Why is the psychology of the Bible so shallow?

[DrZoidberg]

Now when Nolan's Odyssey is in the air I started thinking about the Illiad and the Odyssey. So these are the main religious texts of Greek Pagans. And also Roman Pagans. It's psychologically sophisticated. It's deep in a ways comparable to a modern book, resting on a century and a half of psychological research. The Cult of Isis, a religion about contemporary with Christianity, and from the same geographic region. It's main book, the Golden Asse, is a good book. It's psychologically deep and has interesting portrayals of people. It has, pretty much, the same theology and religious teachings as Christianity. So that's not the problem. The Bhagavad Ghita. Portrays psychologically complex and interesting people. Even the Gods are psychologically interesting. Written 200 bc.

The Bible is as deep as an ashtray. Jesus is passive agressive who's only fallback is that if you don't do what he says his dad's going to get you. His passive aggressivity alone makes him a terrible role model. Zero psychological depth, toxic as fuck. A confusing and aloof character who's authentic motivations do not shine through. There's zero subtext. I'm always amazed how much stuff priests manage to find to talk about in the Bible. There's very little there to help them.

The Golden Asse proves that people in that period were capable of of portraying psychological depth in litterature.

Then Christianity comes... art becomes shallow and boring. Books didn't start to become interesting again until Don Quixiote, 1500 years later.

Why?

And it's not just Christian works. Nonnus Dionysica is a Roman pagan work from the 5th century. That's basically a fantasy novel on par with Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is cool and all. But it's psychological depictions are only sophisticated if you're an 11 year old boy.

The only reason I can think of is Augustus. Rome had free speech before this. It's died with Augustus. If your work wasn't sycophantic to his rule and Rome, and promoted the values he was trying to promote, you were sent to the circus. It did have an impact on litterature during his life. But that was one guy in one instance in history. Can that really explain it? The Golden Asse was written 100 bc. The Bible 100 to 200 ad. So it fits the timeline.

Thoughts?

 

[Politesse]

You're reading complexity into one and simplicity into the other.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You're reading complexity into one and simplicity into the other.

Are you saying that you think that the Bible is psychologically complex and has depth?

 

[DrZoidberg]

In all of the examples above I mentioned, except the Bible, the main character is not a god. The Bible has no character development. Jesus doesn't learn anything and doesn't grow. Odyseus learns and grows. He's also an unreliable narrator. So there's tension. Achiles is a hero, but a fucking idiot. He gets killed by his overconfidence. In that story, Priam goes on the biggest arc and grows the most. Arjuna in the Bhagavad Ghita starts overconfident, and gets humbled by events, is taught the wisdom of Krishna. Buddha is similar. The Golden Asse has similar teachings to Christianity, but the story is told from the perspective of Lucius. The teachings of Isis is told through viginettes as Lucius attempts to be turned back to human (from a donkey). In the process he grows and becomes a devotee of Isis. These are all good stories, that go somewhere. There's story arcs. As a reader, I give a shit.

It reminds me of the bro science critiques of the "feminist" and woke girl power films we got ca 2005 to 2020. Like Mulan, Super Woman and Alita. The female protagonist knows everything from the start. Is kept down by society. She doesn't grow. Doesn't learn anything. The story arcs are about her proving to everyone how wrong they were to keep her down. Nobody in the audeince can relate to that. Who are we supposed to identify with? These films all bombed at the box office, because it's boring to watch. Jesus in the Bible is a very similar type of character.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It reminds me of the bro science critiques of the "feminist" and woke girl power films we got ca 2005 to 2020. Like Mulan, Super Woman and Alita. The female protagonist knows everything from the start. Is kept down by society. She doesn't grow. Doesn't learn anything. The story arcs are about her proving to everyone how wrong they were to keep her down. Nobody in the audeince can relate to that. Who are we supposed to identify with? These films all bombed at the box office, because it's boring to watch. Jesus in the Bible is a very similar type of character.

Way to shoehorn your woke ideology into a completely unrelated topic.

