Interesting Thoughts on Original Sin

I don't think that you consciously read my post.

 

Quite so!
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I did read but what you say is very different of what GOD's says by His Word, that's is sin, so I cannot receive or accept or drink of the cup you are giving me according your human words. Your thinking is from a human perspective, not from GOD's perspective. In other words, the conceptions of your message you have learned them from men deceived by the old Serpent, now known as the great Dragon, also called the Devil, and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

What does the Word of GOD say for us? Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets (false preachers of the Word of GOD) are gone out into the world-1 John 4:v.1. And where are them? In the pulpit of the churches, Youtube, Television, as Pastors, and Bishops, Priests, Cardinals, Popes, Evangelists, among others.

Note that I said to you in my post above: Give a look to Revelation 16:v.13-15 combined with 2Corinthians 11:v.13-15. Did you read it?

Be careful , now we have to discern more than ever, even now at the end time, lest we be deceived by fallen angels like happened in the seven Churches of Asia-Revelation chaapters 2 and 3. "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 1 Timothy 4:v.1.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:v.12 and Revelation 16:v.13-15 combined with 2Corinthians 11:v.13-15, among others.

 

Yes, the 'first' sin in the biblical story was disobedience of the command not to eat from the tree of 'knowledge of good and evil', but that is not what we mean by the phrase 'original sin'. In Western Christian doctrine, 'original sin' = 'sin from birth', i.e., the notion that human beings are born 'sinful', prior to any sinful acts.

Augsburg Confession, Art. 2: Of Original Sin
Also they teach that since the fall of Adam all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with concupiscence; and that this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin, even now condemning and bringing eternal death upon those not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost.

They condemn the Pelagians and others who deny that original depravity is sin, and who, to obscure the glory of Christ’s merit and benefits, argue that man can be justified before God by his own strength and reason.
https://bookofconcord.org/augsburg-confession/original-sin/


Belgic Confession, Art. 15: The Doctrine of Original Sin
We believe that by the disobedience of Adam original sin has been spread through the whole human race. It is a corruption of the whole human nature—an inherited depravity which even infects small infants in their mother’s womb, and the root which produces in humanity every sort of sin...
https://www.crcna.org/welcome/belie...n#toc-article-15-the-doctrine-of-original-sin


Articles of Religion, Art. 9: Of Original or Birth-Sin
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil...
http://anglicansonline.org/basics/thirty-nine_articles.html


Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IaIIae Q. 82, art. 4, resp.
There are two things in original sin: one is the privation of original justice; the other is the relation of this privation to the sin of our first parent, from whom it is transmitted to man through his corrupt origin.
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2082.htm#article4
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The point of the original post is to note that this teaching is not only not actually found in the OT/Tanakh - the only 'Scriptures' the writers of the NT would have acknowledged as such - but seems also to be implicitly denied by it, and to ask (a) where the teaching actually came from, and (b) if the later Christian doctrine of original sin is what Paul was actually intending to teach in the first place. In Eastern Orthodoxy, for example, the treatment of the subject is somewhat different:

Confession of Dositheus (1672), Decree 6
We believe the first man created by God to have fallen in Paradise, when, disregarding the Divine commandment, he yielded to the deceitful counsel of the serpent. And as a result hereditary sin flowed to his posterity; so that everyone who is born after the flesh bears this burden, and experiences the fruits of it in this present world. But by these fruits and this burden we do not understand [actual] sin...
http://www.crivoice.org/creeddositheus.html​

 

Exactly. Perfect. Exactly as it happened in the beginning, they believed in a liar, the Devil, and despised the Word of GOD. Then, as you said, "the whole human race habitually going on doing it", yeah, because all were born from the lie, was born from the Devil. In other words, the Devil is the father of "the whole human race, as you said, but Satan is using the own creation of GOD as a source of his satanic creation. The only EXCEPTION was/is JESUS, the Word made flesh. The Word is GOD.
By the way, what does the Word of GOD say? Even JESUS said to the Jews: John 8:v.44-45:

44 Ye are of your father the Devil (so, they are serpents-Matthew 23), and the lusts of your father ye will do(as serpents). He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

Yes, Satan used and is or continues using the own creation of GOD as a source of his satanic creation, and he built his satanic world, which he offered to JESUS in the temptation, we know that he is an USURPER, we know what and how he usurped the creation, the creation of GOD, besides countless other satanic attitude and behaviors to rule and dominate the mankind.

