The Jewish Conception of Original Sin

Tell me more about this.

@jongarvey, to really great articles about NT Wright on this topic. I request a DOI. @deuteroKJ and @Philosurfer, what do you think of this?

Wright right about Ezra, or wrong about Esdras? | The Hump of the Camel
Wright and wrong | The Hump of the Camel

More intrinsically helpful, though, is some of Wright’s incisive reasoning for his position – for which he does draw on the New Testament:

[T]he first thing to say is that it is very interesting that in the Old Testament itself hardly anything is made of Adam, which is kind of curious to a Christian looking at it. So when I started to work on Romans I assumed that an Adamic doctrine of Original Sin was deep in Judaism and Paul was just picking it up, and the answer is actually it isn’t. Talk to conservative Jews, liberal Jews, second Temple Jews, there isn’t a doctrine of Original Sin until 4th Ezra and 2 Baruch, which were written after the destruction of the temple in AD 70. Where the destruction of the temple has forced them to say ‘we were aware of problems, but now we realize that it must be much worse than we’d ever imagined and maybe it all goes back to Adam after all.’

And I think what you see in Paul is something very similar, that the death of Jesus has forced him to say ‘the problem of the world must be much worse than we ever imagined. It has been solved by one man. Goodness, maybe that’s actually what that story was about. It wasn’t just a picture to get us going as it were.’

In other words, just as the proto-Holocaust of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 caused the Jews newly to see a catastrophic human fall into sin in the Eden story, Paul had already come to such a view de novo for a much better reason – the tremendous cost to God of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ.

Each section is introduced by Ezra’s prayer for enlightenment, and it is in one of these, rather than in the revelatory response, that the Fall is mentioned:

“You commanded the dust, and Adam appeared. His body was lifeless; but yours were the hands that had moulded it, and into it you breathed the breath of life. So you made him a living person. You led him into paradise, which you yourself had planted before the earth came into being. You gave him one commandment to obey he disobeyed it, and thereupon you made him subject to death, him and his descendants.”

The writer seems here to be recounting “what we already know from the Genesis account”, culminating in Adam as the author of death for all mankind through one act of disobedience. It’s also interesting how paradise is seen as a separate realm to the rest of earth, and Genesis 2 as describing a creation before that of Genesis 1 – one for the Young Earth Creationists to work on!

But Ezra’s prayer goes on:

“From him were born nations and tribes, people and families, too numerous to count. Each nation went its own way, sinning against you and scorning you; and you did not stop them …”

He describes the Flood and the call of the Patriarchs just as conventional Christian teaching would understand them, and then the disobedience of Israel in terms taken directly from Deuteronomy 29:4 with its reference to lack of saving grace – linking it to Adam:

“But you did not take away their wicked heart and enable your law to bear fruit in them. For the first man, Adam, was burdened with a wicked heart; he sinned and was overcome, and not only he but all his descendants. So the weakness became inveterate. Although your law was in your people’s hearts, a rooted wickedness was there too; so that the good came to nothing, and what was bad persisted.”

That account would be a completely unremarkable summary of original sin in Christian terms, including an Augustinian description of its inherited nature – missing out only the concept of inherited guilt for Adam’s sin, which (though controversial even in Christianity) takes its root from Paul’s comparison in Romans 5 of the one act of Adam and the one act of Jesus. Yet 2 Esdras/4 Ezra is a Jewish work, not derived from Paul

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Wrighto, Josh - I intended to DOI another piece anyway. I’ll get round to all three in a day or so.

@jongarvey

2 Esdras (or 4th, Ezra) has already been noted by you as NOT endorsing Augustine’s interpretation of Original Sin.

This is a good example of the difference between “The Fall” vs. “Original Sin”!

Below i quote from you:

“But you did not take away their wicked heart and enable your law to bear fruit in them. For the first man, Adam, was burdened with a wicked heart; he sinned and was overcome, and not only he but all his descendants. So the weakness became inveterate. Although your law was in your people’s hearts, a rooted wickedness was there too; so that the good came to nothing, and what was bad persisted.”

Then you add:

“That account would be a completely unremarkable summary of original sin in Christian terms, including an Augustinian description of its inherited nature – missing out only the concept of inherited guilt for Adam’s sin…”

We have to remind ourselves that simply reciting the sequence of events is not the same as defending Original Sin:

1] It is a Biblical fact that Eden had the Tree of Life.
2] It is a Biblical fact that God’s punishment included no access to the Tree of Life (which isnt even mentioned as part of God’s listing of curses).
3] And it is a fact that God did not provide a provision for “re-testing” and “re-entry” to Adam’s offspring.

This is not “Original Sin”. This is the inevitable logistics problem of punishing the Father of Humanity without inconveniencing all of humanity.

The question you put is perfect: what about the supposed “inherited nature” of Original Sin?

The writer makes it clear that this is not Paul’s doctrine:

“…But You [God] did not take away their wicked heart and enable your law to bear fruit in them. For the first man, Adam, was burdened with a wicked heart…”

I don’t pretend to be an expert on this, but I track with @jongarvey pretty much wholesale on the discussion. There seems to be a (or some) hermeneutical decision(s) at play here in terms of what the NT authors would/should do with the given data/background discussion in light of Christ. Nothing in @jongarvey’s discussion seems out of bounds IMO. I’d be happy to hear an alternative model , but TBH don’t know what that would look like.

