Paradise and Leopards

The familiar noun παραδεισος (paradeisos) was as foreign to Koine Greek as it is to English, but where in English this word has come to describe either the Garden of Eden, heavenly bliss in general or the agreeable conditions of the New Jerusalem, in Greek it simply referred to any hyper-cultivated enclosure or park. The more common Greek word for such a place was κηπος (kepos).

Our noun παραδεισος (paradeisos) was imported from Persia, probably along with the structure it described, namely carefully manicured parks that mostly featured flowers, fruit trees and fragrant shrubs along paths and benches for visitors to repose on. These visitors would not have been common people since the economic burden of such a park could only have been borne by the very rich and powerful. Still, the introduction of the Persian παραδεισος (paradeisos) must have caused quite the culture shock to the non-Persian world, where agricultural lands were used to grow food and wood and to range cattle (see our article on the noun αγρος, agros, field).

The introduction of the παραδεισος (paradeisos) to the traditional agricultural world was probably on a par with the introduction of books-for-fun to the traditional world of the written or printed word, which was once reserved for Holy Scriptures. And something similar again happened when onto the world of IBM main frames — which was the world of governments, the military, academia and very large private companies — was born the PC, initially in the clownesque guise of the game computer, but quickly as unmissable instrument of all things textual and computistic for the common people.

Like the small urban gardens we moderns have around our houses, the divertive novels we keep on our bookshelves, and the laptops and smart phones we center our lives on, so is the Paradise spoken of by the New Testament a matter of vast clouds of tiny versions of what once seemed a miracle, if not a flippant departure from the virtues of practicality and functionality (1 Thessalonians 4:17, Hebrews 12:1). Because of the association to lofty religious ideals, the Greco-Persian word παραδεισος (paradeisos) should not be translated with Paradise, simply because it doesn't mean that. Instead, our word should be translated with the accepted modern equivalent: the Social Network, in all the futuristic senses of the word.

Jesus told the man who was crucified with him that he would be with him in παραδεισος (paradeisos; Luke 23:43). Contrary to popular folklore, Jesus won't have a "Second Coming" because he never left. The last words Jesus spoke in the form of a human individual were: "I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). Upon the outpour of the Holy Spirit, the Assembly — or εκκλεσια (ekklesia) — became alive; not simply as one more hobby club but as an autonomous living being (compare Genesis 2:7 to Genesis 13:6, then Galatians 3:7, then Acts 2:4). In fancy terms we say that Christ is incarnate in his people, and his people are a living and breathing social network (Acts 2:42-47, Ephesians 4:3-6). That means that the man who was crucified with Jesus is incarnate in the Assembly as well.

As mentioned above, our noun παραδεισος (paradeisos) is Persian, and comes from the Proto-Indo-European roots "per-", meaning around, and "dheigh-", to form or build (see 1 Peter 2:5). The first root also gave us the familiar Greek prefix περι (peri), meaning around or about (and thus the many peri- compounds, like for instance, the noun περιστερα, peristera, dove). Its Persian counterpart, however, emphasized abundance, wealth and luxury. From the second root also came the verb τιθημι (tithemi), to set or put, which is often proposed to be the source of the familiar noun θεος (theos), or God.

To a Greek speaker who was not familiar with ancient Farsi, our noun παραδεισος (paradeisos) probably looked like it had to do with the prefix παρα (para), meaning near or close to. And the second part of our noun probably looked like it had to do with the verb διω (dio), to put to flight, from which derived the verb δειδω (deido), to fear, from which in turn stemmed the noun δεισιδαιμονια (deisidaimonia), fear of the gods, which was a catch-all word for all sorts of religious feelings (both negative and positive).

Our noun παραδεισος (paradeisos) is used in the New Testament in Luke 23:43, 2 Corinthians 12:4 and Revelation 2:7 only.

The noun παρδαλις (pardalis) commonly refers to the animal that we moderns call the leopard: basically a big cat or small lion, but endowed with signifying spots. And although the word is female, it simply refers to any individual of the species, regardless of biological gender. In the first century, leopards were still common in the levant, and although it's unlikely that a man of letters would ever have had to encounter a live one, leopard skins were common decorations in the Roman world. Still, a man of letters would have known about the leopard almost exclusively from its descriptions in literature. To a man of letters, a παρδαλις (pardalis) was almost exclusively whatever other men of letters had written about it.

