Allegory in the Early Stories of Genesis

The Torah does not conceal the allegorical nature of its early stories. It is 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, the geography of the Garden of Eden is puzzling. However, someone living at the time the Bible was written would probably have been familiar with the location of these four rivers and would have been aware that they did not all join up in Mesopotamia.

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​The villainous walking-talking snake in the Garden of Eden story is difficult to accept other than allegorically. 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 cannot be anything other than an allegorical representation.

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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 representative 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 comes from the word “adama,” meaning ground, which often has a tinge of red (adom) in it. The Hebrew for Eve is Chava. The Torah explains that this is because she is “the mother of all living (chy in Hebrew)” (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). The name Noah (Noach) is the reverse of the word chen, which means grace. Shem means a name or reputation. This is because his descendants, particularly Abraham, will promote the name of God.

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Noah’s flood is 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 entities 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) (Genesis 6:15), which is about the size of one and half football fields. 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. However, 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 this also was never intended to be taken literally.

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​Also, it follows that if there are two different creation accounts and two slightly contradictory Noah stories, then either one or both must be incorrect. Alternatively, both are allegorical and are promoting different ideas.

 

Having said all this, Jewish sages of the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods were not prepared to accept the position that there are two different versions of these accounts. An allegorical rather than literal interpretation was not a step they were prepared to take. This was also the case for the Jewish medieval commentators. Rather, they were bound to literal interpretations of the text or midrashic interpretations that were also literally based.1 This meant that textual contradictions had to harmonized.

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Rashi, for example, explains the contradiction between Genesis I where birds are created from the water and Genesis II, where they are created from the earth as follows:

 

One who hears [this] is under the impression that [the second account of the creation of man] is a different incident [from the earlier mention of his creation], yet it is nothing but a detailed account of the first [mention]. Similarly, regarding the animals [the Torah] came back and wrote: “And YHWH Elohim formed etc., out of the ground every beast of the field [after having mentioned the creation of animals in 1:25] in order to explain in detail “and He brought them to the man to name [them] and to teach us about the birds that they were created out of the mud.2

 

Similarly, medieval Jewish commentators have in the main been bound to a literal understanding of the entirety of the Garden of Eden story, although there were those prepared to accept that the serpent represented evil.

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

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The issue is that once one adopts an allegorical approach to the early stories of Genesis, the boundary between allegory and history for later 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 a made-up 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 people? 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. There is a dividing line. 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.3 

 

​References

1.  The term Midrash refers to a body of Jewish literature and method of interpretation 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 that time. This is not the approach of this website/book. This is not to negate the value of Midrash in any way. There are multiple books that expand on this type of approach. It is just that another one by me is not needed. When I quote Midrash, it is often through the lens of Rashi, either as a direct quote or as a reference for the purpose of comparison. Rashi is a medieval Jewish commentator whose classic work is very much based on the midrashic literature.

2.   Rashi to Genesis 2:8, based on TB Chullin 27b.

3.   There is an issue that could be raised. Nachmanides suggests that the lives of the forefathers portend that of their descendants. See for example, his commentary to Genesis 12:10 where he explains that Abram's journey to Egypt due to a famine and his subsequent experiences there portend the future descent of his descendants, namely the descent of the Israelites to Egypt and their subsequent enslavement. Regarding Genesis 26:1, he discusses how Isaac's encounter with a famine and his interactions with Abimelech mirror similar events in the lives of his descendants. With respect to Genesis 32:4-13, he interprets Jacob's preparations and prayers before meeting Esau as prefiguring the future struggles and strategies of the Israelites when confronting hostile nations. In Genesis 37:15-17, he views Joseph's journey to find his brothers as indicative of the future journeys of the Israelites in search of their destiny and their encountering various challenges. For Genesis 47:28, he sees Jacob's insistence on being buried in Canaan as a sign of the future importance of the Land of Israel to his descendants and their eventual return from exile. In Exodus 1:1-7, Nachmanides interprets the multiplication and prosperity of the Israelites in Egypt despite their hardships as a precursor to future periods of growth and flourishing of the Jewish people under challenging conditions. This could suggest that aspects of their lives were not historical. There are answers to this. It may be that Nachmanides’ suggestion is incorrect. Alternatively, God was active in the forefather’s lives and engineered certain situations that would have later importance.