Torah and Evolution: Early Genesis as a Metaphor

Overview: The ancient genre of metaphor and the indications that early Genesis was not intended as literal history. This would reconcile the issues of Evolution and Genesis.

The approach to early Genesis that we are to taker here is popular among religious Jews and Christians alike. It views at least the beginning of Genesis – Creation and the Great Flood – as metaphorical narratives. This approach would suggest that the author of Genesis never intended for the narratives to be taken as literal history, but rather as metaphoric tales. Metaphors are stories that entail within them messages that are just below the surface of the literal understanding; they are stories to bring out a lesson for the reader.

The metaphor

This approach accepts Evolution as convincing science and would hold of a divinely-orchestrated evolution. The 6-day Creation account isn’t literal history; it is rather the source of meaning in the Mitzvah of Shabbat which is intended to commemorate God’s creation of the world. God created the world through a natural process spanning billions of years. The tale of God’s creation is spoken of in anthropomorphic terms, as a human who goes about his weekly work schedule. On Sunday, the worker does A and goes to sleep “and it was evening and it was morning – day one.” On Monday he does B, and Tuesday C, etc. Finally on the 7^th day of the week God saw a complete creation and “rested” (again an anthropomorphic term). The Shabbat observed by the Jewish People is in commemoration of this master creation of God. Thus the term “day” in Genesis Ch. 1 was never intended to be taken literal but as a “stage” in Creation.

The six days follow the general theme of Evolution, primitivity to sophistication. Day four cannot literally mean the sun and moon were created on that day since if that were the case we couldn’t assign a “day” to the previous 3 days. Rather the achievement of day 4 is the visibility of the celestial bodies, as the verse says “so that they serve as signs and as calendars.” Sure, the sun, moon, and stars were there already in the first 3 ”days” – which is why it can even be called “days” that consists of “evening” and “morning.” However, they were much less visible to Earth due to the large concentrations of superheated hydrogen and helium leftover from the formation of the Sun. Only at day/stage 4 did the environment clear out so that humans can now use the celestial bodies as “signs and calendars.”^[i]

Humans would have existed before Adam (known in Evolution as primitive hominids). However, he would have been the first human with a soul and special purpose. There may be hints to other humans existing alongside Adam and Eve in Genesis 4:14 and 6:4 (sons of God a possible reference to humans with the divine soul). Some use this divine soul as an explanation for the early generations’ longevity recorded in Genesis Ch. 5 and 11. It was only after these soul-infused humans intermarried with “regular” humans that they lost their longevity (and the genealogies of Genesis 11 indeed show a slow decline in longevity).

The tale of the Great Flood also isn’t literal history. It’s a tale that teaches us many lessons. It teaches monotheism, God’s care for His creations and the moral status of the world, His Justice, man as the pinnacle of Creation, man having moral purpose, and nature being under God’s control. All of these lessons are engrained, on a strong conscious and subconscious level, to teach these many lessons enwrapped in an encaptivating storyline. The details in the story are to enhance the experience of the metaphor. It puts the reader’s attention in a “novel” that teaches many lessons without the reader even realizing it.

The concept of metaphor was very popular in ancient times. In fact, many Midrashim are metaphoric – so this concept is not new to Judaism. In fact, the Talmud records an opinion that the Book of Job is entirely unhistorical and was intended to be metaphoric.[ii]

The Great Flood was such a popular metaphor in the Ancient Near East that many cultures have a legend about a great universal flood.[1]

Issues this approach has to deal with:

While this approach seems very tempting and comforting, Early Genesis as a metaphor has its share of serious issues it must adequately address.

The “day” in Creation can pretty easily be interpreted as an “era.” The Great Flood in the days of Noah can also pretty easily be explained as metaphor with many lessons enclothed within the storyline. The problem however begins with in between these events and afterwards.

Genesis 5 and 11 have a genealogical table, each of ten generations, from Adam till Noah and then from Noah till Abraham. The genealogies record the long lifespans of these early humans and lists direct father to son relations.

These genealogies seem to make the case that Genesis is a historical account and not merely a metaphor. First off, there’s nothing metaphor-like in a genealogy table. There’s no storyline in it and no lessons to be learned. Furthermore, it gives the impression of being a real historical record of the dispersion of nations around the globe. Genesis 10 gives the lineage of all the primary nations of the world, implying that the family tree is actual history and not mere metaphor. This touch of real-life nations seems to give a historical touch to the early chapters of Genesis – not mere metaphor.

Some attempt to explain that the genealogy is real history (and the Great Flood metaphor perhaps used a real-life figure named Noah) but it only records the key figures in the family tree. This theory would argue that there are major gaps in between the ten-generation genealogy before the metaphoric flood and major gaps in between the ten-generation genealogy after the flood. This would have accounted for the thousands of years that Evolutionists assume that civilizations took to span across the globe.

The problem with this theory, however, is that the phrasing in the genealogy seems to discredit the possibility for gaps in between the generations. It is listed as father-to-son relations with no intermediates. The genealogy is phrased in the following manner: “And A was X years old when he gave birth to B. And A lived Y amount of years after giving birth to B.” It becomes very difficult to insert missing generations into the verse with such phrases being used.

