Importance of Original Sin

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Take responsibility for a nature God decided to give them?

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This wouldn't even pass a grand jury, never mind result in a conviction.

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The topic isn't really about whose to blame for why man is the way he is.My position and I think jar's is that the A&E story was created to try and explain why man is the way he is. It isn't describing an actual event.Paul wanted to say that we have always been the way we are, so he used the creation story for a visual. I don't have an issue with that.Jesus didn't use the idea of original sin to spread the good news. Paul used Adam to make an argument that we've always been able to sin, but he could still make that argument without the creation story. Someone could still make that argument today by using evolution. Not as interesting a story, but it could be done.The Doctrine of Original Sin came into play through reinterpretation of the creation story by Greek church fathers. Message 25Jesus came for the lost sheep of Israel, not the Gentiles. The creation story wasn't essential to Judaism and wasn't essential to Jesus' message. His message would be the same without it.The OT doesn't support that the messiah was coming to save people from their sinful nature.I agree that apologetics and evangelicals probably need the concept, but Jesus didn't and I don't feel Paul did either.

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Jesus gave the physical life of His earthly perfect body on the cross to restore mankind to the right relationship the first man formed from the dust of the ground had with God in the garden before he disobeyed God and ate the fruit from the forbidden tree.

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The Jewish religion began with Abraham. The Jewish relationship with God began with Abraham, not Adam, because Abraham (according to legend) reasoned that there was only one God.One's relationship with God is right when one is behaving appropriately. If you really have to look at Adam and Eve as real people, their relationship with God wasn't due to having no sin nature. They already had the sin nature. The whole point of the OT is that when his people misbehave, God hides his face and they suffer; and when his people behave, he blesses them. The same thing happened to Adam and Eve.The sacrifices in the OT didn't make people right with God, repentance did. Continued right behavior. That's what Jesus and Paul taught. No one else can restore our "right relationship" with God except us through repentance and continued right behavior.Since Jesus didn't present himself as a sacrifice to patch mankind's relationship with God, the creation story only impacts those who feel the story is real or have learned that our operating system was different than they are now.It is clear that the importance of the creation story to some Christians is a later development, not something that Jesus or Paul presented.

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PurpleDawn writes:

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The Jewish religion began with Abraham

And what does that have to do with the relationship of the man who was formed from the dust of the ground and God?

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There was no real relationship with Adam. The God of the OT and the NT is the God of Abraham, not the God of Adam.

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purpledawn writes:

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One's relationship with God is right when one is behaving appropriately.

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Do you have text to support that assertion?

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All these scriptures refute your assertion.

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They don't really. A sentence can be misleading. Paul makes very long drawn out arguments. One has to find the point of his argument.We have to remember that Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. He was trying to bring these people into the family of the God of Abraham. Paul's overall point is that the Jews weren't chosen because of their stellar behavior. Abraham believed in the one God and God chose to protect Abraham and his descendants. But...within that chosen group those who were in right standing with the God of Abraham were the ones who were behaving.Paul presents the Gentiles as adopted into that family. His argument is that they weren't adopted in because of stellar behavior, but through belief just like Abraham. (Romans 4) But...being part of the family also means one has to behave according to the rules of the family. All are loved, but all are to behave or suffer the consequences. (Romans 6-7)Getting into God's family takes belief, but being in right standing with God takes right behavior. Unbelief gets one removed from the family, not wrong behavior. (Romans 11) Now we may have a different idea of what right standing means, but either way the message is the same. If one feels that right standing means in the family, then belief gets us there. If one feels that right standing means God isn't angry with us, then right behavior gets us there.

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The story has been part of God's message to mankind every since He told the story to Moses and told him to write it down. Moses spent 40 days with God on mount Sinai during which time He told Moses many things.

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But it hasn't. Tradition says that Moses wrote the Torah not the writings in the Bible. Even before Jesus was born some Jews knew the Torah wasn't as old as tradition led them to believe.In the book entitled "A History of the Jews" by Paul Johnson, Johnson notes that intellectual Jewish Reformers, about 170 bce, understood that the Law they had was not very old and did not go back to the time of Moses and they found the Torah full of fables. (Page 101)Like all creation stories, it is a nice tradition to pass on, but of all the 613 commands that the Jews pulled from the Torah, not one came from the A&E story. Only one came from the Genesis 1 story and that was to be fruitful and multiply. Don't really need a law for that.

