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Book Release Day: Perpetual Fire

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Today, my new book is being released! The title is “Perpetual Fire: Temple, Ritual, and Biblical Theology.”

What is Perpetual Fire about?

I am proposing the book as a motif study in biblical theology. It seeks to answer “What is the ritual and theological meaning of the perpetual fire on altar?” It focuses on the ever-burning fire on the altar of sacrifice at the heart of the Temple. The story of the fire is a long story–from the theophany experiences of God-as-fire in the story of Abraham and the Burning Bush scene in the life Moses to the fire that descends on Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law to the fire that comes forth from the sanctuary of the Tabernacle in Leviticus 9:24. God reveals himself as “a consuming fire” (Deut 12:29). In Leviticus 6, the priests are charged by God with keeping the fire on the altar of sacrifice perpetually burning: “it shall not go out.” But why? I take a winding tour through the early cultic legislation, prophetic metaphors for divinity as brightness, through the meaning of the Wood Offering, the significance of darkness as shrouding the brightness of divine light and the cultic meaning of radiance. As the book comes to identify the ritual significance of ever-burning fire as representing the dynamism of God, truly being a “cult image” of the Lord, it then moves onto theological considerations. If “brightness” characterizes God, then what should we make of the legends that portray Adam and Eve as “bright” or “glorious” before the Fall? How do these themes come together in the New Testament where John the Baptist promises that “one is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire”? I examine the Transfiguration scene alongside the scenes of Uzziah’s failed offering of incense in the Temple and Herod Agrippa’s failed apotheosis (reported both by Acts and by Josephus). I argue that the Transfiguration scene presents Jesus as a “restored radiant Adam” that becomes the archetype for the new creation and for resurrected humanity in Christ. Eventually, the book gets into the dual nature of the fire of God–as both a source of purification for the righteous and of destruction for the unworthy, the fire is cultic and centered in the Temple sanctuary, but it also consumes the enemies of God and burns up what is worthless (wood, hay, stubble). The book works with these themes to make sense of the New Testament’s theology of fire, or at least, its fiery theological themes that have to do with both divine presence and divine judgment.

Who endorsed it and what did they say?

I am very grateful to the two scholars who offered their endorsement of the book. Check out what they have to say:

“The ritual laws that are at the heart of the Pentateuch are a puzzle for many readers of the Bible. Despite their importance, they often play little role in biblical theologies. Mark Giszczak’s stimulating study of the perpetual sacred fire challenges the marginalisation of biblical ritual that has characterised much theological reflection. Tracing the unquenchable fire across Old and New Testaments, his book will help readers see fresh and under-appreciated connections across the canon.”
— Nathan MacDonald, Professor of the Interpretation of the Old Testament and Fellow of St John’s College

“In this innovative book we see biblical theology at its finest, solidly anchored in rigorous historical scholarship and providing clarifying insight into one of the most important ways God revealed himself to Israel and to the world. Mark Giszczak?s wide learning, sound judgement and balanced scholarship shine through on every page as he reveals the central importance of the sacred, ever-burning altar fire at the heart of Israelite sacrificial worship. The fire on the altar constituted a continuous theophany, effected the transfer of sacrificial gifts from the earthly to the heavenly realm, and served as an image of testing, purifying and sanctifying God?s people. Christian readers will find here the biblical background of the promised one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire and who came to cast fire upon the earth and wished it were already ablaze.”
— Stephen D. Ryan, O.P., Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies

What are some other books about fire in the Bible?

In my research, I was inspired by a handful of other books that treat fire in the Bible. One older book that is hard to find now is The Fire Upon the Altar by Julian Morgenstern (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1963). Morgenstern was a fascinating mid-century Jewish thinker–very creative and boundary-breaking in his own way. No, not all of his theories are convincing, but he has a way of seeing things that pulls together. From my own water-damaged copy of the book, check out his interpretation of the relighting of the altar in the time of Nehemiah as reported by 2 Maccabees: Morgenstern writes, “The legend implies further that the sacred fire was latent in the liquid, and that it needed only the application to it of a proper kindling force or essence to burst again into the sacred flame. Here this kindling force was supplied by the rays of the sun, bursting forth from the enveloping cloud and falling upon the wood upon the altar upon which the thick liquid had been poured” (p. 63). I love this episode and interpret it in detail in my book.

