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Job: Covenant in Crisis

2009-07-15T17:58:00.022-04:00

Job in a classic attitude of dejection

"The Destruction of Leviathan" by Gustave Dore

Covenant in Crisis: the Book of Job

The title page of William Blake's remarkable illustration of the book of Job.

On the deepest level, the Book of Job is concerned with God's covenant with man. The body of the book, the poetic portion, is taken up with Job's demand to know why God has seemingly forsaken him; the book ends with his loss of faith reversed.

The changing nature of the Hebraic covenant can be traced thus. First, it entailed individual responsibility (with the Mosaic covenant), then dependence on regal sovereignty (with the Davidic covenant); and finally, with the collapse of both, it was comprised a radical faith in the endurance of divine grace, as manifested in God's covenant with Abraham (with Jeremiah). The book of Job is more than an elaboration on Jeremiah's conception of grace, however; it is an unflinching investigation that takes into full account its possible failure.

The crux of the book of Job lies in the shift in Job's perceptions from an anthrocentric to a theocentric view, from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican cosmogony, so to speak. By recognizing the limitations of his human perspective, Job evolves from demanding justice from God and believing the design of the universe is centered on mankind, to accepting the subordinate position of man, when he realizes that the reasons for human suffering will forever be unfathomable to the human eye.

Towards the end of the book, this epiphany is marked by a theophany (chapters 38-41) in which God mockingly points out what a fool man is to expect unfailing protection from harm, for Creation was not wrought for man's sake; man is but a minor component of it. By acknowledging God's omnipotence—through repentance—Job returns to His grace, symbolized in the last chapter by the resumption of his good fortune.

The transformation of Job's attitude from outrage to humility marks the increasing desperation of Hebrew theology that developed as traditional institutions and relationships inevitably corrupted as time wore on; it was almost the end of the road. With the failure of both the Mosaic and Davidic covenants, there was little doubt when the book of Job was composed that God's chosen people had failed Him.

At the time of the composition of the book of Job, the question was being raised among the Hebrew people of whether God might decide to turn his back on them. Using the leap of faith that all religions perform to surmount the stumbling-block of materialist rationality, Job is able to reorient himself in the cosmic order, by redefining his position in it.

Job's victory of coming to terms with man's lack of a supreme place in the universe exemplifies the tough-minded faith, humility, and sense of responsibility that insured Judaism's survival while virtually all of its competitors crumbled. Even so, it was unable to resist the temptation of shrill apocalyptic outbursts, as seen in Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.

Even Job, in 19: 25-9, longs for a Redeemer, a divine intercessor who will act as his defense lawyer against Satan's attorney for the prosecution. As it became revealed in subsequent history, the majority of the people of the Fertile Crescent lacked Job's hard-won faith, and in time they succumbed to their apocalyptic yearnings, to their need to listen to some good news for a change.

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Note: I originally wrote this essay as a Religion paper while a senior at Princeton in April 1977.

A Deal With God: A Review of "Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea" by Delbert R. Hillers

2009-03-21T16:51:00.031-04:00

A Deal With God: A Review of Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea by Delbert R. Hillers

In Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea, Delbert R. Killers seeks to describe the evolution of the Hebrew concept of a contractual agreement between God and man as it developed in the Scriptures. He begins in the first chapter by discussing the difficulties of such an undertaking, citing the inherent problems of Biblical scholarship and the varying shades of meaning the term "covenant" held to the Hebrews.

Most illuminating are his illustrations in the second chapter, through detailed literary analysis, of the impact that Near Eastern suzerainty treaties had on Jewish covenant theology. In succeeding chapters, with scholarship too detailed to recapitulate here, he examines the changing dimensions of God's special relationship with Israel as interpreted by Moses and Joshua, the Judges, the Patriarchs (Abraham and Noah), and the Kings (Saul and David).

After a chapter on the conditional covenant and its ancient Mesopotamian influences, he reveals how Jeremiah and the later prophets sought to rejuvenate decaying religious institutions and faith with the vision of a vague but glorious covenant of a markedly apocalyptic nature. Hillers concludes his survey with the argument, bolstered by further literary criticism, that the Essenes and the early Christians were both responding to Jeremiah's dream of a fresh covenant with a reassuring God, but both did so in distinctly individual fashions.

Perhaps owing to the demands of space, Hillers' study is superficial. Nowhere does he concisely summarize the overall argument of his book, leading one to question whether one exists. He never attempts to link the movement of one major shift in Hebrew theology, as marked by a significant transformation in the conception of the covenant, to another, and so give the overview to covenant theology that the subject so badly needs.

His concluding chapter, on covenant theology among the Essene sect and the first Christians, is especially notable for its hastiness; in one swoop he is flying from one totally different worldview to another. Overall he covers too broad a territory, in both a chronological and a theological sense, to provide a reader with any sense of a consistent argument. In Covenant he attempts too much in too short a space.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Killers, Delbert R. Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea. Baltimore: the Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969.

Note: I originally wrote this essay as a Religion paper while a senior at Princeton in 1977.

Behold the Glory of the Coming of the Lord: An Exegesis of Isaiah 7

2009-02-07T22:51:00.066-05:00

Gustave Dore's depiction of Isaiah 7

Behold the Glory of the Coming of the Lord: An Exegesis of Isaiah 7

To most fundamentalist Christians, Isaiah 7 is welcomed as a harbinger of the coming of Jesus Christ. The references to Immanuel are seen as explicit prefiguations of the advent of the Savior, Jesus the Christ.

However, as this academic paper below argues, there’s another interpretation to this famed Biblical text. When he wrote this scripture, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah didn’t have on his mind the unique political ferment to come in the Galilee under the reign of the emperor Tiberius. He was thinking about trouble at home, right then. Specifically, he was talking about the oppression the Israelites were suffering under the yoke of the brutal Assyrian conqueror Tiglath-pileser III.

Tiglath-pileser III

This fact doesn’t discount the possible interpretation that this chapter represents one of the heralds of the Advent of the Christian Lord. But also let’s remember that not everything in the Old Testament has to pertain to the New.

A note: There is a famous controversy regarding the Biblical interpretation of Isaiah 7: 17, known as the Isaiah 7:14 controversy. As the Wikipedia entry summarizes:

The original Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14 reads as follows (translated):

"Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman [ha-almah] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanu-el".^[1]

Jewish scholars reason that [ha-almah] ("young woman") does not refer to a virgin and that had the Tanakh intended to refer to such, the specific Hebrew word for virgin [bethulah] would have been used. This view is often disputed by Christians (see below), and has been a point of contention between Jews and Christians since the formation of the modern Church. Jerome, in 383 CE, wrote in "Adversus Helvidium" that Helvidius misunderstood just this same point of confusion between the Greek and the Hebrew.

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A striking contemporary rendering of the Virgin Mary

An original transcription of Isaiah 7

ISAIAH 7 – King James Version

Isaiah's Message to Ahaz

1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

3 Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;

4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,

6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:

7 Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

8 For the head of Syria is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

10 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying,

11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.

13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

17 The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

19 And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.

20 In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.

21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;

22 And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.

23 And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

24 With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.

25 And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

Isaiah 7 in Arabic

Isaiah 7 – Revised Standard Version

[1] In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzzi'ah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remali'ah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but they could not conquer it.

[2] When the house of David was told, "Syria is in league with E'phraim," his heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

[3] And the LORD said to Isaiah, "Go forth to meet Ahaz, you and She'ar-jash'ub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field,

[4] and say to him, `Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remali'ah.

[5] Because Syria, with E'phraim and the son of Remali'ah, has devised evil against you, saying,

[6] "Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Ta'be-el as king in the midst of it,"

[7] thus says the Lord GOD: It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.

[8] For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. (Within sixty-five years E'phraim will be broken to pieces so that it will no longer be a people.)

[9] And the head of E'phraim is Sama'ria, and the head of Sama'ria is the son of Remali'ah. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established."

[10] Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz,

[11] "Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven."
[12] But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test."
[13] And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?
[14] Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman [now believed to read: “virgin”] shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman'u-el.
[15] He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
[16] For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.
[17] The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that E'phraim departed from Judah -- the king of Assyria."
[18] In that day the LORD will whistle for the fly which is at the sources of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee which is in the land of Assyria.

[19] And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures.
[20] In that day the Lord will shave with a razor which is hired beyond the River -- with the king of Assyria -- the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also.

[21] In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep;

[22] and because of the abundance of milk which they give, he will eat curds; for every one that is left in the land will eat curds and honey.
[23] In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns.

[24] With bow and arrows men will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns;
[25] and as for all the hills which used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns; but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.

