Well, in my post below (Jesus vs. vampires), I wrote about a new comic title I am strangely excited about called Testament. I managed to obtain the issues I was missing and have read the series to date (6 issues so far). I have also looked a bit more at the author’s website, Douglas Rushkoff. His blog is particularly interesting, especially where he writes about his ideas behind, and hopes for, this comic.
Before I comment on the comic, and on his comments on the comic, perhaps I should say a word about myself. I am a Christian. Further, my theology is rather conservative. While I would distance myself from certain branches of theological conservatism, especially that which confuses itself for political conservatism, my theology remains rather Reformed. I am, what some might call, a “True Believer.” On Rushkoff’s blog, this is how he refers to those (it is a condescending term for him), who believe that things in the Bible “literally happened.”
With that said, I will also admit, I love this comic, and think that Rushkoff’s premise is fascinating. It is one I will read monthly, and I will most likely be referring to it in my dissertation.
First, the comic.
Looking only at the comic, without referring to Rushkoff’s site, I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly he is trying to do. The narrative is told omni-temporally, or, multi-temporally. Two narratives are being told, but they are actually one narrative, taking place in two different times. And the point is that this narrative takes place in all time(s).
You have the Abram story in its biblical context juxtaposed with a “re-telling” or, maybe more accurate, “re-happening” of the story in a not-so-distant-future time. The more you read, the more the allegorical nature of the text is revealed. Characters in the future timeline correspond directly to characters in the past timeline. Alan quite allegorically is Abraham. Jake quite allegorically is the Isaac blended with Lot character. Miriam is Lot’s wife, the old man is Melchezidek/Elijah.
As the narrative progresses, these contemporary/future characters play out their roles in the updated biblical narrative with precision. There is little deviation from the original narrative (save Miriam/Lot’s wife’s role, and this deviation is purposeful). What I find most fascinating is that while one could say that, looking only at the human characters, the narrative is just re-playing itself, and could be the same narrative in different terms, the aspect which changes things is the interaction of the “gods” behind and in-between the panels of the text/art. It is the interaction of the gods Astarte, Molech and Atum on the one side, and the Hebrew, not so much God’s as representatives, Melchezidek and Elijah on the other side…behind and even in the action, that makes the reader understand that the story is happening anew. And it is a story that has been happening forever, literally a battle for freedom of humanity.
The writing and the artwork are both superb, fascinating, and enveloping. I also love how the narrative makes absolutely no effort to soften the hardcore unseemliness of the Bible.
Rushkoff’s blog.
Rushkoff’s blog is another read altogether. There, in two posts especially, he lays out his thoughts behind, and motives for, Testament.
The first post, Faith=Illness: Why I’ve Had It With Religious Tolerance, begins with the blatent statement:
I think it’s time to get serious about the role God plays in human affairs, and evaluate whether it’s appropriate to let everyone in on the bad news: God doesn’t exist, never did, and the closest thing we’ll ever see to God will emerge from our own collective efforts at making meaning.
On first glance this seems at odds with his work in the comic. But in fact, for Rushkoff, the Bible is a collection of mythological stories that, in line with Jungian psychology, have made their way into the collective human subconscious. Never was the Bible meant to be taken literally. However, it seems to have usefulness for people today in its ability to help us create meaning out of reality, maybe helping us to play out our own situations in a narrative/theoretical structure. He says:
As I’ve always understood them, and as I try to convey them in my comic book, the stories in the Bible are less significant because they happened at some moment in history than because their underlying dynamics seem to be happening in all moments. We are all Cain, struggling with our feelings about a sibling who seems to be more blessed than we are. We are always escaping the enslaved mentality of Egypt and the idolatry we practiced there. We are all Mordechai, bristling against the pressure to bow in subservience to our bosses.
Rushkoff is tired of religious fundamentalism (aren’t we all?). In fact, he wants to “destroy” it. He writes that when religions:
…radically alter our ability to contend with reality, cope with difference, or implement the most basic ethical provisions, they must be stopped.
“True Believers” do not have the freedom to appropriate biblical narrative in a life/reality-altering way, because they (we) believe in its historicity. For Rushkoff, tying the narrative events to actual events robs the narrative of its power for meaning making today, leaving the contemporary reader stranded in his or her own situation:
But true believers don’t have this freedom. Whether it’s because they need the Bible to prove a real estate claim in the Middle East, because they don’t know how to relate something that didn’t really happen, or because they require the threat of an angry super-being who sees all in order behave like good children, true believers - what we now call fundamentalists - are not in a position to appreciate the truth and beauty of the Holy Scriptures. No, the multi-dimensional document we call the Bible is not available to them because, for them, all those stories have to be accepted as historical truth.
