Monday, December 16, 2013
New Testament Authors’ View of Genesis
“Did Bible Authors Believe in a Literal Genesis?” pt. 3, by Dr. Terry Mortenson
The New Testament has many more explicit references to the early chapters of Genesis.
The genealogies of Jesus presented in Matthew 1:1–17 and Luke 3:23–38 show that Genesis 1–11 is historical narrative. These genealogies must all be equally historical or else we must conclude that Jesus was descended from a myth and therefore He would not have been a real human being and therefore not our Savior and Lord.5
Paul built his doctrine of sin and salvation on the fact that sin and death entered the world through Adam. Jesus, as the Last Adam, came into the world to bring righteousness and life to people and to undo the damaging work of the first Adam (Romans 5:12–19; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22, 45–47). Paul affirmed that the serpent deceived Eve, not Adam (2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:13–14). He took Genesis 1–2 literally by affirming that Adam was created first and Eve was made from the body of Adam (1 Corinthians 11:8–9). In Romans 1:20, Paul indicated that people have seen the evidence of God’s existence and some of His attributes since the creation of the world.6 This means that Paul believed that man was right there at the beginning of history, not billions of years after the beginning.
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