HALLOWEEN: Do the Dead Walk?

At the end of October we celebrate (?) one of the strangest folk observances of our annual calendar. Coming on October 31, as it does, the custom has become associated with All Saints Day in the Catholic traditions. All Saints Day, in the West falling on November 1, is a church celebration in honor of all the saints who have passed on; it is followed on November 2 by All Souls Day, a day of solemn prayer for all the dead. These holy days in honor of the dead effectively render October 31 as All Hallows Eve—from which we get the name “Halloween.”

            The roots of Halloween have been associated with a number of ancient traditions: the ancient Roman celebration of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds; the Roman festival of the dead, called Parentalia; and most closely with the Celtic festival of Samhain. The major focus of Halloween, as we know it, seems to have evolved out of the superstitious and dark side of the human soul—so costumes largely feature such mythical creatures as monsters, vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, walking skeletons, witches, and devils. Today we relegate such supernatural creatures to the realm of fantasy, myth, fairy tale, and fiction—at least most of us do. In the bright light of day it is easy to be a rational human being, but in a dark empty room in the late evening when the hair on the back of your neck stands up at a sudden sensation of an unseen nearby presence, we may have second thoughts. In the distant past, however, before critical thinking became widespread through public education, such creatures were regarded as real entities that could actually do harm, and people relied on certain protections against them—prayer being one. And today not everyone, even in America, possesses the liberating knowledge that these creatures are merely fictional characters, figments of our dark side.

            The Bible is surely one reason that people are still uneasy about such mythical creatures, since it reinforces human superstition at many points. For example, the gospel writer we call Matthew apparently believed that dead people could come out of their graves and go on a walk about (Matthew 27:51-54). It is a strange story (appearing only in Matthew) but Matthew tells it graphically like an actual historical occurrence (as opposed to a symbolic or legendary story). Except for one phrase in 27:53, “after his raising,” Matthew describes the incident as if it were happening simultaneously with the death of Jesus (27:50, 54). The phrase in Matthew 27:53, however, effectively throws the event forward some three days or so (in Matthew’s chronology) to a time following the raising of Jesus (Matthew 28). The effect of this chronological leap forward is that it associates the report with the Christian myth of the “harrowing of hell” or the “descent into Hades,” when Jesus at his death descends into Hades to free those dead saints who have been in Hades awaiting release. Vestiges of the myth are found in the New Testament (Eph 4:8-9; 1 Pet 3:18-19), but it is fully developed in the post New Testament period. The phrase in Matthew 27:53 may be due to a later editing of Matthew’s gospel, since the incident as a whole seems clearly to go with the death of Jesus and not with his resurrection. So what do we say about Matthew’s sense of history as reflected in this story?

            It appears to originate in a superstition that dead people can rise and walk. A description similar to Matthew’s story is found in Ezekiel’s description of the people of Israel in the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37:12-14). The Lord says: “I will open your graves…and place you in your own land.” Matthew’s description of “tombs opening in an earthquake” (compare Matthew 28:1-2) and “bodies of dead saints being raised” (compare Matthew 28:9), and “the saints coming out of the tombs and walking about in the holy city” is a very graphic account. Not even Paul, however, would describe the raising of Jesus as Matthew describes the raising of the saints. (Paul insists that Jesus rose with a “spiritual body,” not a physical body; see 1 Corinthians 15:42-57.) Matthew’s report could be an early Christian legend (a non-historical traditional story told for the purpose of encouraging faith). And that is exactly what Matthew’s report did for the centurion and the soldiers (Matthew 27:54); the “event” confirmed for them (and for Matthew) the identity of Jesus as “son of God.” But dead bodies actually coming out of their tombs and walking about Jerusalem around 3 pm in the afternoon (Matthew 27:46) seriously strains credulity for a post-Enlightenment thinker. In order to think of the incident as “history” a 21st century reader will have to “suspend disbelief,” something we do with all ghost stories—in a sense we simply ignore the incredulous aspects of the report. We know that the dead cannot come out of their tombs and wander about the city, no matter how serious the earthquake—or do we know that?

