Christianity’s Food Problem: Part 2

Let’s have a good look at the evidence

The Circumstantial:

Old Testament prophets

Have you ever noticed that, outside Genesis 1–11, the prophets don’t preach a literal seven-day creation? Exodus 20:11 references a 7 day creation, using the word “yom“, but falls short of explaining how or what happened. Yom is also used more than three hundred times in a non-literal-day sense.

The old testament prophets also never make reference to a literal global flood, or the specific fall from Eden narrative other than an allegory to Satan’s personal fall in Ezekiel 28:13. I hadn’t heard it framed so bluntly —until I started tracing the texts myself after extensively studying how Genesis 1-11 contains substantial evidence for being compiled later than Moses, and even after the time of Solomon.

Jesus

Jesus does reference “the days of Noah” in a warning that judgment can arrive unexpectedly amid ordinary life (Matt 24:37–39; Luke 17:26–27). The ancient Near Eastern world (ANE) preserved a similar flood memory too: in the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet XI) the survivor is Utnapishtim. The overlap is real—divine warning, a vessel, preservation of life, landfall, birds being released from a window or door in the floating vessel. These traditional stories are based on real cultural memories. 

Jesus also draws Abel into the long line of martyr-prophets: “the blood of righteous Abel … to Zechariah” (Matt. 23:35; cf. Luke 11:50–51). In doing so, He marks Abel as the first in a recurring pattern of rejected witnesses. For the record, Jesus names many later figures—Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jonah—but He never explicitly mentions Adam or Eve. When referring to humanity’s beginnings, He shifts to the impersonal plural, speaking instead of “those who were from the beginning.”

“From the beginning” and the plural “them.” When Jesus grounds marriage, He quotes creation: “from the beginning God made them male and female” (Matt 19:4; Mark 10:6), echoing Gen 1:27. The plural “them” fits the Hebrew ’adam, which is also the word for humanity as a whole in the ancient Hebrew language—helpful when we’re reading genre and symbolism alongside history.

Paul

The apostle Paul does stick to the biblical narrative behind the Hebrew genealogies and extends additional dialogue using the imagery of the fall in the garden of Eden. But literal interpretation is no less thesis than another. He’res why.

1. Paul’s Use of Adam

In Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul isn’t writing a creation account; he’s writing soteriology — the doctrine of salvation. He uses Adam to create a parallel structure: “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:22)

This is not necessarily narrative — it can be contrast logic, drawing a moral and theological analogy:
–Humanity’s solidarity in sin and death through the first man (Adam)
–Humanity’s restoration to life through the second man (Christ)

So, in rhetorical terms, Paul uses Adam as an archetype, not necessarily a biographical figure he’s trying to defend historically.

He’s saying, “Whatever Adam represents — the origin of sin, disobedience, and mortality — Christ reverses it”. It’s parable logic.

2. The Rabbinic Context — Midrash and Typology

Paul was trained under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), steeped in midrashic reasoning — where Scripture is read typologically, symbolically, and morally.

In that world:
–Adam isn’t just a man; he’s “Ha-Adam,” the human being, the archetype of mankind.
–The Garden isn’t just geography; it’s the scene of moral choice. (IE: Ezekiel 28:13) 

This means Paul could use Adam as both a real figure and a symbolic one, without contradiction — much like rabbis would use Abraham or Moses to embody virtues and failures.

The Documentary

Here is truly why the first 11 Chapters of Genesis could have been written long after the original five books of the prophet Moses (the Pentateuch) had been established, or even after the time of Solomon for that matter [8]. At a minimum, we can see here that these chapters specifically were at least heavily edited after the return from Babylon –and in some ways that don’t make sense if it were a scriptural remodel. 

Certain vocabulary in Genesis 1-3 is used elsewhere only in books written during the monarchy or later. You won’t be able to use a Strong’s Hebrew Concordance for these either, because Strong groups a series of similar meaning Hebrew words (IE: ba-ḥă-mū-ḏōw and neḥmād) under one number. It’s not granular enough to show the etymology (the change) of words over the spans of hundreds or thousands of years. Bible Hubs Hebrew section can be useful for this if you need further proof.

Here are only a portion of the examples:

1. ʾēd (a mist, Genesis 2:6) 
2. neḥmād (pleasant, Genesis 2:9; 3:6) — Genesis 49:15 uses an entirely different word, while other early uses start with “ta’ or even use an entirely different word. Solomons books though, start using nehmad.
3. tāpar (sew, Genesis 3:7), ʾ
4. ēbāh (enmity, Genesis 3:15),
5. šûp (bruise/wound, Genesis 3:15)
6. ʿeṣeb (labor, Genesis 3:16&17, 5:29)
7. tĕšûqāh (longing, Genesis 3:16).

