Bible Stories: Fact or Fiction

A sometimes perplexing question among church members is whether Bible stories are literal or figurative, fact or fiction? Answers among scholars and Christians in general, run from verbatim acceptance of all biblical scripture as fact, to the minimalist approach that nearly all of it is allegory and therefore, unauthentic.

Some Mormons mistakenly feel there’s a requirement to view stories like Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel, and even Adam and Eve as completely literal. This sometimes creates a personal dissonance for them when seemingly implausible accounts are presented in Sunday School as fact. Many receive these stories with a raised eyebrow but choose to stay silent about their misgivings in order not to rock the boat.

But because such uncertainty is a source of doubt that can grow and fester, it’s important to understand that there is room in Mormonism for a figurative interpretation of biblical writings. It’s an individual choice. Even the Church’s official website states: “There is a broad range of approaches within the vast mosaic of biblical interpretation.”

Clear cut answers are difficult to attain because of contradictions in the archeological record, and because we don’t know the intent of ancient authors or how the people of that time comprehended their writings. Additionally, ancient writers wrote down their stories according to their own understanding of the world around them.

What we do know according to Bible scholars is that common to all ancient texts are “etiological legends.” These are stories and myths used to explain how something came to be, or more importantly, teach some kind of moral principle. These etiological legends are always rich in symbolism, exaggerations of a real event, and include sketchy understandings of the facts.

Noah and the Flood

Take the story of Noah, for instance. There are a host of problems inherent in the literalist view, just a few of which include:

• Fifteen cubits of water, about 23 feet, could not possibly cover the whole earth as indicated in the Bible when the world’s mountains are all unequal.
• If all the world’s animals came from the ark, we wouldn’t find animals that are only indigenous to certain continents.
• There is not enough room on the earth’s crust to hold the amount of fossil carbon from the remains of all the organisms that lived together when they were supposedly decimated by the flood.

So what’s the answer? If your inclination is to land somewhere between purely figurative and completely literal, here is a solution in the middle of the road that makes some sense.

Many scholars believe the flood, while real, was actually limited to a local area rather than covering the whole planet. Understanding the meaning of certain Hebrew words bears this out.

In Hebrew, the word ‘earth’ means ‘land,’ and not ‘planet’ or ‘world.’ Even though in Genesis 4:14 we read that Cain complains of being driven “from the face of the earth,” he didn’t really go to a different planet but to a different land. In Hebrew, the word erets means land. Israel today is called Erets Yisrael, the Land of Israel.

Taken literally, when the Bible says that Noah took two of every ‘kind’ of animal into the ark, it would have included dangerous carnivores, making such a journey virtually impossible. The Hebrew says two of every behema; which means a dumb or mute animal like an ox, a cow, etc., or in other words, a domesticated animal. It doesn’t say that two or every Beiyr [wild beast] was taken aboard the ark. Domesticated animals were needed for food and clothing.

This interpretation of the account solves some of the problems inherent in the literalist view. Furthermore, a look at nature in the Mesopotamia area, now southern Iraq, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers join, shows that this region is prone to severe flooding. There is geographical evidence that flooding actually caused some major disruptions to ancient communities of people, who from their limited perspective could have thought a local deluge, appeared to be global.

Tower of Babel

The scriptures tell us that God confounded the languages so that they could not understand one another’s speech. Literalists would say there was an instantaneous change from one language to many among the people, and that the event happened exactly as recorded. But another approach is that the event did happen, but with the understanding that, as Hugh Nibley taught, the word, “confound” means to “mix together” or “pour together.”

He said, “The only way we can fail to understand our own words is to have words that are actually ours change their meaning among us,” and that would have to happen over time.

It’s possible that the confounding of tongues is a myth used to explain the divergence of languages. Within Judaism, the words Babylon or Mesopotamia were used to represent the wicked, and the word Zion to represent the righteous. The mythological erecting of a tower or temple to imitate God-like power would represent a false priesthood and a false temple of wicked people who opposed the true priesthood of God.

