Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Behemoth]

The Garden of Eden story:

There was a garden where God created the first two humans, Adam and Eve. He said they couldn't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but the serpent convinced them to eat from it. After eating, their "eyes were opened" (NIV) and they realized they were naked. After God learned of this, he cursed the serpent to crawl on its belly, made childbirth painful and farming difficult. Then he banished the humans from the garden so that they couldn't eat from the tree of life and live forever.

The evolutionary/scientific understanding:

Humans evolved gradually from earlier animals, such that there never was a first human, but instead a population of hominids that became on average more and more like modern humans as small mutations spread through the population over the generations. Early humans were hunter-gatherers that lived in the dry savannas of Africa. Morality and intelligence are the product of natural selection. Nudity became taboo (in some cultures) because it is associated with sexuality, which has complicated reasons to be taboo itself.

Snakes evolved from earlier reptiles, gradually losing their feet because their burrowing ancestors had no need for feet. Childbirth was always painful for pretty much all animals, as that pain doesn't meaningfully decrease the amount of viable offspring. Agriculture was always difficult, as plants weren't evolved for producing food, but for producing offspring.
My point is that these definitely don't describe the same events, at least not literally. Thus, the Garden of Eden must be a metaphor. But what is it a metaphor for? Why would it be written down the way it was, with multiple literally false claims, and not the way things really happened?

To me, it seems like just a literal etiological myth to explain the state of things, like pretty much every culture has.

I do expect that people have good explanations, this is no knockdown argument, but this has bugged me for some time.
Please, please don't bring up young earth creationism.

[jimwalton]

The Garden of Eden story is historical, and so is evolution (scientifically historical). The Genesis account is neither metaphorical nor allegorical, but actual.

I subscribe to what is being taught and written about by Dr. John Walton ("The Lost World of Genesis 1"). His theory about Genesis 1 & 2 is that they are about how God ordered creation (functions and roles) rather than about material creation (how they came to be). This perspective still believes God is the creator, but that Genesis 1 & 2 are not the narrative of material creation. Instead, Gn. 1-2 tell us why we are here, what our role and function are for being here. This theory allows science to be all that it can discover, wherever truth is found, but only the Bible can tell us the purpose behind it all, something science can't answer. I find his theory quite convincing. Here's a brief breakdown:

Day 1: the light and dark function to give us day and night, therefore TIME

Day 2: the firmament functions to give us WEATHER and CLIMATE

Day 3: The earth functions to bring forth vegetation: plant life and AGRICULTURE

Day 4: The heavenly bodies function to mark out the times and seasons

Day 5: The species function to fill the earth, creating the circles of life, the food chain, and FOOD.

Day 6: Humans function to subdue the earth and rule over it: God's representatives on the earth, scientific mandate, responsible care of the planet.

Day 7: God comes to "rest" in His Temple, meaning that He comes to live with the humans He has made and to engage them in daily life, to reveal Himself to them and be their God.

Therefore the Genesis account is actual. There really was a Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were real people. But the process of how this all came about is never described, nor are we told how long it took. Evolution seems to fit the bill quite nicely.

And Genesis doesn't insist that Adam and Eve were the first human beings, but only the first human beings who were spiritually capable and morally culpable, and so at that point in time God begins his interactions with humans, and it is considered a new beginning (and why not?).

The Genesis story and evolutionary theory pose no problems for each other, unless by evolution you mean "all things came to be without a god."

Humans could have evolved, and Adam and Eve were as I mentioned. Nudity is a misunderstanding of the Genesis story; their nakedness about their innocence and purity, freedom and beauty.

