How much of the Bible do you take literally?

[juliamajor]

other tales predate the Biblical tale. That images from those tales made it into Biblical accounts is certain. That floods of great size happened is also a surety. That the flood was universal is doubtful. No scientific proof. That the ancients viewed the small areas they lived in and traveled as there whole world is correct.
That the Hebrew text is adapted from these sources is also very clear.
Does the background of a ancient pagan story that has been utilized to serve as a vehicle for a monotheistic creation story negate it’s truth or it’s power?- no.

 

[grannymh]

I would: he seems to have been fond of typology.

This is the point at which it becomes less clear: Adam could be used as a symbol, as an object lesson, and even as a comparison with Jesus whether or not he were real. This is not just a modern idea, since Plutarch understood it (q.v. the beginning of his life of Theseus).

There is actually a rather tricky linguistic point just there, regarding “sinned”. The Greek for that passage is εφ’ω παντες 'ημαρτον, rendered by Jerome as in quo omnes peccaverunt. The crucial difference is that the Greek 'ημαρτον is in a curious tense called the Aorist (the ‘undefined’), which could be simple past (“sinned”) or could be simple present (“sin”). Latin did not have a tense which could do both of those, and Jerome went with the past tense peccaverunt. Augustine followed him (and Calvin followed Augustine), believing that everyone sinned with Adam, whereas Chrysostom went the other way with the Greek, assuming that it meant that everyone has (present tense) the habit of sinning, not that everyone was somehow personally involved in Adam’s defection.

Where this is all relevant to our discussion here is that Chrysostom’s reading does not depend upon Adam to have been a real, historical person: as a type for humanity, he sinned, and we sin too. (From memory, Chrysostom does elsewhere describe Adam as a real, historical person.)

I understand what you are saying about Adam, and about Catholic teaching about Adam, but I am afraid that, personally, I have not encountered sufficient cause to believe something which I would describe as both improbable and unnecessary.

To begin at the ending, for purposes of discussion, I personally prefer understanding over belief. “Understanding” to me invites each party to explore further on the topic. Understanding is not set in stone.

I am still re-reading your excellent presentation on the word “sinned”. When I first read Romans 5: 12-21 a couple of years ago, my gut instinct said that St. Paul was viewing Adam’s personally chosen Original Sin as different from the sins of subsequent humans. As I am now learning more aspects of Original Sin, I am thinking that Chrysostom ( from your post 61) understood the loss of mastery of self over triple concupiscence. (Information source. CCC 377; CCC 400; CCC 2514)

Now I need to comment on your reply to my statement “We know that the one person Adam is real because Jesus hanging bloody on His cross is real.” The reference to Plutarch startled me because I had considered “symbolism” of Adam to be recent. When I learned on CAF that some, not all, Catholics including some, not all, clergy, considered Adam to be symbolic, I was not only startled, I was in a state of shock. My childhood Faith was shaken.

Being older than dirt, my Adam education as a young student was based in simple Catholic doctrines. The first time I completely read the first three chapters of Genesis was when I landed on CAF. The *Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition *confirms my childhood learning.
*CCC, 389, *last sentence.
“The Church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.”
As I am driven by curiosity, in regard to your comment:
“Adam could be used as a symbol, as an object lesson, and even as a comparison with Jesus whether or not he were real. This is not just a modern idea, since Plutarch understood it (q.v. the beginning of his life of Theseus).”

What exactly does Adam symbolize? What is his object lesson? How is the symbolic, not real Adam compared with Jesus?

Thank you.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Does the background of a ancient pagan story that has been utilized to serve as a vehicle for a monotheistic creation story negate it’s truth or it’s power?- no.

It’s hard to communicate this point.

:twocents:

The circumstantial details are unimportant.
That is why you are free to believe whatever you wish of them.
I wonder whether it happened 200, 000 years ago, but it doesn’t matter.

It is not simply a tale. It was an event that transformed humanity in our relationship with each other and with God. The Truth is in that reality - the way had to be prepared for the Word to be made flesh.
God created, maintains and enters into time. Creation did not stop with Eden; we see it happening today, in the conception of each new person. In Noah we see not only a victory over sin, but the creation of a new connection between God and the body of humanity, such that we may progress ever closer to Him.

We are looking at this from different perspectives.
I don’t fully grasp your concepts of “pagan story” or “vehicle for a monotheistic creation story”.
Here, it is myself conversing with you, exchanging ideas.
In scripture, the Truth is revealed as part of a relationship here and now with God.

