Buffie Johnson, Bill Moyers, and the Conclusion
Scores of other writers have followed the alien paths carved out by Harrison and Campbell and have thus been drawn into wasteful pseudo-intellectual excursions of their own. I have mentioned the work of Barbara G. Walker, above. Lady of the Beasts by Buffie Johnson (no relation to me) is another book among many which shows how the teachings of Harrison and Campbell have been picked up and spread like a mind-numbing virus. Besides the name of a special friend, Campbell appears first in Johnson’s acknowledgements, and Harrison is cited often.
In her book, Johnson features seventy pages devoted to the serpent in the ancient world. Over and over, she stresses the importance of the serpent: "The serpent was venerated throughout ancient Egypt … Reverence for the snake in the Near East equaled that found in Egypt … The Minoans like the Egyptians had not been conditioned to see in the snake a symbol of evil … ," etc.17 She concludes, "At the dawn of literate time, therefore, the serpent appears as a supreme figure guarding the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge."18 Over and over, she points to the connection between a woman, a tree, and a serpent; but she cannot see the Genesis connection. That is because her standpoint is based on that of Campbell, Harrison, and other atheists.
She features an illustration of the same Sumerian seal Campbell pictures in his book on Greek myth, and which I have discussed, above (Figure 1). Here is what she writes about it in her book: "Although there are similarities, the possibility that this could be an early version of the Adam and Eve story has been denied by archaeologists"[emphasis mine].19
Note that she does not say that archaeologists have disproved it, or refuted it, but have denied it. All atheists must deny the possibility of an Eden, and Buffie Johnson is no exception. Atheists must deny every bit of evidence that suggests or points to a Creator God; and likewise, they must deny all the evidence that points to the inextricably related idea that the book of Genesis is a true account of human origins. Their denials accord with their atheistic dogma, not with science, not with logic, and not with the historical record.
The irony, of course, is that even as they maintain that the early events of Genesis have no real meaning for themselves or the rest of humanity, they embrace and exalt the "wisdom" of the Genesis serpent. While God has instructed us to subdue "every living animal of the earth"’ (Genesis 9:2), they look up to a wild beast as a source of knowledge for mankind. This is the true abomination, for "what is high among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). In Prolegomena, Harrison features an ancient Greek relief of a woman and two men worshipping the serpent (Figure 2). Campbell copied it into his Occidental Mythology. Do we see these authors in this picture? I do.
Figure 2. Ancient Greek relief depicting serpent
worship.
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers is a third person who fits into this ancient serpent-worshiping relief. In The Power of Myth, Moyers, an ordained Baptist minister, is quoted as saying to Campbell, "far from undermining my faith, your work in mythology has liberated my faith from the cultural prisons to which it had been sentenced."20
How naïve the sophisticates have become! Campbell did not even believe that God exists. How could such a man possibly offer any edification at all to the body of Christ? And what kind of "faith" is Moyers talking about? The only faith Moyers shows by touting Campbell’s work is faith in the serpent’s ability to undermine the Word of God and delude mankind.
As an experienced journalist who claims to be a Christian, it is the ultimate in hypocrisy for Moyers to present Campbell’s disguised atheism and idolatrous fervor to the public as academic brilliance. It was astounding to learn that, to Campbell, the greatest sin was the sin of "inadvertence, of not being alert, not quite awake."21 Asleep to the truth himself, Campbell found in Moyers an unthinking enthusiast willing to sleepwalk through his own spiritual life, perpetuating a sophisticated form of spiritual fraud upon countless young minds.
Conclusion
Bill Moyers' shameless promotion of the works of Joseph Campbell (and the consequent promotion of the work of Campbell's disciples) has generated an atheistic genre which now dominates mythology literature. The works of Moyers, Campbell, and those who follow in their footsteps are part of a trap laid by the Adversary, a barricade on the road to truth. The serpent’s voice defines and permeates their writings, saying again and again in a hundred different ways, "The Scriptures are not true, the God you learned about at home, in church, or in the synagogue does not exist. Only children and fools believe those things. Moral absolutes are for the ignorant and the improperly educated."
Campbell's contempt for, and ridicule of Christianity and Judaism undermines respect for traditional values in the minds of millions of young students each year, thus preparing them to embrace an alien and contradictory ideology they themselves will never fully understand. Campbell's promise of a warm and fuzzy harmonious unified earth abounding with moral relativism undermines students' respect for our constitutional government and our national sovereignty, thus preparing them to view their own country as the enemy even when we are attacked mercilessly by fanatics from abroad.
Atheism is a belief system, it is a religion; and it is fast becoming the central tenet of modern religious and political liberalism. Many liberals listen to Moyers. Moyers' and Campbell's distortions of human history permeate an educational system that has spawned many of these very liberals in high school and college. Thus when Moyers speaks today, these liberals have already been conditioned to nod in agreement no matter how utterly false or absurd his remarks may be.
All that Joseph Campbell's Moyers-abetted works have proven conclusively is that "the wisdom of this world is stupidity with God" (I Corinthians 3:19). Campbell eagerly embraced Darwinism, as does Moyers, and Darwinism is a speculative system that replaces God and purpose with time and chance. On this basis alone, their books and their ideas should be rejected: they trace back the origins of their own vaunted intellects, after all, to random mutations from primordial slime.
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