Liberals in the Church embraced modernism and Darwinism and as a result Genesis, particually the first eleven chapters became subject to allogorical interpretation and the seven day creation was no longer understood as a literal seven days. Jesus never hints at anything other than a literal interpretation of Genesis and I am not aware of any major work of theology prior to the 19th century that sees Genesis as anything other than the book of origins.
Then your education is lacking. The early church father absolutely understood Genesis as allegory rather than biology. Hebrew teachers long before the time of Jesus taught that it was allegory rather than wooden literalism. Since Jesus was raised "a good Jew," as they say, it is a given that he understood Genesis the same way his culture did: as an allegory. You might be interested in reading some Hebrew scholars on understanding Genesis in its context. Hillel is the first that comes to mind, but there are dozens more ... of course I can't think of any names at the moment, and I am at home now, because the office (where all my theology books are) is not air conditioned. I'll do some digging and get back to you if you are interested in this.
In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a any writing prior to about 1850 that would even try to suggest a literal interpretation of Genesis. The idea that it might have been literal is extremely recent, and so mind-bogglingly new that the Church Fathers (understood ... yes, they were all men, so far as we know) wouldn't have even had to mention it.
There are so many similar examples today. You've heard the expression, "For Pete's sake." Well, that's just an expression. No one would think to ask, "Who's this 'Pete' person? Is this some great teacher of the 20th Century? Some sage or political leader?" But you could imagine, perhaps, 2,000 years from now, someone might dig up a book from today, and see the expression, "For Pete's sake," and they might ask those exact questions. Well, of course there's not going to be any reference anywhere that says, "Oh, and by the way, there is no "Pete," it's just an expression." It's not written down anywhere because we all know that "For Pete's sake" is just an expression.
In the same way, the way that Genesis was written, especially in its original language (and if you haven't read it in Hebrew yet, you owe it to yourself to learn Hebrew, if for no other reason than to read the first 11 chapters of Genesis) it's just known that it was allegory. Genesis has the Hebrew equivalent of "Once Upon a Time" at the front of it. Everyone reading it in Hebrew would have known that it was a story. They wouldn't have had to explain it to anyone.
The Apostles knew it, and passed that teaching down to the Church Fathers. The Church Fathers passed that teaching down to The Church. And that has been the teaching of The Church ever since ... until about 1850ish. Then, all of a sudden, a few American Bible students decided they should be allowed to interpret Scripture without the aid of the Church Fathers. Their argument was that Jesus is the only intermediary we need, and if it's important enough, it'll be in the Bible, with or without the "Church Fathers" teaching. Well, it's a nice thought, but they took it too far. I'm all for re-examining tradition. There are plenty of "traditions" that were handed down that are NOT necessarily orthodox. How to dress, what to eat, etc. But ignoring tradition just because it is tradition is throwing out the baby with the baptismal water.
And that is exactly what the founders of the fundamentalist movement did. They ignored the teachings of the Church Fathers, read Scripture without knowledge of what had been handed down, and insisted that their interpretation was "more correct" than the traditional one.
How it was able to catch on as it did, and become the "accepted teaching," I do not know. I've read a million books (oh, okay, maybe a half dozen) about this very topic. So far they've been great books, but none have really answered that question. That's why I'm looking forward to reading this one, and see what this new writer, whose work I have not yet read, has to say.
we would need to go into specific examples here as we may actually agree
The most famous example is from just after the Reformation.
As you may have learned in your Church History class, Luther originally did not want to fracture the church. His first attempt was to correct the corruption from within. When it became clear that the Pope would not accept his criticisms, that's when the Schism became more certain, and today, there are still things Catholics and Lutherans disagree on (although the number of doctrines that differ is shrinking ... I like to say they are "Roaming" Catholics.... ) ANYWAY....
Flash forward a decade or two. Luther's new church, the "Evangelical Movement" has really caught hold in Germany, and now other countries want a piece of the action. Enter Zwingli. There are some GREAT translations of the debates between Luther and Zwingli available at any Christian bookstore. Anyway, Zwingli took the split one step further: Eucharist.
See, Catholics believe that the bread and wine in which they partake at Communion is actually Jesus' flesh and blood. Lutherans believe a very similar theology: Catholics call it "transubstantiation" -- the earthly elements become the holy substances, retaining their form of bread and wine but becoming in substance flesh and blood. Lutherans say it's "consubstantiation" -- Jesus' body and blood is present "in, with, and under" the earthly elements of bread and wine. There are very few churches today who still accept this teaching. Most churches believe that communion is a "symbol." The elements of bread and wine "symbolize" Jesus' body and blood. Zwingli was the first who went there.
Luther vehemently disagreed. "Is means Is!" he said. "Jesus said, this IS my body, given for you. He didn't say, this REPRESENTS my body, or this SYMBOLIZES my body, he said this IS my body."
Virtually every Christian today (with the exception of Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians ... please forgive me if I've forgotten anyone out there) believes that Jesus was being figurative when he said "This is my body."
The Church Fathers taught that it was not figurative. It was absolutely LITERAL. I believe that, too. When I take communion, and the priest hands me that wafer ... okay, I admit, I have a little trouble believing that small white disk is really BREAD, but I DO believe that it is Jesus body, broken for me, just like the Bible says.
As I've said before, and will almost certainly say again, you can believe it's figurative if you want. I support your right to celebrate a symbolic communion rather than accepting the literalism of those words. Just be aware that your interpretation isn't the only one.
And, just as your interpretation is figurative, even though Jesus didn't say, "This is my body, but okay, it isn't really my body, it's just representing my body, and we're all going to just pretend that for now, okay?" you understand that is what Jesus meant.
Similarly, when God said, "Once upon a time .... " Well, that's my cue that what follows is probably not a literal reiteration of historical events, but a story. A very IMPORTANT story. Maybe the most important story ever, and I would go so far to say that this story is more important than any historical event you can find. In fact, to me (and those who understand Scripture this way, with me), seeing it as mere history is degrading it, making it so much less than what it is.
We love Scripture too much to see it as just literal.
