Quote:
Originally Posted by Gubei
During my over 25 years of Christian life, the interpretation of the Garden of Eden has been a big hurdle. It is very odd that most Bible expositors don't delve into the issue on the head, rather they focus on it's spiritual meaning.
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Gubei,
You have good questions. I too have dwelt on the Garden story much. I have been trained by both fundamentalists and modernists on this story. The modernists say it is a myth, a story told by a primitive people to explain natural phenomena. They don't mean that disparagingly. Indeed, they highly esteem myth. Joseph Campbell, a favorite of the modernist crowd, has written extensively on myth and its great underlying truths.
But it is still myth to them and only myth. It has no physical, historical veracity. They err on this point and here's the proof: Adam is listed in Jesus' genealogy. By claiming Adam to be a mythical character, they are expecting us to believe that somewhere along the line of Jesus, a literal, physical son was born to a mythical father. This is absurd.
For that reason, I reject the bulk of the modernist interpretation. It is too great a problem.
The fundamentalist, though, err as well. They treat the Garden as 100% literal/physical/historical and, using that as a starting point, try to force science and human history to fit a timeline they have developed. Hence, the 6,000 old earth, to me the most absurd idea ever promoted by Christians. G. H. Pember provided a way around the 6,000 old earth problem, but he didn't solve other problems related to the six day creation account.
So which is it? Was the Garden a physical garden with physical entities, a real Adam who really fell asleep while God "operated" on him or was it just a story told with great allegorical significance?
My jury is still out on this one. But here's something quite interesting to note. David, upon hearing Nathan's allegory of the rich man and the poor man mistook it to be a true history. "That man shall repay fourfold!" he cried to which Nathan responded, "You are that man!" David's misunderstanding of the true nature of that story was very useful in getting him to see his sin and eventually repent for it. The garden story, no matter how one takes it, can have that same effect. So in that light, I would rather err with the fundamentalists than the modernists.
SC