Genesis from a Christian Perspective

I'm sorry this post is so long, but I felt like all of it has to be said.

After reading Alex's post, I feel compelled to at least present a Christian alternative to the arguments he had against Genesis. First of all, I think that many of these arguments stem from the attitude that Genesis was written as a historical document. While it's true that some Christians take every word of the Bible literally, many--if not most--believe that some parts of scripture were written allegorically or symbolically, and Genesis is a classic example of that. Reading carefully you will notice that two stories are told (one in Ch. 1 and one in Ch. 2), and they each convey different themes (God's great power and love for humans, and humans' propensity to sin, respectively). On a side-note, the mindset of people back in ancient times was that "truth" was in meaning, not in details, so even if this was a historical document, the details of the specific order of creation/evolution wasn't the main point of the passage and would therefore would have some leeway. This is also the reason that the four gospels are all considered true even though they include some discrepancies in the smaller details: they all bring the same message of love and salvation but are written from different people's memories and points-of-view. But back to Genesis...

Alex criticized the "anthropocentric" perspective of Genesis, saying the writer had no reason to regard humans so highly. I disagree with this for several reasons. First, one of the main tenets of Christianity is the idea that God specifically created humans to be special among his creation. When he gave us "dominion" over the plants and animals, he was giving us a great responsibility because he loved and trusted us. He didn't plan for us to do with it whatever we wanted; the intent was that we would watch over the earth with the same loving care as God watches over us. Alex argued that there's no reason that humans should have that privelege/responsiblity of dominion since ecosystems do fine without us. Most Christians also agree that we should respect nature as it is and be careful with it, because that's how God treats us and we should do the same in our own positions. And as for Alex's question, "What makes man any less wild than the animals that were called so?" I think it's pretty obvious that humans have much more highly developed brains than any other animals. Any scientist would agree. To say that the only answer is the writer's biased anthropocentrism ignores this fact. If God were to choose one species to be his beloved stewards of the earth, it makes sense that he would choose the one with the greatest capacity for understanding. If one reads Genesis with the perspective of caring for nature like God does, the fact that humans have dominion over it only reinforces a feeling of accountablility, not carelessness.

Alex's second point was an argument against perceived sexism in Genesis--both in the fact that Eve was created from Adam's rib and that she was the first to take The Fall. Personally, I didn't find his biological arguments convincing, mainly because they all seem to be either isolated incidents or irrelevant to which sex was originally created first. And evolutionary theory actually suggests that the two sexes evolved simlutaneously in a sort of mutual evolution in which the females invested more in children and the males more in competition for mates (Dawkins, Selfish Gene, appendix to p. 142). The story of God creating Eve from Adam's rib is often taken among Christians to be symbolic of the marital status of "one flesh" because it shows that instead of being created separately (i.e. from different patches of dirt), the two are from the same body. This is the second creation story, but 1:27 says it differently: "male and female he created them," implying equal status. The fact that the other story favored men over women is most likely a reflection of the already patriarchal society when Moses wrote Genesis (around 1450-1410 B.C., long before the medieval period Alex mentioned). As is true of any type of writing, the story comes out through the lens of culture and personal experience, and this context needs to be recognized. I do agree that the church misinterpreted these passages in medieval times to reinforce their male dominance, but I don't think that was at all the intent when Moses wrote them.

Alex's harshest criticism comes in response to Original Sin. I agree that if God made pain and toil the penalty for knowledge, he would not be a good God. However, I disagree that this is what God did. I believe that the reason God made the Tree of Knowledge is to assure that his people would have the power to choose their own path. He wanted the best for them, which was to stay in communion with him (after all, he is perfect), but he didn't want to force them into it. I believe that the knowledge of good and evil (3:5) in the tree is not as important as the fact that it makes people "like God" (3:5). God isn't discouraging knowledge in itself; he's discouraging the attempt to find it independently of God and to disobey the Creator (who desires obedience because he has great plans for everyone's ultimate best interest). When God found out they had disobeyed, he didn't admonish their new knowledge, he said, "Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" It's the command that is important. Perhaps the reason the tree is of knowledge is that only knowledge of good and evil can help Adam and Eve deal with reality after they've sinned. In Eden, they could get by just fine by simply caring for the garden as God commanded, but after sinning they were no longer worthy to stay there and have to be able to distinguish between good and bad if they are to try to obey God in the future (and avoid more disastrous mistakes/sins).

I don't understand Alex's complaint about the Garden of Eden story ignoring the rest of the world. The beginning of Genesis clearly says that "God created the heavens and the earth" (1:1), not just Eden. Life had to start somewhere, and in this symbolic story of creation it is Eden. While Moses doesn't mention any other lands in the story, he doesn't at all imply that they don't exist. And what point would there be for God to tell Moses to add them to the story? I don't see it as a relevant detail. Also, the fact that all animals have pain in childbirth and that snakes evolved to not have legs simply indicate that this story isn't to be taken literally (in my opinion, at least). God used these images to convey the basic story he wanted to tell. As Sarah M said, if God had told Moses the exact scientific explanation (Big Bang, evolution, etc.), would anyone have understood him?