Is there Biblical support for the concept of "Original Sin"?

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Even in that passage Paul admits that he is being imprecise and inaccurate.
  —jar

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No, that's not what he says.

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So even Paul admits that sin existed before any law or commandment existed, but he provides nothing to support even that position.

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The passage gets even more confusing because he then goes on to say that Adam is the pattern of the one to come.

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It seems that Paul is making a claim that sin and death only existed because of Adam.
  —jar

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No, you're missing the flow of Paul's argument in Rom 5:12ff. Try reading another translation: Here's my paraphrase/explanation of v. 12-14:Sin and death entered the human race through Adam and Eve. All people are guilty of sin, hence all people die. People sinned between the time of Adam to Moses, before the law was given, but these sins could not be counted against them since they had not yet received the law. Yet they died anyway, and we know that death is the penalty for sin. So why did they die? Because even though they did not break a command like Adam did, they inherited the guilt that he incurred for doing so.Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.

Remember, I was summarizing Paul's argument. Whether or not you or I agree with his argument is irrelevant.Paul established in v. 12 that death is the penalty for sin. So in v. 13-14 he has to explain why the people between the times of Adam and Moses died when they didn't actually break any laws. His argument seems to be that they incurred the penalty for sin by virtue of their being descendants of Adam.

The main question of the OP is the thread title, "Is there Biblical support for the concept of 'Original Sin'?" Romans 5 is part of the Bible. So if Paul teaches the concept in Rom 5, the answer to this question must be "yes", whether we agree with Paul's reasoning or not. Our agreement or disagreement with Paul is irrelevant to the question of what he teaches.

Sorry, but I cannot and will not twist the English language as you desire."Biblical support" for a specific position is generally understood to mean explicit biblical teaching for the position, implicit biblical teaching for the position (e.g. the Trinity), or other biblically-based arguments in support of the position. Any teaching of any biblical author has biblical support, by definition.

Good question. This seems to be the crux of the thread. This is an interesting question, and your links to Overstreet provide some interesting history. But while Platonism could have influenced some of the way the doctrine has been stated historically, I cannot agree with Overstreet's position that the doctrine is unbiblical. Overstreet and his mentor Charles Finney were overly rationalistic and highly heterodox (non-orthodox), verging on the heretical. Why do you view "a sinful nature" as equivalent to "capable of disobedience?" I view "capability" and "inclination" as two different things. Yes, sin is personified in Gen 4. But in Paul's usage in Rom 5 it does not seem to be only an action; sin seems to be both an action and a state. All humans after Adam are born into a state of sin; their actions are an inevitable consequence of their state.

You, I, and everyone else are capable of doing lots of things that we are not inclined to do. As I read the Bible, Adam was created capable of sin, but not with an irresistible inclination to sin. He had a choice, and he made the wrong one. OK, it seems my use of the word "state" was misleading. Your usage is more standard, but that's not how I was using the term.So change "state" to "condition," "character," or "nature" in my quote above. Paul seems to use the word "sin" in two different ways. One is to refer to individual sinful actions. The other is to refer to a sinful condition, nature, character, or propensity.I don't believe that Adam is portrayed as originally having a sinful nature; he was created innocent. His sin was not inevitable; he had a choice.

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But they did choose to obey, they obeyed the most recent authority figure.

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You seem to expect them to understand that it is right to obey the God character in the story but wrong to obey the serpent character in the story.

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Until after they gained the knowledge and capability to distinguish right from wrong, they were incapable of mak9ing the decisions you seem to expect.
  —jar

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To continue your "child" analogy, God is analogous to the loving father who spends time with his children and cares for them. They know him well and should trust him: The serpent is analogous to an evil adult who tries to prey on children. He twists the wording of God's prohibition, confuses Eve about what God has said, then questions God's motives.Like children today, Adam and Eve should have trusted the loving parent who they knew. Instead, they listened to the evil predator who they did not know. Even though a child can't discern the motivations or intentions of an evil predator, he can trust his loving parent. The Genesis account seems to be portrayed more as an issue of trust than as an issue of needing to discern right from wrong.

