I began this website/book following a religious crisis in young adulthood.

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This crisis occurred when I finally realized that the creation story at the beginning of Genesis bore no relationship to modern science. More than that, there seemed to be two creation stories in chapters 1 and chapters 2 of Genesis. Not only were they different from each other, but neither bore any relationship to what we know about the beginning of the universe and the development of the human species.

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How could the Torah, which I regarded as nothing less than the word of God, be so off the mark? 

As a teenager, I had been fascinated by the correspondence between the biblical creation account and science. I attended talks about the biblical creation storey, some given by knowledgeable physicists. When I was older, I invited Gerald Schroeder, the author of a book about the correspondence between Genesis and science to speak at our synagogue. I devoured books about the Big Bang and astronomy.

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Reading Schroeder’s description of the convergence between the creation account and scientific notions about the creation of light I was enthralled:

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When the universe was very young, it was also very small. All the energy that today is spread over the reaches of space was concentrated into that confined, primordial volume. . .  Several hundred thousand years passed. Temperature and photon energies had continued to fall in proportion with the universe’s expansion. When the temperature fell below 3000°, a critical event occurred: light separated from matter and emerged from the darkness of the universe. . . . The light of Genesis 1:3 existed prior to the Divine separation of light from darkness, which is described in Genesis 1:4. Both the Talmud and cosmology acknowledge that this first “light” was of a nature so powerful that it would not have been visible by humans. We have learnt from science that the “light” of that early period was in the energy range of gamma rays, an energy far in excess of that which is visible to the naked eye. As the thermal energy of the photons fell to 3000° K  . . .  they became visible as well. Light was now light and darkness dark, theologically and scientifically. With an understanding that light was actually held within the primeval mass until being freed by the binding of electrons into atomic orbits, the enigmatic division by God between light (which is totally composed of photons) and darkness takes on a significant meaning consistent with its literal meaning.1

 

However, as I grew older, I began appreciating the tremendous gulf between the biblical account and what science has to say about the beginning of the universe and the formation of planet earth.

Science tells us that some 13.8 billion years ago there was a Big Bang. Within minutes of time zero, protons and neutrons combined to form the nuclei of light elements, primarily hydrogen and helium. Hundreds of millions of years later, regions of gas began to collapse under the influence of gravity to form the first stars and galaxies. Within the core of these stars, nuclear fusion produced heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen. Massive stars ended their lives as supernova explosions and their heavy elements were thrown into space to be incorporated into new stars.

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The sun began as a giant molecular cloud of dust and gas, primarily hydrogen. As its temperature increased, the hydrogen nuclei began fusing to form helium, leading to the release of vast amounts of energy. At the same time, leftover material of dust and ice stuck together and coalesced to form the planets of our solar system, including our earth and the moon.

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Simple plant life such as photosynthetic bacteria and algae appeared around 3.5 billion years ago and from them more complex plants evolved. Animal life began in the oceans around 600 million years ago as simple organisms, and these also evolved into more complex forms.

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The scientific story of planet earth is one of initial simplicity and the development of increasing complexity over billions of years.

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The first creation account of the Bible tells a very different story. By its second sentence, earth had been formed and all was chaos.2 Beginning on that first day, God proceeded to organize this chaos in a systematic way to make earth habitable for human life. Animal life was created only when plant life was fully developed and available for consumption. 

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There was, of course, no reason why the Genesis account should have taken modern science into account. Notions such as the Big Bang and evolution would have been inexplicable to people living in the ancient world. It would also have contradicted the science of their day. Nevertheless, could God not have written Genesis I in such a way so as to avoid contradictions with modern science?

This is where I stood for many years — professing belief in the Divine nature of the Torah but harboring grave doubts that this was really true. The first Genesis account seemed to have been written by humans and framed in the prevalent science of that time. Reluctantly, I was gravitating towards the Documentary Hypothesis and the idea that the Torah was composed by different authors writing from the perspectives of their times.

