Editorial July 17, 1902 Issue

The Story of Eden

The enlarged freedom and general trend of Christian thought in the field of Biblical interpretation, is revealed with unusual definiteness in a sermon by the late F. F. Emerson of Hartford, Conn., on the story of the Garden of Eden. After noting the two distinct narratives, the one including Genesis first chapter and the first three verses of the second, and the other immediately following, he says:—

"This second tradition, in regard to the creation of woman, the garden in Eden, the intervention of the serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, cannot be regarded as literally and historically true; it is not an account of events which ever actually took place in the outward and objective form as here presented; but we may regard it as a kind of symbolism, or allegory, of that which must necessarily have taken place when the human consciousness rose to a degree of intelligence sufficient to recognize moral evil and make conflict with it."

"The unhistorical character of this second Jehovistic tradition is shown by the consideration that the first man could not have come into existence so late as this, since the Bible's own chronology begins at a period when there was existent an advanced civilization in Egypt and Babylon, and from what we now know as to the antiquity of man there must have been many pre-Adamite races."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

The Story of Eden

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access