Genesis: literal history or metaphor?  

(Update: to read a couple articles similar to mine written by John Lang visit this post.)

I just wrote 13 blog posts on the book of Genesis and there's an elephant in the room: Is it to be taken as literal history or as a religious metaphor? It's a topic that deserves discussion when trying to understand Genesis. The short answer is this: The Bible is true, evolution is real, and neither conflict with each other or a Biblical idea about God. Here is the long answer:

I will first make some conditions on which I think about this topic. I will then state my stance and provide the main reasons I think what I think, before I defer to a well-known theologian of the 16th century. At the end I'll caution thinking of Genesis as "a simple metaphor" and give a perspective on how God works.

Conditions

Before you judge my opinion too quickly, here are some points I want to clarify:

1. I am indeed a Christian, believing Jesus Christ is our one true gateway to God (and IS God).
2. I believe God is powerful enough to do whatever he wants. God could certainly have formed the earth with the power of Play-doh or literally as it is in the Bible, for he is the creator and is unbelievably powerful. Of course our world would look a lot different if he had.
3. I believe the Bible is not a tool to be read however one wants to in order to make his/her point. There is an accurate means by which to interpret the Bible and let it say what it wants to say, which is by-and-large not ambiguous. When two people disagree on what the Bible means, one person is right and the other person is wrong (even though it might be hard for us to determine for sure who is who sometimes).
4. I believe the Bible is true, beginning to end.

Okay, read ahead, oh brave reader.

My stance

I believe the earth is billions of years old and that life on earth evolved over a billion+ years from very small life forms to all life we see today, most probably including humans. The origin of the first living cells is a matter of open debate.

Having now read points 3 and 4 of my conditions, and having read my opinion on evolution, it should be clear what my stance is: Genesis is not literal history.

My main reasons for viewing Genesis as a form of metaphor are the scientific reality of evolution by means of natural selection, the genres of the stories of Genesis, and the pure poetry of the Genesis literary devices.

Evolution is real.

There was a time when I didn't know what to think about creationism and evolution, worrying that my faith would be destroyed at any second. My dad, a longtime serious Christian (not an evil scientist), always encouraged a balanced view, knowing that it didn't matter if the serpent literally told Eve to eat the fruit. But I found it comforting to pour over internet articles on why evolution is totally untrue and scientists are by and large blind or liars.

But the truth is, scientists are the best people in the world at science. And science is one of our best lenses through which to observe the world. And when I say science, I mean, strictly, peer-reviewed theories tested by the scientific process, seeking the simplest, most likely explanation for phenomena in the universe. It has provided us with most of the advances that have improved the surface quality of our lives. It has led us to live longer lives than we did 1000 years ago. It has multiplied our understanding of the physical universe times 1000 (although we still have only hit the tip of the iceberg).

Now, you may say that lots of scientists believe that evolution is hogwash and that creationist scientists are a dime a dozen. In reality this is more or less a lie put forth by many creationism apologists and believed by a lot of people who are fooled by them,. I wish I could put it in a nicer way, but the more I came to understand the evolution / creationism debate, the more determined I was that that's the truth. Non-evolutionists are rare in the serious scientific community, and among serious biologists, they are practically extinct. Period. Furthermore, those who claim that creation is just as scientific as evolution usually lack several of the parts of my definition of science above.

(Once again let me clarify that the origin of the first living cells is still up in the air, although perhaps one day science will discover that as well.)

Other than that, I am not going to go into all the reasons I see evolution by means of natural selection as a historical reality because there are millions more qualified than me to explain it. It's not easy to understand at first but it's convincing in the long run and is now a foundational pillar of modern biology, geology, and some other sciences. On a large scale, it's a battle between the loud and the learned, not the learned and the learned.

So if evolution is real, surely we can throw Genesis into the trash can, right? It's not that simple, people. Like it or not, the first eleven chapters of Genesis have no interest in either scientific theory or even historical bearings.

Doesn't Genesis have a say?

Like I said earlier, I believe the Bible is 100% true and cannot be interpreted any which way. I simply believe that the way creationists interpret Genesis is absolutely wrong, and misses a lot of the important points the author is trying to make.

Oh, you think the Bible should be taken at its word? Well, how about Psalm 93, which states that the "world is established, firm and secure" (proof we are the center of the universe) and "the seas have lifted up their voice" (proof the seas have souls!!). Oh, I see, you take exception because that's poetry and therefore is a metaphor. Then what about Matthew 5, in which Jesus says to gouge out your eye if it causes you to sin? Oh, you say Jesus was talking in hyperbole. Riiiiiight.

So Jesus speaks in hyperbole and in parables, and Psalms speaks in metaphorical poetry, but Genesis is not free to choose for itself what kind of literature it is? How rude.

Here are the main reasons Genesis is asking you NOT to take it literally:

1. Simply put, it is written in the Genre of creation myth, period. Back when Genesis was written, every culture came up with a story about how the world came to be, which reflected that culture's world views. We would never think any of those stories are true in the least. However, they are excellent help in understanding the author's view of God and man and the earth.