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Some years later I was directed to the works of Nahum Sarna3 and Umberto Cassuto4 on the Book of Genesis and they provided me with a totally new perspective on its early chapters. Both suggested that some of these stories had an underlying foundation of mythology. Sarna in “Understanding Genesis” proposed that the early chapters in Genesis were polemics against the pagan ideas of Mesopotamian society.3 The biblical stories were written in the same form and with the same science as the original mythological stories, but in such a way as to refute their underlying ideas. One might call them anti-myths. Mythology was important to people living at that time since it provided the framework for understanding the world in which they lived, just as the Bible does today. Cassuto also recognized mythology as important in the format of the creation stories. He considered mythic motifs as cultural reference points and as tools through which the Torah asserted its monotheistic message.

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Because Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951) was such a major figure in my understanding of the Torah, and that of countless others, some information about him is in order. After earning his rabbinic ordination in 1908, he served as secretary and assistant rabbi of the Jewish community in Florence. When the Chief Rabbi of Florence, Rabbi Samuel Hirsch Margulies, passed away in 1922, Cassuto was appointed his successor, and he also served as director of its Rabbinical Seminary until 1925.

Cassuto was a brilliant scholar and he left the rabbinate to become Professor of Hebrew and Literature at the University of Florence, followed by a chair of Hebrew Language at the University of Rome. His expertise was in Ugaritic and Semitic languages and the cultures of the ancient world. However, he was forced from his position in Rome just before the Second World War because of antisemitic racial laws, and he accepted a chair of Biblical Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Mandatory Palestine. This department was strongly vested in biblical criticism. Cassuto contested this and became a leading critic of the Documentary Hypothesis.

 

He held that the Torah was a single, unified composition rather than a patchwork of independent documents. He focused on the literary style of the biblical text and the Torah’s use of keywords. These are words that are repeated seven times or multiples of seven within a section or paragraph and which provide emphasis to that section. He was therefore the forerunner of scholars who have made extensive use of literary analysis in their writings and teaching.

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Cassuto pointed out that the Bible was written in the style of that time, and his knowledge of semitic languages enabled him to write authoritatively on this topic. He showed that ancient Near Eastern literary practices often included repetitions, parallel narratives, and variations in language, and these were used to emphasize or elaborate on key points. He also demonstrated how the literary style of each biblical story was related to the message it was attempting to convey.

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Cassuto is well-known in Israel, but not so much outside of Israel, which is why I had not previously come across his name. There was a reason for this. Cassuto did not admit to Mosaic authorship of the Torah. This is a basic tenet of Orthodox Judaism, and this meant that his writings were rarely studied in orthodox circles. Moreover, because of his opposition to the Documentary Hypothesis, his work was also not considered favorably by many academic biblical scholars.

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I think I understand Cassuto, although I do not agree with him. Much of Cassuto’s work was based on showing the similarity between ancient writing and the Torah. He also considered himself an academic and not a theologian, despite his rabbinic background. It would therefore have been a big jump for him to say that the author of the Torah was God, since this was unprovable to him. He assumed that the Torah was put together by an Israelite writer living during the time of the early monarchy, around the time of King David or Solomon, this being the time that literary style was highly developed and national unity was strong.5 He never claimed that Moses wrote the Torah word-for-word, but he did see the Torah drawing on authentic ancient traditions handed down from the patriarchal period and the Exodus. In the final analysis, all this makes little difference for appreciating the brilliance of his scholarly work since he ascribed a unity to the Torah, and one can easily insert for this the word God.

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Ironically, I found that Cassuto’s books and the literary studies by those who followed him, made it that much easier for me to accept Divine authorship of the Torah. The Torah is so consummately written. Its allegories contain depths of meaning. Themes are developed by means of word parallelisms throughout the Pentateuch. Critical passages are lucidly clear, while at other times obscure, as if to say — you, the reader, need to figure this one out for yourself. Its ethical messages are bold and were revolutionary for their time. The Torah is also completely honest, which is unusual and improbable for a national book. The Torah is as much about failures as successes, although there was always the promise that the failures could be overcome by abiding by the covenant.

