How can we know for sure? If we believe the Bible is actually God’s testimony written through men but truly authored by God, all we need to do is look to the rest of Scripture. Does the Bible treat Genesis like a parable, or like history?
The History of the Bible is Seamless.
Genesis is primarily a book of historical narrative. It tells how God created the universe. Then how God created Adam and Eve. Then about their children, Cain and Able. Then about their descendants (not all of them) like Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the nation of Israel, Joshua, Samson, David, Solomon, etc. The history is seamless. That is, there is no distinction which closes off Adam and Eve from the rest of these people. If the later people in this list are real, than so are Adam and Eve. At least, that’s what the Bible’s seamless historical narrative asserts.
Biblical Writers Treat Ancient Bible History as Fact, Not Fiction.
Look up Adam or Eve in a concordance. Nowhere in the Bible are Adam and Eve treated like fictional characters. Always they are actual people who did real things in a real world. Not figurative, but historical.
From Genesis…
“1This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.
6Seth lived one hundred and five years, and begot Enosh. 7After he begot Enosh, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters. 8So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died.
9Enosh lived ninety years, and begot Cainan.” (Genesis 5:1-9 NKJV).
From Deuteronomy…
“8 When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations,
When He separated the sons of Adam,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 32:8 NKJV).
From Job…
“33 If I have covered my transgressions as Adam,
By hiding my iniquity in my bosom,” (Job 31:33 NKJV).
From Second Corinthians…
“3But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3 NIV).
From First Timothy…
“13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” (1 Timothy 2:13 NKJV).
From Jude…
“14Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming” (Jude 1:14 NIV).
Genealogies Include Adam As the First Man.
A genealogies in First Chronicles 1 and in Luke 1 include Adam as the first man. The genealogy in Chronicles connects Adam to Abraham and the Jewish people. The genealogy in Luke 1 connects Jesus to Adam. If Jesus was real, so was Adam. At least, that’s what Luke’s genealogy asserts.
We might also add the genealogy in Matthew 1 to this list. It connects Jesus to Abraham, but goes no further. That’s where a Jew would turn to First Chronicles to complete the genealogy to Adam. The main point in Matthew is establishing that Christ was a descendant of Abraham through David’s line, since the prophecies concerning the Christ said this would be true of Him.
Jesus Believed That Adam and Eve Were Real People.
When asked about marriage He responded by referring to the first marriage, that of Adam and Eve.
From Matthew…
“3Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate”” (Matthew 19:3-6 NIV).
If Genesis is not literal history, there would be no basis to point to it as the foundation for what marriage is and how it should be treated. Jesus, however, clearly believed Genesis to be literal history.
A Gospel That Has Meaning Requires a Literal Adam and Eve.
“21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22 NKJV).
“12Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned… death reigned from Adam to Moses,” (Romans 5:12 NKJV).
According to the Bible death was not part of the world until Adam sinned. According to the Bible Adam’s sin is the reason the Savior was needed! If Adam and Eve are not real, but only figurative characters, where DID death come from? Why the big fuss about sins? If the Genesis account is not to be trusted, what is the real history, and why did God lie about creating a perfect world? God did not lie. According to the Bible, which is God’s eye-witness account preserved by His omnipotent hand, Adam and Eve WERE real people. It was their sin that infected the human race and made the coming of the Savior necessary. In Jesus we have forgiveness for the Originial Sin that we receive from our parents, and for the Actual Sins that we have committed.
Those who suggest Adam and Eve were not real people do not bring their suggestion as the fruit of Bible study, but from some other source.
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