Camels in the book of Bereshit

Bereshit 12:16 records that Pharaoh gave camels to Avram (Avraham) as a present. Later when Avraham sent his servant to find a wife for Yitzhak, camels are mentioned repeatedly, 24:10-64. Yaakov also had camels, 30:43, 31:17,34, 32:8,16 and camels are referred to when the Yishmaelites took Yosef to Egypt, 37:25. All of these references to camels have been questioned since Albright (1960) claimed that the camel was only domesticated in the land of Israel around 1000-1100 BCE, long after the lives of the patriarchs. This claim has been buttressed by a study from Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef (2013) who using radiocarbon dating argue that the first significant appearance of camels in the Aravah Vallay (an area a little north of Eilat) was not earlier than the 10th century BCE. How could Avraham, his servant and Yaakov have had camels?

Before reviewing some of the evidence not referred to in the above studies, it should be mentioned that, as pointed out by Sarna (1989, p. 96), in the book of Bereshit, the camel is not the main animal used for travelling, but rather it was a sign of prestige, as for example Avraham’s servant took the camels to impress the family of the prospective bride to Yitzhak. In the book of Bereshit, when an animal is needed for regular work, then a donkey was used: Avraham travelled to the akedah with a donkey, 22:3, Yosef's brothers travelled with donkeys to Egypt, 42:26, and Yosef sent supplies to his father with donkeys, 45:23.

Landa (2016, p. 107) notes that if the camels were added anachronistically to the Torah, then one would certainly have expected camels to be referred to when the brothers went to Egypt to get supplies and when Yosef sent back supplies. One can add that when Avimelekh gives Avraham presents after abducting Sara, he gave sheep and oxen, but not camels, 22:14. Again if camels were added to the Torah anachronistically, then one would certainly have expected that Avimelekh would have given camels to Avraham just like Pharaoh had given camels to Avraham in similar circumstances. Landa also points out that horses are first mentioned in Egypt when the Egyptians were offering their animals to Yosef to get food, 47:17, but Pharaoh did not give Avraham horses since horses seem not to have yet arrived in Egypt. However, if one claims that camels were added to the Torah anachronistically, then why were horses not added as well?

What is the archeological evidence concerning camels? Bulliet (1975) has an extensive discussion on the history of the camel, and he discusses Albright’s dating of camels. Bulliet notes (pp. 45,56) that the camel was most likely in Somalia between the years 2500-1500 BCE, and "that the domestication process first got under way between 3000 and 2500 BCE,” which is before the time of Avraham. Furthermore, he notes (p. 60) that camel hair was found in a cord in an Egyptian gypsum work from around the year 2500 BCE. Also, a bronze figurine from before 2182 BCE which was on a foundation which had "strong Egyptian influence" appears to have a picture of a camel. In addition, he notes (p. 62) that there are drawings of camels on a pot found in Greece and on a seal found in Crete both of which date to around 1500 BCE. Furthermore, (p. 64) in a list of rations found in a northern Syria, Alalakh, from around the 18th century BCE there is a reference to food for camels. Bulliet concludes (p. 65):

The most satisfactory explanation of this circumstance is that the camel was known because it was brought into the area by traders carrying goods from southern Arabia but that it was not bred or herded in the area. It is worthy of note whereas the citations from the Bible associating camels with Abraham and his immediate descendants seem to fit the generalized pattern of later camel use in the area, they could also fit a pattern in which camels were very uncommon. The largest number of animals mentioned in those episodes is ten, and those ten are probably most of what Abraham had since they were sent with his servant with the apparent intention of creating a sufficiently wealthy impression to entice the father of a woman of good family into letting his daughter cross the desert to marry Isaac. No man, incidentally, is described as riding a camel, only women, who seem to have perched atop camp goods instead of riding in an enclosed women's traveling compartment as was later to be the norm.

This does not mean, necessarily, that Abraham or his descendants were mixed up in the Arabian incense trade, although they lived in such great proximity to the main route from Syria to Arabia that such involvement might have been possible. It means simply that in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries BCE when Abraham and his immediate descendants appear to have lived, camels were already known in small numbers in the northwestern corner of the Arabian desert the western Arabian trade route branched out to go to Egypt or further into Syria. Local tribes in the area may have owned a few of the animals, perhaps as articles of prestige, without being heavily involved in breeding them….

