The Methodist Quarterly Review
1869

ART. 11.-LITERALITY OF THE ACCOUNT OF THE
GARDEN OF EDEN.

IN the second and third chapters of Genesis is found an account of the garden of Eden as the first abode of man. The account given of that garden, and of the transactions said to have been enacted in connection therewith, have been made the subject of much investigation and criticism by good and learned men, and yet it cannot be affirmed that they have removed all difficulty and obscurity from the subject. So have the same topics been made the subject of much skeptical criticism, and even vulgar ridicule, by impious unbelievers, and yet they have failed to prove the history false or unreasonable. It never can be proved to be false, for the reason that there is no higher proof which can reach the case than the history itself. There is no prior or contemporary document which can contradict the Bible record, and there is nothing contradictory or impossible in the account itself. The Bible story of the origin and first condition and acts of man has a decided advantage over all modern speculative theories; it claims to be a record of the facts, it can never be disproved, and it is the only document which claims to be such a record.

It is not intended to join issue with Deism, or with any other form of open infidelity in this article; but there have been some disguised attacks upon the integrity of this portion of sacred history which demands attention. It has been insisted by some that the account of the garden of Eden, and of the sin of Adam and Eve and their expulsion, is only a myth, or, at most, only an allegory. It is with this class that the issue is joined. The following is a statement of the position that will be maintained.

THE INTEGRITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RECORD REQUIRES US TO MAINTAIN THE LITERALITY OF THE ACCOUNT OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

1. The account of the garden of Eden is a link in the chain of history so connected, that if this link be dissolved into a myth, or transformed into an allegory, it will not only sever the chain, but loosen it at the end from the first great starting point of realities, leaving no land-fastening. It is a part of the account of creation. The history of the garden embraces the only account we have of the origin of our race, for the man whom God formed out of the dust of the ground was the same man which he put in the garden, and who also was the father of the race, so that if the garden is a myth the man is a myth also; and if the story of the garden is an allegory, the story of the man is also an allegory ; and so far as the Scriptures are concerned we have no account of the origin of our race, and the Bible history of humanity ends in a myth or an allegory as you trace it upward..

The first sin committed by man, commonly characterized as the fall, constitutes the principal topic of the account of the garden, so that if this story is a myth the Scriptures give us no matter-of-fact account of the introduction of sin into this world. But that first sin, said to have been committed in the garden, constitutes the historic stand-point of the world's redemption by Christ. Make the account of the garden a myth, and you leave only a myth for the first great historic event in the story of redemption, which is the greatest wonder of all the wonders that ever astonished angels, men, or devils.

The story of the garden, and of the transactions said to have taken place therein, constitutes the beginning of the only history we have of our race, and if it is a myth the Bible gives us no truthful account of the commencement of the human family. The Bible history makes the same Adam and Eve who were in the garden, and were driven out of it on account of their disobedience, the father and mother of us all. The Adam and Eve of the garden were the father and mother of Cain and Abel. The same Adam and Eve were the father and mother of Seth, from whom Noah descended, who alone with his family crossed the flood to people the world on this side. From Noah Abraham descended, and Christ descended from Abraham, who was the promised Seed of the woman of the garden that was to bruise the serpent's head. Thus, if you make a myth of the story of the garden, the only history of humanity ends in a myth where it began, if you trace it backward. Make a myth of the story of the garden, and the genealogy of Christ ends in a myth.

2. The garden of Eden, with the events historically connected with it. are so referred to by later inspired writers as to impeach the whole Bible history, if that be only a myth or an allegory. The recorded facts are referred to by various writers, not as to a myth or an allegory, but as to historical facts. "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every-where before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord." Gen. xiii, 10. "The Lord shall comfort Zion; he shall comfort all her waste places, and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord." Isa. ii, 3. "Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of the Lord." Ezek. xxviii, 13. " I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him." Ezek. xxxi, 9. "The land is as the garden of Eden before them, behind them a desolate wilderness." Joel ii, 3. "If I covered my transgressions as Adam." Job xxxi, 33. The above texts all clearly refer to the account of the garden of Eden as a fact in history, known and believed.

The New Testament contains still more conclusive references to the history of the garden of Eden. Christ, in his reply to the Pharisees on the subject of divorce, quoted the very words of Adam, uttered in the garden of Eden over the woman whom, according to the account, God had formed out of one of his ribs. "For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh." Matt. xix, 5; Gen. ii' 24. "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." 2 Cor. xi, 3. "Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." 1 Tim. ii, 13, 14. These allusions to the garden of Eden are such as to prove the account to be real history, or to impeach the New Testament by supposing that it rests some of its fundamental principles upon a myth or an allegory.

