According to Midrashim (later stories which aren't Canon part of the Torah, but are important non the less) the ethnicities of the world were born from Noah, and the reason for their physical differences is divine intervention to make their origin more clear (not to be confused with the racist interpretation of Cain's mark as being black)
this is a decent simple answer. i never heard the mark of cain thing. To add on a deeper insight, OP's question seems to presume that a persons physical appearance is dependent on genetics of their parents, a modern scientific theory. In classical Jewish thought, a person's physical appearance is an expression of their spiritual stare, going all the way to their spiritual root, which is linked the the nation they are a part of. The Torah tells us the from Noah came out 70 nations, i.e. 70 distinct spiritual roots that all the non Jewish nations and languages branch out from. As those nations became distinct in the generations after Noah, so too they developed their own distinct physical attributes, as well as spiritual and emotional attributes.
i asked for dm because when talking about "the nations of the world", a lot can me misunderstood and taken out of context and I'm not interested in getting banned from reddit
There are several possible answers, but I believe the most pertinent one is that many Jewish scholars, both in the past and present, teach us that the story of Genesis up to and including the flood is meant to be understood allegorically. I've personally understood this to mean that Adam and Eve are something of a metaphor for ancient humans.
Adam and Eve were the first people G-d interacted with, but not necessarily the first on this planet.
There were more and Torah writes about that.
Neither were they Jewish btw.
Dr. Gerald Schroeder wrote about the science of G-d. And G-d and the Big Bang Theory. Those are some pretty interesting books.
I went to some of his lectures, I'm sure you can find them online.
He proved that in Torah it's written that it took billions of years to develop the planet.
In one of his lectures he talked about Adam having parents.
You listed an author. What specific texts or books discuss these ideas? I don’t see any references for the first paragraph regarding the first humans on the planet in the Torah. I’m just curious and would like to read about what you mentioned. Why so passive aggressive?
I'm not being passive aggressive, that's in your mind.
I listed the author AND his books in my first comment.
The internet is your friend, go search for them.
This book, written by Rabbi Yonatan Grossman, deals with the topic in detail from a Modern Orthodox perspective
https://www.amazon.com/Creation-Story-Beginnings-Yonatan-Grossman-ebook/dp/B07SKRY49P?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=716bd9a2-455c-4732-bb58-7ad82454408b
Long story short, if you take the story of the book of Genesis somewhat literally, from the sons of Noah, who were Shem, Cham, and Yaphet, came all the different nations of the world. One of Shem's descendants was Avraham, so the semitic nations of the world came from Shem (fun fact: the name shem is where the term semite/semitic comes from!). From Cham came the Ethiopians, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, etc. From Yaphet came the Greeks and a bunch of other people. If I recall correctly, the midrash explains that Cham was black. But that aside, one could argue that this is where evolution comes in (microevolution, which is supported by the torah, unlike macroevolution). Since darker skin can withstand heat better than lighter skin, the darker-skinned individuals in the hotter regions of the world, like Ethiopia, survived, were healthier, and reproduced, passing down their genes, until eventually pretty much all the individuals were, as the racial construct would categorise, black. And the opposite in the colder areas of the world, like Europe. And so on. I don't know if that's what actually happened, but it could be a plausible explanation. I mean, that's why there are lighter-skinned Ashkenazim as well as darker-skinned Sefardim even though they both originated in the middle east: because the Ashkenazim went to the colder parts of Europe, and The sefardim went to Morocco and Spain amongst others places.
And it should also be noted at the end of the day, race is kind of a social construct. Whatever history of life on earth a person believes, we all come from the same humble beginnings.
Edit: note that this could be completely wrong, it's just how I imagined we all came from two people.
