Family Systems 1000 BCE: A Natural Systems Reading of the Davidic Narratives

SBL 2012 Annual Meeting R. Robert Creech Nov 17, 1:00-3:30 Psychology and Biblical Studies Chicago, IL Room N-138 McCormick Place

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Family Systems 1000 BCE:

A Natural Systems Reading of the Davidic Narratives

Natural Systems Theory as Hermeneutics

In the evolution of psychological biblical

criticism over two decades, Murray Bowen’s natural

systems theory remains a relatively untapped

hermeneutical resource.1 Kamila Blessing’s creative,

ground-breaking interpretive work on Luke 15 and

Galatians 1-2,2 as well as her treatment of various

biblical family stories in her recent book,3 are to my

knowledge the only published scholarly attempts to

employ natural systems theory hermeneutically.

In addition, Blessing is the only scholar to set

forth systematic thinking about the hermeneutical

implications of the theory.4 She reduces her

hermeneutical “rules” to two statements in the appendix

of a book explicitly addressed to ordinary readers of

the biblical text.


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The first rule affirms: “The Bible often does not

contain emotional information per se; however, it is

valid to infer the existence of the eight Family

Systems characteristics from the actions of the

people.”5

Bowen claimed that the eight interlocking concepts

constituting his theory describe “human” behavior,

transcending culture, ethnicity, language, and time.

Application of Bowen theory to ancient texts from

eastern cultures requires this assumption.

Blessing’s first rule also affirms Bowen’s

contention that the important data in understanding

human behavior are factual, not speculative. Human

behavior is what matters. The observable actions are

functional facts from which one can understand the

workings of particular systems. As a hermeneutical

tool, Bowen theory does not require one to

psychoanalyze biblical personalities, but only to


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observe their actions in the context of the emotional

systems to which they belong.

Blessing’s second rule applies to all hermeneutical

efforts, but especially to psychological-critical

approaches. She states it this way: “It is absolutely

insupportable to infer actions or emotions that cannot

be found or supported in the text. Very close attention

to what it actually says is the first and most

important step.”6 Walter Brueggemann had earlier issued

this same caveat, which should be applied to any theory

brought to bear upon a biblical text, whether

psychological, sociological, literary, historical, or

philosophical.7 The text must not be twisted to serve

the theory.

Although both of these “rules” are valid and

necessary, those who attempt to bring biblical texts

into conversation with other disciplines ought to

adhere to at least one additional hermeneutical

principle not found in Blessing’s list. Just as the


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second rule insists that the biblical text be treated

fairly, a sound hermeneutic requires us to treat the

psychological theory with integrity as well. That is,

one should neither reinterpret nor distort the theory

to fit the text any more than one should reinterpret

the text to fit the theory. Both partners in the

conversation deserve to be treated with the utmost

respect.

In this case, Bowen theory needs to be represented

completely and accurately. If one is to engage the

theory and a text authentically, then the key ideas

that underlie Bowen’s thinking need to be brought to the

text in addition to all of the eight interlocking

concepts that comprise the theory. This includes

dialoguing with the text about the role of anxiety, the

togetherness and individuality forces, and the various

responses to anxiety seen in the family emotional

process (conflict, distance, over/under-functioning,

child focus).


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Representing theory with integrity obligates the

interpreter to employ the theory’s terms, concepts, and

definitions accurately. Innovation with theoretical

terminology runs the risk that one is no longer

actually using the named theory as a hermeneutical

tool, but is instead employing some other derivative

set of concepts syncretized from a variety of sources.

Although I genuinely respect Blessing’s work and

have learned much from it, her application of Bowen’s

thinking sometimes appears to take liberties with the

theory itself.8 I offer three examples: Blessing’s

treatment of emotional triangles, emotional cutoff, and

sibling position, three of Bowen’s eight concepts.

First, Bowen carefully selected the term “triangle”

to describe the molecule of human relationship systems.

He wrote:

I began work on this basic concept in 1955. By 1956

the research group was thinking and talking about

‘triads.’ As the concept evolved, it came to include


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much more than the meaning of the conventional term

triad, and we therefore had a problem communicating

with those who assumed they knew the meaning of

triad. I chose triangle in order to convey that

this concept has specific meaning beyond that

implied in triad.”9

Bowen specified that an emotional triangle is a

three person system that operates in specific,

identifiable ways. To apply the concept of triangle to

any three things as Blessing does at times (the

narrator, reader, and text, for example, or the Blind

Man in John 9, Jesus, and the man’s sight) takes Bowen’s

concept in a direction he did not. Blessing

acknowledges this departure, but believes it to be

justified based on her experience.10 Expanding Bowen’s

term to include in the triangle something other than

persons changes the way one understands an emotional

triangle to function and how one behaves within it.

