Hoffer And The Old Testament

 Tom Shactman, an Eric Hoffer biographer, wrote on Page 22 of American Iconoclast The Life and Times of Eric Hoffer, about Hoffer's being fascinated by and impressed with the Old Testament: "The Pentateuch was a revelation, though not a religious one. 'What grandeur, vividness, and freshness of perception,' he later wrote, using terms he also employed to praise Dostoevsky. The Old Testament's pages reflected 'a primitive mentality, naive, clumsy, yet bold and all embracing,' and a Jewish people that imagined a lone God who made mankind in his image--a God that gave man the tasks of acting as He had, to create, to subdue nature, to build cities, and to live fully in the present."

My response: there was something unique about these people, their holy book and their lone God. Their creator God that was separate from nature, and made humans, half-angel, in God’s image and likeness. God the creator expects us to create, and as Mavellonialist individuators, we are best trained, equipped and empowered to meet that calling and divine command. It is so Western to teach humans to subdue nature, to build cities and live in the present. There is a secularness and worldliness about the Jews that is wisdom, and can be transmuted into empirical and scientific researches.

Shactman continues: "Hoffer was impressed that ancient Jews had been so involved with the present that they did not bother to imagine a hereafter; and that several thousand years since the Old Testament had been written; its character still came across as very 'real' . . . Hoffer thrilled to the Old Testament's acceptance of the bad with the good, with no 'touching up to lend a false appearance of perfection.' 'The imagined truth' of the Jews, Hoffer concluded, was 'more alive, more true, that truth.'"

My response: The emphasis on the importance of getting it ride while in this world is contrasted against the extreme otherworldliness of ancient Christians. Somehow the Bible seems real, existentially authentic, and relevant--part of its universal appeal as relevant today across much elapsed time. I admire his point that imagined truth is more alive and more true than literal truth.