3. Paul selects the transactions of the garden as his first grand stand-point from which he contemplates the world's redemption. The great Apostle grounds the necessity of redemption upon what took place in the garden, by which the whole race was involved in sin, and from this point he runs a parallel between the Adam of the garden, the first Adam, that sinned, and Christ, the second Adam, the redeemer and restorer of what was lost in the first Adam.

God said to the serpent in the garden, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Gen. iii' 15. This has been understood as referring to Christ as the Seed of the woman; and though this interpretation of the text is not essential to the validity of Christianity, nor to the soundness of the present general argument, it is proper to show that the idea is interwoven into the entire history of redemption. The genealogy of Christ is carefully traced back to the Adam and Eve of the garden. Christ was promised to Abraham as his Seed, and Paul, referring to this fact, no doubt with reference to what was said in the garden, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, comments as follows: "Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy Seed, which is Christ." Gal. iii, 16. And so literal were the words uttered in the garden concerning the Seed of the woman, that their fulfillment required that Christ should he the seed of the woman without a human father. He was the son of a virgin, and was thus the seed of the woman in a sense not true of any other human being. This makes the words uttered in the garden, which some call a myth or an allegory, not only literal history, but in this item a prophecy of the most profound importance. Paul gives this subject special notice when be says, "But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law." Gal. iv, 4, 5. Also, no doubt with direct reference to what was said in the garden, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, Paul says, "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." Rom. xvi, 20.

St. Paul, while discussing the great doctrine of the resurrection, gives us the following parallels between the Adam of the garden and Christ: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 1 Cor. xv, 20-22. No one can doubt that the Adam here named, by whom death came and in whom all die, is the same Adam upon whom the sentence of death was [FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXI.-22] passed in the garden of Eden; and if so, Paul must have regarded that account as literal history, or he would not have thus reasoned from it in proof of the important doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

But Paul gives his strongest argument in his Epistle to the Romans: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: for until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come. But not as the offense, so also is the free gift: for if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one; much' more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." Rom. v, 12-18.

The account of the garden of Eden narrates the only transactions in the history of humanity to which Paul can have referred in the above scripture; and if we rarefy that into a myth, or transform it into an allegory, we leave Paul nothing but a mythical or an allegorical foundation for his masterly argument, at the profoundness of which the deepest Christian theologians have been awed, and the most thinking infidels have wondered. It appears impossible that any one should doubt that Paul's one man that sinned, by whose sin death entered into the world, and passed upon all because it involved all in sin, is the man who sinned in the garden. There is no other one man named in the Bible by whom sin and death can have entered the world. It appears impossible to doubt that the Adam of Paul's argument, from whom death reigned until the time of Moses without any written law, is the same Adam upon whom the sentence of death was pronounced in Eden. The argument of the Apostle is built upon two principal facts.

First, Adam, the one man that sinned, by whose offense many, that is' all, were made sinners, creating the necessity for the redemption of the race, was the first man of the race, the father of all men. Jews and Gentiles alike suffered by the sin of the one man, and alike needed redemption. Hence it is that this one man, Adam of the garden, was the father of Seth, from whom the race is traced down to Noah, from whom both the Jews and Gentiles have their descent.

The second fact upon which Paul's argument is built is, that Christ, the Redeemer, descended from the same one man, Adam, was the Seed of the one woman, Eve, the wife of the one man, Adam, so that the Gentiles, who could claim no relation through him through Abraham, could claim such relation through Noah, from whom Jews and Gentiles are traced in one genealogical line up to Adam. Corresponding to these facts, we have the genealogy of Christ, carefully traced up to Adam and Eve, who figured in the garden, and were turned out of it on account of their sin, connecting the Christ of the garden of Gethsemane and the cross, with the Adam, the sinner, in the garden of Eden. Thus are all men who need redemption, and Christ the Redeemer, equally connected with Adam, the first sinner. The argument then is, that as the whole human race has descended from Adam, the first sinner, and are sinners like him, so Christ, after the flesh, descended from the same Adam, and stands related; not only to the Jews through Abraham, but to the whole lost race through Noah and Adam. Break this chain, by which Christ the Redeemer, together with the whole redeemed race, stands connected with the Adam of the garden, or remove the literality of that garden by dissolving it into a myth or converting it into an allegory, and you will subvert Paul's argument, and overthrow his entire view of the plan of redemption.