Two relatively recent books also treat the sacred fire. The first is Daniel Frayer-Griggs dissertation-turned-book: Saved Through Fire: The Fiery Ordeal in New Testament Eschatology (Pickwick, 2016). While Frayer-Griggs, a Protestant thinker, is primarily interested in how to interpret Paul’s cryptic saying that Catholic tradition regards as indicating the existence of purgatory, he ranges far and wide not only in biblical literature but in contemporaneous apocryphal literature as well. Here is a quote from his discussion of the River of Fire in apocryphal literature, “in many of the later Jewish and Christian apocalyptic visions the river of fire performs a dual function. It is an ordeal that must be endured, and those who are righteous will be saved while the wicked will be destroyed” (p. 141). By the end of the book, we find him saying some pretty compelling things that sound like exciting (and quasi-Catholic?) developments in his thought. For example, he says, “While our exegesis in no way confirms the doctrine of purgatory, it may open avenues for discussion of the origins of this doctrine and facilitate a Protestant reevaluation of the purificatory function of fire in New Testament eschatology” (p. 246).

The other recent book that examines the divine fire is “Your God is a Devouring Fire”: Fire as a Motif of Divine Presence and Agency in the Hebrew Bible (CBQMS 57; 2019) by Michael R. Simone, SJ. This book is deep and detailed study of the Hebrew passages that discuss the fire on the altar. Simone himself regards his main inspirations as Benjamin Sommer’s famous book Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge, 2008) and Shawn Zelig Aster, Unbeatable Light (Ugarit-Verlag, 2012). He works through passages, translating from the Hebrew, interpreting carefully and drawing from contemporary scholarly discourse. One of his main conclusions is that “Cultic fire did not represent a divine body, but it did represent divine agency sent out from Yhwh to accomplish his divine will. The primary purpose of cultic fire was the transmission of offerings to the divine realm” (p. 96). I interact with Simone’s work in my book, but Frayer-Griggs gets mentioned a bit more. Both of these books are important contributions to this scholarly discussion.

Where can I buy a copy of the book?

You can find my new book, Perpetual Fire: Temple, Ritual, and Biblical Theology at the Baylor University Press website: https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481323222/perpetual-fire/

It is also available at

Of course, I hope that you read my new book and I hope you enjoy what you read, learn something new about the ancient Temple, the worship of the Lord, and the power of fire as a sacramental symbol for divinity.

My New Book – Perpetual Fire: Temple, Ritual, and Biblical Theology

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Mark Giszczak - Perpetual Fire: Temple, Ritual, and BIblical Theology book coverI am very happy to announce the release of my new book: Perpetual Fire: Temple, Ritual, and Biblical Theology.

Ten Years in the Making

Years ago, I found myself intrigued by the many mentions of fire in the Bible, but most of all by the strange law mandating the maintenance of a perpetual fire on the altar of sacrifice: “it shall no go out!” (Lev 6:12). But why not? This question led me on a winding journey through many corners of ritual theory, biblical theology, temple history and even eschatology to produce this book. Why does Levitical law mandate that altar-fire be kept always burning? What does the fire symbolize? How was it understood in biblical times?

A Ritual Question with Theological Consequences

The book addresses two main ideas: 1) What is the ritual meaning of the ever-burning fire on the altar of sacrifice? and 2) What is the enduring theological significance of this fire? The first half of the book explores the ritual question, while the second half works toward a constructive biblical theology of the sacred fire. It turns out that a long and complex development of ritual symbols undergirds the Transfiguration scene, Jesus’ words about fiery judgment and fiery assimilation to divine life, but also St. Paul’s theology of resurrection. The perpetual fire on the altar has a significant theological afterlife in the New Testament.