Yes, indeed. As is written in John 1:v.10 to 14
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.

11 He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.

12 But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God - aleluiaaa!-, even to them that believe on His name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of GOD. -Aleluiaaaa!-

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Amen

GOD- had planned to make man in His image, but how? | Pure Bible Forum (and see www.sinaiticus.net )

 

I think a key question in post-Enlightenment theology has been whether the doctrine of 'original sin' can stand without the presupposition that there was a 'first sin', given that very few theologians today take the first chapters of Genesis as completely literal history, while modern genetics points to human beings having descended from far more than one initial pair. Does the doctrine of original sin actually make sense, and if so, can its potential insight into the human condition be preserved once it is severed from the 'sacred history' which prior generations of theologians took for granted?

 

This is contrary to what I learned some 20-30 years ago. At that time, I'd read that the evidence clearly pointed to a single ancestral pair. If people are now teaching that "modern genetics" says otherwise, I would be inclined to question the accuracy of whatever new "data" they've come up with and the possibility of anti-creation bias.

Science is fallible, and we've seen instances where science contradicted the Bible but later discoveries aligned with the Bible. The Bible is our handbook of Truth. Genuine science is open to possibilities and recognizes the non-absolute nature of research data.

 

I was referring to the creation myth in only general terms rather than trying to establish a concrete truth that Adam and Eve were the first two human beings and were beguiled by an actually talking, super garden snake. I think it far more likely that human sin is ingrained in all of us due to the emergence of our 'consciousness'. Particularly our consciousness of the ability we have for duplicity and selfish trickery. This arises out of our sense of self survival which potentially causes us even to become murderous and vengeful in the face of threats to our personal or tribal welfare. (hence the USA second amendment ) This was a response most clearly seen to be absent in Jesus Christ, and prevalent in the human race almost universally, thereby demonstrating his lack of 'sin' and our addiction to it.

Our consciousness, interestingly MUST have emerged originally dawning in an original single pair of the species either way, whether we see Genesis Chapters one to 5 as literally accurate human history, (problematic due to the purported existence of the subtly talking snake in the story and the total absence nowadays of 'Good & Evil Knowledge inducing Fruit', [it definitely wasn't an apple]), or a mythic narrative theoretically explaining the origin of human consciousness of our own death, decay, pain and toil, and the fear of it.

 

It has been estimated by some that there is a difference of several hundred thousand years between the time of the most recent common male ancestor (“Y-chromosomal ‘Adam’”) and the most recent common female ancestor (“mitochondrial ‘Eve’”).
https://medium.com/alexandria-scien...estimated-date-of-the-human-mrca-2b959d4f4a8c

Science is indeed provisional. Nevertheless, when our interpretation of Scripture conflicts with the known findings of science, the traditional Judeo-Christian approach - exemplified in figures such as Augustine, Maimonides, and Aquinas - has been clear that it is our interpretation of Scripture that must adjust to science, not vice versa. It is unlikely the Genesis stories were intended by their original authors to be understood as literal history in the modern sense of the word ‘history’ in any case.

 

The theories above written show that the old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, continues deceiving peoples, even them which know the Word of GOD, as Adam and Eve who also knew GOD's Word, in fact "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, actually he will continue deceiving the whole world for more some time until he be cast down into the bottomless pit in the days ahead, in this beginning of the current millennium.

Why to sow tares among us, even here within the Kingdom of GOD? Did not JESUS sow good seed in His field? from whence then hath it tares? The enemy hath done this.

Well, the reaper are at the door.

 

You are right and being vigilant. As says the Word of GOD: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of GOD...1 John 4:v.1

Paul the Apostle, in his 2nd epistle to Timothy, wrote: O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of SCIENCE falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. 2 Timothy 6:v.20-21

 

I presume you mean 1 Timothy 6:20-21

Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you.
Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge;
by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith.

Grace be with you.​

The Greek word is γνώσεως and it is extremely difficult to understand why you would want to translate that with the word science unless you were simply using the Bible to back up an argument. This is a little like the drunk who uses the lamp-post more for support rather than illumination.

