The book of Genesis is one of the most important books in the Bible. The book of Genesis tells us that God created the heavens and earth. Notice, I didn’t say, “Genesis tells how God created the heavens and earth.” The book of Genesis also gives an account of God’s creation of life on earth, especially God’s creation of human life. The book of Genesis tells a story about how sin came into the world when the first humans disobeyed God.
How are we to understand these and other events as recorded in the book of Genesis? Some Christians have interpreted Genesis in a very literal manner. Those who interpret Genesis this way believe that God created the heavens and earth in six twenty-four-hour days. They believe that Adam and Eve were the first people created, and all people are descended from Adam and Eve. Those who are literalists also believe that God flooded the entire earth and only Noah, his family, and the animals Noah brought on the ark survived the great flood.
In contrast to Christians who take Genesis literally, other Christians interpret the book of Genesis, especially the first eleven chapters of Genesis, in a non-literal way. These non-literalists believe that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are not literal history. In other words, the stories about creation, the story of Adam and Eve, and the story about Noah’s flood are not actual history. These Christians believe that although these stories in Genesis are not literal history, they are important because, through these stories, God is teaching spiritual truths.
Which interpretation is the right interpretation—the literal or the non-literal?
One way to find the best way to interpret Genesis is to examine how other biblical writers understood Genesis. Did the prophets believe the stories about Adam and Eve and Noah and the great flood were actual historical events, or did they believe they were only stories that teach spiritual truth? What about Jesus? Did Jesus believe that the stories in Genesis were actual historical events, or did Jesus believe they were only stories that teach spiritual truth?
Fortunately, the Gospels record Jesus’ comments on three events in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Jesus comments on Adam and Eve. Jesus comments on Adam and Eve’s sons Cain and Abel, and Jesus comments on Noah and the flood.
Jesus comments on Adam and Eve. Jesus comments on Adam and Eve’s sons Cain and Abel, and Jesus comments on Noah and the flood.
First, let’s look at Jesus comments on Adam and Eve in Matthew 19:3-6.
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
On the surface, without any attempt at interpretation, it seems as if Jesus believes the story about Adam and Eve as recorded in Genesis. A simple reading of Jesus’ words seems to indicate that Jesus believed Adam and Eve were real, historical people. Jesus uses the passage in Genesis to teach that when God brings a man and woman together, that union should not be broken by divorce. I’m not discussing divorce. That’s a question for another day. What we are asking is how Jesus understood the book of Genesis. Genesis 2:7, 18, 21-24
Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature… Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” … So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Jesus uses this story from Genesis to teach that marriage is sacred. It seems that Jesus believed that Adam and Eve were real historical people.
Jesus’ next reference to an event in Genesis is Matthew 23:34-36
Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Abel is the second son of Adam and Eve. Abel was killed by his older brother, Cain.
Jesus is accusing his opponents of being part of a grand cabal—a grand conspiracy that, from the very beginning of history, has opposed God and has opposed all that is good and right. Jesus says that his opponents are just as guilty as Cain, who killed his brother Abel. “Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.” (Genesis 4:8).
Jesus refers to this event in Genesis, and from a simple, natural reading of this verse, it appears that Jesus seems to believe that the story about Cain and Abel is historically accurate.
There’s one more example of Jesus’ use of the book of Genesis: Matthew 24:37-39
For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
The story about Noah and the flood is found in Genesis chapters six through ten. These chapters in Genesis give a detailed account of Noah and a worldwide flood.
Genesis 7:7, 23
And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood… He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.
Jesus uses the story about Noah and the great flood as a comparison to what life will be like when Jesus returns to judge the earth. Jesus says: “That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”
Jesus is saying that just as those who lived in Noah’s day had no idea what was about to happen, so too, those who are alive when I return will have no idea what will happen. The flood came without warning. Similarly, Jesus will return without warning.
Jesus seems to believe that Adam and Eve were real people just as Genesis says. Jesus seems to believe that Cain and Abel were real people and that Cain killed his brother Abel just as the book of Genesis says, and Jesus seems to believe that God destroyed the world in a great flood but saved Noah and two of every animal who survived the flood by going into a huge ship where they lived for an entire year.
