Do you take the Book of Genesis Literally or Figuratively?

Question

Please include an explanation with some level of detail.(Not an entire essay, but at least offer some reason for your opinion, even if its as simple as "thats how I was raised." Please try to use reasonably good grammar; spell check doesn't take that long, and a quick proofreading for other mistakes isn't going to slow you down that much.

Also, I ask that you avoid using stereotypes, and avoid providing insulting or spammy answers.

I personally believe that the book of Genesis was meant to be read figuratively, and that the stories in it are basically parables, designed to teach humans important lessons about life and sin. I believe this as I find most of the events described to be unlikely and illogical. Despite the fact that the bible is Gods book, it was written by humans, and natural human bias and traditions such as myths have undoubtedly played a part in its creation.

Answer 1

Actually, spell check doesn't work reliably on my system, for whatever reason, so bare with me (heh, heh).

The Bible, for whatever else it may, or be claimed to be, is about the history and relationship of God and people. From it, God is revealed to us, together with moral codes and, in the new testament, the promise of salvation and forgiveness. It is a panoramic narrative covering virtually all departments of human existence. If we learn anything from the Bible, we learn the nature of our creator and our saviour, and how to live righteous lives (meaning "right with God," lives; not "holier than thou" lives).

But the Bible is NOT -and does NOT portray itself to be- a biology text or scientific work of any kind. The lessons to be learned, or wisdom to be gained, do not require that anything in the Bible be literally true as pure, factual data. In fact, referring to scripture with this sole purpose is, to my mind, a terrible abuse both of the Holy Word itself and of God's gifts to us of intelligence and the capacity to love.

And that brings us to Genesis. Grand as the narrative of creation and first days is, the point behind the material is to instruct us that we have fallen from grace by putting our own will above God's. When that happened, we ended up moving from "Eden" to a far different world -the one we know today.

Suppose Genesis contained nothing about this human condition -suppose it simply was a laundry list of "...then God did this, then He did that ...etc." It would be no different than listening to your spouse list his/her activities during the day -interesting, perhaps, but probably not relevant to what happened to YOU during your day.

But suppose Genesis were ONLY a short moral lesson: "You have fallen from grace. Wrong move..." That, too, would be unconvincing, without context or meaning.

In other words, Genesis -and the whole Book- can't work if it is just one or the other; story without a moral; or moral without a story. If you were ever a Boy or Girl Scout, you had to commit to memory a moral code. "On my honor, I will do my best... etc." And the REASON you had to commit it to memory was that you were handed a set of naked rules, devoid of examples, definition or explanation. Likewise remembering the 10 commandments. In and of themselves, they may or may not be regarded as some good ideas for right living. But the Old Testament puts them all in context -every commandment has story after story showing what happens when they're followed -or not. Context, depth.

Now let's do some critical literary analysis: fact is, getting literal with Genesis has problems of its own as a logical proposition. Read closely: in one section, woman is created from Adam's rib. But in a previous passage, God created "them," as though they were created independently and at the same time. Thus, a literal reading of both parts will give you 2 very different scenarios. Likewise, the order of creation itself varies from one passage to another. I'm not going to give you chapter and verse -just read the first 3 chapters and see for yourself. The point is that, in order to reconcile these variances, even the literalist must interpret to understand what it "really means."

I've often heard people say that the verses covering creation of man and women ("man and woman he created them") tell the reader that God did it -the later verses relating Adam's rib tell HOW he did it. That might be true -problem is, the scripture itself doesn't SAY that's what the real story is and thus interpretation by the reader is the ONLY way to establish that connection. When I challenge the argument on that basis, the typical reply is that "...it is just common sense, isn't it?" But the point is that we now are ignoring the moral and cosmic lessons and arguing over who got to the party first. This gets to be a serious problem when people rely on such "factual" interpretations to support causes, positions or behaviors that are damaging to others -such as, for example, second-class citizenship for women. And THAT is the abuse I'm talking about.

