Bible Question: What was the First Sin?

tradition on this question varies. reform jews (whom i am inclined to agree with) support your point. but just for a devil's advocate argument, and because i'm truly curious --why is knowledge, or an informed opinion, necessary to follow orders? why does the decision have to be meaningful in order for it to count?while today we'd like to think that god is fair, and would only weigh sins against us that we were aware of, what in the text would indicate that this is the case? everything about the story (book, library...) indicates a very unfair god in many places. and god certainly seemed pretty pissed at adam and chavah. he punishes the serpent (who concievably DID know better), but he also punishes chavah (who in your reading justifiably blames the serpent) and punishes adam (who blames god himself) as well. the whole message of the story seems to be that they are indeed responsible for their actions, and shifting blame because they didn't know better just isn't going to cut it.if this is so, maybe it's best we read "the tree of knowledge" as something a bit more powerful than simply "the ability to choose" as they had that choice in the first place -- or at least treated that way by god.thoughts?

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...well, that's just the problem, isn't it? adam and chavah do NOT follow orders, because more accurate information is provided, and they make a choice based on it. chavah looks, sees the serpent is correct in his statements about the fruit, and after eating some (thus being maximally informed in either reading) takes it to here husband.they are given a direct order to not touch the fruit, and they decide that the reasoning behind the order is not just. they do not blindly obey god, and they are punished for it.

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indeed. the story really is a paradox. do you follow orders that are flawed, or disobey them based on correct information? damned either way. well, that's just the problem. they're either responsible, or they're not. god seems to hold them responsible.i think a more correct reading might be that adam and chavah were created with choice already (otherwise, why give them instructions?) and that the tree and the serpent represent that ability to choose as the negatives. but they do not grant the choice itself -- instead, the tree grants something special that truly makes the man and the woman godlike, but isn't necessarily handed down.it might be that this betrays part of the etiological significance of the tale -- but it functions as so many etiologies it might not have been intended to be read that way anyways. i'm not sure. it's a tough question.

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quote:

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And the serpent said unto the woman: 'Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.' And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise...

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the serpent tells her it's not poison, and it'll mke her wise. she looks at it, and sees that he's right. at least, that's what it seems to say. well, as above, she seems to verify it first. and even so, if it WAS poison, she certainly wouldn't have taken it to her husband. since that decision is made AFTER eating the fruit it has to be informed in any manner of speaking. that part is definitely sin, regardless how we look at it.

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well, no, what i mean is that it seems like they could make reasobaly informed choices before eating the fruit. chavah does not blindly follow the serpent, she looks and judges for herself upon hearing the alternative. and both are punished for shifting blame. well, yes, but then it is simply the presence of the tree and of the serpent that gives them a meaningful choice, not the knowledge from the tree itself. see what i mean?traditional qabalists ascribe a different kind of knowledge to the tree altogether: procreative, sexual, godly knowledge, not your average human intellect. i'm not saying this is a more appropriate reading, of course, just that there are other alternatives that should probably be considered as well.

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that's a valid question. (aren't we all sort of like children consulting one another to god? or maybe not, we seem to be able to argue him down later on in the bible) might have been, but she eats before she gives it to him. though it says their eyes were openned after they both ate. there's some suggestion that he wasn't there, and she brought it to him, and he had no idea what he was eating. i'm not sure that idea stands, though.

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indeed, god does not indicate the true consequences, instead telling them they will die. well, that's definitely part of it. though we will never know if god still would have punished them if they stood up and took responsibility and apologized.

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this is actually a tough question. it's easy to jump to the conclusion that the serpent is satan, as that's what the dogma tells us. it's also easy to say "now hold on, it doesn't actually say that, and it seems to explain something about snakes the animals."the truth, i think, is somewhere in the middle.the serpent functions as a temptation, giving him a role similar to satan. by the intertestimental period, people were reading the serpent as satan, as evidences by some of the various pseudepigraphical texts. the problem is that the satan himself doesn't seem to have been invented until pretty late in jewish mythology. granted, just before the torah was put together -- but he's not in the source documents or legends that inspired them. there is also the tradition of surrounding cultures that treated snakes as evil spirits.what seems to have happened with the torah is that the authors took a lot of hints from mythology, and then stripped their stories of anything too polytheistic very carefully. an evil spirit in the form of a serpent was likely borrowed from other mesopotamian traditions, but editted down to be "just a snake." satan, possibly, comes out of similar traditions. so the two may in fact be related.but it's hard to say.

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