Steve Schramm
[Originally published as part of 3 Reasons I Believe Jesus was a Young Age Creationist and continued from Part 1, and Part 2]
If Evolution is True, Jesus is Wrong About Marriage
It’s clear to see how the case so far seems to deal a striking blow to the underlying foundation for Jesus’ own teaching about marriage. It stands to reason that, if Jesus draws his doctrine from the first chapters of Genesis, but such chapters are filled with myriad contradictions on old age theories of history, we’ve no reason to think that Jesus’ teaching on marriage is any more correct than these other teachings. But we’ll take our case one step further and take a brief look directly at the doctrine of marriage itself to find if these contradictions persist therein:
- 1 Corinthians 11:3-10 teaches that the husband is the head of the marriage because woman was created for man (vs. 9-10). But a consistent view of old age chronology has man and woman first arriving millions of years before this event, and we’ve no way to know which came first.
- The point of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19:3-9 is that marriage is unbreakable because God created woman from the side of man and, therefore, created marriage! But on old age chronology, where Adam and Eve came millions of years after the first humans, this scenario promoted by Jesus never happened, and marriage is nothing more than a man-made ritual that adds only relative cultural — rather than objective spiritual — significance to some naturally-developed evolutionary happenstance.
Again, each of the above contradictions and inconsistencies is literally non-existent if young age creation theory is correct. In other words, they are all explained without contradiction or even any apparent difficulty. By contrast, Dr. Wise points out in concluding from much of the information mentioned above that Genesis 1-11, parts of twenty-three psalms, parts of eighteen Old Testament books, and parts of seven New Testament books must be disregarded as inaccurate or false if old age chronology is true and our understanding of the Bible is correct. And applicable to this study, we find that some of this conclusion applies to the very words of Christ himself.
I would argue that the most reasonable inference, then, is that Jesus must have been a young age creationist.
This seems the only consistent way to reconcile the actual statements found in Scripture with Jesus’ apparent historical understanding.
The Logos in the Beginning and the Primacy of Scripture
The case we’ve built so far seems to suggest that the young age creation scenario is the only consistent way to understand the doctrines of creation, man, and marriage, especially with regard to how Jesus himself understood and advanced them. This point will merely serve as a “proof” for the two points above and respond to some common responses from critics of the young age view.
As to the above, there appear to be three old age positions which would each respond in different ways. And although I’m sure representatives of each would respond in a very detailed way, I am simply going to offer my response to the general disposition these views have towards the kind of case I’ve just offered:
#1. The theistic evolutionist might say, “Sure — Jesus believed and taught these things. So did Paul! But we now know from modern science that they were wrong, and the Bible tells us that Jesus does not know everything the Father knows, so that’s okay.”
The above may sound shocking to those hearing it for the first time, but I have had multiple separate encounters now where a theistic evolutionist has told me something exactly like the above. Not surprisingly, many who take this position also regard the notion of biblical inerrancy to be false and usually place magisterial weight on the most critical scholarship over traditionally held interpretations.
A further element added into the mix may be the claim that Jesus and Paul were only teaching what was culturally accepted by the majority, a claim we examined briefly above.
I see at least two problems with all of this. First, it completely ignores that the Bible explicitly teaches Christ’s presence during the events in the beginning (see John 1:1-14). I have a hard time believing the Scriptures would be inspired in such a way as to allow for a contradiction to arise, such that the Person who framed the universe inaccurately taught how he did it, when he did it, who was there, etc. As to the “cultural majority” claim, I’d like to add to my earlier reflection by making another common sense, rhetorical reflection: Perhaps if the young age scenario was the majority view according to the Hebrew culture, it’s because that’s what they believed history taught them.
Of course, there are numerous scientific reasons to believe the evolutionary scenario is not correct (especially with respect to mankind). See our discussion with Dr. Edgar Andrews here for more of that. But on the basis of Jesus’ beliefs and teachings alone, we have strong reason to believe this is not the correct understanding of earth history.
#2. The day-age theorist (or progressive creationist) might respond by claiming that we are understanding Jesus, and perhaps even the entire creation account, wrong because we have not considered some of the other passages which mention the events of creation.
Truth be told, many of the specifics of this position have already been argued against by the reasoning found in this article writ large. If Jesus meant for these passages to be taken historically—which most old age creationists of this stripe affirm—then we can only do so consistently by holding to the young age view as I’ve already shown.
That said, there are two other salient points to be made:
First, the progressive creationist often wants to use passages that are obviously part of Hebrew poetry — such as Psalm 104, for example — to produce the mechanics of the literal events found in Genesis. But I can think of no other linguistic system in which we’d use such reasoning. If there are two renderings of an event — one historical and one poetic — we’d never use the poetic one (which uses features of language such as hyperbole, imagery, etc.) to determine what actually took place.
Second, this view also ignores the vast Scriptural data that suggests otherwise. Though scores could be given, we’d have to look no further than Exodus 20:8-11 before we find that the events of creation — all of them — took place in six literal days. And since the actual context found in Genesis 1-2 suggests only three possible definitions for the word “day”¹ (a twelve-hour period, a twenty-four-hour period, and a collective period of six days), we must apply the same rules to Exodus.
To underscore both of the above thoughts, we should remember that since Jesus was present at the beginning, and since Jesus is God, and since it was God who inspired the Scriptures as a whole (2 Timothy 3:16), then every statement found anywhere in Scripture was providentially inspired and/or included by Christ — the second Person of the Trinity. So the fact that Jesus is a young age creationist can be seen not only from his explicit statements in the Gospels but from every allusion and implication found within the entire canon.
To be continued…
Footnotes
- The overwhelming majority of Hebrew scholarship is in agreement with this. The context does not allow for the stretching of these days.
- In this case, I am using this term to include all of those who argue for a historical, yet non-literal interpretation of early Genesis. I realize that there are many views within this camp and certainly want to avoid over-generalizing, but hopefully, the reader will understand the sheer impossibility of detailing the minutia of each and every view.
- For more on the idea of Genesis 1–11 as myth see: https://www.steveschramm.com/genesis-1-11-and-the-textbook-myth/
