Could Jesus have accepted Evolutionary Theory?

I'm sorry to hear this as well, but would it be more accurate to say you two are not separated but just forced to live apart due to circumstances. Sorry if I'm intruding in your life to much.

 

Correct. I am living in an independent living community flat and she is living above her son's business premises. Fortunately, (apart from Covid legislation dificulties), we are able to communicate and see each other frequently.
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Many do, even those which would appeal to young earth literal fundamentalist absolutists, or children. The fact is that there is an astonishing amount of TRUTH in Genesis 1-11 even if all the psychological, theological, alegorical and mythic meaning is ignored or denied its existence.
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Actually Jesus referred to various characters in Genesis by name, but that does not provide evidence that he actually believed those characters to be actual historical figures, as we would view, for instance, William the Conquerer or Henry the Eighth, Florence Nightingale or Paul Revere. The reality of Historical existence is not established through their mere inclusion as characters in A-story which Jesus referred to. He could have been referring to them as we might refer to Romeo and Juliet, The Ancient Mariner or Will-o'-the-wisp. Mentions of any of these would not prove their historicity but simply as examples of certain principles. Romeo & Juliet = unrequited love, family faction and feuding or tragic misfortune. The Ancient Mariner, = isolation from one's fellows through one's own foolishness, futility in the face of cruel fate, etc. Will o the Wisp = something that is impossible to get or achieve.

I have rejected atheistic assumptions associated with TOE, based upon my own personal spiritual experience of God, but I am convinced that evolution is God's method of creation and what we might consider 'natural' is in fact a continuing divine act.

Genetically speaking all living things on planet earth are related to one another, closely or distantly, no genome of any living thing is distinctly unique, having no relation to any previous form. Every living thing has sequences related to other forms of life, indicating a history of shared ancestry however far back in time we may choose to look. To God time is an eon or the blink of an eye, no matter, God is amazingly patient and God's will will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. God will see to that. We are what we are because God has made us that way. 'Dust we are', 'and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it'.

Might it be possible that evolutionary theory, among other things, is what Jesus is referring to here?
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The passage of scripture Jesus quoted is not 'fictional', it is mythic.
(1.For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept). (2.But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female). (3.For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder). And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. And he saith unto them, (4.Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery).

1. Just because someone writes something for you, it does not make every character he writes about, a historical character who actually must have historically existed as a person. There were stories by Aesop already in existence which taught human morality, his 'Fables' were written in the 5th Century BC. Jesus may even have known them.

2. A point Jesus is making here is that men do not outrank women, in the beginning God created both.

3. Jesus takes the previous two principles and deduces that no one else but God alone has has authority to separate a married couple from one another, also men have no authority to end a relationship they know God has established.

4. Anyone who 'puts away' their spouse has broken God's Command to 'Love one another'. And if they choose to 'cleave to' and love another instead they have offended God and broken the law. (This is not however that which anyone else, other than God, has authority to police).

(Our sins may no longer be held against us by God, in this life, but they are still sins and will continue to have their corrosive effects.)

I think you may be seriously mistaken though. I can't find any instance in any of the gospels where Jesus mentions Adam by name, can you? And the word Adam in Hebrew means mankind, not just the name of a single prototype man. It is the name of our species. 'Man'. Homo Sapiens. A primate.

God is not a designer, God is the creator. It is the process of creation that is not understood by creationists, not the principle. God is not a prestidigitator, God didn't 'magic' each life form into spontaneous existence. God is not a magician, God is a creating Spirit.

If it does it's God's way of doing things that's all. (He hath given them a Law which shall not be broken. Ps.148:6 BCP Psalter)

A valid but debateable opinion.

 

Since Jesus is God and he created teh world he would not have to accept anything since he knows 100% the truth of what happened.

 

Allegorical and Symbolic understanding of Scripture is both ancient and venerable, even perhaps valuable. Indeed it may well be that fundamentalist literal historic understanding of scripture is the new child on the block.

Interestingly, I find the theory of Evolution as a strong argument for God.

 

I'm trying to get back on the track of what I think needs thinking about here. It's not yet another Creationist/Evolutionist debate about which might be true.
Jesus actually never rejected any theory of evolution simply because he didn't need to waste his teaching time doing so. His audience were all fundamental creationists by default simply because they were all Jews who fundamentally accepted literally what their scriptures said. The saying "It is written" is an obvious indication of that fact. One either accepted what "Was written" or one didn't. There was no real alternative for anyone to consider at that time.

When we study the teachings of Jesus with a view to following his advice to mankind in "Getting right with God", what exactly do we find in his teaching, if anything, which would contradict a view that evolutionary theory may be correct in its assumptions?

