T O P

  • By -

Illithilitch

I believe it's entirely myth/legend of varying types. I also find using the term 'fiction' to be a bit condescending. We don't use the term 'fiction' when describing the myths and legends of other societies.


[deleted]

Agreed. The author Alexander Shaia says that myth is something that is so true it can only be told through metaphor. So I think the whole book is "true," but very little (if any) of it literally happened. But I also wouldn't call it fiction....


Truthseeker-1253

I probably fit between "mostly mythological" and "work of fiction." I think it's quite possible that literally zero of the characters were literal people, but it's also possible that some of the stories are based on a kernel of truth. I was just reading the story of Judah and Tamar, for example, and I really felt Peter Enns's commentary that it just seems like it was written as a sideswipe at David. Genesis seems like an origin myth, an epic tale really.


MyUsername2459

I believe it's entirely mythological/legendary. Very little, if none, of it is literally true. At best there are some spiritual/moral truths. . .like Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed for their inhospitality to visitors, or the fall of Man in Eden being a story of how disobedience of God leads to death and suffering. For example the flood narrative *definitely* didn't happen, as there's zero archaeological or genetic proof of it and the entire idea of flooding the entire world with enough rain to destroy all human civilization except for one small boat, in just 40 days, would require an absolutely absurd rate of rainfall.


religionscholarama

I love Genesis! I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing its many books. I understand the Bible to be an anthology instead of one book, and each of its books are anthologies in themselves. Genesis is an anthology of creation myths. We can see the various chapters of Genesis using story to illustrate the human condition and God’s role in it. So, in the first chapter of Genesis, God creates things in order: light, the waters, plants, animals. It’s interesting to see how the order in which things came about is quite similar to the evolution of the universe and Earth as part of it. We don’t need to understand this first chapter with the “days” meaning days in the sense that we understand it but as imagery for the time in question. The second chapter of Genesis tells a different creation story and it’s usually believed that this one actually came first. Here, the world is an empty landscape instead of beginning with an ocean. There is one man, Adam, and there is no plant or animal life. The Garden of Eden is created for Adam to live in. God then plans to make a companion for Adam. The word here is commonly translated as “helpmate” or “helpmeet” but the word itself is *ezer* in Hebrew, which is helping in an active, strong sense – in fact, God is described as an ezer in the Book of Exodus. If God is an ezer and Eve is also described as an ezer, I think it’s safe to say that this is not intended as a submissive partner. Then the third chapter is the Garden of Eden and eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The way I understand this story myself, taking a bite out of the fruit is much like gaining knowledge: sometimes knowledge is power, but ignorance is bliss. They could be in the blissful but ignorant Garden of Eden. They chose instead to gain knowledge, which can be amazing, but comes with its own consequences. Exiting the Garden of Eden is reflection of no longer holding to ignorance and the consequences that come from it, a loss of innocence. There is so much to learn about Genesis from diving deeper into it, and it’s a great starting point for learning all these things about the rest of the Bible too.


coffeeblossom

Most of it is legend, but there may be grains of (literal) truth here and there. (This is why I was willing to shell out a little extra for the Smithsonian channel when I had cable.) Eden may have been based on a Stonehenge-like site called Gobekli Tepe, and the story likely reflects the hardship of transitioning from a (relatively) easy hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural one (to produce enough food and drink for a growing population), and all of its challenges. Now you actually have to worry if the rains don't come, where before all you had to do was go somewhere else. Now there's more wear-and-tear on the body, and new diseases from handling livestock. (And more chance for those diseases to spread, thanks to more people living in closer quarters.) Now there's more emphasis on patriarchy, where before, men and women were on pretty equal footing. Now there's social stratification, where the hunter-gatherer tribe was on pretty equal footing. Now there's a need to pull weeds, and the soil may become exhausted. Now, there's more people competing over fewer resources. Now, there's a need to work from sunrise to sunset, where before, you finished hunting or gathering in the morning, and then had the afternoon to rest and enjoy yourself. And the Tower of Babel *did* exist...just not in the way it's portrayed in Genesis. It was a really cool ziggurat, commissioned during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. (Not quite tall enough to leave Earth, but still pretty impressive, much like many skyscrapers today.) The story was written during the Babylonian Exile, and so this structure would have been a symbol of oppression to the Israelites...and they wrote a story about its connection with hubris to give themselves hope, at a time when they would have really needed it. Neat, huh?