            Has Matthew given us a kind of ghost story suitable only for telling around the campfire on a dark night, or is it an actual historical occurrence that confirms the identity of Jesus, or is it a legend that only the true believer can appreciate? As a post-Enlightenment thinker, my money would be on the ghost story.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Works Consulted

Nicholas Rogers, Halloween. From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Richard Bauckham “Descent to the Underworld,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (6 vols.; ed. David Noel Freedman, et al.; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 2.156-59.

This essay first appeared as a blog on Wry Thoughts about Religion on October 16, 2011, and was subsequently published in The Fourth R 25.1 (Jan-Feb, 2012), 25-26.

Was Jesus an Exorcist?

The synoptic evangelists agree that the public career of Jesus could best be summed up in the following way:

His mission was primarily that of a prophet (Mark 1:15), teacher (Luke 4:15), and healer (Luke 4:40, 13:32), or exorcist (Luke 4:41, 6:17-19); his message was the announcement of the impending arrival of the reign or kingdom of God (Luke 4:43).¹

I would have said healer and exorcist based on the Q saying (Matthew 12:28=Luke11:20) attributed to Jesus.  In other words his exorcisms, casting demons out of people unfortunate enough to have been possessed by them, and his healings of diseases and infirmities are two sides of the same activity, for in the view of the synoptic evangelists illness is also caused by demons (Mark 9:14-29/Matthew 17:14-21/Luke 9:37-43a). Hence exorcizing demons, healing the sick, and proclaiming the kingdom are all aspects of the emerging reign of God, which brings the end of the age. Therefore Jesus is generally described as an apocalyptic prophet who announces the blessings of the soon-to-arrive kingdom, of which his exorcisms and healings are a foretaste in the present.  Such is the default understanding of Jesus on the part of the authors of the synoptic evangelistic tracts, a view that is shared by the confessing church and by many (if not most) in the contemporary academic community (but not by the Gospel of John).²

 

            "A belief in the existence and activity of demons is not limited to the New Testament. Some conception of evil spirits or demons was held almost universally by the religions of the ancient world."³  But not all people in antiquity shared this view of possession by evil spirits and the therapeutic activity of exorcising them.  For example, the satirist Lucian of Samosata (2nd century AD) ridicules the gullibility of people who were willing to believe all sorts of things about a supernatural world, and uses exorcism of evil spirits as an example of their gullibility.⁴  Hippocrates of Cos (5th century BC), the most famous physician of antiquity, regarded possession (what he calls the "sacred disease") as due to natural causes, and the idea that it is due to divine action was the result of superstition, gullibility, and quackery. The real source of this serious disease is to be found in the brain, and it can be cured without recourse to purifications or magic.⁵  Among the things that Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor, 2nd century AD) claimed he learned was to be incredulous about sorcerers and imposters regarding the driving out of spirits. ⁶

 

            Doubt is cast on the historical value of this general picture of Jesus emerging from the synoptic gospels by a number of the sayings of Jesus that the evangelists preserve, and in particular on the therapeutic value of exorcism.  For example, the narrative parables, in the main, contain no trace of the apocalyptic features the synoptic evangelists associate with the career of Jesus. Nevertheless one of his stories does describe demon possession, but it in fact casts doubt on the general efficacy of exorcism.  The story is found in the earliest gospel Q (Luke 11:24-26=Matt 12:43-45), which Matthew and Luke repeat with minor differences—in short, the story is virtually verbatim.  Oddly the Jesus Seminar printed Matthew's version in grey (meaning the ideas in this version are close to Jesus' own) and Luke's version was printed in pink (meaning Jesus probably said something like this), even though the differences are only stylistic and few in number.⁷  Here is the story in Luke's version:

 

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest; and finding none he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there.

 

            Luke's concluding statement (11:26, "and the last state of that man becomes worst than the first") is the Q interpretation of the story and is repeated by Matthew (12:45); Matthew (12:45) adds another interpretation: "So shall it be also with this evil generation." While the story reflects the widespread superstition in antiquity that demons possess people, it regards the practice of exorcism as futile.  In that sense it challenges the traditional image of Jesus as an exorcist.  You will recall that there are no accounts of demon possession or exorcisms in the Gospel of John.  This short story seems to link Jesus to the attitudes expressed by Lucian, Hippocrates, and Marcus Aurelius.

