The Biblical Creation and Flood Accounts:
Interpretations
and Methods
Part I: Miracles and evidence of their occurrence
Miraculous
events are by definition beyond the realm of nature, and as a result they
cannot be detected after the event. For example, the case of Bil'am's donkey.
Donkeys
do not possess well developed brains, nor do they have sophisticated vocal
chords. Therefore one certainly does not expect a donkey to talk. Nevertheless, it is of course possible for
the creator of all to "open the mouth of the donkey" [Numbers XX].
However, this speaking of the donkey would be a supernatural event, and
therefore it is not to be expected that the donkey would necessarily have acquired a sophisticated
brain and vocal apparatus. Similarly, it
would not be expected that the donkey continue to have the ability to speak -
the speaking was a unique event, a miracle.
As
a supernatural event, the speaking of the donkey would leave no
humanly-detectable trace in the form of changed brain and vocal apparatus, nor
in the form of a continued ability to speak. As stated previously, miraculous
events are by definition beyond the realm of nature, and as a result they
cannot be detected after the event.
Even
miracles which were performed in the view of multitudes were always done in
such a way that the skeptic viewer could contrive a 'natural' explanation for
the event[1]. And then, after the event occurred, there would be
no way to prove that it had indeed been a miracle.
Creation
Modern
speculations have proposed that the universe can arise by itself via a quantum
fluctuation of the vacuum. However there would seemingly have to first exist a
vacuum, the laws of quantum physics and the potential for the quantum universe.
Once these exist, the universe can possibly indeed arise by itself. However,
this vacuum, laws, and potential for the existence of the universe, is not
'nothing'. Thus, in the quantum
fluctuation model the universe can arise on its own from the combination of
laws, vacuum and potential quantum universe, but even in the quantum
fluctuation model, the universe cannot arise from nothing.
What then is the origin of the initial
ingredients necessary for the emergence of the universe? One can claim that
since time began at the singularity, there is no meaning to such questions as
'what happened prior to the singularity' or 'what caused the singularity'.
Alternatively, one can claim that there always existed these ingredients, and
thus that the question of where they originated from is not a meaningful
question[2].
However,
according to the Torah, there was a creation ex-nihilo.
This creation of the universe from absolute nothingness is a miraculous event.
As a miraculous event, then, creation ex-nihilo is
not detectable in the physical universe. One cannot expect the miraculous event
of creation ex-nihilo to leave traces in the physical
universe - indeed it is the existence of
the physical universe which is the miracle itself.
Thus,
looking at the physical universe, studying its origins according to the laws of
nature, does not reveal traces of the miraculous event of creation ex-nihilo[3]. Instead, what we find is only that which we have
put there to find. That is, when we use the laws of nature to study the origins
of the physical universe, we find the origin as it would be had there been
nothing beyond the physical universe, and had this physical universe arisen
according to natural law. That is, we trace the universe back to some beginning
or to no beginning - to a big bang or to an eternal matter.
The Noachide
Flood
What was said above regarding the creation,
applies similarly to the case of the Noahide flood.
It is clear that no natural flood could be
of the proportions described in Genesis. There is not enough water in the
atmosphere to flood the world to a height above the highest mountains.
Certainly it is impossible for one man, or one family, or even a large group of
men with the primitive technology of Noah's time, to gather representatives of
all the world's animals, to load them onto a boat, and to fit them all in, with
a sufficient supply of food for a year.
It would be impossible for all the animals
which survived the flood to populate the widely scattered islands and
continents they now inhabit. And if they
inhabited these places prior to the flood, the intervening water, mountains,
and so on, would have made their trip to Noah's ark quite impossible[4].
It is therefore clear that the Noahide flood could not have been a natural occurrence. Indeed,
the Bible, which is the only existing source about the flood, states quite
clearly that it was a direct Act of God - not a natural occurrence. As a
supernatural occurrence therefore, the flood is not detectable after the fact
by 'natural' means.
The Bible, which tells of the flood, claims
that this world-wide flood was made by the Being Who created the entire
universe. One may or may not believe that such a being exists. However, if
God the creator does exist, then it is not difficult to believe that this
creator has sufficient power to do all that is related in the flood account.
Surely the creator of the universe - and therefore the creator of the planet
Earth, and of the compound we call water - could flood the world with water;
the creator of all life, of all the animals, could certainly gather
representatives of all the animals[5], feed them, and rescatter
them across the face of the earth after the flood.