Interchanging “triangle” and “triad,” as Blessing


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sometimes does, is something Bowen deliberately

avoided.11 To say that emotional triangles may be

“stretched,” or that they may be “resolved” is also to go

beyond Bowen’s original concept.

Second, Blessing exchanges the term “fugue” for

Bowen’s term “emotional cutoff,” explicitly stating,

“Bowen’s term for fugue was ‘emotional cutoff’; ‘fugue’

will be used here because of its descriptive value.”12

Bowen never uses the term fugue in his description of

the process of emotional cutoff. In fact, he explains

his deliberate choice of terms:

Much thought went into the selection of a term to

best describe this process of separation,

isolation, withdrawal, running away, or denying the

importance of the parental family. However much

cutoff may sound like informal slang, I could find

no other term as accurate for describing the

process. The therapeutic effort is to convert the


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cutoff into an orderly differentiation of self from

the extended family.13

Using the term “fugue” is problematic, particularly

since in other psychological contexts fugue is

associated with the temporary amnesia and loss of

identity of a “fugue state” (DSM IV 300.13), which has

implications completely unrelated to Bowen’s concept of

emotional cutoff and may add to confusion rather than

offer clarity. Further, applying the term to the

narrator in relation to the reader in certain texts

takes Bowen's concept in an entirely new direction.14 It

is difficult to see the narrator having an unresolved

connection to the reader that results in emotional

cutoff.

Third, in chapter five of Families of the Bible,

entitled “Thy Brother’s and Sister’s Keeper: Siblings in

the Family of God,” Blessing focuses on stories of

“sibling rivalry” in the biblical narrative. This

chapter is presumably based on Bowen’s seventh concept,


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which he called “sibling position.” This was the one

concept Bowen imported in its entirety from the work of

another scientist. Walter Toman’s research published in

Family Constellations in 1961 focused on the way that

the position one occupies as a sibling in one’s family

affects such things as the way one relates to people of

the same or opposite gender and how one relates in

marriage and in other social settings.15 Neither Toman

nor Bowen ever uses the term “sibling rivalry.” They are

interested in “sibling position.” In Bowen Theory,

conflict between siblings would be understood in light

of the nuclear family emotional process, in which

conflict is one of the instinctive reactions to

anxiety, not a function of one’s relationship to a

sibling. Blessing’s chapter does not appear to deal with

Bowen’s concept of sibling position at all.

This attention to terminology is not about being a

“Bowen fundamentalist” who insists that everyone say


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things just right. This principle applies to whatever

psychological theory is brought to the text. Both the

text and the theory should be allowed to speak for

themselves as they are brought into dialogue. The real

“I” of one must address the real “Thou” of the other. To

revise terminology freely can result in one speaking of

“Bowen theory” but applying something else. One might

easily be using Bowen’s vocabulary but not his

dictionary. This equivocal use of language would

prevent a genuine hermeneutical encounter between

theory and text. The third rule in using natural

systems theory as a hermeneutical approach calls for an

accurate and complete version of the theory to be

represented in the conversation with the text.

A wide range of texts in Christian scriptures

invite natural systems theory to dialogue with them.

Blessing has brought theory into conversation with such

texts as the creation narratives, the patriarchal

accounts, the story of Samuel’s birth, New Testament


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birth narratives, the Johannine accounts of the wedding

in Cana and of the man born blind, parables such as the

Prodigal Son and the Unjust Steward, and Paul’s conflict

with Peter described in the letter to the Galatians.

The way forward in building on the work Blessing has

initiated is to attend as closely to Bowen’s theory as

one does to the biblical text so that the conversation

between the two may become more authentic.

Additionally, in considering Bowen’s natural systems

theory as a partner in biblical interpretation, I find

it necessary to acknowledge the following assumptions

and limitations in fashioning a hermeneutical approach

out of natural systems theory:

1.The questions raised by Bowen theory regarding

human behavior are normally asked in the context of

living, accessible families or individuals. To

raise those questions of families and individuals

accessible only in the words of a text places an

additional layer of subjectivity upon the


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conclusions one draws. Although a Bowen

practitioner working with a living family may also

prematurely impose subjectivity upon a family

system, at least the family is present to further

question or investigate in order to clarify the

factual nature of one’s conclusions. When the

family/individual is accessible only within a text,

however, the interpreter is necessarily limited.