While we're here, just what WAS the lesson of that part of Genesis? Answer: Man (women) needed some company, someone to love, a partner, a helper. So, he made us to take care of each other. He said so. But some people will use Genesis as support of the notion that the man rules the house, makes all the important decisions and should be waited on hand and foot by -guess who? See the problem? I'm not attacking any notion that men seem somehow more "made for" certain things and women for others; I'm just saying that it is an abuse to use scripture to support your own comfort level AT THE EXPENSE of someone else.

As you can probably see from this brief discussion thus far, there's a lot to think about in those 3 chapters -even TODAY. And THAT'S what it is all about.

Now, let's look at some scholarship. Many 'literalists" seem to take the point of view that the content of the King James version of the Bible had been around, essentially unchanged- practically since the days the material was forst written down anywhere. Actually, there's some truth to it, because the scribes (human "copy machines") very very careful to copy everything exactly. And it so happens that a lot of very early material has been recovered. And, because of this, we're able to tease out several lines of publication, if not authorship, for Genesis. The best educated opinion among scholars today is that the variances I've noted above are the result of different stories from different people being blended together in one "book." You could actually cut out the various sections and re-assemble them to put all sources together. Matter of fact, this has already been done. So, in a way, Genesis is like a family "scap book" which traces the lives of family members. In general, we see an age progression among the family members pictured -early birthdays, graduations, marriages, vacations, career changes, the new house, etc. But on any individual page, we might see pictures or even newspaper stories or notes and letters describing the same event in different ways or from different points of view. THAT is the best layman's explanantion of Genesis I can offer. Should we argue over how one snapshot is how Mother "really" looked? Should we use the emphasis of a news clipping about a music recital as "proof" that your sister NEVER danced? Ridiculous!

All of this makes Genesis -and every other book of the Bible- a much more marvelous and inspired document than simple literal interpretation ever could. It is an incredibly rich inheritance; one that is tainted, in my belief, when redacted to simple "facts."

All that said, I do NOT mean to imply -and could understand if anyone thought I was- that people who take it all literally are somehow "out of touch." On the contrary, the Scripture will "work" either way, so long as God is revealed to the reader and we take to heart and mind the moral lessons portrayed and, from the NT, the good news of our salvation and the good work God has given us to do -you can get that either literally or "figuratively." And thus, the scripture is a gift for EVERONE. God created many kinds of people, and His Word can be read and appreciated by all -it's THAT good. It is a concern to me, though, that anyone would either ignore or corrupt the message through brutal application of the literal content.

Thanks for a good question.

Answer 2

No religious book it LITERALLY true. The teachings are meant to be interpreted in a way that is lost in most modern thought. Modern times have distorted the 'true' meaning behind the literature and taken it word for word. Read between the lines and learn the culture or at least the history if the time and you will have a better understanding when you read any religious literature. They all have common guidelines and truths within them, it's just a matter of NOT taking it literally.

Answer 3

When you say literally or figuratively, it's like saying black and white. The Genesis account is neither.

Why? Because the whole Bible needs to be consulted as to how black or how white or how gray the answer gets!

For example, many people claim that the creative day is 24 hours long and is thus as long as any day presently. These people surely go with a literal explanation. But is it Biblical / scriptural ?

NO, IT ISN'T. Paul in Hebrews shows that the seventh creative day wasn't finished when he lived. He indicated that Christ's 1000 year reign would be part of the seventh day.

Today many different denominations have stated that man was created about 6000 years ago. Add at least the 1000 years of Christ's reign and you have a creative day length of at least 7000 years EACH.

In this way, this is a literal scriptural interpretation; however, is it a literal interpretation of Genesis? No, it isn't.

For how this fully Biblical view of Genesis affects its interpretation look at this page here:
http://bythebible.page.tl/Creation.htm

Answer 4

Well, I believe that some of it could be figurative. Other parts of the bible are. But regardless of how creation happened, there are a few things that must be true according to the other books in the Bible:

1. That God created the world out of nothing (however long it took - 7 days or 7 thousand years)
2. That God gave man a soul and gave him dominion over the animals
3. That the first man and woman committed the first sin, and
4. That we are all direct descendents of the first man and woman because we ALL have inherited their original sin

My father and I always like to discuss the book of Genesis and some of the questions we have. He was a zoologist at one time and loves science. :-)

Answer 5

Genesis is a long book with 50 lengthy chapters, that tell several different narratives. You can't treat it as a single monolithic thing. Only the first few chapters are about the Creation, not the whole thing.

