I recall that in my 30s I had a significant religious crisis. This was the time I realized that however one looks at it the first creation story at the beginning of Genesis it makes no sense scientifically.

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But how could the Torah, which I regarded as nothing less than the word of God, be inaccurate? Elohim created the universe. How could He not be aware of the details?

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As a teenager, had been fascinated by the correspondence between the biblical creation account and science. I went to talks about the creation account, some of them given by physicists. I read the book of Gerald Schroeder on this topic.1 When I was older, I invited him as a guest speaker to our synagogue. I also devoured books about the Big Bang and astronomy.

 

Reading Schroeder on the convergence between the creation account and modern science on the creation of light on the first day of creation 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, the more I thought about the creation story, the more I began appreciating the tremendous gulf between the biblical creation account and the scientifically accepted version of the creation of the universe and planet earth.

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We know that in the beginning, some 13.8 billion years ago, there was a Big Bang. Within the first few 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 created heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen. Massive stars ended their lives as supernova explosions and these heavy elements were thrown into space to became incorporated into new stars.

The sun began as a giant molecular cloud of dust and gas, primarily hydrogen. As the temperature of this protostar increased, nuclear fusion occurred and 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. This included our earth, the moon and asteroids.

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It is generally held that simple plant life, such as photosynthetic bacteria and algae, appeared around 3.5 billion years ago and more complex plant life, such as terrestrial plants, evolved over time. Animal life began in the oceans around 600 million years ago with simple organisms, and these also evolved. The scientific story of planet earth is one is one of initial simplicity and increasing complexity developing over billions of years.

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Genesis I is quite different from this. The chapter opens with earth already formed, but all as chaos.2 God’s role is the organization of this chaos in a systematic way so as to make it habitable for human life. Animal life is created only when plant life is fully developed and ready to be consumed.

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There is, of course, no reason why the Genesis account should have included modern science. 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 not God have written Genesis I in such a way that it contained no contradictions with modern science?

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Both the earth and the sun are parts of the solar system. The formation of the sun preceded that of the earth. However, in the Torah, primitive earth was created on day one and it was not until day four that the sun created. Vegetation was created on day three, which is before the creation of the luminaries on day four. Moreover, a firmament called heaven is created on day two wedged between two layers of water. This space could represent the earth’s atmosphere. However, modern science recognizes no layer of water in the upper regions of outer space.

 

Moreover, when talking about billions of years of creation, it makes little sense to talk about days of creation, even if they are considered as periods of time. Gradual processes extending over billions of years cannot be chopped up neatly into seven periods of time.

 

So, this is where I stood for many years — professing a belief in the Divine nature of the Torah, but harboring grave doubts that this was truly the case. Genesis I seemed to be an account written by humans that was framed in the prevalent “science” of that time. Whether I wanted to or not I was gravitating towards the Documentary Hypothesis and the idea of different authors of the Torah writing from their own perspectives of reality.

 

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 new totally perspective on its early chapters. Both proposed that these stories had an underlying foundation of mythology. Mythology was important to the people living at that time since it provided the framework for understanding the world in which they lived, just as the Bible does for us today.

 

Sarna is his book “Understanding Genesis”3 proposed that the early chapters in Genesis were polemics against paganism and the way of thinking of Mesopotamian society. These biblical stories were written in the same format as the original mythological stories and can be considered as anti-myths.

 

A corollary of this has to be that many, if not most, of the early stories of Genesis are not historical accounts but allegory. There is much in the Torah to support this idea.

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The Torah does not conceal the allegorical nature of these early stories. It is clearly there for all to see. Consider the biblical description of the Garden of Eden:

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​A river issues forth from Eden to water the garden and from there it is divided and becomes four headwaters. The name of the first is Pishon, the one that encircles the whole land of Chavilah, where the gold is. The gold of that land is good; bdellium is there and the shohar stone. The name of the second river is Gichon, the one that encircles the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Chidekel, the one that flows towards the east of Ashur; and the fourth one is the Euphrates (Genesis 2:10-14).

 

For us moderns, this geographical description of the Garden of Eden is puzzling. However, someone living at the time of the Bible would likely have been familiar with the location of these four rivers and would have been aware that not all of them joined up in Mesopotamia.

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​The river “Chidekel” is usually identified with the Tigris, which was known in Mesopotamia as “Idiglat,”1 and this river does indeed join the “Euphrates” near the Persian Gulf. However, this is nowhere near “the land of Cush.” The “land of Chavila” is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible as being where Ishmael’s progeny lived and is far from Mesopotamia — “They dwelt from Chavila to Shur — which is near Egypt — towards Assyria” (Genesis 25:18).5 Mesopotamia was, and still is, poorly endowed with mineral wealth, but the upper reaches of the Nile were well known for their “gold.” Hence, “Pishon” and “Gichon” may well be two tributaries of the Nile in southern Egypt.

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What the Bible is doing is describing a fictitious place in which the most desirable water and mineral resources of the known world were located in a sublimely fertile and rich paradise.

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The villainous walking-talking snake in the Garden of Eden story is also difficult to accept other than allegorically. Medieval Jewish commentators have in the main been bound to a literal understanding of the snake, as well as to the entirety of the Garden of Eden story. Nevertheless, there were those prepared to accept that the serpent represented evil. A snake with understandable speech, that had limbs enabling it to walk, and that could at a moment’s notice be transformed into the crawling snake we recognize today has to be an allegorical representation.

