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No Adam = no Original Sin - right?

Dunemeister

Well-Known Member
The concept of original sin, as understood in Western Christianity, is nowhere to be found in the Genesis account, or indeed anywhere in the Bible, and is foreign to both Judaism and Eastern Christianity.

That's simply historically false. St. Augustine of Hippo made the doctrine more explicit, but he didn't invent it. It had wide circulation in the Eastern churches before Augustine, although not specifically in an Augustinian form. (Besides, Augustine was from North Africa, so does that make him "Eastern" or "Western"?)

It's also misleading to say that doctrines "don't appear" in scripture. The bible contains almost no extended didactic treatments of any doctrines. It contains mostly narratives. The doctrines must be derived mostly from the narratives.

The only true statement in your post is that the concept of original sin is foreign to Judaism. However, all we know is that it's foreign to mainstream Judaism. Since the doctrine is reasonably derivable from scripture, it's at least logically possible for there to have been Jewish groups that have formulated that doctrine.
 

Dirty Penguin

Master Of Ceremony
There is no Biblical support for the concept of "original sin". In fact, I defy you to find the term in scripture.

I'd have to agree with you here......

The bible, from what I have read, says basically that everyone is responsible for their own actions. You will not be judge by what you parents did nor will they be judge by what you have done.....

That...is ...if you believe anything the bible says though.....
 

Dirty Penguin

Master Of Ceremony
The Enuma Elish, the myth that you are referring to Tiamat and Marduk, was written in the later part of Old Babylonian (literary) period, and written in 16th century BC. Before that time, there was no evidence of this being known in the early part of Old Babylonian period.

And there is certainly no myth of Tiamat and Marduk in the older Sumerian literature. He is mention in Sumerian literature, but Marduk was a very minor god in Babylon, until the 16th century BC. There was no war in heaven or vying for powers in Sumerian legend.

There are several different versions of Sumerian myths where a god, sometimes Enlil and sometimes Enki, had created humans from clay or earth. There is even one in which humans were created by the goddess. And there were no war in any of them.

There are Sumerian versions and Akkadian-Babylonian versions in regarding to building of the ark-like boat, during the Deluge. When was Genesis composed? Centuries later, after these myths were composed, and you think that Hebrew created their own Creation and Flood myths? I don't think so, especially considering that stories of Gilgamesh and Ziusudra/Atrashasis/Uta-naphistim were known in as far west as Hittite Empire, Canaan, Syria and even in Egypt, from the evidences that clay tablets were found in all these regions. Many of these tablets may have been fragmented, but enough is recognisable that epic of Gilgamesh is recognisable and known in the region where Israel would later occupied by Joshua.

So spare me the excuse that the Hebrew came to their creation myths alone, without any influence by Sumerian/Babylonian/Egyptian.

Even the myth of Jesus in regarding to his resurrection, is not only derived from Mithra, but also from Egyptian myth about Osiris, Isis and Horus, long before any Christians wrote gospels and letters. There are also sins and cleansing of sin, self-sacrifice, resurrection and afterlife in heaven in Greece and Asia Minor, also centuries before the Christian Era.

Also note that those tablet stories that are in circulation are only but a fragment of what was "allowed" to be translated. There are doezens and doens more of these tablet stories. Who knows how much more of the bilical story these will tell.....
 

logician

Well-Known Member
W/O a supposed Adam, of course, we don't need a supposed Jesus as a supposed atonement for our "sins'. The whole shabang is a house of cards that falls flat with the slightest puff of wind.
 

Dunemeister

Well-Known Member
W/O a supposed Adam, of course, we don't need a supposed Jesus as a supposed atonement for our "sins'. The whole shabang is a house of cards that falls flat with the slightest puff of wind.
Again, that's false (although slightly off topic). The first 11 chapters of Revelation set up the problem, and the rest of the bible is the story of God's resolution of it. The problem, according to the first 11 chapters of Genesis, is our predilection for sin. The third chapter of Genesis portrays its introduction into creation in poetic form. Although expressed poetically, the problem is real. Christians hold that what happened to Jesus wasn't a freak accident, but an essential part of salvation history. It was a giant step forward toward the final resolution. You may not believe the accounts, of course, but a poetic expression of the problem does not entail a nonreal status of the referent.
 