Neither the family nor the author is accessible for

clarification. Consequently, a greater degree of

subjective interpretation is required on the part

of the reader and needs to be acknowledged as such.

2.One cannot freely equate terms in one field with

terms in another. Words and concepts used in Bowen

theory have different meanings, both denotatively

and connotatively, when they are used in Scripture.

(Terms like “self” or concepts of marriage as “one

flesh” vis-a-vis the concept of “fusion” in BFST,

and the concept of “togetherness.”) The theory and


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the texts must come to terms with each other to

avoid the fallacy of equivocation.

3.A hermeneutic of natural systems supplies

questions and concepts to be brought to bear upon

texts in which human behavior is understood by

thinking through the effects of the presence of

anxiety, the fusion between characters, the

togetherness force, and the family emotional

processes such as conflict, distance, over- and

under-functioning, and triangles. Concepts such as

differentiation of self or emotional cutoff can

provide insight into the words and actions of

characters in biblical narratives as well as other

genres.

4.The move between the scientific description of

human behavior found in Bowen theory and the

theological/religious account of human behavior

found in Christian Scriptures must be made

deliberately and slowly. The interpreter must be

certain that the concepts of each have been clearly


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understood so that they are not too quickly

equated. For example, Paul’s description of

indwelling sin in Romans 7 sounds in many ways like

descriptions of emotional reactivity in Bowen. If

these concepts are to be considered two attempts to

describe the same human experience, one in

scientific terms and one in theological terms, the

burden of proof must lie upon the one who would

argue for their connection.

Family Systems 1000 BCE

An application of this hermeneutical approach to the

Davidic narratives, demonstrates ways in which natural

systems theory provides a fresh perspective on the

biblical accounts. The narratives are lengthy and time

is limited, so I offer here only a suggestive survey of

the application of the principles of Bowen theory to

these texts, inviting further detailed work.

Other than the Abrahamic narratives in Genesis 11-50,

nothing in the biblical corpus offers the quantity of

family information available in the stories of David.


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Within David’s family the emotional processes Bowen

observed and described occur repeatedly. These

narratives offer a rich source of family emotional

material and Bowen’s perspective provides insight into

their workings.

Emotional triangles abound in the stories of David.

When he becomes part of Saul’s household, befriends the

king’s son Jonathan, and takes the king’s daughter

Michal as his wife, David engages two significant

triangles that place Saul on the outside as David wins

the hearts of both Michal and Jonathan. The more

intense the conflict between David and Saul becomes,

the more intense the closeness with David and Saul’s

children.

Emotional triangles become a significant factor in

David’s own family when his failure to act justly in

response to the rape of his daughter Tamar by her half-

brother Amnon results in Absalom’s killing Amnon and

rebelling against his father.


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At the end of David’s life the emotional triangles

light up during the period of anxiety created by the

king’s imminent death. David is caught in the network of

triangles formed, on the one hand, by the attempt of

Adonijah to secure the throne through his connections

with Joab the general and Abiathar the priest, and, on

the other hand, those triangles formed by the plotting

of Bathsheba, mother of Solomon, to obtain the throne

for him, supported by Zadok the priest and Nathan the

prophet.

Bowen proposed a scale of differentiation of self to

describe what he observed in human behavior: some

people manage the anxiety and crises of their lives

better than others.16 Some function more thoughtfully in

the face of anxiety than others. Some people, in the

face of rising stress and anxiety, are less emotionally

reactive and are able to retain access to their

intellectual system.

It is impossible to measure accurately and

specifically where a person shows up on Bowen’s


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theoretical scale. In the Davidic stories we might look

for evidence of an individual’s ability to maintain

principles in spite of pressure to do otherwise. David’s

high-functioning might be seen in his refusal to take

Saul’s life or harm him even when the opportunity arose.

Saul’s jealousy and fear of David and his relentless

pursuit of him provide evidence of a lower level of

differentiation on the part of Saul. David’s use of

power in taking Bathsheba and ordering the death of

Uriah and his behavior around Absalom’s rebellion might

provide evidence of a lower functioning on his part

during that period of his life. A significant amount of

life information is required in order to speak

definitively about the level of differentiation in a

life. David’s stories provide some evidence of this

scale of human functioning.

