F

FUNDAMENTALISM In 1853, an American writer by the

name of Sara Josepha Hale published

the Woman’s Record, a handbook of

godly and exemplary women from ancient

times to the present. Her entry on Eve

concludes with a reminder to her readers

that Adam and Eve were ‘created on

Friday, October 28th 4004 BC’. The exact

dating of Eve’s birth will seem strange

and risible to modern readers. Yet many

nineteenth-century people in Britain and

in America, and especially those with

education, would have agreed that the

world was a mere 6,000 years old, and

that the opening chapters of Genesis

were more historical than analogical.

That said, it was actually during this

period that significant amounts of sci-

entific evidence – both geological and

biological – were beginning to emerge

and challenge the biblical account of a

six-day creation. However, fundament-

alism is not only about creationism, or

literal readings of the Bible or other

religious tests. Where it is, such views