Old Testament Myths

[NonTimendum]

I think you have serious issues my friend.

I have the equiv of a Masters in Theology, go to Mass three times a week and have done so for the last 45 years. My question is attempting to assist you.

Not to be rude, but I couldn’t care less what you think are qualifications.

The word “sin” is so complex and rich/varied in meaning that your question cannot be satisfactorily responded to until we sort out what meaning you implicitly understand by the word.

Not really.

Given you are not satisfied to date with the numerous acceptable responses put to you that indicates to me that you have an unusual understanding of the word.

Not a single one of you has been willing to answer a single question. What, exactly, was the sin of disobedience in its physical active reality? Did it occur in an already corrupted world within already corrupted man, or in a “Garden” among uncorrupted man? Did God create corruption and sin? Was man’s nature sinful from the beginning? What were the physical punishments for sin?]

 

[NonTimendum]

@PJM

That didn’t even come close to addressing my very simple questions, which is why I’m very skeptical as to how much thought anyone has really put into this ridiculous “modern” idea.

 

[grannymh]

Not a single one of you has been willing to answer a single question. What, exactly, was the sin of disobedience in its physical active reality? Did it occur in an already corrupted world within already corrupted man, or in a “Garden” among uncorrupted man? Did God create corruption and sin? Was man’s nature sinful from the beginning? What were the physical punishments for sin?

Not a single one of you has been willing to answer a single question. What, exactly, was the sin of disobedience in its physical active reality?

Sorry to answer a question with a question.

However, the Original Sin as described in the first three historical chapters of Genesis can be approached in different ways. Are you looking for a symbolic answer or a literal answer?

Did it occur in an already corrupted world within already corrupted man, or in a “Garden” among uncorrupted man?

No to already corrupted world. Eve, uncorrupted, as the only other human in the garden, was, like Adam, uncorrupted free from sin.

Did God create corruption and sin?

No.

Was man’s nature sinful from the beginning?

No.

What were the physical punishments for sin?

That depends on which physical sin you are referring to.

 

[USMC_Convert]

Not a single one of you has been willing to answer a single question. What, exactly, was the sin of disobedience in its physical active reality? Did it occur in an already corrupted world within already corrupted man, or in a “Garden” among uncorrupted man? Did God create corruption and sin? Was man’s nature sinful from the beginning? What were the physical punishments for sin?]

Well I am no expert, but I’ll give it a try, so let’s see…

1. What was the actual sin? I think I’m summing that up properly, well I don’t think anyone can truly answer that. Could it have been as simple as eating a piece of fruit, maybe, I tend to think not, but maybe. However, whatever it was, it meant that Adam and Eve were attempting to know everything God knew. They were trying to be God.
2. Was the world/man already corrupted? No it could not have been, either way, man nor world was corrupted until the sin of Adam and Eve. See Romans 5:12, “through one man sin entered into the world…”
3. Did God create corruption and sin? NO, God only creates good, and being so He gave us free will, because to create mindless slaves that have to love Him would not be good, so we have free will, we chose to try to know everything and we parted ourselves from God.
4. Was man’s nature sinful from the beginning? No, as discussed above God created us, we chose to sin. We were created not for this world, but for the beautific vision, it was our sin that drove us from the beautific vision and into this world of sin, pain and death.
5. What were the physical punishments for sin? Well the Bible is pretty clear, now we have to work to earn our food and women suffer in childbirth. The mystics say that the Blessed Mother did not suffer in giving birth to Jesus, which would only make sense as she was the Immaculate Conception. Her freedom from sin parts her from the punishment given to the daughters of Eve. However I think it’s more than that, if we were created to be eternal, to have the beautific vision then our physical punishment is to be subject to our passions and flesh. It is to not have the beautific vision, it is to have to go through this life and humble ourselves as Adam and Eve did not. We have to come to accept that God is God and we are not, and that only through Him and with Him can we come to eternal life.

 

[goout]

What, exactly, was that sin of disobedience?

Was it an esoteric fact of human existence, or was it a literal action taken? If it was esoteric fact of human existence than man was created as a sinful being and God has some explaining to do. If it was a literal action taken then who took it and when?

To get a journalist’s details you’d have to ask a journalist who was present at the time. Oh, wait…

There were no journalists at original sin. Given that fact, what questions does it make sense to ask about Genesis? It’s not very helpful to ask for the instant replay, right?

And so:
if Genesis is -not- journalism and -not- science, but is the inspired Word of God, then what is it? What did the original author(s) intend when Genesis was passed down through the ages? What kind of culture did Genesis come out of? Scientific modern? No. What modes of expression did Genesis come out of?

What do you think Genesis is?

