There Are 70 Faces to the Torah. But Not All Interpretations Are Created Equal

My recent essay, showing how the biblical creation story is an allegory of biological evolution, was years in the making, an exhilarating intellectual journey. As an independent scholar, it was also a lonely one. I’m doubly grateful, therefore, to Dru Johnson, Zohar Atkins, and Jeremy England for taking the time both to study the essay thoughtfully and to engage in further dialogue. It’s a weight off my shoulders no longer to have to wrestle alone with my thesis, and with the ideas that arise from it—which, even to me, sometimes seem like crazy riddles.

A discernable thread runs through all three responses, which doesn’t deal with the specifics of my interpretation, but the more abstract issue of what it means for an interpretation to be “true.” In addition, they raise a narrower question, one that must be addressed head on: since the scientific theories on which my interpretation is based were unknown when the Hebrew Bible was written, how, indeed, can such a correlation have ever possibly come to exist?

Thankfully, they don’t accuse me of hermeneutic alchemy; of imagining a correlation that I desire where none is apparent. I take courage from the fact that the correlation does not come across as contrived to any of them. Johnson “recognizes the explanatory power of many [of the essay’s] insights.” Atkins finds my thesis “textually compelling and intellectually stimulating, . . . revealing patterns previously obscured.” And England describes it as “insightful, enjoyable, and novel.” So I can sleep at night assured that my admittedly idiosyncratic argument has passed some basic test of intellectual muster. Considering how greatly my suggested reading diverges from both traditional and academic approaches, this is no small matter.