(pp. 66,67) The probable sequence of events seems to have been that by 2000 BCE incense was reaching Syria with some regularity along the western Arabian land route. Some Semitic speaking tribes saw the potential benefits of this trade and became interested in it at its northern extremity. In Biblical parlance these would be the Ishamaelites who appear in the story of Joseph as traders of incense. Other tribes, probably later, undertook to follow the trade back to its source and this became the nucleus of Semitic settlement in southern Arabia. Again in Biblical parlance these would seem to be the children of Abraham's son Jokshan (Bereshit 25:2, Arabic Yuqtan progenitor of the south Arabian tribes). When the Semites had arrived in sufficient numbers, they overwhelmed the indigenous inhabitants of southern Arabia, and became themselves masters of the land and the incense trade.

 

The entire process, it has been argued, took place without the benefit of camel transport, the camels making their appearance only at a much later date from parts unknown. But it has been demonstrated that the camel was already in use during the period in question and that its probable homeland was southern Arabia. It is much more reasonable, therefore, to assume that the camel was the main carrier of the incense route from the very beginning, or nearly so, and the Semitic tribes came to know the camel in this way in very small numbers. In other words, the presence of camels in the Abraham story can be defended and story treated as primary evidence of camel use without disrupting Albright's contention that camel-breeding nomads did not exist in Syria and northern Arabia at that time.

A short time after Bulliet's study, Compagnoni and Tosi (1978) reported finding camel bones, camel dung and camel hair in ruins of a settlement in southeastern Iran, Shahr-I Sokhta (today province of Sistan in eastern Iran) that dates to around 2500-2600 BCE. They also provide a table (p. 98) which lists findings of camel bones in southern Turkmenia and representation of camels in Kashan (central Iran) from 3000-3500 BCE. They also note (p. 100) that in a finding off the coast of Abu Dhabi "representations in relief on tombstones and osteological finds of camels are dated as early as 2500 BCE, have revealed a convergence between Iran and Oman, in the more highly evolved farming communities, in the domestication process of C. bactrianus (two-humped camel) and C. dromedaries (one humped camel)." They write, (p. 99) "In conclusion, in the third millennium all archaeological evidence points to the fact that the dromedary (one humped camel) occupied an area lying between Oman and Sind (eastern Pakistan) to the east and North Africa and Palestine to the west."

Potts (2004) reviews the presence of the two humped camels in the Middle East (Camelus Bactrianus) and he concludes (p. 161), "in view of the ever increasing body of evidence for ties between Central Asia and Elam (western Iran), and between Elam and Assyria and Mari (eastern Syria on the Euphrates) in the early 2nd millennium BCE (between 2000 BCE and 1500 BCE), it is entirely possible that this was the period in which the peoples of the Near East first became aware of Camelus Bactrianus."

These two findings show that camels would have been known in Haran (northern Syria) when Avraham’s servant came and would explain how Yaakov acquired camels.

A more recent finding is from Steinkeller (2009) who discusses a tablet that has been dated to Ur III period, during the reign of Shulgi (approximately 2094-2047 BCE), maybe 100-200 years before Avraham. The tablet records a gift to the King of Ur of various animals, and Steinkeller (p. 416) writes that there is a "strong possibility that the herbivore (on the tablet) in question is the two-humped Bactrian camel." Avraham was from Ur, and we see that camels existed in his locale. Furthermore, the fact that the camel was given as a gift accords with the references to camels as being animals of prestige in the book of Bereshit.

An even more recent finding is Maria Guagnin et al (2023, p. 2) who write:

A tradition of large, naturalistic camel engravings has recently been documented across northern Saudi Arabia. This tradition is represented at sites such as the Camel Site in Jawf Province, where life-sized camels were carved in high relief. Analyses of the reliefs at this site, coupled with archaeological 

surveys and excavation show that use of the site overlapped with the mid-sixth millennium BCE.

These engravings would indicate that camels lived in northern Saudi Arabia several thousand years before Avraham lived, and from the figures in the article, it looks like the camels were one humped camels. 

