No Adam = no Original Sin - right? (moral, genesis, moral)

[Dirty Penguin]

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see the problem.

I'm going to follow you down this rabbit hole to see where you wind up. When we are told about "original sin" we are told that it came from something adam and eve did. If this is true then they were regarded as real people.

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

Perhaps the original authors thought Adam was a person rather than a group.

That is exactly what they thought unless you have information to show they were not people but rather a collective.

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

Let's assume

Yea......Here's the problem right here. You're going to give your hypothesis and none of it can be confirmed by your own scripture.

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

Let's assume for sake of argument that they were mistaken about that, and that the original "human" was actually a community that had evolved from a prehuman ancestor.

Great...so now....you need to show evidence because the jews regarded adam as a real man and not a group.

Gen. 2:19
So the LORD God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam to see what (he) would call them, and Adam chose a name for each one.

It is meant as a person, singular, and not a group. The word that would have most likely been used to denote a group would have been (enowsh).

or even this one here;

Gen. 4:1
Now Adam* slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When the time came, she gave birth to Cain,* and she said, "With the LORD's help, I have brought forth* a man!"


The OT and the jews thought him to be a real physical man and not a group. It is true that the name "adam" means man or man kind but that was also the name of the man.

Gen. 5:3
When Adam was 130 years old, his son Seth was born, and Seth was the very image of his father.

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

Let's further assume that the point of the genealogies is to make a connection between the contemporary people of God and "Adam."

You assume too much. If you like assuming then do what you do but your scripture show that adam was thought of as a real physical man.

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

How is the genealogy a lie?

If you regard adam as a community (a group) then you don't know your own scripture the way you think you know it. In the book of Luke, the writer was not under some misguided impression that adam was a group. The genealogy pointed to a man. So if adam was a group then the statement of genealogy in Luke is incorrect. But we know that the "community" was not the father of Seth. Adam was the father of Seth and Eve was his mother. Now if Adam represented a group then what did Eve represent? They were both considered "real" people.

Luke 3:38
Kenan was the son of Enosh. Enosh was the son of Seth. Seth was the son of Adam. Adam was the son of God.

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

And how does this cast doubt on the Christian claims about Jesus?

Stated above....

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

As far as I can tell, if Adam were a community rather than an individual, the point of Genesis and the genealogies is still the same.

Nonsense......The Adam spoken of is a flesh and blood physical man.

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

Please spell out exactly how an alternative understanding of "Adam" as a community calls into question Christian claims about Jesus.

Well I never mentioned Yeshua here. We're talking about "original Sin" and its concepts. A concept that even the jews don't except. Your (what ifs, and assumptions) mean little in light of your very scripture describing Adam as a physical being. Even your Paul knew that. So Adam has to be a real person who performed a physical act in order for you to cling to original sin. If he was myth, as you assert, ("I could take the first 11 chapters of Genesis as myth - actually, I do so take it), then original sin has no weight.

1 Corinthians 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul.......

[emiliano]

Let throw in something that bother me in this account Gen 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.
Gen 1:27 And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.
These created Human are not call by names, jus males and females (it says them) this event is place in time the sixth day (God had previously created time in the fourth day). Then we find Gen 2:7 And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Gen 2:8 And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And there He put the man whom He had formed.
This man is named Adam and it’s on his own for a period of time Gen 2:15 And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Gen 2:18 And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.
Gen 2:21 And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh underneath.
Gen 2:22 And Jehovah God made the rib (which He had taken from the man) into a woman. And He brought her to the man.
The participants of this thread seem to be knowledgeable, questions: Are these to accounts?

[emiliano]

Augustine has been mention as the inventor of the original sin concept, I found this in the internet Religions
» Christianity
» Beliefs
St Augustine and original sin
Printable Version
St Augustine and original sin
St Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, in what is now Algeria, from 396 to 430. He was one of the greatest theologians in history and his ideas still influence Christian thought today.
Although he didn't invent the doctrine of original sin, his ideas about it dominated Western Church teaching.
Augustine's theory shows great understanding of human psychology. It provides an explanation for human suffering and guilt by teaching that those human beings somehow deserved these things.
Human beings deserve to suffer because the first parents sinned. And since humanity deserves the bad things it gets humanity can comfort itself with the idea that it has a just rather than an unjust God.
This made the presence of evil in the world easier to understand, and answered the question of why a benevolent God would allow such a state of affairs to exist.
Augustine's theory
Augustine saw original sin as working in two ways:
inherited guilt for a crime
spiritual sickness or weakness
Augustine thought that humanity was originally perfect ("man's nature was created at first faultless and without any sin"), immortal and blessed with many talents, but that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and introduced sin and death to the world.
Augustine didn't see any need to provide a good reason why Adam, who had originally been created perfect, chose to sin, or why God hadn't created a perfect being that was incapable of sin.
As far as Augustine was concerned the point was that Adam had sinned and humanity had to deal with the consequences.
Modern people would think it unjust that human beings should suffer for something that happened long before they existed, but to people in Augustine's time the idea of punishing later generations for their parents' crimes was familiar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/originalsin_7.shtml

[emiliano]

