jaywill writes:
The Bible is talking about Adam's temptation to be independent from God.
That isn't what it says.
jaywill writes:
And if Adam was so eager to "take responsibility for his own life" WHY did he seek to immediately shift the blame to everyone else ?
I didn't say he was eager to take responsibility. I said that responsibility was thrust upon him by God as the natural consequence of his actions.
It was
God who wanted him to take responsibility.
We are to ones who should be eager to take responsibility, to be more like God.
jaywill writes:
If you wanted to sing the praises of personal responsibility over against religious scapegoating, I could think of much better portions of the Scripture to make that point.
We're not talking about other portions of scripture; we're talking about this one. And I'm not trying to make a point; I'm just pointing out what the scripture says.
jaywill writes:
As much as you would like it to read that the earth was filled with noble and good people all who had the knowledge of good and evil, that was NOT the result of Adam's leadership in taking of that forbidden fruit.
I have never said that anybody is noble or good. I have said that we are
responsible for being as good and noble as we possibly can be. Our struggle to be good is dependent on the knowledge of good and evil.
And Adam didn't "lead" anybody.
jaywill writes:
Do you not become aware that certain cravings are IN you but you close the door that they may not get deeper into your psychology and your chosen actions ?
They didn't have a lot of interior partitions in Biblical times or rooms within rooms. It's more likely that the "door" image refers to the (one) entrance to the house.
jaywill writes:
The account makes a point of it that all the following descendents DIED like Adam DIED.
All humans die. There's no significance in the fact that Adam died. There's nothing in the account to suggest that he wouldn't have died without eating the fruit.
What is significant is
when he died. He
didn't die when God said he would die. God either lied or changed His mind.
jaywill writes:
Do you think eating of the forbidden fruit had nothing to do with Adam dying ?
Clearly not, since he didn't die until many years later.
jaywill writes:
And why did all his descendents die ?
All humans die. They didn't "inherit" death from Adam.
jaywill writes:
Which do you believe, it didn't cause them to die or it didn't until another day
There's no contradiction there. The fruit didn't cause them to die. They died another day from another cause.
jaywill writes:
It seems that what you are really after is some way to diminish the honor of God in your interpretation of this story.
All I'm after is to read the story as written. If the story seems to diminish God's honour that's the story's fault, not mine. If you want to read God's honour
into the story that's fine, but you have to mangle the story to do it.
jaywill writes:
But being restricted to Genesis in this Bible Study is your hang up and not mine.
Not at all. You said you could make a case for original sin from Genesis alone, didn't you?
If original sin originated in Genesis, than we have to understand what the Genesis story says before going farther afield. If Paul agrees with Genesis that's fine. If he disagrees, we have to figure out whether Paul is wrong or Genesis is wrong.
jaywill writes:
The Old Testament says that from birth man goes astray.
Yup. What it doesn't say is that Adam is to blame.
jaywill writes:
It is no wonder that you feel the need to amputate the book of Genesis from the rest of the Bible so that you may spin it to teach something practically opposite of what it says in some important places.
There's no need to "amputate" what is already separate. What we do need to avoid is cobbling together a Frankenstein monster out of every part of the Bible.
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