Dirty Penguin

Master Of Ceremony
W/O a supposed Adam, of course, we don't need a supposed Jesus as a supposed atonement for our "sins'. The whole shabang is a house of cards that falls flat with the slightest puff of wind.

Even though I'm Atheist here's how I see it.....The biblical "Adam" has to be a "REAL" person. The bible talks about him as though he is real. In the book of Luke he is referred to as "The son of God". The supposed genealogy of man starts with him. If he is not real then the genealogy is a lie. If "adams" beginning, life and death are a metaphor then there is no such thing as "original sin" and maybe a very large portion of the bible is myth......

If you are a believer in the genealogy then how can you not believe the story to be literal? What evidence has been used to show that it should not be taken literally? And if it can't be taken literally then wouldn't that mean "adam" wouldn't have existed in the first place?

Logician...you may be on to something here. I see the biblical stories actually coming out of those that were written before it.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
If you look at Genesis 1 on the 6th day, God created man and woman. There were no first and second here, and they weren't given names. Only in Genesis 2, do we see woman was created after man.

The Genesis is contradictory, so do you believe the more dramatic storytelling version (2) or the the bland version (1)? Neither is believable, because of the amount of exaggeration in both versions, and the mythological aspect seemed derived from the older myth of Sumer.

I believe that those who think there are two stories about the same event are mistaken and that the reality is that there are two events. The Adam and Eve story is a beginning but not the very first beginning that is described earlier.
 

crystalonyx

Well-Known Member
Again, that's false (although slightly off topic). The first 11 chapters of Revelation set up the problem, and the rest of the bible is the story of God's resolution of it. The problem, according to the first 11 chapters of Genesis, is our predilection for sin. The third chapter of Genesis portrays its introduction into creation in poetic form. Although expressed poetically, the problem is real. Christians hold that what happened to Jesus wasn't a freak accident, but an essential part of salvation history. It was a giant step forward toward the final resolution. You may not believe the accounts, of course, but a poetic expression of the problem does not entail a nonreal status of the referent.

The book of Revelation was written by a madman, I don't think that can be used as referential.
 

Dunemeister

Well-Known Member
Even though I'm Atheist here's how I see it.....The biblical "Adam" has to be a "REAL" person. The bible talks about him as though he is real. In the book of Luke he is referred to as "The son of God". The supposed genealogy of man starts with him. If he is not real then the genealogy is a lie. If "adams" beginning, life and death are a metaphor then there is no such thing as "original sin" and maybe a very large portion of the bible is myth......

Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see the problem. Perhaps the original authors thought Adam was a person rather than a group. Let's assume for sake of argument that they were mistaken about that, and that the original "human" was actually a community that had evolved from a prehuman ancestor. Let's further assume that the point of the genealogies is to make a connection between the contemporary people of God and "Adam." How is the genealogy a lie? And how does this cast doubt on the Christian claims about Jesus? As far as I can tell, if Adam were a community rather than an individual, the point of Genesis and the genealogies is still the same. Ditto for the theological claims about Jesus. Please spell out exactly how an alternative understanding of "Adam" as a community calls into question Christian claims about Jesus.

Incidentally, I could take the first 11 chapters of Genesis as myth (actually, I do so take it) and still affirm its theological claims. On this point, too, I'm afraid I have no idea why logician would be on to anything. But perhaps that's because I'm not a logician? ;)
 

Dunemeister

Well-Known Member
The book of Revelation was written by a madman, I don't think that can be used as referential.

You say that only because you don't understand how the apocalyptic genre works. Perfectly understandable since you've been brought up in a culture that values "straightforward" (a.k.a. "simple") talk.
 

Dirty Penguin

Master Of Ceremony
Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see the problem.

I'm going to follow you down this rabbit hole to see where you wind up. When we are told about "original sin" we are told that it came from something adam and eve did. If this is true then they were regarded as real people.


Perhaps the original authors thought Adam was a person rather than a group.

That is exactly what they thought unless you have information to show they were not people but rather a collective.


Let's assume

Yea......Here's the problem right here. You're going to give your hypothesis and none of it can be confirmed by your own scripture.


Let's assume for sake of argument that they were mistaken about that, and that the original "human" was actually a community that had evolved from a prehuman ancestor.


Great...so now....you need to show evidence because the jews regarded adam as a real man and not a group.

