Pretty much every Christian has read through Genesis 1-3, and many have wondered at the simplicity of it. Two trees in a garden, a talking snake, and the very first sin.
In an age where science rules the day, such a story probably seems like a made-up fairy tale, like Cinderella or Jack and the Beanstalk. Think about this, though. When Genesis 1-3 was first written down, who was it being written for? Who was the audience? Was that audience expecting to hear a 100% accurate recollection of historical events? Were they expecting to hear a made-up fairy tale? How do we know?
A lot of that actually depends on when Genesis 1-3 was written. Some biblical scholars say that it wasn’t even composed until after the Jews had been taken captive by Babylon, and the Jews in captivity were exposed to the fanciful “creation” tales that had been passed down for many generations, into the hands of Babylonian scribes.
Let’s assume for the moment that Genesis 1-3 was written circa 4,000 BC, roughly around the time when Adam and Eve would have existed. What sort of audience existed back then? Who lived back then, and how do we know?
Fundamentalist biblical scholars would say that the only human beings around were Adam and Eve’s children. Science doesn’t appear to agree however, so what do we do with that?
Let’s also assume for the moment that science is actually right, and there were other people alive back then. (In another article, I’ll discuss how archaeologists attempt to reconstruct a chronology of events in both history and prehistory, and how we can establish how reliable archaeological age estimates are.) Who were these other people? What would they have thought of the biblical story of creation?
We actually have quite a few examples of pagan “creation” stories from all different time periods. It seems that everyone was writing “creation” stories back then! There’s quite a bit of variety, but we can also pick out some common elements.
- There were sometimes some literal parts of the story, but on the whole, a “creation” story wasn’t meant to be understood literally!
Let’s take the Epic of Gilgamesh, for instance. This was a fanciful Sumerian tale of a king by the name of Gilgamesh. This king went on a quest for the “plant of life” after his best friend, the wild man Enkidu, friend to nature and animals (the Sumerian version of Adam), died. Gilgamesh was a real king, because we have archaeological evidence for his existence! But the tale of his search for the “plant of life” was fictional.
- A creation story often described a “place where creation occurred” – which was a real place, not a made-up location.
An Egyptian creation myth described a mound of earth which rose out of the primordial waters of creation. A ben-ben stone (conical stone) rose out of this mound. A bird landed on the stone and suddenly there was light – the first light of creation. The stone became the foundation stone of the temple at Heliopolis.
- This “place where creation occurred” wasn’t some distant land, but rather a place in close geographic proximity to the people who wrote the creation story.
To cite the previous example, Heliopolis was a city in Egypt – and this was an Egyptian creation myth.
- A creation story relates something unique about the people it describes.
For instance, another Sumerian creation myth explained that the “kingship was first lowered from heaven to Eridu” – a city in Sumer. In addition to that, man was created as an afterthought, to work the fields and make life easier for the gods. From archaeological evidence, we know that the Sumerians grew crops in their fields and paid a grain tax to the temple in the city. In other words, metaphorically speaking, the Sumerians were mere servants to feed the gods and their whims.
These may seem like very arbitrary rules, but one might say the same thing about the rules of composing poetry, for instance. Just like interpreting poetry is easy if you understand its structure and use of simile and metaphor, interpreting creation literature is reasonably straightforward – with a bit of cultural context.
Let’s take a stab at interpreting the biblical creation story, then. We don’t need to cover every single aspect of it, only the main themes.
First of all…if some parts of the biblical creation story might be literal, how would we recognize them? Taking the example of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the main character was a literal king. Likewise, Adam and Eve literally existed, because we have a genealogy which includes them.
This is very important to understand. In the bible, an inheritance in the land can only be proven if a person can demonstrate their genealogy – their claim to their inheritance. So, having a genealogy is a way of identifying a real person.
We also know that the Garden of Eden itself was a real place – because it was the “place where creation occurred” so to speak. In other words, it was a place of prime importance, as far as the people who wrote the biblical creation story were concerned. (In another article, we’ll identify exactly where the Garden of Eden was.)
However, the rest of the biblical creation story was a metaphor – just as other ancient creation stories were mostly metaphor. That has a lot of important implications:
- Adam and Eve were NOT the first human beings, despite what the text says. (The creation story actually hints that this is indeed the case. See below.)
- There was no literal tree of life and no tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
- There was no literal talking snake.
On the other hand, there WAS a sin involved. Later biblical passages are very clear about this. But, if there was no literal tree of knowledge, what exactly was that sin? How do we know?
This is where we need to bring in the final point – that the biblical creation story tells us something unique about the people it describes. So, what was unique about Adam and Eve in the biblical creation story, in contrast to other ancient peoples, or other ancient creation stories?
Biblical scholars have noticed a number of contrasts, including the fact that other ancient creation stories identify the sky, the earth, rivers, etc., as divine in and of themselves. The biblical creation story, on the other hand, has God creating all of those things. Another contrast is that the Sumerian creation story describes the creation of man as an afterthought, to serve the capricious whims of the gods. In the biblical creation story, man is the epitome of God’s creation. But neither of these are the primary contrast.
Indeed, the primary contrast between the biblical creation story and other ancient creation stories is that the concept of ethical behavior is given prime importance. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh introduces the wild man Enkidu to the fruits of civilization: beer and prostitution. I kid you not, read the story and see for yourself!
If these contrasts exist in the first place, then one of two things has to be true. Either the pagan creation stories are deliberately contrasting with the biblical creation story, or the biblical creation story is deliberately contrasting with pagan creation stories! So, which one is it?
Well, let’s look for clues in the text itself. Let’s read Gen. 2:18-20:
And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him (in other words, a wife).” Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
This seems a bit of a non-sequitur. If God was saying that He’s going to make a wife for Adam, why bring the animals into the picture?
Unless…these animals aren’t really animals at all. They’re people of other nations. Other biblical passages associate certain animals with people of other nations – for instance, Dan. 8:20-21 identifies a ram as Medo-Persia, and a horned he-goat as Greece. That also seems to be the case here as well!
If the animals do represent people of other nations, then the serpent represents another nation, doesn’t it? (Yes, it also represents Satan, but let’s go into that another time.) What nation would it represent? In other words, what nation was Genesis 1-3 blaming for tempting Adam and Eve to sin in some fashion?
You’ve probably already guessed where I’m going with this. That nation would be “Mystery, Babylon” – or rather, Sumer, the historical forerunner of Babylon. That means that the “sin” would have been some form of idolatry. More specifically, some kind of compromise between the ethical ways of God, and the ways of the world. Just like happened with ancient Israel later on in history.
There’s a lot more that we can discern about the biblical creation story, but this should give you a good idea of how to interpret it, the way it was originally meant to be understood.
References:
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Origin of the Egyptian Myth of Ra and Heliopolis