Posts by David

30

Original Sin / Salvation without a literal Adam and Eve?

by Coded Logic in

something i've never understood is if adam and eve are just metaphorical where did "original sin" come from.

and, if there was no original sin, what is the value of jesus sacrifice?.

i know a lot of christians believe in evolution but i've never understood how such a belief is structured.

David_Jay

Opusdei,

I am aware of a critical document theory that states that the first chapter of Genesis was the last portion of the creation narrative to be composed, and that this composition occurred after the Babylonian captivity.

Within the theory is room for that very hypothesis you mention. It isn't universally accepted, but neither is it beyond possibility. The theory entertains that the author's intention was to advance the idea that the Babylonian captivity was punishment from God due to failure to observe the Law, especially the Sabbath. Therefore, the theory concludes, the author's intent was to teach that obedience to the Mosaic Law was the intention of God from the beginning of creation, built into the Jewish culture.

The narrative is composed of a triplet (3 days, 3 days, and the Sabbath), divided into a doublet (the first three days a tableau for the events of the last three), and a finale in observance of the Sabbath. It may have even been the Sabbath prayer used by the Jews during the Babylonian exile or shortly after turned Scripture. It has been used ever since in the Sabbath home service following the candle lighting, recited during Kiddush.

However I don't know how far this has grown into something dogmatic or doctrinal. Most Christians seem to know little about this, even though it is printed in practically all study Bibles of all denominations and found in the footnotes of the Catholic NABRE, the official translation of the Catholic Church in the United States.

13

A Thought Experiment

by InjusticeSystem in

i am hoping some of you may be up for participating in a little creative thought experiment .

the question i would like to pose (and if it has already been asked i apologize, for some reason i cannot search for topics on my mobile) is this: what would the evidence show if the jehovah's witness' literal reading of genesis was true?

i realize that is a fairly broad question, but for example a more pointed question could be: if the vapor canopy hypothesis is correct (i have confirmed with my elder father that this is still a currently accepted understanding), what evidence in our genome or that of other creatures or on earth would we expect to see?

David_Jay

While my personal views are mostly in line with Cofty's, I do know that the "water canopy" idea I was taught as a Witness has no equal in nominal Judeo-Christian theology.

The word is usually translated in academically accepted Bibles as "firmament" or outright as "dome." (For example the NRSV or NABRE.) The ancients did not believe in the vacuum of space. Ancient Jewish cosmology taught that outer space was filled with water. Earth was a flat surface or disc that was built upon pillars, with a physical dome separating the waters above in space from the waters in the sea below on earth.

According to this model the stars, moon, and sun were items attached to this dome which revolved around the flat disc of the earth. Rain or snow or hail came through tiny hatches in the dome that allowed the "outer space" waters to fall upon earth.

The diagram below shows what most Christians and Jews understand that the ancient Hebrews believed in. This is why most of these same religious groups teach evolution, the Big Bang, etc., becuase they know that the Biblical explanations were based on limited perceptions not based in science. It is the Watchtower that makes up explanations to reconcile the Witness belief that the Bible has to be scientifically true.

32

What are the biggest holes in the ransom sacrifice?

by Half banana in

how honest are the proponents of jesus as the ransom sacrifice?.

curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?.

David_Jay

Finkelstein--

From what I got from my Jewish family members and their rabbis, Judaism does not allow for a dying Messiah that gets resurrected.

Judaism does not see the Genesis account as teaching "original sin," and therefore there is no doctrine of "salvation" in any branch of Judaism.

No "original sin" then no need to "save" you or me from it by a "dying Messiah."

To the best of my memory from discussions with them, there can be no "ransom sacrifice" via Jesus because to Jews...

1. Sin is not a innate feature of humanity. Sin is an action.

2. The prophet Ezekiel taught that God never charges children with the sin of their parents.

3. Human sacrifice is forbidden by the Mosiac Law (Jews actually teach that the Abrahamic sacrifice was God's way of telling Abraham that God does NOT accept human sacrifice).

4. Adam was neither an angel nor a god, therefore neither St. Michael the Archangel or God incarnate is an equivalent ransom; the "scales of justice" would be unbalanced in the opposite direction.

5. People are responsible for their own sins and can repent of them for forgiveness.

6. The Mosaic Law only allowed animal sacrifice to cover "unintentional" sin. All other forms of sin required retribution of different sorts (i.e. "an eye for an eye," equal payment plus an additional fee, stoning, etc.). Adam's sin was not unintentional therefore blood cannot cover it.

7. The Messiah who restores Israel, not gets rejected and killed by Israel. Thus anyone who gets rejected by the Jews automatically cannot be the Messiah since to be the Messiah the Jews have to accept the person as their ruler.

