And he was afraid, and said, "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

Afterwards, Jacob names the place, "Bethel" (literally, "House of God").



Jewish traditions Jacob's Ladder
William Blake

JACOB'S LADDER

The Jewish Biblical philosopher Philo (d. ca. 50 CE) presents his allegorical interpretation of the ladder in the first book of his De somniis. There he gives four interpretations, which are not mutually exclusive:[1]

The classic Torah commentaries offer several interpretations of Jacob's ladder:

Apocalyptic literature

The narrative of the Jacob's Ladder was used, shortly after the Destruction of the Temple, as basis for a pseudepigraphic text of the Hebrew Bible: the Ladder of Jacob. This writing, a non-rabbinic Jewish text preserved only by Christians, interprets the experience of Patriarchs in the context of merkabah mysticism.

 Christian interpretation

In the Gospel of John 1:51 there is potential reference to Jacob's dream (Genesis 28:12) in discussion of the Son of Man:

And he said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

The theme of the ladder to heaven is often used by the Early Church Fathers: Saint Irenaeus in the 2nd century describes the Christian Church as the ladder of ascent to God.[2]

In the 3rd century Origen explains that there are two ladders in the life of a Christian: (1) the ascetic ladder that the soul climbs on the earth, by way of—and resulting in—an increase in virtue, and (2) the soul's travel after death, climbing up the heavens towards the light of God.

In the 4th century Saint Gregory of Nazianzus speaks of ascending Jacob's Ladder by successive steps towards excellence, interpreting thus the ladder as an ascetic path, while Saint Gregory of Nyssa narrates that Moses climbed on Jacob's Ladder to reach the heavens where he entered the tabernacle not made with hands, thus giving to the Ladder a clear mystical meaning. The ascetic interpretation is found also in Saint John Chrysostom who writes:

< And so mounting as it were by steps, let us get to heaven by a Jacob’s ladder. For the ladder seems to me to signify in a riddle by that vision the gradual ascent by means of virtue, by which it is possible for us to ascend from earth to heaven, not using material steps, but improvement and correction of manners.[6]

The account of Jacob's Ladder as an analogy for the spiritual ascetic of life had a large diffusion through the classical work Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus.

Furthermore, Jesus can be seen as being the ladder, in that Christ bridges the gap between Heaven and Earth. Jesus presents himself as the reality to which the ladder points; as Jacob saw in a dream the reunion of Heaven and Earth, Jesus brought this reunion, metaphorically the ladder, into reality. Adam Clarke, an early 19th century Methodist theologian and Bible scholar, elaborates:

That by the angels of God ascending and descending, is to be understood, that a perpetual intercourse should now be opened between heaven and earth, through the medium of Christ, who was God manifested in the flesh. Our blessed Lord is represented in his mediatorial capacity as the ambassador of God to men; and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, is a metaphor taken from the custom of dispatching couriers or messengers from the prince to his ambassador in a foreign court, and from the ambassador back to the prince.[
7]

 Islamic interpretation

ISLAMIC JACOB'S LADDER

Jacob's dream (c. 1639), by Jose de Ribera, at the Museo del Prado, Madrid

Jacob is revered in Islam as a prophet and patriarch. Muslim scholars, especially of the perennialist tradition, drew a parallel with Jacob's vision of the ladder and Muhammad's event of the Mi'raj.[8] The ladder of Jacob was interpreted by Muslims to be one of the many symbols of God, and many saw Jacob's ladder as representing in its form the essence of Islam, which emphasizes following the "straight path". The twentieth-century scholar Martin Lings described the significance of the ladder in the Islamic mystic perspective:

The ladder of the created Universe is the ladder which appeared in a dream to Jacob, who saw it stretching from Heaven to earth, with Angels going up and down upon it; and it is also the "straight path", for indeed the way of religion is none other than the way of creation itself retraced from its end back to its Beginning.[9]

 In popular culture

 Music

JACOB'S LADDER
Landscape with Jacob's Dream, c. 1690, by Michael Willmann

 Film

 See also

JACOB'S LADDER - CAROL HAWTHORNE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z23_m3i7mCQ&feature=related

jacobs ladder

 

References

  1. ^ Verman, Mark (Fall 2005). "Reincarnation in Jewish Mysticism and Gnosticism (review)". Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 24 (1): 173–175. doi:10.1353/sho.2005.0206. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/shofar/v024/24.1verman.html. Retrieved 14 June 2010. 
  2. ^ Ireneaus, Adversus haereses, III,24,1
  3. ^ Origen, Homely n. 27 on Numbers, about Nm 33:1–2
  4. ^ Gregory of Nazianzus, Homely n. 43 (Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil), 71
  5. ^ Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses 224-227
  6. ^ John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Gospel of St. John n. 83,5., Text from CCEL
  7. ^ Google Books
  8. ^ The Vision of Islam, Murata and Chittick, Pg. 84
  9. ^ The Book of Certainty, Martin Lings, Pg. 51

 External links