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Behold the Glory of the Coming of the Lord: An Exegesis of Isaiah 7

In the tradition of the authors of many other Scriptural passages, the author of Isaiah 7 wrote to meet the spiritual needs of his time and place, which, in the context of a God of history, embraced his age's social and political needs as well. The story told in Isaiah 7 is a page of Hebrew history; and although the reason behind the use of the third person can be debated, the third person certainly lends to the account an air of historical authority.

The Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem: the Way of Sorrow, the pathway Jesus staggered down beneath the weight of his Cross on the way to Golgotha, the Hill of Skulls

The first verse pinpoints the exact political circumstances in which the episode is taking place, to clarify the import of the lesson being taught; for Isaiah 7 was written to instruct the Jewish people how to cope in the days of the decay of the throne of David, during what the prophets saw as the reneging of the Davidic covenant by the kings of Judah.

The situation described in Isaiah 7 is firmly set in the political context of the time. Syria and Israel forged an alliance against Assyria to drive into Judah, when it became apparent that Ahaz was content to placate the Assyrians. With the survival of the throne of David imperative, God, true to his obligation in the Davidic covenant, acted to save Ahaz. He sent Isaiah to reassure Ahaz that the Syro-Ephraimite invasion was fated to fail and that as a result of its perfidy, the state of Israel would disintegrate inside sixty-five years (vss. 7-8). The point of vss. 8-9 is illuminated by Bernhard W. Anderson in Understanding the Old Testament: "The head of Ephraim is Pekah, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; but these are men, not God!" (1) In v. 9, God advises that faith in Himself is the only sure foundation of the throne of David.

But as vss. 10-12 make clear, Ahaz lacks that faith. When offered a sign of the Lord's support, he declines, feigning piety, thus exposing his own lack of faith. In response, Isaiah offers a gratuitous sign. As a messenger of the Lord's word, he informs Ahaz of the future with which God intends to invest Jewish history. As a symbol of this destiny, Isaiah use the figure of Immanuel, whose very name, meaning "God is with us," signifies the concrete presence of God in the realm of human events.

From a modern viewpoint, many of the key details of Isaiah's description of the sign of Immanuel are obscure, but with a knowledge of their context, the significance of the sign becomes apparent. The sign of Immanuel heralds God's vastation of Judah for sundering the Davidic covenant. In his maturity ("when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good," v. 15), Immanuel will be forced to eat curds and honey ("the best food available to nomadic wanderers, but not the food of Ahaz's court" [2]), a portent of the times of ruination to come.

Before that time ("before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good"), Isaiah predicts, Yahweh will destroy both Syria and Israel for their malice (v. 16); yet for its faithlessness as manifested in Ahaz, neither is Judah to be spared. Initially Isaiah describes Judah's fate in symbolic terms. Like a pestilential swarm of insects, Assyria will ravage the land (vss. 18-19) with scathing humiliation (v. 20—"the hair of the feet" being a euphemism for pubic hair).

Then Isaiah foretells Judah's punishment with graphic realistic detail. Verses 21-22 warn of the poverty that will be visited upon the people: "a man with only one heifer and two sheep was a poor peasant (cf. II Samuel 12: 1-3).” (3) In a classic image of desolation, the land, once fertile, is described as destined to fall fallow, lapsing into a waste land (vss. 22-5). The chapter concludes in verse 25 with a picture of the land as fit only for livestock grazing, wholly devoid of human civilization.

In no uncertain terms, Isaiah 7 depicts the certain fate in store for the Hebrew people should they seek to abrogate the Davidic covenant with God. The narrative frame of verse 1, marking it as history, is designed to give the message added weight in that it emphasizes that a previous violation has already been punished, in such a manner; future infractions are sure to attract identical sparks from the Wrath.

Above all, Isaiah 7 stresses that the basis of the Davidic covenant (and so of the Hebrew state) is faith in God on the part of the Jewish rulers; had Ahaz followed Isaiah's advice. Judah never would have had to suffer the Lord's anger.

In the Old Testament, we see the spiritual leaders of the Jews striving to maintain the unique relationship of their people with God in the midst of changing circumstances. In the midst of the decline of the throne of David, Isaiah warns that straying from the Lord’s path will invite certain doom, a message that certainly resonates with us now.

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The joke's on us!

The wicked king: the false leader the Lord raised up to punish America for turning away from His path and not caring anymore

A hapless denizen of Sacramento's rapidly expanding new tent city, 2009: how come we have to pay the price for Bush's freebooting? And why isn't the Federal government helping her and the millions like her, instead of the big banks?

The original wicked king from Hollywood who paved the way for our current Babylonian Captivity

NOTES

Bernhard W. Anderson. Understanding the Old Testament (Englewood Cliffs, 1975), p. 310.

R.B.Y. Scott, Exegesis, "The Book of Isaiah," The Interpreter's Bible. Vol. V (New York. 1956), p. 220.

Ibid., p. 221.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Bernhard W. Understanding the Old Testament. Englewood

Cliffs. 1975.

Scott, R.B.Y. Exegesis. "The Book of Isaiah." The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. V. New York, 1956.

Note: This is a revision of an academic paper I wrote for a Religion course while a senior at Princeton in April 1977.

The Kingdom of God on Earth: The Vision of Daniel 7

2009-02-03T21:21:00.026-05:00

The Kingdom of God on Earth: The Vision of Daniel 7

On this Website, I’ve touched on the Apocalypse and apocalyptic impulses in our society many times. For instance, you can read my other research and ideas on this matter in the following essays:

There’s no question that Daniel 7 had a powerful effect on early Christian apocalyptic thinking. But modern readers have a serious misconception about what the term “the kingdom of God on earth” meant to people in Biblical times. It wasn’t a dramatic ontological break in physical reality, like the heavens renting open magically and the Lord descending. It was the Revolution: a new social order that believers would create, based soundly on religious principles. The Essenes were the forefathers of Christianity—John the Baptist was an Essene, and he was Christ’s mentor—and by living out their apocalyptic faith, in anticipation of the coming war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, they were trying to bring about the kingdom of God on earth.

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Daniel 7 (King James Version)

Daniel 7

1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.

2 Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.

3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

4 The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

5 And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

6 After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.

7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

8 I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.

9 I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.

10 A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.

11 I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.

12 As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.

13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

15 I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me.

16 I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things.

17 These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.

18 But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.

19 Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet;

20 And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.

21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;

22 Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.

23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.

24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.

25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

26 But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.

27 And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

28 Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart.

The Kingdom of God on Earth: The Vision of Daniel 7

Daniel 7 stands at the crux between Old and New Testament theology. As far as Old Testament theology is concerned, the sentiment expressed in Daniel 7 is the end of the road. With the gradual disintegration of the Mosaic and eventually the Davidic covenants, the later prophets, ranging from Hosea to Isaiah to Jeremiah, were forced to formulate a theology that grew progressively apocalyptic. After the surrender of the Hebrew faith to despair under prolonged foreign oppression, the spiritual needs of the Jews gave way at last to the full expression of their apocalyptic-messianic-eschatological longings, as expressed in Daniel 7.

As such, Daniel also served as a model for the visionary vehicle that (allegedly) John used in the book of Revelation to express the dire eschatological hunger of the first Christians. In fact, John explicitly adapts specific figures (i.e., the hydra-headed beast, the triumphant celestial white-haired figure on the throne) from Daniel in general and chapter 7 in particular. When you come to realize the profound extent of the widespread appearance of such apocalyptic images in the eschatological thinking that came to dominate the succeeding body of Christian theology, you appreciate the key significance of the book of Daniel and of chapter 7 in the main corpus of Judeo-Christian tradition.

Daniel formulated his vision (or it occurred to him) as a response to the gross humiliation the Hebrew people suffered under the Alexandrine empire following the revolt of the Maccabees. Among Biblical scholars, it is generally agreed that the four beasts of Daniel's vision represent the Babylonian, Median, Persian, and Greek empires respectively. (Certainly this interpretation is considerably strengthened by Daniel's use as a symbol of the griffin, which in ancient Mesopotamian iconography undoubtedly represents the Babylonian empire.) Taken thus, the vision stands as an overt prophecy of God's wrath unleashed on the four civilizations that subjugated Israel—a revenge effectuated through the agency of an apparently messianic being (the throned figure of verse 9).