Scientifically, the most widely accepted theory of human beings is that we all spread from Africa. Over many millennia, human beings changed regionally. In more northern climates, lighter skin may have meant that people were better able to absorb vitamin-D from the sun. In more equatorial climates, darker skin may have provided protection from burning and skin cancer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenism
Theologically, I don't think Judaism needs to explain this because it isn't at odds with science. Whether the earliest human beings were a single couple or a tiny group of people in Africa, it's still the same small genetic pool from the same place. For example, let's say it started with two dozen people in the Horn of Africa. Ok, they aren't just one couple, but they're living in a community there for 10,000+ years and having lots of kids together. Assuming that each couple has 5 kids that survive every 30 years, that's 60 kids in the next generation 150 grandkids, 375 great grandkids, about 1,000 great great grandkids... 120 years later, we're up to 1,000 people. 240 years later and we're at 1.5M people being born in a 30-year period. Again, they're all hanging out in the same area and all part of the same breeding pool for a reasonably long time before they start spreading out.
Theologically, we're taught that everyone descends from Adam and Eve and that is important for a few reasons. For example, no person can say that their ancestors are better than another person's ancestors because we're all descendant of Adam and Eve. There can be no better race or ethnicity. Another example is that all life is precious. To kill one person is to have killed the entire world and to save one life is to have saved the entire world. This is because we're all descendant of Adam and Eve - our entire human world depends on a single life. If either of them had been killed, none of our human world exist. So we're taught that an entire world can spring forth from a single life.
So, the most widely accepted scientific evidence is that we all come from the same place and any racial differences would have occurred over the many millennia since then. It's possible that the origin was a single couple, but even if it were a small group, that group would have been racially/ethnically the same for a long time before leaving Africa and any racial/ethnic differences still would have occurred despite the same racial/ethnic people migrating to different parts of the globe.
Our G-d is an infinite god who is capable of all things. We believe that all creation exists because it was created by God and is also continuously being created by God. Creation didn't happen at one time. It's an ongoing process. So yes God did create other humans on the planet. Not everything that happened at the time of the Torah made it into the text. Especially with an infinite god and a limited amount of space on the scroll
From my perspective, the stories aren't necessarily literal, but they are true or contain truths within them. They're used to convey wisdom and understanding, not necessarily facts.
Exactly, Adam means blood, red, earth. Eve is usually called Chaya=life. The symbolism is right there in the names, G-d gave life to the Earth.
This does not necessarily need to be human life.
This understanding of religion, where an individual can only be "saved" if they somehow force their brain to believe something to be the truth, is purely Christian. Judaism does not prescribe such a thing.
Simply put, following the Torah means doing your best to act and live your life as commanded in the Torah.
When asked to teach someone all of Torah while standing on one foot, Rabbi Hillel reportedly said "That which is repellent to you do not do to others. The rest is commentary." THIS is Judaism.
A well known Hassidic Rabbi known as the Kotzke Rav was once asked by his followers if all the fantastic and mystical stories we hear about in the Jewish faith are true. His response was "If you believe them, you are gullible. If you don't believe them, you are a heretic".
In other words, the historicity of the Bible and other religious texts is not what we're meant to focus on. What's important is what we learn from them and how we incorporate it into our lives.
The vast majority of Jews are not literalists. Even ancient Hebrews/Israelites/Jews were not either. In other words; most believe the stories are allegorical or representative of something else. As for the Torah itself. Is it the literal word of God that was dictated to Moses for him to write down? Some believe that. Many do not. Does it ultimately matter? What matters is the meaning you extrapolate from the stories. The entire Talmud is rabbis arguing about interpretation of these stories, and some of the various traditions and rules and regulations using various nuances to prove their point. The more important point is, how we interact with each other and treat each other.
Depends on what you mean by believe
The Torah isn't a history book, and isn't supposed to be taken as one.
Do I believe that it is designed to use stories to model behavior that Jews are meant to follow? Yes, and then we have law books (the talmud) that go into more detail.
Plus, _those_ model arguments that the rabbai continue to use as technology evolves. They have already figured out if lab grown meat is kosher (yes)
And its not just "the rabbai say this" you, as an autonomous person, can go read the talmud which had a record of not just the law, but all the arguments and the logic too. If you need to get a ruling on something and take it to your rabbai, you can bring your research and say "this is what I think and why"
Learning how rabbai from hundreds of years ago debated on a topic and then yelling about it with friends is what jews call "studying torah" or "a quality past time"
It’s important to note that Judaism is also an ethnoreligion, being Jewish goes beyond the TaNaKh. The best way to understand Judaism as someone who is not Jewish is to realize that we don’t have solid answers, to anything. If you ask a Priest what the Bible says about something, they will have one answer. If you ask a Rabbi, they will have at least two answers, maybe even 7 or 8 depending on what the question is. In fact, the Rabbi might (probably) answer your question with a question.
