I believe we need to take the first 12 chapters of the Book of Genesis fairly literally.   (Those who can’t help but groan or scoff at this might like to read here next.)   I believe that the Universe was created in six 24-hour days about 8000 years ago.   I believe Adam & Eve were real people.  I believe death was not part of the original Divine design but began as a Divinely ordained response to Adam & Eve’s sin.  I believe there was a world-wide flood, which was beneficial in resetting human-culture when it had descended into pandemic violence and revenge.

I believe Genesis is a Divine and reliable account of our origin, and of the origin of death and sin.  I think this  theological position makes the best sense of all the available evidence.  Theologically it does a number of things:

• it allows us to make great sense of the meaning and process of salvation, including that
• the “wages of sin” spoken off in the New Testament is a physical dying, not “spiritual death” and not “eternal death.”  This means once we have physically died the “wages of sin” have been paid in full.
• it means the Scriptures are reliable when they trace Jesus’ human genealogy back to Adam.
• it affirms that Jesus’ was able to speak authoritatively when quoting from the first 12 chapters of Genesis, etc – and dispels the idea that His truth was limited by the culture and misconceptions of His time.

Rationally it also does a number of things:

• it leads us to a more credible explanation of our origins than a Godless version of evolution
• whilst dismissing macro-evolution as fantasy, it still allows for micro-evolution (in a downward direction towards decreasing genetic complexity), which is all that we ever actually observe in real life
• it helps resolve the “problem of evil”,
• it will help us avoid the crazy thinking implicit in the General Theory of Relativity
• (to be continued)