Orphic Mysteries: The Worst Idea in Human History?

 

“The Bad Idea that Took Over the World” is a provocatively titled lecture (or perhaps half of one – I can´t find the other half, though) by James Tabor, a controversial American scholar involved in the turbulence surrounding the so-called James ossuary and the “Jesus family grave”. Think Da Vinci Code meets too-good-to-be-true archeology, and you´re (almost) done! In this presentation, Tabor isn´t *that* controversial on the purely factual level, but on the level of values…well, judge by yourselves.

Tabor points out that neither the ancient Hebrews, Babylonians nor Greeks believed in a paradisiacal other-worldly afterlife, rather holding that all or most people ended their days in gloomy Hades or Sheol. God´s blessings were experienced in *this* life. At some point, this positive view of the material world was replaced by an entirely new worldview in which humans were said to come from a heavenly homeland and be strangers here on earth. This was a pivotal shift in human consciousness, and apparently a very negative one. For some reason, Tabor never uses the term “Axial Age”, perhaps because he sees another radical shift during the Enlightenment (which is presumably still “axial”). Instead, he talks about “Enochian Judaism”, but this term too is something of a misnomer, since the shift – at least in the Mediterranean – rather began with the Orphics and the Orphic mysteries. 

Tabor quotes from golden funerary plates associated with this new cult (associated with Greece but perhaps with Thracian or Egyptian antecedents). He clearly thinks they´re nuts. I find them fascinating! Note the affinities between Orphism and Platonism, Egyptian religion, Gnosticism, or even Freemasonry and Mormonism. Within Judaism, the other-worldly or dualist tendency becomes reworked into the notion of resurrection among Essenes and Pharisees (and of course Christians). Tabor calls it “Enochian”, presumably because Enoch was one of the few characters in the “Old Testament” that is said to have been granted immortality by God. He prefers the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection. Judging by another video on Tabor´s YouTube channel, he believes that the original idea of resurrection was more “spiritual” (some would say astral) than later more “material” versions. This squares with the idea that we´re really leaving this world behind.

It struck me when listening to the lecture that the authors of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Job in the Bible (and, I suppose, Ecclesiastes) could be seen as disgruntled intellectuals who didn´t like the idea of going down into Hades, but since they didn´t see any alternative, pessimism about the human predicament became their lot. But another thing also struck me: did ordinary Joes before the Axial Age *really* believe they would simply vanish like shadowy specters into a gloomy underworld? I assume at least the pagans had village shamans, magic and cults of ancestors. Almost everyone could presumably become the latter at death, at least if his/her soul was “fed” properly. This is a kind of afterlife, albeit one closely connected to the earthly community. The idea of an immortal soul having to pass divine guardians to a blessed afterlife in Heaven could be a development of the idea of the future shaman´s soul encountering spirit-beings who “tested” him or her.

Be that as it may, I see no particular reason to stay down here with Ben Sirach and the Sadducees, so in my humble opinion, the Orphic scenario really is a new revelation and stunningly good news!