Accordingly, these new finds show that camels (one humped and probably two humped) were known and used by humans, though probably not on an extensive scale, and not in all places, in the time of Avraham. Avraham could then have received camels as a gift from Pharaoh, and it was from these camels that his servant had camels to take to find a wife for Yitzhak.

Bibliography:

Albright, William Foxwell, 1960 (first published, 1949), The archaeology of Palestine, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.

Bulliet, Richard W., 1975, The camel and the wheel, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Compagnoni, Bruno and Maurizio Tosi, 1978, The Camel: Its distribution and state of domestication in the Middle East during the third millennium B.C. in light of finds from Shahr-I Sokhta, in Approaches to Faunal Analysis in the Middle East, edited by Richard H. Meadow and Melinda A. Zeder, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 91-103.

Guagnin, Maria, Ceri Shipton, Finn Stileman, Faisal Jibreen, Malek Al Sulaimi, Paul S. Breeze, Mathew Stewart, Amy Hatton, Nick Drake, Deepak Kumar Jha, Fahad Al-Tamimi, Mohammed Al-Shamry, Mishaal Al-Shammari, Andrea Kay, Huw S. Groucutt, Abdullah M. Alsharekh, Michael Petraglia, 2023, Before the Holocene humid period: Life-sized camel engravings and early occupations on the southern edge of the Nefud desert, Archaeological Research in Asia, Vol. 36, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2023.100483.

Landa, Judah, 2016, Camels in the Bible, Jewish Bible Quarterly, 44:2, pp. 103-115.

Potts, D.T., 2004, Camel hybridization and the role of Camelus Bactrianus in the ancient Near East, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 47:2, pp. 143-165.

Sapir-Hen, Lidar and Erez Ben-Yosef, 2013, The introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant: Evidence from the Aravah Valley, Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, 40:2, pp. 277-285.

Sarna, Nahum (1923-2005), 1989, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.

Steinkeller, Piotr, 2009, Camels in Ur III Babylonia, in Exploring the longue durée: Essays in honor of Lawrence E. Stager, edited by J. David Schloen, Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, pp. 415-419.

Bereshit 1:20-30 - The description of creation in the Torah and evolution

Day five: 1:20-23: The creation of organisms that move

1:20 records that G-d said that the waters should swarm with sheretz nefesh chaya and ohf that would fly to penei rekia ha-shamayim. This saying by G-d means that G-d created or caused to evolve organisms that lived in the water and organisms that could fly. I believe that the term nefesh chaya implies movement, which means that the first half of 1:21 is recording the creation of creatures that could move in the water. This could be Cnidarians and/ or Deuterostomes which appeared around 500-600 million years ago. 1:20 then means that the Torah skipped many stages in the development of life. Also, the verse indicates that life began in the water, which corresponds to modern science. Note, this verse seems not to be referring to fish since they would not be considered as sheretzim, crawling organisms, though Rashi (on 1:20) labels the fish as sheretzim. Yet, there is no need for the Torah to mention the creation of every organism, as just a select few are mentioned.

The second half of 1:20 refers to ohf that would fly to penei rekia ha-shamayim. This phrase raises at least two questions. One, what is meant by the term ohf, birds or insects, and two, what does it mean that they could fly to penei rekia ha-shamayim?

Aviezer (1990, pp. 85, 127) suggests that insects (and marine animals) were created on day five and that the day corresponds to the time from approximately 635 million years ago to 250 million years ago. He notes (pp. 82-84) that there were giant insects in the period and that one type of dragonfly had a wing span of 30 inches. The end of the period according to Aviezer was the Paleozoic era, which was marked by a very large extinction. Rashi (on 1:20) also writes that ohf here means flies.

Slifkin (2006, p. 185, footnote 3) critiques Aviezer's chronology for day five since he argues that the word ohf in 1:20-22 refers just to birds and not to flying insects, as Vayikra 11:21 uses the words sherets ohf when the reference is to insects. Also, 1:28 records that mankind was blessed to have dominion over the ohf in the sky and it is doubtful that this blessing was to dominate insects.

