Transcript Temptation of Adam & Eve. Michelangelo Buanarroti, Sistine

Fall and Salvation History
1. Image and likeness of
God.
2. Genesis 3.
3. Ideas of the Fall &
Original Sin.
4. Stories of origins.
5. Covenants: four major
aspects.
Creation and the Expulsion from
Paradise
Core Christian
beliefs about
creation
1. God created the world by his Word.
2. The world was created out of nothing.
3. The world is not self-sufficient, but depends upon God.
4. Creation is a gradual process.
5. Creation (in its original state) is good.
6. Creation has order and purpose.
7. God created humans in his image and likeness.
8. God sustains the world.
N. B.: ‘core beliefs’ are not the same as literal details of one of
creation accounts in Genesis!
Image and likeness of God
Biblical Text
Tradition
Gen 1:26, 28
Gen 3:5, 22
Possibility of divine-human
communication
Reason
Conscience
Free will
creativity
Are we qualitatively different from animals?
“He [man] engages in play, is capable of abstract
thought, laughter, formation and use of symbols,
of learning and using symbolic language, of
learning to distinguish between good and evil, to
feel reverence and piety.”
--Theodosius Dobzhansky, The
Biology of Ultimate Concern, p. 54.
Picture of humanity Human condition
before eating the
after eating the
fruit
fruit
How did the devil get into the story?
• ‘For God created us for incorruption, and made
us in the image of his own eternity, but through
the devil’s envy death entered the world, and
those who belong to his company experience it.’
– Wisdom of Solomon (late 1st c. BC or early 1st c CE)
2: 23-24.
Lucifer’s mysterious Fall
•
12How
you are fallen from heaven, O Day
Star [Lucifer], son of Dawn! How you are
cut down to the ground, you who laid the
nations low! 13You said in your heart, "I will
ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne
above the stars of God; I will sit on the
mount of assembly on the heights of
Zaphon; 14I will ascend to the tops of the
clouds, I will make myself like the Most
High." 15But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the depths of the Pit. --Isaiah 14: 12-15.
The Idea of the Fall of
Adam
in Hellenistic Judaism
O Adam, what have you done?
For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours
alone, but ours also who are your descendents.
--4 Ezra (late 1th c. C.E.) 7: 118. 9
The first Adam, burdened with an evil heart,
transgressed, and was overcome, as were also all who
were descended from him.
--4 Ezra 3: 21.
St. Paul’s Adam/ Christ typology
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one
man, and death came through sin, and so death
spread to all because all have sinned… Yet death
exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over
those whose sins were not like the transgression of
Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.
--Romans 5: 12, 14.
Dr. Gavrilyuk’s reading list
Ever-increasing forms of evil
The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the
earth, and that every inclinations of the thoughts of their hearts
was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he made
humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Gen 6:
5-6).
Now the earth was corrupt and the earth was filled with violence.
(Gen 6: 11).
The inclination of the human heart is evil from youth. (Gen 8: 21).
Flood
Old Testament Stories of Origins
1. Gen 1 & 2: Origin of the world and of human race
2. Gen 3: Origin of moral evil (sin).
3. Gen 12-25: Origin of Israel.
Patriarchs: Abraham—Isaac—Jacob—12 sons.
Abraham lived in Ur of the Chaldeans (modern Iraq) ca.
1850-1750 BC.
Covenant
•
•
•
•
Divine introduction
Divine promises
Divine commandments (human obligations)
Symbolic actions (signs, oaths, curses,
sacrifices)
Covenant
with Noah
Genesis
8:21-9:17
Covenant
with
Abraham
Genesis
12:2-3;
13:14-17;
15:1-21;
17:1-27
Coming up next… Moses