There is little doubt that the last empire is regarded with the greatest terror and hatred. With its clearly leveling and culturally ameliorating intent ("it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet," v. 7), it is plainly identifiable as "Alexander's empire, with its policy of Hellenization" (2). In response to this threat of cultural assimilation and annihilation posed by the Greeks (and the monarch Antiochus Epiphanes in particular [3]), Daniel foresees the solution expressed by seemingly all religious minorities oppressed by an occupying force, a messiah. (4)

In Daniel's case, it is of special importance that the messianic "son of man" (v. 13) enacts the advent described in vs. 14 and 27, for it heralds what Jesus would call "the kingdom of God on earth." This importance stems not only from the fact that "the son of man" who serves "the Ancient of Days" (the Lord) is patently divine. As Arthur Jeffery notes, "In apocalyptic [,] men are symbolized by beasts, but celestial beings by the human form (cf. Enoch 89-90).” (5)

What is of superior significance concerning Daniel's vision of the advent is that it is explicitly the fulfillment of the covenant God made with Abraham, the contract of salvation through divine grace. Belief in this covenant fuelled the radical faith that inspired Jeremiah and the composition of the book of Job, when the Hebrew people failed to uphold the conditional covenants of Moses and David.

God's summons to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 entailed the promise of the homeland of Israel, a great historical destiny for his offspring, and sovereignty over the other nations of the world. In the same way, the mission of Daniel's "son of man" (quite possibly a messianic Davidic king acting as God's viceroy) is the fulfillment of God's bond, as vs. 14 and 27 clearly illustrate; the "son of man”’s anticipated works of glory correspond with the three major vows God swore unto Abraham.

In the moment of the deepest desperation Israel had yet known—the insidious campaign of religious/cultural eradication waged by Antiochus after the abortive Maccabean rebellion—the spiritual imagination of the Jewish people, as manifested in Daniel 7, turned to the foundation of their faith, Jehovah's covenant of grace with Abraham. In times of gravest crisis past—those of the authorship of the books of Jeremiah and Job, to be specific—Israel had reacted in a similar fashion with a return to the Abrahamic covenant combined with apocalyptic desires. (And be it not forgotten that Job, in Job 19:25-29, also hungered for a Redeemer.)

But never before had the thirst for an eschatological era been so overwhelming, or the need for a savior been so overpowering; it required a time of the sharpest emergency and desperation to bring into being the extraordinary longing of the character described in Daniel's vision. From subsequent historical evidence, it appears that the cultural tension intensified to the point that by the time of Jesus, it had reached the point where it could no longer be tolerated.

While some Hebrews continued to use visions similar to Daniel to express their crucial need for the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham, others ceased to. By the reign of Tiberius, at least one body of believers was prepared to see the eschatological justification of the radical source of Israel's faith in Yahweh—his original covenant with Abraham—incarnated in the ministry of the man who advertised himself as Jesus the Christ.

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NOTES

Arthur Jeffery, Exegesis, "The Book of Daniel," The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. VI. (New York, 1956), page 453.

Ibid., p. 455.

Ibid., p. 456.

Vittorio Lanternari analyzes this significant phenomenon of nationalistic fervor as it appears in modern messianic cults in his The Religions of the Oppressed (New York, 1963)

Jeffery, op. cit., p. 460.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jeffery, Arthur. Exegesis. "The Book of Daniel." The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. VI. New York, 1956.

Lanternari, Vittorio. The Religions of the Oppressed. New York, 1963.

Note: I originally wrote an earlier version of this academic paper in April 1977 for a Religion course while a senior at Princeton.

Hugh J. Schonfield’s "The Passover Plot": Blaming the Victim

2009-02-01T13:14:00.066-05:00

The rock face of Golgotha, the hill of skulls where Christ was crucified. See the eyes? Isn't it creepy?

Hugh J. Schonfield’s The Passover Plot: Blaming the Victim

Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield

Get set to be shocked. In the Sixties, Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield’s Bantam Books paperback edition of his bestseller The Passover Plot was, without question, the most famous book of popular Biblical scholarship at the time. As a teenager back then, I remember it was supposed to contain The Big Secret About Christianity that everyone was slavering for, and like everyone else, I was intensely curious about it.

The ossurary of Herod

As readers of my essay “The American Apocalypse” know, the two real Big Secrets about Christianity are that 1) John the Baptist, an Essene, was real founder of Christianity; he was Christ’s mentor, and therefore Christianity is really an Essene religion, and 2) St. Paul corrupted the young Jesus religion by injecting sexual guilt into it where none existed before, making the sins of the flesh more important than the sins of the spirit.

Imagine my surprise when I finally read The Passover Plot as a junior at Princeton in 1976—and learned that Schonfield was merely Mel Gibson in reverse. Read on and you’ll see.

* * * * *

Hugh J. Schonfield’s The Passover Plot: Blaming the Victim

Albert Schweitzer remarked in The Quest for the Historical Jesus that nothing reveals a man so much as his interpretation of the life of Jesus. If it is true—and it probably is—then in his bestselling so-called "New Light on the History of Jesus," The Passover Plot, Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield certainly exposes the predilections of his personality, asserting that Jesus planned his own martyrdom deliberately with the help of his disciples.

Schonfield goes to great and unrealistic lengths to assert that a very few members of the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem—the Pharisees priesthood, particularly Caiphas—had no role whatsoever in Christ’s death. While there’s no questions that the vicious Roman occupiers must bear the ultimate blame for Christ’s death, there’s also no question that certain members of the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, terrified of their brutal occupiers, played some role in helping the Romans eliminate an innocent man that nearly everyone regarded as a dangerous heretic and a potential political revolutionary. You just didn’t go around saying, “I’m the King—yes, I’m more important than the Emperor—and by the way, I happen to be the Son of God too.” It would be like a radical today say, “Yeah, I’m the real President of the United States, so let's overthrow the government—and by the way, I’m God too.” From their points of view, both the Pharisees and the Romans were understandably shocked by Christ’s assertions. But that doesn’t excuse the murder of an innocent, peaceloving man.

Let me make it very clear: I am not endorsing the vicious medieval blood-libel canard of Mel Gilson and his ilk that “the Jews killed Jesus.” But it’s also an irrefutable historical fact that a tiny minority of the Jewish priesthood in Jerusalem played a minor administrative role in Christ’s death by handing him over to the Romans to placate the unforgiving foreign occupiers.

A contemporary depiction of Herod Agrippa

Herod, the ranting tyrant

No, the Jews most definitely didn't kill Jesus. But for God's sake, Mr. Schonfield, don't say Jesus had himself killed!

Schonfield declares, "We must never let theology entice us away from the historical circumstances, so that we lose contact with the factors which Jesus had to take into account." Yet through his avowed purpose, stated publicly before he deals with the facts, and through his selection of evidence, he quite clearly reveals his own prejudices. In the process he commits such grave errors of inobjectivity that he renders his own interpretation useless.

Giotto's Christ Before Caiaiphas (1304-6)

For one hundred and thirty pages, Schonfield hems and haws through the accumulation of evidence he attempts to build up to bolster his theory that Jesus, seized with a violent messianic complex, plotted his own martyrdom and carefully planned to insure his crucifixion in order to guarantee his place in history. Up until page 130, Schonfield maintains a veneer of reasonability; while much of his evidence is tangential, not to say circumstantial, and while much of his hypothesis is questionable, still, he does not rave like a zealot.

Then comes the bombshell. On page 130, he steps forward and exposes himself. What we see is a shock, and yet we must thank him for being so forthright. Otherwise we might mistake him for a serious Biblical scholar, if he did not unashamedly declare the rationale for his argument. His revelation is so astounding, and its implications so disturbing, that it deserves to be quoted in full here:

We have evidence that the chief priests at the time were arrogant and high-handed, loving wealth and power and position. This has been true of hierarchies of different lands at many periods. But in Palestine just now they were responsible in the difficult conditions of alien domination for the maintenance of public order, for assuring the continuity of national existence and the survival of the Temple as the world-centre of Jewish faith. Their present fears were by no means ill-founded, as Jewish history of the following decades abundantly confirmed. Better that one man should die than multitudes, including innocent women and children. The liquidation of individuals was commonplace in those days, and notorious during the closing years of the reign of Tiberius. It is still tolerated two thousand years later with all our vaunted concern for human rights. We must beware of judging what happened in light of what Christians believe about Jesus. We have to see him as he appeared to the Council in their grave predicament. From their point of view the decision they arrived at was fully justified, and Jesus, well knowing what he was doing, had quite deliberately forced them to take it by his skillfully planned and calculated activities. If he had not presented himself as a claimant of the throne of Israel and a menace to national security he would have been completely ignored by the Sanhedrin. He had himself made doubly sure that they would proceed to extremes against him by goading them with his words and behaviour, so that any possible mitigation of their severity would be offset by the personal animus he had intentionally created. The Council might imagine they were exercising their own free will in determining to destroy Jesus, and Judas Iscariot might believe the same in betraying him; but in fact the comprehensive engineer of the Passover Plot was Jesus himself. Their responses were governed by his ability to assess their reactions when he applied appropriate stimuli. Thus it was assured that the Scriptures would be fulfilled. (2) [Regarding spelling and punctuation, Schonfield is British.]