Bowen described the nuclear family emotional process

in terms of a repertoire of instinctive, automatic

behaviors anxious human beings display: conflict,


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distancing, over- or under-functioning, or projection

on to a third person.17 Although this behavior “binds”

the anxiety, the behaviors themselves contribute to the

system’s reactivity, and a vicious regressive cycle

begins to spiral downward.

These reactions to the anxiety of both society and

the family system emerge in the stories of the king.

Saul resorts to conflict in his reactivity to the

threat he perceived David posed to him and his kingdom.

His own children distance themselves from him in their

anxious response. Anxiety in David’s family results in

the violent rape of Tamar by Amnon, David’s

underfunctioning response, Absalom’s murderous reaction

to his half-brother and his distancing and ultimate

cutoff from his father.

The family projection process describes the way in

which an anxious family passes its emotional immaturity

along by means of an intense focus on one child,

resulting in that child’s ultimately leaving home with a


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greater degree of emotional dependence on his or her

parents than do other children in the family. All

things being equal, the child on the receiving end of

this projection process will develop a lower degree of

differentiation of self and will predictably have fewer

resources available to face life’s problems, living with

a higher level of chronic anxiety. In the Davidic

narrative it is worth wondering about David’s intense

emotional attachment to Absalom that might lie behind

the son’s conflict with his father and ultimately his

distancing and cutoff from David.

Bowen’s concept of multigenerational transmission

process is an attempt to explain how emotional

processes move across generations, resulting in both

high and low functioning individuals within the

system.18 The concept takes the idea of the family

projection process and applies it over time. As one

generation after another focuses more on one child than

another, some individuals arise in that family who are


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high on the scale of differentiation and others emerge

with a lower ability to function in life.

The entire Davidic dynasty would become the focus of

attention if one were to apply the concept to David’s

multigenerational family. That same family tree

produced relatively high functioning leaders like

Uzziah, Hezekiah, and Josiah as well as relatively low

functioning leaders like Manasseh and Jehoiachin. The

biblical narratives do not supply sufficient

information about the families of these kings to allow

the interpreter to apply the concept specifically,

however.

Emotional cutoff is an extreme form of distancing.

Bowen employed this concept to explain how some handle

their unresolved emotional attachments to their

parents.19 The concept deals with the way people

separate themselves from the past in order to make a

new start in the present. Bowen observed that emotional

cutoff can occur internally (resulting in physical or

emotional symptoms of varying degrees) or externally


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(physical, geographic separation). The one who “runs

away from home” tends to see the problem as being in the

parents and running away becomes a means of becoming

independent from the parent. Geographical distance,

however, does not remove the unresolved emotional

attachment, and the one who departs is vulnerable to

duplicating his/her relationship with the parent with

the first available other.20

Emotional cutoff occurs in the Davidic story most

prominently in the rebellion of Absalom, who first

experiences a conflict with his doting father, then

kills his half-brother, and finally runs away from home

to live with his maternal grandfather. Although David

later allows him to return to Jerusalem, the still

unresolved attachment between father and son shows up

in Absalom’s undermining his father’s position, leading

a rebellion, and ultimately losing his life. David’s

grief at Absalom’s death illustrates further the

attachment at the root of the relationship.


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Bowen’s seventh concept, Sibling Position, is an

ironic one in many biblical stories, including that of

David and his family. Although “eldests” often take

charge and rise to positions of leadership in their

systems, the frequently occurring biblical theme of the

promotion of the younger over the older obtains in

these narratives, which, according to Bowen, may be

indicative of a higher level of differentiation in

those individuals.21

The last of Bowen’s eight interlocking concepts is

called “societal emotional process.”22 Bowen observed

that society at large operates with the same emotional

processes that occur in the nuclear family. Periods of

heightened societal anxiety result in the family

emotional process of conflict, distance, over- and

under-functioning, and triangling being played out on

the large stage of society.

David’s story makes a kind of sense in light of this

reality. Certainly many aspects of the Davidic


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narratives are distinctive to a time and culture far

removed from ours, such as the taking of multiple

wives, often to seal political ties. But the story

becomes more universally human when seen against the

backdrop of an anxious, leaderless time.