Our word παρδαλις (pardalis) occurs in the New Testament in Revelation 13:2 only, in John's vision of the Beast from the Sea, which somehow is like a leopard. But in possibly what way? Leopards detest water and won't go in it. So how is anything coming out of water like a leopard? And how is something that has seven heads and ten horns like a leopard? What is it about this horrendous thing that has John declare that it is like a leopard"? It very clearly doesn't look like one.

When John wrote, he was on Patmos, which is about 300 kilometer straight south of where Troy had stood (as far in John's past as the crusades are in ours). The northernmost of the seven churches which John addressed was situated about 100 kilometer to the south-east of Troy, namely Pergamum, whose name derived from Priam, the king of Troy during the famous siege. As literally everybody in John's original audience would have known, Rome's royal elite boasted descent from a surviving Trojan prince, namely Aeneas, second cousin of Hector and Paris, sons of king Priam, whose journey from the ruins of Troy to the Latin hamlet that would be Rome was told of by Virgil in his formidable epic Aeneid: the foundational text of the Roman Empire (what Homer's epics were to Greece and the Books of Moses were to Israel).

There have been many battles in antiquity but the battle of Troy stands out, as it was not simply a war for territory and resources but about the importance of law and covenant. Modern humanity can exist only when covenants (such as a marriage contract) are sacrosanct and upheld at all cost, even cost of life. When Helen, the legal wife of king Menelaus of Sparta, allowed her private feelings to supersede Sparta's public law, and eloped with prince Paris of Troy, she forced the Greeks to choose between a collective retreat into an eternal state of lawless beastliness, or to go to war on feelings and subdue the "beloved city" and "sacred citadel" that was Troy. Something very similar happens in Genesis 12:10-20, where the Pharaoh is forced to make a distinction between a sister (a biological distinction, like that of prince) and a wife (a legal definition), as he balances the sentiments of שרי פרעה (sare phar'o), the princes of Pharaoh, and the legal status of שרי אשת אברם (saray 'eset abram), Sarai wife of Abram (the pun is that the name Sarai and the term "princes of" are spelled identical: שרי, s-r-y).

In his Iliad, Homer writes how initially the Trojans "resembled timorous hinds, that in the woodlands become the prey of jackals, of wolves and leopards" (Il.13.103, in the most riveting translation of Peter Green, 2015). Nobody in John's original audience would not have thought of Psalm 42:7, where a deer pants for water and "Deep cries out to Deep" (תהום, tehom, means noisy waters: see Revelation 17:15). Later, the Greek king Menelaus (of Sparta, legal husband of Helen) reacts to the threats of the angered Trojan Euphorbus by saying, "Of neither lion nor leopard is the rage so great, nor of the deadly wild boar, in whose breast the greatest fury exults in its strength ..." (Il.17.20).

Just prior to the Greek hero Achilles slaying the Trojan prince Hector Horse-master (whose funeral, and not the fall of Troy, marks the end of the Iliad), Greek Achilles is assailed by Trojan Agenor (the ostensible namesake of a famous Phoenician king of Tyre and Sidon), who "crouched awaiting Achilles, and in him his courageous heart was eager for warfare and battle. As a leopard will sally forth from the deepest thicket to confront a hunter, nor does her courage fail her, nor does she panic on hearing the baying of hounds, for though the hunter may spear her or shoot her first, yet she'll still not abandon her prowess, even when spitted on the spear ..." (Il.21.571-578, see Revelation 13:3).

Trojan Agenor rises from his cover and loudly mocks Achilles' hope of sacking Troy that day, and cries, "Much sorrow's to come still in the matter of Troy, since within her we, her warriors, are many and strong!" (Il.21.585-586), which to anyone in John's original audience would have sounded like Legion speaking (Mark 5:9).

In several of our articles (on Syracuse, Adramyttium, Malta) we explain that Luke's Book of Acts clearly aims to cater to the Nostoi or "Return Home" genre, of which the Odessey and the Aeneid are the most famous examples. In the Odessey (the story of Odysseus' ten year journey home after he sacked Troy by means of the Great Horse), we meet up with king Menelaus, who has recaptured Helen (with obvious parallels to the story of Hosea and Gomer; which is also about the supremacy of law over feelings), and tells the story of the Old Man of the Sea, who is a compound character of several Greek water-gods and servant of Poseidon (who in turn is quite clearly linked to aspects of the subconscious, whereas Zeus associates to the rational conscious, and Hades to memory and legacy). While king Menelaus and company look on, the Old Man of the Sea comes out of the sea to inspect a parade of beasts-from-the-sea that have arrayed themselves on the beach. Menelaus and company pounce on him, and wrestle him to the ground — but "first he became a bearded lion, then a serpent, then a leopard, then a gigantic boar!" (Od.4.457).

