1Then Job answered,
2“Truly I know that it is so,
but how can man be just with God?
3If he is pleased to contend with him,
he can’t answer him one time in a thousand.
4God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength.
Who has hardened himself against him and prospered?
5He removes the mountains, and they don’t know it,
when he overturns them in his anger.
6He shakes the earth out of its place.
Its pillars tremble.
7He commands the sun and it doesn’t rise,
and seals up the stars.
8He alone stretches out the heavens,
and treads on the waves of the sea.
9He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades,
and the rooms of the south.
10He does great things past finding out;
yes, marvelous things without number.
11Behold, he goes by me, and I don’t see him.
He passes on also, but I don’t perceive him.
12Behold, he snatches away.
Who can hinder him?
Who will ask him, ‘What are you doing?’
13“God will not withdraw his anger.
The helpers of Rahab stoop under him.
14How much less will I answer him,
and choose my words to argue with him?
15Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn’t answer him.
I would make supplication to my judge.
16If I had called, and he had answered me,
yet I wouldn’t believe that he listened to my voice.
17For he breaks me with a storm,
and multiplies my wounds without cause.
18He will not allow me to catch my breath,
but fills me with bitterness.
19If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty!
If of justice, ‘Who,’ says he, ‘will summon me?’
20Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me.
Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse.
21I am blameless.
I don’t respect myself.
I despise my life.
22“It is all the same.
Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.
23If the scourge kills suddenly,
he will mock at the trial of the innocent.
24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked.
He covers the faces of its judges.
If not he, then who is it?
25“Now my days are swifter than a runner.
They flee away. They see no good.
26They have passed away as the swift ships,
as the eagle that swoops on the prey.
27If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,
I will put off my sad face, and cheer up,’
28I am afraid of all my sorrows.
I know that you will not hold me innocent.
29I will be condemned.
Why then do I labor in vain?
30If I wash myself with snow,
and cleanse my hands with lye,
31yet you will plunge me in the ditch.
My own clothes will abhor me.
32For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him,
that we should come together in judgment.
33There is no umpire between us,
that might lay his hand on us both.
34Let him take his rod away from me.
Let his terror not make me afraid;
35then I would speak, and not fear him,
for I am not so in myself.
There is controversy today in the Christian community far more important than differences among believers in many decades regarding the nature of the Genesis account in Genesis 1, 2, & 3. Liberal scholars have generally believed the creation account was not truly representative of an actual event but embraced a Darwinist explanation of the creation of the world (what is often called macro-evolution), that contends that all of life on earth developed from very small forms of life that were created by an accident in the primordial fluids of ancient earth billions of years ago. Even so, the current debate extends much further than believing in long periods for the creation days and even accepting some form of evolution. The current debate is whether Adam and Eve and the events transpiring around them in the biblical account ever occurred and whether Genesis is only a myth rather than factual history.
Christians, through most of Christian history (and the Jewish people before Christianity), have embraced a literal and factual creation by God that is found in Genesis 1, as well as the more detailed creation of humans in Genesis 2. In current Christianity, several scholars, who are generally conservative in most areas of theology, are advocating that the Genesis One account is, in reality, a myth or fiction. Moreover, there is a rejection of an actual Adam and Eve, a temptation and fall, and many of the events in the book of Genesis and elsewhere in the Old Testament. Allegedly, God only inspired a mythical account that provided a story in which He could teach an inerrant truth about Himself being the ultimate Creator of the universe.
However, there are several reasons to reject this manner of interpreting Genesis. First, this alternate view is contrary to the understanding of various persons in the Old Testament, Jesus, the apostles, and the church for most of its history. Second, though the factual account of creation and the fall arguably contains some poetic features, the essence is a true and historical account that is consistent with the mainstream scientific understanding of the chronology of the creative events. Additionally, the biblical account of creation is not in agreement with Ancient Near East creation stories, upon which many current scholars rely in rejecting the factual, historical account found in Scripture, as well as the uniqueness of the Genesis account of creation. As the literary scholar C. S. Lewis once stated, "Myth comes from history and not history from myth."
I would encourage you to view the free YouTube video, Is Genesis History? Click https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UM82qxxskZE&feature=youtu.be in the browser of your phone, iPad, or Computer for this excellent discussion of the historicity of the book of Genesis.
The writers of the Bible believed in the historical doctrine of the creation of the world and the specific creation of Adam and Eve. The Bible contains about 300 verses on creation.
Gen 1:1-27; 2:1-23; 3:1, 19, 23; 5:1, 2; 6:6, 7; 7:4; 9:6
Exod 4:11, 32; 14:21; 20:11; 31:17
Job 4:7; 9:8, 9; 10:8; 26:7; 28:6; 31:15; 32:22; 33:4, 6, 7; 34:15; 38:4-6; 40:15
Ps 8:3-8; 19:1-4; 24:1; 33:6; 52:7; 86:9; 89:11, 12; 90:2, 3; 94:9; 95:5, 6; 96:5; 100:3; 102:25; 104:2-5, 19, 24, 25, 30; 115:8, 15; 119:73; 121:2; 125:3, 8; 135:7; 139:14, 15; 146:6; 148:1-5
Prov 8:23-29; 14:31; 16:4; 17:5; 20:1, 2, 12; 22:2; 26:10
Eccl 3:11; 7:14, 29; 11:5; 12:1, 7
Isa 17:7; 22:11; 27:11; 29:16; 37:16, 26; 40:21, 26, 28; 41:20; 42:5; 43:1, 7, 10, 17, 21; 44:2, 21, 24; 45:7, 8, 12, 18; 48:13; 49:5; 51:13, 16; 66:2, 22
Jer 1:5; 10:11-13, 16; 27:5; 29:9; 31:35; 32:17; 33:2; 51:15, 16
Matt 13:35; 19:4, 5, 6, 8; 24:21; 25:34
John 1:3, 10; 8:44; 9:32; 17:24
Rom 1:19, 20; 5:12, 14-19; 8:19-23, 39; Rom 13:1, 4
1 Cor 11:3, 8, 9, 12; 15:22, 38, 45-47, 49
Eph 1:4, 39
1 Tim 2:13, 14; 4:3, 4
Heb 1:2, 3, 10, 14; 3:4; 4:3, 4, 10, 13; 9:11, 26; 12:27
Rev 3:14; 4:8-11; 10:6; 13:8; 14:7; 17:8; 21:1, 5; 22:13
Knowing the Truth about Creation, p. 150, from Norm Geisler, The Importance of Creation (PowerPoint Presentation)