How Do You Know What Is Myth & What Is History in Genesis?

Dr. Craig answers how one can discern between myth and history in the Genesis creation account.

INTERVIEWER: What elements then of the Genesis story of Adam and Eve of course – and there are two creation narratives, but presumably you're alluding to the second creation story rather than the first one for your detailed understand – how much of that is myth and how much of that is history? And more importantly, how on earth does one make that decision? How does one hermeneutically engage the text and says this element (the eating of the fruit) is myth? I don't know what you believe on this, but say it is. But the Fall itself is history because the Fall itself of Adam and Eve is a prerequisite. It's a really absolute foundation for Christian soteriology obviously as presented in the New Testament that you have a Fall. And then you have a second Adam – the second Adam, Jesus I mean. So you've got to have that. But are you saying that these details of the fruit and the tree and the serpent and whatnot are not historical and myth? Is that your argument?

DR. CRAIG: Yes, that is my my position. I would say that these are mythic images in which the story of the Fall is told so that while there was an Adam and Eve who did commit some sort of sin against God, I think this is told in the dramatic imagery of a Tree of Good and Evil and then a Tree of life and a talking snake who seems to be a symbol of evil and so forth. I suggest a number of ways in which one can discern which portions of the narrative are meant to be understood figuratively and which are not.

INTERVIEWER: How do you make that hermeneutical move? How do you discern what is and what isn't?

DR. CRAIG: Well, one way would be when the narratives relate things that are explicitly contradictory to what the author of the Pentateuch believes. A great example of this would be that in chapter one he presents this image or picture of God as a transcendent creator of the universe: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” So we have here this transcendent God who creates all of the universe. But in chapters two and three in the stories of Adam and Eve you have these very anthropomorphic descriptions of God as a sort of finite humanoid deity who is walking in the Garden, who forms Adam out of the dust of the ground, who does surgery on Adam and takes out a rib and makes a woman who is walking in the Garden in the cool of the day calling out to Adam. This is clearly incompatible with what the Pentateuchal author himself believes about God, and so I think gives an indication that these descriptions should be understood as anthropomorphic imagery.