In our article on the noun θηριον (therion), which is the word for "beast" that John uses, we point out that anything living does not necessarily have to have one physical body, and may very well be a swarm or a collective (many beasts) with a single unifying "spirit" (the Old Man of the Sea). This happens in the Bible all the time, but perhaps most famously when Israel the man becomes Israel the people, and again when Christ the individual becomes the collective Body of Christ.

One of the many functions of the Greek New Testament is to illustrate and demonstrate, to Greek speakers, the vast superiority of Hebrew over any other language (1 Corinthians 2:4). One of the crucial differences comes in Hebrew's deploy of the singular and plural, because when Hebrew refers to a class, it uses the singular. Hence, in Hebrew we may declare that our city was sacked by the Amalekite, or our crop was eaten by the locust, but we don't mean that there was ever only one Amalekite or one locust. We refer to a class, so we use the singular. Entirely likewise, the worm that attacked Jonah's tree (Jonah 4:7) was never just one single worm. Entirely likewise, the dove that descended on Jesus was never just one single dove. In fact, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, he assumed the physical image of the dove (see Luke 3:22 but also Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, John 1:32), which has prompted droves of artists to depict the Holy Spirit as one single dove. But the image of a dove is that of vast abundance, covering the whole earth with a snow-white blanket of free food (meek flesh and eggs for the picking) and perching on anything that sticks out (and see our article on περιστερα, peristera, which is the word for dove, and literally means "all over the place"; also see Song of Solomon 4:1, 5:12, and Ezekiel 10:12 relative to Revelation 4:8; the Hebrew word for eye, namely עין, 'ayin, also means fountain).

Entirely likewise, when God created the man, he did not create one single individual, but rather a class named Adam. The man is mankind, because a single human is nothing but an animal (Psalm 73:22, Ecclesiastes 3:18, 2 Peter 2:12, Jude 1:10), whereas "humanity" is defined by language and culture and those are emergent attributes of societal engagement (that's Eve, who emerges from Adam's "side"). If we acknowledge that minds attain life when they attain humanity (Ephesians 2:1), then the "dust of the earth" from which YHWH formed the body of Adam (in Genesis 2:4) equals the animals Elohim created during the creation week. Entirely likewise, God promised to Abraham that his seed would be like the dust of the earth (Genesis 13:16), then likewise gathered that semi-living "dust" (Galatians 3:7), and likewise released into that collective his unifying Spirit (Acts 2:4), so that now Ecclesia emerged as a whole new spiritual lifeform, made from the sub-living dust-souls that emerged likewise before.

God created Adam (i.e. humanity, which is cultural and societal), famously "in his image", which does not mean that he made Adam into the image of one single naked guy since God also looks like one single naked guy. Instead, the image of God is the image of the Republic (a decentralized community united by love and a single spirit), which is why God is love (1 John 4:8) and spirit (John 4:24), who "binds" people with the "bonds" of freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17, Galatians 5:1, Matthew 11:29, James 1:25), and whose perfection we are to imitate (if we are indeed to assume his image: Ephesians 5:1, Matthew 5:48) is one of societal unity (Ephesians 4:1-6, John 17:21-23).

But this implies that the "beast from the sea" is almost certainly not a biological entity but a societal one. It's a so-called "people movement", which refers to any kind of school of thought or fashion or code of conduct, good or bad, constructive or not, technological or ideological or something else — like Nazism or Capitalism or United Europe or Wikipedia or Environmentalism or anything at all that has many bodies and one mind or conviction or motivation or creed (or hero or deity). John's beast may actually very well be a language, and a culture associated with that language (for some hints: see our article on Mesopotamia).

In our article on the Greek word for lion, namely λεον (leon), we discuss this word's striking similarity to the noun λαος (laos), people, as well as the adverb λεως (leos), wholly or entirely, which is turn relates to the adverb λιαν (lian), very, very much or greatly, noun ληις (leis), booty or spoil, and the noun lucrum, profit, from which derives the English adjective "lucrative". So no, a king named Leonidas is not simply a boy called Leo or even a proverbial Lion's Cub, in a Hakuna Matata sort of way. Instead, a king named Leonidas is a ruler who has total control and brings in massive wealth for his people, in a Make Sparta Great Again sort of way.

