The Rudolf Steiner Archive

25. The Bible and Wisdom

[ 1 ] It is of the utmost interest to delve into the way in which this remarkable document, the Bible, has been received by people throughout the ages, and to consider the impact this Book of Books has had on people’s minds and souls. One can learn as much about the history of the development of the human soul from the impressions this book has evoked as from almost anything else.

[ 2 ] The impression the Scriptures make on individuals from different eras varies greatly. Of course, these various stages can only be touched upon very briefly, because the material is simply too vast; and this is done because it is important to keep this in mind. For example, consider how the Jewish people of that time drew upon the Scripture, from which they learned about their own origins and ancestry, astronomy, the foundations of social order, legislation, and rules for daily life. The entire life of the soul and its wisdom were contained within it. The scholars of late Judaism devoted all their acumen and intellectual power to understanding this book. And so it was in those times that people exerted their highest intellectual capacity to attain understanding. And the Kabbalists, who sought to interpret it down to the very letter, deserve the utmost respect. And then later, with the New Testament in connection with the Old Testament: there, in the first Christian century, we find once again this deep, sacred earnestness in the search for understanding. In mystical and other communities, we find every effort devoted to understanding the Bible. The Gnostics and others of their time immersed themselves with the greatest effort in what is presented in the Bible regarding the person of Christ Jesus. We find profound intellectual work in this study of the Bible. Take, for example, the 9th century: John, the great Scot—Scotus Eriugena. This man harbors no doubt about the truth of the Bible, about the truth of the written Word, that it is inspired; all a person has to do is seek to understand it. From Thomas Aquinas and Johannes Tauler to Jakob Böhme, a bold philosophy was devoted to understanding what is written in the Bible.

[ 3 ] In our time, however, something quite remarkable is occurring with regard to the Bible. Whereas up until now—even as late as the eighteenth century—there was only explanation and a sense of the deepest reverence for the Bible, the nineteenth century saw the emergence of what is called biblical criticism. One could even call the nineteenth century the century of biblical criticism. This mindset would have been completely incomprehensible in earlier times. In the past, people always looked up to the Bible and felt inferior in its presence. Only now did a feeling arise that people could regard the Bible just as they would any other book and look down upon it. Criticism dares to examine the Bible, its individual documents and writings; it casts doubt, identifies later additions and so on, and ultimately even dares to question the person of Jesus Christ.

[ 4 ] David Friedrich Strauss is one of them; he reduces everything in the Bible to legends and myths. He says that the facts of Jesus’ life are irrelevant; these feelings and ideas were simply present among the people, and so the narrative was gradually pieced together. Other forms of criticism and everything that modern scholarship has to say on the matter should also be mentioned. In particular, the seven-day account of creation is frequently attacked, as is the narrative of the creation of humankind within it—how humankind emerged from the vast cosmos. And then the story of humankind’s creation is recounted a second time. From this, the conclusion is drawn that we are dealing with two creation accounts. One could mention all the vast and immense achievements contained therein.

[ 5 ] The Bible is the book of humanity’s life, but because of all this, people’s attitude toward it has changed, and those who set the tone felt compelled to adopt their current position. And people’s attitude toward the Bible has changed far, far more than anyone can suspect or know. Only the researcher of the soul can fathom this. Even the most religious person of our time has no idea of that deep fervor, that inner bliss, which people once felt toward the Bible. Anyone who attempts to observe the times and the nature of the soul knows that, ever since materialism has permeated all popular thought, this is no longer possible. Since then, a transformation—a thorough metamorphosis of intimate feelings—has taken place. There are many noble people among us who look back on the days of their youth with a certain wistfulness, inner conflict, or satisfaction, thinking of how they once received the stories from the Bible. The inner conflict between then and now exists in many a soul.

[ 6 ] The power and significance of this Book of Books are evident from the fact that scholars—including those in the natural sciences—repeatedly attempt to reconcile the seven-day creation with it. One must come to terms with how the creation of the world is portrayed in the Bible. The profound influence that the content of the Bible has repeatedly had on people is demonstrated, for example, by the fact that in our era—in the early days of the Christian era—people turned to Plato for clarification on such questions and gave him the certainly curious name of “Moses, the Attic-speaking.” Plato thus refers to the Old Testament in his teachings.

[ 7 ] The same is said of Pythagoras and other great philosophers. We even have a very beautiful oracle from Apollo that confirms this: “Hard is the path to the [gap]”—“Steep is the path [gap]”

[ 8 ] But there were mortals who did ascend this path. The most significant among them were those who lived in Chaldea and those who were called Judean men.

[ 9 ] Paracelsus, the great medieval physician, also made a very curious statement about the Bible; he said: “All medicine, all healing, can be learned from the Bible.” Of course, this must be understood correctly in the context of Paracelsus’s thinking. By this, he meant his conception of the relationship between human beings and their stance toward the Bible. One must not merely open it, read it, and retell it; no, the words contained in the Bible are not to be taken merely at face value, but there is magical power within them. If you allow the words to live in your soul, they will nourish it; the soul becomes wise and knowledgeable not by focusing on the content, but by allowing the power of the Bible’s words to live within you. No science can or should lead one away from the Bible.

