Not to spoil the buck but he talks about in all literature there is a hero and goes on a journey. Always wondered if that can’t be applied to religious texts.
Not to spoil the buck but he talks about in all literature there is a hero and goes on a journey. Always wondered if that can’t be applied to religious texts.
Given that Campbell developed his idea of the Hero’s Journey from a selective reading of specific mythologies and stories, the fact that some stories in the Bible can be read as an instance of his monomyth is not particularly surprising since he was exposed to Bible stories at an early age in his Irish Catholic family.
Many stories in the Bible (especially ones with male protagonists) can be read as Hero’s Journeys. One could cite Jesus, Joseph, Paul perhaps, but I’ll break down the story of Moses and the Exodus as an example.
The steps in the Hero’s Journey have several formulations, but I’ll stick to Campbell’s. His categories throughout the Journey are soft, and so they won’t all match perfectly.
The Call to Adventure - Moses is an adopted son of Egyptian royalty, and sees the enslavement of his own people when he ventures out of the palace. He sees his kin being mistreated and kills an Egyptian slave driver, experiencing the possibility of change from his “ordinary” experience for the first time (Exodus 2).
Refusal of the Call - Fearing retribution from the Pharaoh, he refuses to stay and struggle with his kinsmen, he flees to Midian and builds a new life as a shepherd and starts a family (Exodus 2).
Supernatural Aid - Moses is directly called by God through a burning but unconsumed bush to return to Egypt and free the enslaved Israelites. Moses’ hesitancy here (describing himself as timid and uneloquent) can also be read as refusal of the call (Exodus 3).
The Crossing of the First Threshold - Returning to Egypt, Moses is now truly participating in the liberation of his people (Exodus 4).
Belly of the Whale - The deepest despair possible – that Pharoah will not allow Israel to walk away (Exodus 5) – confronts Moses with the need to change. His life among the nomads has been joyous, but bringing (or announcing) plague upon Egypt destroys the empathy and joy he has discovered (this is very much an interpretation, and definitely a reading-in, but one must read-in to be Joseph Campbell).
The Road of Trials - No obvious “Road of Trials” exists here. One might point to the minor events on the road back to Egypt, but they are not for Moses, and he doesn’t fail or succeed at them.
The Meeting with the Goddess - This step has no obvious analogue. One could stretch the definition to encompass Moses’ brother Aaron, and that them (Moses and Aaron) beginning to use their staves as channels for divine magic are them using tools that they gain at this point (especially since Moses first sees the magic from his staff at the burning bush), but the symbolism doesn’t match unless you distort it heavily.
Woman as the Temptress - Another step without an obvious touchpoint.
Atonement with the Father - One can read the fulfillment of Moses’ duty to god as an atonement here, in delivering his message to Egypt and seeing the bloody fallout to its end (Exodus 12).
Apotheosis - Upon the completion of the ten plagues, Moses has become a fearful avatar of vengeance for the Israelites against Egypt’s oppression (Exodus 13).
The Ultimate Boon - Because of this fear, Pharaoh grants what the Israelites wish – freedom, and the power to live and self-determine (Exodus 13).
Refusal of the Return - In many ways, Moses becomes a stand-in or icon that represents the Jewish people as a whole from here on. With this change, some of the dramatic elements of the Hero’s Journey can be identified in the general attitude of the Israelite population as a whole, possibly mirroring Moses’ own thoughts and feelings. When camped before the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s chariots behind them, the Israelites despair and wish that they might return to Egypt rather than die (Exodus 14).
The Magic Flight - God parts the sea for Moses and the Israelites, and “guides” them through the wilderness (Exodus 14).
Rescue from Without - This one is difficult to identify. One might point again to the sea-parting, and that’s not unreasonable, but the distinction of this step is in the “normal world” reaching out to reclaim the hero. The “normal world” in this story meaning obeying god. My take is that this step can be read in Moses obeying the call to Mt. Sinai, there to receive the new order he must bring to the grumbling Israelites (Exodus 19).
The Crossing of the Return Threshold - Atop Sinai, Moses receives direct commandments from god, signalling a return to “normalcy”, meaning a new, clean, ungrudging peace between god and his chosen (Exodus 20-31).
Master of the Two Worlds - Moses has seen what a messy relation with god looks like, and seeing that unpleasantness, now knows that peace with god must be maintained by commitment to his purpose and will, which he shares with the people (Exodus 32).
Freedom to Live - Moses achieving this bridging between the people and god has fulfilled his purpose, and he is now free to see the Israelites towards the end of their journey, his task complete.
There are a lot of criticisms to be leveled at Campbell’s work, but primarily from the mythological academic side. From the creative writing side, the Journey is fantastic for providing an easy outline of an emotional/psychological arc to a character, especially if one can find and tweak the journey in some small ways to make it more contextually and/or culturally relevant.
Yes, the Hero’s Journey can absolutely be used to read the Bible and other religious texts (e.g. stories of Siddhartha Gautama/The Buddha, the story around Mohammad’s recitation), but since The Journey draws primarily on Jungian psychology for its theoretical roots (specifically the idea of The Collective Unconscious), that context should be acknowledged when interpreting texts with it. It is a product of Western, Christian-dominated 20th-century culture and is not well-equipped to provide meaningful interpretation outside of that context.