The best description of a biblical anthropology I’ve found comes through the work of Rene Girard. He roots the basis of identity in desire, and that our desires are mediated to us through a model. He names this desire mimesis or mimetic desire. The implication of mimesis is that when we desire things that cannot be shared, we develop rivalries. This leads to alienation, resentment, chaos and even murder.
This problem finds “resolution” through the following process: As a group of people live in this chaotic rivalry, two people find themselves joining together in their resentment of the same individual. This creates a gravitational pull which draws in others until all join except one. All the hostility is redirected to this one scapegoat and the newly formed community collectively murders the scapegoat. Suddenly “peace” is present, so the community finds it important to “remember” this event. The scapegoat is deified for the peace he/she brought, and ascribed magical powers. This places latent fears within the community for the retribution of the scapegoat. The breakout of rivalry is the basic fear and order is maintained through prohibition, myth and ritual based on the founding murder. All religions have vestiges of a partially hidden founding murder. All religions place god on the side of the winners, with the losers in life deserving their fate. If the fear of the god fades, rivalry re-emerges and another founding murder regenerates.
The uniqueness of the Old Testament is that it tells the story of the scapegoat. It speaks history from the perspective of the oppressed rather than the oppressors. The founding murder of Abel recognizes his innocence.
I won’t go into detail in this section, but part of the uniqueness of Jesus is that all he desired and valued were things that are generously available to all. I’m curious to see what the rest of you think about this perspective of anthropology.
Not sure where this leads us
John, it’s an interesting line of thought, but I guess not having much of a background in biblical anthropology, my rather simplistic question is: what does it tell us? Where does this sort of argument lead? I’m not sure that I see that the logic of the scapegoat model you describe is really found in the OT. The story of Joseph would seem to fit the pattern, though the ‘murder’ is only symbolic. Does it also appear on a wider basis? What about the Maccabean martyrs? Are they victims of their correligionists or of the pagan forces? Isaiah’s suffering servant?
I’m also not sure how Jesus fits into this pattern. His death does not bring ‘peace’ to Israel - at least not to the Israel that rejected him. He is not deified by his ‘murderers’. I sense there may be a powerful way of understanding the significance of Jesus within Judaism in all of this, but I can’t quite grasp it.
Further details
Does it also appear on a wider basis?
Yes, and Jesus references this totality: “The blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah” (Luke 11:50-51). The prophets’ blood that was shed includes Job, Jeremiah, the suffering servant, the authors of some of the Psalms. In the NT we have the infants in Bethlehem, John the Baptist, Stephen. The prophets are recognized as holy by the Jewish leaders, but Jesus challenges them that had they lived in that time they would have taken the sides of the murderers.
Jesus fits into this pattern, but also exposes it. In that exposure the results change. Herod and Pilate expect peace to result: “It is better that one die than that a whole nation perish.” With Jesus’ death, no one is absolved, all participate. Even Peter cannot resist the hostility of the crowd. But Jesus rises again. A gathered community awaits. They receive the Holy Spirit and abandon all fear.
If you have further interest, a more detail accounting of this can be found online here: http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9604/articles/girard.html
I would enjoy continuing this conversation further if you have interest. I like your concept for this site.
John
A lot of questions...
John, I read Girard’s article. My understanding is that he is offering an explanation of the causes and effects of Jesus’ death and resurrection using a model (‘unanimous victimization’ leading to reconciliation) developed from the anthropological analysis of certain types of myth. Is that a fair summary?
If it is, I guess one could respond to it on a couple of levels. We could consider whether the biblical stories cited really do conform to this pattern. I would question, for example, his argument that John the Baptist died because ‘Herod’s guests turn into a murderous crowd’. It seems to me that John is entirely the victim of Herodias’ scheming; the crowd is significant only because their presence makes it difficult for Herod to go back on his word (Mark 6:26).
But there is a more fundamental level of response that I would need to get past first. I find myself asking whether this is a real explanation or merely the imitation of an explanation – a pseudo-explanation introduced simply because a certain type of anthropological discourse exists. So I have a number of questions. What do we really gain by approaching the question of Jesus’ death from the direction of an anthropology of myth? What particular explanatory power does this argument have in a postmodern context? Who is Girard talking to? Who are his implicit interlocutors? Only other anthropologists? Or is there something in this that we all need to hear? What does his approach tell us that can’t be learned from a historical or sociological analysis of the gospel narratives? Does it presuppose the operation of some sort of deep anthropological logic of unanimous victimization that cannot be accounted for in purely historical or sociological terms. If not (Girard himself appears to rule out metaphysical explanations), why do we need this rather abstruse type of analysis?
Then we should also consider whether Girard’s approach has any special relevance for the emerging church. Does it help to answer the questions that the emerging church is asking? Does it, for example, offer a viable alternative to the dominant evangelical model of Christ’s death as an atoning sacrifice? Have a look at: Heim, S. Mark, ‘Christ Crucified’ and ‘Visible victim’. There are some other links here.
Too many questions, I know. But I don’t want simply to be seduced by the novelty and esotericism of Girard’s argument. I am looking for new ways of understanding and articulating the central truths of the gospel that genuinely take us forward, not backwards or off at a tangent. Maybe the immediate need, then, is to ask what are the postmodern myths that correspond to the ancient myths (Dionysius, Pentheus, Oedipus, Parusha) that form the starting-point Girard’s analysis. Where do we see the logic of unanimous victimization followed by reconciliation today?