[ 10 ] An example from Darwinism. Charles Darwin says: “So we would have discovered”—and so on—“those into whom the Creator once breathed life.” And a second statement of his, that language is something higher than the inarticulate sounds of animals: “Language could never have arisen through mere natural causes and could never have developed in this way. One must assume an intelligent Creator who has wisely ordered everything.”

[ 11 ] Many statements by great scholars who do, after all, acknowledge the Creator in this regard could still be cited. Jean Baptiste Biot, who made significant contributions to the study of light, said: “Moses either knew as much as we do, or he was inspired!” — None of the above is intended as criticism on our part, but merely as an explanation that this was inevitable in our materialistic age. Many a great man has made a sincere effort even in this day and age to understand the Bible through interpretation, but who knows anything about it? For example: Fabre d’Olivet, The Mystery of the First Books of Moses.

[ 12 ] With regard to biblical criticism, spiritual science or theosophy offers yet another perspective. Theosophy never criticizes, never tears down, but only seeks to understand. One thing is characteristic of theosophy; this one thing is not a thought, is not a concept, but rather a mindset. Everything, absolutely everything in theosophy must be imbued with this attitude. We hold this attitude toward all of nature. We see both regularity and aberrations in nature; we know it would be nonsense to criticize nature; we do not do that—we seek to understand it. Understanding is the fundamental attitude we must have; we must approach everything spiritual, everything in spiritual life, with understanding; we must approach everything with love, not apply the yardstick of sympathy and antipathy. To understand everything and everyone—this cannot be defined intellectually; it must be an attitude of mind. Once one has this, one experiences that the Bible is a book in the face of which criticism falls silent. What one might have criticized in the past is now seen in a completely different light; it becomes clear to one.

[ 13 ] We must rediscover the key to the Bible through spiritual research, and then biblical criticism will once again be superseded by an ever-deeper interpretation of the Bible. Human evolution is not fully understood when one considers only its outward aspects. Theosophy does not call into question the achievements of natural science; however, it does not limit itself to studying external, material phenomena, which are, after all, merely the expression of a spiritual phenomenon underlying human development. Theosophy’s task is to explore the nature of modern human beings and their place in the universe. It must therefore offer its own perspective on the creation narrative. Theosophy considers the whole human being, not just the physical body. Where natural science must stop, theosophy begins. When faced with the words “I smell the scent of roses, I hear the sound of an organ,” the natural scientist sees only the movement of atoms in the brain; but he cannot explain what must be happening to produce the idea “I smell the scent of roses” and so on. The task of theosophy, however, is quite different. As Leibniz said: “You—[the] natural scientists—would not be able to fathom the soul’s thought as to why it is that the scent of roses is smelled.”

[ 14 ] Du Bois-Reymond adds the following: Natural science is actually only capable of observing and investigating the sleeping human being because the psychological experience is extinguished there. It is precisely what the natural scientist cannot explain that is present in the waking state. But can we then recognize what is absent in sleep and what is present in the waking state? Yes, I would like to offer you an analogy that aims to clarify how the spiritual science relates to the other sciences. Here’s an example: Imagine a piano being played, with a deaf person sitting next to it. He cannot hear the notes, but there is a way to make them comprehensible to him, provided he is otherwise of sound mind. Open the piano and scatter so-called paper sliders onto the strings. By watching the paper sliders bounce, the deaf person can see that something is happening; he can form a mental image of the strings and their vibration. But there is a difference between this mental image and the truly objective reality—the sense of hearing is missing, the receptive ear is absent.

[ 15 ] This is how Theosophy relates to so-called “science of facts.” The latter conducts its research in the same way that we have described perception for the deaf. To perceive what is happening within the soul, one must possess the appropriate sense. What Haeckel and others—indeed, modern science as a whole—have discovered is all true from the perspective of Theosophy, but there is a process of opening up the higher senses to observe material processes, and of looking back with one’s higher spiritual faculties to observe the spiritual realities of those higher spiritual faculties, which Theosophy teaches us to develop. Thus, Theosophy perceives what is present in both the sleeping and the waking human being. To be able to do this, one must have spiritual eyes and spiritual ears.

[ 16 ] What, then, does a sleeping person do at night; what is he working on? He restores his physical body in order to eliminate the fatigue-inducing substances from the outside. The other type of activity of the astral body is found in the so-called initiate.

[ 17 ] What is an initiate? We must first realize this: We can perceive only as much as we have organs. There are as many worlds surrounding human beings as there are organs in the human body, and every time a person acquires new organs, they perceive a new world. And there are methods in the secret schools where this is taught, through which such new organs are formed. An initiate is one who has developed abilities within themselves through which the higher worlds can be perceived.

