METHODOLOGICAL REMARKS ON STUDYING CULTURE

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CHAPTER TWO Intertext: The ancient Near Eastern background

This chapter deals with the possible intertextual relations which might have contributed to the composition and final text of Song of Songs. This includes not only contact with texts from other cultures, but also these other cultures as texts in the postmodern sense.

METHODOLOGICAL REMARKS ON STUDYING CULTURE

Before various cultural complexes can be discussed, some methodological assumptions need to be clarified. According to Eilberg-Schwartz (1990:91), there are three possible approaches to understanding cultural data: contextual (integrationist), diffusionist and comparativist.
The contextual approach remains within only one context when interpreting certain cultural phenomena by relating them to others in the same context. However, it has to deal with two methodological problems: firstly, to define the context and, secondly, to decide which cultural phenomena are related and why. Contexts are seen as internally coherent, at least to a certain degree, but so unique that they are incomparable. There is a reactionary “parallel-anoia” about the “parallelomania” that allegedly connects cultures almost randomly or glibly (Eilberg-Schwartz 1990:88, 94).
The diffusionist approach compares and so explains certain phenomena in terms of one or more neighbouring cultures, and therefore assumes that they belong to different cultural contexts, which might not necessarily be the case. An original centre of gravity then has to be determined from which the particular phenomenon spread to the relevant cultures. The problem is that elements that were absorbed from a neighbouring culture are often reinterpreted within the dynamics of the new context. Structure does not simply imply meaning, and continuities as well as discontinuities therefore have to be identified. Similarities are regarded as metonymic because of the (direct) contact between the different cultures.
The comparativist approach is that of modern social anthropology which compares phenomena of one culture with those in others not necessarily spatially or temporally adjacent to one another. Similarities are regarded as metaphoric and may be explained in terms of a universal mind developing at different rates in different places. This view clearly has an affinity with the posturing of universal archetypes that structure the human mind.
The diffusionist and comparativist approaches, both accepting comparisons but to different degrees, have to guard against superficially identifying similarities in terms of form, while the causes or content may in fact be different. The contextual approach emphasises this sensitivity. Deciding what is comparable, similar and different amounts to interpretations and has sometimes proven to produce false parallels (Eilberg-Schwartz 1990:94). All three approaches therefore have to deal with the two vexing questions about what is the context and what is relevant. The difference is relative and one of degree, as with concentric circles. These decisions are determined by one’s overall world view and operate politically as a defence strategy for one’s religious commitment. At the same time, the fragmentary remains from history compel the archaeological search to reconstruct the larger cultural whole through conjecture in terms of analogies and probability (Eilberg-Schwartz 1990:92). This generalisation through inductive reasoning induces a reductionist bias in favour of similarities on the one hand, but also elevates the interpretation to second-order (abstract) reflection which transforms analysis and interpretation (Eilberg-Schwartz 1990:93).
The contextual approach seems to be parallel to the structural analytical approach to texts, whereas the diffusionist and comparative approaches seem to be similar to the historical-critical method of understanding texts. This study will endeavour to benefit from all three cultural approaches whilst keeping their different caveats in mind. However, as the historical-critical approach to Song of Songs is favoured here, there is also a natural affinity towards the comparativist approach to culture. Though these approaches do not neatly coincide with the different chapter divisions, this (second) chapter will mainly use the diffusionist, the third mainly the contextual, and the fourth the comparativist approaches. From these different angles and concentric circles the fifth chapter sets out to integrate the results into a higher level according to the model that Wilber has developed.
If meaning is, amongst other things, induced in relation to the width of the context, then consideration of the largest possible geographical area needs to be balanced against practical constraints. At least the direct neighbours of the culture which composed the final form of Song of Songs need to be surveyed in order to get a sense of the nature and levels of their religious consciousness, especially how they relate to romantic and sexual love, and of their gender ideologies. The oldest description songs are those celebrating the deities (Herrmann 1963:181 and 197), probably as ideals for human beauty. Love lyrics from the ancient Near East vary, however, in several respects (Westenholz 1995:2481). The cultures included are the majority of the Semitic world as well as the Hamitic culture of ancient Egypt up to the final redaction of Song of Songs. This is not meant to detract from the uniqueness of any culture, but merely to shed light on it through similarities.
In conservative cultures such as some in the Middle East, the situation of the ancient Near East may be reconstructed as analogous to that of the twenty-first century CE (Nicholson 1979:74). Pope (1977:56) likewise refers to Wetzstein’s findings in eighteenth century CE Syrian weddings as possible parallels which may shed light on ancient traditions, although Granqvist (referred to by Horine 2001:28) did not find a king’s week in Palestine during the first part of the twentieth century. Patai (1959:15-16) also argues that the Middle East has been unique in its resistance to change and consequently still reflects the ancient cultural patterns in the modern era. Therefore such a study complements and compensates for the lacunae in the archaeological and documentary findings. This obviously applies only to the remnants of folk societies still uncontaminated by westernisation, that is, the remote villages and nomadic tribes.
The geographical names mentioned in Song of Songs testify to a large area from, in the north, Damascus, Lebanon, Hermon, Senir and Ammanah to the Bedouins of Qedar in northern Arabia and from the highlands of Gilead in the east to Carmel at the Mediterranean Sea in the west. Cross (1973:27) believes Ammanah to be even further north than the older identification with the Anti-Lebanon, perhaps the Bargylus or a peak, such as Jebel Arsüs, in the southernmost extension of the Amanus. From these names it is clear that Song of Songs has stretched its wings towards the surrounding world with which it felt a bond, not only in accepting their cultural gifts, but also in processing and ploughing what was received to form a text relevant to a transnational context.
Like Freud, Chetwynd (1991:4) also points out the parallels between the rise of archaeology and psychology over the last century, both uncovering the layers of history. Remembering the past is a re-membering, a relinking and relating to the sources. Remnants and relics have, however, survived in the form of dreams, dance, song, poetry, ritual and drama, that is, through arts and religion, which express and appeal to feelings and intuitions through symbols.