The word Shinar (Genesis 10:10; 11:2), was used by nations outside Mesopotamia “to designate the Kassite kingdom of Babylon (ca. 1595-1160 B.C.E)”; [3] consequently its use here indicates Genesis 11 was written no earlier than the date of that kingdom.

In regards to places: Genesis 11:28, 11:31 (the family of Terah and Abram is from “Ur of the Chaldees”). The Chaldea became a people in the time when Solomon was building the temple, and were actually immigrants from lands closer to Canaan [1].  

If we get into writing styles, Genesis chapter 1 (Priestly Source [7])  and 2 (Yahwist Source [6]) appear to have been written by different authors, neither of which write like the rest of Genesis. Many scholars believe that the origin story in Genesis, while based on the account in the 10 commandments (Exodus 20:11), was written post return from Babylon. The logic being that similarities throughout plus sentence structures in Noah’s flood account almost exactly copy word for word sentences in the epic of Gilgamesh [4].

The Direct

Nineveh – Genesis 10:11–12 (Nimrod “built Nineveh”). Historically, Nineveh only became a major Assyrian city in the 8th–7th centuries BCE, centuries after the supposed “time of Nimrod”, leaving the location too insignificant to have been referenced by the prophet Moses. While Niniveh was built into a proto-city around 4500-4000 BCE with an area of about 0.4 square kilometers in size, archaeological survey evidence shows that Nineveh existed before this period as a small farming village between 6100 and 5100 BCE [2]. 

Either Nimrod built a farm, or he didn’t build anything at all. then, because we can’t explain the layers below the time he should have been living. Conclusion, he didn’t build it. 

**Understanding this may be necessary when considering Moses is to remain a prophet who spoke directly with God. What was written on the tablets of stone is creation happened in seven periods of time, but there was no explanation outside of that.

One great resource on this subject is a lecture from Dr Lane Craig at Texas A&M. His ultimate conclusion based on grammatical analysis is that Genesis 1-11 has too much poetic form (akin to the book of Judges, and somewhat behind Psalms) to be considered as intended for literal historic value. 

This may be why at the least, the priests saw that it was safe to “update” those chapters with modern information post return from Babylon. Others however, are not convinced that is what happened. 

The Speculative

I have read several other debates with study sources on the matter- and the ultimate conclusion is that out of Israel’s many neighbors, it was Babylonians who had a fully developed origin story, which may have sparked some desire for Israel to have their own upon returning from captivity.

Assuming then that Genesis 1-11 were not updated but originally written in their updated Hebrew language: Upon returning to Israel with many generations being born in Babylon, all of the constituents had been exposed to the Ziggurat [tower] of Babel (Etemenanki) and Babylonian tales such as the flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The origin story then makes sense as an answer to what they had learned abroad, bringing all of their working knowledge back into Gods hands in their eyes, by tying in the 7 day statement from the 10 commandments, pre established frameworks from the prophets, as well as their known genealogy stories, 

In part 1 of this series, I mentioned how the Noah’s ark story has an odd match with a pregnancy sequence, –from Noah entering the ark to the dove coming back with an olive branch in it’s mouth [the earth symbolically bearing its fruit]– being that it matches the time for a humans due pregnancy from start to finish. This odd symbolism really does make more sense in light of authors other than Moses putting in as much natural and scriptural symbolism as they could (truth for its time).

The Demonstrative

Certainly Genesis 1-11 is scripturally significant in that the primeval history narrative is a its most basic level, a pointer to the Christ. Here it is established that from the root, and ultimately the Creator, would come a Savior. 

The Personal

I am moved by similarities in the book of Jonah, which itself also points to Christ, as a section of the bible with parable qualities, and clear placement of language for symbolism and effect. 

Giant fish and whales don’t eat seaweed, yet we see Jonah in his entombed burial wrapped in it, just like Christ was wrapped in burial garments three days in the tomb –amongst many other parallels in that story. Going back to Genesis –this time we see parallels with the Savior born of a woman [promised as her seed]. The serpent’s head crushed foreshadows Christ’s victory over Satan (Romans 16:20). The bruised heel prefigures the suffering and crucifixion.

The Spiritual