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elizabeth4truth
Guest
What was the snake?
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elizabeth4truth
Guest
Do you mean the snake is the one to blame? If so, why did Adam and Eve get the punishment they got? They had to have done something that warranted their punishment, which I believe was self inflicted.
Thanks for your consideration of the matter.
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Antigen
Guest
Some interesting thoughts indeed. I am no big fan of Freud whose theories are pinned on one tiny part of his body, but I have observed, particularly in Americans, a certain phallus fixation. Sometimes eating fruit is just eating fruit. The snake is not a phallic symbol, the fruit from the tree is not a phallic symbol, the first sin was not even about sex: it was the same sin that damned Lucifer: Pride.
Sex in the Talmud beautiful. When God created man in His own image, it wasn’t the 70 kg male of the species He was talking about, it was man and woman together in congugal union! We as human beings are never closer to “as God” as when we come together to create not just another life, but a life animated by the breath of God just as Adam was.
This is the true hideousness of sins like adultery, fornification, sodomy birth control and abortion. These are all abasements of God Himself.
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elizabeth4truth
Guest
Yes, yes, yes Antigen, I agree with you 1000%, the union of husband and wife is the greatest ecstasy God created between each other and Himself and the resulting creation of new life is soooo awesome.
How did sexual perversion begin? Was it with man and woman or man and man?
How do we know the first sin was not sexual? This is very important for me to know. Please tell me.
Lucifer fell to pride. Did Adam fall to the same sin? Did he begin to believe he could be like God, if he had a subject to rule? Eve? Did Eve fall to Adam’s desire in sloth? Did she not remain diligent to keeping The Lord Our God, first and foremost and let Adam be her lord? When God told her part of her punishment was that Adam would be her master, doesn’t that punishment fit the crime, as I’ve described?
Please tell me where my thinking is wrong. I really want to know.
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buffalo
Guest
**From the Catechism: It clearly shows the sequence. Lust and power follow.
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Man’s first sin
397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of.278 All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.
398 In that sin man *preferred *himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.279
399 Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness.280 They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.281
400 **The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.**282 Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man.283 Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”.284 Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground”,285 for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.286
401 After that first sin, the world is virtually inundated by sin There is Cain’s murder of his brother Abel and the universal corruption which follows in the wake of sin. Likewise, sin frequently manifests itself in the history of Israel, especially as infidelity to the God of the Covenant and as transgression of the Law of Moses. And even after Christ’s atonement, sin raises its head in countless ways among Christians.287 Scripture and the Church’s Tradition continually recall the presence and universality of sin in man’s history:
What Revelation makes known to us is confirmed by our own experience. For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man has also upset the relationship which should link him to his last end, and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures.288
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Man’s first sin
397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of.278 All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.
398 In that sin man *preferred *himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.279
399 Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness.280 They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.281
400 **The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.**282 Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man.283 Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”.284 Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground”,285 for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.286
401 After that first sin, the world is virtually inundated by sin There is Cain’s murder of his brother Abel and the universal corruption which follows in the wake of sin. Likewise, sin frequently manifests itself in the history of Israel, especially as infidelity to the God of the Covenant and as transgression of the Law of Moses. And even after Christ’s atonement, sin raises its head in countless ways among Christians.287 Scripture and the Church’s Tradition continually recall the presence and universality of sin in man’s history:
What Revelation makes known to us is confirmed by our own experience. For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man has also upset the relationship which should link him to his last end, and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures.288
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Perry5
Guest
Where Adam and Eve ejected from paradice simply because Adam could not control his serpent???
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BayCityRickL
Guest
Thanks to those who have taken this question as seriously as it may have deserved to be taken.
We see, with or without an Adam and Eve, that we will never be able to prove everything in scripture before the Second Coming. As we all know, that we walk by faith, not by light, in one sense.
but, in another sense, Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.
We see, with or without an Adam and Eve, that we will never be able to prove everything in scripture before the Second Coming. As we all know, that we walk by faith, not by light, in one sense.
but, in another sense, Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.
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Perry5
Guest
Andyet we know that faith is a guarantee of nothing to any one, akin to wishful thinking,hope etc,etc.etc.