"I have frequently been urged by numerous readers to set down my convictions about Jesus," Schonfield informs us in his introduction. "They were persuaded that, in my unusual position as a Jew who has devoted a lifetime to the sympathetic elucidation of Christian Origins and is not connected with any section of the Church, I ought to have seen things which have escaped the observation of those more directly involved." (3) "Here Schonfield reveals the reason for his peculiar (to say the least) view of the Passion. It is understandable why he as a Jew would resent the blame Christians have placed on Jews for the Crucifixion as an excuse for anti-Semitism (when the scapegoating is only a transference of guilt felt by Christians for the death of Jesus). As Schonfield himself says:

The calumny that the Jewish people were responsible for the death of Jesus has all along been an antisemitic fraud perpetrated by the Church when it became paganised, and has been a direct cause of untold suffering and persecution inflicted on the Jews down the centuries. The present-day qualified second-thoughts of the Roman Church on the subject of Jewish 'deicide' has come very belatedly and is a totally inadequate retraction. (4)

Yet however understandable Schonfield's anger is, it is not excusable that he rationalize the murder of a being who, if nothing else, was a totally innocent man. What compounds Schonfield's crime is that he shows an awareness of the moral questions at stake and then he chooses to ignore them. He admits that "the liquidation of individuals" "is still tolerated two thousand years later with all our vaunted concern for human rights," and yet he refuses to apply that principle in the case of Jesus, because Jesus, as a holy man so obscure that our knowledge of him is almost totally limited to the adulatory writings of his disciples, posed a lethal threat to the integrity of the Jewish state.

A "battlefield Christ" scarecrow from the hellish trenches of World War One

Schonfield justifies Christ's execution in terms of his "menace to national security," through what even Schonfield admits was a kangaroo court. But by doing so, ironically enough, he is invoking the same brand of paranoid hysteria that drove George W. Bush to invade Iraq, murder a million innocent people, and torture countless others.

Critic Dwight MacDonald once wrote that a true liberal or a true conservative supports a cause that conforms to his principles even if it contradicts with his personal feelings. By seeking to rationalize the murder of an innocent man, Schonfield is revealing the lack of integrity of his principles. When he asserts of the Pharisees, "From their point of view the decision they arrived at was fully justified," he does not seem to realize that Hitler acted out of the same sincerity in slaughtering six million Jews; at the bottom of his heart he believed he was defending the West from a pernicious threat. The best Schonfield can do is parrot (unconsciously, I hope) Caiaphas: "Better that one man should die than multitudes, including innocent women and children." Or as Caiaphas said, "For the sake of the nation, Jesus must die."

To draw another contemporary example, it might be pleasant to shoot Osama Bin Laden in the head. I’m sure Bin Laden wouldn’t object, since he doesn’t seem to mind killing people very much. The only problem is, then you’re adopting the same principles as Bin Laden, that is, killing for peace, and then your action entirely justifies the suppositions of moral intellects like your homicidal murder victim. By acting in such a fashion, you cancel out your moral imperative. We only hope Schonfield will someday understand.

This is unfortunate, because he has some interesting things to say. Jesus is quoted as having made some remarks that are very much in keeping with Schonfield's theory, that he knew of his approaching martyrdom and death. The problem here is these remarks could have been added later by adherents who realized that if Jesus indeed had been omnipotent and all-knowing, then of course he must have foreseen his coming end.

Golgotha

In this matter, Schonfield is in a dilemma, although he doesn’t understand it, for he cannot bring himself to decide whether he accepts the veracity of the New Testament. He often contradicts himself, but here I will only provide two outstanding examples.

The tomb of Herod

Many times Schonfield relies heavily on the literal wording of the New Testament, taking them to recount the exact truth of what Jesus did, particularly when Jesus is making statements alluding to the coming end of his ministry; for instance, "My hour is not yet come," which Schonfield takes at face value. (6) Yet on the same page he lambasts two Biblical scholars who hold an orthodox view of the divinity of Jesus, because their view "transfers judgement to the New Testament, whose views reflecting subsequent Christian opinion we are invited to endorse as the truth." (7)

The ancient ossuary that was recently thought to be "the tomb of Jesus"

He readily admits that one must judge "allowing for the exaggeration in the Gospel tradition," (8) and of the Apostles he writes, "In their zeal they even amplified and supplemented the account of his experiences, as certain texts appeared to require additional incidents which could fulfill them." (9) Yet he never questions the incidents in the Gospels that support his convictions.

The garden tomb of Jesus

Why do the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper, with their explicit message that Jesus had foreknowledge of his betrayal, death, and resurrection, necessarily have to be true, when the Synoptic Apostles even have difficulty agreeing on which night this incredibly important event in their lives took place? Who says Jesus rose from the tomb and talked to them? Considering the large number of religious experiences and visions experienced by the disciples, why could Jesus' ghost not have been a hallucination, a wish-fulfillment, if not an outright lie?

The supposed tomb of Jesus

Schonfield does not bother to ask these questions; he dare not doubt the hypothesis he has erected; and as a result of his lack of intellectual integrity, a serious reader cannot even begin to take his position seriously. The only regret I have is that his facile interpretation has reached an extraordinary audience, even for a popular religious work, and I fear that too many uncritical readers will accept his views without thinking. Such shoddy thinking, in a matter of such importance to the West as the life and death of Jesus, has no excuse.

* * * * *

The brooding skull of Golgotha: notice how the eyes never leave you

NOTES

Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot (New York, 1966), p. 93.
Ibid., pp. 130-1.
Ibid., p. 2.
Ibid., p. 142.
Ibid., pp. 142-5.
Ibid., p. 37.
Ibid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Schonfield, Dr. Hugh J. The Passover Plot. Bantam Books, New York, 1966.

A fascinating Maori Christ

AFTERWORD

In 1976, at the same time I originally wrote this academic paper, fascinatingly enough, the Israeli film company Golan-Globus released a film version of The Passover Plot, directed by Michael Campus and starring Zalman King as Yeshua (Jesus), Donald Pleasence as Pontius Pilate, Harry Andrews, Scott Wilson, Dan Hedaya, and Hugh Griffith. Because of heretical nature of the film, it was allegedly suppressed (or deliberately ignored), and today it’s available by download from the Internet.

Zalman King as Jesus in the film The Passover Plot (1976)

Incidentally, I originally wrote this essay as an academic paper for a Princeton Religion course on “The Origins of Christianity” while a junior in May 1976 for the esteemed religious scholar Dr. Phillip Ashby. He praised the paper, commenting: “Very insightful critical analysis of Schonfield.”

A coin of the Knights Templar

Freud’s Totem and Taboo: The Psychological Roots of Religion, or Why God the Father Has To Murder God the Son

2009-01-03T12:10:00.108-05:00

Warning: Not Safe For Work
Contains images of male and female nudity.

Freud by Andy Warhol

Mithra slaying the bull: the son murders the father

Freud’s Totem and Taboo: The Psychological Roots of Religion, or Why God the Father Has To Murder God the Son

Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear, in the Dark Ages before Prozac, Xanax, Klonopkin and Wellbutrin, when psychologists asserted that man had a conscious mind and responsibility for his actions, entailing awareness and free will—back when people believed in Freud and thought man had a soul, rather than an easily-rearranged complex of neurotransmitters.

Now, of course, we’re enlightened (if a little disoriented). In his essay, “Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died,” Tom Wolfe discredited Freudianism, saying it was invalidated by the advent of lithium, which was able to cure manic-depressives instantly who had been resistant to psychoanalysis for years. A recent article, Researchers fight for psychotherapy's survival, highlights the current controversy going on in psychology and psychiatry.

The famous couch of dreams in Vienna

However, I’m an old-fashioned Puritan (as my first name, Wolcott, connotes), and I believe in free will. And as I argue in the essay that follows, I maintain that there are still mysteries of the human soul (and human culture) that cannot be explained, or alleviated, by psychopharmacology.

Freud’s Totem and Taboo: The Psychological Roots of Religion, or Why God the Father Has To Murder God the Son

Sigmund Freud wrote Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics to explain the psychological origins of religion. Considered one of the landmarks of twentieth-century intellectual history, it offers some of the most radical ideas ever offered in the study of religion. Freud asserts that belief in magic is based entirely on psychological principles. He echoes Sir James George Frazer, author of The Golden Bough: "men mistook the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts, permitted them to have a corresponding control over things" (see endnote 12).