Even if Genesis is divinely inspired (I believe it is), it's written in the context of these other creation myths, and there's no reason to think it was trying to be different in terms of literal history, since the author wasn't there for the creation of the earth. In fact, if it did interact with historical truth, and talked about the origin of species and genetic mutation and those kinds of things, it would have been utterly useless literature for 95% of its lifetime.

So instead the beginning of Genesis is written in the genre of creation myth. Its readers, familiar already with the ideas about how the world came to be, would be blown away by the actually unique, starring elements of Genesis: there is just one God who is all-powerful; God cares about both goodness and the safety of man; the world, and humans, were made with harmony and purpose in mind; that harmony and purpose was destroyed because man wanted to fly solo; and God is working actively to repair the tears.

This contrasts big-time with other ancient creation myths, which believed that man was made on accident by gods fighting with each other or by a god masturbating, and that the gods need us to make food for them even though we're annoying to them, and they are on the same moral playing field we are. These points, and others, would be completely lost in a historical record. But they emerge as the main points of the passage when Genesis 1-11 is viewed as a creation myth.

2. Genesis asks you not to take it literally by its story structure. Genesis has TWO, count 'em TWO creation stories that are very different. And besides being silly on their own from a scientific standpoint, they are not in agreement with each other. Anyone who argues otherwise would rather be right than realistic or has been fooled by someone who would.

The first creation story lays out creation in six days: day 1 is light and darkness, day two is the sky and seas, day three is ground and plants, day four is the sun moon and stars, day five is birds and sea creatures, and day six is animals and humans.

Read over that order again and tell me with a straight face that it's trying to be historically accurate. Plants are explicitly stated to exist before the sun!! Birds are explicitly stated to exist before creatures on the ground!! My God, the stars aren't created until days after the earth!!!

The answer to this problem, of course, is that the order of creation has literary purpose, not scientific or historical. The first three days, God makes a canvas. The second three days, God fills the canvas. It's poetry, people.

The second creation story goes in a whole different direction. Order is not exactly different in the second story from the first story, because it is ambiguous and unimportant. The second story couldn't care less what order God created things because no one knew the order and the first story only stated it as a literary device. It's not far fetched, and in fact it is the only reasonable explanation anyone from any time could come up with.

To bolster my case, I'll mention that "6 days" is not mentioned in the second story. And while man's purpose in the first story is to be made in God's image, and to rule earth and to fill earth, in the second story our purpose is to work the garden, to live forever, to name the animals, and to have sex. Another difference is that the first story doesn't care who's made first, man or woman, while the second story has man coming first and then woman. The first story emphasizes the goodness and harmony of what God creates while the second story contrasts that good world God makes with the fallen world where people run from God and start killing each other.

In addition to all this, Genesis 4 is arguably a THIRD creation story in which God creates humans in his likeness, but after a long time, mankind is totally evil and corrupt and God is sorry he made us. Genesis is clearly written carefully and with purpose, not carelessly and haphazardly. All three stories have different scopes and different purposes, none of which are historical records.

3. Another element of ancient myths that Genesis contains is dozens of explanations for every day life. Almost all people throughout all history would laugh at the prospect of almost any of these explanations being historically accurate.

Here's an incomplete list: Man names the animals while looking for a suitable mate. We hate snakes because one tricked us into abandoning God, and that's why they don't have legs. The reason that it hurts to give birth, that women are oppressed in marriage, and that farming is hard is because we chose our own morality over God's. Nomads originated because Cain was reprimanded by God. Various job-clans originated from Cain's grandsons. God just decided one day that we would live way shorter lives. People got all over the earth and all the languages developed in one evening (not sure if that includes languages that did not yet exist at the time of Genesis' writing, such as English). Rainbows originated as a reminder to God to not flood earth. Canaanites are cursed because their ancestor looked at his dad naked. The word "nimrod" originated from a great warrior. Most of the big cities of the ancient world were founded by one guy. Two detestable nations were born when two daughters had sex with their dad.

Once again this is an incomplete list, and yet it is clearly the stuff of legend and myth, not historical fact. Many of the explanations that I didn't mention spill over into the second half of Genesis, bringing it's purpose as a historical narrative into question, although I'm willing to leave that possibility much more open.

There are other points to be made but in my opinion these three demonstrate convincingly that Genesis has no intention of historical accuracy, but rather it invites you to share its view of how God, man, earth, and our relationships all fit together, and what God is doing about it. Those views are revolutionary in ANY culture and are what make Genesis timeless.

