I’m making the assumption here that The Fall was a real event in history that corrupted the perfect peaceful nature that god created us with - and that this corruption explains why humans have a dark side to their nature e.g. a propensity for hate, anger, lust, greed etc
The evidence suggests that our direct non-human ancestors engaged in the same types of interpersonal violence that modern humans do, in particular that they injured and murdered each other. For example, skulls of neanderthals have been found that have fatal injuries caused by weapons. Since modern humans and neanderthals share a common ancestor that lived at least 500k years ago, this behaviour must have existed in our direct ancestors prior to 500k years. So if there ever was a time that humans ever had a “perfect nature” whatever that means, it must have been at a time when they were quite different from modern humans, both in terms of appearance and behaviour. i.e. This doesn’t seem to be consistent with the Genesis account of our origins, in particular that we were “created in the image of god”
Well I think the fall and the death involved in it was spiritual. Until God made a covenant with Adam we have no other known covenants.
The Bible says that sin has always existed but before the law there was no accountability to it. So before God drew a line in the sand with Adam, sin existed but was not something we were held accountable for.
Romans 5:13
New American Standard Bible
13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not counted against anyone when there is no law.
Another thing to consider is that if Adam and Eve was immortal why did they have a tree that sustained immortality. The tree of life granted life. Why would it have been there if they was immortal and if they only would need it if they sinned and was cast out.
It also explains why Cain was afraid to leave Eden. They were not the only humans. Just like many times before God called forth a righteous person/couple into a promise land.
You can also believe that a story is true , or contains truth, without being 100% literal.
The Fall is a doctrine that has to be re-imagined with moving from a literalistic reading to a more metaphorical reading of Genesis. I think it is one of the major stumbling blocks in the discussion.
Of course, it is a man-made doctrine, and part of tradition in the church. Many traditions are good, but all have the tendency to go astray and become a focal point in and of themselves. We cling to traditions because of our weakness and the security we find in them.
I think if we come to see The Fall as something that happened a first time to Adam, but happens to all of us eventually, it puts things in better perspective. Sort of saying Adam walked upright and stumped his toe, leading us to the doctrine of The Stump.
All to say, we have to redefine the Fall to reconcile it, and come to a better understanding of what the Bible is saying. Move to meat from milk. Or tofu, for our vegetarian friends.
Interesting theory. But if sin always existed, then god created us in an already “fallen state” - a state that makes it impossible for us to comply with his law. And because of this, god deems us deserving of eternal damnation (unless we seek his forgiveness through Christ). This doesn’t sound like the actions of a benevolent being?
Regarding Adam & Eve and the tree, I’m not sure I agree with you. According to Genesis 3:6, Eve decided to eat it because " she saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom…"
I agree with you that a story can convey truths without being 100% literal. However Jesus and Paul talk about Adam as if he was a real person. The bible also gives precise ages and locations of people in the Genesis story and places them in genealogies that contained people that were supposedly real? But this is all irrelevant to my original post because I never made the assumption that Adam and Eve, the Tree of Life or the serpent were real. I only assumed that sin entered the world because humans disobeyed god
And if the traditional fall happened, then God still created us (as in you and me) in an already “fallen state.” How does a traditional view make things better for us?
Yes I agree with you. I only made this distinction now because when I’ve raised this issue in the past, many of the replies I got tried to blame Adam and Eve for why we can never live up to god’s law.
I’m not sure what you mean by a fallen state. Adam was able to sin. He already had the ability to sin. That means Adam and Eve both was already in the same state as we are with the exception of being called out directly by God into a promised land where they could have immortality on the condition they did not eat from the tree.
"I think if we come to see The Fall as something that happened a first time to Adam, but happens to all of us eventually, "
This is an interesting idea, but would mean god created us in an already “fallen state” - a state that makes it impossible for us to comply with his law. And because of this, god deems us deserving of eternal damnation (unless we seek his forgiveness through Christ). This doesn’t sound like the actions of a benevolent being?
By “fallen state”, I mean having a nature that makes it impossible for us to comply with gods law. If we could comply with god’s law, then we wouldn’t need to be redeemed by Christ
As for the rest “
Jesus talked about this and so it must be literal”
Is not true. Jesus would have understood that genesis was a myth. It was written in a non historical narrative. It covered thousands of years. If taken literal this is an aspect of the story. In just 11 chapters.
God creates everything 10k years ago in six days. Water was already there. It never says god created the water he was hovering over, and this water was not frozen despite no sun being created. On the sixth day he made Adam and he had Adam name millions of animals and found non worthy of him to mate with and spend his life with. By the way, Adam was a mud golem turned alive. So he cut this golem in half and the other half became a woman. They had kids and one speared the other and Abel’s blood could talk and was screaming and crying out to God. The murder was given a sign that would kill anyone who killed him. This all happened after a snake who could talk tricked their parents.
A giant flood covered the whole earth. Invisible I flying beings slept with women who popped out giants.
There was a giant sea serpent that God battled ( psalms 74 ) and its a better translation of “ big sea creatures “. It skips a thousand years quickly. It’s written very different from historical narratives we find in the Bible.
Also Jesus mentions Jonah. Jonah was a real prophet. This real prophet was used as a character in the fictional satire named after him that involved a thinking ship and Assyrians so dumb they did not know right from left.
Just like us, ancient people could refer to characters, or historical fictions just like us.
If we could not then we would not need to be saved. Jesus was a man like us. He faced temptations and passed like us. Sin is not beyond our control. Sin is a choice. We could choose to never sin. Each time we sin it’s a choice. God already knows we will all choose sin. So he sent Christ to save us because we choose sin.
Even if this was true, it hardly makes any difference to my point. All it means is that god created us in such a way that it is next to impossible for us to comply with his laws.
Yes that is possible, but it is not directly relevant to my point. The only assumption I made in my original post was that the evil in the world today (such as murder) is a consequence of our corrupted nature. And we have inherited this corrupted nature because early humans disobeyed god
And my point is that given the fact early humans themselves could disobey God means that the ability to choose sin or righteousness has always existed. They are no different than us. Their choices made no difference for us.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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It needs reimagining as completely metaphoric Phil. As do all atonement stories driven by it, which are not theories.
Yes I agree. From what I understand, god created humans with free will, but it was only when the Fall happened that humans first used this free will to disobey god. It was this disobedience that allowed sin to enter the world which corrupted human nature. And because of this corrupted nature, humans today commit really evil things like murder.
But again, it says sin has ways been here. Before Adam made a choice, sin was already here. But there was no accountability to it before a line was drawn in the sand. We were doing things God did not like before he said ,” hey I don’t want you to do that”.
Until he said don’t do it, when we did it, despite it being displeasing, there was no accountability for it.