What Does the Genesis Creation Story Mean?

The first three chapters of the Book of Genesis have been studied, interpreted, reinterpreted, and misunderstood by people of diverse religious convictions for around 2,500 years. The stories recounted in these chapters have had an enormous impact on world religions, mythologies, literatures, and cultures. Most people think that they understand these stories. Nonetheless misconceptions abound—not just about what the text means, but also about who wrote it, what it actually says, what sources the text is based on, and how the text has historically been interpreted.

In this article, I want to take a deep dive into the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, debunk some popular misconceptions, and hopefully do my part to help others understand these stories that have become so influential. This is going to be a bit of a long read, but, by the end of it, hopefully, you’ll know pretty much everything you wanted to know about the Genesis creation stories.

What is Genesis and who wrote it?

Let’s start out at the most basic level. The Book of Genesis is the first of five books that make up the Torah, which is considered the foundational text of both Judaism and Christianity. The other four books of the Torah are Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

All five books of the Torah were originally written in the Hebrew language. The original title of the Book of Genesis in Hebrew is בְּרֵאשִׁית (berē’šîṯ), which means “In the beginning” and is derived from the book’s incipit. The English title Genesis is derived from the Greek word γένεσις (génesis), meaning “origin” or “beginning,” which was given to the book as a title when it was translated into Greek as part of the Septuagint in around the late third and early second centuries BC.

A Jewish tradition going back to at least the Hellenistic Period (lasted c. 323 – c. 30 BC) claims that the entire Torah, including the Book of Genesis, was written by the prophet Moses. This tradition is referenced in the canonical Christian gospels and in the writings of the early Church Fathers. Nonetheless, virtually all modern scholars agree that this tradition cannot be correct.

ABOVE: Moses with the Ten Commandments, painted in 1648 by the French Baroque painter Philippe de Champaigne

For one thing, not a single one of the books that make up the Torah ever actually claims to have been written by Moses. Furthermore, all the books of the Torah contain explicit references to things that happened after Moses’s death and passages that seem to suggest that the author thought of Moses as someone who had died many centuries before the time he was writing.

One particularly glaring example of this is the Book of Deuteronomy 34, which describes in great detail Moses’s death and burial and concludes with a eulogy that makes it sound as though Moses had been dead for hundreds of years by the time the author was writing:

“Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.”

The mainstream scholarly consensus is that the Torah is a compilation of stories derived from a number of different sources, most of which are thought to have most likely originally been composed by Jewish priests living in Babylon during the time of the Babylonian captivity (lasted c. 597 – c. 539 BC).

ABOVE: Illustration produced by the French painter James Tissot between c. 1896 and c. 1902, showing what he imagined the Jews going into captivity in Babylon might have looked like

The “Seven-Day Story” (Genesis 1:1–2:3)

Now that we’ve clarified the context in which the Book of Genesis was written, let’s talk about the creation stories recounted in it—and I say creation stories, rather than creation story, because there are actually two different creation stories in the Book of Genesis that directly contradict each other.

The first creation story is what I will be calling the “Seven-Day Story,” found in Book of Genesis 1:1–2:3. This account exclusively refers to God using the general Hebrew word אֱלֹהִים (Elohím), which is usually translated into English as simply “God.” Genesis 1:2 describes the earth at the beginning of creation as “a formless void.” At this point in the account, there seems to be nothing in existence other than Elohim himself and תְּהוֹם‎ (t’hóm), which means “watery chaos.” The rest of the account describes how Elohim created the earth out of chaos.

This account is divided into seven distinct “days.” The Hebrew word that is used in the text that is usually translated as “day” is יוֹם (yom), which can refer to a literal twenty-four-hour day or to a long but finite period of time. The text, however, repeatedly uses the formula “And there was evening and there was morning,” before telling us which number day it was, indicating to me that the original author was probably thinking in terms of literal twenty-four-hour days.

In the Seven-Day Story, plants and animals are both created before humans (Genesis 1:20–25). When Elohim creates humans, he does so just by commanding them into existence with his speech (Genesis 1:26-30). In this version, men and women are apparently created at exactly the same time, in exactly the same manner, and for exactly the same reason. This account does not specifically mention Adam or Eve by name, nor does it say anything at all about the Garden of Eden, the serpent, or the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Finally, at the end of the Seven-Day Story, in Genesis 2:1–3, an etiology is given for why observant Jews are required to rest on the seventh day of every week:

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”

In Hebrew, the seventh day of the week when everyone is supposed to rest is known as the שַׁבָּת (shabát). This word is usually translated into English as “Sabbath.”

ABOVE: The Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted c. 1511 by the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo

The “Adam and Eve Story” (Genesis 2:4–3:24)

The second creation story in the Book of Genesis is the “Adam and Eve Story,” which is found in the Book of Genesis 2:4–3:24. This story is much longer than the Seven-Day Story and it is radically different in a number of extremely significant ways.

This account is so different that it doesn’t even use the same name for God; while the Seven-Day Story exclusively refers to the God of Israel using the word Elohim, which just means “God,” the Adam and Eve Story primarily uses the God of Israel’s personal name, יהוה (YHWH), which is usually rendered in English translations as “the LORD.”

The author’s conception of God is also markedly different from what most Christians today are accustomed to. In the story of Adam and Eve, YHWH is portrayed as a fully anthropomorphic, physical being who deliberately lies to humans, who does not know everything that is happening, and who is constantly afraid that humans might become more powerful than him.

These are all qualities that people in the Near East in the sixth century BC had no qualms about attributing to their deities, but they are qualities that twenty-first-century Christians are generally uncomfortable with. Consequently, it can be really difficult for modern Christians to come to terms with what the text of Genesis actually says.

Both the order and manner of creation in the Adam and Eve Story are radically different from the order and manner of creation described in the Seven-Day Story. The account starts out by briefly mentioning that YHWH created the earth, but it does not say anything at all about ּprimordial chaos, about seven distinct “days” of creation, or about the Sabbath.

In this story, Adam is the very first thing that YHWH creates after the earth itself, before he creates any plants or animals of any kind. Furthermore, instead of simply causing humans to exist by speaking, in Genesis 2:7, YHWH physically molds Adam from clay and breathes life into his nostrils.

ABOVE: The Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted c. 1512 by the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo

Then, after he has created Adam, YHWH creates the Garden of Eden, along with all the plants that grow in it. In the center of the garden, he plants two trees: the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” (which gives whoever eats from it the ability to tell the difference between good and evil) and the “Tree of Life” (which causes whoever eats from it to become immortal). Upon doing this, YHWH tells Adam:

“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

As we shall see in a moment, when YHWH says this, he is lying.

It is unclear why YHWH does not explicitly prohibit Adam from eating from the Tree of Life in this passage, but later context reveals that he apparently does not want Adam to eat from that tree either.

In any case, after making this prohibition, YHWH decides to create a companion for Adam, so he creates all the animals of the earth and he immediately brings them before Adam for naming. Adam names all the animals, but he determines that none of them will make a suitable companion for him.

In this story, Eve is the very last thing YHWH creates; he doesn’t create her until after he has already created Adam, the Garden of Eden, and all the animals. Furthermore, he does so by fashioning her from Adam’s own rib (Genesis 2:21-25). In this account, Eve is explicitly stated to have been created not as a human being in her own right, but rather as a “companion” for Adam.