Social Darwinism, (Such as practised and believed in by the Nazis following the teachings of Friedrich Nietzsche and especially Alfred Baeumler and Martin Heidegger), was an overtly hostile philosophy to the actual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and diametrically opposed to Traditional Christianity, even to the point of seeming to be teaching we'd expect from the Anti-Christ. Their ideas are still around and becoming popular again.

My question is really 'In what way would the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth have been different had be believed in the theory of Evolution'?

I think the answer to that question would be 'Not at all'. He would have taught everything he did just as he had.

So why do Biblical Creationists get so het up over the idea that God may be making all the creatures make themselves to fit their survival circumstances, and change a little to be best at what they do?
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Or to put it another way, distinguishing between "microevolution" and "macroevolution." The former suggests that a species can change over the years; the latter suggests that members of one species can become an entirely different species (such as, a whale became a cow or a winged dinosaur reptile became a winged bird avian).

 

Mat 19:4-5 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

Jesus referred to the Genesis story of God's creation of Adam and Eve as an authoritative account (with important spiritual ramifications concerning marriage, ramifications which morally bound the listeners). "Have ye not read...?" God "made them" (Adam and Eve, as the Genesis account states). He made a man and a woman, not a pair of chimps or apes or whatever. But macroevolutionary theory postulates-- indeed, it necessitates-- the false belief that humans evolved from some non-sentient simians, who in turn evolved from a series of lower and lower non-sentient life forms, which ultimately evolved from the first single-celled creature that came into being out of a primordial ooze. Yes, Jesus definitely contradicted this cockamamie theory.

Macroevolutionary theory has been advanced historically through the efforts of people who held strongly anti-Christian, anti-God sentiment, for the purpose of rendering religion "outdated" and irrelevant. I find it astounding whenever a professing Christian rises to defend macroevolutionary theory, because it is essentially antithetical to the Gospel message. It is a false faith, "another gospel."

 

"Have you not read" is doing an awful lot of work here for you though, isn't it.

What Jesus actually said here can be simply summed up for us by the following amplification.
"Ever since men and women first existed they have been male and female and sex has been a natural command of God, to 'go forth and multiply'. To fulfil this command it has always been necessary for a man to leave father and mother and take a wife and invest all his emotional energy in her alone, for life, exclusively, any other way would be wrong".

Every thought and nuance contained in Jesus' reply to the 'test question' posed by the Pharisees at Mat.19:4-5 + some, is contained in that aplified sentence above but there is no need to include any of your assumptions concerning Jesus believing in Biblical fundamentalist Young Earth Creationist Theory being supported by what Jesus actually said at Mat.19:4-5. It is simply a statement concerning what the Scribes and Pharisees knew was 'Written in their scriptures' and which THEY believed to be 'an authoritative account', because of the way THEY interpreted scripture in other places. Jesus is actually just using their own ignorant and literal use of scripture to highlight their own hipocracy by showing how they regularly violate what is plainly written there by endorcing divorce, by quoting Moses, who allowed it, for their convenience, because of their hardness of heart.
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This discussion has certainly been productive of more heat than light, I must say. The casual disregard for (and ignorance of) established science on this thread is quite staggering. I will never forget the day I learned that microevolution and macroevolution are the result of the same set of processes, at different magnitudes. The notion that these two processes are somehow opposites, or are mutually exclusive, or that microevolution is (somehow) evidence for creation or design - it is in fact evidence of neither - is, I discovered, one of many creationist myths, perpetrated by people who know better. It is a deliberate lie.

In my experience, it’s best to ignore the motivated apologists and just let science be science. It’s also best to just let the biblical texts be what they are as well, no more, no less. Such an approach will not prevent anyone from following the teachings and example of Jesus, nor will it dictate that they be ignoramuses with regard to modern scientific disciplines.

Jesus would have neither accepted nor rejected evolutionary theory, for the simple reason that people 2,000 years ago did not have even a basic understanding of geology, biology, genetics, probability, mechanical causation, the scientific method, etc. It would not have made any sense to people at that time, and it would not have been relevant to Jesus’ apocalyptic message of the coming kingdom. Jews at that time were nonetheless also well acquainted with the notion that there was more to Genesis than a bare literal understanding, and that an allegorical and philosophical interpretation was also intended by those who canonized it (cf. Philo, Josephus, Paul, the Tannaim, etc.). They would have seen an exclusionary insistence on literal interpretation as a crude denial of the divine inspiration of these very texts.

 

I am not sure if you are aware that you seem to be trying to make the text say more than it does. Had Jesus spoken of evolution in any sense at this stage of the development of human thought people would have stared and had no idea what he was speaking of. I don't need you to accept the Theory of Evolution in any of its forms, however, Jesus clearly does not debunk the theory either, unless you are prepared to make the text say more than it does.

Now I know that the High Court in our case, and the Supreme Court in your case do this with our respective constitutions, and I think it is one of their less endearing qualities. I don't think we as Christians in trying to understand the text of scripture should emulate their methods.