In an article that I recently read at the Steve Schramm website titled, Does the Punishment for Original Sin Fit the Crime, the author noted the following, "There was nothing poisonous about the fruit, and there was nothing inherently wrong at all with the fruit. The problem was not that they ate fruit; the problem was that they disobeyed the command of a Holy, Righteous, and Perfect God."
However, there was something "poisonous" about the fruit, which we can discern by how God refers to it; He refers to it as the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," as we all know, and its title indicates something about it. Knowing the difference between good and evil is considered an improvement to somebody that knows nothing, but it is a deterioration in contrast to someone who previously had a superior perspective. It is called by this name because before eating it, Adam and Eve saw everything from the perspective of true and false. When they ate from the tree, "true" and "false" were replaced with "good" and "evil." The reason that this is a step down is because true and false are objective realities (which is why they had no desire to sin before eating it), while good and evil are subjective realities; what is good for me may be bad for you, and so on and so on... Eating the fruit plunged them into a world of subjectivity where everything is judged in contrast to other things and not according to its actual, objective value.
Woe to those who say of the evil that it is good and of the good that it is evil; who present darkness as light and light as darkness, who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)
Interestingly, all three elements named above were present in the beginning of Genesis: good versus evil (our discussion), darkness versus light (Day One of Creation), and sweet versus bitter (the taste of the fruit).
But this also illustrates that the change took place within their very nature and that it was not simply a punishment for disobedience. This means that there was indeed something "poisonous" about this fruit, in addition to the fact that eating it was an act of disobedience. In another part of the article Schramm said, "Adam and Eve sinned, and therefore, that sinful nature is passed on from generation to generation." It is true that it was passed on, but a mere penalty cannot be passed on; it being passed on indicates pretty clearly that it was, as he said, a "sinful nature." A person can only inherit a state, but cannot inherit a penalty, as it says in Ezekiel 18:20, "The soul that sins, it shall die; a son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and a father shall not bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." The above verse is saying that one person cannot inherit the penalty of another.
Further, the verse above also proves that the vicarious atonement of Jesus cannot be true, as it says, "...the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." This means that the wicked alone, i.e., the person responsible for the sin, and nobody else, must deal with his own sin.
Even if God does punish the children for the sins of their father(s), it at most can only be temporary, as it says in Deuteronomy 5:9, "...for I, the Lord your God, am a zealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me...." From here it seems that inter-generational penalty cannot exceed a certain number of generations, in this case, three or four. In perspective, Kenan lived in the third generation after Adam, and Mahalalel in the fourth. Further, penalty is only extended to later generations "of those who hate Me," which may exclude many later generations. If true, human beings as a whole today cannot be penalized for Adam's sin.
Further, a punishment is not designed to incapacitate somebody, it is designed to help him do teshuva. Punishing Adam and Eve by changing their perspective from true and false to good and evil would in no way facilitate their repentance; in fact, by making clarity of truth more inaccessible to them it would make repentance more difficult for them. "Do I desire the death of the wicked? says the Lord God. Is it not rather in his repenting of his ways that he may live?" (Ezekiel 18:23)
It's therefore more sensible to hold that the result of eating the fruit was not a punishment, but a devastating shift in their nature.
The reasons above are why the doctrine of Original Sin as currently understood by Christians seems to be out of accord with the Word of God in the Jewish Scriptures, which we posit is unchanging and perfect.
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