 

[jmcrae]

It’s hard to communicate this point.

:twocents:

The circumstantial details are unimportant.
That is why you are free to believe whatever you wish of them.
I wonder whether it happened 200, 000 years ago, but it doesn’t matter.

It is not simply a tale. It was an event that transformed humanity in our relationship with each other and with God. The Truth is in that reality - the way had to be prepared for the Word to be made flesh.
God created, maintains and enters into time. Creation did not stop with Eden; we see it happening today, in the conception of each new person. In Noah we see not only a victory over sin, but the creation of a new connection between God and the body of humanity, such that we may progress ever closer to Him.

We are looking at this from different perspectives.
I don’t fully grasp your concepts of “pagan story” or “vehicle for a monotheistic creation story”.
Here, it is myself conversing with you, exchanging ideas.
In scripture, the Truth is revealed as part of a relationship here and now with God.

The Old Testament predates its own writing by many centuries - perhaps millenia.

The story of Noah was known long before it was written down. That pagan stories also existed, and that details from the pagan stories made it into the Noah story, only make it more believable, rather than less.

These stories began to be written down during the Babylonian exile. Prior to that time, most of the Old Testament, apart from books of the Law, was held in oral tradition.

Even the writing was intended only to support the oral tradition, rather than supplant it - hence, the rather cryptic notation that was used (consonants without vowels) - people already knew the stories; the notation given was to help them remember what order to tell them in.

We do similar things today - for example, with the little pamphlets given to help people remember how to pray the Rosary - the parts that the people are assumed already to know are indicated with abbreviations (“V” for voice; “R” for response) and cryptic notes (“Hail Mary” x10 ) - the purpose is to save space.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

In my opinion all of the truth of the scriptures depend upon the actual factual historical literal resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The truth of the resurrection makes all of the other scriptures make sense. Without the resurrection where do you find truth?

Jesus is the way, the truth, the life.

Most of the bible can be taken literally.

I think that people who don’t believe that not all but most of the bible can be taken literally in their heart of hearts don’t believe in the resurrection of Christ. I hope that I am wrong about that and pray for all those who don’t believe in the truth of the scriptures and most of all in the resurrection.

I don’t think that all of Genesis is meant to be taken literally but I do think that most of it is literally true. There would be some modern biblical scholars who would think that I was wrong to think that way but I do think that most of the Doctors of the Catholic Church would feel that way.

 

[edwest2]

There are too many false statements here:

"The Time Question

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”

"Real History

"The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

"Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

"The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

"It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

"Adam and Eve: Real People

“It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).”

catholic.com/tracts/is-catholicism-pagan

catholic.com/quickquestions/did-the-church-add-the-deuterocanonical-books-to-the-bible-at-the-council-of-trent

biblehub.com/romans/5-12.htm

Interpreting the Bible according to the Catechism:

"III. THE HOLY SPIRIT, INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE

"109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.75

"110 In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."76

"111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. "Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written."77

"The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.78

"112 1. Be especially attentive “to the content and unity of the whole Scripture”. Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover.79

The phrase "heart of Christ" can refer to Sacred Scripture, which makes known his heart, closed before the Passion, as the Scripture was obscure. But the Scripture has been opened since the Passion; since those who from then on have understood it, consider and discern in what way the prophecies must be interpreted.80

“113 2. Read the Scripture within “the living Tradition of the whole Church”. According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (”. . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church"81).

"114 3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith.82 By “analogy of faith” we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.

"The senses of Scripture

"115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

"116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83

"117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

"1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.84

"2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85

"3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86

 

[edwest2]

"118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:

The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.87

"119 "It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God."88

But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.89"

God bless,
Ed

 

[Mystophilus]

As I am now learning more aspects of Original Sin, I am thinking that Chrysostom ( from your post 61) understood the loss of mastery of self over triple concupiscence.

There is more Orthodox commentary on it here, including some of the disagreements between their view and the Western (i.e. Catholic) one.

The reference to Plutarch startled me because I had considered “symbolism” of Adam to be recent.

One of the basic rules of historical scholarship: whensoever anyone, no matter how expert, says, “This is first example of X”, they are almost always wrong.

When I learned on CAF that some, not all, Catholics including some, not all, clergy, considered Adam to be symbolic, I was not only startled, I was in a state of shock. My childhood Faith was shaken.

