# Plot Hole: Original Sin? Huh? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 2, 2014, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682 "2014-01-02T05:40:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/61 "2014-01-03T22:43:19Z")
In the “My Christianity” thread, I mentioned chatting with a pastor-in-training. He had some interesting interpretations… One of these was that Adam and Eve were married. They did not engage in fornication (he insisted!) but were married. How did he reason this? Well, when two people get married, the Bible says that they become “as one flesh.” Since Eve’s body was made from Adam’s body, they were “one flesh.” Therefore Eve was married to Adam. (By this logic, I’m married to my mother…) ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/62 "2014-01-04T23:38:58Z")
Let’s take the millennia of accretions and edits from the story and look at it as what it is: the attempt of primitive nomads to answer life’s weightiest questions. Where did we come from? How do we know right from wrong? Why is life so hard? Why don’t snakes have legs? Sitting around the campfire, the ancestors of the Hebrews asked these questions, and arrived at answers. Where did we come from? God made us; he makes the lightning and the rain, he made the earth and the sun, he made the birds and fish and animals, and he made us. How do we know right from wrong? Our great-great-great-etc-grandparents ate fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge and Good and Evil. Why is life so hard? Because our great-great-great-etc-grandparents ate fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge and Good and Evil, which grew in the beautiful garden that God had made for them. It turns out that God wanted to be the only one with that knowledge. That’s why we don’t live in the Garden any more – God kicked out our ancestors before they could eat from the Tree of Life and become both wise and immortal, just like him. He cursed them, too (and us), and that’s why life is so hard. Why don’t snakes have legs? The snake is the one who told our great-great-great-etc-grandmother that she wouldn’t die if she ate the fruit of Tree of the Knowledge and Good and Evil. God punished him by taking his legs. Whazzat? Why did she think she’d die if she ate the fruit? Because God told her so – “because I said not to” doesn’t work on my kids, much less on people with no knowledge of good and evil. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/63 "2014-01-05T07:45:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > In the “My Christianity” thread, I mentioned chatting with a pastor-in-training. He had some interesting interpretations… > > One of these was that Adam and Eve were married. They did not engage in fornication (he insisted!) but were married. How did he reason this? Did he actually use the word “fornication” (or fornicate)? Because if, as he insists, they were married to each other, that they did not fornicate is self-evident, the word literally (in the literal sense of “literally”) means copulation out of wedlock. They could only possibly have engaged in fornication/adultery with those humans who were created before them, in the first chapter of Genesis. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/64 "2014-01-05T19:20:12Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Did he actually use the word “fornication” (or fornicate)? Because if, as he insists, they were married to each other, that they did not fornicate is self-evident, the word literally (in the literal sense of “literally”) means copulation out of wedlock. They could only possibly have engaged in fornication/adultery with those humans who were created before them, in the first chapter of Genesis. To be honest, I don’t recall how he expressed “had sex out of wedlock.” I may have substituted the word “fornicate” from my own faulty memory. His point was that Adam and Eve did not “have sex out of wedlock” because they were married. They were married (he said) because they were of one flesh (Eve taken from Adam’s body) and marriage is where two people become of one flesh. I think this is weak and wimpy sophistry, and would say, rather, that Adam and Eve were married, if only informally, by their own personal vows and intents and declarations. It’d be the same as two people stranded on a lonely island. No priest, no witnesses, no Bible, just two naked people. “Wanna have sex?” “Only if we’re married first.” “Wanna get married?” “Yeah.” “We’re married.” “Good enough…” ---