The Torah says explicitly that God Himself wrote the Ten Commandments:6

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And He gave to Moses, when He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God (Exodus 31:18).

 

The Torah also presents Moses as the scribe of God’s words for the rest of the Torah: “And Moses wrote all the words of God” (Deuteronomy 31:9).7

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The postulate of Sarna that some of the early stories in Genesis are polemics against Mesopotamian ideas, plus the analyses of Cassuto of the Torah’s literary structure being based on Near East writing and ideas had a profound effect on me. No longer was I dogged by the discordance between the Torah and my religious beliefs. It now all made sense.

 

 

Cassuto and the names of God

 

The different sources for the Torah postulated by the Documentary Hypothesis are associated with different names of God, particularly the names YHWH and Elohim. To substantiate his unitary hypothesis, Cassuto needed to explain the Torah’s use of the names of God in a manner other than being source-related. His conclusions are summarized in a monograph entitled “The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch.”5 Cassuto suggested that the name YHWH is used in contexts highlighting the covenantal relationship with Israel, while “Elohim” is a more general name for God and is used in more universal contexts.

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Based on Cassuto’s analysis of the meaning of these names, I formulated the idea that the entire Torah is not about God, nor about man, but about the relationship between God and man.

 

YHWH is an immanent and merciful God Who wishes to establish mutual relationships with man. Elohim, on the other hand, the Creator of the universe is a transcendent God Who is too remote for this type of close relationship. Rather, a relationship with Him is based on awe and fear.

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The immanence of a single God (namely that God is closely involved in the world) and the transcendence of God (namely that God exists beyond and independent of creation and surpassing all worldly limits) are mutually exclusive aspects, which is why the Torah describes God as functioning within the framework of two different names.

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The contradiction underlying the nature of God was appreciated by Maimonides when discussing in his Mishneh Torah the two Torah injunctions to fear and love God. The following paragraph was not written specifically about the names of God, but illustrates this contradiction:

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What is the path [to attain] love and fear of Him? When a person contemplates His wondrous and great deeds and creations and appreciates His infinite wisdom that surpasses all comparison, he will immediately love, praise and glorify [Him] yearning with tremendous desire to know [God’s] great name. . . When he [continues] to reflect on these matters, he will immediately recoil in awe and fear, appreciating how he is a tiny, lowly and dark creature, standing with his flimsy, limited, wisdom before He who is of perfect knowledge.”8

 

When discussing the love of God, the Torah uses only the name YHWH and never Elohim, since the Creator of the universe is too distant for such a relationship.10 There are two aspects to fear of God. One is fear of punishment and the other is awe in being in His presence. The fear of God is an aspect of both YHWH and Elohim, since both names relate to the moral universe.9

 

An example of how this would work out in practice would be viewing a wonder of nature, such as the Grand Canyon in the United States or the Machtesh HaGadol from Mitzpe Ramon in Israel. Looking at the view in front of one, one feels nothing but awe of Elohim at His creative activities. But one then looks at one’s watch and realizes that it is time for mincha, the afternoon prayer. This is not directed to Elohim, since He is too distant, but to the aspect of God YHWH, with Whom one is involved in a close relationship.

 

In accord with this, there are two narratives running through the early chapters of Genesis. One is about the relationship of man to Elohim, while the other is about his relationship with YHWH.

 

The creation of the world is described by two stories. The first is an Elohim account and the second is a YHWH-Elohim account describing events in the Garden of Eden, with both names together but with YHWH first. This is primarily about the fall of man and the consequences of this for mankind.

