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. xi. 8, in 2 Cor. xi. 3, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and elsewhere.  In short, there are at least sixty-six passages in the New Testament, in which the first eleven chapters of Genesis are directly quoted or made the ground of argument.  Of these, six are by our Lord Himself, two being direct quotations;[1] six by St. Peter, thirty-eight by St. Paul, seven by St. John, one by St. James, two by St. Jude, two by the assembled apostles, three by St. Luke, and one by St. Stephen.

[Footnote 1:  St. Matt. xix. 4; St. Luke xvii. 27; and perhaps we might add a third—­St. Matt. xxiii. 35.]

We cannot, in fact, possibly avoid the conclusion that our Lord and His apostles admitted the Divine origin and historical truth of these chapters.

Therefore, we are bound as Christians to accept them, and that without glossing or frittering away their meaning, when we have arrived, by just processes, at what that meaning really is.

The fact just stated further warns us against accepting an indefinite interpretation which, while it acknowledges the truth of the general conclusion, still virtually, if not in so many words, allows that the details may be wholly inaccurate.

CHAPTER XI.

SCRIPTURE METHODS OF REVELATION.

Passing, then, to a consideration of the explanations of the narrative that may be or have been given at various times, I would first call attention to the fact, that it seems in many instances to have been the distinct purpose of Divine inspiration to allow the meaning of some passages to be obscure; perhaps among other reasons, that men might be compelled to study closely, to reason and to compare, and thus to become more minutely acquainted with the record.  Especially in a case of this sort, where the world’s knowledge of the facts would necessarily be gradual, was it desirable that the narrative should be confined in scope, and capable of being worked out and explained by the light of later discoveries; because, had the narrative really (as has long been supposed) been