This creates an entirely different gender dynamic from the story we just looked at. In the Seven-Day Story, men and women are equals who are created at the exact same time in the exact same manner and for the exact same reason—but, in the Adam and Eve Story, women are portrayed as creatures that YHWH made for the sole, explicit purpose of male enjoyment.

ABOVE: The Creation of Eve from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted between c. 1509 and c. 1510 by the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo

It is at this point that the narrator introduces the serpent, who is described as “more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made.” Christians have traditionally interpreted this serpent as Satan, but this interpretation is not based on the text itself. You will not find any mention of Satan whatsoever anywhere in the Book of Genesis or anywhere else in the Torah. As far as the Book of Genesis is concerned, the serpent is just a talking snake.

The serpent goes to Eve and asks her if YHWH has forbidden them from eating the fruit from all the trees in the garden. Eve replies that they are only forbidden from eating from the tree that is in the middle of the garden and that YHWH has told them that, if they eat from it, they will die. The serpent replies:

“You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

In saying this, the serpent is unquestionably telling the truth. YHWH was lying to Adam. This is proven by the fact that, when Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they do not die.

In an attempt to explain away this problem, some Christian interpreters have tried to argue that Adam and Eve do die eventually, just not immediately after they eat the fruit. The problem with this interpretation is that, when YHWH tells Adam not to eat the fruit, he doesn’t tell him that, if he eats it, he will die at some indeterminate date in the remote future; instead, he explicitly tells him that, if he eats it, he will die on that very same day.

Some more savvy Christian interpreters have tried to argue that, upon eating the fruit, Adam and Eve suffer a “spiritual death”—but there is absolutely nothing about this in the text and it is more faithful to the text to assume that Adam and Eve don’t suffer any kind of death at all upon eating the fruit.

The truthfulness of the serpent’s second claim that, by eating the fruit, Adam and Eve will become “like God, knowing good and evil,” is explicitly affirmed in Genesis 3:22, in which YHWH himself declares: “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” The most parsimonious interpretation of this statement is that YHWH is acknowledging that Adam and Eve really have become like gods.

Nonetheless, in telling Eve the truth, the serpent is still pulling a trick on her; he tells her what the fruit will do, but he does so knowing that, if she eats the fruit, YHWH will find out and be furious with her. He withholds this crucial piece of information.

ABOVE: Adam and Eve eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden, painted c. 1615 by Jan Brueghel de Oude and Peter Paul Rubens

Another fact about the story as it is told in the text that is frequently missed is that eating the fruit does not cause Adam and Eve to become sinful. They are already sinning before they eat the fruit; eating the fruit merely causes them to become aware of the fact that they are sinning. Here is how their reaction after eating the fruit is described in Genesis 3:6–7:

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.”

They were already naked before eating the fruit, but, upon eating it, they realize that this is sinful, so they make clothes for themselves.

Also, in this story, YHWH is not portrayed as omniscient. When Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, YHWH does not immediately know that they have done so; he only finds out that they have eaten the fruit when he goes walking through the garden and he happens to notice that Adam and Eve are hiding from him. He calls out to Adam, but Adam slips up and accidentally reveals that he has eaten the fruit. Genesis 3:8–13 reads as follows:

“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’”

Upon learning this, YHWH decides to punish the serpent, Eve, and Adam. He gives the serpent the most severe punishment. First, he takes away the serpent’s legs, cursing it to crawl along the ground on its belly and eat dirt. Then he declares that there will be enmity between serpents and human beings; humans being will kill serpents wherever they find them, but serpents will bite them with their venomous fangs. He declares:

“I will put enmity between you [i.e. the serpent] and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

YHWH gives the second most severe punishment to Eve; he declares that she will suffer horrible torment in childbirth and that she will be ruled by her husband for all time to come. Finally, he gives the lightest sentence to Adam, declaring that, from now on, he will have to do arduous agricultural labor in order to procure food for himself and his family.

ABOVE: Early ninth-century AD ivory carving from Belgium depicting Jesus Christ treading a serpent’s head under his left heel. YHWH’s decree about the son of Eve treading upon the serpent’s head was later interpreted by Christians as an allegory about Christ’s victory over Satan.

Christians have traditionally interpreted the Book of Genesis as saying that YHWH cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden because they sinned and they were therefore unworthy to be in his presence, but that’s not what the text itself says.

Instead, the actual text of Genesis states that YHWH saw that Adam and Eve had seen through his lie and that they had become like him, knowing the difference between good and evil, and he was afraid that they would also eat from the Tree of Life, which would allow them to live forever, which would make them full deities, no different from YHWH himself. Thus, in order to prevent Adam and Eve from becoming full, immortal deities, YHWH casts them out of the garden.

If you don’t believe me, here is the exact quote from the Book of Genesis 3:22–24:

“Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’—therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.”

The story of Adam and Eve is not a story about human beings sinning and getting justly punished by a mighty, righteous God; it’s a story about a weak, dishonest God who is terrified of what his creations may be capable of.

ABOVE: God Judging Adam, painted in 1795 by the English painter, poet, and mystic William Blake

What genre is this story really?

Atheists frequently disparage the story of Adam and Eve as a ridiculous piece of nonsense made up by superstitious Bronze Age goatherders. I think that these people are wrong (and not just because the story was written in the Iron Age, not the Bronze Age, and by elite, educated priests, not goatherders). I think that these people are reading the story in fundamentally the wrong way.

Instead of reading this story as something that is meant to be a literal, historical account, we should read it as a piece of sophisticated literature in a similar tradition to Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. When we read the story this way, it becomes much richer and we can really appreciate just how ingenious it is in its own way.

In just a couple chapters, the story manages to explain why men and women exist, why humans can tell the difference between good and evil when animals cannot, why human beings wear clothes when animals do not, why human beings are mortal and doomed to die, why snakes don’t have legs and have to crawl on the ground, why humans have an especially strong hatred of snakes, why women suffer enormous pain in childbirth, why women are forced to be subservient to men, and why men must work the fields in order to obtain food.

It’s true that the explanations the story gives are a bit silly and the cultural assumptions behind it are really outdated, but it makes for an entertaining story and I think that’s probably what the original author really intended. I don’t think that the person who wrote this story ever expected it to be taken as the infallible word of God.

ABOVE: Front cover of Rudyard Kipling’s short story collection Just So Stories

The Babylonian Enûma Eliš

Since we’re talking about the original author behind the Adam and Eve Story, let’s talk a little more about the literary and cultural background behind the two creation narratives in the Book of Genesis. It’s a popular assumption that these narratives were composed ex nihilo without any underlying literary tradition, but this is certainly wrong; we can actually identify multiple earlier stories that almost certainly served as direct or indirect inspiration for the stories that have been passed down to us in Genesis.

I mentioned at the beginning of this article that both creation stories in the Book of Genesis were most likely written by Jewish priests who were living in Babylon in around the sixth century BC. As a result of this, both stories show extensive Babylonian influence. One source in particular stands out as especially influential: the Enûma Eliš, an ancient Babylonian epic poem that was originally written in the Akkadian language sometime around the Middle Babylonian Period (lasted c. 1651 – c. 1157 BC) or thereabouts.