And,
since all this is supernatural, it would leave no trace in the physical universe.
Joshua and the Sun: A Supernatural Event
When Joshua arranged for "the sun to stand
still" instead of setting, this was obviously a great miracle, a
supernatural event. Indeed, since the
earth's rotation is what causes the 'rising and setting' of the sun, halting
the motion of the sun's setting probably involved halting the rotation of the
Earth, rather than a change in the motion of the sun[6]. However, halting the rotation of the earth would
cause all the earth's inhabitants to fly off into space, in the way that a
person can be flung from a suddenly stopped car or merry-go-round
['round-about']. Indeed, the entire earth would probably crack up into pieces
from the stresses that wouold be created. This of
course did not happen.
Further,
if the sun shone for a longer period at on point of the earth, it follows that
it arrived later everywhere else. This would surely have been noticed and
remarked upon a s a great wonder by people everywhere. This did not happen.
In
fact, according to Rambam [Maimonides] [Guide II:35],
this miracle was witnessed only by a few people, not even by all the Jewish
people - and therefore certainly not by the rest of the world. Thus the
'stopping of the sun' was more likely a perceived lengthening of the day which
affected the perception of some people only - for example, those of the Jewish
people doing the actual fighting.
It
could have been that the time sense of these people was changed, so that they
could think and act more quickly than normally. To them, the day would have
seemed longer than normal. Alternatively, their eyes could have been made more
sensitive to light, so as to be able to see perfectly well in weak twilight, or
in the dark starlit night. Or the images in their brains were enhanced to
accomplish the same effect. To them, it would seem as though the sun had been
shining the entire time[7].
However
it might have occured though, it was a supernatural
event, and it would therefore not leave any traces in the physical universe.
The objects in the physical universe which were involved in the miracle can
show no trace of the occurence of supernatural
events, and thus the present day
position of the earth and of the sun is the same as it would be had this
miracle not occured.
Part II
We
now present a different type of approach to resolving the conflict between
science and the Biblical accounts of creation and the flood.
The Date of the Flood: One approach is to push back the date of the flood
to an earlier period in human history. According
to evolutionary genetics, all of Mankind is descended from one line of
primitive
There are many traditions across the
world of a catastrophic flood which devastated the world, leaving only the
inhabitants of that area alive. If there had been a flood at a time close to
the emergence of the first humans, then a large flood might well have wiped out
the entire human race except for one family. Indeed, according to the Bible,
the flood occured only nine generations after the
generation of Adam.
Thus, if the flood account refers to a
time only a few generations after the emergence of the first humans, then it is
understandable that all Mankind inhabited a relatively small area. As a result,
a catastrophic flood could have wiped out the entire human race - save for one
family[8].
It would then be reasonable that a
fear of flooding would develop, leading to a transmission - even in the most primitive of societies - of
a warning regarding floods, and a description of their catastrophic
effect. Eventually this would be
redeveloped into the story of a universal flood , and would be recorded in
writing when that developed.
These accounts can be found in many
societies. The true version, uncorrupted by transmission errors, is found in
the Bible.
Part III: The Creation Account
The
creation account in Genesis may in fact not be the description of the creation
of the universe as a whole. Instead it may be the description of a limited act
of creation on the planet earth at some stage in its development. Or,
alternately,....
Many may have Survived the Flood
Another
method of reconciling the account of the flood with the results of modern
archaeology and geology can be based on the following:
The Bible makes the point very clearly, and
repeatedly, that God destroyed all man and beast in the whole world expect for Noah
and those in the ark. Nevertheless, one
of the Rabbis of the Talmud tells us that Og, King of
Bashan, survived the flood! [9] Tosphot then states [deduces] that his brother Sikhon must also
have survived the flood[10]. Also, that the Amalekites predated and survived the flood is taught by
the Zohar
[Gen:25a {Hebrew insert}].
Further,
Ramban does
not seem to find any difficulty in the belief that others escaped the flood
along with Og [see Ramban
on "Bnei ha'elohim"].
If
then there were individuals or races who survived the flood, there need be no contradiction between the fact of
the flood and the results of modern investigation.
