EvC Forum: Bible Question: What was the First Sin?

crashfrog writes:

... their shame indicative of sinfulness? That's the jump that I don't see supported by the Bible.

Hey Crash; Maybe you will find this argument useful:

According to holy scripture, people were created in the image of God, innocent, naked and unashamed. He made them nude, saw that it was good, and rested. Nudity met with His approval. Nudity was one aspect of godliness. Even now God sends children into the world innocent, naked and unashamed. Later in the story, when people hide themselves for shame, God asks,

Why did you hide from me? (Adam says, "I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself.") and God asks Who told you you were naked? then, as if knowing the answer, he says, "Have you eaten from the tree I told you not to?"

If you know the story, then you know the serpent makes God out to be a liar. He also, apparently, assures the humans that nudity is a problem. Some people identify the serpent with Satan. By this logic, shame of nakedness is Satanic doctrine!

Bible thumpers will point the Law of Moses, > Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy sister Leviticus 18:9 etc. But the subject here is incest, not nudity. Uncover the nakedness is a ‘round about way of saying, have sex with much as we say, sleep with but don’t really mean sleep! But this is an English idiom. The Hebrew seems to imply that you must stay out of your sisters bed.

Following are some of the Hebrew words which get translated to English as ‘naked.’ The one which gets used in reference to Adam and Eve always appears in a context of innocence.

1) 'arom' - Simple nudity (of Adam and Eve, newborns, etc.) "Naked came I out of my mother's womb." Job 1:21

2) 'ervah' - Derived from a word for bed, and often used in a sexual context. Leviticus 18, etc.

3) 'para' - Political embarrassment/vulnerability. Exodus 32:25.

4) 'maor' - Metaphorical of unsheathing a bow. Habakkuk 3:9

5) 'maarumim' - The naked shame of POW's. 2 Chronicles 28:15

6) 'basar' - What one may see upskirt without unders. Exodus 18:42

The pair had enough shame to deal with for the fact that they had disobeyed the explicit prohibition regarding their diet. By saying, "I was afraid because I was naked," Adam was clearly begging the question.

Hope this helps your case.

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"I was very unwilling to give up my belief." Charles Darwin

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