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That is the reason God had to come down to Earth in the form of a man we call Jesus and offer Himself a sacrifice for mankind to restore us to a right relationship with God.

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Yes Jesus came to restore right relationship with God, but through repentance. That's why his message was to repent and be baptized. Right behavior cancels out the memory of wrong behavior. His death did not restore right relationship with God, just as the animal sacrifices didn't restore right relationship with God. Repentance is the key and always has been in the Bible. There is no indication that Jesus or Paul were trying to restore all humanity to a "Garden of Eden" state.Jesus wanted the members of the family to start behaving better and Paul wanted Gentiles adopted into the family and behaving better once they were in.The creation story isn't necessary for that message. There's nothing in the Bible that presents God as a being who wanted man not to be able to make mistakes.That's why I feel the absence of the creation story wouldn't impact the message of Jesus or Paul.The idea of the Original Sin issue came from the idea that flesh is bad and spiritual is good. If the creation story wasn't part of the Bible, they could still have developed that idea. The Greeks did and they didn't have our creation story.I do agree that the creation story is important to those who feel it was an actual event, but it doesn't change the value of one's belief if one sees it as a myth.IMO, we are adopted into the family because of true unconditional belief, not because we want to avoid supposed consequences. Abraham didn't believe to avoid consequences. We behave to avoid consequences.

If you feel the creation story is a myth, why continue to ask questions as though it is real?

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Just because something is not in the text does not mean it can not be inferred from the text.

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Yes, you can infer what you want with any story, but then you are adding to the story just as others do.According to the story, God did not send the snake to Eve; and Adam wasn't tricked.If you feel this is a myth, then you should understand that the characters in the story are consistent with the characteristics of humans.

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Is this your religion or a children's book? Is there a difference?

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This is a tribal story. Even within the Bible writings we can see that religion wasn't quite the same in the tribal days as it is today.

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Seriously, are you just arguing for the fun of arguing or do you actually believe this nonsense?

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This is the religious side of the forum, he can believe it is real all he wants. This thread isn't about proving that the story is fact or fiction. You believe it is myth as I do, but he believes it is fact. Other Christians believe it is a myth and are still Christians. Writings don't have to be factual to be used to teach.I don't see that your line of discussion makes a case either way.
Do you feel that if the story is fact is it more important to the concept of original sin than if it is fiction or vice versa?Origen, one of the early christian scholars, felt the creation stories were myth, but that didn't stop him from inferring certain things from the story and using Adam to represent a type when it comes to original sin. De Principiis (Book IV) by Origen IMO, there is much more to the development of the idea of original sin than the creation stories. It takes some reading.

The A&E story is not really about relationships, IMO. It isn't uncommon for ancient stories to portray the subject of the story speaking with their respective gods.These are stories told in a way that they are easy to remember. That Adam & Eve talked with God isn't the point of the story.God is presented as the God of Abraham in the old and new testaments. IMO, the writers understood the creation stories for what they were, stories.Judaism began with Abraham, not Adam. That's why I feel the creation stories would not adversely impact Judaism or the msgs presented by Jesus and Paul if the stories were not in the Bible or deemed fiction.

This is a debate, not twenty questions. My position is that the Jewish religion is not dependent on the creation stories or the concept of original sin. The Jewish religion started with Abraham.

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You do not think that Paul, the author of about 13 of the 27 New Testament books, did not consider the account of God's involvement with Adam as history ?

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(How many books Paul authored is not my main point. But whether Romans and the Corinthians letters consider the Adam and Eve story as history or not)

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No I don't feel Paul considered the A&E story to be history. As I said, the Jewish religion began with Abraham.

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Isn't this a call of God in the OT to all the world to look to Him for salvation ? Isn't this a declaration that all peoples universally are subject to His salvation and authority ?

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The Bible stories are local, not planetary. Not The PlanetI don't see that this line of questioning has anything to do with the importance of the original sin doctrine to Judaism or Christianity?