[11] The Flood as Non-Universal
According
to the Talmud, the flood did not occur
in the
Thus
the mountains in the
Thus,
according to Tosphot, even though the waters covered
the highest mountain peaks of the surrounding lands, the flood waters did not
enter the
Conclusion
We
have seen that although the Bible states clearly that the flood was totally
universal, and fatal to all except Noah and his family, according to Jewish
Tradition the flood was not universal, and it did not kill all the inhabitants
of the earth outside of Noah and his family.
In the light of this, the question of where the flood reached and where
it did not, and of how many people were killed and how many survived, becomes
more of an open question.
Clearly
however, according to Jewish tradition the flood account in Genesis - when
interpreted purely literally as a complete account of the flood - presents a more severe picture of events than
that which actually occurred.
The Universality and Fatality of the Flood as a
Literary Exaggeration
We
accept that the entire Torah was written by Moses according to God's command.
Nevertheless, we will attempt to show how this presents no contradiction to the
possibility of interpreting the account of the flood as written by a prophet
who exaggerated in the writing.
We
will have to make two points: that the flood account could have been written by
a prophet other than Moses, and that this prophet could have exaggerated. We
begin with the latter point.
The Style of the Prophets
According
to the Talmud[15], even when prophesying via Divine inspiration, the
prophets spoke in their own words so that two prophets receiving the identical
prophecy would formulate it in different ways.
Rambam explains
that when the prophets speak, they do so
in their own vocabulary and style[16]:
"It
must be borne in mind that every prophet has his own peculiar diction, which
is, as it were, his language, and it is in that language that the prophecy
addressed to him is communicated to those who understand it".
Rambam continues and
notes that it may be the style of a particular prophet to greatly exagerate the level of destruction which has occurred, and to use metaphors which translate a local
catastrophe to cosmic scale:
"...every prophet has his own peculiar
diction...After this preliminary remark you will understand the metaphor
frequently employed by Isaiah, and less frequently by other prophets, when they
describe the ruin of a kingdom or the destruction of a great nation in phrases
like the following; - "The stars have fallen," "The heavens are
overthrown", "The sun is darkened", "the earth is waste,
and trembles", and similar metaphors.
According
to Rambam, the prophet may use the word
"Mankind" when "a
nation" is what is actually meant. In Rambam's
words:
"Sometimes
the prophet uses the term 'Mankind' instead of 'the people of a certain place',
whose destruction they predict; for example, Isaiah, speaking of the
destruction of
In
addition, a severe Divine punishment can be described as though it were
complete annihilation.In Rambam's
words:
"..[as
in the passage] 'Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove
out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of His
fierce anger'[Isaiah13:23]. I do not think that any person is so foolish and
blind, and so much in favour of the the literal sense of figurative and oratorical phrases, as
to assume that at the fall of Babylonian kingdom a change took place in the
nature of the stars of the heaven, or in the light of the sun and moon, or that
the earth moved away from its center. For all this is merely the description of
a country that has been defeated."
Based on the approach of Rambam
outlined above, one can perhaps interpret a prophet's description of the
complete annihilation of Mankind as actually referring to the severe punishment
of one particular nation .
However,
applying this interpretation to the Flood account in Genesis would seemingly be
inappropriate. Rambam is speaking only of the words
of the prophets, whereas the account of
the Flood was written at the direct command of God, and written by Moses - who
received a higher form of prophecy than that of any other prophet .
We
now deal with this issue.
The Writing of the Torah
The
Torah was recorded by Moses in Sinai, with different parts of it possibly
written at different times during the years in the desert. The accounts of the
The
book of Deuteronomy records Moses's words to the
Jewish People prior to their entry into the
Besides
the Laws and the description of events in the Bible, there are the accounts of
the creation, the flood, the tower of babel, and the
accounts of the Patriarchs.
The patriarchs were part of a line of tradition
from Adam down to Moses. One can assume that the creation account was familiar
to Adam, and that it was transmitted as part of a tradition. At some time, it
might have been written down. Similarly with the account of the flood, and with
the events which occured to the Patriarchs. These accounts would have been added to the
already existing tradition, and would be transmitted at the very least to the
leaders and Elders of every generation. Thus, they would have become available
eventually to Moses, after the Elders recognized him as God's messenger.
Therefore,
all the material in the Bible prior to the exodus would have been known to Moses,
from the tradition transmitted to him. Events from that point on would be known
to him as a contemporary, and as the protagonist of most of the events. Thus in
effect, it may very well have been physically possible for Moses to have
written the narrative elements of the Torah without God's dictation, by
combining the various traditional material at his disposal. However, the choice of what to include,
and the method of combining the various elements, would not be self evident.