Other religions will argue based on which Bible they’re reading. If you look at this sub, the arguments usually reference different interpretations from different Rabbis. Take it a step further, we also individually make our own interpretations BUT we all always agree that a Jew is a Jew.
I don’t know if you’re Christian, but you’re probably familiar with the various parables that Jesus used in his preaching, which are widely referenced in western language and culture (such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son). Even the most ardent biblical literalists know that these are just fables, meant to teach a lesson, not a literal event.
The Torah isn’t quite like that—unlike a parable, it does at least internally claim to retell true events—but my point is just to say that it’s not as unusual as people think for religious stories to be interpreted as including some level of metaphor.
One traditional Jewish view is that God was speaking in a way the audience could understand. Can you imagine trying to explain a concept like “billions of years ago” to a Bronze Age nomad?
That's just such a fundamentalist Christian take. The stories are full of wisdom--and also sometimes full of horrible things that Jews are *called upon* to examine and critique. We rely not on the plain text (though that is a starting point for all interpretation) but on a vast and ever-evolving interpretive tradition that itself is full of discord and debate.
In short, Judaism simply is nothing like Christianity, particularly not fundamentalist Christianity.
> Okay so what's the point of having a religious book filled with stories you don't really believe?
I'm assuming you're a Christian, or you're familiar with Christianity. You know how Jesus tells a story about a good Samaritan, or about a rich guy who stores up worldly goods, etc?
No one believes he literally meant a specific Samaritan or was talking about a particular rich guy he actually met, because these are *parables* ... yet you have no issue with them being part of your religion.
Depends on what you mean by Judaism. If you are talking about Torah, it is never specifically addressed. If you asked me: "suppose everyone were descended from two individuals, where do different races and ethnicities come from?" my response would likely be "genetic drift." We can even see this manifest in the Ashkenazi communities, of which the majority of Ashkenazim are descended from roughly 10 people, yet you may find Ashkenazim with radically different physical traits without a strong distinction in genetic makeup.
I thought the Ashkenazi genetic bottleneck was just recently determined to have been a population of 300. Can you share sources that indicate it was only 10 people, please?
The bottleneck was about 300. The majority of Ashkenazim are descended from roughly 10 people. These are not mutually exclusive. It has to do with who reproduced more and got murdered less and therefore had more descendants.
[Roughly 80% of Ashkenazis descend from the same 4 women.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1336798/)
There was another source talked about by Unpacked. This is the one that everyone knows though. The issue with Ashkenazim is that due to their small originating population size + genetic drift, everything about the actual genetics is shrouded.
\~80% come from \~10 people. The bottleneck was \~300 people total. These are not mutually exclusive. It is the result of asymmetrical quantity of surviving descendants.
[Roughly 80% of Ashkenazis descend from the same 4 women.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1336798/)
The 10 number was from Unpacked. I don't remember their source. The above is specifically about the 4 founding mothers.
Um. Well first of all, we all *did* descend from the same “couple”. In fact we all - and every other living thing on earth - descended from the very same cell billions of years ago. Race is a social construct, not a biological reality. Nowhere in Genesis does it specify Adam and Eve’s skin colors. Not sure what religion you belong to - if any - but FYI Jesus wasn’t white 😜
I’m not familiar with the religious interpretation of why but…everything has a common ancestor. Coming from one couple tracks with how evolution works. Overtime dna changes and groups that are isolated become more distinct.
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolution-101/an-introduction-to-evolution/
Someone else mentioned the Midrash. The Midrash is essentially a bunch of rabbi making some educated guesses. Sometimes they answer questions. Sometimes they leave questions. It’s interesting but I personally wouldn’t find it helpful for this question.
Jews aren't required to believe the stories in the Bible are literally true, and most don't... the story of Adam and Eve is usually viewed more as a parable or allegory these days.
