Adam and Eve: Fact, Fiction, or Something Else?

I remember the very first time that I got a “D” on a test. It was in my 6th Grade Ancient History course. My parents were none too pleased when I brought it home to be signed, and they were even less happy with the apparent reason that I had scored so poorly. I left nearly half of the test blank, which was ridiculous because it was multiple choice. My mom, trying to figure out why I hadn’t at least tried to get some of the questions right, finally made her inquiry. My reply, “I know the answer, I just refuse to put it on paper because I don’t believe in it.”

The problem that I had with the questions is that they all referred to the early stages of human evolution and as a good church-going boy, I knew that this was all nonsense. God created man in a garden, and I was going to show this teacher that I was right even if it meant sacrificing my grades. (I was a weird kid. Just one year earlier, I made my mom withdraw her consent for me to sit in on the puberty/human sexuality talks. I was the only 5th grader who didn’t attend). The moral of the story was that neither my teacher nor my parents told me that I had done the right thing. They knew something that I couldn’t comprehend at that time, something about intellectual integrity. I was encouraged to learn everything that I could about all the possibilities because it is fair and promotes critical thinking skills.

So here’s the deal, we’ve been fed a bunch of bologna by our culture. It wants us to believe that there are only two ways to see the origin of life and humanity. The Bible and Science. One is based on faith, and the other is factually and scientifically correct. And you can’t believe in both because they are incompatible. However, I don’t see it that way at all. I think that God’s ways and power are incomprehensible to us and that he can and did bring about creation in a way that we may never fully understand. Many people with much brighter scientific minds than me have worked tirelessly on explaining the science behind creation, evolution, and intelligent design. I won’t get into all of that here. The point of this all is – “what are we to make of Adam and Eve?”

Understanding Biblical Writing

We probably all have at least heard the story that the Bible begins with. God makes Adam and sees that he is alone. So he puts Adam into a deep sleep and creates Eve from one of his ribs. And they all lived happily ever after – until Eve is deceived by a serpent, eats the forbidden fruit and God then casts them both out of the beautiful Garden of Eden (Gen. 2-3).

When reading the Bible and trying to make sense of writing that is indeed foreign to us, we typically need to understand a few factors. The time and space in which it was written, the author’s original audience, and the author’s original intention. Failing to follow this system leads to us misinterpreting the Bible and applying it in ways that can be downright dangerous. So let’s start this thing out.

Adam and Eve in Real-Time

This leads us to the first reason it is so hard for us to understand the creation and garden account. We don’t know when this is supposed to have happened. Many have tried to date Eden, but the problem with that is that it is not dateable. In fact, nothing is dateable in the Bible before Abraham comes on the scene in Genesis 12. With that being said, tradition points to Moses as the author of Genesis. So what we can say is that although we do not have a date for Adam and Eve, we do know when their account was first received by humanity – somewhere around 1400 BC.

Adam and Eve in Real-Space

The Garden of Eden, and with it, Adam and Eve are believed to have existed in the Fertile Crescent. What is significant about this is that the internal evidence of the Bible confirms this, and it is somewhat common belief (aside from the biblical narrative) that civilization began in this area. Genesis 2 mentions the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which give this area the ability to sustain life. This is also where the Israelites lived when they received the story first.

Original Audience

The original people to hear the story of Adam and Eve were the Israelites, a nation whom God had claimed as his own. Israel was God’s first step in his plan to redeem mankind. They were the descendants of Abraham who had been recently freed from centuries of slavery in Egypt. They were heading towards the land that God had promised to them. This leads us to the reason that Moses wrote to them.

Original Intention

Here’s the big deal in all of this. The creation account and the record of Adam and Eve was written so that the Israelites would understand the world that they existed in. It was given to them so that they would understand the heart of God, make sense of the evil that surrounded them, and know how important it was for them to follow God. Within this fairy tale seeming story, are truths that set the very core beliefs of the Jewish and Christian world. God created the earth and then created humanity as unique, capable of being in a relationship with him. For a time that relationship existed freely until disaster struck. Mankind misused their will and disobeyed God’s commands. Humanity sinned (which literally means to miss the mark), fracturing the relationship between humankind and their creator.

The cool news is that God had a plan. First, that plan was Israel. These are the people whom God had called. Genesis is like their origin story, how they came to be and who they were called to be – the people whom God would dwell with, the people who would testify to the world about the one true God, the people from whom the world’s salvation would spring. Adam and Eve’s story intended to give Israel and by extension us, a clear vision and hope for a future where God restores the world through Christ to the intimacy of the sinless garden once again.

So why are you telling me all of this?

Well, I’m glad you asked. If we don’t know when Adam and Eve supposedly lived, we can’t well assume that any scientific evidence that we have found proves that they didn’t. But it also doesn’t prove that they did. See the conundrum? Secular and Biblical scholars place the advent of civilization in the same place, the Fertile Crescent. Every ancient culture has its own origin story, so maybe this is just one of many old fables told – it just happens to have survived the test of time.

I’ll be honest with you in saying that I believe in a literal Adam and Eve. This may be for no real reason other than I have faith that it is profitable to me as a human trying to know and understand God. Call me crazy if you will, I won’t be offended. However, I also do not believe that you must believe in a literal Adam and Eve to believe in the original intention of the story.

The point is this; however God created us, he meant for us to bear his image, and he intended for us to be in relationship with him. Somewhere along the line, presumably very early on, his prized creation missed the mark and evil was given dominion over not only our hearts but the entire created order. Our ability to be in a relationship with and to know our creator’s love was broken. God, using Israel as a staging ground, began his redemptive work. Within Israel’s time and space, God dwelt among them in the tabernacle and the temple. He gave them a vision of a restored humanity, until the day when he came and truly dwelled among man.

In coming to earth as the man Jesus, God temporarily lived with and walked with his people. While Adam (which is Hebrew for man) had failed and brought sin and it’s adverse effects into the world, God as a man would die a sinners death to pay the penalty for that sin (Romans 5). God’s presence among his people was then moved out of the temple and into the hearts of all who choose to believe in this truth. The body of the Christian is now the place where God dwells (we call it the Holy Spirit). God will continue to live among us this way until Christ returns, and God restores the earth to its pre sin state. At that time, we will live in the presence of God, like Adam and Eve did in the garden.

Eden is vital because it gives us a glimpse of what our redeemed heaven and earth look like – perfect in every way, sinless, peaceful, and painless. The people of God living together in an unrestrained relationship with God.

So What?

The point here is that you don’t have to be fully on board with the idea that Adam and Eve literally existed to believe that God created and will restore humanity someday. I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of the things in the Bible took me a long time to come to terms with as a rational adult. God is in this with you. Adam and Eve could possibly be a story told by God through the prophet Moses to illustrate a reality that was far beyond the comprehension of Late Bronze age migrants who had no formal education what so ever. Or it might be a real story. The intention was not first and foremost to scientifically explain creation and humanity. The purpose was to reveal the truth about God, mankind, our need for redemption, and a vision of what that redemption will look like when it is fully realized in the age to come.

I really hope that this helps some of you who might be wrestling with this topic either way. Remember to keep asking questions, keep reading, and trust that God can and will reveal to you all that he wants you to know.

Blessings, Tim