In Plato's famous dialogues the REPUBLIC and the PHAEDRUS, we learn of a three-part division of the human psyche (or soul) that parallels the three-part human brain: (1) the spirited part of the psyche (known in Greek as "thymos" or "thumos") involves the reptilian brain; (2) the desiring part of the psyche involves the limbic system; and (3) the reasoning part of the psyche (in Greek, "logos") involves the neocortex.
Now, Robert L. Moore, the Jungian theorist at the Chicago Theological Seminary, is also familiar with the three parts of the human brain that Armstrong discusses. But the four archetypes of maturity that he discusses can also be aligned with the three parts of the human brain.
The reptilian brain is involved in accessing the Warrior/Knight archetype. The Warrior/Knight archetype is also accessed in protecting the young, one function that Armstrong sees as involving the limbic system.
The other function that Armstrong sees as involving the limbic system is nurturing the young. Moore sees nurturing as accessing the King archetype and the Queen archetype. As noted, the limbic system is also involved in various forms of love, including romantic love, which access the Lover archetype as described by Moore.
The functions of reasoning and self-awareness that Armstrong connects with the neocortex would access the Magician/Shaman archetype described by Moore.
With Douglas Gillette as his co-author, Moore has published a series five books about the four masculine archetypes of maturity, as he styles them. He claims that girls and women also have a parallel set of four feminine archetypes of maturity in their psyches, but he has not published any books about the feminine archetypes.
See, for example, the revised and expanded edition of Moore and Gillette's book THE KING WITHIN: ACCESSING THE KING [ARCHETYPE] IN THE MALE PSYCHE (2007).
Armstrong's anthropological account of our human ancestors is equally comprehensive, starting with hunter-gatherers and proceeding to agrarian societies. She reminds us that "our hunter-gatherer past . . . was the longest period of human history." She says, "Hunter-gatherers could not afford the organized violence we call war."
But "warfare was essential to the agrarian state." "Warfare was, therefore, indispensable to any pre-modern economy." However, as everybody knows, warfare did not disappear with the emergence of the modern non-agrarian economy based on modern capitalism. Nor did religion disappear in the West with the emergence of modernity.
Among hunter-gathers, able-bodied men in hunting parties had to engage their reptilian brains in the violence of killing animals. Moreover, they had to access the Warrior/Knight archetype in their psyches. No doubt their hunting parties were not the equivalent of the organized violence we call war. But their hunting parties undoubtedly anticipated the organizational structures and the male bonding of men in later agrarian societies who engaged in the organized violence we call war. Male bonding engages the limbic system in the human brain.
BEATRICE BRUTEAU'S ACCOUNT OF THE BIG PICTURE
Now, taking a hint from Beatrice Bruteau (1930-2014; Ph.D. in philosophy, Fordham University, 1969), I would also characterize pre-historic human cultures as the paleo-feminine era. In addition, she claims that a new feminine era is emerging in the psyches of people in contemporary Western culture.
Unfortunately, Crossan, Armstrong, and Moore do not happen to advert explicitly to the paleo-feminine era in pre-historic human cultures that Bruteau explicitly adverts to.
Instead, Crossan starts his discussion of ancient Near Eastern culture after different writing systems had emerged historically -- in historic times.
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