The fact that Ether also spoke of such a tower in the Book of Mormon from which the Jaredite nation sprang, tells us there were multi-generations of people [25 by some counts] handing down this very ancient story. Moroni, who along with Mormon abridged the story, would have been familiar with the brass plates where the story of the great tower was also recorded.

Church commentator Michael Ash explained, “Regardless of whether he [Moroni] abridged Mosiah the younger’s translation of Ether or if he retranslated and redacted Ether’s original record, it’s possible that he edited the text to fit his view and understanding of Jaredite origins from an Old Testament perspective.”

Adam and Eve

Church leaders have said that while the major events that took place in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden were real and did occur, many elements of the story are purely allegorical.

• Brigham Young said, “When you tell me that father Adam was made as we make adobes from the earth, you tell me what I deem an idle tale. . . . There is no such thing in all the eternities where the Gods dwell.”
• Spencer W. Kimball said, “The story of the rib, of course, is figurative.”
• Boyd K. Packer referred to the creation recorded in Genesis, the Book of Mormon, Moses, Abraham, and in the temple endowment this way: “We are told it is figurative insofar as the man and the woman are concerned.”

The story of Adam and Eve was plainly meant to teach us about God’s intentions for humanity, not about cosmology, anthropology, or biology. It is rich in symbolism depicting the first time a human, alive both spiritually and physically, responded to the moral principles within a divine law. Examples elsewhere in the Bible clearly depict the Garden of Eden in just that way.

In Ezekiel, for example, we are told that Assyria is a tree in the Garden of Eden:  Assyria “was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great. . . and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. . . . Nor any tree in the Garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. . . . All the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him” (Ezekiel 31:3-9). Because Assyria is not literally a tree, its reference to the Garden of Eden makes it a symbolic story, with the trees in the garden becoming symbols of the various nations God created.

Also in Ezekiel, God tells the king of Tyrus, “Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God” (Ezekiel 28:12-13). The king wasn’t literally in Eden, indicating it is a symbol for wisdom and perfection. In addition, the Tree of Life is mentioned many times in the scriptures but is always spoken of as a symbol of wisdom and understanding (Proverbs 3: 8, 13).

Gardens, trees, and fruit are common in the scriptures as symbols of knowledge sprouting up in the souls and minds of mankind. While Eden is a literal place, to Mormons it is also a garden of the soul, a spiritual state in which righteousness can grow in a person’s mind. The Garden of Eden is rich in symbolism and like humans, is both spiritual and physical.

Embracing the Purpose of Scripture Stories

Because the Church has not declared any particular doctrine on the matter of biblical allegory, we are left to find a balance in our own minds and hearts between some of the astounding and seemingly impossible stories found in holy writ and our faith and understanding that with God, all things are possible. But if we look at the overall purpose of the Bible permeating through every teaching and story, whether literal or allegorical, we conclude that its contents provide what God intended:  A pathway to Jesus Christ.

Apostle M. Russell Ballard, called the Bible the bedrock of all Christianity and one of the pillars of the Church. Furthermore, he described the preservation of the Bible’s 4,000 years of sacred and secular history as a miracle, in and of itself, one that has turned people to Christ for centuries.

When prophets of our day reference such stories as these, they only emphasize the messages they contain, not whether they are figurative or literal. Viewing stories in the Bible and even some in the Book of Mormon as inspired but figurative, doesn’t invalidate their teachings in the least. Remember that a hallmark of ancient writings is that they always contain elements of ancient mythology.

BYU English Professor and folklorist Eric Eliason summed it up well. He suggested that “if we want to recover the original meaning and purpose of biblical stories with etiological motifs, it is probably best not to discount the story of the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a morally insignificant tale of origins. Rather, every time we see a snake in all its slithery legless glory we might be prompted to remember the importance of resisting temptation and not seeking to thwart the plans of God.”