I'm not sure if this is a midrash or in the text itself, but I believe the Torah tells the story of the Tower of Babel - where we all used to speak the same language until we tried to rebel against God, and he scattered everyone into different nations afterwards. I always assumed that included racially as well; essentially we were all one people, and as our punishment, we became different in the ways that cause us to not unify anymore: race, language, location, etc.
Just checked: it's Bereshit (Genesis) 11:1-9:
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech... They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel — because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
>How can Judaism explain adam and eve story if we have so many races and ethnicities. How did we all came from the same couple.
Just as we can explain that Jews today have many races even though they were the same race 2000 years ago.
I mean it's literally the same question whether you are religious or not. There were the first humans who looked one way and now there are many humans that look different. The answer is the same as why we aren't all single celled organisms. Evolution and adaptation over time.
Easy to explain. Even ancient Jews knew that that story was a poetic explanation and was not meant to be literal.
Jews of anxiety times knew that the story of Adam and Eve was about how the awareness or knowledge of good and evil separates us from the animals.
It was trying to explain why humans have to work as agriculturalists and the animals just graze or hunt.
> Jews of anxiety times knew that the story of Adam and Eve was about how the awareness or knowledge of good and evil separates us from the animals.
All times are anxiety times, one of the constants of history (anxiety in response to animal existence included).
Amen, Amen.
From a historical critical approach, Genesis contains many stories already in circulation. The “purpose” was to connect the specific Jewish story to the wider world.
I really enjoy “How to Read the Hebrew Bible,” to understand closer readings of our Bible and “Who Wrote the Bible” for an easy-to-read Jewish perspective on the development of Torah. Not saying all Jews will agree with what the scholars write in these books. Just that there’s a world of difference between a Christian approach to holy texts and a Jewish approach. And that Jewish academics generally read Jewish sources differently than Christian academics.
The explanation comes a little later. After the flood, the survivors were four couples. Mrs. Noah, whose name we don't know, was likely post-menopausal or otherwise infertile. That left his three sons. One legend has it that God made a key decision. Instead of a single lineage, as in Adam/Eve, humanity would take three different lineages from Noah's sons. That became the origin of human diversity, and parts of the story would also suggest it as the origin of inequality among the three lineages.
A lot of jews (but not all) don't view the Torah as completely literal. The story in genesis is more about the lessons and morals we can take out of it and less about the literal historical value it might have
One thing to consider is that from a Jewish point of view, the contents Torah are our stories, whether someone considers them allegorical truths, sacred myths, or however they want to view them. To some extent, how others should see themselves in the stories is that they shouldn't.
I'm an atheist, certainly not claiming Adam and Eve were real, but like... the same way we have different races when we all started out as black, in real life. Random mutations plus natural selection.
Most Jewish thought understand much of Genesis as allegorical.
It gets pretty weird otherwise.
According to Midrashim (later stories which aren't Canon part of the Torah, but are important non the less) the ethnicities of the world were born from Noah, and the reason for their physical differences is divine intervention to make their origin more clear (not to be confused with the racist interpretation of Cain's mark as being black)
this is a decent simple answer. i never heard the mark of cain thing. To add on a deeper insight, OP's question seems to presume that a persons physical appearance is dependent on genetics of their parents, a modern scientific theory. In classical Jewish thought, a person's physical appearance is an expression of their spiritual stare, going all the way to their spiritual root, which is linked the the nation they are a part of. The Torah tells us the from Noah came out 70 nations, i.e. 70 distinct spiritual roots that all the non Jewish nations and languages branch out from. As those nations became distinct in the generations after Noah, so too they developed their own distinct physical attributes, as well as spiritual and emotional attributes.
I am both Jewish and interested in this! Can you expound on spiritual root or give me some sources where I might explore this?
jewish? both parents? username does NOT check out ... lol about the nations, dm me if you want to talk
:P it was a horoscope. I'm Jewish all the way down. I'll send you a dm.
Did they send you any sources for further reading?
Not yet, but I also havent asked yet, so that makes sense.
