For more in the review panel on Reed Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena, click here.
In his new volume, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible, Reed Carlson asks us to more closely consider the role of spirit possession–selves that inhabit us that are not our own and are, therefore, unfamiliar–in the Hebrew Bible. But he also invites us to consider another, related, no less important question: how unfamiliar are selves in general in the Hebrew Bible? A self that can be possessed, penetrated, and momentarily or permanently taken over by a being from outside is not a self that is readily recognizable to us, though it is not altogether alien as well, as his introductory comments about a 1981 murder in Brookfield, Connecticut makes plain (1-5). As Reed explains, employing the language of Charles Taylor, a self that is possessed by another can be considered to be a “‘porous’ self,” as opposed to a “‘buffered’ self” (30-31). He explains further, “the premodern ‘porous’ self naturally assumed that the most powerful and important emotions originated outside of the mind–or better, that there was no boundary at all” (30-31). In so saying, as he himself notes, he steps into a contested area in current biblical scholarship (19-21), one into which Carol Newsom, Françoise Mirguet, and I myself, among others, have recently waded. While the relationship of ancient Israelite representations of the self to our own has often been asked in connection to emotion, Reed is right to expand the discussion to include the question of “spirit.”
It is worth dwelling for a moment on what is at stake in this question of familiarity and on its basis within the broader field of hermeneutics. I would like to begin with Wilhelm Dilthey’s explication of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who is in many ways the initiator of this field:
The possibility of a universally valid interpretation can be derived from the nature of understanding. In understanding, the individuality of the exegete and that of the author are not opposed to each other like two incomparable facts. Rather, both have been formed upon the substratum of a general human nature, and it is this which makes possible the commonality of people with each other for speech and understanding. Here the relatively formalistic terminology of Schleiermacher can be further elucidated psychologically. All individual differences are not in the last analysis determined by qualitative differences among persons, but rather through graduated differences in their psychic processes. Now inasmuch as the interpreter tentatively projects his own sense of life into another historical milieu, he is able within that perspective to momentarily strengthen and emphasize certain psychic processes and to minimize others, thus making possible within himself a re-creation of an alien form of life.[1]
There is much of interest here, not least of which is the framing of the historical other as, indeed, “an alien form of life.” Notwithstanding that terminology, Dilthey, on the heels of Schleiermacher, makes it absolutely clear that it is in fact the universal commonality of beings, “the substratum of a general human nature,” that provides the very possibilities for understanding itself. Understanding requires the conditions of universality and involves the projection of experience held in common. The circularity of such an approach with its unfettered application of the interpreter’s own assumptions about life, nature, humanity, and society–an echo chamber whereby the modern self reads itself into antiquity–may be quite obvious to us now, but the effect on biblical studies of Schleiermacher’s position remains, as does the impetus behind it. Indeed, it relates to the very premise of much study of the Hebrew Bible, namely that it serves as a source or foundation for Western thought and therefore stands as a viable resource for thinking about our own moral, religious selves.
I find that Carlson occupies a complex position on the question of the applicability of the biblical material to the present or, to put it differently, the familiarity of its selves. Below I focus on his interpretation of specific texts and instances of biblical language. But there are also certain aspects of the project’s overall framing that need to be addressed. On one hand, as noted above, the project sets out to highlight the possibility of human difference. Among many notable points, Carlson highlights the “profoundly material nature of spirit possession” (7). This observation is an extremely important starting point for any consideration of spirit possession in the Bible. And it is nuggets like these that will allow future scholars to use Carlson’s work as a basis for further scholarship on the question. On the other hand, I find that Carlson, because of the structure of his argument, at times seems to advocate for a sort of pan-universal phenomenon of spirit possession and thereby risks reinscribing more contemporary notions of the self in biblical material.
Carlson introduces each of his chapters with a series of fascinating case studies of spirit possession from around the world, especially the Global South. While this material frames the chapter as a whole, suggesting a commonality with the biblical, there is sometimes too little attempt at detailed comparative analysis, which would involve identifying specific similarities or differences between the compared phenomena. The result is that some readers might feel that they are on a whirlwind tour of global spirit possession or in a curiosity shop of the spirit. The comparative approach, without detailed descriptive analysis, makes it difficult to analyze the particularity of biblical texts. And, if the aim is simply to show the commonalities of the world situation with the biblical, then why pour the energy and resources necessary for studying ancient sources into that material, other than for the mere fact of its canonical significance?
