Christian beliefs about origins—of the cosmos, the earth, life, and people—have been flashpoints of controversy for centuries now, at least dating back to Isaac de la Peyrère’s “pre-Adamite” humans (and even further if one considers Christian refutations of Aristotle’s eternal cosmos). The arguments persist today with a new wardrobe of fossils, genomes, and hybrids, but beneath this dressing, the fundamental questions remain much the same. To what extent should we read Genesis 1-11 as an account of history and therefore binding on our beliefs about the past? Or can we understand these primordial stories as a sort of theological fable without worrying about the details? Or is there a via media, where we might retain certain details as necessary historical beliefs that are expressed within parabolic or hyperbolic narratives?