**Author:** ![truthseeker3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e68b1a/32.png) [@truthseeker3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/truthseeker3)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/65 "2014-01-15T09:30:33Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > His point was that Adam and Eve did not “have sex out of wedlock” because they were married. They were married (he said) because they were of one flesh (Eve taken from Adam’s body) and marriage is where two people become of one flesh. It sounds like you might be conflating a couple of ideas. (1) the nuptial meaning of sex In our fallen world, we often think of sex as bad, wicked, evil, dirty, etc, “but in the beginning, it was not so.” In the beginning, God created them male and female and told them to be fruitful and multiply. It’s hard to find a more direct endorsement of sex without invoking George Michael: “Sex is natural. Sex is good.” That’s true - it’s our _misuse_ of sex that is bad. Sex is not supposed to be about using another person for my own amusement; it’s supposed to be about creating an indissoluble bond between husband and wife. And Adam and Eve had that bond - in fact, they had it in spades since they were **literally** one flesh. (I think that’s the point your friend was trying to make.) (2) the fall There is a tendency to read the story of the Garden and think, “Hmmm… naked people? :dubious: Yeah, they’re up to something” but that’s kind of a red herring. While Adam and Eve are naked in the sense of “without clothing”, it’s much more important that they’re naked in the sense of “vulnerable”. They’re sitting ducks, easy prey for the serpent. So why doesn’t this so-called loving Father protect them? Why not put up a fence around the tree so they _can’t_ eat the fruit and die? Well, that’s a good question. Here’s how I’ve heard it answered. Suppose - just for the sake of argument - that God really does exist and is the source of all good things. Then, it follows that… with God = with all good things =\> happy and without God = without all good things =\> unhappy Simple enough, but here’s a paradox: love is a good thing, but love is not love if it’s compulsory. Thus, in order to give us his love, God must also give us the capacity to _reject_ his love and be unhappy. ---
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/66 "2014-01-15T11:41:11Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Taking the convergent story of the “fall of man” in the biblical Genesis, I have this question: Eve allegedly committed the first (original) sin, but what was it? I think it was essentially disobeying God on a level beyond her understanding. IMO, I think the time before Original Sin is meant to illustrate a time where there was no such thing as subjective thought about things. Things just were and that was how God intended for us to exist. After original sin is meant to illustrate how we now perceive the world; with all sorts of convoluted negative and positive subjective thoughts about the world and “good and evil.” I’m not religious btw, just sharing my interpretation. > [@](#): > > Jehovallah instructed Adam, and by proxy Eve (who had not been invented yet) that of all the trees in the garden, he was not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (“Eve” \<-\> “evil”, curious assonance), because he would die if he did. Essentially, it identified the fruit of that tree as toxic, which means the instruction was not of a moral nature but of a cautionary one. In fact, in his state of innocence, could Adam even grasp the concept of morality (which he later earned as a consequence of eating that same fruit)? I think “toxic” is too literal of a take on the meaning. I think by God saying Adam is “doomed to die” is meant to mean that the subsequent events of eating from The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil will ultimately lead to his death. > [@](#): > > So, now we have the dragon, which tells Eve that Jehovallah is a lying bastard (true enough), that the fruit of that tree will not in fact kill her, it will teach her stuff. She gnoshes down on the fruit, finding it to be tasty and the dragon to be correct. AFAICT, There is no moral lesson to be had here, other than that it is ok for the deity to fib. Again, I don’t think it is implied that death will be from consuming a poisonous fruit, but will be from the knowledge of good and evil that the fruit gives. The moral lesson is a complex one in that by trying to understand the knowledge of good and evil as a human, it will most certainly lead to your demise since you can’t ever truly understand or live up to that understanding. At least that’s my take on it. > [@](#): > > But here is where it falls apart: Eve has eaten this fruit, hence she now has knowledge of good and evil in her belly. Yet, she proceeds to encourage Adam to chow down on this fruit as well. If it were wrong to eat it, she would now know that and would realistically refrain from spreading wrongness in the world. I don’t think this knowledge was instantaneous or even necessarily knowledge. It was just the concept of being able to know the difference between good and evil being introduced to the human mind. Therefore, she gives Adam the apple to eat since she still does not know any better. > [@](#): > > Basically, for humans, prior to eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, there was no such thing as sin or morality for them. How then could Eve have even sinned if she could not understand the very concept of sin? How could her act be construed as sinful when the original injunction was framed as a toxicity advisory with no specific moral imperative (which she would not have been able to fathom in the first place)? And most importantly, why the hell did she and Adam not start off with the Tree of Life (Pak jokes notwithstanding)? I think when God said you will be “doomed to die,” there was some moral imperative. It insinuates that she would not have eventually died if she had not eaten the fruit. Implying that God had already provided a paradise that was sufficient. In that paradise, sin and morality were not present because then it would no longer be paradise. I think the lesson is that humans are doomed to try and understand morality and try and live morally when we are inherently incapable of doing those things together.(in their entirety) ---