For that reason, Unfamiliar Selves seems to occupy itself with a more general concern to assert the extensive existence of spirit phenomena around the world, including the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, one of the overall thrusts of the book is the significant point that, contrary to certain anti-Semitic narratives that would cut Judaism out of the world of the “spirit,” identifying it instead with the “letter,” and focusing on the New Testament as the proper location of “spirit”-filled concerns, spirits populate both the world of ancient Israel and Second Temple Judaism (15). The problem, however, is that the contours of such a discussion–does Judaism have a concern for “spirit possession?”–already presuppose the terms of the debate, that Judaism indeed should allow for forms of spirit possession if it is to be considered an adequate religion. Such a view is far from Carlson’s intentions, but that is precisely the point. Merely establishing the existence of “spirit” language in ancient Jewish texts, rather than identifying its particularity–the local realities with which it intersects and the specificity of the literary representations by which it is constituted–risks evaluating ancient Judaism from the standpoint of Christianity.
I don’t believe there has been much dispute, especially since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that is to say, over the past seventy years or so, about the swarms of spirits, not to mention, demons in ancient Judaism. Along with his equation of comparative material and ancient Jewish material, Carlson takes a “synchronic” approach to ancient Judaism by collecting examples of spirit possession in ancient Israel alongside those in Second Temple Judaism. It is true, as he notes, that many scholars recently have emphasized the ways in which non-canonical texts may have taken their place among biblical texts in Second Temple Judaism, but it seems unlikely that most of them would suggest that, therefore, we should envision such texts without taking diachronic developments into account, that “the spirit phenomena that I identify in the Hebrew Bible are not different in kind from those found in other early Jewish literature,” (5-6, n. 12). Indeed, the peculiarities of “spirit” language in texts like Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the non-canonical psalms, and throughout the Scrolls are quite striking and stand out against the biblical material in a manner that begs for analysis, which it has indeed received in a variety of recent studies, such as James Kugel’s The Great Shift: Encountering God in Biblical Times. In short, I would suggest that the use of comparative studies as framing material for the biblical, alongside the synchronic approach, is conducive to making a general claim about the importance of “spirit”-phenomena but not to the actual identification of difference, which I see as essential to the comparative and critical enterprise. The suggestion would seem to be that spirit possession is a core, universal human experience, quite apart from the particularities of its social construction as a part of a broader engagement of political, economic, social, religious, and gendered concerns in specific local sites.
I would like to turn now to a few examples of Carlson’s textual readings. The story which he refers to as the “spirit medium of Endor” and the Saul narratives in general are certainly rich examples for his overall argument. While Carlson acknowledges that any given text is merely a “literary presentation of spirit phenomena” (19), it is important for him that “it is possible that the scribes responsible for these accounts based their literary creations on spirit-possession practices from their own community and era” (76). In a sense, his argument ends up presupposing the latter possibility as he maintains that many of the most essential aspects of spirit possession in the Hebrew Bible are not present in the texts but must be inferred on the basis of their audience’s common experience. But, again, unless we fall back on Dilthey’s rendition of Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics, how are we to know what an ancient Israelite audience would have understood about spirit possession outside of available literary representations? Indeed, some of the assumptions considered common to such a hypothetical audience seem to run against the actual components included in these literary representations.
Let us begin then with the account of Saul “playing the prophet” with a band of prophets. For Carlson, it is important that “spirit possession” happens in conjunction with a medium, that it be “cultivated” (32). Indeed, such is the case in the comparative material that begins the pertinent chapter. The idea of cultivation plays into certain concerns very much appropriate to our modern selves. We want to see a degree of agency, control, if not disciplinarity, in the conjuring of spirits. Such a view makes spirit possession much closer to other sorts of recognizable techniques of the self, a framework that Carlson elsewhere justifiably critiques when it comes to representations of possession in ancient Judaism (100). Carlson is quite right that the representation of possession with regard to the band of prophets has a striking “corporate” quality, but it is unclear why he suggests that it is was Samuel who cultivated this ability among them, simply because Samuel is “a figure who directs much of the main action in the book bearing his name” (33). Carlson sees Samuel as “directing a band of apprentices,” “not unlike a master craftsperson who trains their apprentices on the job” (34). But the text itself suggests quite the opposite, namely, that there is a “band of prophets coming down from the shrine,” which is in a place where Samuel is not. In short, the text draws no connection between Samuel and the band, so why does Carlson? Far from an emphasis on any agential “cultivation,” “the spirit of YHWH” seems to break out and seize (וצלחה עליך) those whom it possesses (1 Sam 10:5-6). They are rejoicing in the deity, and therefore he too becomes present among them.