I think large parts of it are oral tribal history written down by Moses. NOte, that doesn't mean "myth". That means that Moses wrote Genesis, and he lived sometime after, say, Joseph. But oral tradition in a tribal society is REMARKABLY accurate... there are today in parts of Europe, as well as Africa, people who can recite the history of their people back for hundreds of generations because it is *memorized* and taught verbatim to the next generation. That's how the history of the Hebrews got to Moses for God to inspire him to write it. The rest of the five books, Moses was around to witness what happened.

As far as the Creation narrative, I believe it to be metaphor. I don't mean that's a myth, either. I mean that I believe God actually created the universe and all that is in it... but for an ancient people to understand it, it had to be written down in a way that they were able to comprehend... what's the point of writing the narrative in a way that's incomprehensible to its intended audience? You don't hand a textbook on quantum mechanics to people whose technology consists of the wheel, the lever, and the inclined plane.

I'm a staunch creationist, but I don't read Genesis 1 - 3 as a complete account of how it all happened -- it's not a treatise on cosmology and it wasn't intended to be. God inspired Moses to write in a way that his people could understand the awesome power and might of God, and that he created all things in heaven and earth, and under the earth. It was written for a pre-technological people, not for us in the 21st century. Anyone who picks holes in that and claims that's a reason not to believe in God is creating a straw man and knocking it down to show off.

Answer 6

I believe the things in Genesis are not figurative. It's a really great book !

Genesis tells about the work of creation, and it shows God’s purpose in creating man, the relationship of man to God, and the relationship of man to the animals. It gives us the reason for death and trouble experienced by mankind and the hope of deliverance. It points out that all humans descended from the one man Adam, who sinned and lost life for his posterity; it thereby enables us to understand how the ransom sacrifice of one man, Jesus Christ, could atone for the sins of mankind. Genesis enables us to see how the issue of the rightfulness of God’s sovereignty was raised by the symbolic serpent, Satan the Devil. It gives the sure hope of destruction of Satan and of relief for mankind. It recounts the origin of Babylon and thus of all false religion in the post-Flood earth, thereby aiding in the identification of Babylon the Great in the book of Revelation.

* Genesis tells us how the universe came into being. In a matter-of-fact way it describes the wonders of creation, without making these overshadow the main purpose of the book.

* It furnishes us with the history, genealogy, and chronology of people and events living during that period.

* I believe Genesis, then, provides a valuable basis for understanding all the other books of the Bible and is essential to Christianity. It sets the theme for the Bible, namely, the vindication of Jehovah’s sovereignty and the ultimate fulfillment of his purpose for the earth, by means of his Kingdom under the promised Seed. In addition to the very first and basic prophecy at Genesis 3:15, Genesis has within it numerous other prophecies, a great many of which have been fulfilled since its composition.

* thanks for the reminder of how wonderful this book really is, I think thats my new reading assigment for the next week ! *

Answer 7

I take it literally, God is quite capable of doing anything. If you start doubting God can do this, then you can start doubting everything else about god. Some suggest God may have used evolution to create the earth, but for evolution to take place means there has to be death in the world, according to the bible death was introduced as a punishment for sin, so it was not around before Adam and Eve sinned

Answer 8

I believe that the book of Genesis is meant to be read figuratively. It is based on oral tradition that was handed down for thousands of years prior to being written. Having done Biblical exegesis, it seems apparent that there are many 'authors' of Genesis. This is known as 'Documentary Hypothesis'.

Answer 9

The Bible was written by man for man about God.
ALL religions have their mythology. Its a way to explain the unexplained and to teach valuable lessons. Such as fables. The MESSAGE is the same, though the words were never meant to be literal.
I have seen so many Christians made their religion about the book instead of the man. Its really sad and very frustrating.

Answer 10

I go back to the original Hebrew and retranslate it into modern English. Then I take it toelly literally since it exactly matches what modern day science says.

Let there be light = Big Bang
Let the earth bring forth the creatures of the sea = evolution

Answer 11

I take the whole Bible literally, except here God makes it clear that it is a proverb Then I take the lesson literally