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buffalo
Guest
We have Revelation - which means it has been revealed to us truthfully.
**288 **Thus the revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and forging of the covenant of the one God with his People. Creation is revealed as the first step towards this covenant, the first and universal witness to God’s all-powerful love. And so, the truth of creation is also expressed with growing vigor in the message of the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and the liturgy, and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen People.
**384 **Revelation makes known to us the state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin: from their friendship with God flowed the happiness of their existence in paradise.
**82 **As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”
**2080 **The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law. It is made known to us by divine revelation and by human reason.
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Antigen
Guest
I may be old but I am not that old dear.
*]Genesis says the first sin was disobediance. Granted, the people of 4000 BC may not have been very sophisticated, but they knew what sex was. If the writers had meant fellatio or some other sex act, they would have said so.
*]St Paul refers to Original sin as the “Disobedience” of our parents.
*]Oral Tradition (no double entendres intended here
) tells us it was Adam and Eve’s disobeydience. This tradition has been captured in the catechism.
I suspect that there is a literal translation of the Torah behind the misconception that Eve was subserviant to Adam. In the Talmud, there is an instruction that goes:
When the ancient texts were written, I bet they had the same problem with certain translations being used to keep women in oppressive tribal roles.
Exegesis becomes more complex as time goes on. Read any good Shakespear lately? The Elizabethan era was only 400 years ago. The new Testament is 1900, the books of the Torah, who knows! Thank God for the Spirit which maintains the purity of His Revelation in Holy Mother Church!
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rciadan
Guest
Romans 5:12, states “as sin came into the world through one man…”
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elizabeth4truth
Guest
*]Genesis says the first sin was disobediance. Granted, the people of 4000 BC may not have been very sophisticated, but they knew what sex was. If the writers had meant fellatio or some other sex act, they would have said so.
*]St Paul refers to Original sin as the “Disobedience” of our parents.
*]Oral Tradition (no double entendres intended here ) tells us it was Adam and Eve’s disobeydience. This tradition has been captured in the catechism.
…
Thank God for the Spirit which maintains the purity of His Revelation in Holy Mother Church!
Dear Antigen,
Thank you for taking your time to respond to my post. I appreciate your effort, insight and thought and agree the first sin was disobediance. Think what I’m confused on is how Adam and Eve disobeyed and what implications that has on how men and women regard each other today. Guess I’m looking for solutions to the age old issue of division between the sexes. And, hoping that if we understood what happened in the beginning, that we might find healing, in the present and for future generations.
This morning I prayed to the Holy Trinity and let go of the need to argue the possibility that oral ejaculation might be the original sin. I think it could be and might explain how sexual perversion began. It’s a theory, nothing more. Leaving it at that, I am grateful for this forum and the opportunity to explore the possibilities.
Peace to you,
Elizabeth
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Antigen
Guest
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didymus
Guest
Gen 3:6 And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband, who did eat.
So Eve ate the fruit first, then offered it to Adam. What if he had refused?
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BibleReader
Guest
I am one of the 11 fools who (at this point) have voted for Eve, for this reason: I do not believe that the Adam and Eve story is non-fiction. Instead, it is fiction which teaches religious truth. In the story, women are the “type,” or symbol, for “mankind in need of salvation.” Eve partakes of the forbidden fruit first because she is “mankind in need of salvation.”
Adam receives the fruit from Eve and partakes of it, because he is a picture of Christ “becoming sin,” as described at 2 Corinthians 5:21. (Christ was “made to be sin” in the sense that in offering Himself for our sins, He functionally took the penalty for our sins upon Himself, and so ended-up being treated as though He were sin, itself.)
After Adam does that, we see him “hiding from God’s wrath in the Garden,” at Genesis 3:8, like Jesus in Gethsemane; we see Adam generating food “by the sweat of his brow,” Genesis 3:18, just as Christ completed the generation of our food, the Eucharist, after the Last Supper, by His passion and death, beginning with His bloody sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:44; and we see Adam confronted with “thorns and thistles,” at Genesis 3:18, like Christ confronted woth the crown of thorns.
See? Adam is a Christ picture. His partaking of the fruit is not a sinful partaking, but a picture of Christ taking our sins upon Himself.