A pre-Darwin theological perspective

If you believe evolution is real, perhaps you think I have just manipulated my understanding of Genesis to fit my theological beliefs. But actually, before Darwin, my understanding of Genesis was already an educated option. I did not discover this myself, but read it on page 257 of Introducing the Old Testament by Jon Drane, so I will just quote the relevant parts:

All this [the notion that literal Genesis must be defended] is a fairly recent development, and earlier generations of Bible scholars were much less inclined to try to force the book of Genesis into the straitjacket of a scientific textbook. Even to scientists as long ago as the sixteenth century, it seemed unlikely that there could be waters above the sky in the way that seemed to be implied... John Calvin was no liberal, but in his Commentary on Genesis he agreed with this opinion, describing such a notion as 'opposed to common sense, and quite incredible,' and going on to dismiss the idea that the Genesis story was supposed to be any kind of scientific account... The Old Testament writers, he argued, simply took for granted the sort of world-view that was widely held in their day. This assumed that the world was like a flat disc, set upon pillars below, with the sky arching over it like a dome... Calvin described details such as this as only props on the main stage - background detail to reinforce the fact that the Old Testament's message was relevant to the world in which ordinary people lived.

I agree wholeheartedly, and this understanding of Genesis is much more respectful of and takes much more seriously the incredible message about God that the book does put forth. It is not one of many interpretations, but the intended way for the book to be read as purposed by the original author and the God who inspired him/her.

Cautioning against not taking the Bible seriously as a Christian

Having said all this, those who do not take Genesis literally often do have a flawed perspective, not taking Genesis very seriously, calling it "a bunch of metaphors that teach us lessons." It is important to take Genesis seriously, as it is NOT a bunch of moral lessons - in many places it is morally indifferent - but a serious and true view of mankind's world and of God's work in the world. Although it is of a similar genre, it is not Aesop's Fables and has a much grander and more serious purpose and scope.

Not only that, but apart from Genesis, a sizable percentage of the Bible is without a shadow of a doubt indeed meant to be taken literally, such as Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, the historical details of the prophets, the Gospels, Acts, and the historical details of Paul's letters. The end of Genesis through Deuteronomy is possibly meant to be taken as literal history (maybe, maybe not). Many of these books contain difficult passages, like Jesus walking on water and people rising from the dead. A part of being a Christian is to believe these events are real history (otherwise Christianity is totally pointless).

Is there room for God in evolution?

The last argumentative hurdle I run across is, "If life originated through natural processes, isn't the idea of God useless?" The issue here is natural vs. supernatural. For some reason we get hung up on the idea that whatever we can easily understand is natural and God had nothing to do with it, while what we don't understand is supernatural and we can give God credit for that. Part of the appeal of creationism is that, by this standard, it gives God more credit than evolution.

But the Bible argues that God created the natural world and had absolute control over that creation. According to Genesis, the rest of the Old Testament, and the New Testament, God deserves credit for creating everything on earth, owning everything on earth, and controlling everything on earth.

Guess what? This means that whether I was healed in an instant during a prayer or by a six-hour surgery, God deserves the credit. Either he interceded in history to change my circumstances or set my healing in motion through a doctor's instrument at the beginning of creation. Either way, it's his doing, and his good pleasure, and neither glorify God more than the other. This also means that whether it took dozens of billions of years or 6 days, creation of the universe was made through God's beautiful and patient process. Neither is more or less supernatural or natural than the other.

It is a dangerous proposition that what we do understand is not from God while what we don't is proof of God, as many people have gained unbelief in God throughout history when they came to understand something new, assuming what we understand is not from God. Many Christians (and Muslims) are panicking about evolution the way others panicked about germs, cells, and the earth revolving around the sun. We now understand (some of) the process by which the sun arrives each morning and delivers sunlight and warmth life to us, but God is still the Lord over the sun. In the same way, we understand (some of) how God developed life on earth but he is still Lord over the development.

Imagine that one day, it is proved historically that the healings and miracles and walking on water that Jesus is reported to have done really happened. A revival takes place, with billions putting their faith in Christ because it is proven the Gospels are accurate beyond a shadow of a doubt. (Of course, if this was all proved, most would still deny Christ, but stay with me here.)

Now, imagine ten years later, natural, scientific processes are discovered by which Christ performed these miracles. Should these billions deny their faith in Christ because we now see that he walked on water because of some natural scientific process?

Many would say yes, but in my opinion there is no difference. According to the Bible, God is in control of what we can observe and what can't observe. The only difference between the two is whether we can understand it, not whether God is glorified through it. The idea of natural vs. supernatural is not in the Bible and is unimportant. (I do think that Jesus walking on water demonstrates his Godly authority over nature and did not require a scientific process, but that is not the point.)

Conclusion

So I do believe in the Bible. In fact, I think it is all true and has one true meaning, not many. But evolution is also real, and Genesis does not intend itself to be read in such a way as to contradict evolution. In fact, such a reading detracts from the true, relevant, important messages of Genesis about how the one all-powerful God is beginning a process of fixing a broken world, while evolution itself is a long way from making an argument against the God of Christianity as an active supernatural power.

I hope and pray that this post has given you some new things to think about. Mostly my goal is to help you to see Genesis and God in a new way. You're free to believe in creationism if you think it's the most valid scientific explanation for life's development, but please don't hijack the book of Genesis to make your point. I welcome comments or questions. I am not a professional scientist or theologian. But these are my thoughts, and I suggest that you, too, pick up some books from the library (including Genesis) and search for the truth. Thanks for reading.