Genesis

Unexpected fundamentalist argument

I came across an argument from a fundamentalist that I really wasn’t prepared for. It’s not that it’s a terribly solid argument, but because I wasn’t expecting it, I was at a loss for how to respond. The idea was basically this: Genesis is the most important part of Christianity, because without it, there would be no need for Jesus. The rationale behind this is that Jesus was the answer to original sin, and without that we wouldn’t need him. This person even used the wording that without Genesis, Christianity and the whole of the new testament is just a bunch of stories — nice stories, but myths.

Now, I understand the reasoning, but I’m used to questions that are about the authenticity of the gospels. There are all kinds of debates that talk about whether or not we can believe them, who they were written by, when they were written, how the canonical gospels were chosen and the gnostic gospels were rejected… lots of interesting topics. But he seemed to be saying that it doesn’t matter. The new testament is (I guess?) evidenced by Genesis, rather than evidence for it. Huh.

It was honestly something I hadn’t even thought to prepare for. I would say that the credibility of Genesis is already in doubt to all but the most die-hard literalists. The book is how old? Written by who? Changed and translated when, how, why, and by whom? But those aren’t facts. And anyone who’s debated with a fundamentalist knows that, unfair though it be, the burden is on you to know the facts, because their default position when you don’t is: “I win”. It’s not like a gospel where you can say, “So and so couldn’t have written this, and it wasn’t formalized for 100 years. Then it was chosen by popular vote to be in the bible 300 years after that.” Nope, all you have is “How on earth can you put so much trust in that ancient myth?” That just lets them (fallacious as it is) smugly say “God says so. It’s in the divinely-inspired bible.”

I like to think that I’m fairly quick on my feet with most topics, but I just didn’t really come up with what I would have liked at that moment. What would you say?