 

A case of this semantic slight of hand being relevant and rather obviously in the cited example, true:

Clearly twisting the scriptures, by inserting the word science into it, to obscure the truth of what scipture actually contains, to someone's own destruction and everyone else's who are fools enough to be convinced by the serpenty error, of reducing the meaning of scripture to the literal level of a fairy story and demanding its truth can only be interpreted that way. This way TRUTH is assaulted by the very persons CLAIMING to be the only valid and qualified interpreters of the meaning of scripture, even when they do little but merely quote it and thereby tacitly accuse others of heresy.

Such subtle subterfuge is truly the modus operandi of that old serpent.
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I believe the quotation is from the KJV:

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.
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If 1 Timothy was indeed a 2nd century work, the reference to “science (knowledge/wisdom) falsely so called” is probably an allusion to Gnosticism (and likely not the only one in that epistle, for anyone who has read Irenaeus - see 1 Timothy 1:4).

 

It wasn't -- there's no good evidence that indicates that this letter was written by anyone other than Paul himself.

Polycarp knew of both 1 and 2 Timothy, which place the letters before Polycarp (and thus into the Apostolic age). Most of the criticism against the acceptance of Paul's pastoral letters come from unbelievers, and have more to do with literary style than any manuscript or text-critical evidence. But as the pastorals were personal letters rather than corporate or circular, of course the style would vary a bit. And Paul often used amanuenses -- modern critics often interpret scribal stylistic differences to authorial differences. (The same argument is usually levied against 1 Peter and 2 Peter, and is subject to exactly the same counter-critique.) Paul's distinctive voice can easily be heard in the pastoral epistles.

Those who argue that the letters are chronologically out of order with the ending of Acts miss the fact that Paul was imprisoned but not (yet) executed at the end of Luke's narrative. There's no reason to doubt that he lived some time after this. The Bible does not give us an account of Paul's death -- the most common opinion holds that he was executed around 67AD. 1 Timothy was probably written around 63AD sometime after his first Roman imprisonment (with Titus being written not long after). 2 Timothy came later, during his second Roman imprisonment (two separate Roman imprisonments being the obvious interpretation of the Biblical account). The great fire in Rome took place in 64AD, and was followed by a persecution of Christians whom Nero blamed for the disaster. It was most likely during this increased persecution that Paul was re-apprehended. Since we can assume that 2 Timothy was written close to Paul's death, we can place it sometime around 66-67AD.

 

g1108. γνῶσις gnōsis; from 1097; knowing (the act of), i.e. (by implication) knowledge: — knowledge, science.
AV (29) - knowledge 28, science 1;
knowledge signifies in general intelligence, understanding the general knowledge of Christian religion the deeper more perfect and enlarged knowledge of this religion, such as belongs to the more advanced esp. of things lawful and unlawful for Christians moral wisdom, such as is seen in right living.

This reference to gnosis is definitely not an attack upon modern science and understanding of the truth or reality as discovered about the natural physical creation and how it works. The evidence for this is found in the fact that the word itself is translated into English in the Authorised King James Version, KJV only once and the same word gnosis is translated in the same version of The Bible 28 times as merely knowledge. Context also affirms that the false knowledge is particularly the gnostical imaginings of those who claim special knowledge superseding Apostolic teaching. The Apostles never taught modern science, so it is quite impossible that the author of 1 Timothy is intending modern science to be included in the false gnosis that he refers to.

Arguments as to Pauline Authorship or not are basically irrelevant to the subject though. Whoever wrote 1 Timothy was not suggesting there is anything wrong with the truth that modern science has revealed to us. His objection was to false, so called, secret knowledge claimed by such as the Gnostics and other heretical sects, which conflicted with Apostolic teaching concerning the fundamentals of the Christian Faith.

A belief in a young earth creation, a single proto man, made literally out of mud by God and a woman maufactured out one of the newly produced man's ribs is not a fundamtal Apostolic teaching of the Christian faith. It is merely the favoured interpretation placed upon Genesis Chapters 2 and 3 by Literal Fundamentalist sectarians.
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Any decent commentary along the evangelical-liberal spectrum covers the question of authorship, with arguments presented for both sides. There has been reasonable doubt for quite some time regarding the genuine Pauline authorship of several of the epistles that bear his name. My point in mentioning the possibility of 2nd century authorship was to highlight the potential connection with Gnosticism, rather than with modern ‘science’.