Augustine has been mentioned as the inventor of the original sin concept, I found this in the internet Religions
» Christianity
» Beliefs
St Augustine and original sin
Printable Version
St Augustine and original sin
St Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, in what is now Algeria, from 396 to 430. He was one of the greatest theologians in history and his ideas still influence Christian thought today.
Although he didn't invent the doctrine of original sin, his ideas about it dominated Western Church teaching.
Augustine's theory shows great understanding of human psychology. It provides an explanation for human suffering and guilt by teaching that those human beings somehow deserved these things.
Human beings deserve to suffer because the first parents sinned. And since humanity deserves the bad things it gets humanity can comfort itself with the idea that it has a just rather than an unjust God.
This made the presence of evil in the world easier to understand, and answered the question of why a benevolent God would allow such a state of affairs to exist.
Augustine's theory
Augustine saw original sin as working in two ways:
inherited guilt for a crime
spiritual sickness or weakness
Augustine thought that humanity was originally perfect ("man's nature was created at first faultless and without any sin"), immortal and blessed with many talents, but that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and introduced sin and death to the world.
Augustine didn't see any need to provide a good reason why Adam, who had originally been created perfect, chose to sin, or why God hadn't created a perfect being that was incapable of sin.
As far as Augustine was concerned the point was that Adam had sinned and humanity had to deal with the consequences.
Modern people would think it unjust that human beings should suffer for something that happened long before they existed, but to people in Augustine's time the idea of punishing later generations for their parents' crimes was familiar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/originalsin_7.shtml

[crystalonyx]

It is true that technically you must be a creationist to believe Christianity and it's ideas of original sin, no matter how watered down some of the "Christians" on here try to make it.

[Scott1]

Originally Posted by crystalonyx

It is true that technically you must be a creationist to believe Christianity and it's ideas of original sin, no matter how watered down some of the "Christians" on here try to make it.

I believe that God created everything... but make no claim to know how He did it... does that make me a "creationist"?

... and 9 outa 10 Christians couldn't tell you what original sin means, let alone "must" believe it to be a Christian.

[Muffled]

Originally Posted by emiliano

Let throw in something that bother me in this account Gen 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.
Gen 1:27 And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.
These created Human are not call by names, jus males and females (it says them) this event is place in time the sixth day (God had previously created time in the fourth day). Then we find Gen 2:7 And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Gen 2:8 And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And there He put the man whom He had formed.
This man is named Adam and it’s on his own for a period of time Gen 2:15 And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Gen 2:18 And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.
Gen 2:21 And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh underneath.
Gen 2:22 And Jehovah God made the rib (which He had taken from the man) into a woman. And He brought her to the man.
The participants of this thread seem to be knowledgeable, questions: Are these to accounts?

"them" could refer to one male and one female.

I believe that they are and that they represent two different events but one could make a case for the second account to be a more detailed account of what happened in the first account.

There is evidence to support the notion that Adam and Eve were not alone on the earth: Ge 6:2that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.

My theory is this: THe earth and everything else was created millions of years ago and man has inhabited the earth in cyles of good and evil. In a cycle of good there is no evil on the earth but there is no childbirth or death. Such people can be considered gods or sons of God. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve back into a childbirth state which allows those spirits who have chosen evil back on the earth so that a cycle of evil is established until God decides to end the cycle of evil and reestablish a cycle of good again. So in that sense the existence of sin in the world has its origen in the actions of Adam and Eve having children (Not that sex is sinful in itself) but what may not be made clear is that the origin of sin is the rebellion of the Devil against God and sinful spirits are those who have believed the lies of the Devil instead of believing the truth of God.

[Dunemeister]

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin

I'm going to follow you down this rabbit hole to see where you wind up. When we are told about "original sin" we are told that it came from something adam and eve did. If this is true then they were regarded as real people.

That is exactly what they thought unless you have information to show they were not people but rather a collective.

I agree. In the bible, they were so regarded. I just think that this interpretation of the case is mistaken, or at least it could well be mistaken in light of what science has told us about our origins. And if it's mistaken, it's no skin off my nose and does no harm to the doctrine of original sin. "Original sin" teaches us that our deplorable condition of sin is something that we have inherited from our forebears. The exact details of how it happened are expressed in poetic form in Genesis. I simply don't take the first 11 chapters of Genesis to be a strictly journalistic account of what happened. It's a combination of saga, myth, and poetry.

Yea......Here's the problem right here. You're going to give your hypothesis and none of it can be confirmed by your own scripture.

It's only a problem if you view the scriptures as inerrant. I don't.

Great...so now....you need to show evidence because the jews regarded adam as a real man and not a group.

Gen. 2:19
So the LORD God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam to see what (he) would call them, and Adam chose a name for each one.

It is meant as a person, singular, and not a group. The word that would have most likely been used to denote a group would have been (enowsh).

or even this one here;

Gen. 4:1
Now Adam* slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When the time came, she gave birth to Cain,* and she said, "With the LORD's help, I have brought forth* a man!"


The OT and the jews thought him to be a real physical man and not a group. It is true that the name "adam" means man or man kind but that was also the name of the man.

Gen. 5:3
When Adam was 130 years old, his son Seth was born, and Seth was the very image of his father.



You assume too much. If you like assuming then do what you do but your scripture show that adam was thought of as a real physical man.

I've no doubt about all of this. I fully accept that the biblical text conceives of Adam as a man. However, it's also possible to locate poetic features of the text that make one wonder whether it's actually to be taken as a journalistic na