Gen. 2:19
[FONT=Arial, Verdana, Helvetica] So the LORD God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam to see what (he) would call them, and Adam chose a name for each one.[/FONT]

It is meant as a person, singular, and not a group. The word that would have most likely been used to denote a group would have been (enowsh).

or even this one here;

Gen. 4:1
[FONT=Arial, Verdana, Helvetica]Now Adam* slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When the time came, she gave birth to Cain,* and she said, "With the LORD's help, I have brought forth* a man!"[/FONT]


The OT and the jews thought him to be a real physical man and not a group. It is true that the name "adam" means man or man kind but that was also the name of the man.

Gen. 5:3
When Adam was 130 years old, his son Seth was born, and Seth was the very image of his father.

Let's further assume that the point of the genealogies is to make a connection between the contemporary people of God and "Adam."

You assume too much. If you like assuming then do what you do but your scripture show that adam was thought of as a real physical man.


How is the genealogy a lie?

If you regard adam as a community (a group) then you don't know your own scripture the way you think you know it. In the book of Luke, the writer was not under some misguided impression that adam was a group. The genealogy pointed to a man. So if adam was a group then the statement of genealogy in Luke is incorrect. But we know that the "community" was not the father of Seth. Adam was the father of Seth and Eve was his mother. Now if Adam represented a group then what did Eve represent? They were both considered "real" people.

Luke 3:38
[FONT=Arial, Verdana, Helvetica]Kenan was the son of Enosh. Enosh was the son of Seth. Seth was the son of Adam. Adam was the son of God.[/FONT]


And how does this cast doubt on the Christian claims about Jesus?

Stated above....

As far as I can tell, if Adam were a community rather than an individual, the point of Genesis and the genealogies is still the same.

Nonsense......The Adam spoken of is a flesh and blood physical man.


Please spell out exactly how an alternative understanding of "Adam" as a community calls into question Christian claims about Jesus.

Well I never mentioned Yeshua here. We're talking about "original Sin" and its concepts. A concept that even the jews don't except. Your (what ifs, and assumptions) mean little in light of your very scripture describing Adam as a physical being. Even your Paul knew that. So Adam has to be a real person who performed a physical act in order for you to cling to original sin. If he was myth, as you assert, ("I could take the first 11 chapters of Genesis as myth - actually, I do so take it), then original sin has no weight.

1 Corinthians 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul.......
 

emiliano

Well-Known Member
Let throw in something that bother me in this account Gen 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.
Gen 1:27 And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.
These created Human are not call by names, jus males and females (it says them) this event is place in time the sixth day (God had previously created time in the fourth day). Then we find Gen 2:7 And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Gen 2:8 And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And there He put the man whom He had formed.
This man is named Adam and it’s on his own for a period of time Gen 2:15 And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Gen 2:18 And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.
Gen 2:21 And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh underneath.
Gen 2:22 And Jehovah God made the rib (which He had taken from the man) into a woman. And He brought her to the man.
The participants of this thread seem to be knowledgeable, questions: Are these to accounts?
 

emiliano

Well-Known Member
Augustine has been mention as the inventor of the original sin concept, I found this in the internet Religions
»
Christianity
»
Beliefs
St Augustine and original sin
Printable Version
St Augustine and original sin
St Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, in what is now Algeria, from 396 to 430. He was one of the greatest theologians in history and his ideas still influence Christian thought today.
Although he didn't invent the doctrine of original sin, his ideas about it dominated Western Church teaching.
Augustine's theory shows great understanding of human psychology. It provides an explanation for human suffering and guilt by teaching that those human beings somehow deserved these things.
Human beings deserve to suffer because the first parents sinned. And since humanity deserves the bad things it gets humanity can comfort itself with the idea that it has a just rather than an unjust God.
This made the presence of evil in the world easier to understand, and answered the question of why a benevolent God would allow such a state of affairs to exist.
Augustine's theory
Augustine saw original sin as working in two ways:
inherited guilt for a crime
spiritual sickness or weakness
Augustine thought that humanity was originally perfect ("man's nature was created at first faultless and without any sin"), immortal and blessed with many talents, but that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and introduced sin and death to the world.
Augustine didn't see any need to provide a good reason why Adam, who had originally been created perfect, chose to sin, or why God hadn't created a perfect being that was incapable of sin.
As far as Augustine was concerned the point was that Adam had sinned and humanity had to deal with the consequences.
Modern people would think it unjust that human beings should suffer for something that happened long before they existed, but to people in Augustine's time the idea of punishing later generations for their parents' crimes was familiar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/originalsin_7.shtml
 

