Orignal Sin
Create a chart comparing and contrasting the two stories of creation from Genesis 1-1-2.4 and Genesis 2:4-25. List at least five differences in your chart.
What are two important ideas about God that emerge from this exercise?
There are two important ideas that emerge from Genesis 1:1-2:4 and Genesis 2:4-25:
1. God is humble and nice because God created everything and He was pleased
with the beauty and magnificence of his creation (Genesis 1:31).
2. God is a supreme being and God wanted to teach mankind about sin and
consequences by man’s temptation of the forbidden fruit from the tree of
knowledge (Genesis 3). (Man’s first sin and his punishment).
Both creation stories perceive God with human traits. In Genesis chapter 1, God appears to poses human traits because he appears to be humble and nice (Language of the Heart, 99). The creation story in this narrative has stated several times, “God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, 1:25, and 1:31). The readings explain to us that God enjoyed his work and was very pleased with his creation. Another thing that comes to mind is that God was physically distant from his creation. This was later stated in Gospel of John, “The Son of God, one with the Father, was with him when he made the world” (John 1:1-1:2).
In creation narrative in Genesis chapter 2 gives a different perspective on God. The second narrative portrays God as a being supreme and a powerful Creator (Language of the Heart, 101). I envision God walking (spiritually) in the Garden of Eden with Adam. Genesis 3:8 - And they heard the sound of Jehovah God walking up and down in the garden at the breeze of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the face of Jehovah God in the middle of the trees of the garden. Another evidence of a “supreme being” is when God created man out of dust and with His own breath (Genesis 2:7).
There are two important ideas that emerge from Genesis 1:1-2:4 and Genesis 2:4-25:
1. God is humble and nice because God created everything and He was pleased
with the beauty and magnificence of his creation (Genesis 1:31).
2. God is a supreme being and God wanted to teach mankind about sin and
consequences by man’s temptation of the forbidden fruit from the tree of
knowledge (Genesis 3). (Man’s first sin and his punishment).
Both creation stories perceive God with human traits. In Genesis chapter 1, God appears to poses human traits because he appears to be humble and nice (Language of the Heart, 99). The creation story in this narrative has stated several times, “God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, 1:25, and 1:31). The readings explain to us that God enjoyed his work and was very pleased with his creation. Another thing that comes to mind is that God was physically distant from his creation. This was later stated in Gospel of John, “The Son of God, one with the Father, was with him when he made the world” (John 1:1-1:2).
In creation narrative in Genesis chapter 2 gives a different perspective on God. The second narrative portrays God as a being supreme and a powerful Creator (Language of the Heart, 101). I envision God walking (spiritually) in the Garden of Eden with Adam. Genesis 3:8 - And they heard the sound of Jehovah God walking up and down in the garden at the breeze of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the face of Jehovah God in the middle of the trees of the garden. Another evidence of a “supreme being” is when God created man out of dust and with His own breath (Genesis 2:7).
From your own reading of these two stories, what is your understanding of “original sin”?
God told Adam and Eve, "you may eat freely of every tree in the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die" (Genesis 3:3). The term “original sin” deals with Adam’s sin of disobedience in eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and its effects upon the rest of the human race.
I believe that Adam and Eve were spiritually immortal and not physically immortal. If they were physically immortal they would have fallen dead after eating the forbidden fruit. Since Adam is the “head of the household” God speaks to him and banishes him from the Garden of Eden and that is when Adam became “spiritually” dead. I believe that the “sin” has tainted the body, mind and soul of a person. Since Adam is perceived as the representative of mankind, then all generations of humanity is recognized as a sinner until we are baptized in the Lord’s name. Thus, scriptures make it clear that sin and death enter this world through Adam’s disobedience and he is to blame for the original sin even though Eve ate the fruit first.