The Enûma Eliš is divided into seven tablets. In the poem, there is an entity known as Tiamat, who is the embodiment of primeval chaos. She is usually envisioned today as some sort of dragon-like creature, even though the text of the epic itself is a bit vague about what she actually looks like. In the poem, she is plotting to destroy the deities, so the deities select Marduk, the Babylonian national god, as their champion. He slays Tiamat in single combat and fashions the world from her dismembered corpse.

Once they have created the earth, the deities sacrifice the god Kingu. Then, the god Ea uses Kingu’s blood to create human beings as slaves who will serve the deities and obey their commands. The deities rejoice and are able to rest from their labor thanks to the creation of humans.

ABOVE: Impression from a Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal dated to the eighth century BC that is sometimes interpreted as a scene of Marduk slaying Tiamat

The Babylonian Enûma Eliš and the Seven-Day Story

As you may have already noticed, there are many similarities between the Enûma Eliš and the first Genesis creation story. Just as the Enûma Eliš is divided into seven tablets, the first Genesis creation story is divided into seven “days,” which provide a similar literary framework.

Both stories involve a god fashioning the world out of primordial chaos. The Hebrew word t’hóm and the Akkadian word Tiamat are even direct linguistic cognates; they are both derived from the same Proto-Semitic root. Finally, both stories end with the deity or group of deities associated with creation resting from their labor after the creation of human beings.

On the other hand, there are also some very substantial differences between the two texts that should not be ignored. Notably, the Seven-Day Story in Genesis seems to be monotheistic; whereas the Enûma Eliš is an explicitly polytheistic text. The Genesis story is also remarkably humanistic compared to the Babylonian story. In the Enûma Eliš, humans are created to serve the gods as slaves, but, in the Genesis story, humans are created in Elohim’s own image and Elohim grants them total mastery over the earth, explicitly telling them that everything under the sky belongs to them.

One final major difference is the fact that, in the Enûma Eliš, Marduk has to fight Tiamat and kill her before he can even begin creating the earth; whereas, in the Seven-Day Story, Elohim just commands things to happen and they happen automatically—without him having to fight any kind of dragon or monster.

Interestingly, though, the idea of a chaoskampf is not entirely absent from the Hebrew tradition, since there actually is at least one story in the Hebrew Bible in which YHWH slays a dragon. The Book of Isaiah 27:1 contains a verse that is rendered as follows in the NRSV:

“On that day the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.”

This story most likely predates both of the creation stories recorded in the Book of Genesis, reflecting a much older stratum of the Jewish mythological tradition.

ABOVE: The Destruction of Leviathan, engraving by the French illustrator Gustave Doré from 1865

The Adam and Eve creation story in comparative mythology

The Adam and Eve creation story that begins in Genesis 2:4 also has remarkable similarities to other ancient Near Eastern creation stories. Notably, the idea of the creation of human beings from clay recurs again and again throughout ancient Mesopotamian literature.

In the Enûma Eliš, the god Ea creates humans from Kingu’s blood, but, in the Atra-Hasis Epic, an ancient Mesopotamian epic poem that was most likely first composed in the Old Babylonian Period (lasted c. 1950 – c. 1651 BC), the deities sacrifice a different god named Ilawela. The mother goddess Nintu mixes Ilawela’s blood with clay and uses that clay to mold the first human beings. Here is how the act is described in the poem, as translated by Stephanie Dalley:

“Ilawela who had intelligence,
they slaughtered in their assembly.
Nintu mixed clay
with his flesh and blood.
They heard the drumbeat forever after.
A ghost came into existence from the god’s flesh,
and she [Nintu] proclaimed it as his living sign.
The ghost existed so as not to forget (the slain god). […]
You have slaughtered a god together with his intelligence.
I have relieved you of your hard work.
I have imposed your load on man.”

Similarly, in a fragment from an early version of the Epic of Gilgamesh dating to the Old Babylonian Period, the goddess Aruru is described as molding the hero Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s companion, from clay. Here is the passage, as translated by Morris Jastrow and Albert T. Clay:

“Aruru washed her hands, broke off clay,
threw it on the field
…created Enkidu, the hero, a lofty
offspring of the host Ninib.”

Both of these texts are roughly a thousand years older than either creation story found in the Book of Genesis.

The mytheme of a deity creating humans from clay even appears in Greek mythology. A myth that is attested in a wide range of ancient Greek sources from various dates holds that the Titan Prometheus molded human beings from clay. Here is the story as it is told by the Roman mythographer Pseudo-Hyginus in his Fabulae 142, as translated by R. Scott Smith:

“Prometheus son of Iapetus was the first to fashion men out of clay. Later, Jupiter ordered Vulcan to make out of clay the form of a woman, to whom Minerva gave life and the rest of the gods their own personal gift. Because of this, they named her Pandora.”

Clearly, the idea that some deity had molded human beings from clay was widespread in the ancient Near East and the eastern Mediterranean.

ABOVE: Third-century AD Roman marble relief currently held in the Louvre Museum showing the Titan Prometheus molding the first human beings from clay while the goddess Athena watches

There is also a Babylonian poem titled Adapa and the Food of Life, which dates to the Middle Babylonian Period (lasted c. 1651 – c. 1157 BC) and tells a story extremely similar to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

In the story, Adapa is the king of the city of Eridu. He is described as extraordinarily wise. One day, he goes out fishing and the south wind causes his boat to capsize, so he breaks the south wind’s wing. This makes Anu, the god of the sky, angry, so he commands Adapa to come before him to explain his actions.

The god Ea—the creator and benefactor of humankind, who is associated with water, cleverness, and invention—tells Adapa that, when he goes to the gate of Anu, it will be guarded by the gods Tammuz and Gishzida. He tells him that he must go before them wearing garments of mourning and tell them that he is mourning their deaths.

Then he tells him that they will say good things about him to Anu and Anu will let him into his presence. Ea warns Adapa that Anu will offer him food and water, but he must not eat or drink it because it will be the food and water of death and it will certainly kill him instantly.

Adapa follows all of Ea’s instructions exactly, but it turns out that Ea has lied to him; the food and water that Anu offers him is not the food and water of death, but rather the food and water of eternal life, which will make him immortal. Anu is astonished when Adapa refuses the food and water. He tells him that, because he has refused it, he will not be immortal, and asks him why he has done this. Adapa replies that Ea told him to refuse the food and water. Anu therefore orders Adapa to be sent back to earth.

Thus, because of Ea’s deception, Adapa does not become immortal and he is doomed to die like all other human beings.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a statue of the Babylonian god Ea seated upon a throne dating to the Old Babylonian Period on display in the Iraq Museum

Stories in which humans are deprived of immortality specifically as a result of a serpent’s deception also occur in other mythologies outside the Bible. Most famously, in Tablet XI of the standard Akkadian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which dates to the Middle Babylonian Period, Gilgamesh manages to procure a magic plant that will allow him to restore his youth, but he leaves it on the shore when he goes to take a swim. While he is swimming, a serpent comes along, smells the plant, and carries it off. This explains the reason why snakes periodically shed their skins and are rejuvenated.

