Is Genesis 1-3 Myth or Historical? Literal or symbolic?

[Jon 316]

Ok, I've pretty much been a fundamentalist since I got saved.

As far as I'm concerned...

a day meant a 24 hour period
A week meant a week
Evolution does not come into it
And yes, the serpeant actually spoke to Eve...

Question... is it all literal? Do you think the snake actually spoke or is it symbolic? Explain your answer...

Oh, also, how do you answer the whole literal Adam and Eve thing, the first thing my pupils say is 'that would be incest' (I have my own idea about this but want to see what others say.

 

[Jimmy the Greek]

I'll leave the snake question for others. But by default, I take it literally.

Regarding Adam and Eve, I'll venture my take on it. Incest became taboo as the gene pool became more and more corrupt (over time) due to the sin and condemnation resulting from the Fall. It appears that the law forbidding close relatives marrying was not given until the time of Moses.

Adam and Eve were created pure. So their marriage is not really a problem. What must be postulated is that Adams sons had to marry sisters at first, then eventually men would have access to marry cousins or nieces, etc. This apparently was not a problem in the beginning.

See also, Cain?s Wife?Who Was She? - Answers in Genesis

 

[LadyFlynt]

Literal.

 

[TimV]

Question... is it all literal? Do you think the snake actually spoke or is it symbolic? Explain your answer...

If anything that seems strange in the Bible needs to be symbolic, why not just gratify all of our basest instincts, because when we're dead we can't enjoy them anymore, and there is no heaven or hell.

Num 22:23 And the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand. And the donkey turned aside out of the road and went into the field. And Balaam struck the donkey, to turn her into the road.
Num 22:24 Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side.
Num 22:25 And when the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she pushed against the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall. So he struck her again.
Num 22:26 Then the angel of the LORD went ahead and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left.
Num 22:27 When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam. And Balaam's anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff.
Num 22:28 Then the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?"
Num 22:29 And Balaam said to the donkey, "Because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you."
Num 22:30 And the donkey said to Balaam, "Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Is it my habit to treat you this way?" And he said, "No."

Oh, also, how do you answer the whole literal Adam and Eve thing, the first thing my pupils say is 'that would be incest' (I have my own idea about this but want to see what others say.

Something is sin when God says it is sin. Abraham married his half sister, and it was fine, since God never said not to. But God told Moses that marrying a half sister was sin, so now it's sin.

 

[ColdSilverMoon]

Ok, I've pretty much been a fundamentalist since I got saved.

As far as I'm concerned...

a day meant a 24 hour period
A week meant a week
Evolution does not come into it
And yes, the serpeant actually spoke to Eve...

Question... is it all literal? Do you think the snake actually spoke or is it symbolic? Explain your answer...

Oh, also, how do you answer the whole literal Adam and Eve thing, the first thing my pupils say is 'that would be incest' (I have my own idea about this but want to see what others say.

I'm not convinced the Genesis 1 account describes a literal 24hr/day week, but the rest I take as historical and literal. Yes, I believe the serpent really spoke to Eve, most likely under the influence of Satan. And I agree evolution does not have much to do with the Genesis 1-3 account.

Adam and Eve had to have intercourse and procreate (we are told that specifically), and their children had to "get married" and have children amongst themselves as well. Technically it is incest, but in very broad terms all copulation is technically incest, even today, because we are all ultimately related to Adam and Eve.

By the way, even atheistic evolutionists believe in Eve. The origin of the human race can be traced back to a single woman through analysis of mitochondrial DNA. Evolutionists call her "Mitochondrial Eve" and she is considered the mother of all humans. Not only that, but using genetic frequency studies she can be shown to have "originated" in the Middle East or North Africa. So there is one area where evolutionary science clearly supports the Genesis account.

 

[Hippo]

Dispenationalists make great play of their "literal, grammatical, historical hermenuetic" however it is soon obvious that claiming a literal interpretation is not usually as clear cut as it may first seem.

What we can say about Genesis 1-3 is that it is a historic record with no element of myth. What each word means is not nearly as simple as claiming one meaning is the only literal meaning of a word, only when the meaning of a word is established can a consideration of the literal meaning even begin.

