Should Genesis be taken literally?
by Russell Grigg
Creationists are often accused of believing that the whole Bible should be taken
literally. This is not so! Rather, the key to a correct understanding of any part
of the Bible is to ascertain the intention of the author of the portion or book
under discussion. This is not as difficult as it may seem, as the Bible obviously
contains:
- Poetry—as in the Psalms, where the repetition or parallelism of ideas
is in accordance with Hebrew ideas of poetry, without the rhyme (parallelism of
sound) and metre (parallelism of time) that are important parts of traditional English
poetry. This, by the way, is the reason why the Psalms can be translated into other
languages and still retain most of their literary appeal and poetic piquancy, while
the elements of rhyme and metre are usually lost when traditional Western poetry
is translated into other languages.
- Parables—as in many of the sayings of Jesus, such as the parable
of the sower (Matthew
13:3–23), which Jesus Himself clearly states to be a parable and about
which He gives meanings for the various items, such as the seed and the soil.
- Prophecy—as in the books of the last section of the Old Testament
(Isaiah to Malachi).
- Letters—as in the New Testament epistles written by Paul, Peter,
John, and others.
- Biography—as in the gospels.
- Autobiography/testimony—as in the book of Acts where the author,
Luke, after narrating the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus
as a historical fact (Acts
9:1–19), then describes two further occasions when Paul included this
conversion experience as part of his own personal testimony (Acts
22:1–21;
26:1–22).
- Authentic historical facts—as in the books of 1 and 2 Kings, etc.
So the author’s intention with respect to any book of the Bible is usually
quite clear from the style and the content. Who then was the author of Genesis,
and what intention is revealed by his style and the content of what he wrote?
The author
The Lord Jesus Himself and the gospel writers said that the Law was given by Moses
(Mark
10:3;
Luke 24:27;
John 1:17), and the uniform tradition of the Jewish scribes and
early Christian fathers, and the conclusion of conservative scholars to the present
day, is that Genesis was written by Moses. This does not preclude the possibility
that Moses had access to patriarchal records, preserved by being written on clay
tablets and handed down from father to son via the line of Adam–Seth–Noah–Shem–Abraham–Isaac–Jacob,
etc., as there are 11 verses in Genesis which read, ‘These are the generations
[Hebrew: toledoth = ‘origins’ or by extension ‘record
of the origins’] of … .’1
As these statements all come after the events they describe, and the events recorded
in each division all took place before rather than after the death of the individuals
so named, they may very well be subscripts or closing signatures, i.e. colophons,
rather than superscripts or headings. If this is so, the most likely explanation
of them is that Adam, Noah, Shem, and the others each wrote down an account of the
events which occurred in his lifetime, and Moses, under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, selected and compiled these, along with his own comments, into the book
we now know as Genesis2 (see also
Did Moses really write Genesis?).
Chapters 12–50 of Genesis were very clearly written as authentic history,
as they describe the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons who were the
ancestral heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. The Jewish people, from earliest biblical
times to the present day, have always regarded this portion of Genesis as the true
record of their nation’s history.
So what about the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which are our main concern, as these
are the ones that have incurred the most criticism from modern scholars, scientists,
and sceptics?
Genesis 1–11
Are any of these chapters poetry?
To answer this question we need to examine in a little more depth just what is involved
in the parallelism of ideas that constitutes Hebrew poetry.
Let us consider Psalm 1:1, which reads as follows: ‘Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way
of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.’ Here we see
triple parallelism in the nouns and verbs used (reading downwards in the following
scheme):
|
walketh |
counsel |
ungodly |
|
standeth |
way |
sinners |
|
sitteth |
seat |
scornful |
|
As well as this overt parallelism, there is also a covert or subtle progression
of meaning. In the first column, ‘walketh’ suggests short-term acquaintance,
‘standeth’ implies readiness to discuss, and ‘sitteth’ speaks
of long-term involvement. In the second column, ‘counsel’ betokens general
advice, ‘way’ indicates a chosen course of action, and ‘seat’
signifies a set condition of mind. In the third column, ‘ungodly’ describes
the negatively wicked, ‘sinner’ characterizes the positively wicked,
and ‘scornful’ portrays the contemptuously wicked.
Other types of Hebrew poetry include contrastive parallelism, as in Proverbs 27:6,
‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of
an enemy are deceitful’, and completive parallelism, as in Psalm
46:1, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in time of need.’3.