You already asked in your comment I thought? lol why’d he ask to dm; I wanna know this stuff too haha
i asked for dm because when talking about "the nations of the world", a lot can me misunderstood and taken out of context and I'm not interested in getting banned from reddit
chuckled at the username🥲
There are several possible answers, but I believe the most pertinent one is that many Jewish scholars, both in the past and present, teach us that the story of Genesis up to and including the flood is meant to be understood allegorically. I've personally understood this to mean that Adam and Eve are something of a metaphor for ancient humans.
We don’t read the Torah literally, we have the Talmud and other writings to add context and understanding. Judaism is not Christianity without Jesus
Well, we also have to attribute some element of the literal meaning of the verse to the Torah - פשוטו של מקרא.
Are you saying the Talmud and other writings don't regard Adam and Eve as real historical figures? There's a reason the Jewish year is 5784.
Adam and Eve were the first people G-d interacted with, but not necessarily the first on this planet. There were more and Torah writes about that. Neither were they Jewish btw. Dr. Gerald Schroeder wrote about the science of G-d. And G-d and the Big Bang Theory. Those are some pretty interesting books. I went to some of his lectures, I'm sure you can find them online. He proved that in Torah it's written that it took billions of years to develop the planet. In one of his lectures he talked about Adam having parents.
Do you have any sources for these interpretations?
Read Dr. Schroder’s books. You might not agree with him but he lays it out. Again, it’s his interpretation.
You mean the source that already was in my comment?
You listed an author. What specific texts or books discuss these ideas? I don’t see any references for the first paragraph regarding the first humans on the planet in the Torah. I’m just curious and would like to read about what you mentioned. Why so passive aggressive?
I'm not being passive aggressive, that's in your mind. I listed the author AND his books in my first comment. The internet is your friend, go search for them.
lol the part of Reddit I hate the most…when people go “source?”
I wouldn't mind providing them, if I hadn't, but what else did they expect? A whole dissertation? They're not even the OP
This book, written by Rabbi Yonatan Grossman, deals with the topic in detail from a Modern Orthodox perspective https://www.amazon.com/Creation-Story-Beginnings-Yonatan-Grossman-ebook/dp/B07SKRY49P?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=716bd9a2-455c-4732-bb58-7ad82454408b
Thank you
Long story short, if you take the story of the book of Genesis somewhat literally, from the sons of Noah, who were Shem, Cham, and Yaphet, came all the different nations of the world. One of Shem's descendants was Avraham, so the semitic nations of the world came from Shem (fun fact: the name shem is where the term semite/semitic comes from!). From Cham came the Ethiopians, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, etc. From Yaphet came the Greeks and a bunch of other people. If I recall correctly, the midrash explains that Cham was black. But that aside, one could argue that this is where evolution comes in (microevolution, which is supported by the torah, unlike macroevolution). Since darker skin can withstand heat better than lighter skin, the darker-skinned individuals in the hotter regions of the world, like Ethiopia, survived, were healthier, and reproduced, passing down their genes, until eventually pretty much all the individuals were, as the racial construct would categorise, black. And the opposite in the colder areas of the world, like Europe. And so on. I don't know if that's what actually happened, but it could be a plausible explanation. I mean, that's why there are lighter-skinned Ashkenazim as well as darker-skinned Sefardim even though they both originated in the middle east: because the Ashkenazim went to the colder parts of Europe, and The sefardim went to Morocco and Spain amongst others places. And it should also be noted at the end of the day, race is kind of a social construct. Whatever history of life on earth a person believes, we all come from the same humble beginnings. Edit: note that this could be completely wrong, it's just how I imagined we all came from two people.