To have someone recognize and assert the beauty and multi-dimensionality of the Bible is a good thing. I am extremely appreciative of his observations here. I wonder, though, if the multi-dimensionality of the Bible would allow for, not just a psychological reading of the text in which it is not literally/historically true, but rather psychologically true, but a reading that affirms both the text’s historical rootedness, as well as its inclusion of the reader today into its very narrative as a part of the ongoing story. I think that it does.
While I agree with much of what Rushkoff says, it is in his suggestion of a solution to the problems he identifies that I begin to disagree with him. Not because he is challenging my beliefs, but because 1) I don’t think that he has an accurate handle on what the Bible is, and 2) I approach the subject from an entirely different belief system.
Rushkoff wants to “take charge of the Bible”:
Perhaps the best way to kill their [the fundamentalists] God, in fact, is to take charge of the Bible. It is - in my own opinion as a media theorist - the Greatest Story Ever Told, and deserving of our continued support and analysis. For my part, I’m writing Testament, which I hope will bring these stories - told both in their Biblical context and as a near-future sci-fi fable - to people who might never have stumbled across them before.
By appropriating these characters and metaphors as our own, we instill them with the power they require to release the stranglehold that true believers have over the myths built to help us face the truth, instead. Their success in making the Bible seem like a sanctimonious tome is just another testament to the deleterious effect of surrendering one of the best books ever written about sacred magick to people whose lives depend on ignoring the possibility of escape from the nightmare of eternal bondage to a vengeful deity.
The problem with this, in my opinion, is that the Bible, whether in Judaism or in Christianity, and whether one takes it as historical or non-historical myth, is not to be “taken control of,” but rather, its power is as a story that takes control of us. The historical track record of those taking control of the scripture stories is not an impressive one, often ending with a word created in our own image, merely a reflection of ourselves, and emptied of its power to change lives.
While I appreciate Rushkoff’s stated goal of bringing these great and powerful stories to those who might never experience them, yet, I diverge with him, still believing that the most powerful way of reading these stories, as with all art, is to let them speak for themselves, to let them be themselves, and to let their characters stand as individuals. Saying that “We are Cain…We are those enslaved by Egyptians…We are Mordechi” robs me of my identity as Casey. I am not Cain, though I may struggle with his struggles. I am not enslaved in Egypt, like the Hebrews, though I may deal with enslavery of my own. I am not Mordechi, yet I struggle with the temptation to cave under the pressure of popular or political opinion. It also robs the characters (even if you believe them to be non-historical) of their identity, and in some ways disrespects them.
In the second post on his blog that I referred to above, The Testament - My Testament, Rushkoff writes:
In my comic book Testament (now in a first collected edition!), I look at the same passages as a first and second draft of creation. My “god” characters try it one way, don’t like how it turns out, and then start over. I’m hoping by re-introducing readers to the Bible as it was actually written and understood at the time (to the best of my ability) while showing how its stories apply to our current military, technological and economic fiascos, I can bring its power to a new generation. All while dispelling the hardened belief sets of True Believers. I’m going to show how the Bible was intended not to give people religion, but to get people over their obsessions with religion and the fictional character, God. (Obviously, the Bible hasn’t worked out as planned. At least not yet.)
I love the quote, until the last 3 lines.
An alternative program?
The final thing I will say has to do with my alternative suggestion for making the Bible accessible, and “relevent” (if that word isn’t overused), to a contemporary time takes the biblical narrative as our history, with us playing it out. We are caught, as the Apostle Paul might say, between the times. We look to the story of our people (the people of God) that came before us, and it gives us the trajectory for our own personal and interconnected narratives in the present, and into the future. We look to our people’s past for direction for our people’s future - improvising that future as we crawl along in the present. We become involved in the story, intimately, and our own personal identity’s are maintained.
And after all that, I will say that I really do enjoy this comic. Rushkoff is doing something artistic with narrative, and he is doing it well. And, despite the part of his project that strikes me awkwardly, (the whole God being a fistional character thing), I definately plan on continuing to read this book.
Casey
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