If Adam and Eve are not real and if no literal fall

[_Jason Bourne]

I do not know if I am Orthodox Christian or if I can supply that view. If you'll take an answer for a mixed up Christian who doesn't know what doctrinal day it is, then here goes...

Oh I can assure you you are not very Orthodox :-)

I think it safe to say that there are some Christians who believe that Jesus was chosen as Savior before the world and humans were created. If that is so, then God created us knowing that we were NOT God, NOT divine, and would definitely fall. Thus, the need for a predetermined Savior.

Ok.

Some. This seems an important point. It this one of those essential things to believe or one that Christians can now disagree on but still love and accept each other?

There are some Christians who believe that God is OUTSIDE of creation

Some?

and always WAS outside of creation because he cannot be in the presences of evil (if you will). Which might explain why in the Genesis story, we see a God who is positioned away from Adam and Eve and the only evidence we have that he is there is his voice.

If Jesus was predestined to be the Savior of mankind and if human beings were destined to fall because of our imperfect nature, then the Garden story could be literal or metaphorical.

Hmmm. I see reading ahead in this thread that there are a couple poster-Huck and Aristotle, that seem to buy into this. But hey they are both Ex LDS so they may just be all mixed up! Ha!

I see no problem taking the story as literal. If you see some reason not to take it literally, I'd like to know what it is.

Well I have a problem based on what science says, taking it literally. And it seems to me one must take it literally or the need for Jesus crumbles. To not do so I think flies in the face of what historic Christianity hass taught and seems more like a modification by liberal thinking Christians in order to maintain faith in Jesus while accepting what science is disproving.

But...if the Garden story is metaphorical, then you can take the geneaologies and throw them out the window which doesn't bode well for the line of David.

Or Jesus.

[_Jason Bourne]

So to comment on my post above, I think it highly improbable that there is a literal Adam and Eve that walked out of the Garden of Eden some 6000 or so years ago. I think it as improbable as the Noah story of a world wide flood. I think it unlikely all humanity in its diverse races and cultures all come from Adam and Eve just 6000 years ago, or Noah and his family about 4000 years ago. I think archeological records dispute this severely.

I don;t think there is any problem at all. cf. my Evolution hypothesis. LDS doctrine is quite clear that there is a literal Adam and Eve and a Fall, but it is not clear as to what is and is not figurative about that acount except for the rib account which according to doctrine is figurative. That same doctrione also leaves open much of the account to be figurative.

BC I know you don't think there is a problem. I know you never do. But I just cannot do the mental gymnastics you seem to be able to anymore to get to a literal Adam and Eve. And it seems one must in LDS Doctrine or there are problems. And in spite of what two more liberal Christians post here I think Hoops is right. You need a literal Adam and Eve. I also think your position is not in accordance with what the LDS Church has taught about this. I know why you disagree so no need to expound.

Now in my NOMness I can lean towards what Huck and Aristotle are saying but I think to do so one must dismiss a lot of historic Christian teaching on this point and one must start with the Apostle Paul.

To carry it further, if there was no Adam, Eve and Fall then God did not create a world with no death and as a paradise. There was no intention that human kind would be in this paradisaical state from the beginning and Adam's fall did not introduce sin and death into the world.

And thus all Christianity would be false, yes. But there is nothing scientific precluding the existence of Adam and Eve, a state of ne death, or the Fall.

Yes there is. Science says death has existed on this earth for hundreds of millions if not billions of year. Science also does not buy into your theory that there was some sort of creative period to lead up to bodies that God places spirits into and at that time death was temporarily suspended.

It seems to me that based on orthodox Christianity had Adam not fallen we would be in paradise today with no sin or death. Thus we would have not needed a savior. The need for Jesus is linked directly to the fall of Adam which brought about sin and death. No literal fall of Adam no need for Jesus to save us.

The problem with nonLDS Christianity is that for them, the garden was to be the state of man and that the Fall was a mistake. The Bible however tells us that the mission of Jesus was planned beforehand and thus the Fall was part of the plan. 1 Peter 1:19-20

Or God in his foreknowledge knew man would fall. Not that it was His plan.

[_MrStakhanovite]

You only said they weren't married.

They aren't married when they share a bed together.

[_Jason Bourne]

Bourne,

I'm a little confused, but I'm going with it. :-) In the above, you say you think it "unlikely all humanity in its diverse races and cultures all come from Adam and Eve just 6000 years ago, or Noah and his family about 4000 years ago."

So, I'm confused about a couple of things here. Why do you date Adam and Eve at 6K years ago in time? What is your basis for that?

I took to reading a little wiki about Genesis and this is what it says:

How does that make sense?

I don't know. If you use the Bible for your chronology it seems to me that Adam and Eve left the garden about 6000 years ago. Any one disagree really?

[_Pollypinks]

Don't know personally about the fall, but as a universalist, attending a liberal presbyterian church, I don't think the atonement was necessary. I don't know if Adam and Eve were the first inhabitants of the earth. It's highly suspect. And the notion of original sin is bothersome as well, since, those of us who still believe in God find him perfect and incapable of hateful acts, like condemning 3/4 of all his children to hell if they don't say the magic words.

[_Jason Bourne]

There is a need for a fall of sorts. But the only thing that is really needed is the notion that humans were created in the image of God with the capacity to obey him, but chose not to.

