From: RFaussette@aol.com
Date: Mon Oct 06 2003 - 14:11:01 EDT
In a message dated 10/6/03 10:20:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
bnelson301@yahoo.com writes:
> For what it's worth, nor does any of the Old Testament speak of Genesis 3
> as the source of man's sin, but
> rather of man's sinful nature with no reference back to Genesis 3.
>
>
But the Jewish mystics all do!!
"The sin of Adam was that he isolated the Tree of Life from the Tree of
Knowledge to which he directed his desire. Once the unity of the two trees in men's
lives was destroyed, there began the dominion of the Tree of Knowledge. No
longer did unitary gushing, unrestrained life prevail, but the duality of good
and evil in which the Torah appears in this aspect of revelation. Since the
expulsion from Paradise, in the exile in which WE ALL (caps mine) now find
ourselves, we can no longer apperceive the world as a unified whole."
Though the term original sin is not used here, it is obvious that Gershom
Scholem in his discussion of the Zohar, sees Adam's sin as changing the world
for all who came after him, a very 'original' sin.
The quote is from Gershom Scholem's The Messianic Idea in Judaism, Schocken
Books, ppgs. 68-70.
In the foreword: "Gershom Scholem was the master builder of historical
studies of the Kabbalah."
He doesn't use augustine's phrase, but he is certainly discussing the same
concept.
"Then God, the ruler of the aeons and the powers, divided us in wrath. Then
we became two aeons."
"Since that time we learned about dead things, like men. Then we recognized
the God who created us."
From The Apocalypse of Adam - a nag hammadi text, harper collin's edition p.
279
The concept of original sin is not original. It's the normative understanding
of Adam's fall as also explained in different texts and times by Jewish
mystics, to whom the Torah is paramount.
rich faussette
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Oct 06 2003 - 14:12:48 EDT