Likewise, in order to begin to understand John's vision, we must first understand the word παρδαλις (pardalis), which in English is leopard, the first element of which, namely "leo-", is patently similar to λεον (leon), lion. The corresponding Greek part, namely -λις (-lis) is not common in Greek, and judging from how this word inflects, it's not the same -lis as the -lis of, say, μοιχαλις (moichalis), adulteress. To mind comes the Latin noun lis, contention (hence our English verb to litigate), also because the Hebrew word for lion cub, namely גור (gor), derives from the verb גרה (gara), meaning to strive or agitate strife. From that same root comes the formation יגור (yagur), he will fight, sojourn or terrify (see the name Jagur), which may have helped the European adoption of the word "jaguar" (from a native South American word yaguara, wild beast). Also from this root, the noun תגרה (tigra), contention or opposition, is suspiciously similar to the word "tiger" (see our article on the name Tigris), whereas the familiar word "panther" combines the Greek words παν (pan), all or whole (not unlike the adverb λεως, leos, wholly or entirely, we just mentioned), and θηρ (ther), beast, from which comes John's word for beast: θηριον (therion), as noted above. Where the Latin lis comes from isn't clear, but lacking a better explanation, a good bet would be that our element -λις (-lis), likewise, derives from some word for lion.

The last element of our word in English, namely "-pard", is the same as the first element of our word in Greek, "pard-". However, both these words appear to be corrupted versions of some unknown original — possibly, but not without problems, connected to the Sanskrit word for leopard, namely "prdaku". However, this Sanskrit "prdaku" may also refer to a sort of scorpion, a panther, an elephant, a kind of tree and a sort of snake. The snakes, as the Vedas teach, live in the endless bowels of the earth, where there are palaces and houses beyond count (which reminds of John 14:2). This very strongly suggest that these snakes are not physical reptiles but "people movements", quite like John's Beast from the Sea.

Neither in Greek nor in English exists a verbal element "pard-" or "-pard" that means anything. If it resembles anything, it's the Dutch word "paard", meaning horse, what in German is Pferd (and the assumed result of an inexplicable contraction of the Latin term paraveredus, which describes a kind of special horse, and which in turn is of unknown but possibly Celtic etymology). A horse is not a leopard, of course, although both are similarly signified by their magnificent speed. And when Hosea says: "Their horses are swifter than leopards" (Habakkuk 1:8), we should remember that the word for horse, namely סוס (sus), also denotes the swallow, the famously agile bird. Dutch for leopard is "luipaard", which, without the central non-break space, is identical to the term "lui paard", which means "lazy horse". This is rather remarkable, also because the Greek word for giraffe is καμηλοπαρδαλις (kamelopardalis), or camel-leopard, evidently on account of its spots and somewhat camelesque physique (and whoever said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee?).

But jest aside, all this serves to illustrate that European words for big cats (and horses, and giraffes) haven't made a great deal of sense for a great deal of time. Quite to the contrary, the English word camel and its Greek version, namely καμηλος (kamelos), derive directly from the Hebrew noun גמל (gamal), meaning camel. The word for lion, likewise, appears to derive from a Hebrew original, namely לבי (lebay), hence a name like Libya, or Lion Land.

The Hebrew and Aramaic word for leopard (as John's vision obviously ties into the one reported of in Daniel 7:6) is נמר (namar), and describes a notoriously dangerously stealthy and predatorial creature (Isaiah 11:6, Jeremiah 5:6, Hosea 13:7), who cannot change its spots — the word חברברה (habarbora) means spots, stripes, allies, clans, companies, federations, social media groups, subreddits: see Isaiah 53:5, "by his haburato, we are healed"; same word — as much as it can't change its nature (Jeremiah 13:23). This noun נמר (namar), leopard, is formally of unclear pedigree but closely resembles the Niphal masculine singular of the verb מור (mor), to exchange, so that נמר (namar) means "it has (ex)changed [itself]". Jeremiah 48:11 speaks of Moab and reads "... his spirit/smell has not נמר (namar)". With this, the prophet appears to imply that a leopard is something that is endowed with an unchanging nature of exchange, in a "everything changes except that" sort of way. Rather curious is that the plural of נמר (namar), namely נמרים (nemerim), see Song of Solomon 4:8, or Nimrim, meaning Leopards, appears to have been the name of some place noted for its waters: "For the waters of Nimrim are desolate" (Isaiah 15:6), and "even the waters of Nimrim will become desolate" (Jeremiah 48:34).

