When does Genesis “shift” from allegory to history?

[queenkatybee]

I believe the story of Adam and Eve is allegory, correct? If so, at what point does it become “historical”? I’m curious because Cain’s family tree is very specific. Are these names/people all building on the literary device, or have we shifted here to a literal historical genealogy?

 

[Cruciferi]

I would contend that it is both Allegorical and Historical simultaneously.

 

[BartholomewB]

Many Bibles split Genesis into three parts, inserting a subhead such as “Origins” for the first part (Chapters 1 to 11), and two other subheads mentioning the names “Abraham” and “Joseph” respectively, for Chapters 12 to 36 and then 37 to the end.

My preference would be to describe the first part as “prehistory” rather than “allegory.” The shift from prehistory to history in the second and third parts, as I see it, isn’t something that occurs all at once, but is more of a gradual development.

 

[Dan_Defender]

To me, the short answer is we don’t know the exact point. I do not have a problem with Adam and Eve’s story because DNA evidence also seems to point to common ancestry for all humanity. But Cain and Abel’s story background is already stone age agricultural society not nomadic tribes that hunt and gather. So either the background of the story is allegorical or humans started out already with settled agriculture but lost this knowledge early on. If King Nebuchadnezzar could go from refinement to animal-like wandering in the forest so could Cain.

 

[po18guy]

Our faith is a “both this and that” faith, not an “either this or that” system of beliefs. All scripture must speak to all generations, and there indeed is some history in it, but pure history is best studied elsewhere. The message it conveys, when viewed as a cohesive whole, is what matters.

What is contained in it is covenant, and in comparison, history fades.

 

[Bradskii]

From the bit that says: ‘In the begining…’.

Ah - my apologies. I thought the question was when did it start being allegorical.

As you were.

 

[Richca]

I believe the story of Adam and Eve is historical. They are the first two human beings, male and female, that God created and from which the rest of the human race descended. This is what the Bible teaches and what the Church has always taught. From Adam and Eve to Abraham, the sacred writer/s did not necessarily give an exact historical genealogy, family tree, or record of the human race. For example, he probably made leaps as it were spanning many generations from one descendent to another in the biblical record and he had some theological purposes in mind in the ancient geneologies leading up to Abraham. St Augustine makes some very interesting points in his book ‘The City of God’ concerning the ancient genealogies in the biblical record including the biblical record concerning Cain’s line of descent.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Often times if feels like what is allegorical and what is historical depends not on textual interpretation but on what has been scientifically disproven.

 

[edwest211]

Adam and Eve: Real People​

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” ( Humani Generis 37).

"The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).

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