The first 3 chapters of Genesis

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Does anyone have information on how Jewish theologians read the text? Thanks.

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Reading Genesis: Text with Introduction and Rabbinical Commentaries
http://www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL/GenIntro.htmlWiki: Judaism and Evolution
Jewish views on evolution - WikipediaJewish Interpretation: Reason + Mitzvot = Faith
Jewish Interpretation of the Bible

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Jewish interpreters I've talked to recognize Genesis not just as a book of origins, but a book about family conflict. One sotry after anohter deal swith this theme. It starts with the first couple's loss of innocence at the beginning.One thing that's apparent to me, whatever interpretive approach people take: no one can say for sure what would have happened in the story if Adam and Eve made a different choice. One reason interpretations have proliferated through history is because Genesis doesn't spell out what a permanent stay in Eden would have involved. They didn't stay, so, as far as the story is concerned, it doesn't matter.One clear implication of the story: had they not disobeyed, they would not have been expelled and their lives would have been cushier, more innocent, and more ignorant. Going much beyond this entails conjecture. The traditions that have sprouted around the story in the centuries since? Conjecture as well--to try to settle theological issues or satisfy the curious.Genesis isn't in the business of telling us what would have happened if. It presents each story as is.Margaret Mitchell was constantly bothered by Gone With the Wind fans asking her if Rhett Butler ever returned to Scarlett. She said (I'm paraphrasing) 'The story ended with him walking out. That's the end of the book, and the end of the characters!'.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

You rang? You seem to be asking me to help you find common ground. Are you serious?If you are, I can.I don't promise you'll be singing 'Kum Ba Yah' around VBS campfires with Episcopalian orangutangs if that's not your cup of tea. But I can show you something worthwhile: another aspect of this subject, an important one, that you don't seem to have much experience with. If you give yourself time to reflect on it, it could put into healthier perspective some of the interpretive differences that loom so large in your mind right now that they divide you from your fellow Christians.If you're in the market for anything like that.You'd have to let me walk you through a few observations before we come around to one feature of the Genesis text. This would involve 2-3 fairly hefty posts for me. Admin has to be cool with me taking a momentary detour from the immediate subject for a moment before returning to it. The discussion should be of general interest, though.There's nothing up my sleeve. Go with me on this and you don't have to worry about accepting gifts from Greeks. You will be able to voice agreement with everything I say if it strikes you as reasonable, yet still walk away with your creationism intact. Nothing lost.I don't want to waste my time, though, or yours. If you're just here to repeat old patterns I'd sooner forego the typing. So let me know what you want to do..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Actually, it's a bad habit introduced by the act of reading.To read it to interpret. To interpret is come to an understanding.You use an English translation of Genesis. Why English? Because that is a language you understand.To read a book you need such a language. You need words that form images in your head: light, evening, morning, day, sky, land, sea.As soon as you begin to form images in your head you are interpreting. You are coming to an understanding.If your goal were indeed to look simply at what the text literally SAYS, with no danger of interpretation or understanding coming into play, you would not use English. You would use the original Hebrew--provided you don't understand Hebrew.Illiteracy is an excellent way to view a text in utter purity of thought. No pictures will come into your head. You will see what the text actually says, with no danger of interpretation or understanding.The act of interpreting and understanding is necessary when we read anything. We do it when we use language in any way at all.Readers who talk of interpretation, undertanding, context and intent are not being cheeky. They are just acknowledging the reality of their own role in the process. It is part of reading a text in a conscientious manner.Someone has sold you a bill of goods that the people in your sectarian corner of the universe enjoy some sort of exemption from this responsibility. They talk as if they can read without interpreting. As if such a thing were possible.Interpretation is intrinsic to the act of reading. No reader is exempt.You would do well to acknowledge your own role in the process as a reader. Denying your own interpretive action does not make it go away.The day you can do this is the day your relationship with the text, and with other conscientious interpreters of that text, will take a more productive turn.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

That's what I propose to do.I want to show you a universal human phenomenon. I want to show you a few things about how it works.Individuals differ in how much personal interest they take in this phenomenon as subject matter. Some like to think about it and talk about it; some don't. Comprehension of it improves with practice and atrophies with disuse. But these individual differences in temperament do not affect the universal seriousness of the phenomenon.A good analogy would be physical health. Some people are very conscious of having a body and maintaining it. They enjoy working out, talking about nutrition and exercise, and learning more about the human body. Others take their bodies largely for granted. They prefer to focus their attention on other matters and pay attention to their health only when they have to.But, regardless of whether everyone thinks about it or likes to, everyone has physical health. Their state of health affects them every moment. And, at the core of it, everyone wants a sound, reliably functioning body. No one likes to lose it. It matters.So if we go ahead I ask that you keep this distinction in mind: the difference between individual temperaments on the one hand and the essential human value of a thing on the other. Can you do this?.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