Possible reconciliation for these issues:

Perhaps we can explain these historical appearances in Genesis by giving context to the time in which Genesis was written. Genesis was written at a time very different than ours. The culture was different in many ways. This includes the style of writing and genre that was popular in the time. Nowadays, authors mostly write history books or novels. But in ancient times, mythology was the most popular genre of writing. “History” hasn’t been as popular as it is today. In fact, this may explain why there is no word for “history” in ancient Hebrew. People then were less interested in the physical record of events and the times in which they happened. Sure they had history as a separate genre in their writing but still it wasn’t nearly as popular as history is today.[iii]

Instead the ancients were invested in what we call metaphor or mythology. Mythology is ancient man’s strive to reinvent the past in the image of the culture and set of beliefs the author wishes to convey. This mythology is found within all cultures of the ancient Near East, most significantly in Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures. These myths would speak of the gods, the kings, and the heroes of the past. Each culture’s mythology would differ in content in a way that lends credibility to their specific beliefs.

It is unclear if the ancients actually believed those myths were actual history or if they took it as metaphor. But here we will suggest that they took it as metaphor, realizing that it wasn’t an accurate description of history. They knew that these often-wild myths couldn’t have and didn’t happen in reality.

A myth is not a story that is not true. A myth is truth communicated via story.

Stories captivate the human mind and resonate with us like nothing else can. The point of a metaphor (or mythology in ancient writings[2]) is to bring out a lesson in the form of a story. In the case of mythology, many lessons were enwrapped in the myths of the particular culture. These lessons inspired the people to have obedience to that culture’s gods and set of beliefs. They knew these stories weren’t intended to be actual history but served the purpose of metaphor.

A particularly popular metaphor (or mythology) of the time was “history.” That is to say, that the writers would present their metaphors in the form of reinventing the past and creating an apparent “history” for the people to derive their inspiration from. Therefore the author would invent a story that has both realistic, historical appearances and also more wild elements to it. Perhaps an example for this is the modern world would be the genre of the world-famous Harry Potter. This novel series is unique in its style. It recreates a world that contains both realistic and wild unrealistic elements. Of course it serves for entertainment while the purpose of ancient mythology was to inspire the people.

The same can be said about Torah’s mythology in early Genesis. The stories in this “history” serve the purpose of inspiring via metaphor. The chronologies sandwiched in-between the storylines give the metaphor that historic touch, as per the genre of the time. Similarly, the Table of Nations also serves the purpose of giving Genesis that historic touch. Moses sought to write to the people in the genre they would be familiar with and that genre was historical-metaphor.

A mythological appearance

While the chronologies and Table of Nations give early Genesis that historical appearance, many other indicators suggest the author didn’t intend literal history. These wild unrealistic elements in the storylines suggest that the author intended metaphoric mythology.

We will now go through some examples.

The 6-day creation account is described as being 24-hour days. Yet the sun and moon were only created at day 4 implying that “days” didn’t exist before then. Obviously, then, this cannot be literal.

Upon close examination one realizes that there are two Creation accounts, one in Genesis 1 and one in Genesis 2, that contradict each other. The first creation account has first vegetation created and then animal life proceeded by human life. Whereas in the second Creation account, first the human is created followed by vegetation and finally animal life. If we take the early chapters of Genesis as history, then we have the issue of the contradictions. But if we explain them as metaphor, then there’s no contradiction at hand – rather each story serves a different theological purpose to teach.[3]

Similarly, the early accounts of Genesis take other wild unrealistic elements for granted (not even referring to them as a miracle). There’s the talking snake in Gen 3:1. There’s also the “sons of God” in Gen. 6:2. There’s also the longevity of the early patriarchs living close to a thousand years. None of these are regarded as miracles, indicating that in the genre of the storyline it was normal to have talking snakes and have people live hundreds of years. There’s also the mysterious kerubim and the “fiery ever-turning sword” protecting the garden of Eden. This is because the genre is metaphoric mythology and not actual history.

There’s also the mysterious Nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6:4 before the flood, yet still existing after the flood[iv] despite humanity having been wiped out to the exception of Noah. If the flood account is to be taken literally, these Nephilim shouldn’t have survived the deluge.

Similarly, the genealogy in Gen. 5 provide 10 generations from Adam to Noah. Interestingly enough, in Gen. 11 the genealogy from Noah to Abraham is also 10 generations. Is it mere coincidence that both genealogies are the exact same number – 10? Is it also coincidence that the number is a “complete” number used as metaphor in many places – 10? Or more likely, this is the work of a talented metaphorist who is reinventing history in light of some mystical significance of the number ten in each of the genealogies. The significance of the number ten may have been known to the peoples who lived in the time and era in which the genre of mythological history was popular. Perhaps the number 10 represented a “complete” era, first from Adam to Noah and then the post-flood era till Abraham the first Jew. Either way, the number 10 in the genealogies is just another example of the many mythological appearances in early Genesis.[4]

In the upcoming article we will discuss Early Genesis as a Historical Error.