• Aims and Observations
• Adulterating Marriage
• Hook's Points
• Adam and Eve in Eden
• What I Hear From You
• Paul, Apollos, Cephas, Christ - or Who?
• How's That Again?
• Jack Rabbits an Turtles
• Creeds and Statements of Faith

In your earliest childhood, if you were in Bible classes, you were impressed with the delightful, though disappointing, account of the creation of Adam and Eve and their experiences in the Garden of Eden. Most believers have accepted that brief and simple account without hesitation, not because they could explain all its details, but just because it is recorded in the Bible. Such faith is to be commended.

Should such faith, however, deter us from asking questions and cause us to ignore facts that we might not have considered before? There seems to be a prevailing fear that we will lose our simple faith if we probe more deeply. We begin this review of the account of Adam and Eve with the admission that it is not all that simple.

The name of Adam is found fourteen times in the first five chapters of Genesis. His name is listed in records of genealogy in 1 Chronicles 1:1, in Luke 3:38, and Jude 14. Paul is the only writer who connects him with theology (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:22, 45; 1 Tim. 2:13-14). Eve's name is used twice in Genesis and twice in the New Covenant scriptures.

Since neither Adam nor Eve is mentioned in connection with the promise to Abraham, with the Law of Moses, by the prophets, or by Jesus, that is a sufficient cause to question how the couple fits into Jewish theology.

The promise to Abraham, the Law of Moses, the prophets, and Jesus all related to the sinful nature of mankind. The narrative of Eden deals with sin more definitely than with biology or scientific origins. Could it be that the Jews regarded the account as a divinely approved allegory dealing with the human predicament without arguing its historicity? Is the account to be interpreted literally, or does it contain figurative representations designed to accommodate our limited understanding.?

Before you form a posse to dispatch me, please consider the questions to be raised in this essay. If you reject the evidences presented and continue to hold traditional views, that is your prerogative; however, those who may hold a different view may not have left the faith necessarily. After a candid appraisal, you may have to agree that, whichever view you hold, it is not all that simple!

Even among the more conservative students, I judge that most do not think that a literal snake tempted Eve. A literal snake cannot reason, know the will of God, know human language and converse in it without even having a voice or voice box or ears with which to hear. Is the snake really more subtle, cunning, or ingenious than all other wild creatures? A snake does not eat dust. The figurative use of serpent is verified in Scripture as "that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world" (Rev. 12:9; 20:2). So who is to insist that all the Genesis account is literal?

Also, I presume that you will all agree that, when it is stated that Adam was made of the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7; 3:19; See Ecc. 12:7), the composition included more than literal dust. We, too, are created of dust but a great part of our bodies is water and minerals. He forms us of "dust" beginning in our mother's womb and continues by what we consume the rest of our lives. His creation of our bodies is by stages and a process over a period of time. So we allow for accommodative language detailing this part of the narrative and have no hangup about it being literal. The "dust" pertains to all that is earthly in us.

When a baby is born, it acts by instincts rather than reason and understanding, for those faculties are developed through varied experiences over a matter of years. We are not told how Adam and Eve came to know language and develop communicative skills. Were their brains like computer hard drives into which God installed software programs of knowledge of their bodies, their emotions, their world about them - a full education of theology, gardening, physiology, biology, psychology, zoology, geography, astronomy, etc.? What level of education and experience would they be given? If they were given full knowledge, why was it not passed on to their descendents? If they were lacking in these things, were they imperfectly made?

It is generally accepted that there was no death until after the fall. Both the first couple and the animals ate food. Would they have died if they ate nothing? If they ate any living thing, it would have caused its death. If Adam pulled up a plant in caring for the garden, would the plant have died? How did predatory marine creatures survive without eating other marine life? If all were vegetarian until after the flood, why did Abel, the second born son, raise sheep? God would have had to reconstruct those herbivorous animals which later became carnivorous. As the animals bred, did all the tremendous amount of discharged but unused sperm continue living?

The boy who agreed to work a month for an employer for one penny the first day to be doubled each day would be owed more than half a billion pennies at the end of the first month. That illustrates the exponential multiplication possibilities of each insect, creature, and plant if there were no death. In a short time the fast-multiplying insects would smother the earth.

Can, or could, a person eat knowledge? They were forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as though God did not want them to have that knowledge. Yet, after they were warned not to eat, they then had knowledge of good and evil before they ate. Their violation was not out of ignorance.

If Eden was a place of perfection as we have assumed, it would need no dressing, or cultivation, yet Adam was given the task of doing that. Because there was no death, he would not have had so much as a dead stick or sharp bone to use as a tool. Did God provide tools and skills for him? If so, why would later generations not have learned the use of such tools?

"The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living" (Gen. 3:20), yet she had actually given birth to no children at the time. Speaking of naming, Adam gave names to all the creatures (how many species?) on the day of his creation before Eve was created and brought to him. An impressive zoo there! We might wonder if he wrote down their names and what became of the list. And we can wonder where they slept and found protection from the weather and what they used for dishes, vessels, and grooming. Add to the list of wonders the points that they were ashamed of their nakedness even though they were alone as husband and wife, and that they were able to hide from God when they heard him (a Spirit) walking in the garden.

You may think I am attacking the credibility of the Bible, but that is not my purpose. I am proposing, however, that some, or many, things in the account of Adam and Eve in Eden may not be literal. You may have a quick explanation for each point that I have raised, but how do you know it is an accurate explanation? I am not denying that God can do what he wishes. I am saying the account of creation and Eden is not all that simple.

Many believers (millions, I assume) interpret the account of creation and that of Adam and Eve in Eden as being theistic rather than scientific and historical. They do not question the power of God or his work in creation but, recognizing problems with the scientific approach, they are willing to accept an allegoric meaning. The narrative is believed to be preserved divinely to point all human kind of all ages to the one God as the source of all and to indicate that the human predicament is caused by rebellion against the Creator, while also at the same time revealing God's concern and ultimate provision for redeeming man.

No scientific theory should be made into a necessary tenet of faith. Nowhere in the theology of the Scriptures are the process of creation, and/or the stages of creation God might have utilized, and the length of time used, made into a dogma of saving belief.

In a different context in discussing debatable issues, Paul urged, "So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves" (Rom. 14:22). Whatever your conviction is, live by it, but don't reject your sincere brother whose convictions differ from yours.

That is a Spirit-approved rule to follow in all debatable matters of theology for we must admit that they are not all that simple. []

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