I also would highlight the importance of Carlson’s attempt to shift one aspect of the story of the spirit medium at Endor. For Carlson, the medium must be possessed by the spirit of Samuel. However, the text says that she sees a spirit coming up out of ground, not that the spirit is coming into her. Indeed, could she see him if he was coming inside her? In short, she does not appear to be speaking Samuel’s words as host as Carlson would have it (55-56). On the contrary, after Saul is done speaking to Samuel, “the woman came to Saul” (1 Sam 28:21) to see how Saul is getting along. The bigger issue here is that Carlson in reading this story in light of a universal practice of spirit possession does not address an essential aspect of ancient Israelite religion, which seems to be in evidence here, namely, the way in which this non-conforming story conforms to general literary representations of oracle seeking. Oracle seeking pervades the Bible. People go to consult unseen, unfamiliar selves all the time. The problem with this story, similar to the problem of consulting other gods, for instance, in the account of Ahaziah consulting Baalzebub in 2 Kgs 1-8, is that the oracle in this case is sought from an unauthorized source. Now, oracle seeking could be profitably compared to the global phenomenon of spirit possession but it would require us to use ancient Israelite literary representations as part of a comparative project that was ready to posit differentiation from other ethnographic material. What would it mean to compare the oracular consultation of YHWH, indeed the whole idea of speaking with YHWH, to forms of spirit possession and consultation elsewhere in the world, whether inside or outside of human bodies?
Finally, I also note in terms of the Saul narratives, the notion that Saul’s possession by an evil spirit relates to his MI or moral injury from prior transgressions, when it seems not to originate from within but, again, befall him from the outside as part of YHWH’s larger scheme to replace him with David. The highly canonical reading whereby Saul’s possession by an evil spirit in 1 Sam 16:14, without reference to his actions in 1 Samuel 15, is a result of killing too many Amalekites (rather than too few, which is what the passage in question actually suggests to be the problem) seems more like a contemporary concern to connect spirit possession to mental health, notwithstanding his own acknowledgment of the problems in making such a connection (38-39).
Reed also attends closely to the general language of rûaḥ in the Hebrew Bible. He makes the important observation that “certain modern languages operate with distinctions between ‘wind,’ ‘breath,’ and ‘spirit; that did not exist in early Jewish literature” (63). Reed helpfully further this thought by noting that “even when the context makes clear that rûaḥ means ‘wind’ or ‘breath,’ we cannot be sure that ‘spirit’ to some extent is not also implicit” (65). This formulation runs the risk of falling back on the distinctions between these three items, by suggesting that these modern senses are still potentially distinguishable as separate items in the ancient formulations, but I do believe that Reed is, in a sense, trying to overcome that problem here and suggest that we should be seeing rûaḥ as a material wind-breath-spirit entity, an essential point.
However, Carlson ends up departing from the suggestion that we look for material wind-breath-spirit entities when it comes to a certain class of “spirit” words. As he puts it, “spirit language in the Hebrew Bible becomes a productive tool for discussing the means by which humanity inhabits its world, emotionally, volitionally, and, at times, physically” (25). In this formulation, “spirit” language reverts to serving a metaphoric use for the categories, so essential to modern notions of the self, of emotion and volition. Part of the difficulty is that rûaḥ is seen as a form of “internal moving air” (25). As such, it is associated with emotions and volition which in the world of the so-called “buffered” self are seen as being part of an individual’s “insides.” Of course, material forms of internal moving air need not have to do with emotion and volition. Carlson notes further, rûaḥ is “often connected to reflections on the inner life…Indeed, language concerning a person’s abiding spirit is one of the primary ways that biblical literature articulates notions of the self and of personhood” (95). At this point, we have simply fallen back on modernity’s concern to locate religion in an “inner life,” rather than seriously thinking through Carlson’s challenge to see “spirit” as a material wind-breath-spirit entity.
I want to applaud Reed on an ambitious first book project. It raises important questions and focuses our attention on the need for further consideration of “spirit” language in the Hebrew Bible. Reed’s book, combined with the new volume of Carol Newsom, The Spirit Within, will make excellent points of departure for further studies of “spirit” in the Hebrew Bible.
[1] “The Rise of Hermeneutics,” 248-249, in Wilhelm Dilthey, Selected Works Volume 4: Hermeneutics and the Study of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).