Jesus, relating to the New Testament, is hardly even in it. You get a retelling of the same stories, four times, and that's it. This speaks more to the fact that there likely isn't much to say. That isn't "shallow", it's the flaw. Not much to write about. Which does bring up questions about the authenticity of the stories in the first place.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It reminds me of the bro science critiques of the "feminist" and woke girl power films we got ca 2005 to 2020. Like Mulan, Super Woman and Alita. The female protagonist knows everything from the start. Is kept down by society. She doesn't grow. Doesn't learn anything. The story arcs are about her proving to everyone how wrong they were to keep her down. Nobody in the audeince can relate to that. Who are we supposed to identify with? These films all bombed at the box office, because it's boring to watch. Jesus in the Bible is a very similar type of character.

Way to shoehorn your woke ideology into a completely unrelated topic.

Jesus, relating to the New Testament, is hardly even in it. You get a retelling of the same stories, four times, and that's it. This speaks more to the fact that there likely isn't much to say. That isn't "shallow", it's the flaw. Not much to write about. Which does bring up questions about the authenticity of the stories in the first place.

But you are wrong. Other books from the period proves they could write well. The same story can be told in a variety of ways, som which could portray psychological depth. Like I said, most religious books has a protagonist that isn't the god. Why wasn't Judas the protagonist? That would be my obvious choice. Having Jesus be the protagonist is a weird choice and limits the ability to make it psychologically interesting.

Jesus Christ superstar went with Judas. That's a great example of how good the Biblical story could have been. It tells the same story! Its great. Psychologically deep. It could have been done and we know they had the ability. They just didn't. Its strange

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It reminds me of the bro science critiques of the "feminist" and woke girl power films we got ca 2005 to 2020. Like Mulan, Super Woman and Alita. The female protagonist knows everything from the start. Is kept down by society. She doesn't grow. Doesn't learn anything. The story arcs are about her proving to everyone how wrong they were to keep her down. Nobody in the audeince can relate to that. Who are we supposed to identify with? These films all bombed at the box office, because it's boring to watch. Jesus in the Bible is a very similar type of character.

Way to shoehorn your woke ideology into a completely unrelated topic.

Jesus, relating to the New Testament, is hardly even in it. You get a retelling of the same stories, four times, and that's it. This speaks more to the fact that there likely isn't much to say. That isn't "shallow", it's the flaw. Not much to write about. Which does bring up questions about the authenticity of the stories in the first place.

But you are wrong. Other books from the period proves they could write well. The same story can be told in a variety of ways, som which could portray psychological depth. Like I said, most religious books has a protagonist that isn't the god. Why wasn't Judas the protagonist? That would be my obvious choice. Having Jesus be the protagonist is a weird choice and limits the ability to make it psychologically interesting.

You do realize that the story and implications evolved while subsequent gospels were written. They started as Jesus be God when he comes back to Jesus was always God. They needed to adapt the story as the promises started not happening. The New Testament isn't trying to write a great story. It is writing why they weren't just a cult. Matthew 1 is a brilliant peak into the psychology of the head writers, desperate to claim authority to a historical canon and legendary blood line... instead of starting up front with how their guy came back from the dead.

What makes things more interesting in your "analysis" here is that Christianity was observed quickly on as being very exploitable by those in power! Clearly the writers hit on something that was very useful at the time.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Perhaps if the Bible had all the books, including the banned ones and ones not included in whatever denominations and schisms exclude them, there would be more complexity. Well, rather, I _KNOW_ there would be more complexity.* The question, then, is would that be enough complexity to answer this question or would there still be a deficit?

*For example, suppose just the book that mentions how Jesus murdered those kids when he was a child were in there. That's just one instance.

 

[Politesse]

Perhaps if the Bible had all the books, including the banned ones and ones not included in whatever denominations and schisms exclude them, there would be more complexity. Well, rather, I _KNOW_ there would be more complexity.* The question, then, is would that be enough complexity to answer this question or would there still be a deficit?

*For example, suppose just the book that mentions how Jesus murdered those kids when he was a child were in there. That's just one instance.

You can't be intrigued by a book you haven't read and have already formed a negative opinion of.

 

[Tharmas]

Dr Z, I challenge your statement that The Iliad and Odyssey are the main religious texts of the Greeks and Romans. They're not religious texts at all. For something closer to a religious text try Hesiod's Theogony, which is after all a genealogy of all the gods. And The Golden Ass for dog:s sake is a comic novel. My point is you're comparing apples to oranges.