That’s why Adam takes the fruit FROM EVE, and not directly from the tree, like Eve did.
Adam receives the fruit from Eve and partakes of it, because he is a picture of Christ “becoming sin,” as described at 2 Corinthians 5:21. (Christ was “made to be sin” in the sense that in offering Himself for our sins, He functionally took the penalty for our sins upon Himself, and so ended-up being treated as though He were sin, itself.)
After Adam does that, we see him “hiding from God’s wrath in the Garden,” at Genesis 3:8, like Jesus in Gethsemane; we see Adam generating food “by the sweat of his brow,” Genesis 3:18, just as Christ completed the generation of our food, the Eucharist, after the Last Supper, by His passion and death, beginning with His bloody sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:44; and we see Adam confronted with “thorns and thistles,” at Genesis 3:18, like Christ confronted woth the crown of thorns.
See? Adam is a Christ picture. His partaking of the fruit is not a sinful partaking, but a picture of Christ taking our sins upon Himself.
That’s why Adam takes the fruit FROM EVE, and not directly from the tree, like Eve did.
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TOME
Guest
Concerning whose responsible (Adam or Eve) I had to say both but with a qualifier. My qualifier is this, I do not hold as literal what we read in Genesis concerning the fall. More I do not understand the first three Chapters of Genesis as literal in meaning and I truely belief to takes these passages as literal misses the beauty and meaning of them. In Genesis 1 & 2 we find the most important lesson of the Bible (OT & NT), namely God is God. God created all with a plan/purpose and what God created God created good. In chapters 1&2 God reveals to us His Plans for the Right relationships between God and Humans, Humans and Nature and finally amoung ourselves. The passages on the fall, I believe, reveal to us the roots of our fall, namely, that we (Humans) forgot or through our exercise of Free Will rejected the lesson taught in the very first sentence of Genesis - God is God - we are not God. That is, I believe the lesson of Genesis - it is the Human desire to be God and not creature (just a little side note, the serpents temptation wasn’t to do something on the face of it that is “bad” or “evil”, rather what was the temptation itself was to use the gifts of our Intellect and Reason which is something that is good in itself otherwise God wouldn’t have given us the ability) After the Fall we find Gensis teaching us the imbalanced caused by our human desire to be God in our relationships with God, Nature and ourselves utlimately told in the story of Cain and Able (here we are not living as one but killing each other.) So it’s not this person or that who was responsible it we human’s who forget we are creatures and not God.
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elizabeth4truth
Guest
Thank you Tome,
I appreciate your perspective.
Peace,
Elizabeth
I appreciate your perspective.
Peace,
Elizabeth
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Della
Guest
For Biblereader and TOME, the Catholic Church teaches that the words of the Bible are to be taken as literally true. Any spiritual interpretations are secondary in nature. So, the Church teaches that Adam and Eve were real people who really did rebel against God by disobeying him.
As to who bears the greater guilt, it is Adam because he was “head of the woman” which means he had authority under God for her care. When she brought him the forbidden fruit he should have gone to God with the problem and accepted whatever sacrifice God might have asked of him, including the offering of his own life for hers.
Instead, he, knowing full well what he was doing since he wasn’t deceived, gave in to his desire to “taste of the fruit” and so fell, dragging all his descendants down with him in a fallen state that only the redemption gained by Christ could redeem. This understanding is supported by Paul who wrote that sin came into the world by one man and one man, Christ, is the remedy for it.
As to who bears the greater guilt, it is Adam because he was “head of the woman” which means he had authority under God for her care. When she brought him the forbidden fruit he should have gone to God with the problem and accepted whatever sacrifice God might have asked of him, including the offering of his own life for hers.
Instead, he, knowing full well what he was doing since he wasn’t deceived, gave in to his desire to “taste of the fruit” and so fell, dragging all his descendants down with him in a fallen state that only the redemption gained by Christ could redeem. This understanding is supported by Paul who wrote that sin came into the world by one man and one man, Christ, is the remedy for it.
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didymus
Guest
Forget them, who created the serpent andlet it wander around loose in the Garden?
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patg
Guest
And just who taught it to talk? (and gave it vocal chords, and told it about the tree…)
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