 

[DebChris]

With Original Sin, Adam and Eve had their innocence. They had Divine Grace.
While not Catholic, a sermon given by I think JD Jakes that actually fits with Catholic teaching which may answer the question. What did Adam and Eve eat?
They ate a lie.
They bought into an untruth that by eating the forbidden fruit, they would be like God.
They bought into the lie that by eating the forbidden fruit because they believed the snake’s lie that they did not need God.
They were duped by the Liar of all liars. They discovered that they were naked.
What does being naked mean? To be naked is to be vulnerable. This was not part of the sermon; I don’t remember the name of the Catholic article where I read it. The article I read was about the importance of being open in marriage, the real meaning of being vulnerable.
After eating the fruit, Adam and Eve began to see each other differently. They put up barriers and defenses. They needed to be clothed.

There are many forms of literature with the Bible. God inspired different men at different times of history to set His truth is written form. It is meant for spiritual guidance, and not merely as a historical or science book. Scientism fails to see the truth of God’s creative hand and argues with fundamentalists who miss the forest for the trees. God continues to create every time a new child is born. He involves man and woman in the creative process.

What did God do after each day of creation? He looked over what He had created and saw that it was good. He made man in His own image and saw that it was very good. If I am made in God image, then I am made to be creative, artistic. If God took time to reflect on what He made, then I need to take time at the end of each day to reflect on my day. How have I used my time as a mechanic, carpenter, writer, farmer, or whatever mundane job I may have as part of God’s creative work? The O.T. has many passages about the need for rest, for the land to take a sabbath. What happened to land that is overworked, and not allowed to lie fallow? “What good is your earlier rising, your going later to bed, you who toil for the bread you eat?”

St. John Paul II writes in his Theology of the Body that Adam did not recognize that he was made in God’s image until he saw his reflection in Eve.

It is easy to get stuck in one passage of scripture. The Catholic Church tells us to read the Bible as a whole. Allow the O.T. to shed light upon the N.T. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide your personal reading into deeper reflection so God’s Word transforms your life and is not merely another piece of literature on the shelf that you read and argue about.

 

[goout]

With Original Sin, Adam and Eve had their innocence. They had Divine Grace.
While not Catholic, a sermon given by I think JD Jakes that actually fits with Catholic teaching which may answer the question. What did Adam and Eve eat?
They ate a lie.
They bought into an untruth that by eating the forbidden fruit, they would be like God.
They bought into the lie that by eating the forbidden fruit because they believed the snake’s lie that they did not need God.
They were duped by the Liar of all liars. They discovered that they were naked.
What does being naked mean? To be naked is to be vulnerable. This was not part of the sermon; I don’t remember the name of the Catholic article where I read it. The article I read was about the importance of being open in marriage, the real meaning of being vulnerable.
After eating the fruit, Adam and Eve began to see each other differently. They put up barriers and defenses. They needed to be clothed.

There are many forms of literature with the Bible. God inspired different men at different times of history to set His truth is written form. It is meant for spiritual guidance, and not merely as a historical or science book. Scientism fails to see the truth of God’s creative hand and argues with fundamentalists who miss the forest for the trees. God continues to create every time a new child is born. He involves man and woman in the creative process.

What did God do after each day of creation? He looked over what He had created and saw that it was good. He made man in His own image and saw that it was very good. If I am made in God image, then I am made to be creative, artistic. If God took time to reflect on what He made, then I need to take time at the end of each day to reflect on my day. How have I used my time as a mechanic, carpenter, writer, farmer, or whatever mundane job I may have as part of God’s creative work? The O.T. has many passages about the need for rest, for the land to take a sabbath. What happened to land that is overworked, and not allowed to lie fallow? “What good is your earlier rising, your going later to bed, you who toil for the bread you eat?”

St. John Paul II writes in his Theology of the Body that Adam did not recognize that he was made in God’s image until he saw his reflection in Eve.

It is easy to get stuck in one passage of scripture. The Catholic Church tells us to read the Bible as a whole. Allow the O.T. to shed light upon the N.T. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide your personal reading into deeper reflection so God’s Word transforms your life and is not merely another piece of literature on the shelf that you read and argue about.

Well put.
This sentence ought to be a sticky at the top of the scripture forum:

There are many forms of literature with the Bible.

Too many Catholics have fallen into 19th century fundamentalist protestant notions of Scripture.
And modern docu-journalistic notions as well.
Scripture is not journalism, and it’s not science.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Not to be rude, but I couldn’t care less what you think are qualifications.

Not really.

Not a single one of you has been willing to answer a single question. What, exactly, was the sin of disobedience in its physical active reality? Did it occur in an already corrupted world within already corrupted man, or in a “Garden” among uncorrupted man? Did God create corruption and sin? Was man’s nature sinful from the beginning? What were the physical punishments for sin?]

I simply observe that sin is not the simplistic word you naiively believe it to be.
I have provided you some objective evidence why I have reasonably come to that conclusion.
Until you can actually explicitate what you understand by the word sin you may as well keep asking us what a bandersnatch is.

By all means fruitlessly bang your head against a brick wall while we all watch on if that spins your wheels .

 

[GEddie]

1. What were the physical punishments for sin?

That one’s easy. DEATH.

Without death, everything else can be taken in stride.