 

[Politesse]

Homer's works were, essentially, novels, if novels meant to be recited rather than read. They were understood to be fictionalized and dramatized accounts of the events in question. There WERE once more formalized, liturgical rites to honor the gods and tell their stories, but these were almost never committed to print, by long-standing taboos almost as old as writing itself. Because of that, we know little about them.

That said, the Christian gospels were likely not composed as sacred literature either, and the epistles certainly were not, they are and were actual letters, of not always written by the same saint they are now credited to. Not many books in history were actually intended to be sacred literature from the get-go, though the Bhagavad Gita and the Holy Qur'an would be good examples of books that were always intended as liturgical.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Dr Z, I challenge your statement that The Iliad and Odyssey are the main religious texts of the Greeks and Romans. They're not religious texts at all. For something closer to a religious text try Hesiod's Theogony, which is after all a genealogy of all the gods. And The Golden Ass for dog:s sake is a comic novel. My point is you're comparing apples to oranges.

You're completely wrong. They're all sacred texts to their faiths. The only differences I can think of is that the Abrahamic faiths fetishize books. The Bible itself is a ritual object used in ceremonies and rituals. While Pagan faiths fetishise the oral performance of the work. Not the physical object it is written in.

Because the Abrahamic faiths fetishise the physical object, they sacralise the unchanging nature of it. It needs to be copied verbatim. In Pagan faiths artistic licence is allowed. As long as you get the gist of it correct, you're free to interpret and re-interpret to your hearts content. Pagans put a high premium on the entertainment value of their religious story recitations. That's why the Greek plays are so good. But don't for a second think they didn't take it seriously. They most certainly did.

The Golden Asse is a comic novel because Lucius thought comedy was the best vehicle for spreading the gospel of Isis. It would get more people to get exposed to it's message. The teachings of the Cult of Isis were most certainly sacred to them. But not the book itself. Nor that particular story. Because the Bible is a ritual object used in Christian churches explains why the Bible isn't written as a comedy. But not much else about it.

The Christian fetishisation of the Bible explains why they wanted to keep all four early versions of the Jesus story in the Bible. But it doesn't explain why the Jesus story was told from the perspective it was. By the standards of it's own day it's not well written. It might just be as simple as that the early Christians were poor and uneducated and this was just the best they could do? Or it was written badly on purpose to signal something, perhaps humility and simplicity? I really don't know. It's weird.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It reminds me of the bro science critiques of the "feminist" and woke girl power films we got ca 2005 to 2020. Like Mulan, Super Woman and Alita. The female protagonist knows everything from the start. Is kept down by society. She doesn't grow. Doesn't learn anything. The story arcs are about her proving to everyone how wrong they were to keep her down. Nobody in the audeince can relate to that. Who are we supposed to identify with? These films all bombed at the box office, because it's boring to watch. Jesus in the Bible is a very similar type of character.

Way to shoehorn your woke ideology into a completely unrelated topic.

Jesus, relating to the New Testament, is hardly even in it. You get a retelling of the same stories, four times, and that's it. This speaks more to the fact that there likely isn't much to say. That isn't "shallow", it's the flaw. Not much to write about. Which does bring up questions about the authenticity of the stories in the first place.

But you are wrong. Other books from the period proves they could write well. The same story can be told in a variety of ways, som which could portray psychological depth. Like I said, most religious books has a protagonist that isn't the god. Why wasn't Judas the protagonist? That would be my obvious choice. Having Jesus be the protagonist is a weird choice and limits the ability to make it psychologically interesting.

You do realize that the story and implications evolved while subsequent gospels were written. They started as Jesus be God when he comes back to Jesus was always God. They needed to adapt the story as the promises started not happening. The New Testament isn't trying to write a great story. It is writing why they weren't just a cult. Matthew 1 is a brilliant peak into the psychology of the head writers, desperate to claim authority to a historical canon and legendary blood line... instead of starting up front with how their guy came back from the dead.

Why aren't they trying to write a great story? I think that's an excellent question. You're not coming up with much answers.

We know for a fact that the writers of the gospels had no problems with taking artistic licence. They could have added all kinds of things to make a better narrative. And the choice to tell it from the perspective of Jesus is, from a writerly stand point, bad. The apocryphal books on Jesus childhood are straight up super hero narratives. These are offically part of Christian teachings, even though they're not in the Bible.