That’s a difference between Anglicans and Catholics: you are surprised when other Catholics disagree with you; we are surprised when other Anglicans agree.

What exactly does Adam symbolize? What is his object lesson? How is the symbolic, not real Adam compared with Jesus?

It works the same way as if Adam were real: he is the prototype of the sinner, the bringer of doom, whereas Jesus is the Redeemer, the bringer of salvation. Adam is a figure in a narrative, and he operates as such whether the narrative is historical or fictive. We can do this with all sorts of literary figures: Homer’s Achilles is an archetype of pride, and of thinking with parts other than your brain; Tolkien’s Frodo is an archetype of humble, stoic heroism. When you want to make a rhetorical point, to persuade people, it can be even more useful to cite an example from fiction than from history.

Thank you.

Thank you. It is an interesting discussion.

 

[grannymh]

What exactly does Adam symbolize? What is his object lesson? How is the symbolic, not real Adam compared with Jesus?

It works the same way as if Adam were real: he is the prototype of the sinner, the bringer of doom, whereas Jesus is the Redeemer, the bringer of salvation. Adam is a figure in a narrative, and he operates as such whether the narrative is historical or fictive. We can do this with all sorts of literary figures: Homer’s Achilles is an archetype of pride, and of thinking with parts other than your brain; Tolkien’s Frodo is an archetype of humble, stoic heroism. When you want to make a rhetorical point, to persuade people, it can be even more useful to cite an example from fiction than from history.

Please correct me if I am too way out in my observations. This is the first time I have thought about the use of rhetoric to establish the importance of the first three chapters of Genesis. And my major was English. Yikes!

Should we be looking at the rhetoric of the author? What are the author’s main rhetorical points that would persuade his readers that not only was God as Creator really real, but He also was able to share His Divine life with humans? Ever since I learned that the Genesis author was not a Ph.D. scientist, I have tried to figure out what he was because his education is apparent via style and content.

The statement that Adam is the prototype of the sinner is, in my personal opinion, a realistic statement. Proceeding from that statement, one can make good use of literary figures as a way to demonstrate the final action of Adam, the prototype of all of us. I base my opinion on the fact of life that sin is all around us, even when I look in the mirror. What bothers me about my opinion is that it is based on 20-20 hindsight. Even the Genesis author was aware of sin and evil. Nonetheless, we need to take notice that even with sin in the world, the author affirmed the existence of a Creator Who transcended human nature. (Genesis 1:1) As for the prototype of the sinner, starting with Cain makes more sense. The key to sinning, which is free choice, is referred to in verse 7 when God says to Cain “… yet you can be his master.” When we look at Adam being the prototype for Cain the sinner, we see the similarity that both had knowledge of right and wrong and both made a choice. My difficulty is that chapter 1 does not paint Adam as a prototype for the sinner. “God looked at everything He had made, and He found it very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

My question is --When Adam is considered as a “prototype”, who or what is he the prototype for in chapters 1 & 2?

A quick P.S.
These two statements from post 69
really tickled my funny bone.

One of the basic rules of historical scholarship: whensoever anyone, no matter how expert, says, “This is first example of X”, they are almost always wrong.

That’s a difference between Anglicans and Catholics: you are surprised when other Catholics disagree with you; we are surprised when other Anglicans agree.

 

[jmcrae]

My question is --When Adam is considered as a “prototype”, who or what is he the prototype for in chapters 1 & 2?

The human race.

And I see no reason not to assume he was a real person. The account with the talking snake is most likely allegorical, but there is no reason to think that Adam and Eve were not real people, and that the allegorical account of the first sin stands in for something that, though the details are forgotten, was a real enough event that happened to real people who really are our ancestors.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . It works the same way as if Adam were real: he is the prototype of the sinner, the bringer of doom, whereas Jesus is the Redeemer, the bringer of salvation. Adam is a figure in a narrative, and he operates as such whether the narrative is historical or fictive. . .