Fascinatingly, a myth very similar to this one even finds its way into Greek mythology. The Roman orator Klaudios Ailianos (lived c. 175 – c. 235 AD) retells the following story in his treatise On the Nature of Animals 6.51, as translated by A. F. Schofield:

“It behoves me to repeat a story, which I know from having heard it, regarding this creature [i.e. the viper], so that I may not appear ignorant of it. It is said that Prometheus stole fire, and the story goes that Zeus was angered and bestowed upon those who laid information of the theft a drug to ward off old age. So they took it, as I am informed, and placed it upon an ass. The ass proceeded with the load on its back; and it was summer time, and the ass came thirsting to a spring in its need for a drink.”

“Now the snake which was guarding the spring tried to prevent it and force it back, and the ass in torment gave it as the price of the loving-cup the drug it happened to be carrying. And so there was an exchange of gifts: the ass got his drink and the snake sloughed his old age, receiving in addition, so the story goes, the ass’s thirst. What then? Did I invent the legend? I will deny it, for before me it is celebrated by Sophokles, the tragic poet, and Dinolochos, the rival of Epicharmos, and Ibykos of Rhegion, and the comic poets Aristias and Apollophanes.”

One of the sources Klaudios Ailianos cites for this story is the poet Ibykos of Rhegion, who lived in the late sixth century BC, indicating that this story probably existed in the Greek world at the time when the Adam and Eve Story in the Book of Genesis was written.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a snakeskin left behind after molting

Literal versus allegorical interpretation

There aren’t just misconceptions about what the Book of Genesis itself says and about what its influences were, though; there are also misconceptions about how the text has historically been interpreted. One very popular misconception holds that, until relatively recently, Jews and Christians always dogmatically interpreted the Genesis creation story as a literal, historical account. Then, supposedly, in the nineteenth century, after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, liberal Christians spontaneously abandoned the interpretation that everyone until then had always held and started interpreting the story as metaphor or allegory.

This claim has long been peddled by Young Earth Creationists seeking to portray contemporary liberal Christians as weak and willing to compromise on matters of faith. The Creationist ministry Answers in Genesis has an entire web article titled “The Early Church on Creation,” which begins with the following assertion:

“What did the early church believe about creation? In its first 16 centuries the church held to a young earth. Earth was several thousand years old, was created quickly in six 24-hour days, and was later submerged under a worldwide flood.”

Somewhat ironically, this exact same view of what pre-modern Christians believed has also been increasingly embraced by atheist activists seeking to portray pre-modern Christians as uniformly backwards and stupid.

For instance, in a video uploaded to YouTube on 15 September 2020, the atheist activist Stephen Woodford responds to the claim from the Christian apologist William Lane Craig (who is not a Young Earth Creationist) that, for most of Christian history, the creation story in the Book of Genesis was read allegorically rather than literally. Near the end of the video, Woodford makes the following assertions:

“Throughout the history of Christianity, Biblical literalism has been the status quo, as the numbers of Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, and Michael Servetus testify, to name just a few. Bruno, for instance, was burned alive for positing that the earth revolves around the sun, that the stars are actually suns with potential planets of their own, and that those planets might harbor lifeforms—which are all views that Craig himself holds.”

[…]

“Indeed, Craig’s figurative interpretation of the Bible would have gotten him burned at the stake during the Christian Golden Age, which is more accurately known as the Dark Ages. Yet he casually dismisses the observation that Christian interpretation has become, due to scientific exposure, ever more figurative, by, one, claiming that his figurative interpretation is the correct one and, two, by implying that literalism has never been the status quo.”

I agree with Woodford that William Lane Craig is wrong about a lot of things. For instance, he has tried to claim that the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus can be scientifically proven and he has famously tried to defend the alleged genocide of the Canaanites by the people of Israel described in the Book of Joshua. Believe it or not, though, on the particular issue of how Christians have historically interpreted Genesis, Craig is actually right and Woodford is actually very wrong.

It’s true that Bible literalism has probably existed ever since the very earliest Judeo-Christian scriptures were written down, but dogmatic Bible literalism—the idea that the Bible can only be interpreted literally in all instances—is largely a post-Enlightenment invention of the modern age.

Allegorical and figurative interpretations of the creation stories in the Book of Genesis are just as old as literal interpretations and, in fact, some of the most influential pre-modern Christian theologians rejected the literal interpretation of the Genesis creation stories entirely.

One of the most distinctive characteristics of pre-modern Jewish and Christian exegesis is its flexible and multivalent nature. It was widely recognized that the same passage could have a range of different meanings and interpretations and that these different interpretations might all be correct in different ways.

I’ll talk about the people Woodford mentions in his video a bit later, but, for now, I want to talk about the history of the allegorical interpretation of scripture.

ABOVE: Screenshot of Stephen Woodford making his entirely false claim that, up until a few centuries ago, all Christians dogmatically interpreted the Genesis creation myth as a literal historical account and a person could be burned at the stake for interpreting it as figurative

Origins of allegorical interpretation in ancient Judaism

First, let’s talk about ancient Jewish beliefs about figurative interpretation from before Christianity. Allegory and symbolism are widely recognized as an integral part of Jewish prophetic writings. In fact, allegorical interpretation occurs in the Book of Genesis itself. In the story, Joseph, the son of Jacob, winds up living in Egypt, where he acquires a reputation for his ability to interpret dreams through allegory. Most famously, in Genesis 41, the pharaoh of Egypt has a dream, which is described as follows:

“After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile, and there came up out of the Nile seven sleek and fat cows, and they grazed in the reed grass. Then seven other cows, ugly and thin, came up out of the Nile after them, and stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile. The ugly and thin cows ate up the seven sleek and fat cows. And Pharaoh awoke. Then he fell asleep and dreamed a second time; seven ears of grain, plump and good, were growing on one stalk. Then seven ears, thin and blighted by the east wind, sprouted after them. The thin ears swallowed up the seven plump and full ears. Pharaoh awoke, and it was a dream.”

The pharaoh calls all the magicians in the land and asks them to interpret his dream, but none of them are able to do it, so, at the advice of his cupbearer, he ends up calling for Joseph, who gives the following allegorical interpretation of the dream:

“Pharaoh’s dreams are one and the same; God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years; the dreams are one. The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, as are the seven empty ears blighted by the east wind. They are seven years of famine.”

“It is as I told Pharaoh; God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do. There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt. After them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; the famine will consume the land. The plenty will no longer be known in the land because of the famine that will follow, for it will be very grievous. And the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about.”

Allegorical interpretations such as this one are so common throughout the Hebrew scriptures that it is no surprise that Jewish people in antiquity began to interpret their scriptures themselves as allegorical.

ABOVE: Joseph Interprets the Dream of the Pharaoh, engraving by the French artist Gustave Doré from 1866

Allegorical interpretations of stories from Greek mythology

Unfortunately, we do not have particularly detailed information about how Jews in the sixth and fifth centuries BC were interpreting the stories recorded in their sacred writings, but we do have extremely detailed information about how Greeks of the same time period were interpreting their myths.

