Is Genesis A Myth?

“Genesis is a myth…”  That’s what the preacher asserted. My Dad promptly pulled us out of that church, saying, “We’re going to go to a church that believes the Bible.” He was right. That was back in the 1950s. And I still affirm that he was right. My two earned bachelor’s degrees and post-graduate studies  (one from a Bible College and the second degree and post-graduate studies from state universities) have not changed my mind.

There is a most dangerous and evil trend in our modern churches – that started in the 1800s. Preachers, Bible Colleges, and professors were willing to accept and teach the evolutionary theory They may not have admitted to doing that and they may have called it “theistic evolution.” But the result was devastating. Some supposed there was a gap of millions of years between Genesis 1:1-2. Others proposed that each of the six days of Creation in Genesis 1 represented an “age,” which could be any indeterminate number of years (usually in the millions). They adjusted the Bible to fit the evolutionary theory.

Then there was the theory that Genesis 1-11 were not historical events but rather an allegory or a child’s creation story.   As a result, we couldn’t trust these chapters of the Bible. They were just “stories,” or “myths.” You did not need to believe the Creation story, the Fall of Man, the worldwide Flood story, or the Tower of Babel story. The Bible in Revelation 22 has severe warnings about ‘adding unto” or “taking away” the truths of the Word.

When you take away the first eleven chapters of Genesis, you are destroying the whole foundation of God’s Word. When the Bible foundation crumbles, the rest of the Bible falls apart. Many books of the Bible refer to the doctrine of Creation. God records the first marriage and His plan for the home in Genesis 2.   The Fall of Man in Genesis 3 explains how sin, suffering, and death came into the world and the need for blood atonement. Genesis states after each day of Creation that it was good. But if evolution is true, you have suffering and death long before the Fall of man.

Genesis 6-9 demonstrates God’s hatred and judgment for sin in the universal global flood. It also brings us God’s promise, symbolized by the rainbow. When humanity again turned to sin and rebellion at Babel, you see God’s judgment in the confusion of languages.

When you eliminate Genesis 1 – 11 as God’s true Word and the God-given historical record of origins, you also eliminate the truth of the rest of the Bible and make Moses, Jesus, Paul, and Peter extraordinary frauds.

See these examples:

Exodus 20:8-11 Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: – – – – – For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Was Moses mistaken in his writing? This context is talking about seven 24-hour days.

God set up the institution and establishment of the family in Genesis 2. Jesus refers to it and quotes from Genesis 1 and 2 in Mark 10:6-8. Was Jesus referring to an imaginary event?

Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus back to Adam in Luke 3. Was Adam a fictitious character?

Jesus, in Luke 11:50-51, said, “That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation. From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.” Abel was the second son of Adam and Eve. Jesus believed he was a historical person and related this statement as such. Was Jesus being deceived?

Jesus believed in the Genesis Flood and gave this warning in Luke 17:26-27. “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also I the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” Was Jesus ignorant of genuine history?

Paul was adamant about God being the Creator. Acts 17:24-28 “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, – – – seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;  And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, – – – For in him we live, and move, and have our being;” Was he wrong?

Peter did not hesitate in proclaiming both Creation and the flood. 2 Peter 3:5-6 declares, “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:” Was he just repeating ancient fables and myths?

If you choose to disbelieve and remove from the Biblical text Genesis 1-11, then you must also accept the following:  Moses, Jesus, Paul, and Peter are all frauds. And if Jesus is a fraud, there is no salvation, no hope after death, no heaven, and no hell. What do you choose?

When we eliminate Genesis 1 – 11 from the inspired text, we destroy the foundation of our faith. Yet, today, some Christians are willing to accept the word of unbelieving scientists (who admit that they really don’t know – that’s why there are several theories of evolution) – over the Word of God.

God created everything. He knows. He was there.

Evolutionists were not there and can only guess, theorize, and postulate. They didn’t observe creation and it is not repeatable in experiments.  And if what they propose doesn’t seem possible, they just throw in a few million years to make it somewhat more believable.  They believe in evolution by faith.

Christians accept Creation by faith. (Hebrews 11:3) God created. He was there.  He was the only participant and the only eyewitness and He gave us His record of Creation.  I readily accept His account of Creation before any fabulous, fantastic, imagination of a scientist that believes random chance is a better engineer than an almighty God who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

I can only repeat David’s words in Psalm 8:3,4: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?” I can only praise Him!  “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” Psalm 8:9.

I am not a scientist. But if you want to read the scientific side of these questions, I would like to refer you to these organizations: Answers in Genesis, and, Institute for Creation Research. They both have great websites, museums, many books, DVDs, and instructional materials. Their scientists and researchers are all highly qualified in their respective scientific disciplines.

Above all, don’t cave in to the evolutionary theories or try to fit them into the Bible. They don’t work.

Hold fast to the authoritative, inspired Word of God.