 

            Why would Jesus cast doubt on the therapeutic value of his own exorcisms, do you suppose? Or was this story not told by Jesus? Have the synoptic evangelists simply capitalized on a tendency in the Jesus tradition to see Jesus as an exorcist and developed it further?  After all, they had no personal knowledge of Jesus.

 

How does it seem to you?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

¹F. C. Grant, "Jesus Christ" IDB, vol. 2:882.

²See C. W. Hedrick, The Wisdom of Jesus, 164-179 for a summary of academic views of Jesus at the end of the twentieth century.

³D. G. Reese, "Demons," ABD, vol. 2:140.

⁴Lucian, Lover of Lies, 16, and 31-32.

⁵Hippocrates, The Sacred Disease, I, 1-4; II, 1-46; V, 1-21; VI, 1-2; XXI, 22-26.

⁶Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, I.6.

⁷Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 189, 330-31.

The Null Hypothesis, Epilepsy, and Evil Spirits

"A null hypothesis is a type of hypothesis used in statistics that proposes that no statistical difference exists in a set of given observations. The null hypothesis attempts to show no variation exists between variables, or that a single variable is no different than zero. It is presumed to be true until statistical evidence nullifies it for an alternative." http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/null_hypothesis.asp

 

               As I understand it: the null hypothesis is the point where discussion bogged down in responses to my last blog (June 25, 2016): Gene suggested that we might be mired in a null hypothesis—that is to say, it is just as plausible to believe in spirits as not to believe in them. He asked Jim to suggest a scientific study showing that not believing in spirits is a more reasonable position than accepting that there were such entities as spirits. In this brief essay I will try to move us forward by attempting to show that it is more plausible to attribute the effects of illness, disease, and mental abnormalities to natural causes than to possession by unseen spirits.

 

               In the common tradition shared by Matthew, Mark, and Luke the three evangelists report the same story, each in his own way. The current generally-accepted theory of their relationship is that Mark wrote first, and then Mark's narrative was used as a source independently by Mathew and Luke. Mark (9:14-29) recounts that a boy, possessed by a mute spirit (9:17, i.e., a spirit causing muteness), was brought to the disciples who could not "cast it out" (9:18). The description of the spirit's effect on the boy is frightening (9:20-22). Jesus casts the spirit out, adding that it was also a spirit causing deafness (9:25-26). Luke's narrative (9:37-43a) is shorter and attributes the boy's ailment simply to "a spirit" (9:38), which later turns out to be "an unclean spirit" (9:42), which Jesus "rebukes and heals the boy" (9:42).

 

               Matthew's narrative (17:14-21) is also shorter than Mark and adds that the boy is an epileptic (17:15) and, more to the point, describes his epilepsy as caused by a demon (17:18), which Jesus rebukes and cures the boy. The word translated epilepsy is literally translated "moon struck," for "in the ancient world epileptic seizure was associated with the transcendent powers of the moon."* Matthew gives the disease its "proper" medical term for antiquity, but regards epilepsy as a disease caused by demon possession.

 

               Today the medical profession (and most of the Western world) does not regard epilepsy as caused by demon possession. In the 21st century epilepsy is thought to be "caused by abnormal activity in brain cells": The Mayo Clinic http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/epilepsy/symptoms-causes/dxc-20117207

 

               Medical practitioners have shown that it is more effective to treat epilepsy with medication than it is to subject a patient to an exorcism: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/epilepsy/diagnosis-treatment/treatment/txc-20117241

 

               The history of the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy, which brings the rational world to a medical explanation for epilepsy, is anything but reassuring.  The stigma attached to epilepsy lasted well into the 1990s and its treatment has not always been competent: A brief history of epilepsy: http://nawrot.psych.ndsu.nodak.edu/courses/465Projects05/epilepsy/History.htm

 

               Hence, I offer this single statistic, a single variable: that is, epilepsy responds to medical treatment. This datum shows, conclusively in my judgment, that believing epilepsy is caused by evil spirits is a flawed perception of reality and may very well be dangerous to the welfare of those afflicted with epilepsy if their immediate caregivers persist in believing that epilepsy is caused by evil spirits. While it is only a single variable, I suggest that the number of variables will greatly multiply if one makes a study of other illness and diseases, previously thought to be caused by evil spirits, which with the advent of modernity have been shown to be the result of natural causes.