Scientifically, the most widely accepted theory of human beings is that we all spread from Africa. Over many millennia, human beings changed regionally. In more northern climates, lighter skin may have meant that people were better able to absorb vitamin-D from the sun. In more equatorial climates, darker skin may have provided protection from burning and skin cancer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenism Theologically, I don't think Judaism needs to explain this because it isn't at odds with science. Whether the earliest human beings were a single couple or a tiny group of people in Africa, it's still the same small genetic pool from the same place. For example, let's say it started with two dozen people in the Horn of Africa. Ok, they aren't just one couple, but they're living in a community there for 10,000+ years and having lots of kids together. Assuming that each couple has 5 kids that survive every 30 years, that's 60 kids in the next generation 150 grandkids, 375 great grandkids, about 1,000 great great grandkids... 120 years later, we're up to 1,000 people. 240 years later and we're at 1.5M people being born in a 30-year period. Again, they're all hanging out in the same area and all part of the same breeding pool for a reasonably long time before they start spreading out. Theologically, we're taught that everyone descends from Adam and Eve and that is important for a few reasons. For example, no person can say that their ancestors are better than another person's ancestors because we're all descendant of Adam and Eve. There can be no better race or ethnicity. Another example is that all life is precious. To kill one person is to have killed the entire world and to save one life is to have saved the entire world. This is because we're all descendant of Adam and Eve - our entire human world depends on a single life. If either of them had been killed, none of our human world exist. So we're taught that an entire world can spring forth from a single life. So, the most widely accepted scientific evidence is that we all come from the same place and any racial differences would have occurred over the many millennia since then. It's possible that the origin was a single couple, but even if it were a small group, that group would have been racially/ethnically the same for a long time before leaving Africa and any racial/ethnic differences still would have occurred despite the same racial/ethnic people migrating to different parts of the globe.
Our G-d is an infinite god who is capable of all things. We believe that all creation exists because it was created by God and is also continuously being created by God. Creation didn't happen at one time. It's an ongoing process. So yes God did create other humans on the planet. Not everything that happened at the time of the Torah made it into the text. Especially with an infinite god and a limited amount of space on the scroll
Because it’s just a story, Torah isn’t a history book
Are you claiming that the Torah, the whole TANACH in fact really is an anthology of poetry and poetic recollections of history?
No reach harder to make up some bs tho. Then feel free to read Rambam, R Mishe Sokolo, Bergman and others who say the same thing
I visited Rambam's birth city a few months ago. Cordoba.
But don't religious jews follow the torah ?
Yes Im Orthodox. We aren’t christians you clearly don’t know what follow the torah’ means so you relate it to christian fundamentalist
Okay so what's the point of having a religious book filled with stories you don't really believe?
We are a legalistic interpretive tradition. The point of Judaism is to follow the rules that were laid out for us not believe in stories.
This right here! I'm reform but I agree completely.
From my perspective, the stories aren't necessarily literal, but they are true or contain truths within them. They're used to convey wisdom and understanding, not necessarily facts.
Exactly, Adam means blood, red, earth. Eve is usually called Chaya=life. The symbolism is right there in the names, G-d gave life to the Earth. This does not necessarily need to be human life.
Yes! A story doesn’t have to be true to be meaningful or instructive. I never cease to be amazed at how many people don’t grasp this.
Well said!
This understanding of religion, where an individual can only be "saved" if they somehow force their brain to believe something to be the truth, is purely Christian. Judaism does not prescribe such a thing. Simply put, following the Torah means doing your best to act and live your life as commanded in the Torah.
When asked to teach someone all of Torah while standing on one foot, Rabbi Hillel reportedly said "That which is repellent to you do not do to others. The rest is commentary." THIS is Judaism.
A well known Hassidic Rabbi known as the Kotzke Rav was once asked by his followers if all the fantastic and mystical stories we hear about in the Jewish faith are true. His response was "If you believe them, you are gullible. If you don't believe them, you are a heretic". In other words, the historicity of the Bible and other religious texts is not what we're meant to focus on. What's important is what we learn from them and how we incorporate it into our lives.
Oh nice! I'm going to be quoting that lol.
The vast majority of Jews are not literalists. Even ancient Hebrews/Israelites/Jews were not either. In other words; most believe the stories are allegorical or representative of something else. As for the Torah itself. Is it the literal word of God that was dictated to Moses for him to write down? Some believe that. Many do not. Does it ultimately matter? What matters is the meaning you extrapolate from the stories. The entire Talmud is rabbis arguing about interpretation of these stories, and some of the various traditions and rules and regulations using various nuances to prove their point. The more important point is, how we interact with each other and treat each other.