8. Blood that covers sin must be poured out on the altar before the Tabernacle or Temple in order for forgiveness. Jesus died outside Jerusalem's walls.

9. Israel sees itself in a religion that grows via enlightenment, both spiritual and humanistic, and the idea of animal sacrifice belongs to a period of primitive humans. Judaism (like life in general) evolves. It doesn't follow the Bible. The Bible follows Judaism.

10. "Redemption" in Hebrew theology refers to saving humanity from its ills, injustice, suffering, but not saving it from "original sin" which Jews believe no human has.

Besides some Jews don't believe the Messiah is a person anymore. Reform Judaism, for example, holds that the "Messiah" is an ideal regarding human evolution in which humanity, religious and secular, evolves into the "person" pictured by the figurative Messiah idea. Humanity, many Jews believe, has the capacity to heal itself and society of its ills, thus becoming what was pictured by the Messiah. The idea behind this comes from the fact that there are no specific verses that talk about the "Messiah," per se. The Messiah concept is a tradition of Judaism, not a figure specifically spelled out in Scripture.

32

What are the biggest holes in the ransom sacrifice?

by Half banana in

how honest are the proponents of jesus as the ransom sacrifice?.

curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?.

David_Jay

Half banana,

With all due respect (and a lot of agreement with a lot of what you write), I don't know if the comment that critical textual scholarship in the hands of those with religious convictions is likely unreliable ("won't cut the mustard," as you put it). Being quite familiar with the process, I have to say this can't be the case universally.

In my college days, I became good friends with a Bible scholar who was, get this, an atheist. And he is not the only one, I learned from him. Did you know that some religious Jews are also atheist at the same time? And some of these are scholars too.

I know, it wouldn't make sense according to what we were taught in the Watchtower. But like Buddhism, belief in deity is not central or relevant to Judaism. The whole "God is dead" mantra actually is ascribed to some of the Jews who, surviving the Holocaust (and before the Jews returned to Israel and the Six-Day War) came to the conclusion that the only possibility allowing for such a thing was the death of the God of Abraham...interesting story, but that is getting off the subject.

The point is that critical Biblical analysis is a methodology, like science. That means scholars have to develop a working hypothesis, prove their theory, and have their results validated by disinterested parties before they can publish and use their conclusions-- just like any other critical method demands.

Becuase not all Biblical scholars believe in God or are religious, it helps in the validating process. The majority of such academic findings is that Scripture is largely allegorical or written in similar narrative. Now if you are against such views, then you agree with conservative Christians that the Bible is fact. But knowing you don't means you agree with the main conclusions of the method.

The majority of Christian leaders do as well, but it seems in America (where Fundamentalism is creeping into the Catholic Church) this is not sitting well. Under direction of the Holy See, the American bishops have limited the American Catholics to one official Bible text, the New American Bible Revised Edition, and it is so heavy in critical footnotes that some pages are more than half critical notation.

Some conservative Catholics, in a demand to embrace some of the interpretations popular among Fundametalist neighbors, have attempted to revise an older Catholic Bible translation as an alternative to the one approved by the USCCB. But the American bishops will not give this version approval for public or private use (an imprimatur is required for Catholics to even privately read a Bible version), with the Holy See and apparently Pope Francis backing up the necessity of critical scholarship and some of its conclusions, even at the expense of revising some traditions. The issue is splitting the American Church at present, and the views from both ends are becoming more and more polarizing instead of seeking a way to build bridges. I've seen fights break out between Catholics over which Bible version they use, the approved Bishop's or the "other" conservative one.

I won't say that some of what gets published isn't colored by the overtly religious views of some (and you can definitely see that when it is happening), but this is not representative of the picture at large which is splitting the largest American Christian denomination over Bibles. Catholics who accept the NABRE on one side and others embracing a cleverly mislabeled RSV "2nd Catholic edition" on the other.

This wouldn't be hapenning if the critical method produced Bible theology that merely pandered to religious people.

30

Original Sin / Salvation without a literal Adam and Eve?

by Coded Logic in

something i've never understood is if adam and eve are just metaphorical where did "original sin" come from.

and, if there was no original sin, what is the value of jesus sacrifice?.

i know a lot of christians believe in evolution but i've never understood how such a belief is structured.

David_Jay

My apologies, Opusdei, if I misunderstood you.

When you wrote, "Augustine pointed out that the whole account was a historical fact" I assumed from this you meant that he taught that all of Genesis 3 was fact.

As I pointed out from his own work, while he believed Adam and Eve were historical, he did not accept the narrative in the same light. Apparently you were saying the same thing when you said "whole account" which I read wrong. My pardons.