The imaginary nameless fear that pursues us all

Freud goes on to argue that “we may venture to compare the various evolutionary stages of man's conception of the universe with the stages of the libidinous evolution of the individual….the animistic phase corresponds in time as well as in content with narcissism, the religious phase corresponds to that stage of object finding which is characterized by dependence on the parents, while the scientific stage has lists full counterpart in the individual's state of maturity where, having renounced the pleasure principle and having adapted himself to reality, he seeks his object in the outer world” (see endnote 18).

But perhaps his most radical analysis is saved for his interpretation of the Crucifixion, where he analyzes Christ’s death at the hands of his Father in Oedipal terms, followed by his contrast of Christianity with its major competitor, Mithraism, in terms of masochism and sadism.

In writing Totem and Taboo, Freud draws heavily on research done previously in anthropology, sociology, and history. To arrive at his theory, he formulates his interpretations of the above fields in light of his own personal school of psychoanalysis. Yet he admits the limitations of such an approach, while utilizing it.

The reader need not fear that psychoanalysis, which first revealed the regular over-determination of psychic acts and formulations, will be tempted to derive anything so complicated as religion from a single source. If it necessarily seeks, as it is duty bound, to gain recognition for one of the sources of this institution, it by no means claims exclusiveness for this source or even first rank among concurring factors. Only a synthesis from various fields of research can decide what relative importance in the genesis of religion is to be assigned to the mechanism which we are to discuss; but such a task exceeds the means as well as the intentions of the psychoanalyst. (1)

Despite this statement, Freud still believes that psychoanalysis can make a unique contribution to the study of religion. By purporting to solve many of the questions of the origin of religion in the course of his investigation, he suggests that perhaps only psychoanalysis can provide the answers to the problems of religion. In relation to his inquiry into the origin of incest-dread, he makes himself clear enough when he says, "Into this darkness psychoanalytic experience throws one single ray of light." (2)

The thrust of his study is this: the psyche, expressed through religious trappings, continues to influence man into the modern era. By investigating primitive cultures, we can trace these influences to their root. Conversely, we can understand the origins and significance of these influences by analyzing their manifestations in contemporary neurotics. Specifically he concentrates on pursuing the origins and significance of two taboos, those prohibiting murder and incest, which have remained to this day the two great antisocial crimes.

Paris Hilton and her sister playacting at mocking the taboo of incest

First Freud establishes the strength of taboo restrictions.

The taboo restrictions are different from religious or moral prohibitions. They are not traced to a commandment of a god, but really they themselves impose their own prohibitions; they are differentiated from moral prohibitions by failing to be included in a system which declares abstinences in general to be necessary and gives reasons for this necessity. The taboo prohibitions lack all justification and are of unknown origin. Though incomprehensible to us they are taken as a matter of course by those who are under their dominance. (3)

In psychological terms, from the above passage, taboos sound suspiciously like deep-seated repressions. Freud elaborates:

But the real sources of taboo lie deeper than in the interests of the privileged classes. "They begin where the most primitive and at the same time the most enduring human impulses have their origin, namely, in the fear of the effect of demonic powers." "The taboo, which originally was nothing more than the objectified fear of the demonic power thought to be concealed in the tabooed object, forbids the irritation of this power and demands the placation of the demon whenever the taboo has been knowingly or unknowingly violated." (4)

"As pointed out elsewhere, spirits and demons were nothing but the projection of primitive man's emotional impulses," Freud writes. (5)

After citing extensive anthropological data on primitive taboos, Freud articulates the basis of his argument:

He who approaches the problem of taboo from the field of psychoanalysis, which is concerned with the study of the unconscious part of the individual's psychic life, needs but a moment's reflection to realize that these phenomena are by no means foreign to him. He knows people who have individually created such taboo prohibitions for themselves, which they follow as strictly as savages observe the taboos common to their tribe or society. If he were not accustomed to call these individuals "compulsive neurotics" he would find the term "taboo disease" quite appropriate for their malady. Psychoanalytic investigation has taught him the clinical etiology and the essential part of the psychological mechanism of this compulsion disease, so that he cannot resist applying what he has learnt there to explain corresponding manifestations in folk psychology.

Famed self-proclaimed neurotic Woody Allen, who evidently had a problem meeting girls

There is one warning to which we shall have to give heed in making this attempt. The similarity between taboo and compulsion disease may be purely superficial holding good only for the manifestations of both without extending into deeper characteristics. Nature loves to use identical forms in the most widely different biological connections as, for instance, for coral stems and plants and even for certain crystals or for the formation of certain chemical precipitates. Assuredly would it be both premature and unprofitable to base conclusions relating to inner relationships upon the correspondence of merely mechanical conditions. We shall bear this warning in mind without, however, giving up our intended comparison on account of the possibility of such confusions. (6)

The brilliant Oscar Levant made a career out of his neurosis in the Fifties

Freud cites some very convincing evidence. Savages fear that taboos can be transferred by touching (the contagion theory).

This transferability of the taboo reflects what is found in the neurosis, namely, the constant tendency of the unconscious Impulse to become displaced through associative channels upon new objects. Our attention is thus drawn to the fact that the dangerous magic power of the mana [a spirit, an impersonal force residing in people, animals, and inanimate objects] corresponds two real faculties, the capacity of reminding man of his forbidden wishes, and the apparently more important one of temping him to violate the prohibition in the service of these wishes. Both functions reunite into one; however, if we assume it to be in accord with a primitive psychic life that with the awakening of a memory of a forbidden action there should also be combined the awakening of a tendency to carry out the action. Memory and temptation then again coincide. We must also admit that if the example of a person who has violated a prohibition leads another to a same action, the disobedience of the prohibition has been transmitted like a contagion, just as the taboo is transferred from a person to an object, and from this to another. (7)

In a subsequent passage, Freud discusses mourning guilt among savages and their death wishes directed toward their peers. While his peers are living, the savage bears an ambivalent attitude toward them; he both loves and hates them.

The taboo of the dead also originates from the opposition between the conscious grief and the unconscious satisfaction at death. If this is the origin of the resentment of spirits [feared by the primitive man] it is self-evident that just the nearest and formerly most beloved survivors have to fear it the most. (8)

Freud compares this ambivalence to the love-hate relationships that we all bear to those we know, but which are exaggerated in neurotics.

By assuming a similar high degree of ambivalence in the emotional life of primitive races such as psychoanalysis ascribes to persons suffering from compulsion neurosis, it becomes comprehensible that the same kind of reaction against the hostility latent in the unconscious behind the obsessive reproaches of the neurotic should also be necessary here after the painful loss had occurred. (9)

Oedipus on stage: gouging his eyes out is, of course, symbolic castration

A modern-dress staging of Oedipus Rex

In anticipation of his critics, Freud states:

We are probably not mistaken in assuming that such attempted explanations expose us to the reproach of attributing a most impossible delicacy of psychic activities to contemporary savages. But I think that we may easily make the same mistake with the psychology of these races who have remained at the animistic stage that we made with the psychic life or the child, which we adults understood no better and whose richness and fineness of feeling we have therefore so greatly undervalued. (10)

With this, in my opinion, Freud has established a very strong connection between the savage's dread of taboo and modern compulsion neurosis. It is the internal similarity, not the external, that makes the most overpowering evidence. But Freud does not say they are completely identical. He points out their paths of divergence:

Primitive races fear a punishment for the violation of a taboo, usually a serious disease or death. This punishment threatens only him who has been guilty of the violation. It is different with the compulsion neurosis. If the patient wants to do something that is forbidden to him he does not fear punishment for himself, but for another person. The person is usually indefinite, but, by means of analysis, is easily recognized as some one very near and dear to the patient. The neurotic therefore acts as if he were altruistic, while primitive man seems egotistical. (11)

Then Freud investigates the psychological basis for belief in magic. He comes to the startling, but entirely reasonable, conclusion that belief in magic is based entirely on psychological principles.

We can see how true Tylor's quoted characteristic of magic: "mistaking an ideal connection for a real one," proves to be. The same may be said for Frazer's idea, who has expressed it almost the same terms: "men mistook the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts, permitted them to have a corresponding control over things." (12)

As a consequence, for the savage, "In the animistic age the reflection of the inner world must obscure that other picture of the world which we believe we recognize." (13) "We are therefore prepared to find that primitive man transferred the structural relations of his own psyche to the outer world, and on the other hand we may make the attempt to transfer back into the human soul what animism teaches about the nature of things." (14) This reversal of approaches shows, if nothing else, does how much man has changed intellectually, though not emotionally.