 

The Noah narrative is composed of two interlocking Elohim and YHWH passages. It is possible to prize apart these two accounts and each to an extent can stand alone, although both are truncated compared to the complete narrative. Moreover, as in the creation stories, there are contradictions between these two narratives. For example, YHWH-passages provide no instructions to Noah as to how he should build the ark, and he, his family and the animals enter into a ready-made ark so to speak. The instructions about the ark are contained in a previous Elohim-passage. There are also contradictions in the number of animals that will enter the ark and how they will arrive.

 

Two covenants are bestowed upon Abraham, the Covenant between the Pieces given by YHWH, while the Covenant of Circumcision is given by Elohim. Abraham and Sarah are informed twice that they will have a child in their old age, once by Elohim to Abraham following the Covenant of Circumcision and then later to Sarah by YHWH.

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These two-fold stories are not incidental oddities but are an essential part of the Torah’s composition in that they are building up to the dual role of Abraham, and hence of the Jewish people. On the one hand, Abraham has a tribal function of building up a covenantal community that will base its society on righteousness and justice, and which is expressed by the name YHWH. On the other hand, this world was designed for all nations of the world and not just the Jewish people. The Jewish people are given the role "And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6) and are to be a model to the nations of the world. This global function is described In the Book of Genesis by the name Elohim.

 

Summary

 

These are the main points that will be stressed in this website/book:

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• The Torah was dictated to Moses by God. The Torah is therefore a unified account and not a composition made up from various sources.

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• The entire Torah is about the relationships between God and man.

 

• The Torah describes two primary aspects of God — Elohim and YHWH.

 

• These two aspects of God are contradictory, because man-Elohim and man-YHWH relationships are contradictory.

 

• Winding their way through the chapters of Genesis are two accounts describing the relationship between man and Elohim and between man and YHWH. From the perspective of the entire Torah, these two accounts form a unified whole, although individually they sometimes show contradictions.

 

• The primary audience for whom the Torah was written was the generation at Mount Sinai and those entering the land of Canaan, and the Torah needs to be interpreted from this perspective. This is best accomplished by means of peshat, or a literal understanding of the Torah.

 

• Some of the early stories of Genesis, such as the creation accounts and the story of Noah, have an underlying basis of Mesopotamian mythology.

 

• The very early stories of Genesis were never intended to be taken as factual accounts, but as allegory. An allegorical format continues until the stories about Abraham. From this point on the Torah is factual, including the stories about the forefathers, the exodus from Egypt and the wanderings in the desert.

 

• The stories in the Torah constitute a unified whole, and it is illuminating to attempt to explain how each story aids in the progression of the Torah’s messages, particularly for the Book of Genesis.

 

Two further points.

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Many biblical explanations in the past were based on collections of what are called midrashim. The aim of midrash was to fill in gaps in the biblical text, for example the details of Abraham’s early life which is a blank in the Torah. Imaginative explanations were provided to make the biblical world more vivid and relatable. Midrashim taught moral and ethical lessons via stories and parables that were only loosely tied to the text. They also conveyed theological insights by means of stories, metaphors, and imagery so as to express deep ideas in an accessible way. These aggadic midrashim allowed generations to reinterpret scripture within their own context, and thereby kept the Torah alive and meaningful. On the other hand, different midrashim on the same verse were often contradictory. They also made no attempt to unify the text.

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In contrast to this form of interpretation is peshat, which looks at the more literal meaning of the text. Almost all the chapters in this website are explained on the basis of peshat rather than midrash. The biblical commentator Rashi often used midrashim in his commentary and thereby crowned and popularized certain midrashim. Rashi’s commentary offers a useful gateway into midrashic interpretations, and I often quote him for contrast to peshat-based explanations.

 

Cassuto gave new meaning to the term peshat by stressing that the Torah was written in the language and format of the times when the Torah was written. There is discussion in the Talmud between R’ Ishmael and R’ Akiva as to whether or not the Torah is written in the language of man or whether meaning can be derived from each extra word or letter in the Torah.11 Cassuto is adding an extra dimension to this by saying that the Torah is not only written in the language of man, but this language is from a specific historic period.