4. The laxity of interpretation which is necessary to reach the conclusion that the account of the garden of Eden is a myth or an allegory, if allowed, will enable every person to explain away a large portion of the Scriptures so far as any settled and literal sense is concerned. The story of Cain and Abel can quite as easily be considered a myth; so can the account of the translation of Enoch. The story of the flood and Noah's ark may as easily be turned into a myth. The call of Abraham, and in particular his call to offer his son Isaac, has no stronger claim to be a literal history than the account of the garden of Eden. Moses in his ark of bulrushes would be a beautiful myth under this latitudinarian mode of interpretation. The book of Job is easily converted into a grand legend. The exit of Elijah becomes a splendid myth, and the whole book of Jonah is no more than a legend, and an extravagant one at that. The history of the miraculous conception has been declared to be a legend, which was written and added to St. Matthew's Gospel in after years. If we allow ourselves thus to tamper with the record, landmark after landmark will vanish, stand-point after stand-point will be changed, until we shall have no anchoring ground left into which to cast the moorings of our faith when we find ourselves drifting before the storm.

5. There is absolutely no necessity for such a latitudinarian construction of the account of the garden of Eden as will make it a myth or an allegory. There is no sufficient reason for it, and it can result from nothing short of a spirit of wild speculation, or an intention to impair the Christian record and weaken our faith in the same. This position is worthy of a brief examination.

It is not contended that the document has been mistranslated, and that a new and correct translation makes it read like a myth or an allegory. Such a position would challenge examination by affirming a sufficient reason, though the affirmation were false; but no such claim has been set up.

It is not pretended that the document has been changed by design or by the errors of copyists, and that to bring it back to its original state will show it to- be a myth or an allegory. If it were claimed that some more ancient Hebrew copies had been found by which it would stand corrected, every true Christian scholar, and every firm believer in the Scriptures would say, Bring forward your ancient copies, prove their antiquity, and let us compare and. make all required correction, that we may have the record as God gave it to man. But no such position is attempted to be maintained, and it would be only a pretense if such attempt was made.

It is not necessary to convert the story of the garden of Eden into a myth or an allegory as a means of conforming the record to the truth of science. No modern scientific discoveries contradict the literality of the account of the garden of Eden, and of Adam and Eve. The theology of the Church once taught that this earth was a stationary plain, and that the sun moved around it; but science has corrected that error, though the priests and doctors for a time fought manfully against it. But that error and its correction does not involve the truth of the record, but only our interpretation of it. Though men have often been proved mistaken in regard to science, and may be again, yet all real science is truth itself, and our opinions must stand corrected by its undoubted affirmations. So conclusive, however, are the proofs of the inspiration of the Scriptures, that if clearly-ascertained principles of science contradict their supposed teaching, we should at once suspect our understanding of them; for the conflict cannot be with what the Scriptures really teach, but only with our interpretation of them. But no scientific principles have been developed which conflict with the literality of the account of the garden of Eden. It is not a question which can be brought to the test of any of the sciences. Astronomy does not reach it, geology does not reach it, anatomy does not reach it, physiology does not reach it; in a word, no science reaches it. It is claimed that geology has demonstrated that the earth is more than six thousand years old. Be it so; but whether the account of the garden of Eden is an historic fact or a myth does not depend upon the age of the world. The Bible history of generations teaches that the present race of human beings, the children of Adam, have existed upon earth only about six thousand years, and geology furnishes no proof that our race has existed longer than the Bible history of Adam and his descendants allow. How long the earth existed before God created Adam and planted the garden is another question, which has nothing to do with the character of this part of the history as literal or mythical.

The conclusion reached, then, is, that to pronounce the account of the garden of Eden a myth or an allegory is to surrender a fundamental document before any legal demand has been made for it; it is to make a free-will offering to infidelity, and one which will impair the foundation of our religion. It will leave us without the slightest history of our race, for the Bible history of humanity foes not connect us with the man created and described in the first chapter of Genesis, but with the man Adam of the garden of Eden. It will leave us without any account of the introduction of sin into this world; for the only account we have is contained in the history of the garden of Eden as man’s first abode. It will subvert many of the most sublime truths and richest promises, which are so connected with the based upon the literal existence of the garden of Eden, and the historic truth of what is said to have transpired therein, as to stand or fall with the literality of that account. Let no man, then, lay a sacrilegious hand upon that document.

Proofreading, HTML conversion, and other modifications by Brandon Boyd.

© Copyright 1999 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology. Text may be freely used for personal or scholarly purposes or mirrored on other web sites, provided this notice is left intact. Any use of this material for commercial purposes of any kind is strictly forbidden without the express permission of the Wesley Center at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, ID 83686. Contact the webmaster for permission or to report errors.