A clue to understanding what the term ohf means in 1:20 is to compare it with the term winged ohf in 1:21. The added term winged shows that the ohf in 1:20 and the ohf in 1:21 are different. 1:20 is referring to insects which are not referred to as winged organisms, even though most insects have wings, and 1:21 is referring to the creation of birds, where the wings are more prominent. (See our discussion on 1:6,7; 1:11,12 and 1:14,16, https://lobashamayim.blogspot.com/2014/10/bereshit-11-19-bereshit-some-thoughts.html that when the Torah records that G-d spoke and later that G-d created, as in 1:20,21 this is referring to two different acts of creation. Thus, one has to distinguish between the acts of creation of 1:20 with those recorded in 1:21.)

With this understanding, one could still agree with Slifkin that the blessing in 1:28 is referring to birds, and that Vayikra 11:21 is referring to insects. In 1:21 the Torah modified the term ohf to be winged ohf to distinguish the birds from the insects in 1:20, but afterwards the Torah would not have to use this extra term, winged. Instead, ohf becomes birds and when dealing, relatively rarely, with insects, that term is modified to be sheretz ohf.

What does it mean that the insects (or if one wants, birds) could fly to penei rekia ha-shamayim? Above in our discussion on day two, we explained that rakia means either the galaxy or the solar system, but no insects or birds could fly into either the solar system or the galaxy. However, the word penei qualifies the area of their flying, to be either towards the rakia or before the rakia, but 1:20 does not state that they flew into the rakia.

1:21 then records that G-d bara, created, the tanninim ha-gadolim, the nefesh chaya ha-romeset, which the water had swarmed forth of each kind (Altar, 2004, p. 8), and the winged ohf of each kind. What are the tanninim ha-gadolim and what does it mean the nefesh chaya ha-romeset which the water had swarmed forth?

Rashi (on 1:21) explains that the tanninim ha-gadolim were giant fish. Cassuto (1961, pp. 49-51 and Sarna, 1989, p. 10) notes that people have understood tanninim ha-gadolim as being sea monsters, and then the verse states that G-d created these sea monsters to demonstrate that these monsters were under G-d's control. Yet, it is difficult to argue that tanninim ha-gadolim really means sea monsters, unless one believes that sea monsters actually exist or existed. If one does not accept their existence, then it cannot be that the Torah states that G-d created a non-existent animal, even if it is to correct erroneous beliefs. However, I would agree that the Torah uses the word bara, create, because if a person mistakenly believes in sea monsters, and thinks that tanninim ha-gadolim are sea monsters, then the person should know that the sea monsters were created by G-d. (This would be similar to the use of the term azazel on Yom Kippur, see our discussion on Vayikra 16:7,8, "To azazel" https://lobashamayim.blogspot.com/2016/04/167-10-aharei-mot-to-azazel.html.)

Aviezer (1990, pp. 81-86) writes that the tanninim ha-gadolim were aquatic creatures in the Ediacaran period (approximately 635 million years ago to 540 million years) which were large relative to the aquatic creatures in the following period the Cambrian age (approximately 540 million years ago to 490 million years ago). Aviezer quotes from Rashi that the tanninim were killed shortly after they were created and he claims this accords with his identification of the tanninim since the Ediacaran creatures became extinct. (Another possibility according to Aviezer's chronology is synapsids, which were the dominant terrestrial animals, up to ten feet in length, in the period up to the massive extinction at the end of the Paleozoic era.)

Schroeder (1997, p. 193) suggests that tanninim ha-gadolim were dinosaurs since he understands that the word tannin is reptiles, and then dinosaurs would be the biggest or the greatest reptiles. Slifkin (2006, pp. 232, 233) disputes this identification for several reasons. One, he claims that tannin are "serpentine creatures" not "the general category of reptiles," and dinosaurs were not serpentine. Two, he claims that 1:20,21 implies that tanninim ha-gadolim were aquatic creatures, while the "overwhelming majority of dinosaurs were terrestrial." These questions are answerable. If the Torah wanted to refer to dinosaurs, then it is unclear what term would have been more appropriate than tannin since the Torah could not use the word dinosaur, which would have been incomprehensible to all people until the 19th century. Thus, once tannin refers to some reptiles, it could refer to dinosaurs. Furthermore, in 1:21, the tanninim ha-gadolim are distinct from the animals that swarm (romes) in the water, and hence the tanninim ha-gadolim need not be aquatic creatures.