Table of Contents

I wanted to give you a sneak preview of what’s in the book, so here’s the Table of Contents as you will find it

  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • Introduction: A Fire Moving Through Time
  • Part I – Ritual Fire
    • 1 The Fire and the Second Temple: A Crisis of Legitimacy
    • 2 The Origin of the Fire on the Altar: Law and Tabernacle, Tradition and Influence
    • 3 The Cultic Fire: Function and Representation
    • 4 The Wood Offering: Maintaining the Unquenchable Fire
    • 5 The Sin of Kindling Fire: Violating the Boundaries of Cult
    • Kindling: Preliminary Conclusions
  • Part II – Theological Fire
    • 6 The Brightness of God’s Body of Fire: Darkness, Theophany, Radiance
    • 7 The Fiery Son of God: Jesus and the Restoration of Adam
    • 8 The Body of Glory: Paul and the Transformation of Believers
    • 9 The Fire of the Word: Torah and Revelation
    • 10 The Fire of Encounter: Purification, Punishment, Vision
    • Conflagration: Final Conclusions
  • Bibliography
  • Index

When Will the Book Be Released?

The book will come out on September 1, 2026 from Baylor University Press. I am grateful for BUP’s partnership in putting this together. Their editorial guidance and production process has improved the book and prepared it for this moment. You can pre-order the book now from these sites:

My Hopes for the Book

I hope that you will enjoy reading Perpetual Fire! Beyond that, I hope that it will give scholars and serious Bible students alike a new appreciation for the depth of ritual symbolism, the centrality of the altar fire in the cultic thinking of the Old Testament and the theological thought of the New. I hope that it will bring about a reappraisal of certain stock images from biblical vocabulary–whether fire, brightness, “unquenchableness,” radiance, darkness, and the meaning of biblical metaphors for punishment. It draws lines of connection from Levitical law all the way through to the final resurrection of the dead.

Who Were the M‘amadot?

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Yesterday, I came across a pretty obscure reference in a book by Jim Davila, the most profilic of biblical bloggers to whom I have linked for years. He wrote a commentary on some of the Dead Sea Scrolls entitled Liturgical Works (Eerdmans, 2000). On p. 242, I found this tidbit on the so-called “Words of the Luminaries” (4Q504, 4Q506). Davila speculates that the text

“was used in the m‘amadot service (a pre-Mishnaic institution in which delegations of lay representatives would participate in the temple sacrificial services for a week at a time).”

Twenty-Four Divisions of Lay People

Huh? I had never heard of the m‘amadot. Who were they? Unfortunately, there is very little information about them out there. The word is a feminine plural, which means “stands” or “posts.” The Encylopedia Britannica has a tiny entry on them. Even the Jewish Encyclopedia is extremely sparing in its reference.  It distinguishes between on the one hand, the “mishmarot,” which were the 24 divisions of the Levitical priests who would take turns serving at the temple, and on the other hand, the m‘amadot, which were 24 divisions of lay people that mirrored the 24 divisions of the Levitical priests. The JE says that “on the return from the Exile 24 (Israelite) ammudim (m‘amadot) were established, parallel to the priestly and Levitical mishmarot (Tosef., Ta’an. 4:2).”

 

The Talmud on the m‘amadot

There is a reference to the m‘amadot in Ta’anit 27b: “Rabbi Ya’akov bar Aḥa said that Rav Asi said: Were it not for the non-priestly watches and the Temple service, heaven and earth would not continue to exist, as it is stated: “And he said: Lord God, by what shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (Genesis 15:8)” (see sefaria.org). So the laity, not just the priests, kept watches in the temple—and at least to some rabbinic authorities, their role in the temple service was cosmically necessary. This section also goes on to describe the deeds of the m‘amadot: they would remain “in their towns and would assemble in the synagogue and observe four fasts each week to correspond with the days of creation:

  • Monday: a fast for seafarers, “as the sea was created on Monday”
  • Tuesday: a fast for “those who walk in the desert, as the dry land was created on Tuesday”
  • Wednesday: a fast that children would not fall subject to croup – corresponding to the day on which the luminaries (me’orot) were created (a word similar to “curses” me’erot)
  • Thursday: for pregnant women for “living beings” were first created on this day
  • Friday: no fast since it was Sabbath eve
  • Sabbath: no fast

I’m left wondering when these people would eat! I guess they would eat a huge feast on the sabbath to be sustained throughout all these fasts.