We then have to consider the presupositions that should underpin how we determine the meanings of the Genesis text and these presuppositions are of a soverign creator God who controls (rather then being controlled by) the laws of nature.

My understanding is that incest is only sin under God's law, and this law was not yet in force at that time. A sin is a sin because God says it is, there is no moral law outside of God.

 

[Scottish Lass]

Literal--Jesus refers to the events without saying it was simply a nice story.

 

[lynnie]

Literal.

One interesting subject if anybody ever wants to pursue it is the diameter of the sun. They've been measuring it since maybe the mid 1800's....if I recall correctly it uses the retrograde motion of mercury across the face, and there are measurements taken during eclipses.

It is shrinking at a very steady small rate ( most things shrink as they burn up) and if you extrapolate the figures back, allowing for slight errors 150 years ago, somewhere between 100,000 and 2 million years ago the entire surface of earth boils off.

It leaves room for pre fall longer "days" that could have been many more hours long. But billions of years, or even hundreds of milllions- no way.

This is only one of many problems with the billions of years old earth theory.

Re the snake- he was cursed to crawl on his belly after the sin of Adam. When he first spoke he was probably incredibly beautiful and magnificent, a light emanating fallen angel.

 

[Grymir]

Historical and Literal. Gomarus hit the nail on the head about the incest thing. It didn't become taboo until the time of Moses.

 

[Wannabee]

Literal, but not necessarily 24 hours. Lynnie hit on this. The flood was so catastrophic that we really don't know the extent of all that happened. Life on earth literally changed forever. It is possible that the rotation of the earth changed as well, which would change the day length. I'm not saying that days were long or shorter. Honestly, I'm not worried about it. But to claim that they were literal 24 hour days goes beyond Scripture, which gives us an evening and a morning only. Due to atrophy I would expect that the days were shorter. But if the flood happened from some collision with another object then, as far as I know, the earth's rotation could have been given a boost.

So, literal days; literal first parents; literal creation; no evolution; literal millennium (oh, how did that get in there? ).

 

[larryjf]

It's written as a historical narrative, so it shouldn't be taken symbolically.

 

[charliejunfan]

All Literal, the earth is older than 7,000 years though...

 

[DMcFadden]

Genesis is highly stylized, deliberately constructed to confute the pagan cosmologies of the day (e.g., the pagan Gilgamesh Epic), and reflects a high degree of literary features (cf. Jonah's VERY tightly parallel construction between its chapters or the book of Ruth with its literary structure) . . .

But, it IS intended to be historical narrative (nor merely to mimic it) and therefore I take it literally and am a 24/7 YEC.

My personal epiphany came late in ministry, after years of being taught/teaching the Hugh Ross Big Bang approach to origins. I formerly said that as long as you believe in a literal Adam and Eve, it really doesn't matter how long the Lord took to create or what mechanism he used to complete it. A few comments by theological heroes of mine (e.g., R.C. Sproul, Sr., Al Mohler, etc.), reading some of the material produced by people like that on the Answers in Genesis web site, and looking at material by people like Kelley and Pipa proved too devastating to my former view.

Looked at exegetically, theologically, and even scientifically, the contemporary crop of YEC folks have a solid and strong case for their view, not to be confused with some of the foolish cul de sacs tried by the early pioneers of the YEC position back in the 60s.

I now REPENT of ever holding to the Hugh Ross view, sincerely feel that I have personally led people astray by my ill-conceived too-easy acceptance of the arguments promulgated by my former professors (and a sinful desire--let's be frank--for me to "fit in" and be accepted by the sophisticates in our culture and academia), and intend to use the rest of my life in the proclamation of the truth of Scripture without equivocation or mental evasion.

I would still say that one's orthodoxy is not at stake. Who wants to say that Kline is a heretic for the framework view? OK, so some of you do, but not me. It is not a matter of orthodoxy but of consistency.