All these suggestions are possible but there exists a simpler explanation. Tanninim ha-gadolim can be referring to large crocodiles, which is the usual definition of the word tannin, as for example in Shemot 7:9-12. In 2005 there was a finding of a large sea dwelling crocodile that lived 135 million years ago, and who was been nicknamed by scientists, Godzilla, see Chang (2005).

What does it mean in 1:21 the nefesh chaya ha-romeset which the water had swarmed forth?  Does the phrase ha-romeset mean that the animals were swarming in the water? With this understanding, the phrase is referring to larger animals from 1:20, such as crustaceans (lobsters?). Or, does the word remes mean all movement in the water, not specifically crawling, and then the reference would include fish.  A support for this is that the same term in Vayikra 11:46 seems to be referring to fish. Another possibility is that the phrase also refers to animals that came from the water, but now were able to crawl on land. With this third possibility, the phrase could be referring to amphibious animals or even early mammals that evolved from animals that had lived at sea.  The final set of animals referred to in 1:21 is winged ohf, which as mentioned above are birds.  The fact that birds are recorded last in the verse might accord with the idea that birds derive from dinosaurs, though of course the order could not be significant.  In any event, both 1:20 and 1:21 are not referring to all animals, but the verses are describing a gamut of animals that were created, from creatures who swarm to creatures who fly, and maybe including creatures that swim.

With regard to the timing of day five, it could be that 1:20 is referring to the Paleozoic era, 540 million years ago to 252 million years ago, while 1:21 is referring to the Mesozoic eras, 252 million years ago to 66 million years ago.

The following verse, 1:22 records G-d's blessing to the animals created on day five. This verse raises two questions. One, this blessing appears after, the phrase "and G-d saw that it was good" (the end of 1:21), but one would have expected the blessing to be before the phrase "and G-d saw that it was good" as occurs in day six, 1:28-31. Two, who is being blessed to fill the waters?

With regard to the first question, maybe the order of the blessing in reference to G-d’s seeing was changed since many of the animals created on day five became extinct. For example, both the Paleozoic and the Mesozoic eras ended with great extinctions. Possibly then when these animals were alive, G-d said that it was good (the end of 1:21) that they had existed, and then after they died, G-d was blessing the survivors of the extinctions that they would continue to exist.

With regard to the second question, many understand the blessing to fill the water to be to the fish, and this would depend on understating the word romeset in 1:21 to refer to fish or that fish are included within the gamut of animals created on day five. Or if one believes that romeset in 1:21 is only to crawling creatures, then one can understand that the blessing in 1:22 with regard to filling the water was to the crustaceans and/ or amphibians, who might be referred to on day five.

To summarize, day five probably refers to the years from 540 million years ago to 66 million years ago, and the dominant animals in this period were the giant reptiles, the tanninim ha-gadolim. In addition, the Torah also refers to the creation of flying insects, birds, and possibly amphibians and small mammals that were early types of rodents.

Day six: 1:24-31: The creation of modern mammals and humans

Day six records two acts of creation. One, the creation of hayyot, behamot and all remes ha-adamah, 1:24,25, and two, humans, 1:26-30. Both of these creations refer to land animals, and this raises a question with regard to the relationship between days five and six of creation. Carl Feit (1990, pp. 31,32) notes that there is some affinity between science and the description of creation in Genesis since in the Torah "these is a gradual ascent from chaos to order, whether from inorganic to organic matter or from lifeless to vegetable or animal matter." However, he notes there are some inconsistencies, as for example the question of how could plant life precede the sun, which we tried to answer at https://lobashamayim.blogspot.com/2014/10/bereshit-11-19-bereshit-some-thoughts.html, and how could it be that flying creatures (day five) existed before land animals (day six).

As discussed above, Aviezer attempted to answer this question by claiming that day five only refers to flying insects and flying insects preceded land animals. However, I cannot accept this answer since I think that 1:21 was referring to the creation of birds. There are two other ways to explain how the animals mentioned in day six could have been created after the birds in day five.

One, as mentioned above, 1:21 could be understood to refer to animals that swarmed from the water, and these could be early mammals who left the seas. Thus, mammals would have existed on day five, and birds who are mentioned later in the verse, would have been created after land animals such as those early mammals and other reptiles.