Thanks for bringing this into play. Keep it moving!
More background
You wrote: “I find myself asking whether this is a real explanation or merely the imitation of an explanation – a pseudo-explanation introduced simply because a certain type of anthropological discourse exists.”
That’s a hard disctinction to make. I think it’s an attempt at a real explanation. On the other hand, post-modernism shows us that every explanation is already an imitation, pseudo-real, and must not be embraced to tightly.
Perhaps it would be helpful to say more about Girard. He was raised nominally Catholic and became an atheist. His primary career was in Literary Theory and through his studies developed this theory of mimesis and scapegoating. This led him also into anthropology and eventually he also came to the Gospels. There he states he found the answers to the questions he still had and again embraced God and the Catholic Church.
I believe Girard is a major force in the academic world only in peace studies. In other disciplines he is on the fringes. At the same time, there are a number of well-respected academics in most fields who rely on his work. They have an organization that meets regularly (COV&R) and have a publication.
My own experience is not from the academic side, but more from having “lived it” for about 10 years. I would describe my experience as exploring the utility of the model for me in the areas of spiritual formation, politics and leadership, preaching, mentoring, friendships, tragedy, and marriage. So I can speak to the value of it helping me encounter Christ in a way that has helped me grow and mature, handling the struggles and difficulties of life without being defeated.
I appreciated the links you gave. I follow Paul Neuchterlein’s lectionary helps, and appreciate his insights.
John, interesting comments
John, interesting comments, but I struggle to see the relationship with biblical anthropology. Maybe a comment from you would help to clarify how you see the relationship.
I read Girard’s piece and while he might be helping a postmodern discussion of story and its importance to our identity, he, at least for me, confuses the issue when discussing death-and-resurrection myth. Myth here is understood as one’s story, not necessarily something of one’s imagination, but something that causes a group to gain a sense of where they have come from. In this case, the “Jesus myth” gives Christians a sense of identity.
What I find confusing, however, is the lack of distinction between what is a source of identity and what is a historically datable event. Thus, you have some contemporary Pagans who see Jesus as simply a conflation of Dionysus, Osiris et al. Read in this light, Girard confuses the issue of the historical Jesus and the datable event of his death and resurrection. He becomes simply another way in which a group can self-identify, rather than the Messiah/Christ of Jews and Gentiles. I believe this is an important distinction that Christianity needs to maintain.
How would you see all this relating to biblical anthropology?
Michael
Understanding of myth
You wrote: “He becomes simply another way in which a group can self-identify, rather than the Messiah/Christ of Jews and Gentiles. I believe this is an important distinction that Christianity needs to maintain.”
I am not sure I understand the distinction you’re trying to make. Part of the problem is the looseness of the term “myth”. You define it as the story that causes a group to gain a sense of where they have come from. But also inherent in the definition is a sense that there is a falseness to the story.
Girard tends to not use the word myth to describe the Gospels, instead he refers to them as gospel. In a sense, he is saying that there is something uniquely different about our founding story in Jesus. It is truth in all the senses of the word. The scapegoat mechanism as it normally works bends the truth to make the victors look good. So we tell the myth of George Washington and the cherry tree as a way stressing the importance of truth using a fabrication of an event. That is one part of the uniqueness of Jesus.
Perhaps I misunderstood your question and am not answering it at all. If so, I welcome further clarification.
Alternative Models of Atonement
Apologies for jumping into this discussion – this is the first time I’ve contributed – but I came across this yesterday, when I have just been reading some articles on this subject over the last few days and trying to make sense of them. On the Workshop course last week, we covered the subject of atonement, really I suppose challenging the substitutionary view. This is not something I’d considered before, but anyway, Workshop has strong links with the Mennonites, so a look at the bookstall led me to a book, The Non-Violent Atonement, by J Denny Weaver, whose views are very current amongst the peace Churches, in fact it seems he was speaking in London on this subject only a few weeks ago. He draws heavily on the same ideas about violence, although he seems to takes an extreme position, rejecting any satisfaction theology of atonement that depends on the idea of God sanctioning or requiring violence. He also argues that the satisfaction doctrine was worked out in the Christendom era and in some way supported that particular worldview. Now that we are in post-Christendom, a different view of atonement is needed, one that relates to those on the margins of society. I found a balanced summary of these ideas in an online article in the Mennonite Quarterly Review.
You asked (Andrew) whether this line of argument presents a viable alternative to the dominant evangelical model of atonement. I’m not qualified to answer that(!) but it has set me thinking seriously that if there was an alternative, it would benefit in two areas: firstly, to rehabilitate the celebration of Easter and/or the Communion, putting the cross more into the context of Jesus’ life, the ‘narrative’ of his life, if you like. Following on from this, it would affect our relationships, both inside and outside of the Church. Many Christians become disillusioned because they find the same kind of relationship structures within the Church as there are in society; I’ve recently experienced a severe case of scapegoating and blaming amongst people who were very committed Christians. So a community who followed seriously the example of Jesus in this area would be attractive. A bit idealistic, maybe.
I found another article linking Girard’s scapegoat thesis to Bonhoeffer. I found this hard to understand, but it interested me because it was through reading Life Together and The Cost Of Discipleship over the last year that set me on this train of thought about Christian relationships.
I hope this isn’t going too far off the topic.