It is worth looking briefly at how Greeks of this period interpreted their myths not only because the Greeks can provide an interesting analogue for how the Jews of this period may have thought about their myths, but also because Greek interpretations of works of Greek mythology and literature, especially the Homeric epics, had a significant influence on later Jewish and Christian interpretations of the stories in the Hebrew Bible.

As I discuss in this article from January 2020, there were a wide range of views about myths in ancient Greece. Some people thought that most traditional myths were completely literally, historically true. Other people thought that most traditional myths were just made-up nonsense. Then there were eccentric moderates like Palaiphatos, the author of the treatise On Incredible Tales, who believed that all myths were distorted or exaggerated accounts based on real events and came up with all sorts of crazy explanations for how various stories might have arisen.

The most significant for our purposes today, however, are the people who thought myths were allegories. The Greek literary critic Theagenes of Rhegion, who lived in around the late sixth century BC—around the same time when the creation stories in the Book of Genesis were probably written down—was one of the foremost early proponents of the view that the Homeric poems should be interpreted as philosophical allegories. Scholion B on the Iliad 20.67 states, as translated by David J. Califf:

“What Homer says about the gods is, on the whole, both useless and unseemly, and, indeed, his myths about the nature of the gods are inappropriate. To counter this type of criticism, some offer a defense of his diction, holding that everything he says is allegorical and is about the nature of the primal elements.”

This idea became extremely widespread among Greek literary critics. Some literary critics took their allegorizing so far that their ideas became frankly rather silly. The Epicurean philosopher Philodemos of Gadara (lived c. 110 – c. 40 BC), who was not a fan of this interpretation method at all, complains about it in his treatise On Poems 2, writing, as translated by J. C. McKeown:

“Some people are quite obviously insane, such as those who claim that Homer’s two poems are about the elements of the universe and about the laws and customs of mankind. They make out, for example, that Agamemnon is the upper air, Achilles is the sun, Helen is the earth, Paris is the lower air, Hektor is the moon, Demeter is the liver, Dionysos is the spleen, Apollon is bile.”

I don’t know of any scholar who believes this sort of thing today, but these kinds of allegorical reinterpretations were certainly a significant feature of the ancient Greek intellectual landscape during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

ABOVE: Hector Admonishes Paris for His Softness and Exhorts Him to Go to War, painted in 1786 by the German painter Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein

Philon of Alexandria on the interpretation of Genesis

We start to get information about specific interpretations of the Genesis creation story from sources written in the Greek language by Jewish authors in the first century AD. One of our earliest sources is the work On the Creation, written by the Jewish Middle Platonist philosopher Philon (lived c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD). Philon lived in the city of Alexandria, which is located in the Nile River Delta in northern Egypt. It had been the capital of the Greek Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt and had a large Greek population. At the time when Philon was alive, it was ruled by the Roman Empire.

In his treatise, Philon gives a very Platonically-inspired interpretation of the creation story, arguing that the cosmos was not created in six literal days; instead, he argues that the cosmos was created all at once in a single instant and that Moses only says that it was created six days because the number six has special numerological significance as a number representing order and arrangement. Here is what he says in On the Creation III, as translated by Charles Duke Yonge:

“And he [i.e. Moses] says that the world was made in six days, not because the Creator stood in need of a length of time (for it is natural that God should do everything at once, not merely by uttering a command, but by even thinking of it); but because the things created required arrangement; and number is akin to arrangement; and, of all numbers, six is, by the laws of nature, the most productive: for of all the numbers, from the unit upwards, it is the first perfect one, being made equal to its parts, and being made complete by them; the number three being half of it, and the number two a third of it, and the unit a sixth of it, and, so to say, it is formed so as to be both male and female, and is made up of the power of both natures; for in existing things the odd number is the male, and the even number is the female; accordingly, of odd numbers the first is the number three, and of even numbers the first is two, and the two numbers multiplied together make six.”

This interpretation may sound a bit silly to modern readers, but, as we shall see in a moment, it ultimately proved highly influential on early Christian hermeneuticists.

ABOVE: Imaginative portrayal of Philon of Alexandria by the French engraver André Thévet in his work Les Vrais Portraits Et Vies Des Hommes Illustres. (No one knows what Philon really looked like.)

Josephus’s interpretation of portions of Genesis as allegorical

Philon is not the only Jewish author of this period whose opinions on the Book of Genesis are known, however. In around 93 or 94 AD, the Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus wrote a book in the Greek language titled Antiquities of the Jews, which is a history of the Jewish people from creation up until his own time, addressed to a Greek-speaking Gentile audience. The work is, in some sense, in apologia for the Jewish people, seeking to portray Jewish religious texts as philosophical works in line with the Platonic philosophical tradition.

The book begins with an introduction in which Josephus gives a disclaimer about the stories he is about to retell, commenting that some of what Moses writes in the Torah is enigmatic and some of it is allegorical. He writes, as translated by William Whiston:

“I exhort, therefore, my readers to examine this whole undertaking in that view; for thereby it will appear to them, that there is nothing therein disagreeable either to the majesty of God, or to his love to mankind; for all things have here a reference to the nature of the universe; while our legislator speaks some things wisely, but enigmatically, and others under a decent allegory, but still explains such things as required a direct explication plainly and expressly. However, those that have a mind to know the reasons of every thing, may find here a very curious philosophical theory, which I now indeed shall wave the explication of; but if God afford me time for it, I will set about writing it after I have finished the present work.”

Some modern-day Young Earth Creationists have tried to insist that Josephus couldn’t have possibly meant “allegory” when he wrote “allegory.” Creation Ministries International has an entire web article devoted to arguing that Josephus interpreted the entire Book of Genesis as an absolutely literal, historical account. They actually quote the passage that I have quoted above, but they insist in a footnote:

“Josephus uses ‘allegory’ as we would use ‘typology’. The difference is that typological events really happened and have a deeper, spiritual meaning underneath the literal one (you might think of it as the ‘preaching point’).”

Very well then, let’s look at what Josephus himself actually says in the original Greek. Here are Josephus’s words:

“τὰ μὲν αἰνιττομένου τοῦ νομοθέτου δεξιῶς, τὰ δ᾽ ἀλληγοροῦντος μετὰ σεμνότητος, ὅσα δ᾽ ἐξ εὐθείας λέγεσθαι συνέφερε, ταῦτα ῥητῶς ἐμφανίζοντος.”

Let’s break down all the crucial words here:

• The expression τὰ δ᾽(tà d’) means “and other things.”
• The word ἀλληγοροῦντος (allēgoroûntos) is the masculine singular genitive form of the present active participle of the verb ἀλληγορέω (allēgoréō), meaning “to speak allegorically” or “to speak figuratively.” Here is it being used as a genitive absolute.
• The word μετά (metá) is a preposition that means, when it is used with a genitive object, “in accordance with.”
• Finally, the word σεμνότητος is the singular genitive form of the feminine noun σεμνότης (semnótēs), meaning “solemnness” or “augustness.” Here it is functioning as the object of μετά.

