A popular argument which I’ve heard from time to time is that Jesus accepted the literal story of Genesis, and the text to which I am referred is Mark 10 v.6, and since He couldn’t possibly be wrong, we must accept it too.
The argument is based on two premises, it seems to me, which we must consider to see whether the conclusion is valid.
Much of my essay must make reference to Scriptures. Although I don’t like proof-texting (you can prove anything that way – Satan proof-texts to tempt Jesus!) it’s the only argument that some folk will accept. So be it.
Premise 1: Jesus’ words must mean He took the Genesis story literally.
To consider this question, let’s have a look at that verse in its context.
1 Then He arose from there and came to the region of Judea by the other side of the Jordan. And multitudes gathered to Him again, and as He was accustomed, He taught them again. 2 The Pharisees came and asked Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" testing Him. 3 And He answered and said to them, "What did Moses command you?" 4 They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her." 5 And Jesus answered and said to them, "Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. 6 But from the beginning of the creation, God "made them male and female.' 7 "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh'; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. - NKJV
Jesus is teaching about divorce and marriage, not about origins or creation. This is important, because if we draw other inferences from it we are making the text say things it was never intended to say. Let us bear in mind that Mark is paraphrasing Jesus. We know this because Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and Mark wrote in Greek, some decades after the event. To be able to draw inferences beyond the point that Jesus is explicitly making, we would have to be able to know Jesus’ actual Aramaic words. These we do not, and can not, have.
Mark’s, or Jesus’ point is theological, about God’s purpose in making male and female, and the concept of marriage uniting the two sexes. In the same way that the book of Joshua talks about the sun standing still (rather than the earth stopping its rotation) without implying that we have to accept geocentrism, so Jesus does not use this opportunity to teach biology. What Jesus is saying is that ‘this was the way God intended man and woman to come together, right from the very first people.’ To read more than that into it is to read more than the text was ever intended to say. Mark did not consider ‘could the Greek words I have used lead people to think that Genesis is literal?’, because the question could not have been posed when he was writing.
Furthermore, we see here that Jesus is saying that God can change what He says to His people according to what they can accept (verse 5). As biologist Wesley Elsberry said in response to a question on this same passage on the Talk Origins archive:
"Jesus also taught that God's view of divorce was different from what had been given as law before due to the hardness of men's hearts. Actually, we're talking about the same passage, aren't we? So in order to support a view of scripture that indicates an inflexible and unchanging aspect, you are actually citing scripture that says that what God tells us changes over time with what man is ready to hear and accept. Those who believe in a revelatory faith can accommodate the truth of divine grace and the findings of science. Those with a hardened and inflexible view of faith will continue to insist that God conform to their interpretations."(Wesley Elsberry, on http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/aug99.html )
Premise 2: Jesus could not possibly be wrong about anything.
This is a more thorny issue. Christology (the nature of Jesus) is something that the early church struggled with, and has raised questions throughout history for theologians both professional and amateur. Two statements have, however, been universally accepted since early times - that Jesus was fully God, and He was fully man. As some folk have interpreted me differently, I would like to make clear at this point that I believe that Jesus is, as the Creed says:
| ...filium Deum unigenitum et ex Patri natum ante omnia saecula, Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri, per quem omnia facta sunt. | ...the only-begotten son of God and born of the Father
before all worlds, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true
God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom*
all things were made. |
| *the antecedent must be the Son, not the Father, because of the way Latin works. |
There are problems here, however. For example, God is omniscience (and omni- a few other things as well.) Man is not. So which was Jesus? Was He omniscient, as God, or limited, as Man?
It seems He was not. Certainly, Jesus knew things that ordinary folk do not. But He said there were things He did not know:
Mark 13 vv: 32-33
32 "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.
Jesus, in becoming a man, became subject to many of our limitations, including the knowledge and wisdom of His day. Whilst His teaching could not be in error, the status of Genesis Chapter 1 is not the point of His teaching, as shown above.
It can be raised against this point that Jesus was the second person of the Trinity, and John’s gospel identifies Him specifically as being the agent of creation. Therefore He should know best exactly what occurred.
But is this necessarily the case? In order to become truly man, Jesus gave up much of His divine attributes. Paul puts this in ways that seem dangerously close to saying He gave up his divinity itself:
Phillipians 2 vv: 6-8
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
Wesley wrote in And Can It Be:
Emptied Himself of all but love
The writer of Hebrews goes further:
Hebrews 5
7 During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
The implication seems to be that Jesus became in every way like us, and was subject to all the frailties, imperfections and limitations of the human condition, except its sinfulness. I submit that it is conceivable therefore that Jesus would have accepted the understandings of His time, because His incarnation involved the temporary giving up of His omniscience. He is not just the eternal Word playing at being human – that would be in the spirit of the ancient heresy of Docetism. To assert that Jesus, in His humanity, was not a man of His time does not do justice to the true humanity of our incarnated Lord.
I hope, therefore, that I have shown that both of the premises on which this argument is based are dubious, and therefore the conclusion must be rejected. Showing either premise to be false would negate the conclusion, and I believe that I have cast doubt on both of them.
I submit, therefore, that this passage does not kill theistic evolution, or indeed any of the various non-literal understandings of Genesis. Reports of its death are exaggerated.