Is Genesis 2: 15-17 an explanation of Original Sin?

[simpleas]

Originally Posted by grannymh

Note that in all the allegories which feature a human parent etc., there is the missing information that God is extremely different from a human. Also equally ignored are the facts in CCC 396.

This is interesting, we notice that Genesis 1-3 doesn’t explain what sort of God/creator the spirit is, we read that the spirit hoovered over the deep or something like that,( not got the correct verse to hand)
Then God/creator sounds as though the spirit is more than one when the words ‘become like one of us’
The human was already ‘like one of us’ if they were created in the image of God at the beginning, so the revealing that man has become ‘like one of us’ means something different.

Then Jesus teaches us to pray the Our Father. Maybe that is the best way in which people can relate to a non human deity, thinking of the God as a father, or even for some a mother.

Also, when the CCC is speaking of man, I read it as speaking about humanity, not Adam.
The word established means* having existed or done something for a long time and therefore recognized and generally accepted:*
Wouldn’t that mean as a people, I mean a community of people and not just one Adam or Adam and Eve alone.
I suppose it could be referring to just Adam.

Just some thoughts from me.

 

[grannymh]

This is interesting, we notice that Genesis 1-3 doesn’t explain what sort of God/creator the spirit is, we read that the spirit hoovered over the deep or something like that,( not got the correct verse to hand)
Then God/creator sounds as though the spirit is more than one when the words ‘become like one of us’
The human was already ‘like one of us’ if they were created in the image of God at the beginning, so the revealing that man has become ‘like one of us’ means something different.

Then Jesus teaches us to pray the Our Father. Maybe that is the best way in which people can relate to a non human deity, thinking of the God as a father, or even for some a mother.

Also, when the CCC is speaking of man, I read it as speaking about humanity, not Adam.
The word established means* having existed or done something for a long time and therefore recognized and generally accepted:*
Wouldn’t that mean as a people, I mean a community of people and not just one Adam or Adam and Eve alone.
I suppose it could be referring to just Adam.

Just some thoughts from me.

Thank you for sharing.

I am curious about the broad range of these thoughts. I do wonder if there are thoughts which would eventually lead to one of the truths about Original Sin as taught by the Catholic Church.

 

[grannymh]

Genesis 2: 15
The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.h
The words “settled him” instead of “they” lets us know that God is taking care of the individual first human who would be hungry because he has a material anatomy. “The sign of man’s familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden.” (CCC 378) Later, Adam’s desires which went beyond his material world would contribute to his disobedience to the commandment in Genesis 2: 16-17.

In Genesis chapter 3, the Garden can be seen as a gift of friendship where God and His first humans could walk and talk. (CCC 378) The reason Adam and Eve hid themselves is that they knew their friendship relationship with their God had been shattered. (CCC 399)
Genesis 3: 8

When they heard the sound of the LORD God walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the day,* the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.d

We can ask ourselves – How deep was Adam and Eve’s friendship with God?
Answer: Genesis 1: 27

God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God he created them;
male and female* he created them.

For centuries, artists have tried to give us God’s image.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Fra_Bartolomeo_002.jpg/173px-Fra_Bartolomeo_002.jpg
Fra Bartolomeo, 1509

We will never be able to paint the true image of a transcendent, super-natural Pure Spirit. But we can know that it is our spiritual soul which is in the image of our completely Spiritual God. It is because of our spiritual soul that we can communicate with our Creator and He communicates with us. It is because of our spiritual soul that we are able to share in the spiritual life of our God.

The Catholic Church teaches that Adam and Eve began life in the State of Holiness and Justice which made it possible for them to share in the divine life of the Trinity. (CCC Glossary, Sanctifying Grace, page 898)

We, immersed in materialism, have difficulty understanding this. Perhaps, the picture of Adam and Eve listening, in the breezy time of the day, for the sound of God’s footsteps, will help us understand that our Creator loves us so much that He wants to share His life with us. (CCC 356; CCC 1730) We know this is possible because we all descended from the one and only first human couple, lovingly known as Adam and Eve.

 

[grannymh]

Genesis 2: 15 has taught us that a sincere beautiful relationship existed between God, the Supreme Creator, and Adam, the pinnacle of God’s creation on our planet earth.

Before going into the Original Sin itself, there needs to be a reminder that God and Adam are not two equal beings. Unfortunately, there are some allegories floating about that imply that God should be seen as a human father etc. We need to keep firmly in our mind what CCC 396 (below) correctly points out. Those who learned about Original Sin many years ago, immediately learned the necessity of Christ’s full Divinity. Today, this necessity of full Divinity is being attacked in the form of modern Arianism.

