The pages of the Bible also portray the earliest recorded resistance to
conquest of the mind. The Bible relates in part the continuous rebellion
of individuals and groups that propelled the development of the Jewish
people. Subjugated people customarily abandoned their idols and adopted
the deities of their masters, reasoning that their own gods were weak
and ineffectual while those of the victors must wield great power. Although
enslaved and deprived of the most fundamental human rights, the Hebrew
slaves not only refused to embrace the idols of the Pharaoh, but dared
to maintain a religious belief utterly opposed to that of the Egyptians.
They demonstrated that the Lord is God under all circumstances, good
or bad. Centuries of enslavement could not erase this idea. So it has
been in every period of Jewish history wherever Jews have lived, and
what is true of one people is generally true of all mankind: When every
other right is gone, the mind and spirit still demand their freedom.

Psychological analysis and existential interpretation of the family
portraits in the Bible bring another rebellion into focus -- the rebellion
against the principle of primogeniture, and, by implication, of predeter-
mination. Primogeniture established the life-long superiority of the first-
born and the permanent inferiority of the other off-spring. In contrast,
analysis of the biblical families reveals constant rebellion against this
custom and continuous striving to promote freedom-for-the-individual.

The conception of freedom-for-the-individual as the basis of civilized
society is the underlying theme of the Pentateuch. With "the breath of
life" man was conceived as a "living soul," not as a creature shackled by
supernatural powers to a static existence, as he was in primitive cultures.
The first book of the Bible, especially, depicts man as a free spirit striving
to break the fetters of predetermination. When Adam and Eve ate from
the Tree of Knowledge, "the eyes of them both were opened" (3:7) and
they came face to face with reality. The future was theirs to decide; their
choice between good and evil would determine their fate.

Genesis shows man endowed with a mind with which to plumb the
depths of his capabilities, and with a spirit with which to overcome his
limitations. He has the inner freedom to accept his own impulse, to
evaluate its worth to himself, and to initiate his own act. Without this
inner freedom, man would remain inanimate clay. If man rejects his
instinct, if he judges himself evil, if he is the instrument of another will,
man cannot live in the vacuum of outer freedom. For freedom implies an
inner honesty -- to understand oneself, to accept oneself, and to have the
will to refine the alloy of one's nature. Man eventually faces death, and
every moment of his life poses the need to choose his course of action

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