Now, I don't know everything Jesus said – I only know what is recorded in the Bible. I do know we have no record of Jesus ever having said, “Truly I say to you, you shall read Genesis literally.” Such a statement makes little sense, anyway. I generally do not take things “literally” but I take them in the sense they are intended. Can you imagine having conversations where every word is meant to be literal? How would we interpret expressions like, “scared to death” or “my wife's going to kill me”?
In the Bible, Jesus tells us He is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). He tells us that He is the door (John 10:9). He commands believers to drink His blood and eat His flesh (John 6:53). What would any of these verses mean if He meant them to be literal? To take every word of the Bible literally would make the word of God become nonsense. It is as grave an error as claiming every word in the Bible should be looked at figuratively. So Jesus instructing us to take Genesis “literally” would have probably created more problems than it would solve.
Instead of looking at what Jesus didn't do, let's look at what He did do. We know that time after time, when confronted by His critics (chiefly, the Pharisees), He often responded with, “Haven't you read...” and would then cite an Old Testament passage applicable to the situation. In those situations, rather than offering some “figurative meaning” of the text, He always relied on the obvious meaning of the passage to make His point.
Jesus often quoted passages from Genesis. Perhaps His most relevant comment on the subject is found in Mark 10:6-8 where Jesus refers to both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 in the same comment. He certainly seemed to be referring to Adam & Eve as real people. In Matthew 23:35, Jesus refers to a history of martyrdom beginning with Abel and ending with Zacharias (the latter apparently recently murdered by the Pharisees). In Luke 17:27, He compared the suddenness of His next coming to the Flood of Noah. In all of these cases, and others I could cite, He names these people as though they are real characters in History.
How ridiculous would it be to talk about Abel (a fictional character) in the same context as Zacharias (a real person known to the Pharisees) or to compare the Flood of Noah (a fictional event) to the Second Coming (a literal event)? A real problem with viewing Genesis as myth or allegory is that it casts doubt on the factualness of the New Testament. Adam and Noah are both listed in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3. If Adam and Noah weren’t real people, then at what point did Jesus’ lineage cease being parable and start becoming literal? If the Flood wasn’t literal, is the Second Coming literal? So yes, it is “vitally important” that we interpret the passages that are intended to be literal as literal. Theistic evolutionists are engaging in very dangerous hermeneutics in their efforts to make the Bible conform with their corrupt theory!
Perhaps I should turn the question around. I believe Jesus treated Genesis as real history. If the historic events of Genesis were not meant to be literal, why didn't Jesus instruct us to interpret them figuratively? That “what Jesus didn't do” argument works both ways. The difference is that the Bible repeatedly shows Jesus treating people and events from Genesis as “literal” and never as “figurative.” By continuously referring to these things as historical, I believe Jesus was indeed instructing us on the correct way to read Genesis.
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