(Note: the blue horizontal menu bar directly above lists the subsections of "Original Sin in the Bible as Read Today." Beginning with "Acceptance of Evolution by Pope John Paul II," be sure to read each of these subsections before moving on to the next primary section, "New Interpretation of Original Sin.")

Using Literary Forms to Study the Bible

Did Adam and Eve really exist, or is the story of Genesis 2-3 ahistorical? If not historical, is it myth? And if myth, should we simply disregard or discard it? Before we can answer these questions adequately, we must address the issue of biblical hermeneutics, that is, literary methods of interpreting the text in the Bible. Exegetes begin the study of a biblical passage by asking: "What kind of text is this? Is it a chronicle, a saga, a legend, a myth?" If someone responded by saying that this is the word of God, and since "God cannot tell a lie" it is "literally true," they would be missing the point. The Bible is the word of God as expressed in human words, and the "true" meaning of a passage might well transcend whether or not the events narrated "really happened." Such study of literary genres of texts can include the Bible.

Interpreters of the Bible in the Catholic Church may now make use of the various literary forms identified by Hermann Gunkel and others at the end of the nineteenth century. Pope Pius XII taught this in an encyclical dating from 1943, and it has been repeated several times, both at the Second Vatican Council in 1965, and in the 1993 document from the Pontifical Biblical Commission entitled "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church." Pope Pius XII said:

What is the literal sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and writings of the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of the writers of our own time…. For the ancient peoples of the East, in order to express their ideas did not always employ those forms or kinds of speech, which we use today; but rather those used by the people of their times and countries. What those exactly were the commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a careful examination of the ancient literature of the East… (with its) certain fixed ways of expounding and narrating, certain definite idioms, especially of a kind peculiar to the Semitic tongues, so-called approximations, and certain hyperbolical modes of expression, nay, at times, even paradoxical, which help to impress the ideas more deeply on the mind" (Pius XII 1943, 35-37).

Vatican II later reinforced this approach:

Those who search out the intention of the sacred writers must, among other things, have regard for 'literary forms'. For truth is proposed and expressed in a variety of ways, depending on whether a text is history of one kind or another, or whether its form is that of prophecy, poetry, or some other type of speech. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances as he used contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of perceiving, speaking, and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the customs men normally followed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another (Vatican II 1965, 12).

These texts are important because they allowed Catholic exegetes to join their other Christian colleagues in applying the insights of literary theory to their study of the Bible, especially the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which have a character all their own. As an ahistorical theology of origins, these chapters are not meant to be taken literally. They are mythic narratives that teach profound truths as only such narratives can.

A Note About Myth. In the nineteenth century "myth" meant fable, invention, fiction; today scholars regard mythic stories as "true" and precious because they are sacred, exemplary, and significant. "Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial time, the fabled time of the 'beginnings'" (Eliade 1963, 5). Mythic events can occur in remote times that are either primordial and prehistoric or are in the distant future. These events, while taking place outside of historical time, nevertheless impact historical events. Myth describes the beginning of human and earthly happenings, and points them toward their end. Mythical events are normative and appear as prototypes of all happenings. It may be said of myth that "it never happened but it is always there" (Sacramentum Mundi IV, 153).

Theological Assessment of Myth. The tension between eternity and time is expressed in Christian thought through "myth." Myth articulates God in the language of history, eternity in the language of time, and the transcendent in the language of human action. In this sense "myth" is not something unreal, a fairy tale. It is a means of talking about the reality of God, and the "myth" of creation is true, not as a literal event, but as an affirmation about the relation of everything in the world to God as Creator. "The myth of creation does not tell us about a first moment of time, any more than the myth of the Fall tells us about a first human being. What it does tell us is that every moment of time, like every contingent being, comes to be from the creative power of God" (Gilkey 1965, 317).

Words highlighted in green appear in the Glossary.