Bruce Walker's BEFORE THE LIGHT WAS SPOKEN: The Shofar and the Flame explores the need for a new faith that's born through the Bride of Christ. The text deconstructs much of the old belief systems, pointing out the influence of Greek scholars and how intellectualism moved to the forefront—erasing the value of relationships between people and Yahua (also known as Jesus). Walker introduces the importance of truth and writes about what it means to be a person in relationship with Yahua. That includes an exploration of truth, lies, and identity—as well as a surrender to divine will, divine time, rest, and what it means to be a person living in relationship to the Divine.
While arguing for a move towards faith that's built on relationship or covenant, the book offers a radical shift in its focus on the value of the feminine (and, indeed, the divine nature of the feminine): “So ought men to love their women as their own bodies. He that loves his woman loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it.” Female significance is underlined once again in the transformation that will come through the Bride of Christ: “She now stops consuming and starts declaring. She will disrupt systems. She carries power that religious organizations cannot replicate. She carries the flame, the voice, and the covenant authority of the Name.” The value of the female is also realized through the 144,000 virgins: women of true faith who have worshipped no false gods.
Finally, Walker moves on to assess the relationship between human beings, land, and the singing of old songs—which moves people away from a structured or capitalist world. This is another section that can be useful for the spiritually restless and those who have lost faith in a power-based, intellectual, and anthropocentric religion.
Although the author states that BEFORE THE LIGHT WAS SPOKEN was completed with the assistance of ChatGPT, the text itself presents as a sermon—using short, punchy clauses and repetition to create a nice rhythm: "When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the deep; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep.” The assertive language adds a binary nature to what is essentially a thoughtful, dynamic, and radical book that, in a time of capitalism and corruption, is also desperately needed.
By exploring the power of covenant, time, identity, and old songs in a rhythmic, sermon-like fashion, Bruce Walker's BEFORE THE LIGHT WAS SPOKEN: The Shofar and the Flame boldly challenges the structures of modern capitalism and argues for the rebirth of a relationship to the Divine.
~ Nicci Attfield for IndieReader