Jacob in STOSS

1). After receiving the blessing of his father, Jacob is sent to find a bride. When he came to a certain place, he took a stone, laid his head upon it, and went to sleep. As he slept, he dreamed of a ladder upon which angels ascended and descended. Then the Lord spoke to Jacob, saying, “… your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth” (Gen. 28:14). We know what dust of the earth means. When he awoke, he set up the stone upon which he slept as a pillar and anointed it with oil, and called the place Bethel (Gen. 28:28-29). Bethel is the Hebrew word for “house of God,”[1] which the Temple is. The stone pillar Jacob calls the house of God foreshadows the incarnate Jesus,[2] the Anointed One [recall that Jacob poured oil on the stone pillar], whose resurrected body will be the eternal Temple that will replace Herod’s Temple.[3] This rebuilt Temple will become the dwelling place of God on earth (cf. Col. 1:18-20).

When Jacob awoke from his dream, he said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:17). What is meant by the phrase gate of heaven? According to Hildegard, it is the heavenly Jerusalem — the NC Temple of the Living God.[4] The stone pillar is an appropriate symbol of the meta-sense-able reality of the certain place because Jesus is Truth. Catherine of Siena specifically links the gate of truth with Truth incarnate (the embodied Son of God). She tells us the Father is one with this gate.[5] When we go through this gate, we find ourselves in the Father. Not just close to the Father — but IN the Father. That would only be possible through marriage to the Bridegroom — the Temple rebuilt in three days. The risen Body of Christ.

The stone pillar represents the Temple, but the gate is that which we pass through to enter into the Temple — but the two are the same. The gate represents the salt of DNA of his body present in the Eucharist through which we receive Living Water.[6] Jacob’s stone pillar, i.e., the gate, foreshadows the meta-sense-ably literal cornerstone not made by human hands of the rebuilt Temple of eternal life. It is the scriptural counterpoint to the meta-sense-ably literal salt pillar of death — Idit (the name of Lot’s wife). Her gate (disobedience to God) is the door to death, not life. The location where Idit became a pillar of salt is of no minor significance. Lot’s escape route was from Sodom (Gen. 19:1) to Zoar (Gen. 19:22-23). The entire trip kept them relatively close to the eastern and southern shores of the Dead Sea (see endnote).[7] You may recall from Ezekiel’s dream (Chapters 40-47 in Ezekiel, esp. 47), the Dead Sea was used to signify lifelessness and unfruitfulness — a complete deprivation of Living Water.  

2). There are only two ways to purify our spiritual soul and our physical body. Specifically, it requires the Sacramental and Actual graces received through the rebuilt Temple of Jesus risen and Glorified Body. He designed our DNA to react and adapt to our behavior — even that which we think about. The term I coined to describe this phenomenon is BEIRBO (the scientific words are epigenetic plasticity and heritability), an acronym for Behavioral and Environmental Input w/Reactive Biological Output. Is there any scriptural evidence to support this belief?

In Genesis 30:25-36, we read of Jacob’s colored rods or, as I like to call them, his BEIRBO rods. After working for Laban (the father of his future bride, Rachel) and greatly multiplying Laban’s flocks of sheep, Jacob agreed to take as his wages the spotted, striped, speckled, and black sheep of Laban’s flocks. Unbeknownst to Jacob, however, Laban instructed his sons to sequester all of those types of sheep far away from all the others so that only white sheep remained. Let’s pick up the story from there. We read:

Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods. He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the runnels, that is, the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the rods and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his own droves apart, and did not put them with Laban’s flock. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding Jacob laid the rods in the runnels before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the rods, but for the feebler of the flock he did not lay them there; so the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. (Gen. 30:37-42).

In the following Endnote, more about the real-world application of this story can be better understood.[8]

3). In Genesis 28:1-2, Jacob’s father, Isaac , said to him, “You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women. Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethu′el your mother’s father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.” Incidentally, Jacob’s dream sequence occurred on the way to Jacob’s finding one of Laban’s daughters to marry.

Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the people of the east. As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and lo, three flocks of sheep lying beside it; for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was large, and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well, and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place upon the mouth of the well. … While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep; for she kept them. Now when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and wept aloud (Gen 29: 2-3, 9-11).

So, what does this story, through the eyes of STOSS, tell us. The heavy stone covering the well from which Rachel — his future bride and a type of the Church [Cyprian, “Treatise 12,” Book 2, n. 20] — would water her father Laban’s sheep (Gen. 29:9-10). The heavy stone is a type of the heaviness of Jesus’ mortal body (yet one of unchangeable Truth) which had to be rolled away (through his Passion and Crucifixion, symbolized by the heavy stone that covered his tomb) before Rachel (the Church) could access the living water in the well. When this heavy stone is rolled away, Rachel (the Church) could withdraw Living Water through the mouth (the body) of the stone well (i.e., Jesus’ body composed of stone/dust of DNA), representing the resurrected glorified physical body of Jesus, and distribute it to her sheep — i.e., the Baptized in water and Spirit. The glorified (i.e., no longer mortal) body of the resurrected Jesus could not prevent him from exiting the tomb. Thus, rolling the stone away was more for symbolic reasons. The heavy stone atop Rachel's well was a type of the heavy stone covering Jesus tomb. The stone covering the exit from Jesus' tomb was a type of the antitype, i.e., Jesus' resurrected glorified body. Jesus' glorified body is the instument through which the Holy Spirit enters, once again, into physical creation — giving us Living Water.

A). DNA software (detailed later) is altered, thus altering genetic function through epigenetic plasticity. Scripture references to clay and mud also refer to this phenomenon (e.g., Job 33:6, Sir. 33:13, Jer. 18:16, Is. 45:9, and many others);

B). Both environment and individual behavior can trigger epigenetic change;

C). Epigenetics is defined as “the study of changes in gene function that are mitotically[Mitosis involves the division of body cells] and/or meiotically[Meiosis involves the division of sex cells (gametes), i.e., sperm or egg cells] heritable and that do not entail a change in the DNA sequence [i.e., the hardware of the DNA— SML].”[Dupont C, Armant DR, Brenner CA (September 2009). "Epigenetics: definition, mechanisms and clinical perspective". Seminars in Reproductive Medicine. 27 (5): 351–7. doi:10.1055/s–0029–1237423. PMC 2791696. PMID 19711245.] The epigenetic mechanism is like the software used to tell a computer what to do. It invokes functional change via chemical tags called methyl groups working in conjunction with histones. The operating result will turn a gene’s production (expression) of proteins on or off. Genes altered by epigenetic methylation can be passed on to succeeding generations — up to the third or fourth generation (cf., Ex 20:5, 34:7; Num. 14:18; Deut. 5:9).