As many of you are aware, I have been watching the series by Jordan Peterson, The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories. I have written a couple of posts commenting on certain statements made by Peterson and insights gleaned by me.
With this post, I will capture several different tidbits, taken from several of the videos. I am focused on his points about culture, albeit he makes dozens of other equally insightful points. I do not attempt to cite Peterson word for word; I merely attempt to capture the substance.
I will not link to each video separately; I suggest that if you find the following of interest, take the time and watch the videos…which will take a real commitment, as the total runs about 25 hours.
I must say up front, this experience has been eye-opening for me. Not so much for what I am learning (although this is extremely valuable), but because of how I have not considered these early chapters of the Bible previously.
What do I mean? The Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, Abraham, the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah…I am not sure to describe how I considered these people and events. I know how I didn’t consider these; I didn’t consider these in the way presented by Peterson.
And, like a few other moments in my intellectual and emotional life, I immediately went through an “aha” moment almost from Peterson’s first words.
Whether one believes these stories and events are the Word of God, infallible and literal history, or whether one believes these stories and events capture an oral tradition going back countless millennia…in either case, it was kind of stupid of me to believe that there weren’t some tremendously important meanings in these stories beyond…