Question

Hi Michi. This verse: “I have set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth,” sounds strange. First, because a rainbow is part of natural reality and is formed under certain conditions (this is basically similar to your questions about systematic human intervention—after all, everything is explained by natural means and there seems to be no room for providence). Is it really impossible for those conditions to arise without human beings sinning? Second, this idea—a rainbow as a covenant—has a strong and unpleasant smell of myth and folklore. The rainbow as myth exists in many cultures, which interpreted it in various ways, for example as a path on which heavenly beings walk joyfully. In fact, that feeling comes up in many places in the book of Genesis. And indeed, from my familiarity with you, you’ll answer me something like: “There are several explanations, and I don’t care which one is correct; the main thing is that there is an explanation.” But we need to examine how plausible the answers are. Even if logically the answers are wonderful, is it plausible that this was the author’s intent? Isn’t it more plausible that the intent of the author of the Torah was myth? In other words, the answers are “defensible” but not “true.” Really, this emphasis should be asked even more forcefully about all the allegory that rationalists use to explain the stories of the Garden of Eden, the flood, creation, and many other places. Excuses are excuses. Logically everything is fine. But is it plausible? It seems more plausible that the flood really happened throughout the whole world, and that “dust from the ground” is dust from the ground, and so on and so on. And in short: if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Doesn’t this greatly undermine the reliability of the Torah? What do you say?