Thus, Josephus is literally saying that, in the Book of Genesis, Moses is “saying other things figuratively, in accordance with solemnity.” In writing this, Josephus was probably trying to draw a comparison between Moses and Plato, who was well known among educated people in the ancient world for using myths and allegories to illustrate philosophical points. Josephus’s point, then, is that Moses may say some things that sound a bit weird, but, when he does this, he’s just speaking as a philosopher, using cryptic stories to convey deeper, hidden meanings.

After his introduction, Josephus goes into a summary of the Genesis creation stories. He retells the Seven-Day Story without much comment, but, when he starts telling the Adam and Eve Story, he remarks in Greek that Moses begins to “φυσιολογεῖν” (physiologeîn), which means “to speak philosophically about nature.”

This suggests to me that Josephus probably thought of the Seven-Day Story as a literal account, but the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as some kind of natural allegory. He probably believed that Adam and Eve were real people, but I doubt he believed there was a literal garden with a literal magic tree and a literal talking snake.

ABOVE: Fictional eighteenth or nineteenth-century engraving intended to represent the Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus. This is a fictional representation; no one knows what Josephus really looked like.

Paul and the beginning of the Christian allegorical tradition

For Christians, the allegorical interpretation of scripture begins with scripture itself. In the Epistle to the Galatians 4:21–31, the apostle Paul gives a creative allegorical reinterpretation of the story of Abraham and Hagar from the Book of Genesis, interpreting Hagar as the mother of Jews who continue to cling to the Law of Moses and Sarah as the mother of Jews who are no longer bound by the Law of Moses (i.e. the people we now think of as Christians). He writes, as translated in the NRSV:

“Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise. Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. For it is written,

“‘Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,
burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs;
for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous
than the children of the one who is married.’”

“Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac. But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. But what does the scripture say? ‘Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.’ So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman.”

Paul probably believed that Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Ishmael were all real people, but, by reinterpreting their story as an allegory, he set a clear precedent of interpreting stories from the Torah as allegorical for all future Christian theologians. Thus, through Paul, allegory became indisputably established as a legitimate form of Christian exegesis.

ABOVE: Sarah Offering Hagar to Abraham, painted in 1699 by the Dutch painter Adriaen van der Werff

Klemes of Alexandria

One of the most influential early Christian Church Fathers was Klemes (lived c. 150 – c. 215 AD), who lived in the city of Alexandria in Egypt—the same city in which Philon had lived roughly two hundred years previously. Klemes’s parents were both pagans and he grew up worshipping the traditional Greek deities. He studied ancient Greek literature, philosophy, and mythology intently before eventually converting to Christianity as an adult.

Klemes seems to have held a similar view to Philon regarding the Seven-Day Story in Genesis; he writes in his Stromata, Book VI, Chapter 16, that the universe was not created in six literal days, but rather in one instant, since God is one being with one essence and he would have no need to space out his creation over the course of six whole days. Here is what Klemes writes, as translated by William Wilson:

“For the creations on the different days followed in a most important succession; so that all things brought into existence might have honour from priority, created together in thought, but not being of equal worth. Nor was the creation of each signified by the voice, inasmuch as the creative work is said to have made them at once. For something must needs have been named first. Wherefore those things were announced first, from which came those that were second, all things being originated together from one essence by one power. For the will of God was one, in one identity. And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist.”

Thus, the view that had previously been espoused by Jewish interpreters like Philon entered into Christian exegesis.

ABOVE: Imaginative portrayal of Klemes of Alexandria by the French engraver André Thévet in his work Les Vrais Portraits Et Vies Des Hommes Illustres. (No one knows what Klemes really looked like.)

Origenes of Alexandria and the rejection of literal interpretation

One early Christian Church Father who was even more influential than Klemes is Origenes of Alexandria (lived c. 184 – c. 253 AD). He is said to have been a student of Klemes, but this is probably a later supposition made by the Christian historian Eusebios based on the similarities between their teachings. Origenes’s parents were both Christians, but he nonetheless grew up reading works of Greek literature and philosophy and became extremely knowledgeable about these subjects.

Origenes taught that there are essentially three different ways that passages from the Bible can be interpreted:

• the “fleshly” interpretation (i.e. the literal meaning of a passage),
• the “spiritual” interpretation (i.e. the moral message that the passage is trying to convey),
• and the “soulful” interpretation (i.e. the allegorical interpretation of the passage that reveals some inner secret or hidden truth about Christian theology).

Origenes believed that the fleshly and spiritual interpretations were useful for teaching, but that the soulful interpretation was the “highest” and most important. In some cases, he rejected the historical validity of the fleshly interpretation entirely, seeing certain passages as embodying the spiritual and soulful interpretations alone.

In other words, according to Origenes, the literal interpretation of any passage can be useful in some way for teaching about Christian morality and theology, but not everything that is written in the Bible is literally true in the historical sense.

At some point between c. 220 and c. 230 AD, Origenes wrote a treatise titled On First Principles, in which he lays out many of the fundamental ideas that would shape Christian exegesis for centuries to come. In Book Four, Chapter 16, he explicitly argues that the creation stories found in the Book of Genesis are not literally, historically true and he even flat-out declares that anyone who tries to interpret these stories as literally, historically true is an idiot. This is what he says, as translated by Frederick Crombie:

“…He [i.e. the Holy Spirit] did the same thing both with the evangelists and the apostle — as even these do not contain through­out a pure history of events, which are in­terwoven indeed according to the letter, but which did not actually occur. Nor even do the law and the commandments wholly convey what is agreeable to reason. For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky?”

“And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.”

Origenes doesn’t stop there, though; he goes on to declare that many of the miracles recorded in the gospels are simply allegories and that they should not necessarily be taken as historically true. He writes:

“And what need is there to say more, since those who are not altogether blind can collect countless instances of a similar kind recorded as having occurred, but which did not literally take place? Nay, the Gospel themselves are filled with the same kind of narratives; e.g., the devil leading Jesus up into a high moun­tain, in order to show him from thence the kingdoms of the whole world, and the glory of them.”

“For who is there among those who do not read such accounts carelessly, that would not condemn those who think that with the eye of the body­— which requires a lofty height in order that the parts lying (immediately) under and adjacent may be seen — the kingdoms of the Persians, and Scythians, and Indians, and Parthians, were beheld, and the manner in which their princes are glorified among men? And the attentive reader may no­tice in the Gospels innumerable other pas­sages like these, so that he will be convinced that in the histories that are literally re­corded, circumstances that did not occur are inserted.”

Unfortunately, Origenes may have gone a bit overboard with some of his allegorical interpretations. On the basis of his own interpretations, he argued that all human souls were actually created at once by God at the very beginning of the cosmos. Then, through weakness, these souls fell away from God and became trapped in material bodies. The souls that fell the furthest became demons, those that fell a bit less became humans, and those that only fell a little bit became angels.

Origenes used this idea to provide what he felt was a just explanation for why some people are born better off than others. He held that the condition of every person at birth is determined by how far their soul fell away from God in the pre-existence; those who are born into unfortunate circumstances have fallen a great way, but those who are born into fortune have not fallen quite so far.

Origenes was a universalist; he did not believe in eternal damnation. Instead, he argued that, eventually, there will come an event known as the ἀποκατάστασις (apokatástasis), in which all souls—including perhaps even Satan himself—will finally attain salvation and the cosmos will be restored to its original state of primordial harmony.