If it seems so clear that Jesus believed that these people and events were real historical people and real historical events, how, or maybe a better question is why, do some Christians believe that these stories in Genesis are not real, actual history?
One of the arguments for taking these stories in Genesis as true, actual history is that for Jesus’ arguments to be true, the historicity of the events must be true. In other words, the truth that divorce is wrong is based on the truth of a historical Adam and Eve. The truth of Jesus’ return is based on the truth of a historical Noah and a worldwide flood.
Unfortunately, we may be premature in using this method of interpretation because we find at least one biblical writer who uses a non-historical event as the basis for his teaching. This writer is Jude. Jude 14 says, “It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones.”
This story about Enoch is not from the Bible. This story about Enoch is from the apocryphal book of First Enoch. Jude uses a non-biblical story and a non-historical event as a prophetic announcement of Jesus’ return. Jude’s use of a story from the book of First Enoch is evidence of a non-historical event being used as the basis for teaching biblical truth.
Jude actually uses two non-biblical events. One non-biblical event is the story from First Enoch. The other non-biblical event is a story about a contest between Satan and Michael the archangel. Jude 9 says, “But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’ ”
We can find at least two stories in the Bible that tell about a contest between God and Satan. The book of Job and the book of Zechariah tell about a contest between God and Satan, but there is no story in the Bible that tells that Satan and the archangel Michael had a dispute about the body of Moses.
There are, however, stories about a contest between Michael the archangel and Satan in other books—books that were popular in Jesus’ day, but books that are not a part of the Bible. Apparently, Jude knew these non-biblical stories and used them as the basis for his teaching.
Is it possible that the story about a contest between Satan and Michael the archangel is a true story? New Testament scholar Thomas R. Schreiner, in his commentary on Jude, asks this question: Did [Jude] believe the account was historically accurate, or did he cite it to make a point? It is difficult to be certain, but it seems likely that Jude believed the story was rooted in history.”[1]
To say that an event is “rooted in history” is not the same thing as saying the event is an actual historical event.
How does what Jude does in his letter impact our interpretation of Genesis? When it comes to the historicity of the events in Genesis chapters one through eleven, different Bible scholars explain it in different ways. Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham calls the story of Adam and Eve “proto-history”. Wenham defines proto-history as “a form of writing that has links to the past but interprets history for the sake of the present.” In other words, the stories contain truth, but not every detail of the story should be taken as a literal explanation of actual events. Wenham says that the stories in Genesis are “historical in that it is describing past realities and the lessons that should be drawn from them.”
Many Christians don’t have a problem with a view like this because the Bible is not like a modern history book. The Bible is historically accurate but not necessarily according to modern methods of writing history. The Bible is historically accurate according to the historical norms of ancient people, not modern people. Since the Bible is not a science book nor a history book, let’s be careful not to make the Bible something it’s not.
The Bible is the word of God written by ancient people who had a view of the world uninformed by modern science. We shouldn’t be surprised by this ancient view of the world. It was the world they knew. God spoke to these ancient people using ideas and concepts they could understand. We need not think that God’s word must conform to our modern scientific understanding of the world. The Bible is the word of God that tells us about God. The Bible tells us who God is. The Bible tells us who we are. The Bible tells us how we can find God, how we can believe in God, and how we should worship God.
I realize that I haven’t really answered the question concerning Jesus’ use of Scripture, especially concerning Jesus’ statements about Adam and Eve and Noah and the flood. My point is that there is room for Christians to disagree. We need to understand that good men and women who believe the Bible is the Word of God, who love God and believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, may have different views concerning the historicity of some of the events in the first eleven chapters of Genesis.
How does a less than literal view of Genesis impact our faith? I suggest that we focus on the main points Jesus is trying to teach. We should not miss the main point of what Jesus is saying when he uses the book of Genesis as the basis for his teaching. First, Jesus uses the story of Adam and Eve to teach that marriage is sacred. Second, Jesus uses the story of Cain killing his brother Abel to teach that his opponents were guilty of murder. And third, Jesus uses the story of Noah and the flood to teach that someday—someday when we least expect it—Jesus will come back to judge the earth.
[1] Thomas R. Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, vol. 37, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 460.