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An excellent example of this is found in the first creation story. This tells us that

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And Elohim created the great sea monsters (et hataninim hagdolim) and every living creature that creeps, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged fowl according to its kind, and Elohim saw that it was good (Genesis 1:21).

 

But why are sea monsters mentioned here? This is the only species other than man discussed in the first creation account. The answer provided by Cassuto is that the ancients believed that the gods battled sea monsters.12 As an anti-myth, the Torah is telling us that the great sea monsters were not independent creations but were also created by Elohim. Without Cassuto’s knowledge of ancient mythology, this point would have escaped us.  

The implications of this are quite radical. Namely, that to fully understand the early stories in Genesis, one needs to look to Mesopotamian mythology, such as creation myths and the Gilgamesh myth, a myth that bears a strong relationship to the Noah story.

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Does this mean that ancient mythology and archeology are legitimate means of biblical interpretation? I would answer that they are. Clearly, these types of biblical studies are not for everyone, and many will regard them as no substitute for the ethical messages built around the text by midrashim. Mythology and archeology have nothing to tell us about ethical behavior. To the contrary, the gods were usually power-driven and violent. Nevertheless, for those wishing to fully understand the Book of Genesis, there is a place for this type of analysis.

 

References:

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1. “Needed, a Big Universe” in “Genesis and the Big Bang. The Discovery of Harmony between Modern Science and the Bible” by Gerald L. Schroeder, Chapter 5 p89, Bantam Books. 1992.

2. The notion of chaos is reflected by the words “tohu” and “vohu” in Genesis 1:2 although their precise translation is unclear since these words are not found elsewhere in the Bible other than as an allusion to Genesis. Rashi following a midrash translates it as “astonishment and amazement” or “astonishingly empty,” this being the reaction a person would have on seeing this chaos. Targum Yonasan translates the words as “emptiness and desolation” and the Kuzari as “absence of form and order.”

3. Creation, Genesis 1-4 in Understanding Genesis. The Heritage of Biblical Israel by Nahum M. Sarna, Schoken Books, New York. 1970.

4. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Part One. From Adam to Noah and Part Two. From Noah to Abraham by U. Cassuto, the Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1998.

5. Cassuto, Umberto. The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961 (English translation of his 1941 Hebrew lectures). In Lecture VI, p113 he wrote: “We must assign the composition of the Pentateuch to the period of the early monarchy in Israel, the age that immediately followed the settlement in the land and the establishment of the kingdom,” and in lecture VII, p119: “The Pentateuch, in the form in which it has come down to us, was composed in the period of the early kings of Judah, before the division of the monarchy.”

6. See also the following quotations from the Torah: “The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets” (Exodus 32:16) and “And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain” (Deuteronomy 9:10).

7. Other textual reference to Mosaic authorship are: “And Moses wrote this Torah, and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi...” (Deuteronomy 31:9) and “And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this Torah in a book, until they were finished...” (Deuteronomy 31:24).

8. Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah 2:2.

9. Examples of the fear of YHWH in the Torah are Deuteronomy 6:13, Deuteronomy 10:12, Deuteronomy 13:4, Exodus 20:20, and Leviticus 19:14. Examples of the fear of Elohim in the Torah are Genesis 22:12, Genesis 42:18, Exodus 1:17, Exodus 18:21 and Leviticus 25:17.

10. Examples of love of YHWH in the Torah are Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (the Shema), Deuteronomy 10:12, Deuteronomy 11:1, Deuteronomy 13:3-4 and Deuteronomy 30:6.

11. TB Nedarim 3a and Sifrei to Deuteronomy, parashat Re’ah, 112.

12. Umberto Cassuto, “A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part I: From Adam to Noah (Genesis I–VI), trans. Israel Abrahams, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961, pp. 53–55.