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There is some disagreement among Christians regarding the historical nature of the book. Questions naturally arise such as: "Was there a garden?", "Was their a fall with the serpent?", "Was there a world-wide flood, or a local flood?", "Was there really a tower of Babel?". Disagreement arise partly because of the way in which the book is read, in particular, which genre the reader feels most appropriately fits the book. Some Christians, especially in the Developing World and the United States, read the book as literal history, and thus understand the world to [[New Earth Theory|be around 6,000 years old]]. They see all of the Creation story to be factually accurate. At the other end of the spectrum, other Christians see the genre, at least of the first few chapters of Genesis, in a [[Old Earth Theory|more parabolic or metaphorical way]]. These Christians do not necessarily believe in a literal Adam or Eve, but see the creation story as making a number of points, including God as creator, with humans rebelling against their creator.  ===Joseph=======Sir Colin Humphreys FRS and Robert S White FRS====[https://www.cis.org.uk/serve.php?filename=scb-7-2-humphreys-white.pdf Humphreys CJ and White RS (1995), "The Eruption of Santorini and the Date and Historicity of Joseph", Science and Christian Belief, vol 7, pp151-162.]:"We suggest that a cataclysmic eruption Of Santorini in the 17th century BCwas responsible for major famines in Egypt and the surrounding arearecorded in Old Testament writings in the account of Joseph, and we givearguments for the historicity of this account. Evidence of climaticdisturbances in the northern hemisphere from tree-ring widths and of ahuge acidity spike in ice cores from Greenland are consistent withwidespread climatic modification at this time. We suggest that the faminesoccurred during the period of the Hyksos pharaohs of the FifteenthDynasty ln Egypt, probably during the reign of King Khyan, thus providinga date for this pharaoh. and also for the old Testament patriarch Joseph.If our arguments are accepted, the eruption of Santorini, for which we takethe best date to be 1628 BC, provides an absolute chronological markerfor both ancient Egyptian and ancient Hebrew chronology."