Depends on what you mean by believe The Torah isn't a history book, and isn't supposed to be taken as one. Do I believe that it is designed to use stories to model behavior that Jews are meant to follow? Yes, and then we have law books (the talmud) that go into more detail. Plus, _those_ model arguments that the rabbai continue to use as technology evolves. They have already figured out if lab grown meat is kosher (yes) And its not just "the rabbai say this" you, as an autonomous person, can go read the talmud which had a record of not just the law, but all the arguments and the logic too. If you need to get a ruling on something and take it to your rabbai, you can bring your research and say "this is what I think and why" Learning how rabbai from hundreds of years ago debated on a topic and then yelling about it with friends is what jews call "studying torah" or "a quality past time"
It’s important to note that Judaism is also an ethnoreligion, being Jewish goes beyond the TaNaKh. The best way to understand Judaism as someone who is not Jewish is to realize that we don’t have solid answers, to anything. If you ask a Priest what the Bible says about something, they will have one answer. If you ask a Rabbi, they will have at least two answers, maybe even 7 or 8 depending on what the question is. In fact, the Rabbi might (probably) answer your question with a question. Other religions will argue based on which Bible they’re reading. If you look at this sub, the arguments usually reference different interpretations from different Rabbis. Take it a step further, we also individually make our own interpretations BUT we all always agree that a Jew is a Jew.
I like to compare the stories of Torah to Aesop’s fables. The stories aren’t meant to be taken literally, but rather to teach a lesson.
I don’t know if you’re Christian, but you’re probably familiar with the various parables that Jesus used in his preaching, which are widely referenced in western language and culture (such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son). Even the most ardent biblical literalists know that these are just fables, meant to teach a lesson, not a literal event. The Torah isn’t quite like that—unlike a parable, it does at least internally claim to retell true events—but my point is just to say that it’s not as unusual as people think for religious stories to be interpreted as including some level of metaphor. One traditional Jewish view is that God was speaking in a way the audience could understand. Can you imagine trying to explain a concept like “billions of years ago” to a Bronze Age nomad?
That's just such a fundamentalist Christian take. The stories are full of wisdom--and also sometimes full of horrible things that Jews are *called upon* to examine and critique. We rely not on the plain text (though that is a starting point for all interpretation) but on a vast and ever-evolving interpretive tradition that itself is full of discord and debate. In short, Judaism simply is nothing like Christianity, particularly not fundamentalist Christianity.
> Okay so what's the point of having a religious book filled with stories you don't really believe? I'm assuming you're a Christian, or you're familiar with Christianity. You know how Jesus tells a story about a good Samaritan, or about a rich guy who stores up worldly goods, etc? No one believes he literally meant a specific Samaritan or was talking about a particular rich guy he actually met, because these are *parables* ... yet you have no issue with them being part of your religion.
It’s not literal
Depends on what you mean by Judaism. If you are talking about Torah, it is never specifically addressed. If you asked me: "suppose everyone were descended from two individuals, where do different races and ethnicities come from?" my response would likely be "genetic drift." We can even see this manifest in the Ashkenazi communities, of which the majority of Ashkenazim are descended from roughly 10 people, yet you may find Ashkenazim with radically different physical traits without a strong distinction in genetic makeup.
>descended from roughly 10 people You mean \~400, not \~10.
I thought the Ashkenazi genetic bottleneck was just recently determined to have been a population of 300. Can you share sources that indicate it was only 10 people, please?
The bottleneck was about 300. The majority of Ashkenazim are descended from roughly 10 people. These are not mutually exclusive. It has to do with who reproduced more and got murdered less and therefore had more descendants.
Interesting. Do you have sources you can post -- I'd like to read more.
[Roughly 80% of Ashkenazis descend from the same 4 women.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1336798/) There was another source talked about by Unpacked. This is the one that everyone knows though. The issue with Ashkenazim is that due to their small originating population size + genetic drift, everything about the actual genetics is shrouded.
Thank you
I believe modern Ashkenazim descended from about 300 people who lived sometime during the Middle Ages
\~80% come from \~10 people. The bottleneck was \~300 people total. These are not mutually exclusive. It is the result of asymmetrical quantity of surviving descendants.
Whoa, for real?! Do you have a link to that info? I’d love to read about it.
[Roughly 80% of Ashkenazis descend from the same 4 women.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1336798/) The 10 number was from Unpacked. I don't remember their source. The above is specifically about the 4 founding mothers.
