In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1 NIV
John chapter one uses the word “Word” to describe Christ as a part of God. But besides the literal theological interpretation, why is it that God is described as “The Word?”
In the Book of Third Enoch, it is the patriarch Enoch who is credited with inventing written language, who ascends to Heaven and is transformed into the most exalted angel Metatron who serves as God’s Scribe. Why would God’s most exalted angel be a scribe?
Two attempts to answer both of those questions, perhaps it is because the written language has brought light, order, and structure to the human species, thus giving it an intimate association with divine order.
One of the things that makes humanity so successful as a species is its capacity for intellectual thought and ability to pass information down from one generation to the next. Before written language, humans passed information by word of mouth, but this was distorted and forgotten over time. Once written language was invented, it marked the turning point from the hunter-gatherer phase into a new era of agriculture, enlightenment, order, and law, first introduced through Hammurabi’s Code. Written then became the light through which we observe history and can remember and learn from what would otherwise be forgotten.
From the Rossetta Stone to the sacred texts of all the religions, to the Declaration of Independence, all writing from history has added to the collective knowledge and order of the human race, and something about that is profoundly sacred.
Metatron writing in the Book of Life. Image generated by ChatGPT.