I could be just wrong. Super hero stories follow the same narrative structure as the Jesus story. And they're popular. But they're popular for kids. These are children's stories. And those are power fantasies. You're supposed to pretend in your head that you have the same super powers, while reading. That's not how the Jesus story is intended to be read. You're not supposed to pretend to smite people with lightning bolts or drown people with floods when you read the Jesus story. That's not how I read it anyway.

The Jesus story is written more as a narrative by a number one fan who never gets to meet their hero, but just can't stop gushing. What in Christian parlance became the hagiography. There's a reason hagiographies are rare today. It's boring to read.

Bohemian Rhapsody, hagiography... boring as fuck. Rocketman. Boring. Straight Outa Compton. They might as well have been riding around on unicorns in it. Boring as fuck. All these are hagiographies and forgettable and will quickly pass out of public awereness.

Contrast them to the films Control, Love & Mercy, Sid and Nancy and 24 Hour Party People. Awesome portrayals with psychological depth. All are classics now. Hagiographies fucking suck.

So why we're still reading the Bible 2000 years later? There's got to be a reason?

What makes things more interesting in your "analysis" here is that Christianity was observed quickly on as being very exploitable by those in power! Clearly the writers hit on something that was very useful at the time.

Yes, that's what's interesting. Why was the Bible so effective even though its badly written? A well written story is more likely to "go viral".

 

[bilby]

Yes, that's what's interesting. Why was the Bible so effective even though its badly written?

Same reason Mein Kampf or The Thoughts of Charman Mao were.

A bunch of fanatics would kill you if you laughed at them, or even just failed to be sufficiently convincing when you said how fucking awesome they were (even if you never read them, and only kept a copy or two in order to show off your loyalty; or in pre-literate times, even if you only went to the weekly readings but gossipped with your neighbours instead of paying attention to the priest).

Even if they didn't try to torture you to death, the fanatics weren't about to let you prosper if you didn't at least pay lip-service to your devotion to the fabulousness of the text. Good luck getting that cushy job, or that promotion.

 

[Elixir]

Why is the psychology of the Bible so shallow?​

Because the Bible is about people and people are shallow.
Just a guess…

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Why aren't they trying to write a great story?

To the extent that the Bible is regarded as one story, and even if it is regarded as a collection of stories, in any case, even if none comes across as deep with psychological insight, it is certainly possible that this is because the imagined intended audience is diverse in developed maturity.

Many humans lust for certainty. For such, there are many rules, many laws, and not just laws but, instead, commandments. At the very least, commandments demand that each person think beyond themselves and their own desires. Despite providing a veneer of there being a certainty beyond that of the self and its desires, the incompleteness or insufficiency of even divine laws actually command thinking - including or especially the thinking beyond self and the desires of each self.

In the Tanakh, it says, “the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”. This commandment is immediately followed by: “these words … shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and SHALL TALK OF THEM WHEN YOU SIT IN YOUR HOUSE, AND WHEN YOU WALK BY THE WAY, AND WHEN YOU LIE DOWN, AND WHEN YOU RISE.”

For those who desire the comfort of certainty, the reciting of the first section as a reminding ritual at different times of the day gives a sense of having thought beyond the self. However, the commanded talking is for the more mature whose desire is less for certainty than it is for the sort of development of a sense for how to navigate righteously the uncertainty, the indefiniteness, the indeterminateness of not just being but also of righteousness.

There is that commandment to love God, yet never is there instruction about how that or any love is to be done completely, even adequately. That love is supposed to be something, a condition which goes beyond law. It is not - and can never be defined in a way that eliminates the need for thinking and especially creativity.

The notion of what love entails can be seen to evolve, develop through the course of the Bible. Love God; love the others among your people; love the foreigner in your midst, and, ultimately, love whomsoever you encounter.

And, yet, this love is never defined sufficiently for anyone to know how best to love in all circumstances, maybe with certainty in any circumstance. Love is not and can never be formulaic.

Kierkegaard says that the idea that love is at the heart of righteousness “did not spring up in any human heart.” It had to be commanded, therefore, by God. Really? What good is a commandment to love when love is not and cannot be determinately defined? What good is such a commandment without there being an experience of having been loved or having seen others act with love?

Talk with others when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and think about such a matter when you lie down, and when you rise. These are the necessary conditions which spark the creativity needed for the love at the core of the righteousness which goes beyond the self and its desires.

