On Genesis, Part 3: Sustainable Plausibility

Here we shall continue our discussion of what we have described as the second creation account of Genesis, which is found in chapters 2 through 4, commencing with our commentary on Genesis chapter 3. As we have asserted in relation to the creation account of Genesis chapter 1, it serves to provide a basis for the foundation of a godly society. Then this second account, which begins with verse 4 of Genesis chapter 2, provides a basis for a godly family, which is the primary social unit of that godly society. Laying the foundation for a society of family, after Adam was commanded not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil it had also defined a proper marriage as he found that he had no suitable helpmate among all the beasts of creation. For that reason Eve was created, whereupon Adam himself had described a legitimate marriage as the union of a man with a woman of his own flesh and bone, a woman of his own kind or race, rather than of any of the other creatures in the garden.

Of course, Yahweh God had already foreseen the creation of woman, as it is declared in Genesis chapter 1 that “male and female created He them”, so Genesis chapter 2 further explains that creation process, which is not fully realized until the events come to pass which are described in Genesis chapter 5. Now, as this second creation account continues, it moves past the details of the creation of the Adamic man “male and female”, and begins to explain the reasons for the historic circumstances of man, who was initially created for the purpose of having dominion over the earth and everything in it, but who was quickly reduced to necessity, having to toil at hard labor in order to merely survive.

There are no anciently written narrative histories surviving the flood of Noah. So except for some rather fantastic pagan legends, the only viable records which we may have of our origins, if indeed we are of the race of men which is described as having descended from Adam in Genesis chapter 10, are these accounts of creation in Genesis. But neither are these accounts written as we may expect a history to be written today. Instead, they are parables, written in metaphors and allegories, and they contain some idioms which may no longer even be understood unless the meanings are elucidated where they appear in later books of Scripture. Then even being armed with an understanding of the allegories, very little of these creation accounts of Genesis can be properly and fully understood without the words of Christ in the Gospel and the Revelation. Furthermore, because the creation accounts in Genesis are written in allegory, the sustainable plausibility of any interpretation of these allegories must be verified consistently throughout the balance of Scripture. If later Scriptures uphold the interpretations, then they must be valid. But if later Scriptures explicitly contradict the interpretations, then they are not at all sustainable and they must be rejected as being invalid.