Posted March 13 2008
Lord, Get Me High?
An Israeli psychologist believes that Moses and the Israelites were high on psychedelic drugs at the Sinai revelation:
“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday. This type of theory - ascribing psychological explanations for biblical revelation - is not new. Other psychologists have theorized that Ezekiel was schizophrenic, that Jeremiah was bipolar, etc.
What’s most interesting to me is that if these theorists wanted to deny the divine element in these biblical stories, they could have simply posited that they never happened at all. Instead, they accept that these characters existed and had real, intense spiritual moments, but they seek a scientific explanation for them. If I can turn the tables on these theorists, and employ some psychoanalysis on them, I would say that people subscribe to such theories so that they can have it both ways: they can accept the Bible’s uplifting message that man can is capable of achieving instances of nirvana, but without having to believe that these experiences obligate us to anything greater than ourselves. This way, life can still have inspirational moments of greater meaning even though there really is no objective greater meaning.
This reminds me of the secular Israeli I once met in Eilat who went on at length about how the Torah is so brilliant, it could not possibly have been written by man - and so it must have been written by a superior race of aliens.
As an interesting postscript, the Talmud (Baba Batra 12b) does say that nowadays prophecy is only given to children and the insane. This could be a cynical way of saying if anyone tells you they’re a prophet these days (post Bible) they might just actually be high.
Add This Blog to Your Technorati Favorites
Jewish Blog, Jewish, Jewish Leadership, Jewish News, Jewish Values, Jewish Events
2 Comments currently posted. 
Moshe Glasser says:
occupier1948 says:
“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either…”
Interesting. He offers no reason why he doesn’t believe it was not a “supernatural cosmic event”, yet he is unable to dismiss it as mere legend (600, 000 Jewish men make that difficult). This guy is like the Ehud Olmert of science.
People tend to put issues like this in the same boat as “higher” biblical criticism. The difference is that no one argues that the Bible is a book. The question can be where it came from, who wrote it, and what it should mean to us. On the other hand, psychologists and theorists who claim to assume the Bible isn’t true use a “scientific” explanation to explain recorded events. Oddly enough, they offer no evidence, no proof, not even any corroborating accounts in the Bible itself, to justify this. Their explanation follows exactly none of the criteria for a scientifically sound and methodologically valid interpretation. Instead, they do what everyone does: believe (that’s faith, people, as strong and irrational as any other kind, whether in God or Buddha) the explanation they find most comforting. The psychologist quoted here had absolutely no reason for rejecting literal interpretations. He even said that he didn’t “believe” the other two explanations possible. A wise man once told me that atheists are more religious than religious people. While the religious man (Rabbi Soloveitchik’s “homo religiosus”) already knows the answers to life’s questions, the atheist must have FAITH that science will one day answer his questions. His faith in science and logic is far greater than the religious man’s already-determined answers.