Note: CCC 396 applies to both Adam and to us.
**396 **God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” spells this out: “for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

This last sentence from CCC 389 is a warning.
“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.”

 

[grannymh]

A popular Original Sin analogy which can be confusing is the good parent protecting the child… This one ends up with God being a rotten parent for giving the punishment which then damns all innocent humanity to pain and suffering, etc.

A thinking person could bring up Genesis 1: 27. Yes, God did give Adam and Eve an intellective rational soul so that you and I, as their descendants, can share in His life aka being in the State of Sanctifying Grace (CCC Glossary, Sanctifying Grace, page 898; CCC 356) And yes, that is not the end of the story. CCC 1730 does need concentration on the part of the reader.
**CCC 1730 **God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. “God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.”

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.

​

One of the more interesting indications that Adam has rational tools is Genesis 2: 19-20, in addition to Genesis 2: 16-17
19
So the LORD God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name.
20
The man gave names to all the tame animals, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a helper suited to the man.

Today, we would call this knowledge of difference between animals and humans as basic
biology 101.
In the second chapter of Genesis, true marriage does not appear as some kind of figurative language.

Sometimes, the flat out truth about Original Sin is easier to understand.

 

[grannymh]

As I continue to dance around Original Sin per se, I now have another diversion to offer for people who get hung up on the forbidden tree’s weird name. Why not simply call that tree The Original Sin Tree? Do we have a clue in Genesis 2: 15-17 that this name is the more correct one? To seek an answer one needs to review the following information.

Regarding Genesis 1: 27.
**CCC 1704 **The human person participates in the light and power of the divine Spirit. By his reason, he is capable of understanding the order of things established by the Creator. By free will, he is capable of directing himself toward his true good. He finds his perfection “in seeking and loving what is true and good.”

Regarding order of things.
**CCC 396 **God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” spells this out: “for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

 

[taco]

Here is my thought process about original sin, starting with the story of man’s creation. God said, “Let us make mankind in our image and likeness. . . . God created man in his image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. Then God blessed them” (Gen 1:26 - 28). Thus three times the Bible account recites that man is made in God’s image, and there is a less emphatic solitary reference to man also being in God’s likeness. When the Bible repeats something three times, it does so to specially emphasize the importance of the point.

Because Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden “tree of knowledge of good and evil”, they were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Eventually they had children, but their firstborn son Cain murdered their second son Abel and was punished by God by being made a wanderer and a fugitive. (Gen 4:8 - 16). Eventually all descendants of Cain were destroyed in the Great Flood of Noah’s time. Thus for the purposes of examining the doctrine of ongoing original sin in the world Cain and Abel are irrelevant, as Abel left no descendants and Cain’s line soon ceased to exist. That brings us to Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. Some of his descendants were destined to be the lone survivors of the Great Flood, and thus to become our progenitors. The Bible gives this account of Seth’s birth:

When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and called them Man when they were created. When Adam was one hundred and thirty years old, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and he called him Seth (Gen 5:1 - 3).

Adam had originally been made in the image and likeness of God and Seth had been made in image and likeness of his father Adam, but in the interim Adam by his sin of disobedience had ceased to reflect the image of God; he retained in himself only a more general resemblance, a likeness. The difference between the two may be analogized to the difference between a hologram and a silhouette. Adam transmitted God’s likeness to Seth but he was unable to transmit God’s image because he no longer possessed it; he could only transmit his own degraded image. He had known evil within himself, an experience foreign to God who indeed knows evil but not within himself; and he had known shame (Gen 3:5, 7, 10, 11, 22). The similarity between God and Adam was now more indistinct. Seth, like Adam, was still God’s son (i.e., “in the likeness of God”) but in the son the more perfect image of God was missing; this is the essence of original sin. Because only God’s likeness has been transmitted through the generations whole and intact to us who are Seth’s descendants, the restoration of God’s image to its original glory in us remains a work in progress. It was totally impossible for mankind until Jesus redeemed us, but now it is possible with God’s ongoing assistance. We "reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his very image from glory to glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord (1 Cor 3:18).

 

[taco]

I need to make a correction. The final citation in my previous post should have been to 2 Cor 3:18, not 1 Cor 3:18. Sorry about that!!