By the same token, neurotics base their fears on the same psychological formulations as savages.

Thus the omnipotence of thought, the over-estimation of psychic processes as opposed to reality, proves to be of unlimited effect in the neurotic's affective life and in all that emanates from it.... But through this attitude as well as through the superstition which plays an active part in his life, he reveals to us how close he stands to the savage, who believes he can change the outer world by a mere thought of his.

The primary obsessive actions of the neurotic are really altogether of a magical nature. If not magic they are at least anti-magic and are destined to ward off the expectation of evil with which the neurosis is wont to begin. (15)

When this formulation is extended into the study of religion, Freud produces some fascinating ideas. Sacrifices are made to gods with the expectation that certain wishes will be fulfilled.

It would also seem as if it were the magic act itself which compels the fulfillment of the wish by virtue of its similarity to the object desired. At the stage of animistic thinking there is as yet no way or demonstrating objectively the true state of affairs, but this becomes possible at later stages when, though such procedures are still practiced, the psychic phenomenon of skepticism already manifests itself as a tendency to repression. At that stage men will acknowledge that the conjuration of spirits avails nothing unless accompanied by belief, and that the magic effect of prayer fails if there is no piety behind it. (16)

If we accept the evolution of man's conceptions of the universe mentioned above, according to which the animistic phase is succeeded by the religious, and this in turn by the scientific, we have no difficulty in following the fortunes of the "omnipotence of thought" through all these phases. In the animistic phase, man ascribes omnipotence to himself; in the religious he has ceded it to the gods, but without seriously giving it up, for he reserves to himself the right to control the gods by influencing them in some way or other in the interests of his wishes. In the scientific he has acknowledged his smallness and has submitted to death as to all other natural necessities in a spirit of resignation. Nevertheless, in our reliance upon the power of the human spirit which copes with the laws of reality, there still lives on a fragment of this primitive belief in the omnipotence of thought. (17)

Taking this idea one step further, Freud compares the three world views with the three successive stages of growth in the individual.

If we may take the now established omnipotence of thought among primitive races as a proof of their narcissism, we may venture to compare the various evolutionary stages of man's conception of the universe with the stages of the libidinous evolution of the individual. We find that the animistic phase corresponds in time as well as in content with narcissism, the religious phase corresponds to that stage of object finding which is characterized by dependence on the parents, while the scientific stage has lists full counterpart in the individual's state of maturity where, having renounced the pleasure principle and having adapted himself to reality, he seeks his object in the outer world. (18)

As a side note, Freud makes another comparison.

In one way the neuroses show a striking and far-reaching correspondence with the great social productions of art, religion, and philosophy, while again they seem like distortions of them. We may say that hysteria is a caricature of an artistic creation, a compulsion neurosis, a caricature of a religion, and a paranoiac delusion a caricature of a philosophical system. (19)

In what he attempts to be his masterstroke, Freud tries to explain the historical origin of taboo restrictions, and so of modern neuroses, with the construct of the slaying of the fathers by the rebellious, sexually frustrated younger males of the prehistoric primal horde (the Neolithic clan). Recent findings have disclosed that no such primal horde ever existed in human or prehuman society, so that shoots the hell out of Freud's theory; besides, his defense of racial memory (20) is not a little dubious. Yet it is not surprising that Freud should take such tact, considering that he states openly, at the end of his book:

In closing this study, which has been carried out in extremely condensed form, I want to state the conclusion that the beginnings of religion, ethics, society and art meet in the Oedipus complex. This is in entire accord with the findings of psychoanalysis, namely, that the nucleus of all neuroses as far as our present knowledge of them goes is the Oedipus complex. (21)

What about my mother?

This statement fits in with Freud's theory that all neuroses have a sexual root. Subsequent psychologists, such as Jung and Carl Rogers in On Becoming a Person, have found this to be false in their treatment of neurotic patients.

A striking graphic for a production of Oedipus

However, just because the prehistoric cause of neurosis that Freud was groping for—to prove has pet theory, admittedly—has been discredited, it is no reason that the rest of his researches, based on sound reasoning and concrete facts, should be discarded. The bulk of his ideas on religion do not have the primal horde theory as their base. In fact, little of his research connected with religion is grounded on the Oedipus complex, and even some of those are of alarming significance. For instance, he cites various case studies where he was involved in which the subjects exhibited a clear Oedipus complex. He goes on to say:

In view of these observations we consider ourselves justified in substituting the father for the totem animal in the male's formula of totemism. We then notice that in doing so we have taken no new or especially daring step. For primitive men say it themselves and, as far as the totemic system is still in effect today, the totem is called ancestor and primal father. We have only taken literally an expression of these races which ethnologists did not know what to do with and were therefore inclined to put in the background. Psychoanalysis warns us, on the contrary, to emphasize the very point and to connect it with the attempt to explain totemism.

The first result of our substitution is very remarkable. If the totem animal is the father, then the two main commandments of totemism, the two taboo rules which constitute its nucleus—not to kill the totem animal and not to use a woman belonging to the same totem for sexual purposes—agree in content with the two crimes of Oedipus, who slew his father and took his mother to wife, and also with the child's two primal wishes whose insufficient repression or whose re-awakening forms the nucleus of perhaps all neuroses. (22)

When viewed in this light, Freud's interpretation of the Crucifixion is particularly arresting—and illuminating.

In the Christian myth man's original sin is undoubtedly an offence against God the Father, and if Christ redeems mankind from the weight of original sin by sacrificing his own life, he forces us to the conclusion that this sin was murder. According to the law of retaliation which is deeply rooted in human feeling, a murder can be atoned only by the sacrifice of another life; the self-sacrifice points to blood-guilt. And if this sacrifice of one's own life brings about a reconciliation with god, the father, then the crime which must be expiated can only have been the murder of the father.

Thus, in the Christian doctrine mankind unreservedly acknowledges the guilty deed of primordial times because it now has found the most complete expiation for this deed in the sacrificial death of the son. The reconciliation with the father is the more thorough because simultaneously with this sacrifice there follows the complete renunciation of woman, for whose sake mankind rebelled against the father. But now also the psychological fatality of ambivalence demands its rights. In the same deed which offers the greatest possible expiation to the father, the son also attains the goal of his wishes against the father. He becomes a god himself beside or rather in place of his father. The religion of the son succeeds the religion of the father. As a sign of this substitution the old totem feast is revived again in the form of communion in which the band of brothers now eats the flesh and blood of the son and no longer that of the father, the sons thereby identifying themselves with him and becoming holy themselves. Thus through the ages we see the identity of the totem feast with the animal sacrifice, the theanthropic [both human and divine] human sacrifice, and the Christian eucharist, and in all these solemn occasions we recognize the after-effects of that crime which so oppressed men but of which they must have been so proud. At bottom, however, the Christian communion is a new setting aside of the father, a repetition of the crime that must be expiated. We see how well justified is Frazer’s dictum that "the Christian communion has absorbed within itself a sacrament which is doubtless far older than Christianity." (23)

The symbolic value of the above interpretation is not to be ignored. If we excise the remarks about the primal horde, the passage makes perfect sense. What would I replace the remarks about the primal horde with? In their place I would simply put the Oedipus complex, the fact that on an unconscious level every child is sexually attracted to the parent of his or her opposite sex, that parent being its first encounter with, and its model of, the opposite sex.

There is really no need for a slain primal father. There is no reason that the patricidal impulse had to be carried out; it is simply one that surfaces in every generation of humankind. And the frustration of that impulse is not the cause of every neurosis—it is merely one cause, perhaps the cause of most of the neuroses that Freud encountered; perhaps that is why he identified it as the sole origin. Like every great theorist, Freud went overboard; just because his excesses are easily identifiable is no reason to ignore the body of his lifework.

Freud goes on to offer a theory that is dazzling in its brilliance. He reminds us that early Christianity’s chief rival was Mithraism, the religion of Roman soldiers throughout the Empire. Now Mithraism was a religion of soldiers, of men without women. It was an unashamedly homosexual religion. In fact, women were so detested in Mithraism that mothers in childbirth were bound to trees in the hopes they would die in labor. That’s how dirty women were regarded by Mithraism.

Christianity lifted many aspects from Mithraism. Mithra was born on December 25. His birth was greeted my three Magi (Zoroastrian astrologers). Mithraism has seven sacraments.

But as Freud points out, the key myth of Mithraism is Mithra slaying the Bull. The Son slays the Father, whereas in Christianity, in the Crucifixion, the Father slays the Son. Just as Mithraism is sadistic, a religion of violent soldiers, Christianity is masochistic, a religion for woman and slaves. (Christianity triumphed in large part because it was the only religion in the ancient world at that time that accepted woman and slaves as adherents.)