[ 18 ] We divide the human being into four parts: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body or soul, and the I. In the case of the initiate, however, the astral body is endowed with organs of perception. The initiate sees into other worlds. There, he feels the need to express himself in a different way. For ordinary language is designed only for our physical life, and even the words that have been used to describe the supersensible are derived from the sensory realm. Initiates must therefore adhere to Goethe’s saying:

[ 19 ] Everything that is transient is merely a parable.

[ 20 ] What the initiates see in the higher worlds, they can express only through images from the sensory world in order to be understood by human beings. Every student of the Rosicrucian training—which has existed in Germany since the 14th century and is best suited for modern people—must therefore also learn to express themselves through such images. What you find about the Rosicrucians in books is unclear and inaccurate, for their secrets were not entrusted to books. He must acquire what is called “imaginative knowledge”—that is, the ability to express in parables what one beholds in the spiritual world. The initiate experiences a parable in an entirely different way. He sees the immortality of the soul in the parable—the caterpillar and the butterfly—and the enduring within the transitory, which always lies behind it. The initiate sees the great interconnection of all facts, from the highest spiritual to the lowest physical; he sees the sublime in all of this. And when he tells such a parable to a child, for example, trying to make it clear to the child, he himself believes firmly in this parable, and his feeling flows from him to the child. Thus he also looks upon these little ones with the same fervor of the heart.

[ 21 ] It is the task of Theosophy to make clear that everything spiritual finds its expression in the material world. It is not those who deny matter who will penetrate to the spirit, but those who learn to grasp the truth that all matter is condensed spirit. Once we recognize this, we will also understand why the Bible provides guidelines for even the simplest aspects of daily life. We must then approach these simplest aspects—things that are part of everyday life—with deep love. Such understanding should spiritualize life, not distance us from it. One who claims, “Oh, what do brain molecules and their movements have to do with me? The spirit is within me, and that is enough for me!” No, one must learn to grasp that the brain is the expression of the spirit. Our goal is not to rise above appearance to so-called Being, but to understand what lives in the appearance of Being. This must be brought close to people again through images and parables.

[ 22 ] The spiritual existed before the physical. The astral body built up the physical body, structuring it out of itself. All that is material is structured out of the spiritual, and the spirit is the older, the earlier. Before the physical came the astral; it formed and created this body—like the parable of water and ice. The natural scientist sees only the time when the ice had already formed in the stream; the theosophist sees the time when there was still no ice floating in the stream, and the time when the ice was present. The material—the ice—separates from the water, which still originates from something higher. The Bible expresses this process very beautifully: “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:2) For this reason, water is the symbol of all mystery schools.

[ 23 ] Wisdom in the Bible is conveyed through images, parables, and comparisons. The seven-day creation is no different. We are not dealing here with external facts, but with long, long periods of time. There is no document in the world that contains theosophical truths in a more magnificent way than the Bible itself. Theosophy will offer an explanation of the Bible, restoring understanding of it. It will even bring such a concept as the fragmentation of the creation account back within the reach of human understanding. In the stream of water, when the Spirit of God was still hovering over the waters, the spiritual human being was already present. “Male and female” is the literal translation, not “a little boy and a little girl” (Genesis 1:27); that is the spiritual human being. And then a condensation of the spiritual, genderless being into the physical human being—into ice—takes place, and with it a second creation, a gendered-physical one.

[ 24 ] “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6); we must understand this saying in the way Goethe means it when he says: “And as long as you do not have this—this dying and becoming—you are merely a gloomy guest on this dark earth,” that is, the becoming of a higher soul that slumbers within the human being but can be awakened and developed through training. You must give birth to a higher human being from within the physical body, so that this physical body may become a tool for the spiritual human being; yet the physical body must not be the one that dominates us. When the human being is freed from the physical, the physical body becomes such a tool. Thus, one must explore the Spirit through the letter. Theosophy seeks to build upon what already exists; for even the smallest, most material thing is condensed spirit. The theosophical mindset therefore also understands how the Bible can contain precepts that relate to simple, everyday life.

[ 25 ] Those who oppose the Bible do not understand it; they are fighting against their own delusion, which they have concocted for themselves. It is only in the last four centuries that this materialistic view of the Seven-Day Creation—an apparent distortion of it—has developed. Even believers today often interpret the Bible too materialistically. The Bible is to be taken literally; but one must learn to understand the letter and, through the letter, grasp the spirit. Theosophy does not seek to establish a creed, but rather to understand what is there—and the wisdom that has poured into souls throughout the millennia. Truths change; yet a common, primordial truth runs through them all—past, present, and future. We find it in the Bible and its influence; within it are words that originate from the divine wisdom of the world. Through this, readers found themselves permeated by the magical powers of the Bible, which live within the words. Religious texts—and especially those like the Bible, which, in its two parts, even alludes to our division of time—cannot be taken seriously enough. Only through deep, heartfelt immersion in them will humanity once again find its way back to spiritualization.