The Question Isn’t What Genesis Means, but What We Should Do

I read Ethan Dor-Shav’s elaborately detailed psychobiological reinterpretation of the early chapters of Genesis and found many of the comparisons insightful, enjoyable, and novel. The essential claim of this complex essay is that the stories of the Seven Days of creation and of the Garden of Eden are intricate, interwoven allegories for the biological evolution, embryonic development, and cognitive maturation of the human species. The Tree of Knowledge, for instance, is a spinal cord and the naming of the animals marks the Cambrian explosion; virtually every element of the narrative gets a similarly bracing reinvention.

Did he convince me of his case? I suppose that depends on what we say is at stake. Some of what Dor-Shav writes suggests he imagines he has cracked the code and finally revealed the single meaning of Genesis, which the text’s Author intended to hide at the time of its writing or revelation. He warns: “There is a hefty price to pay for seeing the biblical creation narrative in this light. . . . Insightful readings of Eden that we have come to love . . . may seem obsolete.”

Even if one were to agree that the goal of studying the Torah’s narratives is to deduce the one single most compelling interpretation, the one that obsolesces all others, it would be a very high bar for this new reading to meet. Indeed, it would be virtually impossible for an argument that relies on poetic intuition to analogize pieces of biblical verse alongside bits of technical understanding from neuroscience or paleontology. Nearly all the relevant technical experts who could properly assess the scientific elements of the argument do not study Torah or read ancient Hebrew, so how many people are competent to judge which analogies fail to land, and which seem irresistible once pointed out?