And so we return to our question. Are any of the first 11 chapters of Genesis poetry?
Answer: No, because these chapters do not contain information or invocation in any
of the forms of Hebrew poetry, in either overt or covert form, and because Hebrew
scholars of substance are agreed that this is so (see below).
Note: There certainly is repetition in Genesis chapter 1, e.g.
‘And God said …’ occurs 10 times;
‘and God saw that it was good/very good’ seven times;
‘after his/their kind’ 10 times; ‘And the evening and the morning were the … day’
six times. However, these repetitions have none of the poetic forms discussed above;
rather they are statements of fact and thus a record of what happened, and possibly
for emphasis—to indicate the importance of the words repeated.
Are any of these chapters parables?
No, because when Jesus told a parable He either said it was a parable, or He introduced
it with a simile, so making it plain to the hearers that it was a parable, as on
the many occasions when He said, ‘The kingdom of heaven
is like … .’ No such claim is made or style used by the
author of Genesis 1–11.
Are any of these chapters prophecy?
Not in their full context, although two promises of God are prophetic in the sense
that their fulfilment would be seen in the future. One of these is Genesis 3:15,
which was the pronouncement by God to the serpent (Satan) in metaphorical form:
‘And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And
between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise
him on the heel.’ (NASB). Many have interpreted the ‘seed’
in this verse as the Messiah, including most evangelicals and even the Jewish Targums4 hence the Talmudic expression ‘heels
of the Messiah’5. The Messiah
would suffer wounds to His feet (on the Cross), but would completely destroy Satan’s
power. This verse also hints at the virginal conception, as the Messiah
is called the seed of the woman, contrary to the normal biblical practice of naming
the father rather than the mother of a child (cf.
Genesis chapters 5 and 11,
1 Chronicles chapters 1–9,
Matthew chapter 1,
Luke 3:23–38).
The other is
Genesis 8:21–22 and
9:11–17,
‘And the LORD said in His heart, I will not again curse
the ground any more for man’s sake … and the waters shall no more become
a flood to destroy all flesh.’
Are any of these chapters letters, biography, or autobiography/personal
testimony?
This is where we need to consider some of the subscripts mentioned above.
If Adam knew the events of Creation Days 1–6, they must have been revealed
to him by God, as Adam was not made until Day 6, and so he could have known them
only if God had told him. This view is reinforced by the words, ‘These
are the generations of [NIV: ‘This is the account of’] the heavens and
of the earth when they were created …’ in Genesis 2:4a.
The details of Day 7, the rest day, are included before this in
Genesis 2:2–3, thereby completing (as we might expect) the record
of a full seven-day week, before this subscript or closing signature appears.
Then follow the events of
Genesis 2:4b–5:1a. This section tells us about Adam, his wife Eve,
and their sons, and reads very much like a personal account of what Adam knew, saw,
and experienced concerning the Garden of Eden, and the creation of Eve (chapter
2), their rebellion against God (chapter 3), and the deeds of their descendants
(chapter 4 to 5:1), albeit written in the third person6.
This section ends with the words, ‘This is the
book of the generations of Adam.’
Is it feasible that Adam could have written Genesis 1:1–2:4a as the result
of his pre-Fall conversation with God, and Genesis 2:4b–5:1 as the record
of his own experiences? There is no problem concerning his ability to have done
so. Adam was created a mature man, endowed with all the DNA, knowledge and skill
he needed to perform all the tasks assigned him by God. No cave-man he! Adam knew
enough horticulture ‘to dress and to keep’
the Garden of Eden (Genesis
2:15), and ample intelligence to recognize and name the distinct kinds of
animals (Genesis
2:19). He (and Eve) could converse with God without ever having learned
an alphabet, and there is no reason to suppose that he was not fully skilled in
writing also7.
Supposed contradictions
What about the supposed contradictions between the order of events in Genesis chapter
2 and the order given in chapter 1?
There are none! See also Genesis contradictions?