:twocents: Scripture has different levels of meaning:

• It can be read psychologically, its stories understood in terms of emotional dynamics or Jungian archetypes. Adam would, in this light, be considered as one in a number of myths that speak to who we are in terms of guilt, shame, ego, superego and id. Noah, as another example, might be understood as describing the resolution of Oedipal conflicts into latency - the chaos of polymorphously perverse libidinal energies calmed and pushed into the unconscious.
• It offers also an ontological explanation of how being is structured in humanity. There is one human nature represented by Adam, incarnated in each particular unique individual. Genesis then would describe a connection to the Divine and to other human beings, which is similar to what we might find in Hinduism or Buddhism. In this regard, Adam is real, because we are all expressions of that person, but he would be not a particular person in time. This is then reflected on the way we see ourselves - the individual ego is consequently illusory.
• Understood from a Christian perspective, we have God inserting Himself into time, becoming a part of His creation. Adam in this context, not only represents the hero of our individual story, not only our spiritual-material structure here and now, but an actual person, who was the first of the billions of us who have followed. The Old Testament reveals the presence of the Word from the beginning in time and through to His eventually being made flesh in Jesus. Our existence is both temporal and eternal in nature; it is both individual and part of the larger humanity. Each of us is a real soul. The historicity of the Bible cannot be disregarded as it speaks to the real events which took place transforming us into who we became - each real person capable of entering into a direct face to face relationship with God.

 

[mlz]

I realize this is an older “thread” but I must make a note for some reason to explain the difference between literal and literalist. The literalist believes exactly what is said. So if I were to say “It is raining cats and dogs” the literalist believes there are cats and dogs raining down. The literal meaning is that it is a metaphor and means “it’s raining really hard”.
Just a difference between the two.

My love in Him,
mlz

 

[Mystophilus]

I realize this is an older “thread” but I must make a note for some reason to explain the difference between literal and literalist. The literalist believes exactly what is said. So if I were to say “It is raining cats and dogs” the literalist believes there are cats and dogs raining down. The literal meaning is that it is a metaphor and means “it’s raining really hard”.

Um, sorry, but no: “literal” means “Of or relating to the ‘letter’ of a text, obtained by taking words and passages in their primary or usual meaning, without regard to any underlying significance, mysticism, or allegory; (hence) actual or concrete, as opposed to figurative, metaphorical, etc.” (OED). A “literalist” is a person who takes things literally.

“It is raining cats and dogs” literally says that felines and canines are falling from the sky, which is how a determined or naive literalist might take it, but it is a metaphorical idiom and so its customary meaning is that “It is raining really hard”.

 

[Mystophilus]

Should we be looking at the rhetoric of the author?

Always: not because it is always relevant, but because we do not know whether it is relevant until we look.

What bothers me about my opinion is that it is based on 20-20 hindsight.

They usually are, which is why we can sound so much cleverer when talking about academic issues or historical events than we do when things happen in real life.

When Adam is considered as a “prototype”, who or what is he the prototype for in chapters 1 & 2?

In ch. 1, he is the pinnacle and archetype of Creation, appearing at the end of the sequence. In ch. 2, he is the centre and archetype of Creation, appearing in the middle of the sequence. In ch. 3, he is an early sinner, but it takes Paul’s description of the story in Romans 5 to elide Eve from the picture and make him the prototype.

These two statements from post 69
really tickled my funny bone.

 

[grannymh]

In ch. 1, he is the pinnacle and archetype of Creation, appearing at the end of the sequence. In ch. 2, he is the centre and archetype of Creation, appearing in the middle of the sequence. In ch. 3, he is an early sinner, but it takes Paul’s description of the story in Romans 5 to elide Eve from the picture and make him the prototype.

It is here where care has to be exercised.

Adam, a peerless species, is definitely the pinnacle of Creation. But he cannot be considered an archetype of Creation because the rest of Creation does not have a rational spiritual soul.

Eve is technically elided because there can be only one real original human person. Eve, who also committed the same sin of disobedience, is the second real person on earth. As the first human parents, Adam and Eve transmitted the contracted state of Original Sin to their descendants. Catholicism considers this transmission a “mystery” of truth. (Information source. CCC 402-409)

Adam is an early sinner. What I see happening is that some knowledgeable people either do not know what Original Sin is or they prefer to ignore Original Sin because of its “responsibility”. By responsibility, I am referring to the fact that Original Sin affected human nature because Original Sin shattered the original relationship between humanity and divinity. By misinterpreting “responsibility”, there are flat out attacks on God as being good.

When I was taught Original Sin, the difficulty was demonstrating the divinity of Jesus Christ. Jesus was considered a [human] prophet among prophets. Now, I am finding that the difficulty is His humanity.