In the late fourth, fifth, and early sixth centuries AD, the eastern Mediterranean world was rocked by a series of theological controversies pertaining to Origenes’s teachings that are known as the “Origenist Crises.” Over the course of these centuries, many of Origenes’s teachings—along with many teachings that Origenes himself never espoused, but that were espoused by his later devotees—were condemned by the church as heretical.

Despite these condemnations, however, his writings remained widely studied, he remained widely revered, and his technique of interpreting scripture through allegory remained dominant throughout the entire Middle Ages.

ABOVE: Imaginative portrayal of Origenes by the French engraver André Thévet in his work Les Vrais Portraits Et Vies Des Hommes Illustres. (No one knows what Origenes really looked like.)

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo (lived 354 – 430 AD) is perhaps the most influential of all the Christian Church Fathers. He was born in the city of Thagaste in what is now Algeria and was of Berber ancestry. Augustine’s mother Monica was a devout Christian, but he was rebellious and wanted to find his own way in life, so, over the course of his lifetime, he went through a series of wholehearted conversions, first to Manichaeism, then to Neoplatonic philosophy. Finally, in August 386 AD, he converted back to Christianity, the religion he had originally been brought up in.

Like Origenes before him, Augustine was an enthusiastic allegorizer. Indeed, he devotes the last three books of his autobiography Confessions to the articulation of a detailed allegorical interpretation of the Genesis creation story. Augustine has played probably a greater role than any other figure in Christian history in shaping the modern western Christian understanding of the story of Adam and Eve. He is the one, for instance, who first articulated the idea of “Original Sin” in the form that most western Christians recognize today.

In his treatise The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Augustine argues, like Philon and Klemes before him, that the cosmos was not created in six literal days, but rather created in a single instant. He contends that the six days of creation in the Book of Genesis are merely a literary framework. Augustine adds to this, however, that the universe has continued to change and evolve since the time of creation. He even specifically says that it is possible that some new plants and animals may have arisen since the original creation through the “decomposition” of earlier life forms!

ABOVE: Sixth-century AD Roman fresco probably intended to represent Augustine of Hippo. This is probably the earliest surviving depiction of Augustine and it is from at least a century after his death.

Augustine also argues that Christians should take into account the findings of natural philosophers (i.e. the direct predecessors of people we now call “scientists”) when interpreting Genesis. He writes in The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Book I, Chapter 19, as translated by John Hammond Taylor:

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.”

“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.”

“If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?”

“Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Above all, though, Augustine was opposed to the idea that Genesis needed to be dogmatically interpreted in any particular way to say any particular thing. In his Confessions, Book XII, Chapter 25, Augustine specifically warns against this, insisting that there may be many different interpretations of the text that are all correct in different ways. He writes, as translated by J. G. Pinkerton:

“Behold, now, how foolish it is, in so great an abundance of the truest opinions which can be extracted from these words, rashly to affirm which of them Moses particularly meant; and with pernicious contentions to offend charity itself, on account of which he has spoken all the things whose words we endeavour to explain!”

Later, in Book XII, Chapter 31, he repeats this warning, insisting once again that there are many possible interpretations of the Book of Genesis and that they may all be right in different ways:

“Thus, when one shall say, ‘He [i.e. Moses] meant as I do,’ and another, ‘Nay, but as I do,’ I suppose that I am speaking more religiously when I say, ‘Why not rather as both, if both be true? And if there be a third truth, or a fourth, and if any one seek any truth altogether different in those words, why may not he be believed to have seen all these, through whom one God has tempered the Holy Scriptures to the senses of many, about to see therein things true but different?”

Largely on account of Augustine’s enormous influence, his perspective on the Book of Genesis became the most widely accepted perspective throughout western Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

ABOVE: Imaginative portrayal of Augustine of Hippo, painted between c. 1645 and c. 1650 by the French painter Philippe de Champaigne (As I discuss in this article from November 2019, Augustine was born in what is now northern Algeria and was of Berber descent, so, in historical reality, he probably wasn’t quite as pale as he is portrayed here.)

But… but what about all those people the Catholic Church burned for heresy?

Now, what about the people Stephen Woodford mentions in his YouTube video? Woodford claims that Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, and Michael Servetus all suffered terrible punishments because they went against Bible literalism during the “Dark Ages.” Almost every single part of this assertion is incorrect.

First of all, the Catholic Church has never at any point in its history ever held it as dogma that the Bible can only be interpreted literally. It has always regarded allegorical and other figurative interpretations as legitimate. Generally speaking, the medieval church cared a lot more about ecclesiastical tradition and the rulings of previous ecumenical councils than they did about the “literal” interpretation of scripture. When Woodford assumes that all Catholics in western Europe during the Middle Ages were dogmatic Bible literalists, he is confusing their beliefs with those of twenty-first-century fundamentalist Evangelical Protestants.

William Lane Craig’s figurative interpretation of the Seven-Day Story from the Book of Genesis wouldn’t have gotten him burned at the stake if he had lived in the Middle Ages. In fact, it’s more likely that someone claiming that Genesis can only be interpreted as literal history would have been burned at the stake, since such a claim would inherently imply that Paul’s interpretation of the story of Abraham and Hagar in his Epistle to the Galatians and Augustine’s interpretation of the Genesis creation story in his Confessions were both illegitimate.

None of the individuals Woodford names were punished for anything having anything to do with the literal interpretation of Genesis. Let’s go through and talk about what these people were actually punished for.

ABOVE: Greek Orthodox icon from the Megalo Meteoron Monastery in Greece, showing the artist’s imagining of Constantine I at the First Council of Nicaea. The rulings of the ecumenical councils were generally much more important to medieval Christians than the idea of “literalism.”

Michael Servetus

Michael Servetus was a theologian, scholar, and physician who was burned alive by Calvinist authorities in the city of Geneva on 27 October 1553 for rejecting the teaching of the Trinity, publishing multiple treatises openly advocating modalistic monarchianism, and denouncing infant baptism as “an invention of the devil.”

The doctrine of the Trinity, however, is cobbled together based on a few vague passages in the New Testament and the baptism of infants is never alluded to anywhere in the Bible at all. The authority of both teachings comes primarily from church tradition, not scripture.

While Servetus’s execution was indeed horribly unjust, it certainly had nothing to do with the literal or figurative interpretation of the creation stories in the Book of Genesis. Instead, it had everything to do with the fact that he emphatically rejected what was regarded as one of the most important teachings of Christianity in western Europe at the time.

ABOVE: Imaginative posthumous engraving of Michael Servetus from c. 1740

Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno is widely invoked by atheists on the internet as a supposed “martyr for science.” I’ve already written a whole article explaining why this portrayal of him is not accurate, but I’ll cover the basics here. Bruno was not a rationalist or a scientist in any sense of the word; he was a mystic whose ideas mainly came from Hermeticism, Pythagoreanism, and other ancient mystical traditions.