emiliano

Well-Known Member
Augustine has been mentioned as the inventor of the original sin concept, I found this in the internet Religions
»
Christianity
»
Beliefs
St Augustine and original sin
Printable Version
St Augustine and original sin
St Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, in what is now Algeria, from 396 to 430. He was one of the greatest theologians in history and his ideas still influence Christian thought today.
Although he didn't invent the doctrine of original sin, his ideas about it dominated Western Church teaching.
Augustine's theory shows great understanding of human psychology. It provides an explanation for human suffering and guilt by teaching that those human beings somehow deserved these things.
Human beings deserve to suffer because the first parents sinned. And since humanity deserves the bad things it gets humanity can comfort itself with the idea that it has a just rather than an unjust God.
This made the presence of evil in the world easier to understand, and answered the question of why a benevolent God would allow such a state of affairs to exist.
Augustine's theory
Augustine saw original sin as working in two ways:
inherited guilt for a crime
spiritual sickness or weakness
Augustine thought that humanity was originally perfect ("man's nature was created at first faultless and without any sin"), immortal and blessed with many talents, but that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and introduced sin and death to the world.
Augustine didn't see any need to provide a good reason why Adam, who had originally been created perfect, chose to sin, or why God hadn't created a perfect being that was incapable of sin.
As far as Augustine was concerned the point was that Adam had sinned and humanity had to deal with the consequences.
Modern people would think it unjust that human beings should suffer for something that happened long before they existed, but to people in Augustine's time the idea of punishing later generations for their parents' crimes was familiar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/originalsin_7.shtml
 

crystalonyx

Well-Known Member
It is true that technically you must be a creationist to believe Christianity and it's ideas of original sin, no matter how watered down some of the "Christians" on here try to make it.
 

Scott1

Well-Known Member
It is true that technically you must be a creationist to believe Christianity and it's ideas of original sin, no matter how watered down some of the "Christians" on here try to make it.
I believe that God created everything... but make no claim to know how He did it... does that make me a "creationist"?

... and 9 outa 10 Christians couldn't tell you what original sin means, let alone "must" believe it to be a Christian.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
Let throw in something that bother me in this account Gen 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.
Gen 1:27 And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.
These created Human are not call by names, jus males and females (it says them) this event is place in time the sixth day (God had previously created time in the fourth day). Then we find Gen 2:7 And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Gen 2:8 And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And there He put the man whom He had formed.
This man is named Adam and it’s on his own for a period of time Gen 2:15 And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Gen 2:18 And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.
Gen 2:21 And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh underneath.
Gen 2:22 And Jehovah God made the rib (which He had taken from the man) into a woman. And He brought her to the man.
The participants of this thread seem to be knowledgeable, questions: Are these to accounts?

"them" could refer to one male and one female.

I believe that they are and that they represent two different events but one could make a case for the second account to be a more detailed account of what happened in the first account.

There is evidence to support the notion that Adam and Eve were not alone on the earth: Ge 6:2that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.

My theory is this: THe earth and everything else was created millions of years ago and man has inhabited the earth in cyles of good and evil. In a cycle of good there is no evil on the earth but there is no childbirth or death. Such people can be considered gods or sons of God. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve back into a childbirth state which allows those spirits who have chosen evil back on the earth so that a cycle of evil is established until God decides to end the cycle of evil and reestablish a cycle of good again. So in that sense the existence of sin in the world has its origen in the actions of Adam and Eve having children (Not that sex is sinful in itself) but what may not be made clear is that the origin of sin is the rebellion of the Devil against God and sinful spirits are those who have believed the lies of the Devil instead of believing the truth of God.
 

Dunemeister

Well-Known Member
I'm going to follow you down this rabbit hole to see where you wind up. When we are told about "original sin" we are told that it came from something adam and eve did. If this is true then they were regarded as real people.

That is exactly what they thought unless you have information to show they were not people but rather a collective.

I agree. In the bible, they were so regarded. I just think that this interpretation of the case is mistaken, or at least it could well be mistaken in light of what science has told us about our origins. And if it's mistaken, it's no skin off my nose and does no harm to the doctrine of original sin. "Original sin" teaches us that our deplorable condition of sin is something that we have inherited from our forebears. The exact details of how it happened are expressed in poetic form in Genesis. I simply don't take the first 11 chapters of Genesis to be a strictly journalistic account of what happened. It's a combination of saga, myth, and poetry.

