I once heard a sermon on the prophet Jonah, in which the preacher opined that the fish story “makes good faithful Christians go weak in the knees” because it is hard to believe in a great fish swallowing a man whole, and then spitting him up again; and yet he does in fact believe. The reason is that once you have “swallowed” that God became incarnate as a human being, died on the cross, and was resurrected, and ascended into the realms of glory, then believing in Jonah is a little thing. Who are we to cherry pick which parts of God’s story to believe? To do this is dangerous, making God subject to our whims and sensibilities—making God to be not God. “The world needs more believers,” he concluded.

A great deal of discussion rages on about the historicity of Adam and Eve. This story reads to our contemporary context like a tall tale. I myself go “weak in the knees” when I contemplate the idea of defending the veracity of this story of a man and woman in a garden full of magic fruit, being approached by a sentient talking serpent. It just seems preposterous.

However, I take a similar approach to the tale of Adam and Eve, as the aforementioned pastor took to the story of Jonah. I have swallowed the idea of a Creator capable of bringing into existence a universe full of galaxies and black holes and many other wondrous things—this is a being of great power, and nearly infinite knowledge. Such a being, if it chose to interact with humanity, must be accorded the utmost respect. I believe that this God has indeed interacted with us, particularly in the person of Jesus, thus piercing the idea of a deistic God who observes some kind of “Star Trek”-like “prime directive” of never interfering with the course of natural events. Jesus of Nazareth, the “Son of man”, appeared among us, fulfilling many predictions from centuries past. This man mysteriously appeared to many after his death and then vanished, leaving behind a continually growing movement of people dedicated (imperfectly) to the love of others and reconciliation with God.

Therefore, I embrace Adam and Eve, and the Garden of Eden. A God who finely tuned the physical laws of our universe would not be sloppy in allowing mere fables into the sacred texts of His chosen people. Whether read literally or allegorically, the story must be taken seriously, as the very word of truth from on high.

Notes:

Christians have read Genesis 2-4 in a variety of ways. A fairly recent book of interest would be Barrett and Caneday, editors, Four Views on the Historical Adam, Zondervan, 2013. Featuring essays by Denis Lamoroux and others, it lays out some of the different positions taken by Christians.

My recollection of a sermon in the first paragraph is from notes taken on a homily preached by Fr. Michael Spurlock at Evensong, St Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, Oct 15, 2013. As far as I can discover, neither a recording nor any notes exist online at this time.

Photo credits:
1. “Eve Tempted by the Serpent” William Blake, c. 1799
2. “Jonah and the Whale” (oil on board). Aris, Fred (b. 1934). The Bridgeman Art Library International.