The more important point, which I should have made clearer, is that Genesis Chapter 5 (the first three sentences), appears at first glance to be merely a repetition of some of the things in the creation story, but it was not a repetition; it was an updated version written to record man’s new standing with God after Adam and Eve had transgressed God’s commandment regarding the forbidden fruit. After their fall from God’s favor man was still blessed. That was the good news. God had punished Adam and Eve and had cursed the ground because of them, but he had not cursed them (Gen 3:16 - 19). Nevertheless, something about man’s fundamental standing with God had changed for the worse; in Chapter 5’s updated narrative man was no longer said to be made in God’s image, but now was only in his likeness. Man (initially in the person of Seth) was now made in the sinful image of his first earthly father, Adam, but not in God’s image.

 

[grannymh]

I need to make a correction. The final citation in my previous post should have been to 2 Cor 3:18, not 1 Cor 3:18. Sorry about that!!

The more important point, which I should have made clearer, is that Genesis Chapter 5 (the first three sentences), appears at first glance to be merely a repetition of some of the things in the creation story, but it was not a repetition; it was an updated version written to record man’s new standing with God after Adam and Eve had transgressed God’s commandment regarding the forbidden fruit. After their fall from God’s favor man was still blessed. That was the good news. God had punished Adam and Eve and had cursed the ground because of them, but he had not cursed them (Gen 3:16 - 19). Nevertheless, something about man’s fundamental standing with God had changed for the worse; in Chapter 5’s updated narrative man was no longer said to be made in God’s image, but now was only in his likeness. Man (initially in the person of Seth) was now made in the sinful image of his first earthly father, Adam, but not in God’s image.

Because Genesis 1: 27 is a key issue in Catholic teachings, I would appreciate a discussion regarding “image” and “likeness” from this sentence: “Nevertheless, something about man’s fundamental standing with God had changed for the worse; in Chapter 5’s updated narrative man was no longer said to be made in God’s image, but now was only in his likeness.”

It is my understanding that both image and likeness (Genesis 1: 27) refer to human’s spiritual soul. What changed in Adam was the state of his spiritual soul, that is, when Adam broke his own special relationship with his Divine Creator, he lost His State of Original Holiness aka State of Sanctifying Grace. (CCC 399) Adam’s soul is now described as being deprived of his Original Holiness. Still Adam’s human nature was not totally corrupted or completely changed. His human nature was wounded. (CCC 405)

 

[grannymh]

Sometimes, we can wonder what sin really is. Good heavens! There are thousands of threads on this subject.

Going back to Genesis 1: 26- 27 usccb.org/bible/genesis/1 we learn a simple truth that being in the likeness and image of God describes the goal of human life.
26l
Then God said: Let us make* human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.
27
God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God he created them;
male and female* he created them.

The Hebrew people knew all kinds of ways they could sin against God. We should be grateful that the author of the first three chapters of Genesis did not list them top to bottom. Instead, he put them into one simple category – disobedience of our Creator God. Genesis 2: 16-17. usccb.org/bible/genesis/2
16
The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden*(“http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/2#01002016-i”)
17
except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die.* j

Putting together the concept of being in the image and likeness of God and God’s command of obedience – we begin to understand that the consequence of “death” changed a benefit of our rational spiritual soul. I use the word benefit because the disobedient “death” does not destroy our human nature; it changes our relationship with our Creator. To me, maybe not to others, being in the image and likeness of God is a benefit we enjoy, a benefit which animals do not have.

What is the true benefit of our rational spiritual soul? We can share in the life of our Pure Spiritual Creator.
Paragraph 356, universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition.

**CCC 356 **Of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love his creator”. He is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake”, and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:

(Paragraph in small print. Please read CCC 20-21 for use of small print.)
“What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.” St. Catherine of Siena
​

 

[Vico]

I wonder if all the misunderstandings of Original Sin occur because some people no longer consider the first three chapters of Genesis as being important in modern life.

It occurs when a person rejects the teaching authority of the Church in doctrine of faith or morals, which authority is given through the Holy Spirit. Jn 14:17, 26 Christ the Truth, willed to confer on the Church a share in His own infallibility.

 

[grannymh]

It occurs when a person rejects the teaching authority of the Church in doctrine of faith or morals, which authority is given through the Holy Spirit. Jn 14:17, 26 Christ the Truth, willed to confer on the Church a share in His own infallibility.

Correct.

