What We Got Wrong About Genesis

The beauty we missed, the filters we used, and the questions we should have been asking all along

Public Theology is based on the work of Zach W. Lambert, Pastor of Restore, an inclusive church in Austin, Texas. He and his wife, Amy Lambert, contribute to and moderate this account. Zach’s first book, Better Ways to Read the Bible, will release on August 12, 2025 and is available to preorder today. All of the content available at Public Theology is for those who identify as Christian, as well as those who might be interested in learning about a more inclusive, kind, thoughtful Christianity. We’re glad you’re here.

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Genesis is the very first picture we see of God’s Kingdom.

The Garden of Eden by Izaak van Oosten

Chances are that you’ve been taught some very specific things from Genesis: the creation of the world, gender roles, curses, and science. I believe that the opening chapters of the Bible are amongst the most important ever written as we try to understand who God is, who we are, and what the Kingdom of God is like, but I want to note that I do not interpret them the way I was originally taught to interpret them.

Like many of you, I grew up being taught that Genesis 1-2 are a scientific recounting of the creation of the world, a textbook of sorts that told us how old the earth is, how many days it took for God to create it, and how humanity entered into existence.

I’ve come to realize that a textbook portrayal of Genesis 1-2 is not only unhelpful, it’s not at all what the original authors were trying to communicate.

The Creation Story makes absolutely no claims regarding being a scientific or literalistic retelling of the origin of the earth. Similarly, Genesis 1-2 make no attempts at answering most of the questions we’ve become obsessed with asking it.

It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis to expect it to answer questions generated by a modern worldview, such as whether the days were literal or figurative, or whether the days of creation can be lined up with modern science, or whether the flood was local or universal. The question that Genesis is prepared to answer is whether Yahweh, the God of Israel, is worthy of worship.

Pete Enns

I firmly believe that we are not only asking Genesis 1 the wrong questions, we have so plucked it out of its context, ignored its genre, and misapplied our twenty first century Western expectations to it that we have completely missed the point.

Guess what? It doesn’t have to be this way.