Table of Contents
<title>Original Sin</title>
The concept of original sin is that all human beings are born corrupted due to the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; in that Adam's sin is passed down from parent to child.
In Christianity, the concept is defined a little further. First, the claim is made that there is absolutely nothing that you can do as a human being to rid yourself of this sin corruption. And secondly, that the only way for you to be cleansed of this original sin is for the blood of Jesus to wash it away. If Jesus forgives you, as the story goes, then God will forgive you. So you must pray to Jesus and ask Jesus for forgiveness, and then his blood, spilled by Jesus' crucifixion on the cross, will save you. Save you, that is, from God's wrath and punishment at your Sin – which otherwise would certainly be the cause of your final death and eternal punishment.
But when we go to the Jewish scriptures, which the New Testament is based on, we find that in fact they state the exact opposite; that there is no such thing as Original Sin, that is, there is nothing stopping any human being from being righteous before God and earning a place in the world to come.
Which idea is the truth? First, let's examine the Christian proof-texts that claim original sin. We will not examine passages that presuppose original sin in order to make secondary claims; those passages could however be examined in a later article. Next we can examine any support for Original Sin in the Old Testament, with a special section on the Garden of Eden story in Genesis. Finally, we will examine other passages which may not quite agree with the concept of Original Sin, and try to understand how they fit in with everything else.
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