The Bible as Warrior-Herder Mythology: Impact of “Edible Landscape” (Cont'd)

The Egyptians exploited these robust herding nomads, but when the Hebrews left Egypt they faced an agrarian world understandably hostile to herding culture. Their hunter mythology grew irrelevant, impractical; time for chrysalis, the Five Books of Moses. The Bible rewarded the Hebrews; it gave them the moral high ground to slaughter non-Hebrews, replace the agrarian goddesses with their warrior God, Yahweh, subjugate and exploit the earth and its animals, and generally view nature as evil. In sum, they created Western Civilization as we know it today.

Let us view a few areas of the Bible that reflect mythological transformation from hunter “magic” to Bible dogma.

Genesis – Triumph of Homocentric Arrogence
Spirit permeates gazelle and eagle, but not sheep and goats; majesty graces sacred hunting grounds, but not strangers’ grazing land; nature without spirit or sanctity is merely an exploitable commodity. Genesis creates this schism, trifurcating God, man, and nature. Theoretically, a monotheistic schema should be the unifying force of mind-spirit-nature convergence. It’s not. Conveniently, (herder) man is ordered to “subdue” the earth and “have dominion over the fish…fowl…and cattle, and over all the earth…” (King James Bible, Genesis 1:28).

God’s Cookbook of Burnt Offerings - Leviticus
Campbell believes personal sacrifice promotes spiritual growth so he barely mentions animal sacrifice because it doesn’t encourage inner journey or bliss. However, God craves burnt offerings in Leviticus, a chapter that transforms the poetic allegory of Genesis into Draconian statutory regime. In Literary Guide to the Bible, Atler says “Harold Bloom dismisses the Priestly regulations in Leviticus…as pitifully belated attempts at domesticating … the essence of the Pentateuch” (66).

There is no textual explanation, earthy reason, or spiritual justification for many of these laws—it’s so because “I said so”— the triumph of theological dogma over mythological pragmatism. Animals must be slaughtered pursuant to detailed specification, cooked with exacting recipes, and grilled to culinary perfection. Gourmet God might be appeased, but such practices fail to respect nature, the hunt, and the animal spirit. Hebrew burnt offerings are God-facing, more in the nature of a “bribe to a deity” (Campbell, 133).

It was natural for man to see the god within animals. As biblical zoologist Roy Pinney says, “Despite the strict monotheism of the Old Testament, the worship of animals by primitive societies was so widespread a phenomenon that it is not surprising to find it cropping up among the Hebrews” (12). But jealous God won’t allow it; the Bible rejects man’s reverential, spiritual relationship with animals, jealous God has the monopoly on spiritual respect. Golden Calf was worshipped; God ordered the slaughter of 3,000 Hebrews.
The Leviticus and Deuteronomy Kosher Cookbook

The idea behind kosher is that all things natural are “unclean,” or unholy, including everything from shell fish to women who are considered unclean until seven days after the end of their menstrual periods. (The way God treats Eve, you’d think she’s his “ex”). These laws probably stem from life among the above-described animal herds. One rationale suggested by Professor Prager is that “Instead of denying or denigrating our animal-like activities, Judaism attempts to sanctify them through its laws of holiness” (49). Eating, as our most frequent animal activity, generates the most rules. Prager suggests that kosher law is based on the ethical treatment of animals, but don’t expect PETA to certify kosher slaughterhouses any time soon. I’ve seen one, they’re barbarous.

Unlike hunting myth, herding mythology was overly legalistic. Only certain foods were allowed to be eaten. Animals were hung by their hooves or feet, throat slit to drain all the blood (all meals, a bloodless coup). Only certain animals could be eaten, e.g., cloven-hoofed mammals that chew their cud—that’s an even-toed ungulate, therefore order, Artiodactyl, sub-order, ruminant—for the taxonomically challenged. (Living Desert Docent Training Materials). Poultry is acceptable, as are scaly fish, but carnivores and shell fish are forbidden. No mixing of meat and dairy, eating the kid in its mother’s milk.

The Bible retained vestigial hunter mythology. Although ceremonies didn’t thank nature directly, kosher law forced man to acknowledge that he was taking a life that didn’t belong to him, but to God.

Animal Myths – Reciprocity and “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”

The hunter-herder rift is underscored when comparing the Hebrews with hunting mythologies of the New England and Blackfoot Indians. In Indian New England Before the Mayflower, Russell explains that “Respect for animals and traditions of kinship with them from ancient times extended to the naming of the Indian blood relatives: the Foxes, Turtles, Bears, and so forth” (44). I could find no evidence that herders spiritualized their livestock or coddled them as pets. “Lambchop,” he whispered tenderly, “Oh, you ewe you!”

Robert Bly retells the Blackfoot buffalo story, saying “It suggests that a compact was made…between humans and animals” and he reminds us of the reciprocal relationship. “A human crosses to the other side when one of them crosses to ours” (239). Understandably, there’s a devotion to dead animals unprecedented in herding cultures. Bly says that a young man’s initiation ritual revolved around the hunt, but our myths no longer honor the “Master of the Hunt” as a divine figure, so “our sacrifices have become unconscious, regressive, pointless, indiscriminate, self-destructive, and massive” (240). While Bly describes modernity, the herders’ ancient Bar Mitzvah initiation likewise celebrates social order, not the hunt.

Herders afford animals little respect, then heap upon them criminal culpability. An ox could be executed by stoning if he gores a “man or woman” (Exodus 21.28). Even better, here’s a biblically-based 1791 criminal statute not dissimilar to most American law during the 18th and 19th centuries. “If any man or woman shall have carnal copulation with any beast or brute creature, the offender shall suffer death and the beast shall be slain and burned” [Emphasis added] (Constitution and Laws of the State of New Hampshire, 268). Lambchop, you paying attention?

Lessons Learned or Imagined
1) Herders make bad neighbors, agrarians invented zoning.
2) If your father is a herder, that’s gross. Go to college and get a good education.
2) The Hebrews didn’t take the path with heart (see Teachings of don Juan).
3) Monotheism promotes mental illness; it alienates ego from id from super-ego (Freud was a Modern Hebrew).
4) Happy hunting grounds are inherently happy, modernity is not.
5) If you’re Jewish, be afraid. Be very afraid. As existentialist philosopher William Barrett says, “As the deity of a nomadic people, He is not confined to his local shrines… like the gods of the Greeks, but may still hunt us down in our modern homelessness” (269).

Also, keep away from golden calves or expect yourself and 2,999 other Jews to die, excluding inflation.

6) Sage advice from a biblical scholar: Take scissor, expurgate the repulsive, cherish the sublime.


Works Cited
Alter, Robert and Kermode, Frank. The Literary Guide to the Bible. Cambridge: Belknap, 1987.
Barrett, William. The Illusion of Technique. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1979.
Bible (King James Version): The New Student Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
Bly, Robert. Iron John. New York: Vantage Books, 1990.
Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.
Castenada, Carlos. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge: Berkely, 1985.
Constitution and Laws of the State of New Hampshire: Dover, 1805.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel, New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.
Living Desert Docent Training Materials. Palm Desert: The Living Desert 2006
Pinney, Roy. The Animals in the Bible. Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1964.
Pragner, Dennis and Telushkin, Joseph. The Nine Questions People ask about Judaism. New York: Touchstone Books, 1981.
Russell, Howard S. Indian New England Before the Mayflower. Hanover: University Press, 1980.