Introduction–

Manuscripts of the Gods: The Bible and Ancient Cultural Thresholds

by James Whitlark, Ph.D.

And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.

—Revelation 10:9

Introduction

The following book-length essay is a journey through the ancient world, including the pomp of Rome, the mysteries of Alexandria, the now-buried treasures of Taxila and Tun-huang. Why make such a trip? If you have read through the introductory section of this site, you are aware that many of the major problems of our time arise from conflicts between stages of development that the psychologists Clare Graves and Carl Gustav Jung mapped (the former charting their conscious dimensions, the latter their unconscious ones). This development proceeds for a while as a linear process, then passes a series of thresholds, transforming it radically each time.

What does this mean? That major changes can happen suddenly. Nonetheless, they can be predicted in a general way. Not their exact timing. Not all the details, but enough to know how to prepare.

Consequently, we need to look to the past to glimpse the basic patterns the interactions take. We shall do so by means of one important thread in the evolution of the ancient world, the disemination of the Bible. In particular, we shall be focusing on how the media in which religion is represented shapes it. This is useful practice in thinking about how sensory representations influence Graves/Jung levels of development and how a big picture, differs from an oral myth, or a feeling about the nature of things, or even a taste or scent as a guide to action.

Take for instance the recent popularity of the few lines about the prayer of Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:9-11).

Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, "I gave birth to him in pain." Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request. (NIV)

In L3 (a pre-literate period), people did not sit straining their eyes over books and thus were slightly less predisposed to expect all information to be visual; instead, they were used to hearing the wisdom of the elders and to the lengthy kinesthetic training appropriate for a culture of warriors. Thus this L3 passage has imagery that is primarily auditory ("named," "saying," "cried") and kinesthetic ("pain," "hand" (implying touch), and "pain"). What most gives away the lines' L3 perspective, however, is their reverence for key L3 goals: "territory" and "honor." The tale's being L3 may be why it has so brief a place in a largely L4 book of the Bible. Nonetheless, since that territory and honor are described as coming from God, an L4 will not be shocked by the prayer–simply not eager to hear more about it when s/he could be seeing mentally the big picture of L4 theology.

Today, when most Americans are L5, the new enthusiasm for the little tale of Jabez arises from the ease with which it can be given an L5 reading. Simply substitute business for territory and profit for honor and you have the perfect L5 goal. In other words (as explained at length in the introductory section of the Human-Threshold-Systems site), odd-numbered Jung/Graves levels are self-oriented and thus L3 and L5 have enough in common so that an L5 Bible class will be charmed by an L3 passage that advocates praying for more personal power and wealth. Of course, in chapter 6 of Bruce Wilkinson's Prayer of Jabez, "honor" (oral report in Jabez's day) has been subtly updated into a school "honor roll" (a written document, something to be seen). And (as McLuhan prophesied), the intensely visual ambience of L4 and early L5 is now giving way to multi-sensory, multitasking, with the executive driving to work, talking on a cel phone, drinking a double-decaf latte, and listening to an audio-tape of Wilkinson simultaneously.

Does that mean that the L5 or higher readings are mistaken? An entirely consistent L4 would answer “yes,” presuming that Truth issued from Scripture’s Divine Origin. Any deviation from that original meaning belongs to the Prince of Lies. Ironically, despite taking for granted that Truth must not deviate from its original meaning, L4 has forgotten the lines original meaning, i.e. its L3 context.

Today, however, literary criticism is beginning to recognize that texts are like seeds. They begin the growth of ideas that develop further in commentaries and interpretations.The L4 editor of Chronicles did well to include the L3 pericope about Jabez and Wilkinson did well to give it an L5 spin and others should be encouraged to elaborate Jabez' insight at higher levels. Indeed, in our imaginary journey, we shall seek all the twists and turns large sections of the Bible may have taken because this weaving constitutes the patterns of past and future, shaped by the thresholds where one level changes to another.

How to Read

…I want to propose a somewhat different kind of historicism, what I call a diachronic historicism. This approach tries to engage history beyond the simultaneous, aligning it instead with the dynamics of endurance and transformation that accompany the passage of time. This long view of history, restoring the temporal axis to literary studies… allows texts to be seen as objects that do a lot of traveling: across space and especially across time. –Wai Chee Dimock, “A Theory of Resonance,” PMLA 112 (October 1997): 1061.

Traditional historicism (what Dimock calls “simultaneous”) tries only to interpret a text in the light of the era in which it was composed. In the manner of Jorge Luis Borges and other predecessors of her theory, she sees this as unduly limiting. For relatively modern works, the ones she has in mind, her diachronic historicism is an expansion of criticism. For early periods, however, something like her approach has been and remains almost inevitable. With early scriptures “simultaneous” historicism–the method attempted traditionally–simply does not work. With the Pentateuch for instance, the academic assumption is that the text was patched together from strands composed at widely differing times and places. Although innumerable guesses have been made as to dating these stages (with numerous factions ardently committed to their speculations), hard evidence is lacking. When, in The Book of J, Harold Bloom pretends that he can date the first of these to Jerusalem in the time of Solomon, he admits that he is fantasizing. Specialists tend to be more rigorous and serious than he but, ultimately, no less fanciful. Since no Biblical text could have come from all the periods to which it is dated, most historical analyses must have ascribed it to a time other than its origin. They are thus “diachronic,” but, not being aware of this, they are misleading. Furthermore, unknowingly, they choose to read pericopes in the vague context of places and periods about which relatively little is known. If one is to select some point out of the whole manuscript age as a context for an ancient text, it should be the zenith of such cities as Rome, Alexandria, Taxila, or Tun—huang, subjects of vast documentation and archaeology.

What, though, is the value of diachronic historicism? Dimock provides an analogy from chaology. “In 1988, physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology … demonstrated the phenomenon of stochastic resonance. The addition of an optimal amount of noise boosted a weak periodic signal, resulting in the greatest signal—to—noise ratio….” Dimock suggests that, although reading a work against some context later than its origin is like listening to it through random sounds, that noise may amplify and thus make audible otherwise undetected features of the work that it happens to share with its new context. Consequently, the following chapters attempt to imagine a reading of books of the Bible in sites that will help to clarify patterns of the manuscript age–patterns that, nonetheless, are simpler, easier to see versions of some today.

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