dwight92070 wrote:Jesus said in Mark 10:6 "But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female." Even though they were created on Day 6, Jesus considered that to still be part of the beginning of creation, not thousands or millions of years later.
Luke gives us the last fews names of the genealogy going backwards from (apparently) Mary to Adam in Luke 3:38. But he doesn't stop with Adam. "the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God." Is there any gap of time or other humans or even other creatures between Adam and his being called the "son of God"? Luke knows of no such gap.
Paul speaks of 2 real people in Romans 5:14 "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam ..." He also speaks of Adam committing a willful (1 Timothy2:14) sin, literally described for us in Genesis 3.
Paul goes on in Romans 5:19 to tell us that through the literal disobedience of that man the many were made sinners, yet even so through the obedience of the One, Jesus, the many will be made righteous. The disobedience of Adam is just as literal as the obedience of Jesus Christ. So the eating of the forbidden fruit was a real event.
Paul calls Adam the first man in 1 Corinthians 15:45. There is not even a hint of men or creatures that evolved into men prior to Adam.
In 1 Timothy 2:13-14, Paul clearly tells us that Adam was created first, and then Eve, and that it was not Adam who was deceived by the serpent, but Eve was deceived by the serpent. The temptation initiated by the serpent and Eve's fall were literal and real, not symbolic. Paul gives us no indication of a non-literal interpretation here. In fact, because Eve was deceived and because she was created second, not first, Paul commands women even today to not "teach or exercise authority over a man."
[Allusion to Abel/Cain removed, b/c that's not Genesis 1-3.]
Jude, apparently one of the half-brothers of Jesus tells us in Jude 14 that Enoch was the seventh generation from Adam. So we know that Jude took the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 1 Chronicles 1 literally. They were not symbolic to him.
Speaking for myself (obviously!), I responded to that objection. Here it is again:
"[That] does not logically mean that the events/elements are to be understood entirely literally. Symbolic narratives are supposed to be referenced to make a point. Of course we reference those accounts to make our points. That is the whole point! We don't stick the word "literally" or "figuratively" in front of everything we say about them. That's not important. An allusion doesn't necessarily prove anything one way or the other."
If you can specify in each of those references where the speaker or writer said that the events in question were entirely literal (contrary to my opinion that they are
not entirely literal), then I can rethink my opinion about Gen 1-3.
Also, I am curious: When you first read Genesis 1-3, did you think that the serpent was the devil? If so, why? If not, who did you think the serpent was?
Thank you!