Sea Breeze , you are correct , l have never been a JW . I am a life long Anglican .
I came onto this forum when l started to find out a bit about the Watchtower and l wanted to get ideas about how to counter witness .
Phizzy, yes many Christians do see the A+E story as metaphorical. I remembered reading something about A+E in Jewish theology. A bit of Googling found this.
" Adam is not just the name of the first human . It is the name of all humanity. In Scripture the word ' man " has four appellations, one of them being Adam . The other three are ish , enosh and gever . In particular the word Adam is used to describe a person with advanced intellectual capacities .
The fact that Adam and Eve's children found people to marry would kinda indicate that there were other people around ! .
As to original sin l have thought about it and the short answer is " no , I can't at the moment give an explanation "
I think of like an IT wizz ( God) creating a perfect programme ( our genes )and a rival putting a virus into it .
That is no help to anyone else l know : ) .
And as to how it actually happened l don't know. However l am going to look at other people's thoughts about it .
Jan