Personally, I believe that the compromising views of Genesis provided the intellectual incubator for a host of gainsaying approaches to the Bible, specifically the tendency to adopt egalitarian interpretations of the New Testament, which in turn, has led to the major denominations debating homosexual ordination today.

This is one slippery slope that is more like a water slide to apostasy with the destination being much scarier than that "tehom" (deep) of Genesis 1!

 

[larryjf]

All Literal, the earth is older than 7,000 years though...

It's 7,143 years this year!

 

[Wannabee]

Dennis! You must be a dispensationalist!

 

[he beholds]

There's no way it is a myth. I don't think a Christian could think it was a myth, could he?

Even if you think a day equals 1,000 years, I don't think you'd consider it a myth.

Adam and Eve--I don't even think of them as related? I think they were just man and wife from the beginning. Now their children must have been related, but I like Tim's explanation.

I think it was a snake, although different in form since he only crawled after the Fall.

 

[Webservant]

I haven't heard anyone touch on whether the days in Genesis were consecutive. BTW, I believe in a 6 day creation and a literal Adam and Eve. I used to not believe in any type of evolution, but as I get older and see the genius behind the flexibility of creation, I think that God did build in a lot of variability. In fact, seeing what I now believe to be evolution does not lead me away from the Creation account - it leads me closer to it! It's why Chihuahas and Great Danes can be related but very different - and there is intelligence behind that, too (ours).

 

[Jon 316]

There's no way it is a myth. I don't think a Christian could think it was a myth, could he?

Myth seems to be the language of modern scholarship regarding these types of accounts. And yes, Some Christians believe it is a 'mythical' story with a symbolic meaning

 

[Wannabee]

We have to be careful not to confuse "evolution" with "adaptation," "engineering" or "selective breeding." It's a play on words that evolutionists like to play in order to gain inroads (macro, micro, blah, blah, blah).

 

[historyb]

Ok, I've pretty much been a fundamentalist since I got saved.

As far as I'm concerned...

a day meant a 24 hour period
A week meant a week
Evolution does not come into it
And yes, the serpeant actually spoke to Eve...

Question... is it all literal? Do you think the snake actually spoke or is it symbolic? Explain your answer...

I believe it's all quite literal, I believe it is the late 20th century man who has brought more questions into it than needs be. It is almost as if since we are so modern we must explain everything away.

Oh, also, how do you answer the whole literal Adam and Eve thing, the first thing my pupils say is 'that would be incest' (I have my own idea about this but want to see what others say.

I really never thought about it. I don't think it would be because they wouldn't really be related like we understand it.

 

[sofarawaykisses]

I haven't heard anyone touch on whether the days in Genesis were consecutive. BTW, I believe in a 6 day creation and a literal Adam and Eve. I used to not believe in any type of evolution, but as I get older and see the genius behind the flexibility of creation, I think that God did build in a lot of variability. In fact, seeing what I now believe to be evolution does not lead me away from the Creation account - it leads me closer to it! It's why Chihuahas and Great Danes can be related but very different - and there is intelligence behind that, too (ours).

When you mean 6 days, do you mean a 24 hour period for each day? Or do you think that each day is a thousand years?

 

[Zenas]

Literal. If you don't take it as historical the rest of the Bible is pointless and mostly a lie.

 

[MW]

Do you think the snake actually spoke or is it symbolic?

I follow the grammatico-historical conclusion of the apostle Paul, 2 Cor. 11:3. The ancient serpent figure of Revelation makes no sense if there is not a literal referent. It would be like trying to understand the symbolism of the "beast" an an usurping of human dominion if God didn't actually make animals on the same day as man, which is day 6, and also accounts for the number of the beast. Without literal referents the figurative language of the Bible makes no sense at all.

 

[PresbyDane]

Literal

 

[Webservant]

I haven't heard anyone touch on whether the days in Genesis were consecutive. BTW, I believe in a 6 day creation and a literal Adam and Eve. I used to not believe in any type of evolution, but as I get older and see the genius behind the flexibility of creation, I think that God did build in a lot of variability. In fact, seeing what I now believe to be evolution does not lead me away from the Creation account - it leads me closer to it! It's why Chihuahas and Great Danes can be related but very different - and there is intelligence behind that, too (ours).

