By Larry Fyffe
In the liner notes of his ‘Saved’ record, Bob Dylan quotes the biblical prophet Jeremiah:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord
That I will make a new convenant
With the House of Israel and the House of Judah
(Jeremiah 31:31)
As is the case of other Dylan albums, ‘Saved’ is not as straightforward as the song lyrics may first appear – language being inherently figurative and elastic.
Eden it turns out is not a physical place, but is where you find it – in your heart. The Book of Jeremiah, written in a Gnostic-like style – an alchemy pot full of analogical and allegorical stories, is revived and revised by Dylan. It’s remade, figuratively speaking, into a movie with the assistance of a Christian production company.
The singer/ songwriter adamantly disagrees with art critic William Shakespeare who declares:
To gild refined gold
To paint the lily …
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess
(King John, Act IV, sc. 2)
In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah tells the Hebrews that the Persians (Iranians) will defeat the idol-worshipping Babylonians (Iraqis) after the latter take over (north) Israel and Judea, a punishment bestowed by Yahweh for their having fallen away from the Almighty Lord’s instructions.
The Hebrews find themselves under the less stressful rule of the more compatible Persian Zarathustrians who believe in one Wise God with individuals having the responsibility to choose, hopefully wisely, how to cope with his or her short-lived earthly existence lest they suffer in hell (See: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts, Parts I, II, and III – links are provided at the end of this article).
Jeremiah sticks to the message that Yahweh is one jealous God who spreads punishment all around if a multi-god, idol-worshipping, culture comes about. However, as His method of instilling fear does not appear to be working out that well, Jeremiah says God’s a bit sorry about all of that mean stuff, and He is now going to emphasize the other means whereby His chosen people can mend their wicked ways:
After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts
And write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother,
Saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me
From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord
For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more
(Jeremiah 31: 33, 34)
In short, Jeremiah says, from now on, no-one gets punished for the misbehavior of others as all the Hebrews were. Not an outwardly fear-instilled conformity that pays ‘lip service’ to Yahweh, but a heart-felt individualistic commitment to follow His Word is what’s important. From the God within, not from the external God, is where flame of fear is to burn.
In the Chrisrian sequel, Jesus becomes a leader of that commitment for those who spread the Word beyond the Hebrew community – emphasis is not solely placed on the punishment of sin but also on the removal of the stone of ignorance that blocks an individual’s awareness of the Amighty God who cares.
In his day, Jeremiah becomes distraught at the failure of this New Covenant when the dark-side of human nature once again triumphs over the Word of God. The prophet is mocked by the small and punished by the big. Against his will, Jeremiah is convinced to leave the Promised Land with other ‘troublemakers’ who flee for their own safety – never to return. Nevertheless, he takes the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ with him in his heart.
Bob Dylan, his Jewish family having fled to the United States for safety, pictures himself like a Jeremiah, like an Ovid, in exile:
I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
(Bob Dylan: Not Dark Yet)
Dylan remembers their sin no more, but, because the darkness of human nature is trapped within the physical body of mankind – a cosmological view expressed by Gnostics – America is no more an Eden than the original Promised Land across the pond:
Many try to stop me, shake me up in my mind
Say, ‘Prove me that He is Lord, show me a sign’
What kind of sign they need when it all come from within
When what’s lost has been found
What’s to come has already been?
(Bob Dylan: Pressing On)
The ‘New Jerusalem’ one finds not in a particular place, but in the heart. Thus spake Jeremiah, and he’s standing still. So too is poet William Blake still standing:
Nobody to rescue me
Nobody would dare
I was going down for the last time
But by His mercy I’ve been spared
Not by works
But by faith in Him who called
For so long I’ve been hindered
For so long I’ve been stalled
(Bob Dylan: Saved)
Without mentioning Jesus by name, Dylan connects the New Convenant of the Hebrews with that of Christians. Not the ostentatious show of the old order, but the heart-felt actions of the new order, guided “by faith in Him who called”, is what really counts.
The contribution of the religious ideas of Zarathustra (his followers worship in the temple of fire, in the light of the Wise God, who seeks a balance among the elements of earth, wind, fire, and water) are not forgotten – i.e., Humans are made mostly of water, and who disrespects his or her physical body finds that the fires of hell take over:
In his love I am secure
He bought me with a price
Freed me from the pit
Full of emptiness and wrath
And the fire that burns in it
(Bob Dylan: Saved)
The Persian drunkard, he follows me.
- Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts: revealing the source of this and other Dylan songs. Part 1. by Larry Fyffe
- Bob Dylan And Damon Runyon: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts And Other Songs (Part II) by Larry Fyffe
- Source Of Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts (Part III) by Larry Fyffe
What else is on the site
1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews
I’m sorry but I do not see any ideas of Zarathustra in the lyrics of Dylan’s ‘Saved’. Nor do I see any Gnostic influences in the Book of Jeremiah or in the album ‘Saved’ for that matter. The New Covenant Jeremiah speaks about (Jeremiah 31:31-33) refers to the coming of The Holy Spirit in the New Testament (Covenant). This Holy Spirit will indeed ‘put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts’. This Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of all true followers of the Messiah Jesus and will transform them to the image of God. This has been made possible through the redemption by the blood of Christ. There is nothing gnostic about that in my opinion.
Wait, are you implying the Jews lived in Israel thousands of years ago?
I thoroughly enjoyed this article, liked the provocative thinking that went into it, the obvious background reading and knowledge brought to bear upon it. I’m not sure I’m completely of the same mind with its assertions, but that’s really unimportant. It’s original, well written and refreshing. Thank you for writing it and making it available.
Thanks for the response Kees, but Judaism does not interpret the New Convenant as Christianity does – see: Jeremiah.
Biblical scholars consider certain books of the Bible to written in Gnostic style though the use of the specific name came about later, ie Revelations. This information can be Googled.
Zarathustra advocated monotheism, the concept of One God.
The New Testament is based on the Old as reformulated by Christianity; not as the Hebrews themselves interpret it – the Messiah having not yet come.
jzsnake- I imply nothing. I am simply comparing Dylan’ s lyrics to what’s written in the Old Testament.
Surely, Jesus dying an earthly death automatically disqualifies his being a ‘Messiah’ as defined by Judaism; nor could the true messiah possibly be considered an integral part of that religion’s basically unknowable One God … That would be tantamount to committing idolatry, would it not?
* that is dying before bringing Hebrews to the Promised Land of peace.
Thanks… I make no claims to know what Dylan’s personal spiritual values actually are…only that he writes a lot of lyrics that are left open to different levels of interpretation.
Like the Bible itself, for that matter.
That’s why he’s interesting to listen to, including his so-called doctrinaire stuff.
, that is addressed to.
Oddly, the initials refuse to print , III
You wrote: “but Judaism does not interpret the New Convenant as Christianity does – see: Jeremiah”. That is true of course but then again Dylan embraced Christianity and therefore Dylan interpreted these words of Jeremiah 31:31 as being fulfilled in the New Testament by the coming and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That is why he says in ‘Saved”: “by His Spirit I’ve been sealed”. Although it is true that this renewal of the Spirit is done in the human heart and should be interpreted spiritually, you nevertheless try to read gnostic ideas into the lyrics of Dylan which are not there in my opinion. Gnosticism always evaporates the realities – the hard facts – of the Gospel. There was once a true Garden of Eden and there will be a new and tangible new city descending from heaven: The new Jeruzalem of Revelations 21. “Saved by the blood of the Lamb” is also a reality. This cleansing by the blood of the lamb (Jesus) is done in a spiritual way but is based on the reality of the bloodshed of Jesus on the cross. So I see the lyrics of Dylan’s “Saved” in stark contrast with any gnostic ideas of enlightenment.
That’s all well and good if one takes the writers of the the Bible as actually receiving their ‘visions’ from a higher power, a God or a Spirit, say, rather than from beliefs already held or they have come to believe.
The Bible can be taken as metaphoical expression of wish-fulfillment rather than a literal foretelling of future events without in anyway diminishing what it says.
Christianity is not the only belief system.
Whatever Dylan personally believes is not my concern, but his creative writing ability is, and that comes to a great extent from his Jewish background and from his knowledge of the New Testament as well from works of literature and
listening to popular music and it’s messages.
He does not stand still, but he’s still standing – as an artist.
Of organized, dogmatic religion, of whatever kind, as far as I can tell, Dylan has always been skeptical because the often hypocritical behaviour of its adherents.
* ‘due to’…not ‘because’…that should be
Gnostic writings were not allowed – some were not yet discovered at the time – to be included in the ‘official’ version of the Bible by religious authorites, but quite a bit of the stuff got through nonetheless.
That is to say – He who reads Revelations, reads Gnosticism.
A Jeremiade is a narrative in which it is said that a society’s morals have become corrupted, and consequently it’s doomed because of its wicked behaviour, ie American puritan poet Edward Taylor:
But nothing man did throw down all by sin
And darkened the lightsome gem in him
That now his brightest diamond is grown darker
Darker by far than any coalpit stone
(ThePreface)
* the Christian sequel