The Origin of “Original Sin and the Fall”

Faith & Science Conversation
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I had to look this up. The mistranslation is

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, in him all men sinned

when the correct translation is

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all men sinned

I find nonexistence claims to be silly. When people asked me in my youth if I believed in the existence of God, I replied the question isn’t whether God exists but what is God? The same applies in the case of original sin. The words exist. The only question is what real thing do these words refer to?

I could never believe in some built in inclination to sin, and I never have. But an original sin? Yes I believe in that. It is characteristic of human behavior that that once someone does something then others imitate this behavior and it spreads till many, most, or even all do the same thing. The Bible tells the story of such a thing in the case of murder starting with Cain.

I am reminded of dark matter in physics. It is essentially a fudge factor to explain the failure of physics to explain what we see and measure. I have always been rather skeptical, but discrepancy and need for an explanation certainly exists. It is only a question of what is the correct explanation.

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It’s certainly true that there is “imitative sim”, if we see everyone around us doing wrong, we are more inclined to join in. Where Augustine, and the whole Western church, went wrong was to conclude that one man’s sin was GENETICALLY INHERITED by all his descendants. We inherit characteristics, not acts.

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Proof? Who are you trying to fool?

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Dictionary definition of sin
sin

[sin]

NOUN

  1. an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law:

It has no substance. It cannot be transmitted, inherited or infect.

It cannot be part of the human DNA

SIn is a psersonal act done deliberately in full knowledge .Knowing that it is wrong

Jeremiah 31 v29ff
“In those days, it will no longer be said:

‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,

and the teeth of the children are set on edge.’

30Instead, each will die for his own iniquity. If anyone eats the sour grapes, his own teeth will be set on edge.

Sin cannot even be passed from parent to child let alone all the way from Adam.

That is scripture

And Ezekiel confirms it Chapter 18

1The word of the Lord came to me: 2“What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:

“ ‘The parents eat sour grapes,

and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?

3“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. 4For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die.

That is also Scripture

Richard

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What about primate aggression and sexual sins which many humans seem predisposed to? We see a lot of abuse in the animal work. Male chimpanzees beat female chimpanzees, chimpanzees go on mirderous raids, and many animals do a lot of things we would classify as rape if humans are doing them. It seems our evolutionary history has made it very easy to engage in a lot of sins. We are not forced to but it seems like a very strong inclination is there.

I wonder how many Christin boys (and girls) thought they were going to hell or beat themselves up a lot over masturbation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

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Aggression and sexuality are not bad things as such. I do not support the view that we should judge ourselves because of the almost instinct-like animal features in us. What makes us guilty is not being animals among other animals. Having some amount of free will + knowledge of what is good or bad is what makes us responsible for our actions. We become guilty when we use our limited amount of free will to make decisions that are not good. If we know that something is against the will of God, against the law, or ethically not the correct or least bad choice, and we select a wrong choice, then we are guilty.

If the strong inclination to make wrong choices is called ‘original sin’, then I can accept it although I would prefer another term because I do not believe that we inherit judgement. We are condemned for our own sins, not the sins of our ancestors.

Bad theology and poor knowledge of biblical scriptures have caused unnecessary guilt in matters that are part of our life as animals among other animals. I have read that the story of Onan has been used as a theological basis for condemning those that masturbate. Such theology only shows that the person does not know or understand what the biblical scriptures tell. It is wrong to lust what belongs to someone else but masturbation as such is not sin. If someone single has a strong sexual need and yet tries to cope without masturbation, that may lead to uncontrolled behavior that is much worse than masturbation.

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In most cases, debates about the ‘original sin’ rely on personal or denominational interpretation of some verses within biblical scriptures. Some also use what early writers (apostolic fathers, church fathers and others) have written and try to interpret these texts so that they seem to support the favored interpretation.

I tried to look at evidence that would be more objective. If the doctrine of ‘original sin’ would have been widespread among the early Christians, we should see it in teaching from west to east. Yet, we do not have it in the early creeds, we do not have it in the teaching of the orthodox church and there is limited support for it in the western (Latin) tradition until St. Augustine.

What confuses the discussion is that people have different definitions for the ‘original sin’. Therefore, I tried to write about the doctrine of ‘original sin’ as believed in the western (Latin) tradition after St. Augustine.
If we think of the ‘original sin’ only as an inclination to sin then even I could agree.

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Unfortunately there are many Christians out there who have no compassion, just narrow-minded literalism. They make the tragedy of a miscarriage, a disability, or disease at birth even worse by evoking the wrath of God. I despair at such people.

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Richard, thanks for taking the time to write this out. I read your previous post and thought, “Hmmm. Wish he’d explain his reasoning.” And you did.
Lots to think over. Thanks.