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/67 "2014-01-15T11:50:03Z")
> [@truthseeker3](#): > > They’re sitting ducks, easy prey for the serpent. So why doesn’t this so-called loving Father protect them? Why not put up a fence around the tree so they _can’t_ eat the fruit and die? Well, that’s a good question. Here’s how I’ve heard it answered. > > Suppose - just for the sake of argument - that God really does exist and is the source of all good things. Then, it follows that… > with God = with all good things =\> happy > and > without God = without all good things =\> unhappy > > Simple enough, but here’s a paradox: love is a good thing, but love is not love if it’s compulsory. Thus, in order to give us his love, God must also give us the capacity to _reject_ his love and be unhappy. That’s an interesting take on it, but I get confused then because God would have known/intended for Adam and Eve(therefore all of humanity) to have eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If that was his intention, since in all his wisdom he surely would have known that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit, then what’s the point? Why _make_ us have original sin if that’s not what he wanted? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/68 "2014-01-15T11:53:41Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > To be honest, I don’t recall how he expressed “had sex out of wedlock.” I may have substituted the word “fornicate” from my own faulty memory. > > His point was that Adam and Eve did not “have sex out of wedlock” because they were married. They were married (he said) because they were of one flesh (Eve taken from Adam’s body) and marriage is where two people become of one flesh. > > I think this is weak and wimpy sophistry, and would say, rather, that Adam and Eve were married, if only informally, by their own personal vows and intents and declarations. > > It’d be the same as two people stranded on a lonely island. No priest, no witnesses, no Bible, just two naked people. “Wanna have sex?” “Only if we’re married first.” “Wanna get married?” “Yeah.” “We’re married.” “Good enough…” From what I can tell from later in Genesis, especially with Jacob’s wives, it seems that’s all marriage started out as–an agreement to accept someone as part of your family in exchange for the right to have sex and procreate with them. Sure, later the agreement seems to also involve the father of the bride, and decreases the woman’s input significantly, but the basics are still there. Plus, the idea of a marriage contract comes from sin, if you think about it. You need a contract because otherwise there’s the possibility of straying. Pre-fall, this would not have been the case, even if we assume that either really had a choice in mates. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/69 "2014-01-15T15:04:19Z")
Me: “There’s quite an argument here about all the holes in the story of Zeus and Leda.” SO: “Why the _fuck_ would anyone do that?” Me: “Just kidding…they’re actually arguing about all the holes in the first chapter of Genesis.” SO: “Why the _fuck_ would anyone do that?” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/70 "2014-01-15T15:13:11Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Plus, the idea of a marriage contract comes from sin, if you think about it. You need a contract because otherwise there’s the possibility of straying. Pre-fall, this would not have been the case, even if we assume that either really had a choice in mates. Isn’t the whole point that pre-fall people sometimes opt for, um, forbidden fruit? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/71 "2014-01-15T15:56:15Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Me: “There’s quite an argument here about all the holes in the story of Zeus and Leda.” > > SO: “Why the _fuck_ would anyone do that?” > > Me: “Just kidding…they’re actually arguing about all the holes in the first chapter of Genesis.” > > SO: “Why the _fuck_ would anyone do that?” Me: because there still seem to be people that think it actually happened. Apparently. And they are trying to make sense of the nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/72 "2014-01-15T16:43:51Z")
Revtim: > [@](#): > > There’s also the plot hole where Eve is punished for doing something wrong (eating the fruit) _before_ she could have know it was wrong Eve clearly knew she shouldn’t eat it. Genesis 3:1-3. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/73 "2014-01-15T16:44:09Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Me: because there still seem to be people that think it actually happened. > Apparently. > And they are trying to make sense of the nonsense. Fair enough. Except they don’t seem to be participating in this discussion. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![truthseeker3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e68b1a/32.png) [@truthseeker3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/truthseeker3)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/74 "2014-01-17T15:06:04Z")
