Bereshit: Myth or Truth

           A myth is defined by Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary as a traditional story or parable of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world-view of a people or explain a practice, a belief, or natural phenomenon.  We assume myths are false, untrue.  Indeed, an abbreviated definition of the word myth offered by this same on-line resource identifies a myth as “a story that is believed by many people but that isn’t true.”

            I believe Merriam-Webster has mixed up “truth” with “factual.” 

            This same dictionary restrains from this mix-up in at least one of its suggested offerings for the word true.  There “true” is defined as “something that is conformable to an essential reality.”  “Something that is conformable to an essential reality.”  Not necessarily a factual reality, but an essential reality.  Isn’t that ultimately what we believe is true?  What we believe is true more often than not is something which conforms to a reality we have already accepted as essential – whether based on fact, supposition, assumption, fear, or just plain laziness. 

Bershit bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz, At the start, God created the heavens and the earth.  Our parasha opens with a familiar and orderly creation myth.  Creation stories are foundational to human existence.  Virtually every culture has one or more - a narrative, or narratives, that work to explain how the world, and how humanity, came into existence. Despite differences in when and where these various stories arise, remarkably, they have a number of commonalities. 

One of the most common similarities among these creation “myths” is that a supreme being is almost always central to the story. Another is that order is often imposed or grows out of a primordial undifferentiated muck, in our Hebrew story what is labeled to’hu va’vo-hu.  As a species, we humans find comfort in the thought that there is a divine motivation and structure to existence.   The presence of human life is also almost always accounted for in these stories of creation, and not surprisingly – we wrote them, humans are generally introduced into the story in a manner which places them on the hierarchy below Divine beings but above the rest of the animal kingdom. 

Our sacred biblical story of creation: myth? Or, truth?

            Let’s first remind ourselves that we have two pretty well fleshed out and contradictory tales offered within the first three chapters of Torah – the opening story which gives us the neatly packaged 7-day plan of creation and the less orderly but far more dramatic (and probably older) tale of Adam and Eve.  Are these stories factual? Not necessarily.  In my opinion, not at all.  Do they offer important and lasting truths.  Certainly.   The creation of Adam from adamah, from the earth, for instance, reminds us that we are but dust; it serves to instill us and ground us with humility and respect for the world around us.  The assertion that we are made b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image, demands from us that we act responsibly not only towards each other but for the other forms of life over which we are told we have dominion.  Adam and Eve’s partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and subsequent expulsion from Eden reminds us that intellectual curiosity may complicate our lives but also has the power to expand our world exponentially. 

Myth and truth: must they always be viewed as exclusively independent categories.  Regardless of whether our biblical creation myths are factual, they have inherent value and truth to them.

            At the same, our biblical tradition, our religious canon, cannot replace scientific exploration.  Religion is not science.  It was never intended as such.  Appreciation of these ancient stories born between the 10^th and 6^th centuries BCE, before the Common Era, should never be allowed to squash modern critical thinking and further exploration into scientific inquiry.   Appreciating the value of these stories must never cause us to turn a blind eye to learning more about the science of our world so that we can commit ourselves to the continued ‘creation,’ the continued existence of this world.  If we truly understand ourselves as made in God’s image, than it is our responsibility to be fully open to understanding the science of creation.

Conversely, acknowledging the veracity of evolutionary theories of creation, of scientific explanations of how our world has come to be, where the world is going, and how the earth needs to be protected and cared for as it continues, need not cancel out the truths we gain from our religious narrative.

            There is room for both.  We must make room for both.