1st page of 6 pages
1. Judas and the patriarchal consciousness
The text of the rock opera is written by Tim Rice, the music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The film "Jesus Christ - Superstar" appeared at the beginning of the seventies and was then world-famous. The text by Tim Rice belongs, in my opinion, to the best interpretations of the New Testament.
The main character is Judas, a highly gifted philosopher. With his analytic thinking Judas believes to catch the reality, but he did not care that in his language appears a symbolic, which belongs to a different reality, the reality of the Archetype of the Great Mother.
The symbolism in "Jesus Christ - Superstar", especially in the 1st scene, has an immediately visible part, that reflects the reality, the patriarchal reality. But the symbolism picks up invisible contents, hidden contents, which compensates the patriarchal realitiy, the realitiy of the Great Mother.
The scenery of the film shows a field of ruins in the middle of a desert. At the beginning of the film, a bus arrives with the young actors, who want to play the Passion fo Jesus. In the New Testament, the Passion of Christ is an event, which has been announced in the Old Testament. Similarly, the arriving bus is reminiscent of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt to the Theophany of Yahweh at the mount Sinai or Horeb. Instead to the Mount Sinai, the young people in the film come to the ruins of a long past civilization.
The long past biblical civilisation was dominated by Yahweh, a god who threatend to destroy everything in his fiery wrath. Yahweh was inspirated by the ancient Near Eastern god of desert, Mot (that means: death). In summer this god dried up and singes everything. But Mot had also a positive aspect, with his heat he lets mature the grain and the grapes. Yahweh was not only influenced by Mot but also be the Egyptian chief god, the ancient Egyptian sun god Amun-Re: Amun-Re brought fertility and his rays looked into the deepest corners of the human soul. His watching forced the people to ethical behaviour. This concept enabled the people living together as a nation. Yahweh with his tremendous ethical strength formed and build his people. But this ethical force based on his destructive aspect, on the glowing anger that came torrid and burning over the country and taught the people to fear.
Mot and Amun-Re, both were gods in their particular pantheon. But Yahweh was the only god, there were no other gods with him. Before Yahwe only one god claimed to be the only one god, the Egyptian god Aton. In the 14th century BC Aton was proclaimed as the only god by the Egyptian Pharao Akhenaten (1). But the time was not ready for this only one god.
This biblical image of god arrived Europe by Christianity and the figure of Jesus Christ became the basic structure of the European soul. Christ is the bright ruler of the world and therefore the numinous example of our collective ego, which is described by Alfred Adler in his book "the neurotic character". But Jesus Christ kept the ambivalent character of the Old Testament god: On the one hand, he was the benevolent protector, of the other hand the avenging judgde.
Also, today's Western world is characterised by the amivalence of the Old Testament God: The positive side, we now live in a fairer world than ever before. It is also granted that most of us have a long life and a relative prosperity. On the other hand, we are subjects to the hurry and agitation, a motif which is similar to the Old Testament God. The identification with God, who destroyed the country in his glowing jealousy, explains too our enery consumption, the ever-growing und unstoppable destruction of our world.
The fim represents an important function of the ancient Sun God, supervision: Once the Sun god shone with his rays through everything to the core. The same today, cameras and internet adhere the world and the human being in her innermost, most intimate and thousands, millions of people can participate. And so the anonymous mass assumes the function of ther former Sun God.
Horst E. Richter described the psychical constellation of the occident in the book "The God-Complex in the Western Man": In the Middle Age the European man lived under the fear of God. At the beginning of the modern age, he began to emancipate himself from God. He overcame the fear of God by identifying himself with God. Horst E. Richter described this with the biography of the philosopher Nietzsche as a narcistically inflated ego, as a lonely man without any relations. This lack of relations was typical for the Old Testament God thousands of years before. God is proud to be the only One God. Beside him he does not tolerate any other gods - and especially any goddess. The Goddess was replaced by the people of Israel. The relationship between the people of Israel (Jerusalem, Samaria and Judäa, Israel) and his God was described as a metaphor of a marriage. Thereby God acussed Israel of infidelity. And this alleged infidelity, he punished with destruction. The problem of this divine accusation is, that Israel (Jerusalem, Samaria or Judäa) never had been asked about her opinion. The problem is, she could never defend herself nor speak at all. And that is way the divine accuse is a pure statement. But his reproach gaves this God and his theologians the posibility, to live his destructive character without feeling guilty.
I'd like to repeat the problem to point out an important aspect: In the European Middle Ages, Christ was Pantocrator, and embodied the power of the angry God. the fear of the angry God was intellectually overcome at the time of Enlightenment. Henceforth, the Europeans have absorbed and lived the psychical structrure of the angry God. That means, the Europeans have created the world according to their own needs and ideas. With the absorption of the divine structure, the Europeans have assumed also the divine shadow, for, it was under the fire of a striving God the land threatend to be perished, now, the world threatens to be destroyed in the glow of our civilization.
The man of the Ancient Near Eastern had been living with myths. These myths were partly displaced in the Old Testament, partly were given a new interpretation to Yahweh. The myths got a historical sense, i.e. Godesses and Gods of the Ancient Near Eastern are found as ancestress ancestors. The Bible is a book which is regarded as a historical work. It is a book that shows, how God acts on the history. It is a patriarchal history with the only interest to legitimize the Great Father as the unique divine authority. And on this way the myth appears through the back door. For, if Yahweh as a male God should be the unique God, it is a myth, too.
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In the rock opera "Jesus Christ - Superstar" is a good example how the dominance of the Great Father is celebrated. But this patriarchal dominance is accompanied shadowy of the Great Mother. In the first scene she appears completely displaced. She appears in the words Judas needs- These words are now inquired.
Text and Design: Esther Keller-Stocker, February 2010
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