The serpent was most likely a spiritual being. The Hebrew word for serpent is *nahash*, which is indeed the common word for snake, but it also possibly means "able to stand upright." There are all kinds of verbal possibilities here. For instance, *nahash* is the same root as nehoset, which means "bronze". We see that the shiny, upright snake in Number 21.9 is the same root: it was a literal thing, but a spiritual symbol. "Snake" could also be a word play, because the Hebrew word for "deceive" is very close to it, and is the same root as for magic and divination. Snakes in the ancient world were very much associated with spiritual powers, magic, and cultic rituals. So maybe that's why it was a snake and not another animal. What if it (the nahash) were a spiritual power, represented to the woman as a bright creature, speaking "spiritual wisdom", and yet was deceiving her—all of these can be expressed by the word for snake? Just a little bit of research could change the whole picture. Bible scholars are still working on this text. New archaeological data, as I have just explained, are motivating them to rethink what we thought we knew. So maybe that's why there was a snake in the first place—it was actually a spiritual power (same word group).

There is no necessary conflict between Genesis and science, between Genesis and evolution, or between Genesis and reason.

[Epic]

> There is no necessary conflict between Genesis and science, between Genesis and evolution, or between Genesis and reason.

So you believe that light and plants were around before the sun and other stars?

[jimwalton]

> So you believe that light and plants were around before the sun and other stars?

No, I don't. This comment gives me the impression that you didn't pay attention to what I wrote. The Genesis account is not about material creation (how things came about), but functionality: God ordered the universe to function the way it does. It's not about chronology but about purpose. It's a temple text. God ordered the cosmos to function as his temple—where He would dwell and engage with ("rest") the people he had made. Every temple dedication ceremony in the ancient world was a 7-day ceremony, rehearsing the acts of their deity and his greatness. The 7 days of Genesis are not chronology but revelation: the greatness of God and his power and purposes in ordering creation. The text doesn't tell us how the universe came to be, only that God was the causal mechanism. Nor does it tell us how long a process God took. It could have been 14 billion years, and probably was. So, no, light and plants were not around before the sun and other stars.

[Ukraine]

> And Genesis doesn't insist that Adam and Eve were the first human beings, but only the first human beings who were spiritually capable and morally culpable,

I mean, Eve is literally so-named because she was to be the mother of all living humans. Historic Jewish and Christian tradition has always affirmed they were the first human beings, created ex nihilo (or at least NT from any animal or hominid precursors).

> The serpent was most likely a spiritual being. The Hebrew word for serpent is nahash, which is indeed the common word for snake, but it also possibly means "able to stand upright." There are all kinds of verbal possibilities here

C’mon though — Genesis 3 also clearly portrays him as actual serpent. One that is forced to draw on the ground as punishment. All historic Jewish and Christian interpreters affirmed this, too.

[jimwalton]

Glad to have the dialogue.

> Eve is literally so-named because she was to be the mother of all living humans.

First of all, some of the language stuff. "Adam" is a Hebrew word meaning "human." It's a category, not a personal name. "Eve" means "life." "Adam" and "Eve" would not have called each other these names because they didn't speak Hebrew, which was not invented as a language until about 1000 BC. That means these names are not just a matter of historical reporting, and these cannot be their historical names—which is not to say they didn't exist as individuals.

So if these are not historical names, then they must be assigned names, intended to convey a particular meaning. His name was "human" and hers was "life." The names are larger than the historical characters; they represent something beyond themselves.

According to Dr. Walton's ideas, which were the basis of my post, Adam and Eve are historical individuals who serve as archetypes (not allegories or metaphors, mind you) of the human race. They represent all of us, just as the president of a country represents the country when he is at a conference, in theory, or our ambassador the U.N. represents all of us, in theory.

Eve is here given archetypal significance, just as the New Testament treats her (2 Cor. 11.3; 1 Tim. 2.13). Since Genesis and the NT treat her as historical and also archetypal, we should understand the designation "mother of all living" as also archetypal. It therefore doesn't demand a biological or genetic role. For similarities and also evidence of this, notice in Gn. 4.20-21 where Jabal is "the father of those who live in tense and raise livestock" (not intended genetically) and Jubal is "the father of all who play stringed instruments." Since these refer to archetypal roles and not biological relationships, we can see that the intent was to discuss historical persons in archetypal ways.

> Historic Jewish and Christian tradition has always affirmed they were the first human beings

This is not true. Augustine believed in an evolutionary process, though obviously Darwin hadn't yet written his treatise. It's my understanding that the Catholic Church has always taught of creation as compatible with evolution. Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre is the one who proposed the Big Bang theory.