Two, while many understand that 1:24,25 refer to all land animals or all mammals, this is not what the verses state. The verses records that G-d created or caused to evolve chaya nefesh according to its kind: behamot, va-remes and chayot. These are very specific land animals, and the verse is not referring to all mammals that ever existed.

The traditional view (Rambam, Laws of forbidden foods, 1:8, also see Ibn Ezra on 1:24) is that behamot are just ox, sheep and goats. My understanding is that behamot are the class of mammals called ungulates. With either view, the creation referred to in day six is to animals who began to exist way after birds first existed.

With my understating that behamot mean ungulates, 1:24,25 can only be referring to a time when ungulates existed, which was approximately 65 million years ago, the beginning of the Cenozoic era. Furthermore, animals that could eventually be domesticated, such as horses, are even later, approximately 50 million years ago. With the traditional definition of the word behamot, the verses are referring to an even later period, as the Ruminantia suborder, which includes goats and cattle, is estimated to have begun to develop approximately 46 million years ago.

Accordingly, 1:24,25 are then referring only to new types of animals from between 65-46 million years ago until the present. It is not clear what are the other two types of animals in 1:24,25. My guess is that the three categories of creatures in 1:24,25 correspond roughly to the three categories of land animals in Vayikra 11:26-30. One, the behama, Vayikra 11:26, which we just mentioned, two, the chayat ha-aretz is to animals that walk on their paws high off the ground, Vayikra 11:27, and three, the remes would be the types of animals specified in Vayikra 11:29,30, animals that seem to move closer to the ground, like rabbits, shrews, or rodents. These types of animals would be the animals that entered Noah's ark, 7:14, and those that were killed by the flood, 7:21, "modern mammals," as the Torah refers to these animals with the same words used in 1:24. New reptiles could be included in this list as either wild animals or as animals that crawl on the ground, but this would only be reptiles that developed in the last 50 million years. If someone (see Sarna, 1989, p. 11) believes that the word remes in 1:24,25 refers to insects, then still the verse would only refer to new insects from the Cenozoic era.

Consequently, day six of creation refers to the period when mammals became the dominant type of creature on the earth. Mammals existed on day five but their existence is not explicitly recorded or not recorded at all in verses 1:21,22, just like there is no mention of the creation of fish on days five or six, even though fish existed in both of these periods, and their existence is referred to in 1:28. Accordingly, there is no contradiction between the order of the development of animals based on science and that recorded in the Torah on days five and six of creation.

One other question about 1:24,25 is whether the verses are referring to the same act of creation or two separate acts? My inclination is to view the verses as referring to two different events. 1:24, with the word tosei, indicates a more natural process, and would be that G-d caused the natural forces of evolution to work, and then 1:25 refers to G-d intervening in the evolution process since there was a need to ensure that the process would lead to mankind.

1:26,27 refer to the creation of humans, the genus homo, but not specifically to homo sapiens. While mankind is physically similar to all mammals (and all animals) he/ she is intrinsically different since G-d intervened in the evolutionary process to endow him/ her with the image of G-d, "tselem Elokim." The blessings in 1:28-30 are indicative of homo's potential, and it would only be homo sapiens that would later actualize these blessings. This development is recorded in the story of the Garden of Eden in chapters two and three of the book of Bereshit.

We have tried to show that chapter one in Bereshit can be understood to accord with modern scientific theories, modest concordism. The creation of the world could not have been a random process, as based on current scientific theories it is mathematically impossible for the world and humans to have come about randomly. Thus, as some stages G-d intervened in the process to move things along and G-d established the laws of science that enabled the process of evolution to occur. I believe this is what Reuben Gross (quoted in Carmell and Domb, 1978, p. 238) had in mind, when he wrote:

Assuming that the Darwinists have correctly described the mechanism of creation, all they have done is to dis-establish the Creator as mechanic-mason-carpenter of a static world, but at the same time they have unwittingly re-established Him as an engineer-architect, kiv'yochol, of a self-adjusting complex, dynamic world and the Creator or legislator of the fitness standards and rules of adaptability.

A final point is that the interpretations offered here are subject to change based on new developments in parshanut and in science, but it is hoped that they will be persuasive to some of the readers and/ or inspire readers to suggest other interpretations.