Is Genesis historically accurate? This is a question that has been debated endlessly in religious circles with no available compromise. On one side of the room stand the literalists, having not a doubt in their minds that every word of this ancient text is undefiled truth. On the other side are liberal scholars who answer that Genesis, especially the first sections, are without any true historical merit.
To understand the gravity of what is at stake, it is important to discuss what the text contains. In the opening of the book of Genesis, a creation story is told that has God speaking the world and its inhabitants into existence during a six-day period. After this creation is complete, the first man (Adam) and woman (Eve) live among the animals, with the man naming each one. One of these creatures, the snake, is presented as an evil being bent on destroying humanity. This snake tempts Eve into eating a forbidden fruit of knowledge, in turn giving the fruit to Adam, resulting in the entry of sin into the world through Eve. God then discovers their sin and banishes them from the garden.
Fast forward a bit and we find that the world is now a much more populated place. The creation is now thriving, but there seems to be a problem. People have begun committing pervasive sinful acts that anger God, so he decides to destroy the entire earth with a flood, preserving conscious life by having a man build an ark and taking a certain number of each species onto it along with Noah and his family. After this episode is completed, we are left with Noah’s family, including his son’s wives, as the single human inhabitants left to repopulate the earth.
Doctrines such as original sin, the authority of the Bible, the role of God, and many other Christian and Jewish concepts take root in this text, especially the two aforementioned passages. Many fear that by allowing Genesis to become religious myth, Christianity will crumble. Without original sin, humankind may not necessarily need a savior. Without biblical authority, people can behave as they please and the concept of God becomes fuzzier. Our concept of God naturally becomes a product of our intuition, intellect, and experience rather than the clear-cut figure shown in Scripture.
So the question simply has to be answered, as leaving it unanswered only serves to hurt both sides. First of all is the Creation story. Modern science and archeology roundly refutes this story, a story that actually has roots in earlier religions. Humans did not exist at the same time as dinosaurs. Adam did not name all animals as human speech was not at such a stage as this would be capable, and, as previously stated, he couldn’t have been around to name them all. Snakes do not talk. A magical garden does not exist. People are not composed of dust, as can easily be seen. Lastly, the first inhabitants of the earth, including the snake, did not speak Hebrew. The story of the ark really requires no attention as there is no record of this flood ever happening, and enough scientific evidence exists to make this assessment. Also, the story has every element one would expect of a fable: unusually intelligent animals, a “hero,” fantastical natural phenomenon, and the like. Not to mention, characters throughout these tales often live nearly a millennium.
Aside from the mythological nature of the text, Genesis is morally reprehensible. Genocide (the flood), child sacrifice (Abraham and Isaac), and gang rape (Lot and his daughters) are all referenced favorably. With all of this said, it becomes curious that any generally rational individual would accept this text, or the entire Bible, as literal or complete truth at all. We have fundamentalism and church dogma to thank for that. The church has spent centuries codifying and defending these reprehensible ideas, rationalizing them into nonsense that the average religious individual is expected to accept at the risk of committing heresy.
These people fear judgment from a jealous God or exclusion from a cherished religious institution, not realizing the freedom of accepting the truth. By letting go of myth and irrational, nonintellectual faith, one is able to begin to search for truth in faith. This is a freeing faith, one that is not afraid to ask questions and provides a sense of meaning. As a Christian, I find my faith to be the central focus of my life. I do not have faith because I believe it is a requirement or that I will be struck by lightning if I don’t, rather I believe I have experienced God through Jesus. By recognizing Genesis for what it really is, a piece of religious heritage without much historical merit, one is able to search for the God seen in Jesus, not a primitive people’s angry and violent deity.
