Bible Question:
Are the creation accounts recorded in Genesis based on other ancient myths and legends?Did the writer of the accounts simply copy/repeat/edit other myths that where common in this culture and time?Is the garden account of Adam and Eve real,or a pure mythological construction? Does not the whole salvation plan of the NT rest on these records as being completely true?The gospel either is validated or dismissed as untrue if the first few chapters of Genesis are not true. |
Bible Answer: fredcs, good day! Modern man has found himself always "between Scylla and Charybdis" as Homer put it -- we call it "between the devil and the deep blue sea" -- when it comes to trying to prove or disprove the creation account of Genesis. Believers and non-believers alike have attempted to prove their positions by science. Both have fallen short of proof. One of the problems that has confronted both believer and skeptic when they have tried to base their proof upon scientific evidence is that science is not eternal truth. It is a demonstrable fact that the only constant of science is change. In the 17th century Dr. William Harvey, by feeling his pulse while in a hot bath, educed that arteries carry blood. Galileo, by holding his pulse while watching a swinging cathedral lamp, evolved a theory that made clocks possible. Not many years ago it was common to believe that a speed of 30 miles an hour in those new-fangled 'horseless carriages' (early automobiles) would do permanent damage to the human body -- they were talking about the speed itself, not the possibility of accident. It has not been far back in the history of the world when the printing press, airplanes, radio, television, and the computer/internet, to name but a few of modern 'miracles,' were unheard of. Much of what was considered scientific truth in ancient times, or even a decade ago, has now been debunked. And what is considered the orthodox science of today will likely become the fables of tomorrow...... It is an interesting thing about myths and legends. They are generally based on, or borrowed and copied after, something that mirrows truth. The mere fact that a number of ancient legends about creation bear in some respect a resemblance to the Genesis account of creation suggests that they could, in fact, be borrowed and copied from the genuine. It has been suggested, and not without merit, that the main reason the Bible has been so severely scrutinized and maligned for centuries is because it is the genuine article. If it were not so, if it were obviously fake, who would go to the trouble to try to disprove it? It is because the Bible is true, and because for sinful human beings truth is so often painful, that man has, time and time again, set out to bring it to shame and discredit. The Bible puts an uncomfortable wrinkle in the garment of secular humanism that is the chic apparel of our time. Yet even now in this year of our Lord 2002, the word of our Lord stands firm. Neither philosophy nor science, folklore nor legend, or sage nor fool, has ever proved a word of it untrue. A sure prophecy is they never will. --Hank |