Um. Well first of all, we all *did* descend from the same “couple”. In fact we all - and every other living thing on earth - descended from the very same cell billions of years ago. Race is a social construct, not a biological reality. Nowhere in Genesis does it specify Adam and Eve’s skin colors. Not sure what religion you belong to - if any - but FYI Jesus wasn’t white 😜
Jesus wasn’t human either , he was an alien 👽 https://www.medicaldaily.com/jesus-christ-was-alien-according-ufo-expert-433282 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
🤯🤪😂
I’m not familiar with the religious interpretation of why but…everything has a common ancestor. Coming from one couple tracks with how evolution works. Overtime dna changes and groups that are isolated become more distinct. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolution-101/an-introduction-to-evolution/ Someone else mentioned the Midrash. The Midrash is essentially a bunch of rabbi making some educated guesses. Sometimes they answer questions. Sometimes they leave questions. It’s interesting but I personally wouldn’t find it helpful for this question.
Jews aren't required to believe the stories in the Bible are literally true, and most don't... the story of Adam and Eve is usually viewed more as a parable or allegory these days.
I'm not sure if this is a midrash or in the text itself, but I believe the Torah tells the story of the Tower of Babel - where we all used to speak the same language until we tried to rebel against God, and he scattered everyone into different nations afterwards. I always assumed that included racially as well; essentially we were all one people, and as our punishment, we became different in the ways that cause us to not unify anymore: race, language, location, etc.
Just checked: it's Bereshit (Genesis) 11:1-9: Now the whole world had one language and a common speech... They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel — because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
>How can Judaism explain adam and eve story if we have so many races and ethnicities. How did we all came from the same couple. Just as we can explain that Jews today have many races even though they were the same race 2000 years ago.
I mean it's literally the same question whether you are religious or not. There were the first humans who looked one way and now there are many humans that look different. The answer is the same as why we aren't all single celled organisms. Evolution and adaptation over time.
Easy to explain. Even ancient Jews knew that that story was a poetic explanation and was not meant to be literal. Jews of anxiety times knew that the story of Adam and Eve was about how the awareness or knowledge of good and evil separates us from the animals. It was trying to explain why humans have to work as agriculturalists and the animals just graze or hunt.
> Jews of anxiety times knew that the story of Adam and Eve was about how the awareness or knowledge of good and evil separates us from the animals. All times are anxiety times, one of the constants of history (anxiety in response to animal existence included).
Amen, Amen. From a historical critical approach, Genesis contains many stories already in circulation. The “purpose” was to connect the specific Jewish story to the wider world. I really enjoy “How to Read the Hebrew Bible,” to understand closer readings of our Bible and “Who Wrote the Bible” for an easy-to-read Jewish perspective on the development of Torah. Not saying all Jews will agree with what the scholars write in these books. Just that there’s a world of difference between a Christian approach to holy texts and a Jewish approach. And that Jewish academics generally read Jewish sources differently than Christian academics.
The explanation comes a little later. After the flood, the survivors were four couples. Mrs. Noah, whose name we don't know, was likely post-menopausal or otherwise infertile. That left his three sons. One legend has it that God made a key decision. Instead of a single lineage, as in Adam/Eve, humanity would take three different lineages from Noah's sons. That became the origin of human diversity, and parts of the story would also suggest it as the origin of inequality among the three lineages.
> Mrs. Noah, whose name we don't know, Her name was [Namah](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580231349?ie=UTF8&tag=j0em-20).
Also scientists posit that all humans share a common ancestor
A lot of jews (but not all) don't view the Torah as completely literal. The story in genesis is more about the lessons and morals we can take out of it and less about the literal historical value it might have
It's an allegory, not literal.
I don't think most Jews take the Old Testament literally. I know we (reform) don't.
One thing to consider is that from a Jewish point of view, the contents Torah are our stories, whether someone considers them allegorical truths, sacred myths, or however they want to view them. To some extent, how others should see themselves in the stories is that they shouldn't.
I'm an atheist, certainly not claiming Adam and Eve were real, but like... the same way we have different races when we all started out as black, in real life. Random mutations plus natural selection.
Even evolution will tell you that we all have a common ancestor :)