So, for the not yet maturing, these stories provide a comfort of there being a certainty. For those who are forever maturing, there is the shared sense of there being a righteousness beyond the ordinary desires of self, a righteousness which can be made manifest only with the creativity of individual humans - a creativity for which there is no set, definite formula.

To put all that another way: the story is incomplete as is the psychology undergirding human creativity.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Why aren't they trying to write a great story?

To the extent that the Bible is regarded as one story, and even if it is regarded as a collection of stories, in any case, even if none comes across as deep with psychological insight, it is certainly possible that this is because the imagined intended audience is diverse in developed maturity.

Many humans lust for certainty. For such, there are many rules, many laws, and not just laws but, instead, commandments. At the very least, commandments demand that each person think beyond themselves and their own desires. Despite providing a veneer of there being a certainty beyond that of the self and its desires, the incompleteness or insufficiency of even divine laws actually command thinking - including or especially the thinking beyond self and the desires of each self.

In the Tanakh, it says, “the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”. This commandment is immediately followed by: “these words … shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and SHALL TALK OF THEM WHEN YOU SIT IN YOUR HOUSE, AND WHEN YOU WALK BY THE WAY, AND WHEN YOU LIE DOWN, AND WHEN YOU RISE.”

For those who desire the comfort of certainty, the reciting of the first section as a reminding ritual at different times of the day gives a sense of having thought beyond the self. However, the commanded talking is for the more mature whose desire is less for certainty than it is for the sort of development of a sense for how to navigate righteously the uncertainty, the indefiniteness, the indeterminateness of not just being but also of righteousness.

There is that commandment to love God, yet never is there instruction about how that or any love is to be done completely, even adequately. That love is supposed to be something, a condition which goes beyond law. It is not - and can never be defined in a way that eliminates the need for thinking and especially creativity.

The notion of what love entails can be seen to evolve, develop through the course of the Bible. Love God; love the others among your people; love the foreigner in your midst, and, ultimately, love whomsoever you encounter.

And, yet, this love is never defined sufficiently for anyone to know how best to love in all circumstances, maybe with certainty in any circumstance. Love is not and can never be formulaic.

Kierkegaard says that the idea that love is at the heart of righteousness “did not spring up in any human heart.” It had to be commanded, therefore, by God. Really? What good is a commandment to love when love is not and cannot be determinately defined? What good is such a commandment without there being an experience of having been loved or having seen others act with love?

Talk with others when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and think about such a matter when you lie down, and when you rise. These are the necessary conditions which spark the creativity needed for the love at the core of the righteousness which goes beyond the self and its desires.

So, for the not yet maturing, these stories provide a comfort of there being a certainty. For those who are forever maturing, there is the shared sense of there being a righteousness beyond the ordinary desires of self, a righteousness which can be made manifest only with the creativity of individual humans - a creativity for which there is no set, definite formula.

To put all that another way: the story is incomplete as is the psychology undergirding human creativity.

You can say all the same things about The Golden Asse. A book so well written, we still read it, even though its religion hasn't been worshipped for 1500 years. Its moral teachings are and message is identical to the Christian one

 

[TomC]

To me, the OP title question is simple to answer.

The folks who created it were primitive. They were trying to tell stories that had importance and meaning to other primitive people.

So of course the stories were primitive and psychologically shallow. It's not because the people were evil or stupid, just primitive.
Tom

 

[ideologyhunter]

The Bible's main theme: innocent blood, when shed, erases the sins of others -- is immoral, irrational, and -- shallow.

 

[DrZoidberg]

To me, the OP title question is simple to answer.

The folks who created it were primitive. They were trying to tell stories that had importance and meaning to other primitive people.

So of course the stories were primitive and psychologically shallow. It's not because the people were evil or stupid, just primitive.
Tom

More primitive than the Cult of Isis? How about Ovid's Metamorphosis?

Books were more psychologically sophisticated before Christianity than after.

Or are you making a class distinction? Ie, Christianity was targetted at the poor, and was therefore simplified in it's psychological portrayal? The fact that it actively also targetted the poor, is Christianities one unique feature. Is that what you are saying?

What all the other religions and cults of that time had in common is that they were actively trying to attract the powerful and wealthy, while actively trying to exclude the poor.