Original Sin

While watching a segment of a show about the Forbidden Books of the Bible on The History Channel, information was discussed that caused questions in my mind. This post is in the hope that discussion might lead to answers.

Pertaining to the subject of Original Sin, the show made reference to The Lost Sea Scrolls claiming Mary to have also been born “without the taint of Original Sin” because she had been born to a barren woman, by the Spirit of God. The question is not about whether or not this is true, this was just the trigger of questions.

What exactly was the Original Sin? Was it the act of defiance of God’s dictate not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge? Was it the betrayal of believing the word of the Serpent over the word of God? Or was it acquiring the knowledge of sexual reproduction?

This last idea had never before occurred to me, but when they discussed Mary’s purity, I could not help but wonder about this. It seems that Adam and Eve did not have children before eating from the Tree of Knowledge.

It also seems that after the act of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they began to cover themselves from the sight of God, hence the Fig Leaves. Well, does it not follow that they apparently did not hide their nudity from each other, because they did proceed to multiply? This might be taken to imply that they have more loyalty to each other, no embarrassment, more trust, than they do with God. So, that might infer that the betrayal is the Original Sin, instead of sexual reproduction. Could it have been betrayal by sex? That might cover both sides of the question.

(Picture comes to mind: God standing at the Gate to the Garden of Eden, telling Adam and Eve that if they are going to reproduce, well, the Garden cannot support an entire civilization, that would destroy the Garden, so they would have to leave.)

I think the original sin wasn't so much in the action istelf, but merely the fact that they had disobeyed the one law given to them by God. It wasn't so much the eating from the tree, per se, but that fact that they had broken a commandment.

At least, I think that's it.

You are on to something here.
Ian Punnet discussed this on Coast to Coast, last weekend.
A caller brought up the emaculate conception.
He said that most people misunderstand the concept, they think it has to do with the birth of Jesus, but it really has to do with the birth of Mary.
Ian agreed with the caller, and the guy started praising Ian for being one of the few people who understood it.

There is a school of thought that the original sin was of a sexual nature. From ancient Hebrew scholar Dr Micheal Heiserthe serpent of Genesis 3 was actually not a snake at all but a nacash, a bright shining upright being serpentine in appearance. I believe this was the head fallen angel himself known as Satan.

I do believe that simple disobedience is enough to explain the nature of the fall of man. However I must admit it does seem a little weird that it was all over a bad produce selection. I have read interpretations that Satan tempted Eve into sex and that was the "forbidden fruit". It then follows that the very next line of the account they realized they were naked and became embarrassed. Why was the very first thing they noticed when they became aware of good and evil their nakedness? They were the only two people on earth, so what was evil about being naked? This is the line of thinking that lends credence to the sexual nature of the Serpents temptation...

When I first read of this I believed it. However I am not so sure about it today. It leave a lot to be explained. There were two special trees in the Garden, not just one. If the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. and it's fruit were purely allegorical then what of the tree of life?

reply to post by Annoyed


I think what most people fail to realize where Mary is concerned, yes, she is indeed blessed among women But, when people begin to bring up this concept of Mary being immaculate I think we have to realize, if that were the case, Jesus would not have had to go to the cross for the payment of our sins, Mary could have done it.

If we read the scriptures closely, Jesus was born under the law, born of a woman (sinful flesh) and He had the nature of His father (God). Therefore, keeping this in mind, this is why scripture states that Jesus was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Where did this likeness come from? It came from his mother, Mary, who was housed within sinful flesh, but through the grace of God, found favor above all other women, to bear the redeemer of the world.

Does any of this really matter? Why would it matter if one mythological person had an immaculate birth or if there had been two? That's like arguing over how many horses pull Apollo's chariot as he pushes the sun across the sky.

Original sin is a human concept, without Biblical support. I challenge anyone else to demonstrate otherwise.

Why would god put a tree in the middle of a garden, where you can eat everything else except that tree?

Does he have to prove to himself that his creation will obey him?

Come on he's god why would he need his creation to obey him, it's not like he gets hurt about it. He is god why does he need people, who are nothing compared to him to obey him. He's god.

reply to post by theendisnear69


It's more so along the lines of giving your creation the FREEDOM to disobey you.

The sexual nature certainly does make sense and I have thought about that before also, just as Bigwhammy explained. However, I'm not so sure the first sin isn't more of an allegorical vision of the symptom of the first sin.

Proudness and putting yourself before God is certainly the sin Satan fell into before his fall from heaven, and he coerced the two in the garden to do the same thing. This to me is the worst sin of all -- placing yourself in the center and not allowing God his due. Satan wanted to replace God. Once God created humans, Satan's first thought would have been to taint mankind, encouraging mankind to follow him rather than God. After all, he took 1/3 of the angels when he fell, wouldn't he think he could do the same to mankind? And in may ways, he is succeeding.

This is the oldest problem in the world, permeates society today, and can be traced to that original sin.

Also, God allows temptation since he has given us free will choice. The temptation comes from Satan, not from God. There would be no love without free will. And, we would all be robots, following God blindly with no choice in the matter. God doesn't want that. He wants us to freely choose him.




[edit on 3/15/08 by idle_rocker]

reply to post by chromatico


But he's god. The all powerful one.

Seriously why a fruit tree? I'm sure that tree had some fruit that looked really really good. He was purposely tempting them, not giving them freedom. if he's so powerful why does he tempt his own creation?

reply to post by theendisnear69


Please read my post above. I think I posted just as you were posting your question. The tree may be symbolic of good and evil.

reply to post by Bigwhammy


Yes, that was another thought, what about the Tree of Life? Wasn't there some discussion about if they (Adam & Eve) were to eat from the Tree of lIfe they would become "like us", or something to that effect? I think that's what led to the exile from the Garden, no?

Good question!

This comes from the early Church beliefs, and there's quite a bit of writing on it for the armchair scholar to peruse.

"Original sin" refers to man's fall from grace -- the aftermath of the whole 'eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge' affair. In a sense, at that point (according to Christian beliefs) all of humankind was 'tainted' with the sin.

They understood it as a spiritual thing. Think of it as "inherited guilt" (though not in the sense of genetics.)

One of the early writers on the topic (whose beliefs the Christians adopted) was St. Augustine.

Wikipedia has a reasonable article on the original beliefs and the way it was modified for the Protestant belief and the Catholic belief and how it changed also to cover infants, the unborn, and the mentally deficient:
en.wikipedia.org...

But -- again, the definition depends on which group you're talking about and what time period. To the Gnostics, the "fall of man" was actually the "liberation of man" from the evil god that created the world (essentially the deity Yahweh of the Bible) www.webcom.com...

Christians declared the Gnostics to be evil and something to be stamped out.

Originally posted by Annoyed
Pertaining to the subject of Original Sin, the show made reference to The Lost Sea Scrolls claiming Mary to have also been born “without the taint of Original Sin” because she had been born to a barren woman, by the Spirit of God.

This is a Catholic teaching and, as you see, it's very old. This is part of the reason that Mary is venerated by the church.

It seems that Adam and Eve did not have children before eating from the Tree of Knowledge.

Correct. Apparently they didn't have knowledge of sexual desire or what to do with the various bits they'd been given (according to Biblical tradition.)

Mary's birth is called the "immaculate conception:; a Catholic only tradition.

www.catholic.com...


an interesting paragraph in a longer article that talks about Mary as the Second Eve:

Our doctrine of original sin is not the same as the Protestant doctrine. "Original sin," with us, cannot be called sin, in the mere ordinary sense of the word "sin"; it is a term denoting Adam's sin as transferred to us, or the state to which Adam's sin reduces his children; but by Protestants it seems to be understood as sin, in much the same sense as actual sin. We, with the Fathers, think of it as something negative, Protestants as something positive. Protestants hold that it is a disease, a radical change of nature, an active poison internally corrupting the soul, infecting its primary elements, and disorganising it; and they fancy that we ascribe a different nature from ours to the Blessed Virgin, different from that of her parents, and from that of fallen Adam. We hold nothing of the kind; we consider that in Adam she died, as others; that she was included, together with the whole race, in Adam's sentence; that she incurred his debt, as we do; but that, for the sake of Him Who was to redeem her and us upon the Cross, to her the debt was remitted by anticipation, on her the sentence was not carried out, except indeed as regards her natural death, for she died when her time came, as others. All this we teach, but we deny that she had original sin; for by original sin we mean. as I have already said something negative, viz., this only, the deprivation of that supernatural unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their first formation -- deprivation and the consequences of deprivation. Mary could not merit, any more than they, the restoration of that grace; but it was restored to her by God's free bounty, from the very first moment of her existence, and thereby, in fact, she never came under the original curse, which consisted in the loss of it. And she had this special privilege in order to fit her to become the Mother of her and our Redeemer, to fit her mentally, spiritually for it; so that, by the aid of the first grace, she might so grow in grace, that, when the Angel came and her Lord was at hand, she might be "full of grace," prepared as far as a creature could be prepared, to receive Him into her bosom.
www.fordham.edu...

reply to post by Neiby


I'm sorry, I thought I was clear in the opening post that was not the question. The question was what exactly was the Original Sin.

reply to post by chromatico


I agree that Free Will is an element to the situation. But then, I suspect that Free Will is key to many things.

Sometimes you do something that hurts another person. Sometimes you may actually do something terrible and feel horrible about it later.

It's called guilt.

Sin is the concept religion puts forth so that they can exploit the natural feelings of remorse you experience.

There is no original sin and you have never sinned against God.

Lose the dogma of religion and you will truly learn to experience the creator of all things.

God will not let you down.

Originally posted by idle_rocker
Proudness and putting yourself before God is certainly the sin Satan fell into before his fall from heaven, and he coerced the two in the garden to do the same thing. This to me is the worst sin of all -- placing yourself in the center and not allowing God his due. Satan wanted to replace God.

[edit on 3/15/08 by idle_rocker]

I agree, though I hadn't considered this aspect. Very insightful, thank you.

Also, an interesting thought: Isn't that what got the Jews in trouble, that they turned their back on God? Moses coming down from the mountain, the idolatry, 40 years in the desert and such? Hm. Thank you again for the interesting chain of thought!

reply to post by Annoyed


Yes, it is. And we all, as humans, continue to turn our backs on God. We must try to do better, ask for forgiveness regularly when we realize we've made a mistake and then forgive ourselves as God as forgiven us.

Originally posted by mrwupy
Sometimes you do something that hurts another person. Sometimes you may actually do something terrible and feel horrible about it later.

It's called guilt.

Sin is the concept religion puts forth so that they can exploit the natural feelings of remorse you experience.

There is no original sin and you have never sinned against God.

Lose the dogma of religion and you will truly learn to experience the creator of all things.

God will not let you down.

Are you saying that guilt is the Original Sin? Or a result of Original Sin?