 

[jmcrae]

I realize this is an older “thread” but I must make a note for some reason to explain the difference between literal and literalist. The literalist believes exactly what is said. So if I were to say “It is raining cats and dogs” the literalist believes there are cats and dogs raining down. The literal meaning is that it is a metaphor and means “it’s raining really hard”.
Just a difference between the two.

My love in Him,
mlz

This is correct. (Source: Making Senses of Scripture, by Mark Shea.)

 

[CharlesdeFoucld]

Um, sorry, but no: “literal” means “Of or relating to the ‘letter’ of a text, obtained by taking words and passages in their primary or usual meaning, without regard to any underlying significance, mysticism, or allegory; (hence) actual or concrete, as opposed to figurative, metaphorical, etc.” (OED). A “literalist” is a person who takes things literally.

“It is raining cats and dogs” literally says that felines and canines are falling from the sky, which is how a determined or naive literalist might take it, but it is a metaphorical idiom and so its customary meaning is that “It is raining really hard”.

While you’re correct about the average, everyday meaning of the word ‘literal’, Catholic exegesis uses the term differently. ‘Literal’ does not refer to the plain sense of the words, but to the human author’s intention. Thus, contrary to the dictionary definition of ‘literal’, for a Catholic exegete the literal sense of ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ is probably ‘It’s raining really hard’. This is why we say that the bible has a literal sense that’s always true, upon which the spiritual senses rest.

A good survey of the history of the literal sense in Catholic exegesis (as well as theories of inspiration and other hermeneutical problems) can be found in this chapter of Fr. Aidan Nichols The Shape of Catholic Theology which can be read on Google books.

 

[Mystophilus]

Catholic exegesis uses the term differently. ‘Literal’ does not refer to the plain sense of the words, but to the human author’s intention. Thus, contrary to the dictionary definition of ‘literal’, for a Catholic exegete the literal sense of ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ is probably ‘It’s raining really hard’. This is why we say that the bible has a literal sense that’s always true, upon which the spiritual senses rest.

Fascinating!

At least in that source, a differentiation is made between the adjective itself and the noun phrase “literal sense”: p.142 “the literal sense is regarded as the sense the author intended and expressed in language. To grasp the literal sense, we have to know whether the author was using imagery or literal (that is, nonmetaphorical) forms of linguistic expression” (emphases mine). The adjective is thus used in the normal way, whereas the noun phrase is used in this coterie sense which you describe in place of what is more commonly termed the “idiomatic sense”. The OED, by the way, dates the standard usage of the adjective to the first half of the C15th, and does not have any entry which corresponds to this coterie usage. I have just emailed the OED to suggest that they should include it.

 

[Mystophilus]

I realize this is an older “thread” but I must make a note for some reason to explain the difference between literal and literalist. The literalist believes exactly what is said. So if I were to say “It is raining cats and dogs” the literalist believes there are cats and dogs raining down. The literal meaning is that it is a metaphor and means “it’s raining really hard”.
Just a difference between the two.

My love in Him,
mlz

I stand corrected: as CharlesdeFoucld has just pointed out, what you describe is indeed the usage at least of the phrase “literal sense” within Catholic exegesis.

 

[Mystophilus]

It is here where care has to be exercised.

Adam, a peerless species, is definitely the pinnacle of Creation. But he cannot be considered an archetype of Creation because the rest of Creation does not have a rational spiritual soul.

In Aristotelian and Catholic thought, yes. Others of us are happy to accord animus to animals.

Eve is technically elided because there can be only one real original human person. Eve, who also committed the same sin of disobedience, is the second real person on earth.

According to Genesis, she was the second person, but actually the first sinner. I find Paul’s removal of her from the story to be disturbing.

Adam is an early sinner. What I see happening is that some knowledgeable people either do not know what Original Sin is or they prefer to ignore Original Sin because of its “responsibility”. By responsibility, I am referring to the fact that Original Sin affected human nature because Original Sin shattered the original relationship between humanity and divinity. By misinterpreting “responsibility”, there are flat out attacks on God as being good.

When I was taught Original Sin, the difficulty was demonstrating the divinity of Jesus Christ. Jesus was considered a [human] prophet among prophets. Now, I am finding that the difficulty is His humanity.

I dare say that this is sometimes the case, although the Orthodox view of it could not, I think, be fairly described as either ignorance of it or ignoring it.