Saul comes to power against the better judgment of

the prophet Samuel, who, despite anointing him as king

does little to support him and, in fact, contributes to

his being done in as a leader by not showing up on time

to lead in public worship (underfunctioning?), forcing

the king to act as priest and offer a sacrifice

(overfunctioning?). Saul’s dynasty is undone and he

begins to operate as a lame duck king, becoming

increasingly unstable. The regressive state of Israel’s

society takes its toll on the leadership and family of

Saul. David’s own kingdom and family endure their share

of societal anxiety as well.

Conclusion

Moving the discipline of psychological biblical

criticism forward requires the careful formulation and


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following of valid hermeneutical principles. Among the

principles that lead to an authentic conversation

between a given psychological theory and a biblical

text is the insistence that both the text and the

theory must be free to operate on their own terms in

their encounter with each other. As the Davidic

narratives illustrate, when taken on its own terms,

Bowen family systems theory offers a robust set of

questions that can provide an understanding of biblical

texts that may well elude other approaches.


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NOTES

1 Bowen says, “Man's family is a system which I believe

follows the laws of natural systems.” (Family Therapy in Clinical Practice [1st ed.; Jason Aronson, 1994], pp. 151, 359).

2 Kamila Blessing, “Differentiation in the Family of Faith:

The Prodigal Son and Galatians 1-2,” in Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures.From Gospel to Gnostics (ed. J. Harold Ellens and Wayne G. Rollins; Praeger Perspectives: Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality; Westport, Conn. Praeger, 2004), 3:165–91.

3 Blessing, Families of the Bible: A New Perspective

(Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality; Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger, 2010).

4 Kamila Blessing, “Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory as

Bible Hermeneutic Illustrated Using the Family of the Prodigal Son,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 19, no. 1 (Spr 2000): 38–46.

5 Blessing, Families of the Bible, 207. 6 Ibid. However, see pp. 47, 68, 69, and 92 for some of

Blessing’s own speculation that may exceed the boundaries of the text.

7 Walter Brueggemann “There is a danger, in the eclectic

enterprise of psychological criticism, to impose a psychological theory on the text in a way that overrides the specificity of the text itself and that distorts the text in order to serve the theory that an interpreter may advocate.” (“Psychological Criticism: Exploring the Self in the Text,” in Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David L. Petersen (ed. David L Petersen, Joel M LeMon, and Kent Harold Richards; Resources for Biblical Study; no. 56.; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 215.)

8 In the one area Blessing takes issue with Bowen and claims

to depart from his thinking, she has apparently misunderstood his idea and actually agrees with him. (Blessing, Families of the Bible, 17, 202) Bowen, as Blessing, understood that


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emotional systems are not inherently based on biological relationships, but on emotional relationships. Bowen specifically referred to “social systems” as distinct from nuclear family systems and wrote an article on the application of differentiation of self in administrative systems (Bowen, pp. 203, 461-65).

9 Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 373. 10 Blessing, Families of the Bible, 205. To be fair,

Blessing is not the only Bowen theorist to speak of a triangle as including something other than a person. Rabbi Edwin Friedman makes the same departure from Bowen's concept, but does so in terms of a “responsibility triangle” that occurs when one person takes responsibility for an issue that truly belongs to another, such as when a spouse takes responsibility for the alcoholism of their partner, trying to make them change. This might better be described as simply an example of over- and under-functioning as an anxious response. (Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue [New York: Guilford Press, 1985], p.48). Blessing’s impersonal corners of triangles include readers and texts, which is different from both Bowen and Friedman.

11 Ibid., 43, 63. 12 Blessing, “Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory as Bible

Hermeneutic Illustrated Using the Family of the Prodigal Son,” 19:40.

13 Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 382. 14 Kamila Blessing, “Family Systems Psychology as

Hermeneutic,” in Psychology and the Bible 1, From Freud to Kohut (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2004), 186, 188, 197–205.

15 Walter Toman, Family Constellation: Its Effects on Personality and Social Behavior (3rd ed.; New York: Springer Pub. Co., 1976).

16 Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 354, 398–99. 17 Ibid., 165–68, 203–5, 308, 376–77, 425, 475–77. 18 Ibid., 168–69.


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19 Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 382–84. 20 Ibid., 382–83. 21 Ibid., 385. 22 Ibid., 423–50.

Family Systems 1000 BCE: A Natural Systems Reading of the Davidic Narratives

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