When you mean 6 days, do you mean a 24 hour period for each day? Or do you think that each day is a thousand years?

No I think it's clear (to my mind anyway) that each day is 24 hours.

 

[Brian Withnell]

Literal. If you don't take it as historical the rest of the Bible is pointless and mostly a lie.

Historic poetic. That it is different from any other historic section was reported by the committee on creation to the OPC. The evidence that it is poetic is rather overwhelming ... while I now have held a framework view for years, having read through the subject in detail recently has convinced me even more.

Age of the earth? Unknown. While it could be young, it has apparent age that it is very old. It makes absolutely no difference to the veracity of the Bible.

Literal Adam.

God created.

While I don't believe the creation account says anything about evolution, I don't think evolution is true for mathematical reasons (probabilities on the order of 1 in 10 to the 75th power are essentially zero, and beyond credible belief ... one would have to suspend any claim to rationality to believe evolution.)

As to what is figurative and what is literal, the things I think are purely literal are few ... literal Adam and Eve. Literal fall. Literal creation (meaning God did create). Literal snake.

The days I take as figurative as they appear to be from anything more than a cursory reading of the account.

What I find amazing is that while many attribute anything but a literal interpretation of 24x6 makes God to be a liar, they don't see the same problem with apparent age of the universe. I also have a problem with some creation scientist knowingly and falsely pushing what they now is false in order to put up arguments for God (who doesn't need their help). There are many of these that are just poor science (Paluxy river, the NASA computer simulation hoax, etc.) which are either entirely baseless, or outright fabrication. These things hurt the cause of Christ in the world.

The real world and the Bible cannot have contradiction; if the real world contradicted the Bible, then general and special revelation contradict each other, and then God would be a liar. That is not true, so the premise is false (general and special revelation must therefore be in perfect harmony).

If we have a world which is less than 8000 years old, then it behooves Christians to understand and find out the explanation for the apparent age of things that seem much older, and to do so logically so there is no contradiction between general and special revelation. We are the ones with a world view that allows science in the first place. We are the ones that say God is not the author of chaos, but order. We are the ones that should make sense of what is revealed in both the natural world and the scripture without resorting to God being "the great deceiver" and making the real world a deception and full of lies.

Our God is truth itself. If we state evidence cannot lead to a particular conclusion because we see something else in scripture, we need to explain the evidence without saying "it has no basis in reality." We should be at the forefront of all the sciences, not on the sidelines taking potshots that don't hold water because it would cause us to change our interpretation of scripture. We need to lead the way, discover the things revealed. Not just by looking at the book of God's Word, but also by looking at the book of God's work.

 

[Hamalas]

Paluxy river, the NASA computer simulation hoax, etc.

I'm not familiar with those. Do you have a link explaining what those are?

 

[DMcFadden]

Literal. If you don't take it as historical the rest of the Bible is pointless and mostly a lie.

Historic poetic. That it is different from any other historic section was reported by the committee on creation to the OPC. The evidence that it is poetic is rather overwhelming ... while I now have held a framework view for years, having read through the subject in detail recently has convinced me even more.

Age of the earth? Unknown. While it could be young, it has apparent age that it is very old. It makes absolutely no difference to the veracity of the Bible.

Literal Adam.

God created.

While I don't believe the creation account says anything about evolution, I don't think evolution is true for mathematical reasons (probabilities on the order of 1 in 10 to the 75th power are essentially zero, and beyond credible belief ... one would have to suspend any claim to rationality to believe evolution.)

As to what is figurative and what is literal, the things I think are purely literal are few ... literal Adam and Eve. Literal fall. Literal creation (meaning God did create). Literal snake.

The days I take as figurative as they appear to be from anything more than a cursory reading of the account.

What I find amazing is that while many attribute anything but a literal interpretation of 24x6 makes God to be a liar, they don't see the same problem with apparent age of the universe. I also have a problem with some creation scientist knowingly and falsely pushing what they now is false in order to put up arguments for God (who doesn't need their help). There are many of these that are just poor science (Paluxy river, the NASA computer simulation hoax, etc.) which are either entirely baseless, or outright fabrication. These things hurt the cause of Christ in the world.