DIFFERENT AGES

Religiosity as outlined in Chapter one has had a long and varied development in the Near East as well. The roots of Song of Songs therefore lie much deeper than just its immediate environment, as it was probably created over several centuries before it was put into writing, a process which also developed in turn over several centuries before the final redaction brought this long creation to a standstill.
Viviers (2008:449) refers to the cultural or symbolic revolution of 60 000 to 30 000 years ago as the origin of religion. This was an evolutionary development in the human brain when various kinds of intelligences started to interact, allowing more abstract thought as proven by rock art, more sophisticated tools and more comprehensive funeral rituals.
The literature of the Age of Myth originates from and appeals to the imagination of the right brain in creating images, what has been called the feminine side. It is often difficult to understand archaic language which comes from the depths of the soul, and at the same time from the depths of the universe (Chetwynd 1991:208).
Chetwynd conjectures that the Chalcolithic or Bronze Age in the ancient Near East was the birth of the unconscious, during the creative age of myth, rooted in a single myth about cyclical time. It comprised a period of about twenty-five centuries between prehistory and history proper. In Syro-Palestinian history, this was, however, the period from 3150-1200 BCE (Deist 1990:36). This era introduced pictogrammes following the Sumerian writing system (Chetwynd 1991:xi-xiii).
Krüger, Lubbe and Steyn (2009:19) characterise this period as one of advanced food production, larger cities and empires which required writing, growing class and gender inequality and further specialisation of the official religion by a small elite who accepted the common religiosity of magic and superstition.
After a transitional period of about five hundred years, this was partially repressed by the left-brain consciousness for more or less the following twenty-five centuries, since about 750 BCE (which is about the time of the Axial Age’s awakening of the individual moral consciousness from 800 to 200 BCE, according to Jaspers [1949:19-43]; cf also Swidler [1998:283] and Cousins [1992:5]). This consciousness has favoured the linearity of logic and historical thinking, culminating in modern scientific thought. It is sometimes regarded as the masculine side, which has partially excluded the feminine aspect, thus impoverishing itself. Chetwynd (1991:10) believes that the emerging psychological perspective is now getting ready to reintegrate and include this long-lost, unconscious human dimension into a more balanced and holistic existence. This entails the synthesis of the preceding three aspects of body, feelings and intellect into a fourth. Chetwynd (1991:3) acknowledges, however, having been significantly influenced by the thought of Julian Jaynes (1976).
Creation usually manifested in sexual terms in the ancient Near East. This was often expressed in love literature which was at the same time lyrical and dramatic, with two or more voices, very often addressing each other as siblings. Yet Sparks (2005:140) regards the number of extant texts dealing with love less than expected considering the normal interest in sex, although they became part of general life to the extent that Lu-dingira, a Sumerian nobleman, even describes his mother in semi-erotic terms. These general expressions, though, other than relating to the god or the king, remained by far the minority. A female lover often referred to herself in the first person plural instead of the singular, especially when she described her bodily attributes, perhaps implying that both lovers own her body or even identifying her lover with her body, which would have narcissistic implications. An apple tree and an alabaster pillar were phallic metaphors, while gardens and stones referred to pubic hair. All the senses were involved and there was a particular emphasis on jewellery, used literally or figuratively, also expressing the value of the partner. Love literature formed part of epics and hymns of praise and was a combination of narrative and liturgical discourse. This reflected the lack of distinction between sacred and profane and between emotional and physical love (Westenholz 1995:2471-2474). In fact, as Krinetzki (1981:28) confirms, the religious and the profane were not two separate spheres in Israelite culture: YHWH was always present in and behind both. Wisdom literature was therefore never merely secular advice.

