Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Human Insight or Divine Revelation

In a recent article, published shortly after his death, Roy Hoover1 linked (human) insight and (divine) revelation:

What Paul regarded as a revelation we often refer to as an insight…I mean to use insight in this essay in the same sense as the meaning Paul had in mind in using the term revelation—that a new reality had become visible to Paul when God raised Jesus Christ from the dead…”2

An insight is a sudden thought that arises from within. A psychologist might define it as follows: “In psychology, insight occurs when a solution to a problem presents itself quickly and without warning,”3 or perhaps better: “The ability to see and understand clearly the inner nature of things, esp. by intuition.”4 Psychologists regard insight as a common human ability and have developed therapies relying on human insight in the treatment of patients with mental difficulties.5 On the other hand, in Pauline thought a revelation was something initiated from a divine source that came from outside an individual (Gal 1;12; 2:2; 2 Cor 12:1).

            What are we then to make of Hoover’s suggestion that (human) insight and (divine) revelation are the same experience? One seems to cancel-out the other. That is to say: if it is revelation, it is not human insight, and vice versa. Julian Jaynes, late Princton psychologist, however, theorized that ancient humans had a bicameral mind (i.e., two-chambers). One part of the mind issued commands that the other half of the mind perceived as voices of the Gods. Jaynes argued that the ancients did not consider their emotions and desires to be from within themselves, but their inner emotions came from the outside as actions of the Gods.6 The human mind began shifting to human consciousness around the 2nd Millenium BCE, Jaynes argues.7

Today, it is generally thought that sudden flashes of insight that suddenly present themselves to us emerge from the subconscious. Yet how are we to explain auditory “hallucinations,” where people hear voices telling them to do certain things, or people of religious faith claiming to have received “answers” from God to their prayers? Might such experiences be from the subconscious, occurring as a historical residue of the bicameral mind that today is referred-to as insight? Reactions to Jaynes’ hypothesis are mixed, some positive and others negative.8

            On at least two occasions Paul, in his undisputed letters, claims to have had revelations from the Lord (Gal 1:12; I Cor 11:23) and on one occasion claims that the Lord spoke to him, and Paul quotes the Lord’s very words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9). Could these occasions be considered instances of a residual bicameral mind at work in the first century CE? The bicameral mind is a mental state in which an experience of the right hemisphere of the brain is transmitted to the left hemisphere via auditory hallucinations. Or must we think that Paul was only speaking metaphorically. That is, he didn’t mean to say that he heard an actual voice. It was only a sudden flash of insight that came to him.

            Hoover preferred to describe as (human) insight what Paul described as (divine) revelation, and Jaynes’ hypothesis presents a plausible theory for explaining divine revelation as simply human insight. What an awesome and terrifying thought! If true, God-believers are more alone in the universe than ever before.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

1Late Weyerhaeuser Professor of Biblical Literature and Religion Emeritus at Whitman College.

2Roy W. Hoover, “The Origin of Paul’s Gospel and the Power of Insight,” The Fourth R 37.5 (November-December 2024), 18.

3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight

4Webster’s New World College Dictionary, under the word “insight.”

5Philip G. Zimbardo, et al., Psychology. Core Concepts (6th ed.; Boston: Pearson, 2009), 576-77.

6Julian Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness in the Break-down of the Bicameral Mind (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), see his readings of the Iliad, p. 72 (date of the Iliad is around 8th/7th century BCE).

7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality#:~:text=Jaynes%20theorized%20that%20a%20shift,complexity%20in%20a%20changing%20world. See his argument for the breakdown of the bicameral mind in Mesopotamia: Jaynes, Origins, 223-246.

8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality#:~:text=Psychiatrist%20Iain%20McGilchrist%20proposes%20that,that%20McGilchrist%20mischaracterized%20Jaynes's%20theory.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Are there Narrative Gaps in the Parables of Jesus?

Parables are not straight forward. They only tell you imprecise stories. At times, a parable is simply ambiguous, always polyvalent, or appears to leave gaps in the flow of the narrative. Such gaps influence capturing an elusive meaning for the story. Readers must find a way, or ways, to bridge the gap before they can struggle with a parable’s meaning.1 Here are three parables that have or appear to have narrative gaps influencing how they are understood. At times the gaps undermine how one has always understood the story.

            Luke 13:9, the conclusion to the story of two bumbling farmers (Luke 13:6-9), breaks-off in mid-sentence leaving the reader with a physical gap in the narrative. Literally, 13:9 concludes: “And if it [the tree] bears fruit in the future, […]; and if not you will cut it down.” In this case, the latter half of the sentence is missing. Most translators, aware of the missing text, accommodate the ellipsis (i.e., gap in the text) in some way. For example, the NRSV and REB2 fill it in the following way: “And if it bears fruit in the future, <well and good>” (pointed brackets indicate the translator’s conjecture; except translators don’t generally use pointed brackets). One can easily imagine the vintner’s shoulder shrug and open palms as he unexpectedly drops the last phrase. What should one make of the gap and how should one take the vintner’s subtle refusal to cut-down the tree?3

            There appears to be a crucial gap in Jesus’ well-known parable about a father and his two sons (Luke 15:11-32).4 The gap in the flow of the narrative occurs between Luke 15:24 and 25. Why did the father not notify his older son about the celebration? The celebration was in full swing when the older brother happened to come-in from the fields. He had to ask a hired hand what was going-on. He was clearly ignorant of the younger son’s return. The older son felt slighted, for his father had never given him so much as a young goat for a celebration. (15:29). Was the father’s slight of the older son deliberate or simply the oversight of a father who doted on the younger son and had taken the older son for granted? If this be the case, how does the gap influence how one reads the parable?

            Jesus’ story about a shepherd and a lost sheep (Luke 15:4-6) also may have a gap in Luke’s version of the parable. It occurs between 15:5 and 6. In verse 4, the shepherd discovers one sheep is missing and he leaves the flock of 99 sheep alone in the wilderness to search for the lost sheep. When he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders rejoicing (verse 5). When he comes home, he celebrates his finding the lost sheep with friends and neighbors (verse 6). Did the shepherd go directly home with the sheep on his shoulders after finding it, abandoning the 99 in the wilderness? If there is a gap between verses 5 and 6, the shepherd might be construed as returning to the flock and bringing all 100 of the flock to a place of safety before he returns home. Alas, that is not how the story appears in Luke. In Luke, it is a story about an irresponsible shepherd who abandons his flock in the wilderness and returns home to celebrate the one lost sheep that was found.5

The danger of filling gaps in an explanation of the story, however, leaves one open to the charge that he (or she) is writing another story, rather than reading and explaining the story as it is written. The more responsible approach would be to explain the story as written and raise the issue of the gap. In either case, once you recognize a gap, it is impossible not to let it affect how you read the story. For gaps also are part of the parable.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

1See Hedrick, Many Things in Parables. Jesus and his Modern Critics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 47-50.

2New Revised Standard Version and the Revised English Bible.

3See Hedrick, “An Unfinished Story about a Fig Tree in a Vineyard (Luke 13:6-9)” pages 142-69 in Parabolic Fictions or Narrative Fictions. Seminal Essays on the Stories of Jesus (Cascade, 2016).

4Hedrick, Many Things in Parables, 48.

5Hedrick, Many Things in Parables, 49-50.