> created ex nihilo

The NT says the universe was created ex nihilo (Heb. 11.3), but not that humans were. Again, if we take Genesis 1-2 as an account of functional creation rather than material creation, the man and woman don't necessarily have to be the first hominids, but only the first that God interacts with. Possibly before then they were not evolved far enough to be spiritually capable and morally culpable.

> C’mon though — Genesis 3 also clearly portrays him as actual serpent.

That's what I'm telling you—it doesn't. Genesis 3.1 calls him a nahash. Sure, it was their common word for serpent, but it also was used of brightness like bronze (nhs, nehoset) or upright (nhsh, with different vowels). It could easily be a word play. The Hebrew word is even close to their word for "deceive." There are so many possibilities here that are good ones. A literal snake is the worst possibility. Serpents in those days were perceived as spiritual creatures, creatures of chaos from the non-ordered realm, promoting disorder. They were both worshipped and hated. They were both deified and viewed as destructive. Serpents were significant biological and religious cultic characters in the ancient world.They were associated with wisdom, fertility, health, chaos, and immortality. We are remiss to think it was a simple snake. There is far more afoot here.

> One that is forced to draw on the ground as punishment.

Are we to assume, then, that before Gen. 3.1, he DIDN'T crawl on his belly? So perhaps it was not a simple snake after all. I would think Eve would have thought she had eaten too many mushrooms if she thought a snake was talking to her, but she doesn't seem to have been surprised. Maybe it was a spiritual being, and she was used to talking to those.

> All historic Jewish and Christian interpreters affirmed this, too.

1. Crawling and eating dust are symbolic of degradation (Isa. 65.25). The punishment fit the crime. This being had the chutzpah to correct God, therefore he will crawl on his belly and eat dust, meaning he is brought low.

2. Crawling and eating dust are in contrast to bright and upright, other possible meanings of nhsh. This being would no longer be a serpent raised up to strike, metaphorically, but one that slithers away. Serpents on Pharaoh's crown were often pictured as upright in an attack position, just like the U.S. eagle on our seal that can face the arrows: Watch out for us!

3. Some Egyptian spells appoint a serpent to crawl on its belly, in that case, keep its face on the path. Again, this is in contrast to raising up its head to strike. A serpent on its belly is nonthreatening, while the one upright is protecting or attacking. The curse is to mitigate its aggression against people.

4. The Egyptian Pyramid Texts were written to help the pharaohs on their journey to the afterlife. There are dozens of curses on serpents that would impede the king's progress. They often call on the serpent to lie down, fall down, get down, crawl away, or slither with his face on the path so they do not have the same ability to impede.

That the serpent will crawl and eat dust doesn't imply serpents once had legs and now they don't. Instead, this spirit being, whatever it was, was being put into a more docile position rather than an attacking position.

Remember, serpents in the ancient world were regarded as spiritual entities. It's very difficult to plumb all the depths of what Genesis 3 intends to tell us. But think of him as just as actual serpent is really just too minimal to be what the author had in mind. Archaeology in the past 150 years has taught us far more than anyone before 1850 had a clue about and couldn't possibly have known.

[Behemoth]

> The Genesis account is neither metaphorical nor allegorical, but actual.
[...]
His theory about Genesis 1 & 2 is that they are about how God ordered creation (functions and roles) rather than about material creation (how they came to be)

Sorry, but these points conflict. The literal text of the story is about material creation (" So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems [...]) occuring over literal days ("And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day."). Interpreting this as really referring to functions and roles is valid, but such an interpretation is metaphorical by definition.

> But the process of how this all came about is never described [...]

"Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

"So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man"

There's your descriptions. Pretty explicit.

> Nudity is a misunderstanding of the Genesis story; their nakedness about their innocence and purity, freedom and beauty.

Metaphor.

> The serpent was most likely a spiritual being. The Hebrew word for serpent is nahash, which is indeed the common word for snake.

