The
plain truth is that it can hardly be denied, by any candid student of
the New Testament, that our Lord and His apostles certainly received the
early chapters of Genesis as of Divine authority. This has always been
perceived by the whole school of writers opposed to the Faith. They
therefore continue to attack these early revelations, and rejoice to
overturn them if they can, because they are aware that hardly any
chapters in the Bible are more constantly alluded to and made the
foundation of practical arguments by our Lord and His apostles.
If these chapters can be shown to be mythical, then the Divine knowledge
of our Lord as the Son of God, and the inspiration of His apostles, are
called in question. In the New Testament, especially, there are repeated
and striking allusions to Adam, the temptation of the woman by the
Serpent, and the entrance into the world of sin and death. Our Lord
Himself places the whole argument of His teaching on marriage and the
permissibility of divorce on Genesis ii. 24 (_cf_. St. Matt. xix. and
St. Mark x.). In St. John viii. 44 our Lord clearly alludes to the
Edenic narrative when He speaks of the tempter as a "manslayer ([Greek:
anthropoktonos]) from the beginning." Still more remarkable is the
argument of St. Paul in Romans v.; altogether based as it is on the
historical verity of the account of the Fall; and other allusions are to
be found in 1 Cor.
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