PREHISTORY OF THE LEVANT

The Palaeolithic system expressed itself through a purely symbolic classification of humans into two complementary groups, masculine and feminine, always portrayed separately in pictorial space (Cauvin 2000:68). The Woman and the Bull appeared as divinities in the Levant during the tenth millennium BCE, and the first division between heaven and earth seems to have prepared the way for the emergence of states, urbanisation and social stratification. The sovereign would derive legitimation from the divine, but remain merely its representative.
During the Natufian period (c.12500-10000 BCE) burials, though absent in the arid Negev area, were for the first time supported by sacrificial practices (Cauvin 2000:17), suggesting the enduring power and authority of the deceased. Some of the bodies were accompanied by art, both naturalistic and schematic, representing deer or gazelles, but rarely of humans and then only as asexual. Art and the sedentary villages were gradually simplified, the latter implying larger communities and social reorganisation, explaining perhaps the incorporation of the dead. It seems significant that the development towards sedentary homes as containers might have coincided with the burial of the dead as its parallel. If the Jungian insight into the symbolic significance of buildings as a reflection of the self and particularly of the body is kept in mind, a greater consciousness about the body and its need for containment, through various forms of self-care, might be read into this as well. Taking care of the body in Song of Songs is a further development in this process of emotional containment and intimacy, and provides vehicles of transformation towards higher and wider levels of consciousness.
According to Jaynes (1976:138-143), hunting tribes of about twenty people each used to live in the mouth of caves during the Mesolithic culture around 10000 BCE. By 9000 BCE they settled in towns of over two hundred people living in about fifty round stone buildings with reed roofs of diameters of up to 8 m, around an open area with bell-shaped pits for food and sometimes reused for burials. They allegedly still lacked a sense of self and any form of “narratisation”, and responded to stimuli caused by stress and cued by the commands of their chiefs with aural hallucinations as a side effect of language. This might be suggested by the fact that the Sumerian word for understanding, geshtu2, also means ear (Asher-Greve 1998b:10). This is corroborated by Hallpike who claims the same for many old languages (Asher-Greve 1998b:32n20). The use of nouns was followed by a period when names linked hallucinations to specific individuals. This was due to more permanent relationships, longer lifespans and greater numbers in the warmer postglacial environment. Both hallucinations and names enabled people to persist at their tasks and to improvise thinking as an extension of the voices heard which formed the rudiments of the superego. This psychic development accompanied the advent of agriculture as a primitive supplement to their meat from the hunt. The stress caused by someone’s death due to the more permanent relationships, and in particular that of the king, would intensify the hallucinated voice. The dead king was the first living god, whose tomb at Eynan, north of the Sea of Galilee, became the god’s house. From it developed the multilevelled temples or ziggurats and pyramids to include the king’s successors, as well as statues to perpetuate the dead. Social control was therefore through hallucinations, called gods, and became the ideologies of theocracies. The increase in population, complexity and decisions required more gods and priests, with personal gods or ili interceding with higher ones in the hierarchies until the system eventually broke down (Jaynes 1976:198).

CHAPTER ONE: PRE-TEXTS: INTRODUCTION 
1 PROBLEM STATEMENT
2 BACKGROUND: TRADITIONAL SOLUTIONS
3 THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION
4 HYPOTHESIS OR ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO THE RELIGIOSITY OF SONG OF SONGS
5 METHODOLOGY
6 RATIONALE: PSYCHOLOGY AS HERMENEUTICAL TOOL FOR BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
7 CHAPTER OUTLINE
CHAPTER TWO: INTERTEXT: THE ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN BACKGROUND 
1 METHODOLOGICAL REMARKS ON STUDYING CULTURE
2 DIFFERENT AGES
3 MESOPOTAMIA
4 SYRO-PALESTINE
5 ARABIA
6 EGYPT
7 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER THREE: TEXT: EXEGETICAL REFLECTIONS ON SONG OF SONGS 
1 INTRODUCTION: ASPECTS OF MULTILEVELLED RELIGIOSITY
2 PRE-EGOIC STAGE
3 EGOIC STAGE
4 TRANS-EGOIC STAGE
CHAPTER FOUR: CONTEXT: (POST)MODERN REFLECTIONS ON SEX AND RELIGIOSITY 
1 SETTING THE SCENE
2 ALL SEX, NO RELIGION: SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939)
3 ARCHETYPES AND SYMBOLS: CARL GUSTAV JUNG (1875-1961)
4 SEX, DEATH AND RELIGION: GEORGES BATAILLE (1897-1962)
5 SEX AND WORK: HERBERT MARCUSE (1898-1979)
6 SEX, KNOWLEDGE AND POWER: MICHEL FOUCAULT (1926-1984)
7 ALL PLEASURE, NO RELIGION: MICHEL ONFRAY (b. 1959)
8 NEUROPSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGIOSITY AND SEXUALITY
9 TWO WORLD VIEWS
10 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER FIVE: SUBTEXT(S): EMBRACING SONG OF SONGS
1 INTRODUCTION
2 PRE-EGOIC STAGE
3 EGOIC STAGE
4 TRANS-EGOIC STAGE
5 CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
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