Q&A: Myths
Myths
Question
It is customary to relate to Adam and Eve not as real figures but as myths. Is there some figure from whom onward we say that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) starts speaking concretely about real historical figures? Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham—all these?
Answer
I don’t know. The assumption is that the figures were real unless there are good reasons to argue otherwise.
Discussion on Answer
You’ve turned God into a journalist reporting from the field, and you’re basically asking from what period in those reports the reports are reliable.
Shlomo, Rabbi Kasher has a superb article with fascinating sources on this. Send me an email and I’ll send it to you. [email protected]. Also, Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel says a few things about this in his book; there are medieval sources (Rishonim) at the end of Klein-Braslavy’s book on the creation of man in Maimonides’ thought, published by Reuven Mass; and also in Tzafnat Pa’neach, the commentator on Ibn Ezra, there are some nice ideas. I don’t have the time to look it up right now, maybe later. The general idea is that Adam and Eve represent agriculture and procreation/life; Cain and Abel represent the first human occupations in herding and farming; and the genealogical lists of Cain and Seth are names of places, tribes, or eponymous ancestors. Up to Noah it is a mixture of history and mythology, and in practice one can speak clearly of historicity only from Abraham onward, as figures who are individual persons and not tribes. And there are those who disagree even with that.
The concept of myth was invented a very, very long time after Adam and Eve.