I understand you point. And maybe you are right. But honestly it seems to me that you are taking the equivalent of a NOM position as compared to historic, orthodox and fundamentalism. Now perhaps Christianity really does have lots of room for wiggling but your position really does seem to easily toss aside doctrine which it seems the authors of the New Testament believed in and used to make their case for Jesus being our redeemer.

It certainly seems to be for Latter day Saints and has been argued as such by some of the more literal and orthodox LDS leaders such as McConkie and Joseph Fielding Smith.

LDS theology puts a lot more emphasis on the need for a real person named Adam and a real person named Eve. Otherwise why bother with the book of Moses, putting Adam as Michael, inserting Michael into the creation story, Adam-God speculations, seeing Adam in section 138, etc. The bottom line is that Adam gets inserted into lots of LDS theology and thought, and his being an actual person has a lot riding on it. Because of that, you pretty much have to have a literal Adam experience a literal fall.

Or it makes it harder to back peddle from. So yes I agree.

In orthodox Christianity, the idea of Adam is much more subdued and flexible, and there is much less need for him to be a real person.

So I guess where Paul said as in Adam all die even so in Christ all are made alive he was thinking of a mythical Adam? Really you still have to toss out quite a bit of the Bible including some critical genealogies.

There still is a need for a fall, but I take it as axiomatic that humans are fallen, evil, and in need of a savior. Indeed Chesterton said that the only empirically verifiable doctrine of Christianity is that of original sin. Since most of Genesis 1-11 is meant to be theological history, not empirical history, it's a lot easier to separate the literalness of those events from the ideas they promote

.


I understand this view but again it is a death knell for a good portion of the Bible at least literally. And then where does it stop.

Hoops what do you think of your fellow Christian's view?

[_huckelberry]

Don't know personally about the fall, but as a universalist, attending a liberal presbyterian church, I don't think the atonement was necessary. I don't know if Adam and Eve were the first inhabitants of the earth. It's highly suspect. And the notion of original sin is bothersome as well, since, those of us who still believe in God find him perfect and incapable of hateful acts, like condemning 3/4 of all his children to hell if they don't say the magic words.

I am puzzled by what connection you see,you imply some unspecified connection, between nonsense like three quarters of humanity going to hell for not sayin magic words , and ideas I at least see as very valuable like the atonement and original sin.

I realize the three ideas have coexisted in some poeples mind but that does not mean one leads to the other. To be clear I believe in original sin and think that the atonement is true and of great worth. I do not think there are any magic words and I do not believe all those people not saying nonexistent magic words go to hell.

I realize there exist different views than mine but mine is very far from being singular.

[Guest]

I understand you point. And maybe you are right. But honestly it seems to me that you are taking the equivalent of a NOM position as compared to historic, orthodox and fundamentalism.

I'm going to have to do a whole series of posts on this to drive the whole point home, but the above is simply incorrect. Christianity simply doesn't emphasize Adam the way that the LDS do.

As just a simple example, turn to the Topical Guide in your LDS scriptures and look up "Adam." At first glance it appears that half of the references are to Adam in the Bible and half are in the other LDS standard works. But that's only because the Topical Guide writers are reading the Bible through an LDS lens. In reality Adam appears almost never in the Bible, which is indicative of his importance in Christian (and presumably Jewish) thought.

For starters, all of the references to "Adam" in Daniel, 1 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, Jude, and Revelation are only seen as references to "Adam" by the LDS. Among Christians he is not seen as Michael or an archangel or the Ancient of Days. The reference to Adam in Job is poetic simile (cover my transgressions as Adam), and so doesn't actually require Adam be a real person to function literarily. Otherwise, phrases like "rich as Croesus" or "strong as Hercules" wouldn't make sense. The reference in Luke is purely genealogical (i.e. it doesn't generate any doctrine or theology).

As an aside, I would also point out that LDS people read genealogies much differently than do most Christians because LDS attach so much significance to genealogy and temple work. In any case, the purpose of a genealogy or toledot functions very differently in ancient literature than it does in entries in the LDS Family History Database. toledot function as bridges and introductions to characters, and as such they tend to be schematic and formulaic much more than they are accurate recordings of parentage.

This leaves references to Adam in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Genesis. The references to Adam by Paul should cause Christians to think about what place Adam has in Christian theology in light of evolutionary theory. That's why I linked to that video by Pete Enns, because he is doing lots of thinking about this issue and I think he has some good thoughts and is on the right track.

Finally, that leaves Genesis. Oddly enough "Adam" there has a dual meaning. In some cases it is referring to a generic man, and sometimes it is referring to a specific named person. The Hebrew is actually pretty ambiguous here, and I think for a really good reason. The story is talking as much about generic people as it is about a specific person. That generic person is each of us, and by keeping generic, I think the original authors are encouraging us to see ourselves in the story.

But my overall point has been this: You see Adam as important because you have been taught to read the Bible that way and see him in a particular way. Other people do not. Yes, fundies probably see the Bible in much the way as LDS do, but fundies do not exhaust what it means to be an orthodox Christian.

[_Mad Viking]

(I find God) perfect and incapable of hateful acts, like condemning 3/4 of all his children to hell if they don't say the magic words...

Is that to say that your god is not omnipotent? Or is it to say that hateful acts are just not in his character?

[_Hoops]

They aren't married when they share a bed together.

Well, I'll admit to being stumped here. I've always understood they were married in chapter 3, after courtship in 1 & 2. So help me out here with what you mean.