Did Jesus view the Old Testament as fact?
Some of today’s Christians interpret many parts of the Old Testament as fairy tales that God put in the Bible to teach a spiritual lesson. Jesus, however, trusted the Scriptures completely as real history set in real time and space. He always considered them as trustworthy facts, not myths.
Jesus acknowledged that Adam and Eve were the first married couple.
Some Pharisees came to him (Jesus). They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
Jesus presented Noah and the Flood as a historical fact.
As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
He told of Jonah.
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Jesus told the people of His day that the Old Testament is clear and can be understood. Eleven times Jesus stated in the gospels, “Have you not read…?” Thirty times He defended His teaching by saying, “It is written…” He rebuked His listeners for not understanding and believing what the text plainly says. Jesus believed that the events written in the Old Testament were true and accurate. If Jesus believed it, so can we.