well, i think jar beat me to the punch here, but here goes.
How Literal is Genesis
very.
Moving from an old earth position who otherwise accepts everything in Genesis as literal to one who (while still unsure) is moderately convinced that evolution indeed took place, I am finding myself struggling with Genesis.
you are operating under a false dichotomy here. that the text is either literally true, or it is metaphorically true. there is a third possibility. that it is literal, and false.
given the circumstances, i think is this actually the only rational view point. nothing in the text particularly points to lengthy allegory (though many symbols from the stories are later used allegorically). rather, most of the meaning, etiologically and culturally, derives from the literal events of the stories. for instance, in genesis 1, the literal structure of 6 days of work and 1 of rest is the basis for the hebrew work week.
genesis, fundamentally, is a text that was written to explain things as they were in the author's world. it is a folk history, a collected narrative about how things came to be. it is really after the fact, and projected backwards. we should not expect it to be accurate, not even in the slightest.
but it
is an interesting read. and it
does reveal alot about the culture that was responsible for it. and there is meaning that can be derived from it, good and bad, without it being literally or even metaphorically true. the commentary about the human condition can be quite true to life and profound. that we get married because "it is not good for man to be alone" is still a salient moral today.
Was Adam ever a real person?
no. he is the eponymous ancestor for all mankind. he represents all that is archetypal about every human, and especially every human male. his faults (he's kind of a sucker, likes to place blame) are common human foibles. his susceptibility to sin.
Was Adam the first man with a soul?
i am unconvinced of the presence of a soul in the torah. it is highly debatable, but the text might simply mean "life," and all it means to indicate is that there is some part of god inside us.
Was there a fall?
this does not exist in judaism, which uses the same text. that's artifact of christian interpretation. but if you mean by that, "was mankind exiled from a garden into a desert," well, we also see a similar story when abraham leaves ur for canaan. leaving comfort and blessing for wandering in the wilderness is a common theme in judaism, and probably with good reasons.
when does Genesis start becoming historical?
it doesn't. the entire torah is actually several documents, and they are not split up the way we divide them. J and E run from genesis to numbers, often duplicating each other. D is a separate source, P is largely redaction and genealogies. L may or may not be a separate source. joshua should probably be included with deuteronomy in D.
jar stated that the history doesn't start until judges, but i think it goes further than that. the first bits that i
know we can start trusting as almost accurate is the book of kings. i'd have to re-read samuel to make a call on it, but most of the archaeological evidence we have from that period is pretty shabby. we don't know whether king david was a real person or not. it's quite hotly debated.
J and E were great epics of the origins of the hebrew people, written sometime in the first temple period of judah. some say E might be from israel (as opposed to judah). they seem to have been written before exile, and reworked by the priests (ezra?) shortly after to help maintain jewish identity. this means, basically, that the events of genesis and exodus are largely folk stories and tradition.
some MAY have shreds of truth buried deep inside them, and have been heavily reworked to fit the jewish narrative, almost certainly by the original authors. there was something like the exodus, but the hyksos were rulers of egypt, who were literally driven back to palestine by the egyptians. they were not the jews, but their story might have influenced the jewish story by becoming part of the background cultural narrative. similarly, there really was a jericho, but no joshua to knock it down. etc.
But I do have hang-ups to declaring parts of the Bible “aren't true”, or are myths.
well, this is simply the kind of position that comes with more study. the harder you look at the text, the more apparent it becomes. the text is a certain thing, and one has to take it for what it is. it's not a history, it doesn't read like a history. it doesn't read like the jewish histories of the time (like the book of kings). it reads like and epic folk narrative. so that's probably what it is.
the trick is to be able to detach from the western cultural bias we have, and forget all the things we have been told to believe about the book, and just read it for what's there on the page. compare it to other ancient literature. study the language and the grammar. think about its role in society, and the function it serves in the library of texts that is the bible.
I have problems not believing Adam was a real person given his role in Romans 5.
similarly, we can look at romans, and determine that it is one man's commentary on doctrine and scripture. it is interpretation, not the words of god himself.
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