Physical pain is bearable if known to be recoverable; the “growth pains” in a youth’s lengthening limbs are admirable; the soreness of well-used muscles is satisfying; a sprained ankle or cricked neck is an annoyance, but not cause for grief.

Ongoing, unremitting pain however, is a recollection to the final fragility of our human bodies as well as a permanent limitation on living life. The real punishment is the death, not the pain per se.

The time needed to provide for our biological needs would also be beside the point if we were alive forever.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Blue_Horizon]

That one’s easy. DEATH.

Without death, everything else can be taken in stride.

Actually the point is debatable in two ways.

1. Just because sin brought death that does not exclude other causes of death in Eden that may well have been planned by God had the Fall not happened. Even the Fathers speak of this…how would they have transitioned from Eden to heaven for example? Must we assume they would be assumed? It must also be noted that they were not commanded to eat from the Tree of life. It appears death by old age was a choice… as the Fathers state. They were not inherently immortal.
2. Concupiscence was also a consequence of the Fall. Eternal concupiscence even under grace sounds worse than death to me. I’d like a shot at death and the Beatific Vision any day .

 

[Richca]

I don’t care about the philosophy and the seventeen thousand word explanation for the metaphysical effect. I want to know in what specific way did he disobey God. If he didn’t eat fruit from a forbidden tree, what was it? Did he beat someone over the head with a rock, did he talk sass when God asked him to do something, what was it?

 

[Richca]

So I belong to a little group and we get together to discuss scripture and stuff right after Mass on Wednesdays. Anyway, so during our discussions once I brought up some of the things about Job. Which I was told that the book of Job was just a story told as an example, it never really happened.

In another discussion I brought up Noah and the flood which I was flat out told the flood was a complete myth, it never happened.

Finally and what got me to write this to see what you guys say, I was told that they wished they could part me from my “fundamentalism” and that the Catholic Church really leans left on all these things. Now I’m not exactly sure what that means but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment and I’m not even sure what leaning left on these things could possibly mean. What really gets me is it is two older women, one of them being a religion teacher for decades, that are kind of spear heading all this.

So what is the story? Is the OT a myth? Is it simply a bunch of bed time stories to teach us lessons? What’s the deal…?

(For the record I believe in the OT, and the NT for that matter and no one can part me from that, but I am confused about what the Church teaches now, why these people would say things like that and what I should respond to them with)

I think we need to distinguish between personal individual opinions such as some of the opinions of the people in your bible group and the official teaching of the Church. For example, concerning Job, I’m pretty sure the Church has never officially stated what appears to be the opinion of your bible group. And the same can be said about Noah and the Flood and, in general, opinions concerning the non-historical character of any book of the Bible.

 

[rabbitdonkey]

Good grief. I’ve already told you that the Church has never said such a things. Then I guess I can ask you, when did the Church say that Genesis is a literal, historical work chronicling the early history of the world?

Until relatively recently that was how most Catholics seemed to understand it. And the Church has said Adam and Eve and the Fall is historical.

 

[Tim_D]

Until relatively recently that was how most Catholics seemed to understand it. And the Church has said Adam and Eve and the Fall is historical.

I think you are correct in saying that the Church in the past certainly treated the story of Adam & Eve as historical, though in recent times a more “nuanced” view has permeated that eventually culminates in the position that the Church holds today. The catechism makes poor work out of the subject by initially stating that we must be understand the literary language involved and then turns around in the same breath stating that it is something historical. It tries to have both sides of the issue. But yes, I agree with what you say.

 

[Lea101]

I honestly thought Job was not a real person. I can’t remember where I heard that (maybe an introduction before the book of Job in the Bible or in class) but I always thought it was a book about a man doubting God’s goodness. Like a lesson.

 

[Tim_D]

I honestly thought Job was not a real person. I can’t remember where I heard that (maybe an introduction before the book of Job in the Bible or in class) but I always thought it was a book about a man doubting God’s goodness. Like a lesson.

I really doubt that any serious scholar of scripture considers Job to have been a real person. Much like you say, it is a “lesson” in the same way that the parables in the Gospels are meant as lessons and not historical events.

 

[goout]

Until relatively recently that was how most Catholics seemed to understand it. And the Church has said Adam and Eve and the Fall is historical.

Fundamentalist historicity is not a traditional Catholic thing, it is a peculiarity of modern Protestantism that has rubbed off on many Catholics. it is a relatively recent phenomenon in comparison with the whole of Catholic tradition.

 

[James248]

Fundamentalist historicity is not a traditional Catholic thing, it is a peculiarity of modern Protestantism that has rubbed off on many Catholics. it is a relatively recent phenomenon in comparison with the whole of Catholic tradition.

When you have people in the history of the Church like Thomas Aquinas…

 

[goout]

When you have people in the history of the Church like Thomas Aquinas…

What are you saying? That TA is a fundamentalist at odds with the Church?

 

[James248]

What are you saying? That TA is a fundamentalist at odds with the Church?

No. I’m saying HE followed the interpretation of Genesis which you take as fundamentalist.