Bruno never conducted any kind of scientific research, but he did develop his own detailed heretical theology, which held, among other things:

• that astrology is real
• that magic is real
• that Moses, Jesus, and the twelve apostles were all just exceptionally talented wizards
• that souls can wander from one body to another and even visit other planets
• that a single soul can exist in two bodies at once
• that stars and planets are animated by living souls
• that there is a universal spirit that encompasses all living and nonliving things
• that Satan will attain salvation
• that the universe is infinite and eternal, with no beginning and no end

I think you get the idea.

Bruno was a notoriously arrogant, outspoken, stubborn, and argumentative person who spent nearly his entire adult life fleeing from place-to-place because he had a habit of making important people angry wherever he went. In 1592, he was living as a guest in the home of the Venetian aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo, but he apparently annoyed his host so much that he turned him over to the Inquisition.

Bruno ended up getting extradited to the city of Rome, where he was imprisoned for seven years, during which time he was given many opportunities to recant his beliefs. Nonetheless, he refused to give a full recantation, so, on 17 February 1600, the Roman Inquisition gagged him, hung him upside, and burned him alive in the Campo de’ Fiori.

I think that nearly everyone will agree that Giordano Bruno’s execution was brutally unjust. Nonetheless, it had nothing to do with the interpretation of the Book of Genesis. The church regarded Bruno’s teachings as heretical not because they went against a literal interpretation of the Bible, but rather because they went against church traditions and dogmas.

Bruno did happen to believe in heliocentrism, but, as I discuss in the main article, this was almost certainly not one of the final charges of heresy for which he was burned. The German humanist scholar Gaspar Schoppe, who was intimately familiar with the events of Bruno’s trial, wrote a letter on the day of Bruno’s execution listing all his alleged beliefs that Schoppe regarded as the most appalling and heretical; heliocentrism isn’t even mentioned.

Furthermore, the Inquisition relied heavily on judicial precedent and, when the Inquisition first investigated Galileo’s writings on heliocentrism in 1616, they had to have an inquiry to determine whether or not heliocentrism was heretical. If believing in heliocentrism had been one of the charges of heresy for which Giordano Bruno had been burned fifteen years earlier, then no inquiry would have been necessary.

Bruno did also believe that there are infinitely many worlds and that some other worlds may be inhabited. This probably was one of the charges of heresy against him, but it was just one among many other charges and other people had articulated this idea before him, including the revered Catholic astronomer Nicholas of Cusa (lived 1401 – 1464), who was not prosecuted for heresy on account of this belief and was, in fact, elevated to the status of cardinal eight years after he published his treatise in which he espoused the multiplicity of worlds.

ABOVE: The only surviving portrait of Giordano Bruno, an engraving made by Johann Georg Mentzel and first published in 1715, over a century after his death, possibly based on an earlier portrait that has since been lost

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was a devout Catholic Italian astronomer and physicist who supported the hypothesis of heliocentrism, which had been proposed by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus nearly a century earlier in his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, which was published in 1543. At the time, the overwhelming majority of scientists supported the geocentric model, mostly for scientific reasons.

The Roman Inquisition first investigated Galileo’s writings on heliocentrism for heresy in 1616. They concluded that heliocentrism was both “foolish and absurd in philosophy” and “formally heretical.” They admonished Galileo to abandon his belief in heliocentrism, but did not prosecute him at the time.

In 1623, Galileo’s personal friend Cardinal Maffeo Barberini was elected Pope and adopted the name Urban VIII. Urban gave Galileo explicit permission to publish a work about heliocentrism, as long as he only proposed it as a hypothesis and included the scientific arguments for geocentrism—which were, again, at the time, widely accepted.

In 1632, Galileo published his work Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, in which he presented the Pope’s views through a character named “Simplicio,” whose name sounds suspiciously like the Italian word for “simple-minded” and who is portrayed as an idiot. Naturally, Urban VIII took personal offense at this portrayal, so, in 1633, Galileo was brought before the Inquisition under the charge of heresy.

Galileo was ultimately found “vehemently suspect of heresy” and forced to recant his belief in heliocentrism. He spent the rest of his life under a loosely-enforced house arrest, during which time he was still allowed to conduct research and write about his findings. It was during this time that he wrote the book Two New Sciences, which is considered his magnum opus. He died of a fever and heart palpitations on 8 January 1642 at the age of seventy-seven.

Galileo’s trial had nothing to do with the literal interpretation of the Genesis creation stories. Honestly, it didn’t have much to do with Catholic doctrine either; the primary motivating factor behind the trial was the fact that Galileo had pretty much publicly called the Pope an idiot.

ABOVE: Portrait of Galileo Galilei painted c. 1636 by the Flemish painter Justus Sustermans

The so-called “Dark Ages”

Woodford’s claims are, however, inaccurate on a much deeper level in that he misidentifies and mischaracterizes an entire period of history through his assertion that the aforementioned individuals were punished for interpreting the Bible non-literally specifically during “the Christian Golden Age,” which he says “is more accurately known as the Dark Ages.”

In popular parlance, the term “Dark Ages” is often applied to the period of history that professional historians today generally call the “Middle Ages.” I’ve already written an article in which I explain in great detail why the term “Dark Ages” is a woefully inaccurate mischaracterization when it is applied to the Middle Ages as a whole.

Some professional historians do still sometimes refer to the Early Middle Ages—the period lasting from the collapse of the western Roman Empire to the rise of the Carolingian Empire in the late eighth century AD—as a “Dark Age,” but, in my article, I argue that the term “Dark Ages” is so utterly redolent with stereotypes and prejudices that it is deeply misleading to use this term to refer to any period of history whatsoever, since there is no period of history that matches the cartoonishly awful stereotype that most people instinctively think of when they hear it.

That doesn’t really matter here, though, because not a single one of the people Woodford mentions actually lived during the Middle Ages at all. It’s true that there is some disagreement among historians about when exactly the Middle Ages ended, but very few historians would argue that they ended any later than around 1500.

By the time Michael Servetus—who lived the earliest of the three individuals mentioned by Woodford—was born in around 1511 or thereabouts, it had been nearly a century since Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in Germany, the Italian Renaissance was in full swing, the Spanish had established colonies in the Caribbean, and the Protestant Reformation was only a few years away.

Simply put, the period Woodford is calling the “Dark Ages” is actually the Early Modern Period.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a modern recreation of the Gutenberg printing press

Conclusion

So, to return to the original question, what is the meaning of the creation stories found in the Book of Genesis? Are they a literal, historical account (as modern Young Earth Creationists believe they are)? Or are they allegorical (as Church Fathers such as Origenes and Augustine believed they were)?

Personally, I do not think that it is productive to interpret the creation stories found in the Book of Genesis as literally or figuratively true. In order to take these stories as literally true, you have to distort evidence from outside the text, such as the evidence that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old, the evidence that human beings evolved from previous life forms, and the evidence that the stories in Genesis are based on older Babylonian myths.

Moreover, it’s really hard to make these stories work within a modern Christian theological framework without egregiously distorting the meaning of the text itself. Even Young Earth Creationists aren’t really interpreting Genesis literally; they’re interpreting it through the lens of centuries of Christian reinterpretation. The Book of Genesis is, quite simply, not a Christian text. It was written for an audience of sixth-century BC Jews, not twenty-first-century Christians.

I think that the Genesis creation stories should be studied as works of fictional literature produced within a particular time and place for a particular audience.