Historical understandings of Genesis

Synopsis

There is some disagreement among Christians regarding the historical nature of the book. Questions naturally arise such as: "Was there a garden?" and "Was their a fall with the serpent?". 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 read the book as literal history, and thus understand the world to be around 8,000 years old. Other Christians see the genre, at least of the first few chapters of Genesis, in a 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.

Related topics

• Creation | Eden | Adam | Eve | The Fall | Babel | Noah | The Flood
• Genre

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Historical understandings of Genesis (discussion) (For short comments and opinions)

For related quotations see Historical understandings of Genesis (quotes)

Main article

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 be around 8,000 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 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.

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