OceanSide church of Christ

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THE MYTH:

Genesis Is A Myth

Victor M. Eskew

 

INTRODUCTION

 

A.    Almost all of us in this audience have a very healthy respect for the Bible.

1.      We view it as the Word of God (II Thess. 2:13).

2.      We are sure that the words of the text are “God breathed” (II Tim. 3:16).

3.      This book is infallible.  It does not contain any errors or contradictions.

4.      When we go to the Bible, we go to find truth.

a.      We interpret the Bible literally unless the context demands otherwise.

b.      We do not have any problem with any story that is found in the Bible.

 

B.      Our view of the Bible is held only by a minority in the world today.

1.      Most do not believe the Bible is the Word of God.

2.      Even those who do accept the Bible as God’s Word have a different view of it than we do.

a.      Some refer to it as a book of myths.

 

In 1981, Neal Buffaloe (professor of biology at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas) and N. Patrick Murray (Rector, All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Russellville, Arkansas), co-authored a small volume titled Creationism and Evolution. In that book, they stated concerning the Genesis creation account:                                                                                        

 

In other words, the Genesis poems are significant not because they tell us how things were, or the way things happened long ago. Rather, they are talking about man’s situation now—the eternal importance of man’s relationship to God, and the primordial disruption of that fellowship that lies at the root of human nature and history. When we read the ancient Hebrew accounts of the creation—Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, man’s “fall” by listening to the seductive words of a serpent, and God’s Sabbath rest—we must understand... that “these things never were, but always are.... The stories are told and retold, recorded and read and reread not for their wasness but for their isness” (1981, p. 8, emp. in orig.).    (as quoted from http://apologeticspress.org/pdfs/courses_pdf/hsc0302.pdf).

                      

1)      Notice that the writer focuses his attention on the early portions of Genesis.

2)      They believe that the first eleven chapters are mythological in nature because of the way the creation account is written:  the talking serpent, a tree with fruit, an ark to save men from a flood, and a tower that reaches up to the sky.

b.      Even those who are supposed to be conservative often hold to a figurative view of Genesis.  This is true of the book entitled, Dark Agenda:  The War to Destroy Christian America, by David Horowitz.

1)      The title sounds promising.

2)      The author is a conservative in the political realm.

3)      On page 8, we read:  “Do the profound moral lessons of Genesis depend on thinking the world was created 6,000 years ago, in six 24-hour days?  If Genesis were a work of fiction, it would still provide believers and nonbelievers with guides to a better life.”

4)      On page 9, he confronts the deceased atheist, Richard Dawkins who accuses God of being “pestilential” because He sent a plague of locusts on Egypt.  He sets forth this question:  “Or is he misreading a story that might be metaphorical or that actually contains some historical facts?”

5)      It is clear that Mr. Horowitz does not believe the accounts in the books of Genesis and Exodus to be historical narratives

c.       Some within the church will also refer to the Creation account as being a myth.

1)      In the late 70s and early 80s, two professors at one of our Christian Universities were teaching that the creation account is a myth.

2)      Bert Thompson penned a book entitled, Is Genesis Myth?, to refute their teaching.

 

C.     In this lesson, let’s confront the idea that Genesis is myth.

1.      The word “myth” used to mean that which is fiction.

2.      The word “myth” has changed in meaning.  Now it refers to a fictitious story

a.      That has a lot of fiction and some truth.

b.      That has a fictitious story that contains lessons of truth.  This definition closely aligns with the definition of fable.

 

I.                   THE TEXT DOES NOT INDICATE ANYTHING FICITIOUS

 

A.    When a person begins to read the book of Genesis, he does not read it as poetry or a myth.  It reads like a straightforward, trustworthy history.

 

B.      The opening chapters are intimately related to the remainder of the book. 

 

C.     The account is lacking the qualities of Hebrew poetry:  parallelism, rhythm, acrostics, alliteration, many figures of speech, and stanzas.

 

D.    There is nothing that stands out in Genesis 1-11 that makes it different from Genesis 12-50.  The reader reads the book as a continual account written by the same author.

 

E.      NOTE:  The only reason some want to style it as a myth is because they do not want to believe the actual account.

