Is Genesis Literal? – Blog 1: The Question That Sparked It

Readability Rating: 3 out of 5

It’s time to write a tough one.

Recently, a dear friend of mine asked me a question. It was Memorial Day weekend, and we were doing what we always do—diving headfirst into another round of intellectual sparring. Despite our vastly different worldviews and cosmologies, the respect and trust we share allows our debates to remain sharp and safe. Things get said, and there are no hard feelings—something that’s increasingly hard to find these days.

As we sorted through pleasantries and lighter topics, I saw it in her eyes. She had something serious on her mind. Then, almost bouncing with energy, she hit me with it:

“Do you think Genesis is literal or not?”

Boom. There it was.

I doubt she realized how big a question that was—at least to me. I had been gradually shifting on this topic and this was the first time in a while someone had asked me directly in some time. My normal answers felt overly simplistic. I was ill-equipped for this setting. She probably thought it was straightforward. But not for me. Not even close.

My mind scrambled to pull together years of reading, study, and theological development. I’d been immersed in the Gospel of Mark and the question, What is the New Testament for month? Now, suddenly, I had to pivot to cosmology, science, and ancient Near Eastern texts.

So I did what I usually do when someone drops a theological time bomb:

I didn’t answer it directly.

I asked her to define her terms and explain what she meant by literally why she thought it mattered.

As I danced my way around a framework and bought myself time to think, I said something that surprised even me:

“What’s important is… it doesn’t matter what I think about whether Genesis is literal or figurative.”

She looked stunned. Confused. Maybe even a little annoyed. In that moment, I realized just how much my theology had shifted—quietly, gradually, but undeniably. Thoughts I’d wrestled with, theories I was testing—they’d pushed me past the point where prepackaged answers could do the job. That question—and my unexpected answer—was the spark that lit this blog series. I did my best to give her honest reflections. I offered thoughts, shared concerns, even admitted when I didn’t know. But I left the conversation knowing I needed a place to work some of this out.

Back To Why Doesn’t It Matter?

For much of my life, I lived under the assumption that a six-literal-day creation was central to the Bible’s authority. I was told that if you let go of a literal Genesis, you unravel everything important—the Fall, Jesus, the Resurrection, justification by faith, the Gospel itself. Not in an irrational way, but in a way it helped me hold all of Scripture together.

But I always knew that some of the most conservative, faithful scholars didn’t read Genesis the way I did. So what changed things. I started to dig deeper into these scholars reasoning and how they held the Bible together while also holding different cosmological views. That’s when their perspectives began to feel more coherent and I became more sympathetic to the views. I wasn’t necessarily agreeing with everything they said, but I couldn’t dismiss it either.  Their understanding of Genesis felt less and less out of sync with the broader biblical narrative.

What also changed was the way I was reading the Bible.  I started focusing more and more on the original authors intent and the culture and worldview surrounding them.

People like Michael Heiser and John Walton showed me that the Bible can still be trustworthy, authoritative, and inspired even if Genesis isn’t a blow-by-blow documentary of cosmic origins.

That shift opened the door for honest questions: What is the author of Genesis trying to do? What kind of text is it? And why do we insist it has to answer modern scientific concerns?

Is It Literal?

Yes.

And no.

Some parts are clearly meant as history. Others are written in poetic or symbolic form. Genesis is an ancient text shaped by its own cultural context—part theology, part worldview narrative, and part cosmic framework.  Walton would say Genesis is a brilliant theological and literary masterpiece—an ancient text speaking on its own terms, shaped by its cultural context and concerned with purpose, not process.¹ Heiser, likewise, emphasized that the biblical authors held a supernatural worldview. He argued that Genesis 1 wasn’t trying to explain material origins, but was showing how God asserts divine order over both the seen and unseen realms.²

So What Am I Doing Here?

This series isn’t here to give you neat conclusions or easy labels. As we walk through these questions together, I’ll offer my honest reflections—what I believe, what I’m still wrestling with, and what I think is worth your time. By the end, I doubt you’ll be able to slot me into a tidy category or say, “He believes in XYZ, so that makes him an ABC.” And that’s the point. I might not fully answer the question that started all this—but I hope to offer new angles, deeper questions, and maybe even a little grace for both sides of the conversation.

So if you’ve ever wrestled with whether Genesis can be both meaningful and non-literal—you’re not alone. And you’re not in danger of wrecking your faith by asking hard questions. In fact, I encourage you to ask them. If all this series does is give you the freedom to say, “I don’t know,” then maybe that’s a worth the read. 

In the following posts, we’ll dig into science, models, cosmology, evolution, the flood, ancient intent, and what it all means for people of faith.

Thanks for stepping into this with me. May our searching be honest—and our dialogue full of grace.

¹ See Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm (Lexham Press, 2015).
² See John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One (IVP Academic, 2009). ³ Ibid., especially his discussion of functional ontology and cosmic temple themes.