30

Original Sin / Salvation without a literal Adam and Eve?

by Coded Logic in

something i've never understood is if adam and eve are just metaphorical where did "original sin" come from.

and, if there was no original sin, what is the value of jesus sacrifice?.

i know a lot of christians believe in evolution but i've never understood how such a belief is structured.

David_Jay

I'm afraid you have misquoted St. Augustine. He is well known for teaching that the Genesis account is allegorical. Even Wikipedia notes this :

"In the book, Augustine took the view that everything in the universe was created simultaneously by God, and not in seven days like a plain account of Genesis would require. He argues that the six-day structure of creation presented in the book of Genesis represents a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical way. Augustine also doesn’t envisage original sin as originating structural changes in the universe, and even suggests that the bodies of Adam and Eve were already created mortal before the Fall. Apart from his specific views, Augustine recognizes that the interpretation of the creation story is difficult, and remarks that we should be willing to change our mind about it as new information comes up.[19]"--Italics added.

To date the Catholic Church still follows the views of the Church Fathers in not demanding a dogmatic literalist interpretation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

"The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of man. Revelation [from God (not the Bible book of the same name)] gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents."--CCC 390.

But viewing the account as allegorical is not the same as viewing it as fiction, nor should the methodological use of the word "mythology" as sometimes applied to Biblical allegories in critical Biblical analysis be confused with the vernacular use of the word "myth," which most people take for a "false story." Instead within the narrative frame of an allegory is found a historical truth, according to this exegesis. Adam and Eve are not considered symbolic, neither is "original sin" something fictional according to this view. As Catholic Answers explains in an article regarding this: "The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques."

The narrative is not a literal report like that found in a history book, a documentary, or even a journalistic account, but the religious truth within is fact as these Christians see it. I personally cannot say how Catholics make this distinction, not being a Roman Catholic myself, but I do know there is no dogmatic demand on how a Catholic may or may not interpret the story found in Genesis 3 as well.

32

What are the biggest holes in the ransom sacrifice?

by Half banana in

how honest are the proponents of jesus as the ransom sacrifice?.

curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?.

David_Jay

While not claiming any personal convictions in regard to the Trinity doctrine (nor advocating the following as "truth" or encouraging religion), I do recall being shocked to learn about something I as a Jehovah's Witnesses used to tease Trinitarians about.

Does anybody remember how Watchtower publications would attempt to explain the Trinity, then say it was a confusing doctrine, laugh at it being called a "mystery," and then mock how Christians would claim it was "the central doctrine" of their churches?

Actually, when getting my education and studying history, I was shocked to learn that Christianity doesn't believe like the Witnesses in regards to Christ's death. I was always taught at the Kingdom Hall that God demanded the death of another human being in order to set the scales of justice in balance before all the angels who were watching how Jehovah would settle the issue of sovereignity raised by Satan the Devil. But this is not what the churches of Christendom believe in. They don't really even use the expression "ransom sacrifice."

Their teaching is that God became human to teach humanity that we are, in reality, more like God than we realize. We needed no law or standards or even religious teaching to become like God because every human is innately created in the image of God, or so the lesson goes.

The central doctrine of the Trinity is the Incarnation, God becoming human, a "son of man" or even a "son" of himself (the ancients called incarnations of deities "sons"). According to the doctrine, God wanted to share the suffering of humanity and give that suffering redeeming value. The doctrine states that through what happened at the Cross, God changed the outcome of current realities: the sin of many in killing Jesus became the way for humankind's forgiveness, the dead wood of the Cross became the Tree of Life, the death of Jesus became life for the world, etc. According to Christendom the Sacrifice of the Cross (capitalized because it is an actual dogma) is not the offering of God a human sacrifice to appease the Creator due to Adam's sin. Instead it is God's offering to humanity the life of God so they can participate in what 2 Peter 1:4 calls a "sharing in the divine nature."

In other words, the Watchtower teaching is oddly the opposite of nominal Christianity's teaching. The JWs claim that God can only forgive us if a human is slaughtered and his blood is spilled. In Watchtower theology, God sends an angel to materialize and offer a blood sacrifice to the blood-demanding God "Jehovah." But the traditional Christian teaching is that God becomes like us to give us His life: we don't go up a mountain to see and receive instruction from God as did Moses, instead God comes down to instruct humanity as well as share His own life.

I thought this made the Watchtower view pretty shabby by comparison and made their "Jehovah" a really different God than what the rest of Christians believe in.