The real world and the Bible cannot have contradiction; if the real world contradicted the Bible, then general and special revelation contradict each other, and then God would be a liar. That is not true, so the premise is false (general and special revelation must therefore be in perfect harmony).

If we have a world which is less than 8000 years old, then it behooves Christians to understand and find out the explanation for the apparent age of things that seem much older, and to do so logically so there is no contradiction between general and special revelation. We are the ones with a world view that allows science in the first place. We are the ones that say God is not the author of chaos, but order. We are the ones that should make sense of what is revealed in both the natural world and the scripture without resorting to God being "the great deceiver" and making the real world a deception and full of lies.

Our God is truth itself. If we state evidence cannot lead to a particular conclusion because we see something else in scripture, we need to explain the evidence without saying "it has no basis in reality." We should be at the forefront of all the sciences, not on the sidelines taking potshots that don't hold water because it would cause us to change our interpretation of scripture. We need to lead the way, discover the things revealed. Not just by looking at the book of God's Word, but also by looking at the book of God's work.

No argument here. I find the work of some so-called "creation science" types to be rankly dishonest and dishonoring to the cause of Christ. However, the work of some of the PhD types at Answers in Genesis are of a different order, in my opinion. The allow for a sensible reconciliation of the data of general revelation and the common sense reading of special revelation.

For more specifically Reformed folks, I would commend the books by Drs. Kelly and Pipa (Creation and Change: Genesis 1:1-2:4 in the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms by Douglas F. Kelly of RTS and Did God Create in 6 Days? eds. Joseph A. Pipa and David W. Hall).

 

[Brian Withnell]

Paluxy river, the NASA computer simulation hoax, etc.

I'm not familiar with those. Do you have a link explaining what those are?

The Paluxy river hoax was one in which human and dinosaur footprints were supposedly found in the same sedimentary rock. Initially people were told they could feel the footprints under the water and see they were human footprints, including one that was inside another footprint of a dinosaur. The first time it was shown false was when someone took a common aquarium and placed it so people could see the impression. It was obviously not human. It took years for those that had pushed it as being human to admit it was not ... their excuse was that even if the evidence was not correct, the truth that humans and dinosaurs had to live at the same time had to be true, so they were reluctant to change their story.

The NASA computer hoax was one in which someone (never a name given) ran a simulation program at NASA and found evidence the sun had stopped in the sky for a day. Anyone that knows anything about computer programs and simulations would know it was absolutely absurd.

One that I just noticed here is the supposed shrinking of the sun. The original data and error were detected long ago.

Do a google search and you will find people still are pushing the Paluxy river hoax. Back when I was young, I got suckered by it. If the young earth hypothesis is true, then the evidence should be overwhelming and we (Christians) ought to be able to find it, dissect it to assure veracity much more than the secularists would, and submit it to peer review. God does not lie ... in either realm of revelation. And we should be able to have evidence that stands up to critical examination better than anyone else.

 

[DMcFadden]

Agreed. But check out my bibliographical suggestions.

Also, some of the following scientists are helpful on the subject:

Dr. Steve Austin, Geologist
Dr. John Baumbardner, Plate Tectonics model pioneer
Dr. Danny Faulkner, Astrophysicist
Dr. Werner Gitt, Information Science
Dr. Russel Humphreys, Physicist
Dr. Jason Lisle, Astrophysicist
Dr. David Menton, Cell Biologist
Dr. Georgia Purdom, Microbiologist
Dr. Jonathan Sarfati
Dr. J.C. Stanford, Geneticist (inventor of the gene gun and tenured Cornell prof)

I have listened to more than 75 lectures by them and some of their colleagues and found them more than convincing against the framework theory. Also, along those lines, check out R.C. Sproul's MP3 on creation where he discusses the various models and his preference (in recent years) for a young earth position against the other views held by Reformed thinkers.