The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [447]
The first was the degree to which Jaweh was seen as very much the proprietary god of the people of Israel themselves. Although he begins as a universal, worldcreating spirit, by the time their world-history reaches the legends of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it is obvious that a special relationship has been established between Jahweh and the people who believe that he has singled them out for a unique destiny. Their most holy religious object, which their temple in Jersualem was built to house, was the `ark' or chest containing a record of the `covenant' between them and God; the bond which had been cemented in the story of Moses leading the `chosen people' out of captivity in Egypt into the Promised Land. We have already looked at that episode in Deuteronomy where Moses reminds his followers how he had climbed the great mountain to receive from God the rules which they must obey. At first sight these might be taken as ten absolute laws, intended to govern all human behaviour. But Moses goes on to explain that when the Jews reach the Promised Land they will find it full of other peoples for whom it is already their homeland, and that they must be shown `no mercy. The law does not apply to these alien tribes. They must be killed, their land taken from them and the altars of their gods overthrown. In other words the `one true God' is seen as above all a Jewish god. The Jews are set apart from and above all other races. All other gods are just `false idols, to be treated with contempt.
The other distinctive feature of the Jewish story recorded in what Christians call the Old Testament is the exceptional degree to which it is dominated by masculine values. We have seen how the Jewish Creation myth is unique in the orderly way in which God sets out his created world in six days like checking off a shopping list. This `Father God' is the ordering function of human consciousness personified. There is none of that female creative process associated with the cosmogonic myths of other cultures, where the created world is gradually, laboriously evolved out of a dark, unconscious matrix. And what is striking about the stories which follow is how often in them the feminine value is absent or downplayed; or, if it is has to be present, is personfied in a male rather than female character. This is particularly noticeable when we compare these Old Testament stories to the Greek myths, where female figures such as Athene, Ariadne or Penelope play such a central role in symbolising the life-giving feminine value. In the story of Joseph, for instance, when it is necessary for the feminine values of love and seeing whole to be called into play to bring about the reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers, this is not personified in a feminine figure. It has to be conjured up by the tortured device of turning `little Benjamin' back into an archetypal Child. The story of the journey to the Promised Land, as we have seen, is in many ways an archetypal Quest. But where, at the end of a Quest story, one could normally expect a symbolic union with the feminine, to convey the image of completion and fulfilment, the nearest the story can come up with to a femi nine image is to portray the goal, in soft, welcoming guise, as a land `flowing with milk and honey'.13 In the story of David, although Saul rewards him for his victory over Goliath with the hand of the Princess Michal, she plays little further part. David's real reward is his loving friendship with her brother Jonathan, as his alter-ego. In fact the feminine element in this story is chiefly personified in the character of David himself, so carefully depicted as combining both masculine and feminine qualities.
This preponderance of the masculine value of course colours much of the history of the Jewish people presented by the Old Testament. Two features of this story are particularly familiar to us. The first is how much of it is taken up by the endless violent struggle of `God's chosen