Funny, I was just going to bring the RAMBAM up depending on your next response.

By the time it was becoming knowledgeable in intellectual circles that there was an evolutionary process and that we were very much involved in it, many of the Jewish sages had already abandoned the narrative in favor of the allegorical approach. And while evolution was becoming a heated discussion in the Christian community, it barely caused a stir in ours.

Part of the reason is that we tend not to be literalists and, therefore, there's the constant search for the meaning behind the words. The creation accounts are so sketchy, whereas sometimes Torah may spend what we see as several pages describing one historic event, there was an increasing feeling that it was not really meant to be taken as history. There were other reasons as well, and maybe we can discuss this at some other time.

This is not to say that there aren't Jews and Jewish groups who don't see it as narrative. I went to a Lubavich seminar about a dozen years ago, and they tend to believe that the creation accounts denote God's final creation, whereas He had created Earth six times previous, but then destroyed each by only in part before building the next creation.

However, IMO, to view these accounts as narrative simply defies what the scientific evidence points towards, and for us to stick to our guns and insist that these accounts are somehow actual history simply would make us, and those who believe similarly, look rather silly. As one who taught anthropology for over 30 years, I dealt with this on a day to day basis, and the amount of disinformation about evolution is unbelievable. If overwhelming evidence indicates that a particular religious concept is inaccurate, to stick with the religious concept makes so little sense.

Fortunately, with our commentary system, we can let different interpretations stand on their own. But I wanted it to be made clear from the get-go where I stand and why.

Shalom,
Vern

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

Not to pick on you personally, metis, since others are making the same sort of categorical error. It happens because neither scientists nor theologians are experts in literary form.

But here's a short course:

"narrative"=a story in which events occur in sequence. And that's all it means.

"narrative" does not mean "history". A history is a narrative, but a narrative may be entirely fictional. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is as much a narrative as Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. So one cannot treat "narrative" and "history" as synonyms. That would be taking the part for the whole, as if one said that since red is a colour, "colour" means "red".

"narrative" does not mean "literal". Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progess is an allegorical narrative. The fact that it is allegorical does not take away from it being a narrative.

Finally, "narrative" does not mean "prose". Narrative is often recounted in poetic form. Homer's epics are narratives, many ballads are narratives. Even nursery rhymes are often narratives. (Think of "Jack and Jill". It recounts a sequence of four events.)

The creation accounts are indisputably narratives. But that doesn't tell us much in itself. It doesn't tell us whether they are myths or history, poetry or prose. "Narrative" is simply too general a term to be pegged down to any one of these categories.


I agree with both the points cited, but for literary accuracy I would slightly reword them.

I would not say the Jewish sages ever abandoned narrative, but that they abandoned the concept that the narrative was history.

Similarly, I would not say that viewing the accounts as narrative defies science. Clearly the accounts do not give us accurate information about science or history, but that doesn't mean they are not narratives. They are. Just not narratives that accord with the data of science or history.