The German translation of Peterson's courageous work "WHE WHO WRESTLE WITH GOD – Perceptions of the Divine" was published at the end of 2024, and I didn't hesitate to purchase the e-book edition. After all, Jordan B. Peterson is not only a practicing clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto, but also the author of textbooks that have received worldwide acclaim.
I first became aware of Peterson's work when I taught my Freiburg seminars in 2021 on the still largely unexplored system of rules of the Sermon on the Mount. Naturally, during my research on this topic, I also came across his book "12 Rules for Life: Order and Structure in a Chaotic World." It was not only fascinating but also very fruitful to compare Peterson's 21st-century rules with those of the first century, which we call "Christian" (I will discuss this topic elsewhere).
However, during the Christmas season of 2024, I initially failed to grasp Peterson's aforementioned work. There's no question: This book, too, is a very exciting read, and the author develops a number of illuminating and even confusing ideas about Genesis. From my very personal perspective, oscillates However, he is caught between creative insight and misunderstanding, simply because he does not know the categorical foundations of the Bible – but how could he?
It's obviously extremely unfair of me to simply put such a statement up for discussion—but that's also the reason why I've put the book aside for now. Peterson's Jacob's wrestling with the spiritual dimension from the perspective of a theory of archetypes inspired by CG Jung absolutely deserves an interdisciplinary discussion, which, however, would require a great deal of time to initiate, which I currently lack. But Christmas is almost upon us again.