Yea......Here's the problem right here. You're going to give your hypothesis and none of it can be confirmed by your own scripture.

It's only a problem if you view the scriptures as inerrant. I don't.

Great...so now....you need to show evidence because the jews regarded adam as a real man and not a group.

Gen. 2:19
[FONT=Arial, Verdana, Helvetica] So the LORD God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam to see what (he) would call them, and Adam chose a name for each one.[/FONT]

It is meant as a person, singular, and not a group. The word that would have most likely been used to denote a group would have been (enowsh).

or even this one here;

Gen. 4:1
[FONT=Arial, Verdana, Helvetica]Now Adam* slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When the time came, she gave birth to Cain,* and she said, "With the LORD's help, I have brought forth* a man!"[/FONT]


The OT and the jews thought him to be a real physical man and not a group. It is true that the name "adam" means man or man kind but that was also the name of the man.

Gen. 5:3
When Adam was 130 years old, his son Seth was born, and Seth was the very image of his father.



You assume too much. If you like assuming then do what you do but your scripture show that adam was thought of as a real physical man.

I've no doubt about all of this. I fully accept that the biblical text conceives of Adam as a man. However, it's also possible to locate poetic features of the text that make one wonder whether it's actually to be taken as a journalistic narrative. It's epic and mythic features, for example, and certainly the disparities between Genesis 1 and 2, the talking snake in chapter 3, etc., all point to the fact that the text is indeed talking about history, but it is doing so by employing theological symbols and poetic devices. As a result, it is possible to be more flexible with the text than taking it at face value. And in order to accommodate certain scientific discoveries, that flexibility is necessary.

If you regard adam as a community (a group) then you don't know your own scripture the way you think you know it. In the book of Luke, the writer was not under some misguided impression that adam was a group. The genealogy pointed to a man. So if adam was a group then the statement of genealogy in Luke is incorrect. But we know that the "community" was not the father of Seth. Adam was the father of Seth and Eve was his mother. Now if Adam represented a group then what did Eve represent? They were both considered "real" people.

Luke 3:38
[FONT=Arial, Verdana, Helvetica]Kenan was the son of Enosh. Enosh was the son of Seth. Seth was the son of Adam. Adam was the son of God.[/FONT]

I happen to know this passage in Luke. And it does absolutely nothing to bolster the view that Adam must have been a real man. For in ancient genealogies, "son of" means "descendent of" and could represent several generations. (I leave for homework the task of finding a much better text from the Acts of the Apostles.)

Eve would have represented female humanity and Adam would have represented male humanity on my view.

If [Adam] was myth, as you assert, ("I could take the first 11 chapters of Genesis as myth - actually, I do so take it), then original sin has no weight.

First, I don't say Adam was a myth. I said that the referent of the word "Adam" could well be a community rather than a single human being. Original sin means that we have inherited our deplorable sinful conditions from our forbears all the way back to our original parents, whether you conceive those as individuals or as a community. I honestly don't see why you're getting so exercised over this. All I've said is that if I change the referent of "Adam" to a community rather than to a single person, our sin derives from that community rather than from an individual. It seems to work both ways, and apart from people decrying otherwise, I've yet to hear a sound argument why my proposal has no merit. So far, I've only heard that the bible conceives Adam as a single person. I agree but think that this may simply be a pre-scientific way of viewing the world that may have to be adjusted in light of what we have come to know about our actual origins.

1 Corinthians 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul.......

This wasn't the text I had in mind for homework, but it'll serve. All this shows is that Paul thought of Adam as a single person. But for my argument (and Paul's) to succeed, we need not think of him that way.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
You'll have to convince me that the authors considered Adam to be a real individual. Because the Hebrew certainly doesn't read that way. this isn't a history lesson, it's a theological treatment.
A'dam means "human being."
 

crystalonyx

Well-Known Member
I believe that God created everything... but make no claim to know how He did it... does that make me a "creationist"?

... and 9 outa 10 Christians couldn't tell you what original sin means, let alone "must" believe it to be a Christian.

Just because they don't know their own religion still doesn't negate the technicality.
 
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