1.      Remember, no man was there.

2.      God, however, was there and gives a perfect account of the beginning of all things.

 

II.                JESUS REGARDED GENESIS AT LITERAL

 

A.    There are numerous examples of Jesus referring to the early chapters of Genesis.

1.      The creation of man (Matt. 19:4)

 

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning make them male and female.  (NOTE:  Mark states:  “From the beginning of the creation he made them male and female”).

 

2.      Jesus quotes from Genesis 2 when questioned about marriage (Matt. 19:5).

 

And said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:  and they twain shall be one flesh.

 

3.      Jesus refers to Satan as both a murderer “from the beginning” and a liar (John 8:44).

 

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do:  he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own:  for he is a liar, and the father of it.

 

 

 

4.      Jesus refers to Abel whose story is told in Genesis 4 (Matt. 23:35).

 

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel…

 

5.      Jesus refers to Noah and the flood, an account found in Genesis 6-7 (Matt. 24:37-39).

 

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.  For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

 

B.      If a person denies the historical nature of the book of Genesis, he must question the truthfulness of Jesus Christ because Jesus put His stamp upon the book as being genuine history.

 

III.             THE WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT REGARDED GENESIS AS LITERAL

 

A.    Some basic facts:

1.      Every New Testament writer made allusions to, or quoted, Genesis.

2.      Of the 50 chapters in Genesis, only 7 are not referred to in the New Testament (20, 24, 34, 36, 40, 43, 44).

3.      Each of the first eleven chapters of Genesis is quoted or cited in the NT.

4.      There are approximately 200 references to Genesis in the New Testament, half of which are from Genesis 1-11.

a.      Sixty-three reference the first three chapters of Genesis.

b.      Fourteen mention the account of the Flood in Genesis 6-8.

 

B.      A few examples:

1.      Paul refers to Adam and Eve by name (I Tim. 2:13).

 

For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

 

2.      Paul calls Adam the first man (I Cor. 15:45a).

 

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul…

 

3.      Paul reflects upon the craftiness of Satan in deceiving Eve (II Cor. 11:3).

 

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

 

4.      Peter sets forth the flood as an example of divine intervention in the affairs of men in II Peter 3:6).

 

Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

 

5.      John refers to Cain and Abel (I John 3:12a).

 

Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother…

 

6.      Jude’s letter says that Enoch was the seventh from Adam (Jude 14).  (NOTE:  IF you look at Genesis 5, Enoch is seventh in the lineage from Adam.

 

IV.             THE LINEAGE OF JESUS IS CALLED INTO QUESTION

 

A.     Luke presents a genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:23-38.

 

B.      The last six verses contain names that are found in the book of Genesis.

1.      Twenty-three names are listed.

2.      The very last name on the list is Adam (Luke 3:38).

 

Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

 

C.     Three points:

1.      Is this lineage true?

2.      If it is not true, then, Jesus Himself could be fictitious.

3.      Luke indicates the record of Genesis is true, including the Creation of Adam by noting him as “the son of God.”

 

V.                THE REDEMPTION OF MAN IS CALLED INTO QUESTION

 

A.    The narrative of Genesis sets up the remainder of the story of redemption.

1.      Man yields to sin and sin and death enter into the world (Gen. 3).

2.      Man stands in need of a Savior.  That Savior is predicted in Genesis 3:15.

 

B.      If the narrative is just myth, then man’s need for redemption is questionable.  The whole story of the redemption of man through Jesus Christ crumbles because the foundation of the story, the fall of man, is not true.

 

CONCLUSION

 

A.    We are not surprised that atheists and infidels attack the Biblical narrative.  They hate it.

 

B.      We are not too surprised when liberal theologians reject the Genesis narrative as a myth because they do not have respect for the authoritative Word of God.

 

C.     We are surprised when those who call themselves Bible believers reject the narrative.  Why?  Because they usually plead for the inspiration of the Scriptures.  Sadly, they have yielded to the pressures of so-called science and modernism when they look at Holy Writ.

 

D.    We are saddened when Christians reject the history of Genesis, calling it a myth. 

1.      They question our redemption.

2.      They question the birth of our Lord.

3.      They question the teachings of the apostles.

4.      They question the teachings of the Son of God also.

 

E.      My friends, if we cannot trust the Bible as the Word of God, then nothing really matters.

1.      We can know that God exists and that He is deity and that He is very powerful (Rom. 1:20).

2.      We can know nothing more about God without the Bible.

3.      Remove the foundational matters of Genesis, especially chapters 1-11, then the rest of the Word of God crumbles.