Question: Was the Garden of Eden a myth?

Question: The magazine of The American Bible Society once had an article titled, “Adam and Eve in the Garden of Truth,” which presented the story of the Garden of Eden as a myth. The article, written by Barclay M. Newman, the then-senior translations officer for the American Bible Society, said that “Genesis offers no hint that the narrative of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was intended literally as a ‘true story.’” Do you have any comments?

Response: For something that isn’t “true” to express the “truth,” it would have to be a parable. There is no hint that any part of Genesis is intended as a parable or anything less than literal history. Nor is there any hint in scripture that the story of the creation of Adam and Eve is not literally true. Christ certainly believed it was true, and if He was wrong on that, why believe anything else He said?

Adam is mentioned about 30 times in 10 books of the Bible. Nowhere is there the slightest suggestion that what is stated about him is not literally true. If death was here before Adam (through evolution, etc.) and was not the direct result of his sin and God’s judgment upon it (as the Bible clearly states), then the gospel is not true. As soon as one begins to “adjust” Genesis to accommodate science (as has been done, for example, by Christianity Today, and others who accept theistic evolution), the Bible ceases to be God’s authoritative Word. 

That the American Bible Society should reject the literal accuracy of part of the Bible is no surprise. Anti-christian occultist, Sir John Marks Templeton, founder of the Templeton Award for Progress in Religion, was on its Board of Managers for 15 years. That fact may say more about the leadership of that Society than the quoted article.