Orphic Christianity 2
For ages the Chritians sung their hymns. With the advent of modernity in the Renaissance and Enlightenment period however the started looking back. In the faithful polemics that saw the light ever since blame is shed upon infidels and heretics. It is however the Christians themselves who sent their beloved leader back to the underworld.
What happened? Scholars and intellectuals as a result of their revaluation of human reason expressed their doubts about Christian dogmatics. This led eventually to the critical bible studies which taught us so much about the historical conditions of the communities that produced the biblical literature. These historical investigations proved a lot of dogmatics untenable. The development of a historical critical method of studying the biblical literature brought about a deep schism within Christianity. On the one hand there were the liberal adherents that felt the need to think through the implications of the new approach, on the other hand conservative forces percieved this as a direct challenge towards their authority. This current in Christianity brought about a different approach in the historical studies. Their students set out to use the tools of the historical- and literary criticism to proove the authority of the biblical literature.
Many examples of this method could presented. I will limit myself to one. In the history of Christianity the book of Jonah is one of the most beloved stories. Not only is the book itself a very elegantly composed piece of literature. It is also the image of the obstinate prophet -a not so pious religious official that stimulates the imagination. On top of that there is the outrageous idea of a human being that survives being swallowed by a large fish. In literary criticism this idea is dismissed as an aspect of mythical reason from which pre-modern man could not yet liberate himself.
The new current in biblical studies countered exactly this aspect of literary criticism, what could be called the modernist prejudice. Their motto could be stated: the bible witnesses miraculous events although not many supernatural ones. Someone who bothered himself with this method is Roy Pinney, author of The animals in the Bible: the identity and natural history of all the animals mentioned in the Bible.
In order to account for the rescue of Jonah the author proceeds with a two step method. First a fish or annother animal living in the sea big enough to be able to swallow a human being is needed. It turns out this can only be the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). This whale eats giant squids & octopuses of sizes that exceed the size of the human body. Therefore, one can imagine this whale swallowing a human prophet. In fact the curator of a certain museum of natural history went to find out for himself after many questions of visitors. He shoved his upper body through the throat of a sperm whale. Afterwards he concluded that it must be posiible for a whale to swallow a prophet, only if the prophet was not too big. Second, equivalent cases must be recorded: i.e. other people who have been swallowed by a whale and survived. Fortunately these exist. Mister Pinney recounts the story of a whaler by the name of Charles Bartley. While whaling this chap went overboard and was swallowed by a whale. His fellow whalers caught the sperm whale and slit it open to recover their unfortunate colleague. He was braught ashore, raving mad, which he remained for forteen days. He received a permanent souvenir of this adventure: a bleached skin as a result from the acidous gastric juices in the whales stomach. It must be noted that before Pinney this story has been used by a certain Ambrose Wilson in an article in the Princeton Theological Review titled ‘The sign of the prophet Jonah and its modern confirmation’ published in 1927.
Enough of Jonah for now. These theologians who try to find evidence of miraculous events in the bible do what they assiduously try to avoid. Whether it is proving that Jonah’s fate is true or identitying the star of Bethlehem or proving people have actually rose from death and still do, they contribute to the 2nd death of Christ. By trying to prove that the stories of the bible are reliant accounts of historical events they make clear that this approach has serious limitations.
This is what happened to the historical critical method. This method has proven not to work as a basis for Christian faith. Therefore this fate has struck the conservative current as well. Faith does not relie on the historicity of certain  events. Faith is a result of the social circumstances of actual reality. What the described events in biblical scholarship have produced is Orpheus looking over his shoulder only to see Eurydice fade away. The studious efforts to prevent Orpheus look over his left shoulder, made him look over his right shoulder. As a result Eurydice/Jesus died for the second time. In his poem Orpheus & Eurydice the Dutch poet Albert Verwey puts it very well: Heeft Orpheus niet Eurydice gedood/ door zelf te hunkeren naar haar levende ogen. The biblical scholars who wanted to prove the reliability of the biblical tradition yearned for the living eyes of Jesus and by doing so they killed him for the second time.
April 18th, 2007 at 7:06 am
The metaphor is Brilliant. I’m not sure what more there is to say about the Jesus/Eurydice Christians/Orpheus metaphor so I understand why there are only 3 entries. More of a single entry than an entire blog. Still a great metaphor. I’d like to see more of your thoughts on other topics.
I’m looking at Orpheus now in connection with a playful writing exercise / blog called Vega Mythos. That is what brought me here. I’ll put a link to your blog. Thanks.