Table Of ContentHEARING VISIONS AND SEEING VOICES
Hearing Visions and
Seeing Voices
Psychological Aspects of Biblical
Concepts and Personalities
Edited by
Gerrit Glas
University of Leiden, The Netherlands
Moshe Halevi Spero
School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Weinstock Oncology Day Hospital, Shaare Zedek Medical Center,
Jerusalem, Israel
Peter J. Verhagen
Meerkanten GGZ Flevo-Veluwe, Ermelo, The Netherlands
Herman M. van Praag
University of Maastricht, The Netherlands
The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, U.S.A.
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CONTENTS
Contributing Authors ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xvii
PART 1. HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL ISSUES
1. Introduction to Historical and Conceptual Issues 3
Gerrit Glas
2. Psychiatry and Religion: An Unconsummated Marriage 9
Herman van Praag
3. Biblical Narratives as History: Biblical Persons as
Objects of Historical Faith 21
C. Stephen Evans
PART 2. PROPHECY: THEOLOGICAL
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS
4. Introduction to Prophecy: Theological and Psychological Aspects 37
Gerrit Glas
5. The Dynamics of Prophecy in the Writings of
Abraham Joshua Heschel 41
Neil Gillman
v
vi CONTENTS
6. The Prophets as Persons 53
Bob Becking
7. Jeremiah Interpreted: A Rabbinic Analysis of the Prophet 65
Bryna Jocheved Levy
PART 3. MARTYRDOM: THEOLOGICAL
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS
8. Introduction to Martyrdom: Theological and Psychological Aspects 89
Gerrit Glas
9. Martyrdom: Theological and Psychological Aspects.
Martyrdom in Judaism 93
†
Hyam Maccoby, Z.L.
10. The Martyrdom of Paul 105
Jakob van Bruggen
11. Spiritual, Human, and Psychological Dimensions
of St. Paul’s Martyrdom 115
Msngr. H.W.M. Ta´jra´
PART 4. MESSIANISM: THEOLOGICAL
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS
12. Introduction to Messianism: Theological and Psychological Aspects 127
Gerrit Glas
13. Casting a Psychological Look on Jesus the Marginal Jew 133
Antoine Vergote
14. The Land of Israel: Desire and Dread in Jewish Literature 153
Aviezer Ravitzky
15. The Person of Jesus 169
Abraham van de Beek
16. Imagining Jesus: To Portray or Betray?: Psycho(-patho)logical Aspects
of Attempts to Discuss the Historical Individual 183
Peter J. Verhagen
CONTENTS vii
PART 5. INTERDISCIPLINARY ISSUES:
PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE
17. Introduction to Interdisciplinary Issues: Prospects for the Future 207
Gerrit Glas
18. The Hidden Subject of Job: Mirroring and the Anguish
of Interminable Desire 213
Moshe Halevi Spero
19. Biblical Themes in Psychiatric Practice: Implications
for Psychopathology and Psychotherapy 267
Samuel Pfeifer
20. The Bible and Psychology: New Directions
in Biblical Scholarship 279
Wayne G. Rollins
21. Searching for the Dynamic ‘Within’. Concluding Remarks
on ‘Psychological Aspects of Biblical Concepts and Personalities’ 295
Gerrit Glas
Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
Bob Becking
Professor of Old Testament Studies, Department of Theology, Utrecht University,
The Netherlands
Abraham van de Beek
Professor of Systematic Theology, Department of Theology, Free University, Amster-
dam, The Netherlands
Jakob van Bruggen
Professor (Emeritus) of New Testament Studies, Theological University of Kampen,
The Netherlands
C.Stephen Evans
University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Department of Philosophy,
Baylor University, Waco, USA
Neil Gillman
Aaron Rabinowitz and Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Jewish Philosophy, Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, New York
Gerrit Glas
Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry Leiden University Medical Centre
Professor of Philosophy in the Reformed Tradition, Department of Philosophy,
Leiden University
Director of Residency Training, Zwolse Poort, Zwolle, The Netherlands
†
Hyam Maccoby, Z.L.
Research Professor, Centre for Jewish Studies, Leeds, United Kingdom (Professor
Maccoby died in 2004)
ix
x CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
Bryna Jocheved Levy
Senior Lecturer, Women’s Institute for Torah Studies, Jerusalem, Israel
Samuel Pfeifer
Psychiatrist and Director, Klinik Sonnenhalde, Riehen, Switzerland
Herman van Praag
Professor Emeritus of the Universities of Groningen, Utrecht, Maastricht, the Nether-
lands, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Aviezer Ravitzky
Sol Rosenblum Professor of Jewish Philosophy, Department of Jewish Thought,
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Wayne G. Rollins
Professor (Emeritus) of Theology, Assumption College; Worcester, Massachusetts
Hartford Seminary; Hartford, Connecticut, USA
Moshe Halevi Spero
Professor and Director, Postgraduate Program for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy,
School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat, Gan, Israel.
Senior Clinical Psychologist and Research Scholar, Weinstock Oncology Day
Hospital, Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Sarah Herzog Psychiatric Hospital,
Jerusalem, Israel
Harry W. M. Ta´jra´
Bishop, Ordre de Sainte Marie la Vierge, Paris, France
President of the Marial Museum of Sacred Art
Antoine Vergote
Professor (Emeritus) of Psychology of Religion, Catholic University of Louvain,
Belgium
Peter J. Verhagen
Psychiatrist, Theologian, Meerkanten GGZ, Flevo-Veluwe, Ermelo, The Nether-
lands
PREFACE
The chapters in this book are based on papers that were presented at the international
conference Psychological Aspects of Biblical Concepts and Persons, 4–6 March
2002 in Amsterdam.
The conference was organized by the Dutch Foundation for Psychiatry and Reli-
gion (in Dutch: Stichting Psychiatrie en Religie) a small, but active and lively
organization, which organizes conferences and post-graduate education for mental
health professionals and which offers a platform for interdisciplinary research
and discussion in the field of mental health and religion. The organizers of the
conference – Gerrit Glas, Herman M. van Praag, and Peter J. Verhagen – are mem-
bers of the board of the Foundation. All three are psychiatrists; two of them
are also professionally occupied in another discipline: theology (Verhagen) and
philosophy (Glas).
The primary aim of the conference was to create a space for scientific dialogue
between two disciplines with a troubled and complex relationship: psychiatry and
theology. The exchange of opinions and viewpoints between specifically these two
fields has dried up in the course of the past century and has virtually been absent
from around 1960 till at least the early nineties of the previous century.
I need to clarify that we were quite specific in isolating theology and psychiatry;
instead of focusing on theology and psychology, or biblical studies and psychology,
or theology and psychoanalysis. Psychology and psychoanalysis do not seem to have
lost all contact with theology, at least not to such an extent as have psychiatry and
theology.
To be sure, there has been a resurgence of interest in religious and spiritual
issues in psychiatry in the past fifteen years, and much research on a wide variety
of topics. Religious coping, the health-promoting effects of religion, forgiveness,
and the neural underpinnings of religious experience are a few of the many sub-
jects that are high on the research agenda at the present moment. Professional
organizations like the World Psychiatric Association, the American Psychiatric
Association, and the American Psychological Association each have divisions
devoted to psychiatry (or: psychology), spirituality and religion. These divisions
xi