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@deuteroKJ

What would support @jongarvey 's interpretation is if there were subsequent Jewish writing which explicitly states that humans are in need of redemption due to INHERITED sin.

Deutero, do you know of any?

We just quoted on example @gbrooks9, in the OP.

@swamidass,

The problem is that it doesnt actually assert the doctrine of original sin… thats why we need a SECOND Jewish citation… that is more explicit.

Otherwise… its just another wild goose chase.

That is interesting! I’m swamped under a stack of student papers, but I’ll run it by one of the OT professors on my floor.

Cheers All!

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@MJAlter what are your thoughts on this?

My two cents, quickly… the evangelical discussion of how sin affects every human doesn’t center around us inheriting the guilt for Adam’s sin, but around us inheriting Adam’s nature --a sin nature, with its proclivity to assert itself over God, in active or ignorant rebellion to His highest and best calling for us.
“Oh, wretched man that I am; the good that I would do…” from Paul gives good insight into his own understanding of the entrenched problem.

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Hello Joshua:

Below are numerous links that address this issue:

In general, Adam and Eve had sexual relations and became parents while still IN the Garden of Eden [before the “disobedience]. Additional reasons based on Scripture can be found below:

1) BEREISHIS - RASHI COMMENTARY

BEREISHIS - RASHI COMMENTARY[Scroll down to Chapter 4, verse 1]

or

  1. Rashi on Original Sin [Scroll down]
  1. Tovia Singer [EXCELLENT]

Rabbi Tovia Singer Discredits the Doctrine of Original Sin and Reveals Nudity’s Significance in Eden

YouTube

  1. Tovia Singer. “Does Judaism Believe in Original Sin?outreachjudaism.org. Outreach Judaism, 2011

http://outreachjudaism.org/original-sin/

  1. ORIGINAL SIN: Why Jews Don’t Believe In It (Reply2 one for Israel maoz messianic jews for jesus меби

This lecture features Rabbi Yisroel Chaim

7) Question: Do Jews believe in the doctrine of original sin? Let’s find out.

Do Jews Believe In The Doctrine Of Original Sin? | Jews For Judaism

Judaism's Rejection of Original Sin

  1. An interview with Rabbi Yisroel Blumenthal of Lake wood N.J and Rabbi Eli Cohen of Sydney

YouTube

  1. Rabbi Stuart Federow

What Jews Believe: Essay #5: No Original Sin

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I know that this is the common view. I was asking rather about your thougths on 4 Edras, in which there does seem to be an early statement on this:

And this historical context:

That is what I am asking about. I do know that Jewish theology now days do not a concept of original sin. That wasn’t what I was asking about though…

Hello Joshua:

I just skimmed the requested text. I assume that you are referring to the verse 30: “For a grain of evil seed was sown in Adam’s heart from the beginning, and how much ungodliness it has produced until now, and will produce until the time of threshing comes!”

I would go with the Traditional Jewish response that God created man with two inclinations. This well-known concept is based on the word yeetzer in Bereshit/Genesis 2:7:

The verse states:15 “And G‑d fashioned man.” [The Hebrew word for fashioned is vayeetzer (וייצר).] The word is written with two yuds ,16 which [our Sages say] indicates that man was born with two yitzrin , inclinations, one for good (the yetzer tov ), and the other for evil (the yetzer hora )

One additional comment of intellectual honesty, I am not very familiar with 4 Edras / 4 Ezra although I have read portions of it many moons ago. So then, I am definitely NOT an expert in this vast arena.

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@swamidass,

I have written a post not so long ago that specifically states the limited nature of 2 Esdras (or 4th Ezra) in trying to “wedge it” into the shape of Original Sin. It’s not a very comfortable fit.

Maybe @jongarvey will have some more to offer on this topic…

Here’s a Britannica discussion on the texts … to give us a better background on the documents:

Second Book of Esdras

APOCRYPHAL WORK

WRITTEN BY:

See Article History

Alternative Titles: Ezra Apocalypse, Fourth Book of Esdras, Fourth Book of Ezra, II Esdras

Second Book of Esdras ,

also called Fourth Book of Ezra

or Ezra Apocalypse,

abbreviation II Esdras ,

apocryphal work printed in the Vulgate and many later Roman Catholic bibles as an appendix to the New Testament. The central portion of the work (chapters 3–14), consisting of seven visions revealed to the seer Salathiel-Ezra, was written in Aramaic by an unknown Jew around AD 100. In the mid-2nd century AD, a Christian author added an introductory portion (chapters 1–2) to the Greek edition of the book, and a century later another Christian writer appended chapters 15–16 to the same edition."

“It is possible that the whole Greek edition (from which all subsequent translations were derived, the Aramaic version having been lost) was edited by a Christian author, because there are passages in the central Jewish section that reflect Christian doctrines on original sin and Christology.”