30

Original Sin / Salvation without a literal Adam and Eve?

by Coded Logic in

something i've never understood is if adam and eve are just metaphorical where did "original sin" come from.

and, if there was no original sin, what is the value of jesus sacrifice?.

i know a lot of christians believe in evolution but i've never understood how such a belief is structured.

David_Jay

While the Church Fathers believed Adam and Eve were historical, that does not mean they believed the account of Genesis chapter 3 was likewise historical.

For instance, canonized Catholic saint Gregory Nazianzen (c. 329-390) wrote that the narrative of the Fall was set in simplified language, detailing that the Tree of Knowledge was but a symbol for "contemplation" (which in Roman Catholic theology is a type of wordless prayer that brings humans in mystical communicative intercourse with God).

There are other historical personages which Scripture often sets into parable type narrative. The prophet Jonah is supposed to be a historical prophet according to Jewish history, but the Biblical book is written as a humorous moral lesson with details impossible to reconcile with reality even by religious standards. The Hebrew Daniel is supposed to be historical, a hero who lived faithfully as a Jew among Gentiles before the Babylonian exile, but the "prophet Daniel" of the book in Scripture are but legends of him set in apocalyptic tableau (which is why Daniel is not considered one of the historical prophets in Judaism). Ruth is also a historical figure, but her narrative was likely invented during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah during the foreign wives controversy.

Jesus of Nazareth often used fictional narratives called "parables" to pass on what are viewed as religious truths. Some of the characters may be real personages known to the culture of the period (such as the "Lazarus" who dies alongside a nameless rich man--a poor beggar who would likely not be known by a name for any reason except the possibility that he was well-known in that era perhaps). The stories are complete fiction, but the situations are real, often drawing from real things common to first-century Jewish life with axioms that have practical value and universal applications in some instances, again all this despite their fictional nature.

Lastly, it is a common mistake of Jehovah's Witnesses to draw the conclusion that God requires the death of an Adam like figure to ransom humanity as JW theology claims God must be appeased by human sacrifice. This is a late interpretation, confined mostly to American religious movements that arose from the Second Great Awakening era. This idea has no commonality with the centuries-old view which is well established not merely in theology but in countless paintings, poetry, and even song throughout the centuries.

This older Christian exegesis is that Adam and Eve are also saved by Christ's death, and even the Church Fathers often speak of Adam being the first to be released from death by Christ. Christ is "Adam" in nominal Christology not because his death is an equivalent payment to balance the scales of justice (which is a Watchtower teaching) but that Christ becomes the new Father of the human race. In Orthodoxy and Catholicism, as well as Anglicism and even among some Lutheran teachers, Mary becomes the new "Eve" for humanity in the same manner.

30

Original Sin / Salvation without a literal Adam and Eve?

by Coded Logic in

something i've never understood is if adam and eve are just metaphorical where did "original sin" come from.

and, if there was no original sin, what is the value of jesus sacrifice?.

i know a lot of christians believe in evolution but i've never understood how such a belief is structured.

David_Jay

Cofty's essay on the matter is quite on top of it from the other perspective as well, that of mainstream Fundamentalism and even the conservative movements in Protestantism. (You should write professionally, Cofty...about anything. You are good with words.)

Jehovah's Witness have built their idea of God based on this foundation, making God a deity that has such high standards that physical death and bloodletting are the only way to satisfy His judgment and quench His demands for atonement. Their idea that God demands a physical sacrifice for sins comes from the misapplication of Hebrews 9:22, namely that the Mosaic Law was interpreted by this Christian statement.

The problem is that there are many ways to read Hebrews 9:22, and only one fits the accepted Jewish interpretation. Jews don't believe that animal sacrifices are the panacea to remove sin. As several rabbis I know have explained it to me, "If we believed that we would have rebuilt another Temple as soon as we could."

The Jewish sacrificial system was about thanking God for life through food. Since food sustains life, some of what was eaten was "given back to God" to say "thank you" (though this portion usually ended up being reserved for the priests at service in the Temple). Blood was poured out of animals because the ancients believed that the very life force of beings existed within it. The life force of a creature belonged to God, so it had to be properly given back through the sacrificial system. To this day Jews generally cannot eat hunted game because the idea behind kosher laws is that blood has to be sufficient drained to demonstrate that God is recognized as the giver of life. Rabbis generally are not widely available for all who hunt, therefore kosher law is generally viewed as broken if game is consumed, even today, unless it can be proven that the animal was slaughter and bled under the direction of a rabbi. The ancient sacrificial system, while concerned with religious worship, was largely in place for this very thing regarding keeping kosher.