And, any resulting document would not be a Torah - it would be Moses's edited version of Human origins, and of Jewish
history. Only by including material at God's express command, and in the manner
dictated by God[17], and with the inclusion of the Divinely mandated
laws, could this become the Torah.
If
this is indeed the way that God told Moses to write the Torah, then one should
not be surprised that the individual accounts are coloured
by the perspectives and understandings of the people involved in the recording
of the events. Even if these accounts were recorded by prophets at the time,
working under the influence of Divine inspiration, the result would still
reflect the individual psyches and approach of the prophet.
Furthermore,
according to Maharal[18], the entire Torah is written from the perspective
of the reality as perceived by human beings. Thus if humans at that time
considered the reality to have been that all life had been eradicated other
than their own family - as was the case with the daughters of Lot - then
perhaps this is why the Flood is so described in the Torah.
Therefore, one can perhaps conclude that the
description of the complete annihilation of Mankind in the flood account can in
actuality be referring to the severe punishment of one particular nation or group of people.
Thus we may perhaps conclude that the flood was not in actuality a universal
one[19].
This
would also explain why according to Jewish tradition the Flood did not wipe out
all Mankind outside the
Indeed,
there are many traditions across the world of a catastrophic flood which
devastated the world, leaving only the inhabitants of that area alive. Thus,
humans at the time of the flood may have considered the reality to have been
that all life had been eradicated other than their own town or family. This was
similarly the case with the daughters of
Alternatively,
at the time that the flood account was recorded by the prophet , the common
impression may have been that only one group of humans had been left to
repopulate the world.
In
accordance then with the view of Maharal that the
Torah is written from the perspective of the reality as perceived by human
beings, one can perhaps conclude that the Flood is described in the Torah as a
universal one only because this was the perception of those who survived it, or
the perception or wording of the prophet who recorded it.
The Writing of the Torah: According to the Talmud[20], God told Moses the various sections of the Torah
at different times. Then, at the end of the forty years in the desert, Moses
compiled the sections into one unified Torah. According to one view[21], as each section was told to Moses, he wrote it
down exactly, and compiled the Torah from these written records. According to
another view[22], the sections were memorized by Moses as they were
given, and were only recorded in writing
when the last section had been given[23]. At that point, Moses compiled the Torah from the
memorized portions.
For
example, according to Ramban, Genesis [and more] was
recorded by Moses after he came down from
Ramban
notes that Moses wrote the Torah
anonymously - that is, without saying at the beginning of Genesis something
like "these are the words which I Moses have written..."[25]. According to Ramban,
this was because the words he wrote in the Torah had already been written
before[26], and therefore Moses was "like a scribe who
copies from an old book".
The
book of Deuteronomy records Moses's words to the
Jewish People prior to their entry into the
The
remaining four books of the Bible contain both
Laws and descriptions of various
events. For example, there are the accounts of the creation, the flood, the
tower of babel, and the accounts of the Patriarchs.
Historical Records available to Moses:
The Patriarchs were part of a line
of tradition from Adam down to Moses. One can assume that the creation account
was familiar to Adam, and that he transmitted it to his descendants as part of
a tradition. At some time, it might have been written down. Similarly, the
account of the flood, and the events which occured to
the Patriarchs, would be recorded by those who experienced these events. - all
of them eing prophets. These accounts could also be recorded in
written form - if not by the actual protagonists, then at least by their
descendants. These accounts would then be added to the already existing
tradition.
The
complete tradition would be transmitted to every succeeding generation - at the
very least to the leaders and Elders of every generation. Thus, the entire
tradition would have become available eventually to Moses, after the Elders
recognized him as God's messenger.
Therefore,
all the material in the Bible prior to the exodus would have been known to Moses,
from the tradition transmitted to him. Events from that point on would be known
to him as a contemporary, and as the protagonist of most of the events. Thus in
effect, even though God dictated to Moses the entire Torah, it may very well
have been physically possible for Moses to have written the narrative elements
of the Torah without God's dictation, by combining the various traditional
material at his disposal[27]. However,
the choice of what to include, and the method of combining the various
elements, would not be self evident[28]. And, any resulting document would not be a Torah -
it would be Moses's edited version of Human origins,
and of Jewish history. However, if Moses included material only at God's
express command, in the manner dictated by God[29], with the inclusion of the Divinely mandated
laws, then this could become the Torah.
