I grew up learning the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was never presented to me as myth, but always as real people, the first people on earth. I also took literally the fact that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. As I got older and moved to a predominantly Catholic region of Pennsylvania, I began learning other theories about the creation story found in the book of Genesis. The theories were the Adam and Eve story was a myth to explain man’s hereditary sin. And the literal six days was used to help man conceive the story as it is hard to imagine the story over thousands of years. Keep in mind; before we had written text, these stories were passed down from generation to generation by story telling.

I began thinking more and more about what I learned growing up, and now the new thoughts of just a myth. Which was correct? I believe the literal story, but the arguments showing the myth explains how evolution and the Bible can both be correct. I finally came to realize, it doesn’t matter which you believe! Pick a side, and I can argue the opposite all day. In either case, the story is the same and the lessons it teach are the same! Mankind has the freedom of choice and mankind inherently has sin.

So, man (from this point forward meaning man and woman) was created by God and was made good. Yes man is good by nature, however God gave man the freedom to choose good or evil. Unfortunately, man’s choice was evil after being tempted by the devil. Once man became a sinner, all his children and children’s children could not know life without sin. How could they? You are a product of your environment. It is extremely difficult for a child or adult to learn something that is unknown to them or to anybody around them. And when they do learn beyond their environment, it is only a beginning. What I mean is; yes people change and people do rise out of a bad environment to become more than the generation before. But to rise all the way out of sin is impossible as there is no environment conducive of sin free. We can’t imagine a sin free world, so how can we become sin free? Keep in mind though, we are created in the image of God and are good by nature, and we still have the freedom to choose between good and evil. So choosing good is getting closer to God, but we will never be sin free. Over time, there have been covenants that God has given to man to bring us back, but we have always managed to break those covenants until God sent his only son to die for our sins.

Now I am getting ahead of myself by jumping all the way to Jesus. We will explore that era in other discussions.

So believe the creation story as myth or believe it is real. That is your choice, but more importantly, forget about real or myth and read the Genesis 1-3 for the lessons they teach, and read Genesis 1-11 to be really introduced to God and his glory and power. These readings begin to lay a foundation for the rest of the Bible. Read it and leave some comments here to spark more thoughts or discussions.