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It may be true that God's covenant with the seed of Abraham starts with Abraham. However, it is arguable that one should insist nothing pre-dating Abraham can be vitally related to Judiams. After all the God in Judaism is the Creator of the world. And some backround is necessary TO Judaism in order to establish that Yahweh is the Creator and the only God.

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The foundational myths would continue whether they were in the Bible or not. My point is that removing the A&E story from the Bible, or deeming it fiction would not change the fundamentals of Judaism. You haven't shown me that it would.I also stated that removing the A&E story from the Bible or deeming the A&E story to be fiction would not change the messages presented by Jesus or Paul. You haven't shown me that it would.The original sin doctrine is a later creation influenced by Platonism. Message 25

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It is obvious that Paul considered the story of Adam and Eve to be crucial facts to the history of the world. I would say that Paul considered Adam as historical a figure as he considered Jesus Christ as a historical figure.

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No you can't tell from his writings if he personally felt the A&E story was fact or fiction.Paul used Adam as an example of disobedience contrasted with Christ's obedience. As I showed in Message 16, it is not uncommon for people to use fictional characters to make a point. Adam represented disobedience. As I presented to you in Message 44, the A&E story is not the foundation of Paul's argument. His argument would be the same whether he mentioned Adam or not. If you disagree, explain how Paul's message would change without the use of Adam to make his point.

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This sounds planatery in scope to me:

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For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day; therefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it." (Exo. 20:11)

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This reference to "heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them" conveys the whole world in any modern vanacular understanding.

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Except that the writers weren't today's modern man. They were men who lived in a time when the planet wasn't known. We have to understand what they were saying to their audience. Their audience would not have visualized a planet with those words.If you want to argue about whether the words referred to a planet or just the local area, go to the thread entitled Not The Planet. Show me there that the authors had a planetary understanding. Even if one feels that God dictated the story, God would be using a word that had no meaning to the people of the day. If today's translators wanted us to understand that the writers were talking about the planet, they would use the word planet or capitalize the world Earth to signify the planet. In modern vernacular, that is what tells us that it is the planet.I still don't see what the planetary issue has to do with the positions I've presented concerning the A&E story and the original sin doctrine.

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I am not sure how you are defining "myth". But you are a priori assuming that early Genesis is that.

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I use the definition in the dictionary. I have not made an assumption that has no evidence to back it up. If you wish to discuss why the Christian creation myth should be considered true over any other creation myth, then proceed to the appropriate thread. Why prefer the Biblical creation account over those of other religions?.

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I suppose a thread could be dedicated to you demonstrating what is so unmythic about God appearing and talking to Abraham.

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That is not my position. My position is that Judaism doesn't rest on the creation stories. It can survive without them if they disappeared or are considered fiction.This thread is about the creation stories and the importance of original sin.

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You may have a point that personal piety in a framework of Judaism is not damaged much. But I the overall historic relevance of God's move with the Jews is greatly weakened by your decision to amputate pre-Genesis 12 from serious historic consideration.

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Maybe you can say, "I can be a good pious Hebrew without early Genesis." But I think something beyond personal piety is intended in the whole account of the book of Genesis.

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I haven't amputated anything. The religion doesn't rely on the Adam and Eve story.

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Sure, one can argue that he can go off and "do good things" and be pious without Genesis 1 - 11.

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The whole historical backround of the need of mankind for salvation is weakened.

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Show me how it is weakened. If the religion wasn't based on the A&E story, how can its absence or viewing it as fiction weaken the religion?Even with Jesus and Paul, the idea of original sin is a later concept. They didn't present it so how can their message be weakened when their messages didn't rely on the story anyway?

Please stick to the topic. If you want to discuss current events or politics, please go to the Coffee House or Free for All.Please stick to the point of this thread and the positions actually presented by participants.Thanks

That humans are capable of behaving badly is not the issue. The issue is the Doctrine of Original sin.I showed in Message 25 that the doctrine is a later development by reinterpreting the A&E story.

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Where else would the writer get the vital information - "For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it."

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The rule to rest on the seventh day came from Exodus 23 written by the E writer, which was written before the Genesis 1 creation story according to Friedman's Documentary Hypothesis.The parts of the Exodus story connecting the Sabbath with creation were written by the Priestly writer.So their rule for resting on the Sabbath doesn't hang on the Creation story.