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In Ani Maamin Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth, and the Thirteen Principles of Faith Rabbi Joshua Berman argues that sometimes the Bible – the Tanakh – portrays events metaphorically and not as literally and factually true and he goes on to write the following on pages 36 to 39:
HOW MUCH OF THE TANAKH IS FACTUAL? Is The Tanakh Just Myth? If the Tanakh deliberately portrays events in a way that is not always fully factual, how can we know that the Tanakh intends any of its depictions to be taken as factual in any way? Put differently, perhaps everything in the Bible is written to be myth – that is, a fictional metaphor composed entirely to inculcate ideas, but without reference to actual historical persons and events. This understanding of how the Tanakh communicates should be rejected. To be clear: I say this notion should be rejected not because there is historical evidence for many of the Tanakh’s claims, even though that may be so. Similarly, my rejection of this notion is not a religious one – even though overwhelmingly our classical rabbinic sources relate to the events depicted in the Tanakh as having actually occurred. Rather, we should reject the notion that the Tanakh was composed as an extended metaphor or fable on academic grounds. A few notes are in order here concerning what we know about myth in the ancient world and the ways in which the Tanakh presents us with a genre of writing that is distinct in style and content. These observations, in turn, lead us to the conclusion that the Tanakh intends for its accounts to be taken as having actually occurred. What are the hallmarks of myth in the ancient world?
These characteristics are all closely related to one another. Because myth in the ancient world seeks to tell us some fundamental and unchanging truth about ourselves and the world we live in, it is placed outside of recognizable time and place. Because it wishes to highlight certain very clear messages, it limits its scope to a small number of key individuals over a relatively limited time frame. Most of the Tanakh, however, does not confirm to these parameters. The majority of the events in the Tanakh take place entirely in the human realm. They take place within known geographic settings. They are set in a timeline of one event in relation to another. Put differently, although myth was the normal way in the ancient world to convey ideas about man and his relationship to the gods, the Tanakh strove to create a new and different genre. This is no accident. The Tanakh is nothing if not a record of how God responds to Israel’s actions across the history of their relationship in covenant. Biblical history traces the evolution of this relationship, and looks forward to future developments. The surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East believed that there was no force that unilaterally controlled world events; the gods were in tension with one another, and this tension played out in the chaotic turns of world events. By contrast, the Tanakh posits that the world is controlled by a God who purposefully directs human – that is to say historical – affairs according to His Will. Moreover, we see that throughout the Tanakh the deeds and interactions of one generation of the people of Israel have implications for later generations as well. Things said to Abraham and actions taken by him have direct consequences for Isaac, and indeed for the rest of the people of Israel; the actions of one generation in the desert have consequences for the next. If, indeed, the Tanakh was written to be read as myth, why does it go out of its way to break from ancient convention and cast its stories within a historical continuum? Why does it emphasize over and over the interconnectedness of all generations of the people of Israel? Writing in this new convention makes sense only if the Tanakh assumes that it is telling us abut individuals that really lived and events that rally happened. Whereas myth focuses on unchanging realities, in the Tanakh, God’s interaction with Israel changes over the course of her history. Early in the arc of biblical history, God is still relatively sparing in His punishment. Thus, during the period of the Judges, Israel is wayward. But notice the limits of God’s threats: there can be partial foreign conquest, but the specter of exile is nowhere seen. Later, as Israel continues to sin, in the book of Kings, God’s patience has run its course, and this ends in exile. Or consider another example: Earlier in the Bible, God performs many miracles; later in the Bible, far fewer. God’s interaction with Israel changes as her history progresses. But telling us that God’s interactions with Israel change across history – as witnessed in the frequency of miracles and the severity of national punishment – only has coherence if, in fact, Israel really does have a history and it really does unfold along the lines of how the Tanakh reports it. But let us assume that the narratives of the Tanakh – and all of the prophetic censures of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the rest of the prophets of Israel – do not refer to actual events, but were written to be read as mere metaphor. To what would this metaphor point? What would be the lessons of all these fables? Presumably, the lessons would be that God rewards Israel for proper behavior, and punishes her for improper behavior. Put differently, we would be asked to believe that the Tanakh teaches that God will guide Israel through history in the future, even though the proof text for this – the Tanakh itself – was never founded on Israel’s actual history in the past. |