The more I learn and am involved in life, I see the book of Genesis everywhere, including in pagan cultural icons. It one thing I love about God: you can’t escape Him. Even though many of the images and pictures of Genesis that remain in culture are certainly corrupted, the mere idea of such things had to come from somewhere; that somewhere is the actual history that Genesis records. What things? Let’s explore.
The Chinese language itself embeds the account of Genesis directly into its language. Here are some examples: “boat” is built from "eight people in a vessel." “Covet” is built from “two trees” and “women.” “Create” is the combination of “speak, dust, life, walk, and mud.” Where would that idea come from? The only logical answer is the history from Genesis. No, the Chinese people did not read Genesis and get the idea from there. They actually got it passed down their lines that literally trace directly back to Japheth, one of the survivors of the Flood, whose descendants populated that part of the world.
Don Richardson was a missionary to the tribes of Ira Jaya and Papua New Guinea. In his books Peace Child and Eternity in Their Hearts, Richardson noted how in many of these tribes, there not only was a knowledge that a true God was out there, but that their origin stories had a lot of similarities to what Genesis says. The skeptics point to the Flood similarities between Gilgamesh and Noah as evidence that Genesis got its ideas from Babylon, but how did the other cultures all around the world get the same ideas? It wasn’t from local catastrophes because local catastrophes don’t do what these myths come close to doing. Even with exaggeration, it would never compare. The only logical conclusion is that all these tribes heard from their ancestors about the same events.
But it gets more interesting. I am a video game player. I won’t call myself a heavy gamer, but I still play. I recently noticed a variety of Genesis references in a number of the games. Tales of Symphonia was originally released for the Nintendo GameCube, and today it is released for the Switch. The story centers around the “Tree of Mana.” There is a series of games called the Mana series because they have titles like “Secret of Mana,” “Legend of Mana,” “Dawn of Mana,” and others. But this “mana” has a source: a tree. In all these games, this legendary tree is so big, strong, and mighty that is known to be the source of life. Mana itself in these games is symbolic of life and the building blocks of life. And it hit me where they got this idea from.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch) centers around the “World Tree” where the “Architect” dwells and where one can reach “Elysium.” I am not sure about the etymology but this “World Tree” or “Tree of Mana” has another name: Yggdrassil. The list goes on. All seem to have one thing in common: a reference to the Tree of Life from Genesis. It’s not the same thing, but the idea of a tree bearing the source of life and being primarily inaccessible through most of the game sure has some striking similarities.
These games do not pull from Christian themes very much. They purpose to not represent Christianity specifically, though some games do play on somewhat Catholic themes such as Tales of Symphonia where the world is run by the “Church of Martel” headed by a “Pope,” or Final Fantasy X where the world worships “Yu Yevon” with their own priests calls “maesters.” Some games like Xenoblade Chronicles have “gods” as the primary villains, but I notice that each of the gods that play villains never demonstrate to be like a true God, but a corrupt being that only has great power, but not limitless power.
There are movies and games that reference Noah and the Flood. The movie 2012 was a disaster flick about the end of the world as predicted by the Mayans (not really, that’s just when their calendar ran out of space), and to save life, the governments built “arks” from a “global flood” that wiped out everything except Africa. The game Astral Chain is about the last remnants of society living on an island called “the ark,” and then the final boss is named Noah. Again, this is a corruption of the account, but where would one get the idea of an “ark” that would save mankind from a disaster? It does not make sense unless there truly was a historical event in which a man named Noah did save all life via an ark from a worldwide aquatic disaster.
There is the Garden of Eden itself. I already referenced to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which centers around the search for Elysium – paradise, where the Architect lived so they could find out what was wrong with the world as life was dying. There was even a movie that came out a few years ago called Elysium where there was an ideal, perfect utopia, only to find out that underneath was where all the garbage lay and the outcasts who didn’t play to the ideal system. In both cases, the dream world turned out to be a farce and a façade.
Even the time-traveling adventure game Chrono Trigger, considered one of the best video games ever made, centers around Evolution’s history as seven heroes seek to defeat a world-destroying parasite named Lavos. In one of the side quests, the characters debate how they got on the adventure, and they suggest that some “entity” wanted them to see all those events and resolve some regrets. Even in the evolutionary worldview games, there still seems to be some notion of a God out there and the history that is recorded in Genesis 1-11. Again, it is corrupted, hardly resembling the real thing, and often attempting to overthrow or discard such systems, but the mere mention or fact of these things out there shows that God hides the truth about Him in all these different cultures so that no one has an excuse.
This brings a whole new meaning to how it is Jesus who lights up the world, and that every person is given some light. Some games follow the religious aspects, and some games reject them and seek to show the overcoming of such things, but the fact is that God and the history of Genesis 1-11 are embedded into every culture, including in video games and movies. They can’t escape God even if they tried. Even if they make the Christian symbols the bad guys, they cannot escape God. When I started making these connections, I began to worship God and how amazing He is, and I hope you do too.
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