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Another example. According to Jewish tradition, Adam is regarded as “adam harishon,” the first man. But the Bible never calls him this. Cain after killing Abel complains to God that “whoever meets me will kill me” (Genesis 4:4:14). But who in the world can kill him? According to the Bible there are only three people left on earth — Adam, Eve and Cain himself. Nevertheless, the Torah does not deny that there are other people around. It must be that the four people in this story are four allegorical individuals at a certain time in history, namely when man had ceased to be a hunter-gatherer and was firmly into the Agricultural Revolution and the onset of civilization.

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Moreover, many of the names of the characters in these early stories seem symbolic. The name Adam probably means red, or ruddy from the Hebrew word adom, although it also come from the word “adama,” meaning ground. The Hebrew for Eve is Chava. The Bible explains that this is because she is “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20). Cain, or Kayin in Hebrew, means one who acquires or creates, from the Hebrew word liknot (Genesis 4:1). Abel comes from the word hevel, which means nothingness, vanity or a breath of wind (Genesis 4:2). Noah is the reverse of the word chen, which means grace. Shem means a name or reputation because his descendants would promote the name of God.

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Noah’s flood is also difficult to accept literally. Flood layers have been found in the Tigris and Euphrates basins in archeological surveys, but a flood that reached as high as the peaks of the mountains of Armenia would have flooded the entire Near East. Of such a flood there is no archeological evidence.

Noah’s ark as a functional boat also stretches the imagination. It cannot be that all living things would fit into an ark measuring 470 feet in length, 78 feet in width, and 47 feet in height (300 x 50 x 30 cubits), about the size of one and half football fields (Genesis 6:15). Most zoos in the world are much bigger than this and contain only a miniscule sampling of the earth’s moving population. The ark would also have had to contain a year’s worth of food for all these animals. The reality is that people in the ancient world were familiar with this type of allegorical account. The popular Gilgamesh myth also describes an ark and a flood and similarly was never intended to be taken literally.

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​But if a story is allegorical, it has to have meaning. An allegory without a readily discernable message is a failed allegory. This means that if the early stories in the Torah are allegorical, then a major section of Genesis is pregnant with meaning waiting to be interpreted.  

 

​Given all the evidence in favor of allegory, why did the Jewish sages of Mishnaic and Talmudic times, as well as the majority of medieval commentators, feel compelled to interpret these stories literally? 

 

A major issue is that once one adopts an allegorical approach to some of the stories of Genesis, the boundary between allegory and history in subsequent stories becomes very blurred. In other words, where does allegory stop and history take over?

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Was there an historic Abraham, for example, or was he an allegoric invention? And if he was an imagined person, what are we to make of the promises made to him by God and to his son Isaac and grandson Jacob?  Is there any validity to promises made to imaginary persons? And what about Moses? Is he also fictitious? If so, is there any historical basis to the Exodus and the subsequent settling of the Land of Canaan? 

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​I, for one, cannot accept allegorical forefathers and an allegorical Moses. I take it as a matter of faith that the promises made to our forefathers were real and that the Exodus happened just as the Bible says it happened. By the time of Abraham, history had taken over from allegory. Cain and Abel may have been fictitious, but Abraham was a very real person. 

 

In conclusion, Nahum Sarna3 and Umberto Cassuto4 opinioned that the early biblical stories were written on a foundation of well-known mythology and thereby functioned as polemics against paganism and the ideas underlying paganism. R’ Menachem Leibtag has another idea, not necessarily exclusive of these others, that none of the early stories in Genesis are random accounts, but they tell a continuous narrative which ultimately leads to the election of Abraham. Moreover, these stories usually alternate with genealogical listings. R’ Leibtag is an effective teacher who gives many classes, many of which are on YouTube, but much of his material is not in article or book form. This is to acknowledge the use of some of his ideas and to explain in advance why they are not necessarily referenced.

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Finally, all the articles in this website/book take a very literal approach to the biblical text and are therefore sparse in midrashic explanations. The term Midrash refers to a body of Jewish literature and method of interpretation that is used to explain, expand upon, and draw lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures. It is a central component of rabbinic tradition and serves both to explore the deeper meanings of the text and to address contemporary questions and issues of the time. This is not to negate the value of Midrash in any way. It is just not the approach of this website/book, and there are multiple other sources that expand on this type of approach. When Midrash is quoted it is often in comparison to a more literal interpretation and is very often brought through the lens of Rashi, either as a direct quote or as a reference. Rashi is a medieval Jewish commentator whose classic work is very much based on the midrashic literature and who therefore provides a useful selection of pertinent midrashic explanations.   

 

​References

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 word “tohu” and “vohu” in Genesis 1:2 although how they should be translated is unclear since these words are found nowhere else 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 at the void. 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, he Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1998.

5.  Nachmanides (commentary to Genesis 2:10) considers the Land of Chavila to be to the north and east rather than the south and west of Israel, and therefore dismisses the sentence about Ishmael’s progeny (Genesis 25:8) as being irrelevant to the location of Chavila as described in the second chapter of Genesis. In support of his position is that an individual named Chavila is mentioned twice in Genesis, once as the grandson of Ham and nephew of Mizraim (Genesis 10:7), and also as a sixth generation of Shem and grandson of Ophir (Genesis 10:28). The descendants of Shem dwelt in “the mountain to the East” (Genesis 10:30). The phrase “where the gold is” could identify this particular Chavilah as being in the territory of Ophir, which is mentioned as being a source of gold at the time of King Solomon (Kings I 9:28). On the other hand, Nachmanides does accept the Pishon as being the Nile (commentary to Genesis 3:22), and interprets the confluence of these rivers in a symbolic manner.