The historical facts bear you out.
Original sin - WikipediaThe doctrine of original sin originated with Augustine of Hippo. It was made a tenet of Roman Catholicism but Eastern Orthodox Christianity rejected the idea. Among Protestants you generally encounter it in sects that trace their history to Martin Luther and John Calvin. Other reformers opposed the idea.Today mainstream Lutherans and Presbyterians (ELC, PresUSA, etc.) generally do not espouse the doctrine either. It is the more stern branches of these traditions, as well as their historical offshoots (7th Day Adventists), that assert the idea.Judaism does not recognize original sin.Among Jews (and Christians outside strong Catholic/Calvinist lineage), children are more often thought of as models of innocence rather than total depravity. Jesus did hold them up as models for adults.Of course, today the doctrine of inherited guilt should be testable. All one has to do is find the 'original sin' gene..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Punctuation.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Off topic, literally speaking. But it's the last one for this. Are you always so apprehensive in the face of the unknown? Relax. I meant what I told you. No Trojan horses. I'm not interested in discussing theology at all.I realize you're a wary person, iano. Your avatar shows as much.AvatarsYour avatar shows us a hand extended in an apparent gesture of invitation. This is not the picture of someone striding confidently into a room, though, or even a person who is moving at all. Rather it shows us someone hoping to draw us out of our room, into the black-and-white chamber where he stands.And it's a left-handed invitation.In Western culture one extends a peaceful greeting with the right hand. This is customary regardless of whether or not one happens to be personally right-handed. The custom comes from the association of the right hand with weapons. An open right hand thus signals welcome and potential friendship. The New Testament speaks of 'the right hand of fellowship' (Gal 2.9).But your avatar offers us the left hand. The shield hand. The barrier. The apparent gesture of invitation is really a defense--an attempt to keep viewers at arm's length.'You can join me in my clean white room,' says the hand. 'Otherwise, keep your contagion away from me.'One wonders what that unseen right hand is doing. Does it carry a sword--to punish anyone who tests the boundary? A gun? In consenting to tolerate the airing of an unknown point of view, you do say you 'I'll give it a shot.'One picture, multiple meanings. An apt symbol. In one image you encapsulate the themes that appear in your posts.What's the expression? 'Tell it to the hand'?Then there is jar's avatar. Interesting, isn't it?It shows us a primate. Not human, but related.The subject of how related to you the creature is represents the controversy that gives its name to this forum.With your genius for symbols, iano, you have surely registered your own reaction to this picture. Perhaps this image on every one of jar's posts explains something of the hostility you express even when he agrees with you. Perhaps it has influenced your characterizations of him--this picture of a creature almost-of-your-species but not quite. A creature you are quick to deny any kinship with. It's not hard to see an equation here: your desire to assert firm boundaries about who is a real Christian (despite what others say) and your desire to assert firm boundaries on biological species (despite what others say).Symbolic ThoughtSymbolic thought is like physical health. Whether we pay attention to our health or not, our body is a genius at warding off disease and regulating thousands of tasks beneath our conscious notice. Even when we don't pay attention to our health, it pays attention to us. It is easy to attribute a mood I may be in, happy or sad or irritable, to an outside stimulus. I attribute my mood to an object--I am being 'objective.' But an observer might note a correspondence between certain moods of mine and my degree of rest or fatigue, or perhaps to my ingestion of extraordinary amounts of sugar or caffeine or alcohol. So internal elements as well as outside elements play a role. Objective factors exist, but our physical state is always a factor. We do well to to take conscious account of this fact rather than ignore it. But regardless of whether we do or not, our physical state will have its say.Symbolic thought is similar. Everyone is a genius at creating and using symbols. Everyone reacts and responds to symbols. We are a symbol-making, symbol-using creature. It is a universal feature of human thought. The very idea of meaning comes from this. Anytime we say 'this means that,' we are thinking symbolically.There's a tendency in fundamentalist religious tradition to speak of symbols as something trivial: 'Just a symbol' or 'merely a symbol' and whatnot. But there is not 'mere' about it. Symbolic meanings are always at work. You may not pay much attention to them, but they always pay attention to you.If you find this idea plausible, I can show you more about how symbols work in the broadest sense. It would take me some time to put something together. I'm not going to bother, though, if you've dismissed the subject out of hand (as it were). So let me know if you are still interested..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML format.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Punctuation.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Concision.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Here's where science can help out. If the sin of Adam and Eve is inherited by their descendants, we should be able to locate the Original Sin gene.YEC research indicates that human beings today, though, will have much less original sin than their ancestors. Adam and Eve packed 'super-genomes' filled with walloping amounts of genetic information. They had truckloads of original sin they could pass on. Today our world is genetically depleted, which means our species carries much less original sin.As devolution continues we will become less and less guilty with each generation. It could even be that by now we only inherit some of Adam's original sin and none of Eve's. Or vice versa.In fact, genetic depletion could mean that original sin is already non-existant. If we fail to locate the gene it is probably because of this.Top YEC geneticists are no doubt working on these issues as we speak. It will be fascinating to find out what they discover!.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Mick writes: I knew it! This reasoning is airtight. Absolutely.Adam and Eve also had (1) no navels and (2) no clothes. We may therefore conclude that no belly-button lint existed before The Fall.Off topic, I know. I just wanted to mention that for the logical beauty of it. Indeed they are. And that reminds me...YEC genetics explains why a global catastrophic Flood would occur in Noah's day instead of ours. People were much more badly behaved then because of their engorged super-genomes filled to bursting with huge amounts of original sin.Remember there was greater genetic variety in Noah's day as well. This means people would have been sinning in a greater variety of ways than they do today.YEC geneticists have evidence of this decadence. The Bible says people were having sex with angels.You've got to admit, that's kinky. In our modern, genetically depleted age people just don't behave that way.Certainly no one I've slept with is an angel..._Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Equal time for Eve.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

This newfound willingness to think beyond the literal is truly commendable, Faith.After insisting on physical immortality, literal expulsions, earthly rewards and factual events, you have at last found a place for the spiritual. Congratulations.But it doesn't help you to introduce the concept at this point. The consistency of your arguments so far has exposed THE TRUTH:

All the evidence for a super-genome points to the presence in it of an Original Sin gene.

That's not just talk. I can back it up.Produce your evidence for the super-genome. I'll show you the evidence for the gene._Edited by Archer Opterix, : Brevity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

iano But when children get noisy in the lunch line after being told not to, do you say their behavior is immoral?How much is a naive child's compliance with orders to be equated with Moral Good?How much is a naive child's failure to comply with orders to be equated with Moral Evil?

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ArcherAll species are transitional.