This
may indeed be the way that God told Moses to write the Torah[30] . If so, then
one should not be surprised that the individual accounts are coloured by the perspectives and understandings of the
people involved in the recording of the events. Since these accounts were
initially recorded not by God, and not via
Moses who had a higher form of prophecy, but by earlier prophets at the
time of the events or later, then although they were under the influence of Divine inspiration,
the result would still reflect their individual psyches and approaches.
Furthermore,
according to Maharal[31], although the entire Torah was written according to
God's command, it is written from the perspective of the reality as perceived
by human beings. Thus if humans at the time of the flood considered the reality
to have been that all life had been eradicated other than their own family - as
was later the case with the daughters of Lot - then perhaps this is why the
Flood is so described in the Torah.
The Account of the Flood: As a result
of the above, one can perhaps conclude
that the description of the complete annihilation of Mankind in the flood
account can in actuality be referring to the severe punishment of one particular nation or group of people.
Thus we may perhaps conclude that the flood was not in actuality a universal
one[32] .
This
would also explain why according to Jewish tradition the Flood did not wipe out
all Mankind outside the
Indeed,
there are many traditions across the world of a catastrophic flood which
devastated the world, leaving only the inhabitants of that area alive. Thus,
humans at the time of the flood may have considered the reality to have been
that all life had been eradicated other than their own town or family. This was
similarly the case with the daughters of
Alternatively,
at the time that the flood account was recorded by the prophet , the common
impression may have been that only one group of humans had been left to
repopulate the world.
In
accordance then with the view of Maharal that the
Torah is written from the perspective of the reality as perceived by human
beings, one can perhaps conclude that the Flood is described in the Torah as a
universal one only because this was the perception of those who survived it, or
the perception or wording of the prophet who recorded it.
The Creation Account: In an analogous manner, the creation account may
have originated with Adam, or with one of his descendants who was a prophet.
For example, we are told by Tradition that Abraham - after recognizing the
existence of God, creator of the universe -
studied in the Yeshiva established by Shem, son of Noah. One can expect
that Abraham, who had come to the Yeshiva because of his recognotion
of the existence of a creator, had asked what tradition there was regarding the
creation. He must have been taught some form
of a creation account - one received by
Shem either via prophetic inspiration or from his father Noah. This creation
account would then be passed down the generations until it reached Moses.
Thus
the creation account received by Moses via tradition would probably have been
the Divinely inspired vision of creation as expressed in the words and style of
the prophet with whom it originated. This creation account would probably have
been the traditionally accepted account of the creation among the Jewish People
from the time of Abraham until the exodus from
At
Sinai - and perhaps at various other point during the forty years in the desert
- God dictated to Moses the contents of
the Torah. If God then commanded Moses to include this creation account in the
Torah - or God dictated it to Moses word by word - then the creation account in
the Torah is at one and the same time the literal Divine Word, and a Divinely dictated copy of an account written
by a prophet under the influence of his individual psyche, and according to his
particular style.
And,
although in this approach the Torah contain a subjective element, this
is not contrary to Jewish tradition since, as we have seen, according to Maharal[33] the entire
Torah is written from the perspective of the reality as perceived by human
beings.
An Objection: One can however present the following objection. According to Jewish
Tradition, every letter in the Torah is there for a reason. There is a mystical
and religious significance even to the 'crowns' on the letters [as written in a
ritually proper Torah].
If the accounts of the flood and the
Patriarchs and so on were recorded by humans, how can this be the case? Even if
these accounts were recorded by prophets, since the language in which they
express their prophecy varies according to their personality[see Rambam quote above], how can we say that there are Divine
mysteries in every letter of the Torah?
The Divine Mysteries of the Torah: Every word in the Torah originates with God. Every
letter and combination of letters in the Torah contains Divine mysteries.
On
the other hand, parts of the Torah are records of events involving solely human
beings, rather than supernatural events initiated by God. How can a record of
events occurring to an ordinary person contain Divine mysteries?
Further, some of the accounts in the Bible are
presented as records of words spoken by
man - including ordinary people such as Lavan, Betuel, Eliezer, Hagar, Yitro and so on
and even evil men such as Esav, Pharaoh, Balak and so on.