Metaphor. Or at least symbolism. Also notice this:

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made."

Sure, that is not "any of the other wild animals, but it does imply it.

My point here is not that the Garden of Eden story should be taken literally: it is that you are already taking it metaphorically, not as actual, literal events.

[jimwalton]

> Sorry, but these points conflict. The literal text of the story is about material creation

Thanks for the conversation. What you don't understand is that the Hebrew word "bara" that we translate as "create" was not used by the Hebrews for material creation, but rather abstract things (purity, righteousness, people groups like the nations). It is never talking about making a thing, but rather an abstraction. It never refers to materials because that's not what it's talking about. A similar kind of English parallel might be when we say something like, "I created a masterpiece," or "I created havoc." When we read "create," we think MATERIAL! But that's our mistake. Instead the word is used in the Bible to speak of something other than material things. Now, God certainly created the universe (Isa. 66.2; Jn. 1.3; Heb. 1.3; 11.2), but that's not what Genesis 1-2 are about. In Genesis 1-2, God is creating functionality.

> literal days

Again, look at it with different eyes. Genesis 1 is an ancient temple text. No temple made by human hands was suitable for the true God, so God is establishing a temple worthy to speak his glory, and it's the cosmos. He orders the cosmos to function as his temple. Every temple dedication ceremony in the ancient world was a 7-day ceremony, rehearsing the acts of their deity and his greatness. The 7 days of Genesis are not chronology but revelation: the greatness of God and his power and purposes in ordering creation. Of course they're literal days, but the text is not about a 6-day creation, but a 6-day rehearsal of the greatness of God. Then on the 7th day God comes to rest in his temple, which means he comes to live in it and engage his people. This was the understanding of all ancient temple texts, and Genesis should not be read with modern eyes. We have to see it through ancient eyes.

> Interpreting this as really referring to functions and roles is valid, but such an interpretation is metaphorical by definition.

Metaphor is the wrong word. It makes it seem symbolic or figurative, which it is not. God is literally ordering the universe to function as his temple. His real actions have historical points of intersection. It's not a metaphor at all. When I move my stuff into a new house, I order it to create a home for myself. Before it was empty and void, but I fill it and order and create a home. That's what's happening here. I make the house that was there functional for me.

> "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

We need to stop treating the text like it was written in the Western world last year.

"Adam" is the Hebrew word for humankind, not an individual. Hebrew wasn't invented yet, so this is a category, not an individual's name. Of the 34 occurrences of "Adam" in Gn. 1-5, 22 have the definite article, which in Hebrew is never used of a personal name. so it is here. (Only 5 times is it used of an individual.) Therefore this is a reference to humanity, of which the individual in Gn. 1-3 is an archetype (not an allegory or metaphor).

In the ancient world dust is a symbol of mortality (Gn. 3.14; Ps. 103.14). Humankind was created with mortal bodies. Not only is it explicit in the text (Gn. 3.14), but it's logical in that a tree of life would otherwise be unnecessary. Adam is an archetype (not an allegory or a metaphor, please). In Adam we know that all homo sapiens were mortal.

I know it's traditional to think that God knelt down and formed Adam materially with his hands out of the ground, but that's just a nice poetic rendering. That makes us think more like Pinocchio than reality. If you wanna get literal, dust isn't moldable. The verb "yasar" (formed) doesn't need to make your mind think of sculpting. If that were the case, clay would be a better medium. Read Zech. 12.1, where the Lord forms the human spirit within a person. That's more the idea, and it sure isn't talking about m material creation. In the Egyptian reliefs Khnum, the craftsmen creator deity forms the pharaoh. He's not involved in material creation, but is designing the pharaoh for his role and function. We should understand this process as archetypal rather than referring to material origins.

> "So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man"

First of all, again in Gn. 2.21 we have "Adam" with the article, telling us it's talking about humanity, not an individual. In Hebrew, the "rib" (tsela) is not a piece of anatomy, but rather the side of a building or room. The word is not used anatomically anywhere else in the Old Testament, so not here either. It is first translated "rib" in the Septuagint, and we have all been suffering from that translation ever since. Instead, God is communicating to humanity about the nature and identity of the woman. She is of the same substance and essence as he is. She is his "counterpartner," neither his inferior nor his servant. The text is establishing the unity of humanity and the equality of men and women.

