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* Who Was Melchizedek? Was he a man? Or was he God appearing to man, that is, a theophany? Pre-Incarnation divine appearances seem to be by Christophany, as both priestly and in-person revelations are the domain of God the Son. Yet Melchizedek wouldn't have been a Christophany because it is potentially catastrophic to say of Jesus that He had "no father". And Melchizedek certainly wasn't some co-eternal being other than God, as "no beginning of days" may imply to some. Was he then God the Father, the Holy Spirit, or a normal human being? The Book of Hebrews describes him as remaining "a priest continually." So that would seem to exclude him from being one of the other Persons of the Trinity, since only the Son is the priestly Mediator, and not the Father nor the Spirit. The Genesis passage provides the earliest reference to nascent Jerusalem. In that time of patriarchy/city states, the more familiar that Abraham was with the political leaders of Canaan the more likely it is that Melchizedek was a normal human being. As the King of Salem, Melchizedek was probably previously known to Abraham. After the "slaughter of the [other] kings" Abraham met first with the King of Sodom and then with the King of Salem. The fascinating Hebrews 7 passage says "so to speak" i.e., not literally, not about Melchizedek though, but about Levi. And the description of Melchizedek likewise could have been "so to speak", that is, containing symbolic language, which of course is so very common especially in the eastern/Hebrew/biblical use of metaphors and analogies. The brevity of the account, leaving out his earthly heritage, made Melchizedek an even better fit as a spiritual type. (The "king of Sodom" too had no genealogy reported in the text, but obviously that doesn't mean that he was yet another eternal being.) God, of course, had the authority to establish a human priesthood, as He did through Aaron. And likewise, He had the authority to establish a human priesthood, if He wanted to, through this guy Melchizedek, whose mantle Christ then inherited, not unlike Him inheriting David's throne.