Due to the lateness of the hour, no make that earliness of the hour (12:45 EDST) this will have to be short. I just wanted to post this as a reference more for myself than anything else. I have mentioned before this blog is more of a journal of thought processing for me than anything else.
After reading books and articles of a number of intellectuals I am drawing my line in the sand. I am convinced that the teachings and doctrines of inherited sin is not compatible with scripture. If you take the Apostle Paul out of the discussion you are left with no mention, implicit or implied, of original, inherited sin. Paul spoke of a number of things that he did not have complete authority to speak of.
There are a number of very glaring faults with this doctrine. The most glaring to me is the fact that not all peoples have a common ancestry. It certainly isn't Noah, since the flood was a local event. That has been proved beyond doubt regardless of what you want to believe. I am weary of even hearing of the tale of a world wide flood. It isn't implied nor intended in the Bible. A common ancestry in Adam is even more impossible because he wasn't the first, and certainly not the only man on earth. It is my conviction that he didn't even exist. I am convinced he is simply a prototype of the beginnings of the Israelites, a representation of the start of a nation that was the main peoples of the Hebrew religion. The earth was being populated by many hundreds of people groups comprising hundreds of thousands of humans by the time the Israelites came on the scene.
I came into this world no more responsible for Adam's sin than I did for Adolf Hitler's sins. Don't hook me up with something I had no part in. Don't taint my soul with a transgression I was not part of. Accuse me of my own wrong doings and not the wrong doings of someone else.
Original sin was a Pauline idea that took root via writings by Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. The Second Council of Orange in 529 ratified the findings of St. Augustine and the Council of Trent. All of it was processed with flawed logic and imperfect interpretation of the scriptures.
We must get real if we are going to address scripture. We must shift through the imperfections of those that translated and interpreted the scriptures based on limited understanding of the world around them, and very little or no knowledge of science and how man appeared on this planet.