> Nudity...Metaphor.

Yes. It's figurative. Interestingly, the word for the shrewd cunning of the serpent (3.1) is 'arum; the word for nakedness here is 'arummim. The two verses are next to each other. So we're seeing a wordplay: the serpent is shrewd, and the humans are...unshrewd, therefore, innocent and pure.

Secondly, clothing has great symbolic meaning in the Bible: power, vulnerability, status, station, even sometimes morality and spirituality. Here the man and woman are complete naked, a clear biblical metaphor of their moral innocence.

When Gn. 2.25 says they were naked and felt no shame, we can understand it to mean their relationship with each other was unhindered by guilt, fear, mistrust, domination, or evil. They are portrayed as morally and spiritually "not guilty". So also, and primarily, their relationship with God. Nothing stood between them and God. Their nakedness is a picture of freedom, a state of innocence, and a symbol of uncorrupted relationship.

> "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made."

Ha, you want to know if the serpent is presented as a spiritual being, why is he contrasted with wild animals? Good question. This tells us the serpent was not just a symbol. He's not a metaphor, but just as real as any other created thing.

> it is that you are already taking it metaphorically, not as actual, literal events.

Then you have missed what I'm saying. It's very real. "Literal" is not a helpful term. I don't take it metaphorically. I take it as an account of functional creation, not material creation. These were actual events in space/time history. They don't contradict with evolution. They don't contradict with each other. They're not metaphorical. The narrative of Genesis 2 portrays Adam and Eve as archetypes of humanity, which is just the way Romans 12.5-20 portrays them: historical, but representing all humankind.

[Epic]

But Genesis clearly says that they did (plants created before the sun). So what you're essentially saying is "Genesis doesn't contradict science, as long as we ignore the bits that plainly do". Which isn't impressive as you could say that about literally anything.

[jimwalton]

> But Genesis clearly says that they did

Only if you're reading it through 2018 Western eyes indoctrinated by Enlightenment philosophy and modern theology. Instead we need to read the text through ancient eyes. If Genesis 1 is a temple text, writing about how God ordered the universe to function as his temple, then it's not a chronological account of the order of material creation. The 7 days of Genesis, as I said, are not chronology but revelation: the greatness of God and his power and purposes in ordering creation.

You want to take the text literally, for what it clearly says. But are you sure you are looking at it literally? For instance, if we look at Day 1, the "creation" of light, we can at first clearly agree that the ancients knew nothing about what our physicists call "light." We do injustice to the text by trying to make it conform to our scientific world view.

But then let's look closer. Let's look at it LITERALLY, clearly. They called the light day (which is odd, because they had a word for "light"), and the darkness "night" (again, they had a word for darkness). This tells us, if we want to read the text literally, that they were speaking of a period of light, which is literally what "day" is, and a period of darkness, which is what "night" is. And then it tells us literally how the period of light (day) and the period of light (darkness) function: as evening and morning. It is telling us that light and darkness function in periods of time, ordered to alternate in sequence, giving us what we call TIME—a function of light and darkness.

When we get to Day 3, we learn how the earth functions, literally. God separates the water and land, and then we find out in v. 11 how the land functions: "Let it produce negation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seen in it." It produces plant life. That's its function. God ordered the world with all of the necessary ingredients for things to grow: water, soil, seed yielding plants with more seed. It's how the land functions.

Day 4 is as clear as can be: it's about function. "Let them serve as signs to make seasons and days and years." It's about how the heavenly bodies function. Literally.

> So what you're essentially saying is "Genesis doesn't contradict science, as long as we ignore the bits that plainly do".

So I'm saying something completely different from what you have claimed. Nothing in the text contradicts science. Days and night alternate to give us the function of time. The earth functions to give us vegetation. The sun, moon, and stars function to give us days, seasons, and years. That's good science.