> [@YoungKusher](#): > > That’s an interesting take on it, but I get confused then because God would have known/intended for Adam and Eve(therefore all of humanity) to have eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If that was his intention, since in all his wisdom he surely would have known that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit, then what’s the point? Why _make_ us have original sin if that’s not what he wanted? Well, now, you’re getting into some _very_ difficult questions - this is the kind of stuff mystics spend their entire lives contemplating (and I’m not a mystic) - but I’ll try to give you a brief explanation. If (as Christians claim) God is omniscient, then he would indeed have known that human beings would reject him. But foreknowing isn’t the same thing as causing; you may know how your favorite movie is going to end, but you don’t cause anything to happen on the reel. And God doesn’t **make** us do anything; he gives us free will - including the freedom to reject him. If we were only free to do what God wants, we wouldn’t truly be free - we’d just be happy automatons. And God wants sons, not slaves. Or at least, that’s the theory. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/75 "2014-01-17T16:16:42Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Anything biblically wrong with an Archangel (son of God), having sex or producing children? What are the issues you are having with this? Don’t let them discourage you. There’s nothing wrong with fan fiction. It worked well for Joseph Smith. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/76 "2014-01-17T18:22:42Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Revtim: > Eve clearly knew she shouldn’t eat it. Genesis 3:1-3. This was addressed in the previous page by **Latro** - if she didn’t know the difference between good and evil, then she did not know if it was right or wrong to obey God. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/77 "2014-01-17T18:25:28Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Me: because there still seem to be people that think it actually happened. > Apparently. > And they are trying to make sense of the nonsense. And worse - they are trying to make _laws_ based on the nonsense that we all must follow. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/78 "2014-01-17T19:52:47Z")
Revtim: > [@](#): > > This was addressed in the previous page by Latro - if she didn’t know the difference between good and evil, then she did not know if it was right or wrong to obey God. She knew that the consequence of it was death. Whether she could have determined “good or evil” or “right or wrong” in a moral sense or not, she certainly knew that to eat the forbidden fruit was to invite death. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/79 "2014-01-17T20:12:18Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > She knew that the consequence of it was death. Whether she could have determined “good or evil” or “right or wrong” in a moral sense or not, she certainly knew that to eat the forbidden fruit was to invite death. And another authority figure told her that it wasn’t true. Having no experience with lies and liars, would she even know how to handle two people telling her two different things…especially after she _didn’t_ die after eating the fruit? To someone not used to nuance in language this could only convince her that the serpent was the only to listen to. Once again, you’re stuck with Daddy leaving the loaded gun on the table, and letting devious Uncle Stan babysit the kids. And do you know what the _really_ fucked up part of all this is? \*Dear Old Daddy KNEW what was going to happen, KNEW that the serpent was more than capable of conning those poor innocents, and KNEW how it would all go down. And his response to his own evil manipulations, for which he has full responsibility? “Now look what you made me do!”\* ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682/80 "2014-01-17T20:14:52Z")
Much of this discussion is fruitless (excuse the pun! 😃 ). If we are going by the text, it appears that the primary motivation of God in the text for turfing out Adam and Eve was fear - specifically, fear that if these humans ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they would also eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever! > [@](#): > > 22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand rand take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, merely a punishment for disobedience. Indeed, it is not primarially a moral judgment on them. It is also interesting that, in the text, God never forbids man from eating the fruit of the tree of life. Is it the case that eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge makes you suceptible to death, and only then is the fruit of the tree of life significant? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-hole-original-sin-huh/677682.md?page=5)