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Nor is there anything in the story that supports some original sin that then was passed down generation to generation.

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There were consequences, and those consequences are listed, but none of the listed consequences involves some inherited sin.
  —jar

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Are you sure? Have you read Genesis recently?The literary flow of the book seems to say that Adam and Eve unleashed a series of problems that only got worse and worse. First one of their sons killed another. Then civilization continued to go downhill until God wiped them out and started over. But it soon started downhill again. So God called out a small group to work with more directly.Note that part of the curse was: and just before Cain killed Abel, God told him: The Hebrew doesn't render well in many translations, but the author of Genesis uses the same Hebrew wording in both places. Eve would have a controlling desire for Adam; sin had a controlling desire for Cain. The author is intentionally and pointedly tying Cain's sin back to the curse on Eve.And look at the descriptions of the offspring in Gen 5: Adam was made in God's likeness. But Adam's son isn't said to be in God's likeness; he is in Adam's likeness. Why the change in wording? I believe the author is implying that Adam's nature has changed since his original creation. Seth is created like Adam after the Fall, not like Adam originally was.These details imply ongoing effects to mankind as a result of Adam's sin. And the overall literary flow of Genesis says that Adam and Eve opened a "Pandora's box" that they could not close. Genesis alone doesn't give us Paul's full teaching on original sin, but it seems to have contributed to his development of the doctrine.

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First, Paul based his argument on Genesis 2&3. That is where he looked for support.

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Please show us where Paul insists on pulling Gen 2&3 out of the context of the rest of Genesis? Paul was trained by the rabbis, and tended to view things in a very broad context.

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BUT... what do any of those have to do with original sin?

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I thought this was obvious?!?Adam and Eve sinned. As a result, they were cursed by God. Cain's sin is connected to the curse by the author of Genesis, and hence to the "original sin" of Adam and Eve.

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Perhaps they should, but little children do NOT know that, it is one of the things that they learn as they learn about right and wrong.

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So in your world a little child is no more likely to trust a loving parent than a predatory stranger? He has no reason or inclination to trust the parent over the stranger?

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First you are talking about an eleven day old child in a garden where everything was good and created for him, im guesssing god forgot to mention to them do not listen to the snake it is the one evil, bad, manipulating thing here from where should adam or eve get the idea that some strangers are not good to listen to. How many 11 YEAR old children get lured to pedophiles homes on one or a nother lie?

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But Adam did know something about the nature of the animals according to the story: In the Hebrew context, a name corresponds to the character or nature of the thing named. The "naming" suggests that Adam knew something about the nature of the serpent. In particular, he should have known what the narrator tells us in 3:1 But you could make a case that Eve didn't know these things as well as Adam did. She wasn't around when Adam named the animals.

The sin wasn't becoming more like God. The sin was the direct disobedience of God, and the desire to make oneself like God (c.f. Is 14:12-17). How did the serpent help Adam and Eve? He got them kicked out of the garden!According to the account, God had placed man in an idyllic garden. But man was not satisfied with this; he wanted to make himself like God. He tried to do this in the garden, and tried to do it again at Babel. The Genesis account portrays these attempts to make oneself like God as very bad, not as beneficial.

Correct; Paul made no direct reference to these. No, these are part of the biblical context in which Paul was trained; they are relevant to understanding how Paul interpreted the events in the garden. Yes and no. The text says that Eve desired the fruit and its promised results (3:6). Eating the fruit was in direct disobedience to God. As stated in the NET Bible notes, "The temptation is to overstep divinely established boundaries." Correct. Yes, but banishment WAS a secondary effect of their disobedience. If they had not disobeyed, they would not have been banished. Correct; I see this as an unsupported straw-man position. I have yet to see a good historical-grammatical-literary argument from the text to the effect that Adam and Eve were not able to trust or obey God (or to sin) before eating the fruit.

I have not claimed this. I don't see where the text implies it. I don't see a need to address it.

Not what I said.To rephrase and clarify: I have not claimed, nor do I see where the text (either Genesis or Romans) implies that becoming more like God is considered to be a "fall" or a "sin".Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.