"Saturn Devouring One of His Children" by Goya: Father Chronos gets hungry

The implication of Freud’s insight is staggering, and puts Christianity in an entirely new psychological and cultural light.

Without a doubt, in my mind, Totem and Taboo is a work of genius. As an integrated piece of work, is amazing. He begins the book by defining his terms and laying the basis of his argument; once the groundwork is established, he proceeds to cite strong evidence to state his case; then he sets forth his theory, making each point carefully and building on each preceding point.

As I read the book, he startled me constantly with the brilliance of his thought; some of the ideas that struck me the most I have reproduced here. Although taking an amazingly radical viewpoint, he makes a great deal of sense because of the way he presents his ideas. While his book is not the solely definitive approach to the study of religion—no approach is—his contribution delivers astonishing insights that are available nowhere else and that change completely the way we look at religion.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES

Sigmund Freud, "Totem and Taboo," The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (New York, 1965), p. 884.

Ibid., p. 904.

Ibid., p. 821.

Ibid., p. 825-6.

Ibid., p. 878.

Ibid., p. 827.

Ibid., p. 833.

Ibid., p. 855.

Ibid., p. 854.

Ibid., p. 883.

Ibid., p. 862.

Ibid., p. 871.

Ibid., p. 873.

Ibid., p. 877.

Ibid., p. 874.

Ibid., p. 872.

Ibid., p. 875.

Ibid., p. 876-7.

Ibid., p. 863-4.

Ibid., p. 927-8.

Ibid., p. 926-7.

Ibid., p. 908.

Ibid., p. 924-5.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Freud, Sigmund. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Modern Library: New York. 1965.

Note: I wrote an earlier version of this essay while a sophomore at Princeton in May 1975 as Religion paper.

A Vision of the End: An Exegesis of Revelations 12, The Woman and the Dragon

2008-11-23T17:51:00.124-05:00

Mel Gibson is prepared for the end of civilization in The Road Warrior (1981)

An expectant Mimi Rogers awaits the end of all things earthly in The Rapture (1992)

Things to Come's 1936 prophecy of World War Two is now ancient history: this is exactly what Aachen, Germany looked like in 1945

Is it the Apocalypse yet?

As of this writing, December 2008, the world financial system has broken down—Bear Stearns tanked, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac went kaput, Lehman Brothers died (and took the rest of us with it, the bastards), say bye-bye to Washington Mutual, and now Citibank is on life support. What’s next?

Things To Come? Let's hope not

Only you will know, O gentle reader of the future. Only you will know if the electricity has ended and the hot water has run out, and heating is a thing of the past. Only you will know if America and the rest of the world has leaped suddenly into a terrifying science-fiction story about a future gone terribly wrong and there’s no stopping it now. (Think of the late, lamented Tom Disch’s On Wings Of Song, inspired by the gas lines of 1979 that also inspired The Road Warrior.

The grainy black-and-white pseudo-newsreel beginning of The Road Warrior is straight of out the opening of H.G. Wells’ Things To Come [1936]—the same sense of social apocalypse brought about by political and moral failure.)

A dying world mobilizes for war: as George Seldes noted later, everyone knew after 1919 that a new world war was inevitable, but no one was allow to publish the truth--except H.G. Wells in Things To Come

The endless war: Korea, Vietnam, Central America, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq...

The war-created plague that Wells envisioned: a glimpse of radiation poisoning in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Fortunately, for readers out there who still have electricity, the Apocalypse is subject of the essay that follows, an exegisis of Revelations 12. Rev 12 contains one of the key scenes of the Christian Apocalypse, the Last Loosing of Satan and his eventual defeat.

If you’d like to understand Rev 12 and the Christian Apocalypse in general, I recommend watching an awesome (and I use that term advisedly) film called The Rapture (1992), written and directed by the brilliant Michael Tolkin.

Like The Confessions of St. Augustine, it’s the saga of a troubled soul who progresses from damnation to salvation—but then the story takes a wholly unexpected U-turn.

Mimi Rogers, in a stunning, Oscar-worthy performance, plays Sharon (the Biblical Rose of Sharon?), a beautiful, jaded telephone operator who already lives in Hell; in the film’s astonishing opening—a slow dolly shot through a maze of icy, dimly-lit blue cubicles—trapped souls in headsets repeat endlessly, “What city, please? Is that a business or residence?” It’s a purgatory written by Beckett.

To kill her mind-numbing boredom and despair, Sharon becomes a compulsive swinger who enjoys anonymous group sex with strangers she picks up in airport hotel lounges with the help of a creepy wingman/partner in crime named Vic (the victor), played by Patrick Bauchau.

But on her lunch hour in the company cafeteria, Sharon overhears co-workers at the next table discuss a fundamentalist religious sect they belong to; they follow an eerie boy prophet who preaches the imminent end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ—the Rapture, when all saved souls will rise inexorably to heaven.

Here the film does something amazing and takes the Christian vision of the Apocalypse at face value. Sharon converts to the group, marries a fellow swinger (David Duchovny, whom she converts) and awaits The End.

In the nightmarish ending of the film, after her husband is murdered by a rampaging fired co-worker who went postal (a sign of the erupting chaos of the End Times), Sharon feels she is being called to take her young daughter with her to the desert and await the Rapture.

Once in the desert, in one of the most disturbing scenes in American cinema, the daughter pleads with her mother to kill her, so she can join her father in heaven immediately—she doesn’t want to wait for the Rapture to rejoin her father.

In a grim retelling of Abraham and Isaac, Sharon is convinced by her daughter’s hysterical ranting and shoots her to death. It’s a shattering scene. She then tries to shoot herself, but then suddenly realizes that if someone else shoots you, you can go to heaven; but if you shoot yourself, you can’t go to heaven.

Sharon's anguish after slaying her daughter: who was speaking to her?

Then follows the Apocalypse, which Tolkin makes entirely believable with minimum, but very effective, special effects. After all the Saved ascend to heaven, Sharon is informed by her daughter’s spirit that in order to be admitted to heaven, she has only to do one thing: declare that she loves God.

Sharon can’t do it. “Why should I love a God that made me kill my little girl?” she shouts. Instead, she accepts a literal eternity alone in limbo, purgatory, the waiting room for paradise.

Basically she tells God to go fuck Himself, and it’s amazing to see that in an American film—in any film, for that matter. The individual soul and conscience is declared to be supreme—and even more important than the Almighty in its sanctity.

I don’t have to tell you that a frightening number of evangelical Christians in America believe in the literal imminence of the Rapture—and an entire industry of Tribulation and Taken Away books, films, and videos have fed this hysterical frenzy, which makes many frightened, misguided Americans value the next world rather than this one.

These people hate reality and the difficulty of day-to-day life. Instead, as an abject escape, they embrace a crazed neo-Platonic vision of the afterworld that’s really only an excuse to trash this world and everyone around themselves.

Britney feels the Rapture

Idiot wind: Sherri Shephard on The View

The coming end of the world is merely a justification for their destructive, nihilistic impulsive behavior—as Nazism was solely an excuse for all the psychopaths in Germany to plunge into an orgy of hate.

* * * * * *

The family man

Render unto Caesar

A sure sign that we're in the End Times

Revelations 12: The Woman and the Dragon

1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: Gen. 37.9
2 and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. Mic. 4.10
3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, Dan. 7.7 and seven crowns upon his heads.
4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: Dan. 8.10 and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
5 And she brought forth a man child, Is. 66.7 who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: Ps. 2.9 and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
7 ¶ And there was war in heaven: Michael Dan. 10.13, 21 ; 12.1 · Jude 9.1--0.1 and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, Gen. 3.1 called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, Lk. 10.18 and his angels were cast out with him.
10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,
Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren Job. 1.9-11 · 0.1--0.1 ; 0.3 ; 0.1--0.1 is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
13 ¶ And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.
14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, Dan. 7.25 ; 12.7 from the face of the serpent.
15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
16 And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

A VISION OF THE END: AN EXEGESIS OF REVELATIONS 12, THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON

In the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelations, John has a vision of Satan's attempt to prevent the salvation of mankind by Jesus, followed by the eventual victory of the Prince of the Next World over the Prince of This World. Chapter Twelve also gains importance because it recounts the Last Loosing of Satan and explains why "he must be loosed a little season" (Rev. 20:3, King James Version). The account is heavily laden with symbols whose meaning were obvious to John's audience; with a little work they can be readily understood by us.