If, with the NIV, we read ‘Now the LORD God had
planted a garden in the east …’ (Genesis 2:8) and,
‘Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of
the field …’ (Genesis 2:19 with emphasis added), it
is clearly seen that chapter 2 states that the plants and animals were formed before
Adam. When Adam named the animals (Genesis
2:20), they obviously were already in existence. There is no contradictory
significance in the order of animals listed in Genesis 2:20; it is probably the
order in which Adam met the animals, while the order of their creation is given
in
Genesis 1:20–25. Dr Henry Morris comments:
‘It was only the animals in closest proximity and most likely as theoretical
candidates for companionship to man that were actually brought to him. These included
the birds of the air, the cattle (verse 20—probably the domesticated animals),
and the beasts of the field, which were evidently the smaller wild animals that
would live near human habitations. Those not included were the fish of the sea,
the creeping things, and the beasts of the earth mentioned in
Genesis 1:24, which presumably were those wild animals living at considerable
distance from man and his cultivated fields.’8.
Concerning the names of geographical sites, we have no idea what the configuration
of the land or the rivers was before the Flood, because the pre-Flood world was
completely destroyed. The land areas and rivers named before the Flood do not correspond
to similarly named features after the Flood.
The purpose of
Genesis 2:18–25 is not to give another account of creation but to
show that there was no kinship whatsoever between Adam and the animals.
None was like him, and so none could provide fellowship or companionship
for him. Why not? Because Adam had not evolved from them, but was ‘a living soul’ whom God had created
‘in His own image’ (Genesis
2:7 and
1:27). This means (among other things) that God created Adam
to be a person whom He could address, and who could respond to and interact with
Himself. Here, as in many other places, the plain statements of the Bible confront
and contradict the notion of human evolution.
There is therefore enough evidence for us to conclude that Adam most probably was
the author of Genesis 2:4b–5:1, and that this is his record of his own experiences
with respect to events in the Garden of Eden, the creation of Eve, the Fall, and
in the lives of Cain, Abel, and Seth.
The next section is from
5:1b to 6:9a, and deals with the line from Adam to Noah, ending with,
‘These are the generations [or origins] of Noah.’
The next section is from
6:9b to 10:1a, and deals mainly with the Ark and the Flood, ending with,
‘Now these are the generations of the sons of
Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.’ The wording of this subscript suggests
that this portion was written by one of Noah’s sons, probably Shem, as Moses
was descended from Shem. These chapters read very much like an eye-witness account
because of the intimacy of detail which they contain. Consider Genesis 8:6–12
and note how this contains that ring of authenticity which is characteristic of
an eye-witness account. It may even have been Shem’s diary!
Genesis 8:6–12:
6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened
the window of the ark which he had made:
7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were
dried up from off the earth.
8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off
the face of the ground;
9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him
into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then
he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the
ark;
11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was
an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the
earth.
12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not
again unto him any more. (KJV).
Such meticulous details are the stuff of authentic eye-witness testimony. They have
the ring of truth.
There is thus a substantial body of evidence that these portions of Genesis delineated
by subscripts were written by the persons named therein, for the purpose of making
and passing on a permanent record.
So then, were these first 11 chapters written as a record of authentic historical
facts?
Answer: Yes, for several reasons.
Internal evidence of the book of Genesis
1. There is the internal evidence of the book of Genesis itself. As already mentioned,
chapters 12–50 have always been regarded by the Jewish people as being the
record of their own true history, and the style of writing contained in chapters
1–11 is not strikingly different from that in chapters 12–50.
2. Hebrew scholars of standing have always regarded this to be the case. Thus, Professor
James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:
‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament
at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis
1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took
place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now
experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple
addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the
biblical story (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish
all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively,
the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of
time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely
local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far
as I know.’9.
3. One of the main themes of Genesis is the Sovereignty of God. This is seen in
God’s actions in respect of four outstanding events in Genesis 1–11
(Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Babel dispersion), and His relationship
to four outstanding people in Genesis 12–50 (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph).
There is thus a unifying theme to the whole of the book of Genesis, which falls
to the ground if any part is mythical and not true history; on the other hand, each
portion reinforces the historical authenticity of the other.10
Evidence from the rest of the Bible
4. The principal people mentioned in Genesis chapters 1–11 are referred to
as real—historical, not mythical—people in the rest of the Bible, often
many times. For example, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, and Noah are referred
to in 15 other books of the Bible.
5. The Lord Jesus Christ referred to the Creation of Adam and Eve as a real historical
event, by quoting Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in His teaching about divorce (Matthew
19:3–6;
Mark 10:2–9), and by referring to Noah as a real historical person
and the Flood as a real historical event, in His teaching about the
‘coming of the Son of man’ (Matthew
24:37–39;
Luke 17:26–27).