 

The Word of the Luminaries and the M‘amadot

Davila points to a source by Daniel K. Falk to illustrate his point. I’ll quote a whole paragraph here so we get some context:

“Another possibility, if we continue our speculation along these lines a bit further, is a connection of the weekly prayers in Words of the Luminaries with the lay ma‘amadot services. About these little is known, and there is not even a hint that communal prayer placed any part in these services, although scholars often assume that it must have. Nevertheless, that each course [i.e. division, of the 24 divisions] met for one week would make a weekly cycle of prayer appropriate, and their reading of particular passages from the creation story in sequence for each day of the week is at least analogous to the weekday prayers in Words of the Luminaries which also follow a historical progression, albeit from creation to post-exilic times.” (Daniel K. Falk, Daily, Sabbath, & Festival Prayers, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, vol. XXVII [Brill, 1998] p. 91)

Now Falk doesn’t say a whole lot here, but he does highlight the fact that the nature of these m‘amadot services likely included communal prayer. The groups met for a week at a time and perhaps this one source we have from the Dead Seas Scrolls, “The Words of the Luminaries,” is an example of a text that they would pray when they gathered.

Consolidating Insights on the m‘amadot

While the sources are patchy at best, we can pull together a few key insights on the groups of lay people referred to as the m‘amadot:

  1. There were twenty-four divisions of m‘amadot that paralleled the twenty-four divisions of the Levitical priests.
  2. These groups took turns attending the daily temple liturgies (the Tamid) a week at a stretch.
  3. Their observance included specific daily fasts for specific intentions.
  4. Their observance probably included communal daily prayer.

It would be nice if we had more ancient sources describing the function and practice of the m‘amadot but there is not much there. Perhaps there are some interesting works out there that say more. For now, I think of the m‘amadot as the daily Mass-goers of Second Temple Judaism. They were dedicated lay people who came to the temple to worship every day when their division was on duty. In this way, they were quasi-priestly kind of like the Nazirites who would take a special vow for a time period. They remind me also of the apostles in the book of Acts who were “going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour” (Acts 3:1), which would indicate the time of the evening sacrifice. While we cannot be sure, perhaps some of the early believers were members of the m‘amadot. I hope that over time we can learn more about these interesting devout Jewish worshippers from the Second Temple era.

 

For further reading:

The only additional reference that I have not had time to pursue is Esther Eshel and Ḥanan Eshel, “4Q471 Fragment 1 and Maʻamadot in the War Scroll,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18-21 March 1991, 611–20, (Brill, 1992).

Very Bloody Sacrifices

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altarstoke

Recently, I had an email back-and-forth with my friend who was wondering about the bloody nature of Old Testament sacrifice.

The conversation begins with his inquiry:

I’ve been trying to learn details of how OT Temple sacrifices were actually done. I’ve found articles that distinguish the different types of sacrifices and describe what they are but nothing that gives a concrete picture of how they were done. On the principle that God taught the Jews how to offer sacrifice so they would be prepared to understand Jesus’ sacrifice of himself to atone for sin I’d like to learn more about what a First Century Jew would have seen and experienced at the Temple.

For example, commentaries and articles explain that a holocaust sacrifice meant burning up the animal completely. How did they actually burn up a full-grown bull completely? Seems like it would take a very large fire and take hours to fully reduce the carcass to ashes. If they offered ten bulls and 50 goats as a holocaust how did they do it? Seems like it would take all day and use a lot of wood. (The Romans are usually blamed for the deforestation of the region around Jerusalem. Was it actually the priests?)

Communion or peace sacrifices involved giving some of the meat of the animal to the worshipper that provided the animal to be eaten as a sacred meal. How was that done? Did the priest butcher the animal on the Temple Mount in front of the people, skin the animal and then carve it up into various pieces some of which were given to the worshipper to cook and eat. Where did the worshipper who brought a sheep from Nazareth go to cook and eat his part of the animal. Was eating their share of the animal a festive meal like Christmas dinner or a religious rite like the Passover?