How can a record of the actual words spoken by an ordinary person, or
especially by an evil man, contain Divine mysteries?
Thus
we can see that the problem we raised previously is not the essential problem. If it can be that
there are Divine mysteries and religious significance in the words of Lavan, Betuel, Eliezer, Hagar, Yitro, Esav, Pharaoh, Balak and so on, there can just as well be Divine mysteries and religious significance
in the words of the accounts recorded by chroniclers - especially if they are
prophets.
A Possible Approach to a Solution: Our problem reduces then to the question of how
these words can become imbued with Divine significance. We are of course not
responsible to explain how this could be - we are simply told that it is a
fact. Nevertheless, in the following we will attempt to present a possible
approach to a solution:
According
to Jewish Tradition, God first created the Torah - a spiritual entity - and
then created the universe by using the Torah as a blueprint. The Torah as known
to us is the 'shadow' or 'projection' of the spiritual Torah into our physical
universe. Thus, the dialogues recorded in the Torah are, in some acausal sense, 'designed into the universe'. God can design
and correlate the universe and the Torah in such a way that the words spoken by
ordinary people - words spoken of their own free will and not predestined by God
- can possess holiness and contain Divine mysteries [34].
This
concept can perhaps aid us in understanding other difficulties, for example Rambam's teaching
regarding sacrifice.
In
a famous passage in his "Guide to the Perplexed" Rambam
writes that the sacrifices were instituted in order to channel the
then-prevalent religious instinct for sacrifice in the Jewish people, based on their
earlier pagan worship. [35] Following
our approach outlined above, we can interpret Rambam's
idea in this way:
The
mitzva to sacrifice was mandated in order to channel
natural urges which had previously been expressed in an idolatrous context. The
urge to sacrifice is a natural instinct, and is thus a product of nature. As
such, it comprised part of God's design for the universe, part of the
universe's blueprint - the Torah. Thus, despite its prior service in the name of idolatry, the mitzva of sacrifice is of Divine origin and derives solely
from the Torah.
As
Rambam points out, sacrifice was mandated in order to
channel people away from idolatry - the same purpose for which the creation
account [with its introduction of the idea of creation-ex-nihilo]
was revealed to Man.
The Creation Account: Another
application of this idea would be to the creation account. As we have seen
above, there was - or is - in Man a
natural urge to worship Power. Since this urge to worship Power resulted in
sacrifice to idolatry, sacrifice was chanelled to the
worship of God. Similarly, there is in Man a natural urge to search for
explanations regarding his origins. Since this natural urge to search for
explanations regarding his origins resulted in the pagan creation
accounts, these were adapted to the
teaching of Monotheism.
Just
as Man's urge to sacrifice originates in his genes and environment and
therefore in the universe's bluprint - the Torah - so
too Man's urge to explain origins derives from the Torah. Just as the practice
of sacrifice was idolatry, but was transformed into Torah, so too the pagan
creation accounts were idolatrous, but were transformed into Torah.
Clearly,
whatever the origin of the Genesis creation account, it is in the Torah and
therefore is Holy. Just as God can create the universe in such a way that the
words of man are imbued with Holiness and Divine mysteries, so to God could
create the universe in such a way that a
creation account originating with mortals can be imbued with Holiness and
Divine mysteries.
The
Creation Plot: Literal or Allegorical?: Obviously, if the creation "plot" was taken from previously
existing creation accounts, it is not
necessary to accept it as meant literally.
Nevertheless,
the similarities between the Biblical creation account and the creation accounts of other nations may be due
to a common, Divine, origin. If that is the case, then the "plot" (as well as the theology
accompanying it) may possibly be meant literally.
There
is thus no necessity to interpret the
biblical account allegorically even if it is adapted from the accounts of other
nations - it might be meant literally since the other creation accounts might
have been based on the truth. However, the tradition handed down together with
the Bible, and recorded in the Talmud, mentions that the account could
be interpreted allegorically [36].
That the creation account is meant
allegorically can mean two things:
I. The creation "plot" is allegorical,
but it is an allegory composed by God, and was related to prophets living
before Moses. Thus, it is the source of
all the similar creation accounts.
II. The creation "plot" is adapted from
pagan accounts devised by man . (26)
In
either case, the "plot", by being chosen by God, becomes God's word,
and thus acquires a great significance.