 

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Thank you for that. Of course, this does highlight one of the problems that the KJV presents. The word science has rather changed its meaning. Erasmus referred to theology as Regina Scientiarum - the Queen of Sciences. Post-Rationalist Empiricism does not see Theology as a Science, and indeed no-one today would expect to find the school of theology as part of the science faculty in a university.

Despite @Ananias strong defence of Paul's authorship, I am inclined to think that it is later writing.

Collins, Raymond F. 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus: A Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. 2004.

By the end of the twentieth century New Testament scholarship was virtually unanimous in affirming that the Pastoral Epistles were written some time after Paul's death. ... As always some scholars dissent from the consensus view​

David E. Aune, ed., The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010),

While seven of the letters attributed to Paul are almost universally accepted as authentic (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon), four are just as widely judged to be pseudepigraphal, i.e., written by unknown authors under Paul's name: Ephesians and the Pastorals (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus).​

Stephen L. Harris, The New Testament: A Student's Introduction, 4th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002)

In the opinion of most scholars, the case against Paul's connection with the pastorals is overwhelming. Besides the fact that they do not appear in early lists of Paul's canonical works, the pastorals seem to reflect conditions that prevailed long after Paul's day, perhaps as late as the first half of the second century C.E. Lacking Paul's characteristic ideas about faith and the Spirit, they are also un-Pauline in their flat style and different vocabulary (containing 306 words not found in Paul's unquestioned letters). Furthermore, the pastorals assume a church organization far more developed than that current in the apostle's time.​

The amanuensis argument as a defence of the 306 words not used elsewhere is a bit difficult, seems to suggest that the amanuensis (the scribe writing down what Paul dictated) was rather an author in their own right merely reporting on what Paul had spoken.

I have had a look at the argument for Polycarp's use of the text, and I am inclined to feel it is a bit of a stretch. Polycarp to the Philippians is a 2nd-century document, and the arguments could stack up as the author of 1 Timothy was familiar with Polycarp's letter to the Philippians, just as well, or it may just be a coalescence of thought, an accident of history.

However, let me clearly state that in no way does this question the rightful place of 1 Timothy in the Canon of the New Testament. The value in understanding when it was written is that it helps us understand the context in which it was written and better understand what it was about. That of course is exactly the point @Invictus was making.

 

At the risk of extending a point I've already, Dan Wallace (the premier Christian authority on New Testament textual criticism and early NT manuscripts) has a long discussion here of why he affirms that the pastoral epistles are authentically Pauline.

If we are having an argument about what the context of the letter is, then it is vital understand who wrote it (Paul), when it was written (between 63-67AD), to whom it was written (Timothy primarily, to the church secondarily), and why it was written (to train and encourage Timothy in his pastoral ministry and establish standards for pastoral leadership in the church). Placing the letter into the second century makes it nothing more than a pious fraud, since it claims to be from Paul himself. If that is truly the case, it is not Scripture at all, any more than any of the other apocryphal books are Scripture. The letter is only Scripture if Paul was the author of it.

We hold Hebrews to be anonymous even though in ancient times it was reckoned to Paul, but this isn't critical to its canonicity because the letter itself makes no claim to Pauline authorship. We accept Hebrews as scripture nonetheless because a) it preaches good doctrine, b) it has very early attestation, and c) it does not misrepresent itself. Its authority comes from its teaching, not from the stolen authority of an Apostle.

The pastoral letters of Paul make no sense as Scripture if they were not in fact written by Paul. To deny Pauline authorship is to assert that they are not, in fact, Scripture and should not be in our Bibles.

 

“Premier” according to whom? Is that some sort of award they give out every few years? I don’t doubt that Wallace is a competent scholar, but there are other competent scholars who disagree with him. That’s part of why I said there is “reasonable doubt” as to authorship. I don’t think we can be dogmatic about it.

Regardless of who wrote it, and when, no one here is questioning that 1 Timothy belongs in the NT canon. Plenty of people who weren’t Paul the Apostle wrote things that later became part of the Bible. The notion that pseudonymity is a disqualifier for inclusion is anachronistic and is another one of those ‘modernist errors’ some fundamentalists unwittingly commit.