If the apostles had understood what Jesus foretold they would have expected that Jesus was going to be the sacrificial victim to atone for the sins of the world and that they would eat of his flesh and drink his blood just as one did with temple sacrifices. What images and experiences would have been in their minds? When they later realized the full truth of what Jesus did and what it meant to eat his body and drink his blood how would that have affected them given their long exposure to Temple sacrifice?

Are there any books I could read on the subject? Any good articles or lectures?

My initial response, I’ll admit, did not answer every question, but here it is:

Your question is very important, and, unfortunately understudied. My sense is that Protestants, who make up the bulk of biblical scholars, care little for questions of liturgical procedure. These minutia are more interesting to Catholics, Mormons and Jews. One other problem is that many biblical scholars regard the ritual texts of the OT as mere fantasy and believe that they do not describe a real cult that actually existed.

A handful of scholars address the questions:

  • Haran, M. 1978. Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel. Oxford. (very expensive! A collection of the author’s earlier articles)
  • Jacob Milgrom –  a Jewish scholar who wrote multiple commentaries on Leviticus
  • Jonathan Greer – an evangelical biblical archaeologist – https://www.cornerstone.edu/staff/jonathan-greer/
  • Gary Anderson (at Notre Dame) has written quite a bit about OT sacrifice.
  • G.K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (an evangelical NT scholar, focuses on temple symbolism)
  • You might check out the work of the evangelical Leviticus scholar, Jay Sklar
  • Also of interest might be The Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy by Margaret Barker.

Since the biblical texts are not specific enough, it only later in the Qumran material (Jubilees, Temple Scroll) and the rabbinic sources (esp. fifth division of the Mishnah, Kodashim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodashim ; Available at Sefaria – https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Zevachim.1?lang=bi ) that the details of the ceremonies are fleshed out. Again, for the rabbinic material, most scholars regard their comments as recalling an imagined past rather than actually describing real rituals. For some of that critique, turn here: https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Temple-Making-Rabbis-Divinations/dp/0812244575

The classic text that tries to answer your questions is Alfred Edersheim’s The Temple—Its Ministry and Services (https://www.ccel.org/ccel/edersheim/temple.html ), but his work in general has been rejected as being uncritically and sometimes inaccurately reliant on rabbinic sources. However, he might be one of the best biblical scholar-authors at inspiring the imagination and filling out the picture.

My conversation partner later supplied a great quote about bloody sacrifice in the time of Julian the Apostate, which illustrates the gruesome nature of sacrifices:

Ammianus writes that “he drenched the altars with the blood of too great a number of victims, at time sacrificing a hundred bulls at once . . . he was called a slaughterer rather than a priest by many . . . and though he took offense at this, he controlled his feelings and continued to celebrate the festivals.”  Yet even despite such a spectacle as this, the ordinary people stayed home. “In the temples, after he had spent a long time with his tunic tucked up and sweating like a slave at quartering his victims, he would suddenly realize that almost all the spectators had quietly walked away.”  (Bennett, Rod. The Apostasy That Wasn’t: The Extraordinary Story of the Unbreakable Early Church (Kindle Locations 3670-3674). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.)

I was able to offer up a few things in response:

  1. That many scholars believe the Temple in Jerusalem had a drainage system to evacuate all the animal blood from the sanctuary
  2. That you can actually find a handful of videos of Jewish (and Samaritan) animal sacrifice on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-KPnmSj_TA

Conclusion

Here are a handful of takeaways from this wide-ranging conversation worth thinking about:

  • Old Covenant animal sacrifice was technical and bloody. To perform it properly involved a lot of logistical challenges like large amounts of fire wood, sufficient numbers of priests, caring for animals before they were sacrificed and disposing of their blood and remains properly.
  • Early Christian perceptions of Jesus as sacrificial lamb would be shaped by Jewish experience of animal sacrifice at the Temple. The shocking, violent nature of his death could be interpreted in light of the public slaughter and sacrifice of animals at the Temple.
  • While many scholars disregard the OT sacrificial cult as a fantasy or as unimportant, a serious consideration of its technical execution can help bring together insights from archaeology (as in the work of Jonathan Greer), liturgy and biblical theology. In fact, recently NT scholars have started to see “cultic language” all over the New Testament literature, emphasizing the centrality of Temple-worship in the consciousness of the earliest Christians.