"Today we have modern kosher butchering systems," one of these rabbis explained to me. "Now we can make sure Jews don't mishandle animal life or blood through rabbis on staff for just that purpose. But the idea that sin could only be erased by blood, if that was ever fully understood in the way Christians believe, was not of our making."

While blood was originally seen as a means of atonement via the sacrificial system, it was only one of the ways sins could be forgiven. As their theology progressed and Judaism evolved (and Jewish theology even has space for the belief that God evolves in His ways to), sacrificing animals as a means of atonement for sins was phased out. Already by the time of Solomon Judaism had begun to embrace the idea that personal repentance could do just as good or better than the offering of an animal's blood. (For a thorough Jewish explanation from one of their best sources, see Jews for Judaism: Leviticus 17:11.)

Simply put, the verse from Hebrews is often applied by some Christians, like the JWs, as if it expresses a Jewish view. The only way it can do this is if the verse is rendered something similar to this: "Indeed, under the law, it might almost be said that everything is cleansed by blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." (Revised English Bible) The author of Hebrews, if they had the Jewish understanding in mind, may have actually meant that sacrificial shedding of animal blood is such a rule of thumb in the Mosaic Law, so much so that it seemed that without blood forgiveness could not occur. The author of Hebrews then builds upon this as an illustrative symbol of Christ's sacrifice, but never states that this is a definitive law in itself. The Jewish Bible regularly testifies to the fact that God does not require blood and that repentance and forgiveness can and will occur without it for Jews.--See Psalm 50:13-15; Isaiah 43:23-25; Proverbs 16:6; Ezekiel 18:21-30.

30

Original Sin / Salvation without a literal Adam and Eve?

by Coded Logic in

something i've never understood is if adam and eve are just metaphorical where did "original sin" come from.

and, if there was no original sin, what is the value of jesus sacrifice?.

i know a lot of christians believe in evolution but i've never understood how such a belief is structured.

David_Jay

From what I remember from Theology 101 (and if I can find my books I will get the actual quotes to you), while Adam and Eve are believed to represent the literal first humans, the narrative is what is written in figurative language. This is generally the same starting point in both Jewish and Christian circles.

Judaism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy (along with most mainstream Protestants) concur that this is not a story about how sin was introduced into humanity as much as it is a story teaching that sin has been a factor in the human condition from the outset. The narrative simplifies this in an illustrative manner by giving the "first couple" a directive which they cannot fully complete without interference of the basic makeup of human nature.

Judaism sees this not as "original sin" but as describing a facet of humanity that does not disqualify anyone from being the same "very good" creation mentioned in Genesis 1. Humans aren't perfect because they were not created that way. In Judaism the thought is that humans need God and, unlike some in Christianity, the Jewish view is that God may equally need humans. We are two parts of puzzle, say many Jews of this story, both needing one another to be whole like the two lovers that later sing to one another in the Song of Solomon.

Christianity would understand this story in the light of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and Pauline teaching to the Gentiles. In Jewish theology God redeems the children of Abraham on the basis of a promise with a future but has not done this for humanity in general, nor fully fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant. The idea in Chrisitanity is that this facet of imperfection keeps redemption from being fully realized, and for them Jesus has come to remove it.

The narrative in Genesis 3 was in the light of this understanding labeled "original sin." It doesn't change the original view that the story is figurative, however. "Original sin" is the theological concept or interpretation of the event, but the first suggestions of this come from the written Gospels and Paul's letters. The term itself, being theological, does not occur directly in Scripture form.

The idea that this was a literal series of events was late in Christian history. The revivals in American religion which gave birth to Fundamentalism occurred among teachers who were generally not formally educated in theology. They have interpreted not merely the Biblical stories as literal for this reason but some of the theological discussions of the same as well. References to the imagery in Scripture and exegesis were seen as validating that the details were factual.

These groups often shared in the rejection of the universities of higher learning where these are generally learned (originally colleges came from Christian churches rejected by these new religious movements), and thus their hermeneutical views became absent of the traditions that carried the Biblical concepts to their generation.

It is from these groups that the Jehovah's Witnesses sprung, and they carried this "tradition-rejecting" tradition into their religion, claiming the events in Genesis have to be real.

One final word: the sacrifice of the cross is not a concept which Christianity claims to fully understand like the Witnesses. Christianity teaches that in some mysterious way the Cross is the Tree of Life promised to Adam and Eve (and obviously their children) in the original story. Though nailed to a dead tree, like the sacrifices that provided food for the Israelites at the Temple, this Tree provides the "true food" of the body and blood of Christ that gives life to anyone who "eats" from it. Where JWs see this a a sacrifice needed to appease a God who demands such a victim, Christianity sees it as God giving his life as "food" to share his life with humanity.

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay