The Original Sin. (Religion)

[Lyra]

I find it ironic at this moment that I was Baptised as a kid in a catholic church :/

[Banefull]

I am sorry for resurrecting such an old thread but I feel compelled to speak here as I believe I have much to add to this discussion.

But before I begin, a little bit about me:

I have had extensive study in analyzing religions and religious literature not just in Christian scriptures but in other religions such as Taoism, Islam, and Buddhism. I am Roman Catholic and as a Roman Catholic I have been taught to view the Bible critically just as with any other book or other piece of literature. What I say may be (and probably will be) disturbing to some others but please do understand the viewpoint I come from.

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One of the greatest misfortunes I see is that people treat the Bible as if it were its own separate genre. There is no single Bible genre. The bible is a collection of a variety of books that are historical, contemplative, philosophical, etc written by a variety of authors living in different time periods with different viewpoints. Not every single book or section is to be read the same.

An etiology is a story of how things came about; it attempts to explain why things are the way they are. The creation stories fall under the genre of etiology. One of the most important things to point out is that there are different multiple creations stories within the Bible. Genesis contains two different stories. The first story is Genesis chapter 1 to 2.3. The second creation story spans Genesis 2.3 to Genesis 3. The second story is radically different from the first. In the first story, God creates light, then sky, then land and plants, then the celestial bodies, then the birds and fishes, then animals and humans whereas in the second story, God creates the Earth and then mankind before everything else. He creates all of the plants and animals after creating mankind. The mode of creation in each story is different. In the first story, God creates by speaking and then his will is done whereas in the second story, God creates by crafting and forming things. Perhaps a much lesser known story is 2 Esdras chapter 6.

“….On the fifth day you commanded the seventh part, where the water had been gathered together, to bring forth living creatures, birds and fishes; and so it was done. The dumb and lifeless water produced living creatures, as it was commanded, so that therefore the nations might declare your wondrous works.
‘Then you kept in existence two living creatures; the one you called Behemoth and the and the name of the other Leviathan…. And you gave Behemoth one of the parts that had been dried up on the third day, to live in it, where there are a thousand mountains; but to Leviathan you gave the seventh part, the watery part;...’”

There is not even any mention of Behemoth and Leviathan in Genesis.

We have three very radically different creation stories. Which one is correct? Why am I even bring this up? Because it teaches us how to view the Bible using critical analysis as with any other piece of literature. If we want to understand why there are multiple creation stories we have to ask ourselves whether they were written by the same author. We can use textual criticism and examine the repeated themes within each text to give a date to when a text was written and by whom.

In the first creation story ends with a mention of the Sabbath. On the seventh day God is said to have rested. In the second creation story, there is not a single mention of a day of rest or Sabbath. Clearly, the author of the first creation story was very interested in the Sabbath. This should raise eyebrows. The majority of the Pentateuch hardly contains any mention of the Sabbath at all. We should be asking ourselves as to whom within Judaism was very interested in the Sabbath. One particular group was the Pharisees who were contemporaries of Jesus. Their origin traces its roots to around 165 B.C. when Israel was under the rule of the Syrian Greeks (the Selucids) under Antiochus IV, or "Antiochus Epiphanes". The Greeks attempted to Hellenize or spread Greek ways among the Jews. In response, a group called the Pharisees emerged who opposed Greek rule and wanted to maintain the old Hebrew Traditions. “Pharisee” in Hebrew means “separatists”, or the “separated one”. They were revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow Greek rule. The Sabbath was important because celebrating it was a symbol of defiance to the Greek rulers (Hebrew customs were outlawed). This was also the time period of the Maccabean revolt. Given the evidence, it is quite probable that first creation story could have been written during this time.
EDIT: something I should clarify is that they were probably recorded at this time not created. Judaism has an extensive oral tradition that predates writing.

Now let us examine the second creation story about Adam and Eve. Who wrote it and when? One important clue is when God says that if you eat from the tree, then you will die. Adam and Eve eat from the tree but do not die. Instead they are exiled to the west. To this author, death seems to be symbolic of exile to the West. In what other time period could exile to the west be very important to Judaism? In 586 B.C. Israel was completely obliterated by the Babylon. Most of its inhabitants were taken into captivity and brought to Babylon which resides west of the promised land. In fact a great portion of literature is central to the theme of exile to the west as a metaphor for death. It is very probable that the author of the Adam and Eve story was a Jew living during the exile writing for Jews living in exile.

Now with this in mind, we can begin to dissect what is meant by the original author of the text. His intended audience was Jews living in exile, not us. One of the biggest mistakes people make when reading the bible (bear in mind not everyone believes the same) is that they believe all of the symbolism is based upon what they understand today. For ex: many interpret the serpent in the Garden of Eden story as Satan. This is an anachronism. The concept of an evil Satan did not even exist until long after Christianity developed. It would not make sense for a Jew of the Exilic period to talk about something that only developed over a thousand years later. To his audience, fellow exilic Jews, the serpent is not an evil figure. It is just representative of a mere trickster figure in a narrative who has no relation to any other character within the Bible. Sin was also the very reason believed to have caused the fall of Jerusalem. Death was symbolic of exile to the West (of the “Land”).

Every piece of symbolism within the story would have been familiar to fellow Jews living within the same time period. Their perceptions of the story would be radically different than what we perceive today. Bear that in mind when reading any passage of the Bible. Now the intended audience may not be us but the Old Testament of the Bible is still relevant to our times; however, we need to understand the background from which the authors wrote these texts. The story still has things to teach us on faith and morals. But always remember what its intended audience was.

If you think that you know all there is know about the Bible, then I suggest that you re-examine it and study more upon the ancient history in which the Bible was written in. This isn’t about which view is superior or not; you are free to accept or to reject my analysis. The point of this post is to try to teach people how to view the Bible critically. I do not claim to know everything myself but I can say that I am very knowledgeable on ancient history surrounding Judaism and have studied world religions extensively.

[Layzie]

Interesting topic/discussion. I'd lie to give my opinions, but to my understanding, religion isn't allowed to be discussed or something like that.

[Woodsprite]

...No, religious discussion is allowed.

...Just not allowed to get out of hand.

[Ratavasidna]

*drops topic* oops..... its outta my hand now....

[Lyra]

Hey, I'm the topic starter and... Could we close this thread please?

-- Thanks.

[Woodsprite]

...This was never really much of a "debate" at any point; just a discussion on what the term means. No one really disagreed with anyone.

[Lyra]

True, but all we're doing now is going in circles. The meaning can be interpreted by everyone differently, but it usually all points back into one thing.

[Woodsprite]

Yeah. That's why there's no point in discussing it further. In essense, I'm agreeing in that the topic be closed.

[Tymian]

Thread closed as requested.