From the outset we are told that Chapter Twelve summarizes an astral vision; the vision of the woman appears in heaven, and she is "adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown" (12:l). The fact that it is a celestial vision adds special significance; its appearance in the heavens reinforces its divine import. It must be remembered that the Star of Bethlehem was sighted by three magi, or Persian astrologers. (This connection to the magi is vital to this vision since it is, in part, a description of the Nativity.) The vision is also a prefiguration, since "according to astral thinking everything occurring on earth has previously happened in heaven." (1)

So much for the context of the vision. The symbols operate on two levels; at the same time, they refer to both their cosmic significance and to their meaning on earth. The woman stands for the Church and its earthly representative, Mother Mary. That she is described as "adorned with the sun, and standing on the moon" indicates the magnitude of her cosmic significance; "the twelve stars on her head for a crown" (12:1) count for both the twelve divisions of the heavens in the Zodiac and the Twelve Tribes of Israel (who in the Gospels are transmuted into the Twelve Apostles).

The male child whom she gives birth to is Jesus; no one else in the New Testament is ever described as fated "to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre" (12:5). Yet he is more than the Son of Man; when the woman cries "aloud in the pangs of childbirth" (12:2), her cries herald the birth of a new consciousness that God is entrusting to man in an act of grace.

The "huge red dragon" that pursues the mother is both Satan and his earthly manifestation, the Roman Empire. "The seven heads of the beasts are almost certainly seven emperors," (2) since each of the seven heads of the dragon is described as "crowned with a coronet" (12:3). The dragon is also Herod, the agent of the Empire in the Nativity story, since according to Matthew 2, he sought to murder the infant Jesus, who had been prophesized to become the usurper of Herod's throne. The escape the woman makes into the desert (12:6) parallels the flight of the Holy Family to flee Herod's terror.

As a prefiguration, the attack of the dragon on the woman in childbirth signifies that Satan's assault on the mission of Jesus has been predestined since before the creation of the world. Because of its timeless nature, it can be communicated through a vision to John. It is interesting that the details of this vision closely parallel those of the births of Apollo and the Egyptian god Horus. (3)

Falcon-headed Horus

Both pagan deities had divine fathers, both of their mothers were pursued by an evil dragon that the holy mother managed to escape; and in the story of Horus, the serpent Set-Typhon sought to engulf Isis, the divine mother, with a flood, exactly like the Satanic dragon, and as in Revelation 12, the mother was saved by the earth's absorption of the water. (4)

Plainly John was influenced by these Greek and Egyptian myths; he selected details from them for the cultural resonance they would hold for his audience. The Dragon's Satanic status is confirmed in verse 4, where a third of the stars are dragged from the sky by the dragon's tail and dropped to earth—just as through his revolt, Satan caused the angels who had conspired with him against God to be evicted from heaven.

After the woman's escape from the dragon, verses 5 and 6 report that "the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne, while the woman escaped into the desert, where God had made a place of safety ready, for her to be looked after in the twelve hundred and sixty days." The child's Ascension refers to the kinship between God and Jesus, symbolized by the descent of the Spirit of God in the form of a white dove on Jesus at his baptism. Through her flight into the desert, the woman shows herself to be the Church, which God is shielding from persecution so that it can be reunited with Christ after the Apocalypse.

As if to emphasize the apocalyptic overtones of the previous verse, verse 7 describes the war in heaven between the dragon and Michael with his angels, in which the dragon is defeated. For the first time, the identity of the dragon becomes is made explicit; he is "the primeval serpent" who tempted Adam and Eve into man's Fall, "known as the devil or Satan, who had deceived all the world." Michael and his minions hurl the dragon and his fallen angels to earth, where he will be free to wreak havoc; this is the "little season" in which Satan is loosed for the last time. The proclamation by the voice in verses 10-13 explains the purpose of the Last Loosing, while in the process, it clarifies the significance of Michael's victory.

St. Michael, the divine warrior

In verse 10, the voice (divine, presumably) mentions "our brothers," who are the righteous martyrs who, through their deaths, have witnessed for Christ. (5) After the voice proclaims their triumph over Satan the dragon (thereby suggesting that Michael and his angels were really Christ and his martyrs), it speaks of Satan as "the persecutor, who accused our brothers day and night before God" (12:10). Here Satan becomes the persecuting Roman Empire.

But the above description also reveals the radical role change Satan has made between the Testaments. In the Old Testament, Satan was an agent of God, a kind of attorney for the prosecution; his name meant "accuser." Now, in the New Testament, with the infusion of Zoroastrian dualism into Christianity, Satan has become the all-destructive adversary who is a power unto himself.

Ralph Richardson as the Boss, the swaggering post-apocalyptic warlord modeled on Mussolini and Hitler: as a result, Mussolini banned Things To Come

Peter Sellers in Rod Serling's little-seen bitter 1964 Hallmark Hall of Fame teleplay Carol for Another Christmas as the Imperial Me, the post-Bomb dictator who mirrors Ralph Richardson as the Boss: dressed in a ten-gallon hat and a Puritan costume and spouting the virtues of individuality, he's clearly a spokesman for Barry Goldwater and a prefiguration of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush

In verses 11-12, the voice implies that Satan is being allowed to descend to earth to destroy, since the only slain souls who will end up damned will be pagans; any Christians who are annihilated in the process will be saved, since "even in the face of death they would not cling to life" (12:11). God is letting Satan massacre mankind in order to make way for the Last Judgment.

In verses 13 and 14, Satan enacts on earth what he played out in the heavens; he chases the woman, but through divine providence, she evades him. The eagle's wings with which the woman (the Church) flies are away are the same wings that God told the Israelites that he, metaphorically, granted them to flee Egypt in Exodus 19: 4. (6)

As mentioned before, the action of verses 15 and 16 reproduces Set-Typhon's attempt to sweep Isis away by vomiting out a river and his failure owing to the intervention of the earth. The incident signifies the triumph of solidity, stability, and fertility, embodied in the woman as well as the earth, over the forces of Chaos (fluidity, sterility, and irresistible force), represented by the dragon and the water.

The birth of Horus, Louvre

In the creation myths of the Fertile Crescent, chaos is often represented by a dragon (such as Tiamat) and by water. The Flood myth of the Bible, derived from other Mesopotamian flood myths, gains its mythic resonance from the ancient Middle Eastern belief that the earth was a globe surrounded by a cosmic waste of water, symbolizing chaos, which could engulf the world at any whim of the gods.

In revenge for God's sparing of the woman (the Church), the dragon lumbers off to consume the Christians of the world, "the rest of her children, that is, all who obey God's commandments and bear witness for Jesus" (12:17). Out of his thirst for evil, because of his frustration at not being able to devour Jesus, Satan will slay all those who would follow in Christ's footsteps; having failed to destroy the child of the Church and of Mary, Satan, embodied in the Roman Empire, will now seek to wipe out the remaining of the woman's (the Church's) spiritual children, who are the righteous Christians living on earth.

Satan's annihilation of humankind is inevitable, John is saying; but he is also implying at the end of Revelation 12 that as God protected Christ (the child) and the woman (the Church), so will He guard the souls of those who would fashion themselves after Jesus. Their flesh will be blasted in the Apocalypse, but on the Day of Judgment, their spirits will remain intact.

To communicate his message of salvation. John (or his unconscious, in the form of his vision) reinforced his narrative with powerful symbolism. He drew upon contemporary mythology to imbue his preachment with a deeper meaning for the audience of his time and place. As a result, it had no problem deciphering his symbols.

As moderns we may reject his supernatural theology or ridicule his fantastic symbols; but before we do so, we must fully appreciate the weight of his achievement. At least John and his intended audience shared a common culture through which he was able to reach them, and at least he sought to reveal an explanation for evil in the midst of the suffering of this world and to provide a satisfying road to salvation.

* * * * * *

NOTES

Martin Rist, Exegesis, "The Book of Revelations," The Interpreter's Bible. Vol. XII (New York, 1957), p. 452.

Howard Clark Kee, Franklin W. Young, and Karlfried Froehlich, Understanding the New Testatament (Englewood Cliffs, 1973), p. 409.

Rist, op. cit.

Ibid., p. 459.

Ibid., p. 457.

Ibid., p. 459.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jones, Alexander, General Editor. The New Testament of the Jerusalem Bible. New York, 1969.

Kee, Howard Clark, Franklin W. Young, and Karlfried Froehlich. Understanding the New Testament. Englewood Cliffs, 1973.

Rist, Martin. Exegesis. "The Book of Revelations." The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. XII. New York, 1957.

A Horus tattoo

Note: I wrote an earlier version of this essay in May 1976 as a Religion paper for Prof. Philip H. Ashby while a junior at Princeton.