Creationists are often accused of believing that the whole Bible should be taken literally. The Old Testament opens with an account of creation, starting with what is arguably the most memorable line in the entire tome: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In Amazon Prime’s “Unlocking Ancient Secrets of the Bible”, the documentary explores a contentious question: Is the biblical book of Genesis literal, real-life history?
The show’s narrator, Roger Moore, claims: “The best scientific evidence suggest the universe began thereby confirming the words of Genesis.”
Faze Rana, author and research reveals: “There was compelling scientific evidence that this biblical story of Adam and Eve actually is history.”
Mr Moore asks: “Can every single human being, past, present, and future, trace their family tree back to an original man and woman.”
Hugh Ross, President and Director of Reasons to Believe explains: “The scientific community actually refers to this genetic Adam that they have found as Y chromosome Adam and they refer to the mitochondrial DNA woman as Eve.
“This is referred to in the scientific literature as Garden of Eden Hypothesis.”
However, this iconic account of God creating the world is not the only one of creation in the Bible.
If anything, it seems to be the most recent in a succession of creation myths held sacred by the ancient Hebrews over the eons.
According to the Bible, Adam and Eve are the ancestors of the human race and were made by God on the sixth day as part of the original creation story.
They lived in the paradise of the Garden of Eden, until they sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and were expelled.
In Christian symbolism, Adam and Eve may represent both the dignity of the human race, and the shame of sin which led to the need for redemption by Christ.
Another completely different account of creation found in the Bible in Genesis 2, starting with the line: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens”.
According to this account, God created man from clay, placed him in the Garden of Eden and only then created animals, plants and a spouse for his benefit.
Archaeologists always hope that advances in technology will shed fresh light on at least part of this ancient mystery.