However,
if the second option is correct, one could ask why God used a pagan
account instead of revealing the true
account. If the originators of the pagan
accounts were inspired men, and were spiritually advanced for their day,
perhaps one could understand this adaptation.
However, if they are seen as mere pagan accounts, why choose them?
One could perhaps answer that if it is desired
to provide only an allegorical account, then any allegorical creation account
which would implicitly contain the moral ideas discussed previously [Section (??)] would seem suitable.
However, what would be the most natural type of account in which to embed,
implicitly, these ideas?
There
were already creation myths circulating in ancient times in the near and middle
east. These accounts were quite pagan
and did not contain any true moral message - they were simply
"explanations" of the origin of man and of the world, without being
"teachings" as to the significance of creation, and of its
ramifications, etc.
One
of the principle messages of the Bible is that man is not an
"animal": unlike them he can
channel his instincts, 'sublimate' them, or harness them, to achieve
with their aid lofty goals.
The
creation myths of ancient times expressed deep-seated emotions; of man's
helplessness before nature and the gods, of his insignificance, of the
arbitrariness of life, etc. (a sort of ancient form of existentialist despair).
The
Bible is a teaching which is in direct contradiction to this sort of cosmic
pessimism (see "meaning of allegory"). What better way for God to get the Biblical
message across, and to negate the pagan message, than to adapt the pagan
accounts to the message of the Bible?
This would
1. assure an easy transition of acceptance from
the pagan account to the biblical account;
2. relate to the deep emotion reflected in the
pagan account by using the same frame;
3. allow the tremendous contrast between the
biblical optimism and purpose and the pagan pessimism and arbitrariness to be
presented in a literary form rather than as polemic.
A
study of the biblical creation account with its moral implications provides one
with the insight to see how truly empty of "meaning" the pagan myths
are. If the two accounts were cast in
totally different molds, they would not be easily comparable, and the emptiness
of the pagan accounts would not be so evident.Thus,
the similarity of the biblical creation account to the creation myths of the
ancient and near east.
Of course as we have seen, the acceptance of this similarity is also
consonant with a belief in the literal nature of the biblical account .
Part IV: The
Flood as an Evolutionary Selection Process
From
the preceeding case of Amalek
and Og, we can see that even the most traditionalist
interpretation of the Bible can be seemingly totally against the clear meaning
of the Bible.
Another
approach to the understanding of the alleged universality of the flood, is to
attribute its universality only to a specific section of mankind which fits the
description of the relevant passages. That is those who qualify as " ha'adam asher barati...yetzer lev ha'adam
ra min'urav". Only
these were univerasally destroyed.
Another approach is as follows:There must have been a number of evolutionary ancestors
of Mankind lying between today's human and today's apes, and also there must
have been related branches off the ape line - like for example tghe Neanderthalers, who were a
parallel branch, not our ancestors. However, there are no such ancestors or
parallel branches alive today.
Thus, one can perhaps postulate thatat the time of the flood, there was more than one race
existent - the human race of today, and others. One can then perhaps conclue that it was the ........... who were universally
destroyed in the flood.
Og and Amalek: Perhaps
one can make a distinction between humanity as represented by Noah and that
represented by the giant Og. According to Midrash
Og was 15 feet tall, and thus was probably not of
original human stock, but of a priorly evolved
race. Similarly, Amalek
is the only group which it is incumbent on the children of
If
this is so, then we can conclude that only Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Voluntas was
destroyed in the flood, and thus that when the Bible tells us that all mankind
was destroyed, it means all of Homo Sapiens Sapiens Voluntas and not
necessarily all of everyone else.
This
would explain the widespread evidence uncovered by archaeologists that there
were civilizations which were seemingly not destroyed in a flood 4,000 years
ago.
It
would also strengthen the case for there being non-Homo Sapiens Sapiens Voluntas present at the
time of the creation of Adam - just as "all mankind" clearly refers
only to a certain portion of Homo Sapiens Sapiens in the flood account since we are told that
at least one survived, so too the creation of mankind in the creation account
possibly refers only to the creation of Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Voluntas.
One
can perhaps also adapt the remarks above regarding the interchangeability of
"Mankind" with "a nation", and "total
annihilation" with "local diaster", as indicating the possibility that the
"creation of all Mankind" may be interpreted as the "emergence
of Homo Voluntas".