The infallibility of Christ the Truth is because He is the Divine Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. It is the attack on the full Divinity of Jesus, known as a prophet among prophets, which becomes successful because few people recognize the return of Arianism as applied, in a strange way, to the explanation of Original Sin.

 

[taco]

Because Genesis 1: 27 is a key issue in Catholic teachings, I would appreciate a discussion regarding “image” and “likeness” from this sentence: “Nevertheless, something about man’s fundamental standing with God had changed for the worse; in Chapter 5’s updated narrative man was no longer said to be made in God’s image, but now was only in his likeness.”

It is my understanding that both image and likeness (Genesis 1: 27) refer to human’s spiritual soul. What changed in Adam was the state of his spiritual soul, that is, when Adam broke his own special relationship with his Divine Creator, he lost His State of Original Holiness aka State of Sanctifying Grace. (CCC 399) Adam’s soul is now described as being deprived of his Original Holiness. Still Adam’s human nature was not totally corrupted or completely changed. His human nature was wounded. (CCC 405)

In the few days since the quoted language was posted, the discussion thread has turned to the infallibility of the Catholic Church when it authoritatively declares a point of dogma. The doctrine of original sin is such a dogma. But since other non-Catholic Christians reject the infallibility of the Church, they want to look further before deciding whether to agree or disagree with this particular declaration; they inquire what Biblical basis the Church had for making this dogmatic declaration. Catholics have not been very good at answering that question, so other Christians tend to dismiss the idea of original sin. When they address it at all, I understand that they sometimes claim that it originated in a misunderstanding of something that St. Augustine wrote. I do not know what specifically in St. Augustine’s writings they point to, but the broader point is that they dismiss it because they have difficulty believing that God would punish not only Adam, but all of his offspring for his disobedience.

What I attempted to do in my last two postings was to show that there is indeed a Biblical basis for it. Since we Catholics accept the doctrine, we should welcome a rationale for the doctrine. It will not do to cite the Catholic Catechism if we are to convince anyone else. If we accept the reality of original sin (as we must and do), then it seems to me that the only effective rebuttal to my rationale is to identify a better Bible-based explanation than I have posited.

It is possible that I slightly overstated my position when I wrote that by Adam’s sin, men completely lost the image of God in their souls, retaining instead only His likeness. Perhaps we still have the image, which I analogized to a hologram but that it has become so darkened as to become indistinguishable from a silhouette which is how I characterized His likeness in us. This variation arguably makes it more compatible with St. Paul’s formulation of how each of us is gradually being transformed into His image: “We all”, he wrote, “reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his very image from glory to glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18). This variation also makes sense in that it better shows that the darkening of God’s image in our souls need not be permanent if each of us cooperates with His grace and takes the necessary steps to restore it to its original luster. In this reading, the image that Adam after his sin was able to transmit to his son Seth was not an entirely different image than the one he had originally received from God; it was still God’s image, only darkened (Gen 5:1 - 3).

 

[grannymh]

One way to understand both image and likeness of God is to examine the foundation for Genesis 2:15- 16
15
The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.
16
The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden

Here, the author of the first three chapters of Genesis presents the fact that Adam has the ability to understand a Divine Being so different from himself. And there is the fact that Adam has the ability to obey the Divine Being’s command. We can understand the inclusion of these two facts because the Hebrew nation has experience with the One Divine Being Who is the Creator of all.

Fortunately for us, the author kept asking himself – How is communication between humanity and Divinity possible in the first place? Looking at himself and at other humans, he finds that human nature has the capability of communication with a superior super-natural Being. This Divine Being is Pure Spirit. If humans were pure physical/material, they could not have a relationship with a loving Spiritual God. The obvious is that in creating humans, God generously gave humans a spiritual capability which is known as our rational spiritual soul. In his own nature, the first human unites the spiritual and material worlds. (CCC 355-357; CCC 1730-1732) A Pure Spirit does not include a material anatomy. Therefore, our image and likeness has to be our current spiritual soul.

 

[Vico]

One way to understand both image and likeness of God is to examine the foundation for Genesis 2:15- 16
15
The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.
16
The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden

Here, the author of the first three chapters of Genesis presents the fact that Adam has the ability to understand a Divine Being so different from himself. And there is the fact that Adam has the ability to obey the Divine Being’s command. We can understand the inclusion of these two facts because the Hebrew nation has experience with the One Divine Being Who is the Creator of all.