 

               Nevertheless, not all who live in the 21st century are really completely a part of the 21st century, and persist in the belief of evil spirits.  A case in point is Dr. Richard Gallagher, a board-certified psychiatrist, who is described as a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College.  Mr. Gallagher seems clearly to believe in demon possession. http://wapo.st/293X0vb?tid=ss_mails Has Mr. Gallagher matched my single variable with multiple variables of his own?  If so, we are still mired in the null hypothesis—that is to say, because of Mr. Gallagher's testimony about exorcising evil spirits, it is as reasonable to seek help from exorcists for illness, disease, and mental abnormalities, as it is to seek help from medical professionals.

 

Where do you come down on this statement: exorcism and medical treatment are two equally valid ways of treating epilepsy?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

*F. W. Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (3rd ed.; Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 2000), 919.

THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF WORLD

How do you see the world?  The ancient Hebrews had no single word for the material space we occupy, such as "world" or "cosmos."  The parts of our material space they described simply as heaven and earth (Genesis 1:1); heaven, earth, and sea (Exodus 20:11); heaven, earth, and water under the earth (Exodus 20:4); heaven, earth, sea, and the deep (Psalm 135:6).  The earth was like a saucer surrounded by water and resting upon water (Genesis 1:1, 6-8) or foundational pillars (Proverbs 8:27-29).  In short, there was a bit of firmament sheltering a flat earth from a surrounding watery chaos.

 

            The Creator saw everything that had been made "and behold it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).

 

            You know what happened next. Adam breaks the Creator's one rule (Genesis 2:17), and as a result he and Eve were banished from the good life in the Garden of Eden.  Life outside the Garden was difficult, threatening, and ended in death (Genesis 3:16-19).

 

            The Apostle Paul uses the banishment of Adam and Eve to explain why human beings die. They die because of Adam's sin (Romans 5:12-14, 17). And perhaps even the physical creation was also affected by his sin, for Paul describes the creation as being in bondage to decay waiting for redemption (Romans 8:18-21).

 

            Today even the most ardent Bible believer knows that this ancient story is mythical because they have seen photographs taken from the moon of our blue and white, more-or-less spherical, planet surrounded by limitless space in a cosmos of billions of galaxies and planetary systems—with not a drop of water around it.

 

            The world into which Adam and Eve, the progenitors of humanity, were forced has a bizarre landscape.  Things are not what they seem on the surface.  Horrid demons lurked about (satyrs, Leviticus 17:7; the night demon Lilith, Isaiah 34:14; the noonday devil, Psalm 91:6).  For the one sharing the Bible view of world there is a plethora of such demonic entities and evil forces that must be negotiated.  For example, the Prince of the Power of the Air (Eph 2:2; John 14:30, 16:11) leads a consortium of demons and evil spirits that threaten harm to human beings.

 

We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

 

Evil and unclean spirits fall upon humans unawares, possess them, and cause them to behave insanely (Mark 5:1-10); they infect them with deafness, muteness (Mark 9:25), infirmity (Luke 13:11), and epilepsy (Matthew 17:15-18); they empower in them the black art of divination (Acts 16:16) and the performance of signs (Revelation 16:13-14), and even cause prophets to lie (1 Kings 22:21-23)—and who knows how much more.  Satan can even transform himself into an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), so that a person never knows if s/he deals with a good or evil force. There is also a cadre of good spirits and angels at work in the world; a Great Spirit assigns angels to watch over "little ones" (Matthew18:10).

 

            Fortunately certain human beings, empowered by benevolent spirits can combat these evil forces. For example, Jesus gave his disciples authority to cast out unclean spirits (Matthew 10:1) and in addition commissioned them "to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers" (Matthew 10:7).  In other words the world is a place of constant struggle between the spiritual forces of good and evil, and the contested territory is precisely the mind, health, and behavior of human beings—at least that is what the Biblical writers want us to believe.

 

            Strange things happen in the Biblical world: axe heads float (2 Kings 6:4-7), donkeys talk (Numbers 22:21-30), the dead won't stay dead (Matthew27:51-54), people defy gravity and walk on water (Mark 6:45-52), on command the earth stops rotating (Joshua 10:12-14), snakes carry on conversations (Genesis 3:1-5). There are magic cloths that heal diseases and drive out evil spirits (Acts 19:12; Mark 5:24-30).