Here at Abarim Publications we propose that the "-pard" part of our word leopard is also ultimately Semitic, and specifically corresponds to the verb פרד (parad), meaning to divide, branch out or spread out (hence perhaps also the Greek verb σπειρω, speiro, to strew or scatter). This verb פרד (parad) is used to describe the formation of river deltas, the branching of nations from a common ancestor, the spreading of wings or the separating of individuals. It emphasizes diversification, success, prosperity and protection. From this verb derives the noun פרדה (peruda), which literally means "spreadling" and denotes seed (and note the pun on the name Nazareth, which may also mean Scattering). Likewise noun פרידא (perida) means pebble or berry. And nouns פרד (pered) and פרדה (pirda) mean mule, which suggests that mules were proverbially known for their habit of spreading out while grazing. Mules are not horses, of course, also because horses live in herds whereas mules and donkeys are predominantly solitary. Likewise, a leopard is not a lion, because lions live in prides and leopards are solitary.

A Greek speaker might be excused for imagining that our noun παρδαλις (pardalis) consists of the familiar prefix παρα (para), meaning nearly or almost, plus an expression of the verb δαιω (daio), to burn, and specifically the adjective δαιος (daios), meaning hostile or destructive, the noun δανος (danos), meaning parched, dry or burnt — which, portentously, is identical to noun δανος (danos), a loan, from the verb διδωμι (didomi), to give — and most specifically the noun δαλος (dalos), meaning firebrand or burnt out torch, which in the classics had been used to metaphorize a burned-out old man. This not only brings to mind the mythological Old Man of the Sea, but also the historical Emperor Titus (the Latin noun titio means firebrand) under whose command the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, who in 79 CE had succeeded his father Vespasian as Emperor as the very first biological Roman prince to do so, who died in 81 of fever (πυρετος, puretos, fever; πυρρος, purros, fire-colored; πυρ, pur, fire), and who was succeeded by his brother Domitian, who reigned from 81 to 96 and was probably incumbent when the Revelator wrote.

As we write in our article on the name Hellas (that's Greek for Greece): "The name Helen is identical to the noun ελενη (elene), meaning firebrand or torch. Isaiah 62:1 reads: "... her righteousness goes forth like brightness, and her salvation like a torch...". The Hebrew term translated with like a torch is כלפד (kalappid), which conspicuously resembles the Greek verb καλυπτω (kalupto), to cover, which relates to the name Calypso (καλυψω, kalupso), of the nymph who famously detained Odysseus for seven years on the island Ogygia (means primeval; but see the Biblical story of king Og). The derived noun αποκαλυψις (apokalupsis), or apocalypse, literally means discovery, disclosure or revelation. And it's the title that John gave his Book (Revelation 1:1).

So if — which, we admit, is a big if, but one we here at Abarim Publications wholehearted subscribe to — indeed the whole of human reality is neither a lawless chaos nor governed by squabbling and disagreeing deities but instead is governed by one single unified set of rules that can be learned so that reality becomes predictable, then the similarities between (1) Titus and Domitian, and (2) John's visions, are due to them both being reflections or iterations of something that is much more fundamental and authoritative and, most urgently, entirely relevant to our times today (Exodus 25:40, Psalm 78:2, Matthew 6:10, Colossians 2:17).

The modern term for this is "fractal": a fractal is a structure that repeats at different levels of complexity. That means that the same "event" happens multiple times, each time similar to any other time, so that there never truly is anything new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) and all things that happen, happen because they have happened before (1 John 4:19). And to pre-empt the inevitable question: we human individuals may become free — that's ελευθερια (eleutheria), freedom-by-law — to maneuver ourselves in whatever position we fancy, albeit in the knowledge that from every position we decide to settle on follows a predetermined fate (Deuteronomy 30:19, Joshua 24:15, 1 Kings 18:21, Matthew 7:13-14).

That said, a golden rule in complexity theory (and engineering, for that matter) is that whilst assessing a complex system: if you have to guess, then you will guess wrong. A complex system is a system that you can't accidentally guess right, so you either know quite intimately what the leopard is that John saw, and how this leopard relates to its native environment, and how its native environment relates to ours, or you don't, and when you don't, then John's beast might just as well be a giant penguin, or a muffin, or a paper party hat. It does not matter at all. Your safety is with the Lord, not with knowing how all these things work (Romans 16:19-20). And if you know how these things work, then: welcome to the rebellion (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, Titus 1:10-11, 3:1-2).