Fortunately for us, the author kept asking himself – How is communication between humanity and Divinity possible in the first place? Looking at himself and at other humans, he finds that human nature has the capability of communication with a superior super-natural Being. This Divine Being is Pure Spirit. If humans were pure physical/material, they could not have a relationship with a loving Spiritual God. The obvious is that in creating humans, God generously gave humans a spiritual capability which is known as our rational spiritual soul. In his own nature, the first human unites the spiritual and material worlds. (CCC 355-357; CCC 1730-1732) A Pure Spirit does not include a material anatomy. Therefore, our image and likeness has to be our current spiritual soul.

Not of any tree: Gen 2:16-17 are:
And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

Also Genesis 1:26-27
And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.

Genesis 2:7
And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

Genesis 1
18 And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself.
22 And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam.

 

[grannymh]

Not of any tree: Gen 2:16-17 are:
And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

“Not of any tree.” A very interesting observation. One which I missed.

Adam could sin by ignoring his duty connected to verse 15.“The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.” The science of agriculture includes specific work applied to an entire area. Adam, being in the State of Original Holiness, does not mean he can skip the normal things connected to the material world, such as weeds, insects, sunshine, too much rain, too little rain, collecting the food, etc. A garden is a garden. While translations can use the word paradise, the Garden of Eden cannot be confused with the eternal heaven of the Beatific Vision.

The precise name of the forbidden tree indicates the vast importance of a particular tree growing in an ordinary material garden given to Adam whose nature includes both the material world and the spiritual world.
Genesis 1: 29
God also said: See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on all the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food;

We cannot forget the important information in CCC 396.

**CCC 396 **God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” spells this out: “for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

 

[Vico]

“Not of any tree.” A very interesting observation. One which I missed.

Adam could sin by ignoring his duty connected to verse 15.“The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.” The science of agriculture includes specific work applied to an entire area. Adam, being in the State of Original Holiness, does not mean he can skip the normal things connected to the material world, such as weeds, insects, sunshine, too much rain, too little rain, collecting the food, etc. A garden is a garden. While translations can use the word paradise, the Garden of Eden cannot be confused with the eternal heaven of the Beatific Vision.

The precise name of the forbidden tree indicates the vast importance of a particular tree growing in an ordinary material garden given to Adam whose nature includes both the material world and the spiritual world.
Genesis 1: 29
God also said: See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on all the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food;

We cannot forget the important information in CCC 396.

**CCC 396 **God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” spells this out: “for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

And also from that breach of established friendship, we are given in Genesis 3:22, that they could not then live forever by eating of the tree of life.

22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.

 

[grannymh]

I often think of the author’s anguish as he tried to find the words to describe Adam’s “breach of established friendship” (post 174), that is, the loss of his State of Original Holiness. (CCC 399) As long as Adam remained in the divine intimacy, that is, in the State of Original Holiness, he would not have to suffer or die. (CCC 376)

In a sad way, the disaster of Adam’s sin gives testimony to the truthfulness of Genesis 2: 15-17. In a sad way, we learn the true value of being in the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1: 26-27)

 

[grannymh]

It is time to wrap up this thread.

Point 1. The term “Original” can only mean the first whatever.
God and Adam as being the original first is demonstrated below.
Exodus 20: 1-3.
1
Then God spoke all these words:
2a I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,**(“http://www.usccb.org/bible/exodus/20#02020002-b”) out of the house of slavery.
3
You shall not have other gods beside me.*

Genesis 2: 15
15
The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.
The situation that Adam is the first only person is in Genesis 2: 18.
18
The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.* k

Link to Bible: usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm

 

[Vico]

It is time to wrap up this thread.

Point 1. The term “Original” can only mean the first whatever.
God and Adam as being the original first is demonstrated below.
Exodus 20: 1-3.
1
Then God spoke all these words:
2a I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,**(“http://www.usccb.org/bible/exodus/20#02020002-b”) out of the house of slavery.
3
You shall not have other gods beside me.*

Genesis 2: 15
15
The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.
The situation that Adam is the first only person is in Genesis 2: 18.
18
The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.* k

Link to Bible: usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm

Original man:

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

And the LORD [Yĕhovah] God 'elohiym] formed [yatsar] man 'adam] of the dust `aphar] of [min] the ground, 'adamah] and breathed [naphach] into his nostrils 'aph] the breath [nĕshamah] of life; [chay] and man 'adam] became a living [chay] soul. [nephesh]

First (original) prohibition not to eat of the tree: Genesis 2:17 except the tree which brings knowledge of good and evil; if ever thou eatest of this, thy doom is death.