 

            I don't find the world I live in to be as described in the Bible.  I have never personally encountered the spiritual forces.  True, the world I live in is dangerous, but pretty bland when compared to the world seen through the eyes of the Biblical writers.  My life and welfare are always at risk from natural forces and even nature itself, but I have never been threatened with harm by evil spirits or demons.  I have never met an angel.  In the world as I experience it people who die stay dead, and day passes into night with amazing regularity.

 

            Did a world, such as described in the Bible, ever actually exist, do you suppose?  Or did it only exist in the imaginations of the ancient writers and in the minds of those who choose to believe them?

 

What kind of world do you live in?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

See "Wry Thoughts about Religion" Blog: March 13, 2013.

The Church and Skeletons, Ghosts, Spirits, and Demons

From our childhood the Bible and the Church have taught us that there exists the probability of surreal encounters: for example, witches that can raise the dead by spirit power (1 Sam 28:7-15); visions about disassociated bones reconnecting and being revivified (Ezek 37:1-10); evil spirits inhabiting our bodies (Mark 5:6-13); ghosts (phantasm) perhaps walk among us (Mark 6:49-50), and much more.  Of course, a modern worldview excludes such possibilities.  Nevertheless revivified skeletons, ghosts, spirits, and demons are still a part of the modern landscape, but not as the Bible or the Church would always have them.

Virtually all of us, if we have lived for any length of time, have a skeleton or two in our respective closets.  I define a skeleton as something from our past that we have buried but it still lurks in an out-of-the way corner of our conscious mind being involuntarily recalled at odd moments.  That skeleton, if it were rattled about in public, might cause us embarrassment perhaps, but no real harm, except for a slight tarnishing to our egos and reputations.

            Then there are our personal ghosts, the demons we have suppressed deep within our subconscious; they cast shadows over our conscious mind and debilitate our emotional and physical health.  These ghosts are psychological—that is, they exist only in our minds, but they are nevertheless very real in the sense that they are mental remainders of experiences so powerfully frightening or painful that we deny them, and consequently bury them so deep in our subconscious they are soon forgotten by our conscious minds.  But they remain with us.  From deep within our subconscious they continually chaff against our consciousness, bringing to the surface feelings of inferiority, depression, excessive negative behaviors, and even more serious personality disorders.  We would do well to pay attention to the warning signs that some of us may well be inhabited by "ghosts and demons of the past," and should seek the help of an "exorcist," someone specifically trained in the medical art of therapy.  To exorcize them we need the help of a skilled therapist.  The run-of-the mill counselor, spiritual advisor, or religious life coach is ill-equipped for this task.

            Then there are the metaphysical spirits, ghosts, and demons.  By definition metaphysical ghosts and demons are not part of the physical world—that is they do not exist or occupy common space and time like you and I do.  They belong to an imagined spirit world totally apart from the physical cosmos of which we are a part.  Nevertheless they are very real as ideations of the mind.  They and many other such ideations are remainders left over from humanity's superstitious primitive childhood—in our naïve past the natural world was not an "it" but a "thou." Rocks, trees, bushes, mountains, etc., were endowed with mana (a general supernatural force concentrated in objects or persons), and the physical world was populated by spirit beings both helpful and harmful to humans.  One learned to placate them by spells, charms, and sacrifices.  All religions to some degree have perpetuated belief in such spirits, but in the modern Western world Christianity with its use of the Bible must accept the larger share of the blame for perpetuating such primitive superstitions.

            But if they are imaginary what possible harm would it do to believe in metaphysical spirits, ghosts, and demons?  I suppose none, unless one equates physical illness, disease, or accidents, etcetera to these metaphysical ideations of the mind, and ignores medical science by resorting to prayer and/or charms as a first line of defense against them.  Tragically even in the modern world people have died as the result of misguided attempts to exorcise possessing demons and spirits.

            The use of the Bible as an authoritative religious text without proper disclaimers is not only irresponsible but borders on the criminal by endangering the mental health and welfare of the public.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University