6. Unless the first 11 chapters of Genesis are authentic historical events, the
rest of the Bible is incomplete and incomprehensible as to its full meaning. The
theme of the Bible is Redemption, and may be outlined thus:
i. God’s redeeming purpose is revealed in Genesis 1–11,
ii. God’s redeeming purpose progresses from Genesis 12 to Jude 25, and
iii. God’s redeeming purpose is consummated in Revelation 1–22.
But why does mankind need to be redeemed? What is it that he needs to be redeemed
from? The answer is given in Genesis 1–11, namely, from the ruin brought about
by sin. Unless we know that the entrance of sin to the human race was a true historical
fact, God’s purpose in providing a substitutionary atonement is a mystery.
Conversely, the historical truth of Genesis 1–11 shows that all mankind has
come under the righteous anger of God and needs salvation from the penalty, power,
and presence of sin.
7. Unless the events of the first chapters of Genesis are true history, the Apostle
Paul’s explanation of the gospel in
Romans chapter 5 and of the resurrection in
1 Corinthians chapter 15 has no meaning. Paul writes: ‘For
as by one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one [Jesus] shall many be made righteous’
(Romans 5:19). And, ‘For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive … And so it is written, The first
man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit’
(1 Corinthians 15:21–22; 45). The historical truth of the record concerning
the first Adam is a guarantee that what God says in His Word about the last Adam
[Jesus] is also true. Likewise, the historical, literal truth of the record concerning
Jesus is a guarantee that what God says about the first Adam is also historically
and literally true.
Conclusion
We return to the question which forms the title of this article. Should Genesis
be taken literally?
Answer: If we apply the normal principles of biblical exegesis (ignoring
pressure to make the text conform to the evolutionary prejudices of our age), it
is overwhelmingly obvious that Genesis was meant to be taken in a straightforward,
obvious sense as an authentic, literal, historical record of what actually happened.
References
- See Genesis 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1; 36:9; 37:2.
Return to text.
- The seminal author on the colophon concepts was P.J. Wiseman, Creation
Revealed in Six Days, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, London, 1948, pp. 45–53.
For an excellent evaluation of this by a evangelical linguist see The Oldest Science
Book in the World, by Dr Charles V. Taylor, Assembly Press, Queensland,
1984, pp. 21–23, 73, 121. Return to text.
- This discussion of Hebrew poetry was adapted from J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore
the Book, Vol. 1, pp. 13-16. Return to text.
- Aramaic paraphrases of the OT originating in the last few centuries BC, and
committed to writing about AD 500. See F.F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments,
(Westwood: Fleming H. Revell Co., Rev. Ed. 1963), p. 133. Return to text.
- A.G. Fruchtenbaum, Apologia 2(3):54–58, 1993.
Return to text.
- The use of the third person is no problem. Moses wrote the long account of
his own life in Exodus to Deuteronomy in the third person, and many classical authors
like Julius Caesar also wrote in the third person. Return to text.
- Adam and Eve knew how to sew fig-leaf ‘aprons’ for themselves
(Genesis
3:7). Within a few generations, Adam’s descendants founded a city
(Genesis
4:17), were tent-makers, cattle farmers, musicians with the ability to make
both stringed and wind instruments, and metallurgists with the ability to smelt
the ores of copper, tin and iron and then to forge all kinds of bronze and iron
tools (Genesis
4:20–24). Dr Henry M. Morris comments in
The Genesis Record (Baker Book house, Grand Rapids, Michigan,
1976, pp. 146–147):
‘It is significant to note that the elements which anthropologists identify
as the attributes of the emergence of evolving men from the stone age into true
civilization—urbanization, agriculture, animal domestication, and metallurgy—were
all accomplished quickly by the early descendants of Adam and did not take hundreds
of thousands of years.’ Return to text.
- Henry Morris,
The Genesis Record, p. 97. Return to text.
- Letter from Professor James Barr to David C.C. Watson of the UK, dated 23
April 1984. Copy held by the author. Note that Prof. Barr does not claim to believe
that Genesis is historically true; he is just telling us what, in his opinion, the
language was meant to convey. Return to text.
- Adapted from J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book, Vol. 1,
pp. 27–29. Return to text.
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