My analysis of the story of creation is based on the assumption that the story is actually literal. However, what we know and understand about reality and what is literal is much different than what is revealed in the story of creation. There are many points in the story that make it obviously metaphorical.

If the story of creation is literal then…

• how is it that it says the earth was created in days when observation tells us that it had to be much, much longer?
• how is it the first man was ignorant and immediately became wise after eating the forbidden fruit?
• why was there a tree in the middle of the garden that had mystical powers to give one the knowledge of good and evil?
• why was the tree actually called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
• how is it that was there was a snake that walked and talked?
• how is it that once man ate of the forbidden fruit he immediately became like God?
• how is it that Adam named hundreds of thousands of animals in one day?
• how is it that God got so “tired” that he had to rest on the seventh day?

Besides all the things that make this story a parable and not an actual account of history, there are some glaring contradictions:

• Man was created before vegetation and animal life, so what did he eat?
• The sun, moon and the stars were created after the plants. How did the plants grow before there was sunlight?
• In the first account of creation, humans were created after the animals, and before the animals in the second account.
• In the first account of creation, man was created at the same time as the woman, in the second account it was man, then the animals and then the woman.
• There mornings and evenings before the sun is even created.

These are only a few of the main obvious contradictions. If you look harder you’ll find more.

Adam and Eve

What is important to bring out here is that, sadly, this story tale or obvious religious myth is one of the cornerstones to the Christian religion. While it is impossible to know exactly how everything came about, it is certainly not the way it actually happened. The story of creation in Genesis seems to be a kind of allegory of the creation of all things.

In my opinion, if the reality of the beginnings of all things were to be told, there would be an unlimited number of volumes that would have to be written on the subject, that is if the information could actually be obtained. In addition, it would have been impossible for man, over 5000 years ago with his simple mind, to have been able to fathom the reality of the facts of creation.

Nevertheless, man did need at least a basic explanation as to where he came from and the why of his existence. Therefore, I believe that whoever wrote the story of creation invented a story to fulfill the intellectual needs and curiosity of man, just as a parent would create or tell stories to small children who had no possible way of comprehending yet the world of adulthood.

However, as mankind evolves and moves forward and grows intellectually, his childhood stories no longer fill the need of his intellect. Humanity is beginning to see that the religious myths, like children’s stories that helped them grasp some of their curiosities are no longer valid for minds that have outgrown them and are ready for more mature knowledge.