How should a Christian approach the Genesis stories— fact, fiction, or allegory?

The apostle Paul declared, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). The Greek word is theopneustos, and means, literally, God-breathed—given by inspiration of God.

The apostle Peter verified, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:20–21).

Inspiration is defined by Webster as “the supernatural influence of the Spirit of God on the human mind, by which the prophets and apostles and sacred writers were qualified to set forth divine truth without any mixture of error.”

It is evident that Jesus, the founder of Christianity, believed in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures when He said, “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). He went on to add, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). A true Christian should take Jesus at His word. “But he [Jesus] answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Of course, all the Scripture they had was the Old Testament, because the New Testament had not yet been written.

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:3–4).

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, skeptics claimed that Moses could not have written the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) because writing had not yet been invented. Many archaeological finds later in the 20th century proved these claims to be false. Writing was well known in the time of Moses. Further, Moses was a prince in Egypt before his exile, and so would have been highly educated. Still further, note some of the many places in your own Bible where it records that “Moses wrote”: Exodus 24:4; Numbers 32:2; Deuteronomy 31:9; 31:22; Joshua 8:32; Mark 12:19; Luke 20:28; and John 5:26.

Thus, while supposedly “learned” men were loudly proclaiming there was no such thing as WRITING until long after Moses, God, in His providence, used the spade of the archaeologist to bring to light hundreds of thousands of books that were written long before the days of Moses. These confirm biblical records. (See pages 830–831 of Halley’s Bible Handbook, Revised Edition, by Henry H. Halley, available in many libraries and most Christian bookstores.)

In short, a Christian should take the stories in the book of Genesis as literal, factual, and historical. Problems with this understanding exist only in the minds of skeptics and gainsayers. “Take heed that no man deceive you” (Matthew 24:4).