Allegory in the Early Stories of Genesis

In young adulthood I had a religious crisis. This was the time I realized that the first creation stories at the beginning of Genesis bore little relationship to modern science.

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But how could the Torah, which I regarded as nothing less than the word of God, be inaccurate?

As a teenager, had been fascinated by the correspondence between the biblical creation account and science. I attended talks on the creation account, some of them given by physicists. I read Gerald Schroeder’s book 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.

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Reading Schroeder’s description of the convergence between the creation account and modern science with respect to 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, 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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Science tells us that some 13.8 billion years ago there was a Big Bang. Within minutes from 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 become incorporated into new stars.

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The sun began as a giant molecular cloud of dust and gas, primarily hydrogen. As the temperature of this protostar 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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It is generally held that simple plant life such as photosynthetic bacteria and algae appeared around 3.5 billion years ago and more complex plants evolved over time. Animal life began in the oceans around 600 million years ago with simple organisms, and these also evolved.

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Hence, the progression 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 very different from this. Already by the second sentence the earth had been formed, but all was chaos.2 God now proceeded to organize this chaos in a systematic way to make it habitable for human life. Animal life was only created when plant life was fully developed and available for consumption.

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Hence, in the Torah, primitive earth was created on day one and it was not until day four that the sun was created. However, science tells us that both the earth and sun are part of the solar system. and that formation of the sun preceded that of the earth. In the Bible, vegetation was created on day three, which was before the creation of the luminaries on day four, which would have provided the source of photosynthesis. Moreover, a firmament called heaven was 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.

 

There is, 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. However, could not God have written Genesis I in such a way that there were no contradictions with modern science?

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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 the perspectives of the realities of their times.

 

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 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” also proposed that the early chapters in Genesis were polemics against paganism and the way of thinking of Mesopotamian society.3 These biblical stories were written in the same form as the original mythological stories, but in order to refute their underlying ideas. One might even call them anti-myths.

 

The corollary of this is that many, if not most, of the early stories of Genesis were not intended to be factual accounts but allegory.

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The Torah does not conceal the allegorical nature of these 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).

 

​The villainous walking-talking snake in the Garden of Eden story is also 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.

 

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, therefore, 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.

 

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” (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 in Hebrew (Noach) is the reverse of the word chen, which means grace. Shem means a name or reputation, because his descendants, and particularly Abraham, will promote the name of God.

 

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), which is 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. On the other hand, 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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​It also follows that if there are two different creation accounts and two somewhat contradictory Noah stories, as was proposed in the previous chapter, then either one or both of them must be incorrect. Alternatively, both are allegorical accounts reflecting different aspects of God.

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Nevertheless, Jewish sages of the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods were not prepared to accept the position that there are two different accounts in these stories.5 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.6 Hence, 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:

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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 YKVK Elokim 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.6

 

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 commentators, feel compelled to interpret these stories literally? 

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An issue is that once one adopts an allegorical approach to some of 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?7And 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 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?

 

​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. 

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Moreover, these early stories are not randomly placed in the Torah. R’ Menachem Leibtag emphasizes that they tell a continuous narrative that will lead to the selection of Abraham. They also usually alternate with genealogical listings.8

 

In conclusion, Nahum Sarna3 and Umberto Cassuto4 were of the opinion that the early biblical stories were allegorical and written on a foundation of well-known mythology.  But if a story is allegorical, it has to have meaning. An allegory without a readily discernable message is a failed allegory. If this is so, then a major section of Genesis should be pregnant with meaning.  

 

Revealing the meaning of the first chapters of Genesis will be the task of our next chapter.

 

​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 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, the Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1998.

 

5.  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 the approach of this website/book. This is not to negate the value of Midrash in any way, but there are multiple books that expand on this type of approach. When I quote Midrash, it is 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.

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

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7. 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 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, the Israelites, to Egypt and their 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 to it. And 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 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.

 

8.   R’ Leibtag gives many classes, but most of these are not in article or book form, although some of his classes are on YouTube. This is to acknowledge the borrowing of some of his ideas in these essays and to explain in advance why they are not necessarily referenced.

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