Kendel

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  • There is absolutely nothing to be gained by responding to your post publicly because my previous post on the subject was flagged by someone and hidden “by the system”. However, if you really wanted a response, I’d send a copy of “the hidden post” privately.
  • However, I will ask you this:
    • If Jews in Ezekel’s days did not believe in “ancestral sin inherited from Adam and Eve”, pray tell, why did 2nd century C.E. Jewish rabbinic oral tradition use the word zohama to describe the contamination/pollution inherited from Adam and Eve which they said non-Jews continued to carry? The claim that Jews never believed in ancestral sin inherited from Adam and Eve is incorrect.
  • What is zohama you ask?
    *
    zohama A-1
    zohama A-11920×2304 288 KB

    zohama A-2
    zohama A-21920×2048 299 KB
  • What you and others in the thread have failed to see and understand in my posts is that I have not been arguing FOR the Doctrine of Original Sin … That is a long-term debate which will not end until Jesus comes back, or the Holy Spirit changes 'hearts of stone".
  • My point has been only that, if and when you replace the words “Original Sin” with “Inherited Ancestral Sin”, it becomes clear–at least to me–that that Doctrine [i.e. the Doctrine of Ancestral Inherited Sin] had it’s origin among pre-Christian Jews.
  • The argument that: “Sin cannot even be passed from parent to child let alone all the way from Adam” is “a red herring”. Whether or not sin can actually be passed from parent to child is irrelevant to my position. My position has been, is, and always will be that many, if not all, non-atheist Jews in Israel believed–at least until the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.–not only that a parent’s righteousness but also a parent’s “sin” could be passed to his or her children.
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:+1:

So all you have to do to avoid sin, is refuse this opinion of some people and believe it is not wrong. Why go along with these people who seek to control and force their thinking and ideas on other people? I don’t see how using the word “sin” to manipulate and dominate others makes them right in any way at all.

Sorry but no. This definition doesn’t lend the slightest bit of truth to the Bible at all, but only makes it into a tool of evil.

Then all you have to do is believe that human beings are just animals of a particular biological species, for the idea of sin to go up in smoke. Certainly nothing like this came from any Adam and Eve.

On the other hand, you can believe that human beings are more than this and have an inheritance of mind from God (through Adam and Eve). Then rather than being about physical instincts, it is about the workings of the mind and the power of ideas which God gave us, deciding when we should act on physical instincts and when we should not.

On the contrary, the flesh is strong – a product of billions of years of evolution. It is the mind and spirit which is weak. It doesn’t have to be weak. On the contrary we have numerous examples of how it can be far stronger than anything physical. They are weak because we have made them so with our own choices. I suppose this is just using the words a little differently…

The problem really isn’t some inherent condition of mind or body, but in the habits which govern them both. As knor observes, there are very good reasons for the instincts we have. They are necessary. It is our abdication of responsibility to govern them which is more problematic.

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Judaism is no more a single set of beliefs than Christianity is. The fact that both Jeremiah and Ezekiel had to prophesy against it is proof enough of the existence, but not the total acceptance.

Cllearly the prophets (and God) thought the view wrong.

Richard

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  • Is there anybody in this forum who can help Richard understand that
    • “what Judaism is today” has no bearing on the popularity of belief in “inherited ancestral sin” in 1st century C.E. Israel, much less on what Judaism was in the days of Jeremiah and, later, the days of Ezekiel.
    • If rabbis in 1st century C.E. Israel taught that Israel’s receipt of the Torah at Sinai cleansed them of any inherited ancestral sin, it would have been remarkably odd for Jews to believe in Israel’s inherited ancestral sin AFTER Joshua led them into Canaan.
    • Which of Jeremiah and Ezekiel’s prophecies were given to non-Jews who had never read a Jewish Bible?
  • Refusal to recognize and acknowledge pre-Christian and early-Christian Jewish aversion to non-Jewish contamination/pollution pretty much reduces Jewish distinction between clean and unclean to an aversion to “Kooties”.
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These seem relevant:

But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
Psalm 19:12

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9

Maybe we’re not as knowledgeable as we think we are.

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You know best?

The prophecy stands as words from God. When and where or even to whom specoficlly does not change anything…

has nothing to do with whether it is correct or not.

What has that to do with the price of fish? Christianity takes its roots from Judaism. We are supposed to be worshipping the same God. Do you really think He would change his mind about this?

Ezekiel and Jeremiah are recognised as prophets from God and as such direct prophecy out trumps scriptural interpretation every time.

Sorry but your certitude has no bearing here.

(And neither does any view you have of me and my theology)

Richard

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As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
Matthew 13:22

People, rich or poor, who are pursuing wealth idolatrously are sinning without their full knowledge, otherwise they wouldn’t be being deceived.

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@Dale

  • Romans 6:23 [Revised]: “For the wages of sin are kooties; but the gift of God is an eternal kootie-free life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
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The doctrine of merits in old Rabbinical literature - by Arthur Marmorstein

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I wonder if the disciples said, “on the contrary Jesus…”

40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

That is the point of saying the flesh is weak. It’s weak at resisting things because it is strongly attached to them.

I do. I believe in souls.

And you said flesh is very strong due to billions of years of evolution. You also seem to have said (unless I am mistaken) we do not have an inclination to sin. I find these two views to be in conflict. I believe the billion years of evolution makes sin all too easy. We continually have an internal battle between flesh and spirit. Romans 7:18-20

18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

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