The Book of Genesis in Light of Climate Change

The Gaza War has captured Israel’s headlines these past two years. America, meanwhile has its own internal “fighting” (ICE anti-immigration raids, National Guards “invading” Democratic cities, etc.). Unfortunately, all this has diverted our attention from this century’s biggest story.

Climate change should be THE hot topic (pun intended), especially because it isn’t only a matter of contemporary concern.

In fact, humanity has been through climate devastation before; surprisingly we can get a clear (albeit indirect) picture from a surprising source: the Bible! As the Torah cycle starts anew this shabbat, it is worth looking at some of the main events in the Book of Genesis from the perspective of climate change.

This is not to suggest that all the details of each story are true. Maimonides noted that many biblical stories are to be viewed as metaphor e.g., each “Day” of Creation should be understood as an “eon” of unknown actual length. However, the Bible is not a confabulation: each story is an “echo” of true historical events or trends in the distant past. In the case of Genesis, those “trends” had to do with extreme fluctuations in climate. Here are three such examples, each with a contemporary lesson.

1) A significant increase in sea levels when the Ice Age ended around 15,000 years ago and the vast icebergs that had covered most of the world started melting (a process that took a few thousand years). This led to a dramatic rise in sea levels, over time forcing peoples living along coastal waters (where fish were so plentiful that fishing was hardly “work”) to move very large distances inland, far away from their homes – eventually having to work harder for their sustenance through hunting and gathering.

Does this sound vaguely familiar? The Genesis story of Adam & Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden (quite similar in broad outlines to other civilizations from that early period) is a reflection of that traumatic time of exile from their “Edenic” state of life, now having to work by “the sweat of their brow,” as Genesis puts it. Indeed, the two new types of work are right there in Genesis as well: Cain’s agriculture and Abel’s herding.

2) Severe climate fluctuations occurred between 3600 and 2800 BCE. with droughts and floods, leading to the development of large irrigation and drainage systems. Nevertheless, even these couldn’t contain the waters when approximately in 2900 B.C.E. the Middle East was inundated with extreme flooding. This was probably the basis the Noah’s Ark story found first in a Sumerian legend, then in a Babylonian account called the Epic of Gilgamesh, and finally the Genesis version that we all grew up on.

3) During the entire century starting around 2200 BCE, severe drought seems to have caused the collapse of Egypt’s Old Kingdom (as well as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia). We do not know who survived this (and how), but it might well have been the basis for the narrative of Viceroy Joseph saving Egypt from “seven years of famine.” Indeed, for Egyptians such an elevation of a foreigner to become the right-hand man of Pharaoh was highly unusual for that xenophobic civilization. However, the entire story provides a clue: there was a severe drought in Canaan as well (Jacob had to send his sons to Egypt for food), so that Joseph as a youngster in Canaan might have understood the signs for an upcoming drought in Egypt as well i.e., able to “interpret” Pharaoh’s dreams.

Of course, climate change continued to impact human civilization for millennia thereafter. One particular climate disaster might well have changed the course of Jewish history in the late Middle Ages. A short Ice Age in China from 1315–1317 led to the “Great Famine” and somewhat later in 1332 to massive floods that drowned more than 7 million people along the Yellow River. In fact, so many Chinese died that in many places no one was left to bury the bodies. This enabled the rat population to soar, and they carried the fleas that harbored the bubonic plague.
The Black Death eventually reached Europe in 1348-51, decimating the continent’s inhabitants – between a third to a half of the entire continent’s population perished. As a result, the Catholic Church lost tremendous support, doubly: first in severe membership decimation, and second because “prayer” didn’t help save entire families and parishes, leading to declining belief.

As a result, anti-Semitism in Europe increased significantly during the second half of that century – in part to shore up support for Catholicism by scapegoating the Jews for causing the plague (indeed, Jewish death rates were lower, but that was due to far better hygiene habits e.g., washing hands before each meal etc.). The Jews were first slaughtered in Toledo, Spain, in 1355. In Burgos, Jews were saddled with huge taxes and those who couldn’t pay were enslaved and sold off in 1366. Twenty-five years later, hundreds of Jews were murdered in Seville, their houses ransacked, and their synagogues converted into churches. And in the next century, matters only got worse for the Jews (e.g., the Spanish Inquisition).

So if you don’t think that climate change on the other side of the globe doesn’t affect you – think again!

Are we living through the same sort of climate disasters today? Significant climate change – yes; same sort – no. The difference is that those earlier disasters were all “natural” (caused by Nature), whereas our climate change is anthropical – caused almost exclusively by humanity. Thus, the stories in Genesis provide us with an important message: climate change almost always has severe negative consequences, but such disasters couldn’t be avoided. However, if we disregard the problem today then we are double guilty: for causing it, and for ignoring what we’re doing to bring it about.

We could surely use more Josephs today in leadership positions….